Clement Bailhache - Sermons - Selected from the Papers of the Late Rev. Clement Bailhache

The preparation of this volume for the press, whilst it has necessarily entailed considerable labour, has happily been attended with little difficulty. None of these sermons were prepared for the pulpit with any idea of publication, and only a few of them, which need not be specified, should be taken as finished compositions. Their author, however, never allowed himself to think superficially or to write carelessly. His MSS. are easily read, and are in such a state as to leave almost nothing to be done in the way of revision.

Many other sermons equal to these in power and interest might have been included, if space had served. I ought, perhaps, to say that the selection has been determined by a wish to place before the reader, in the order of a series, Mr. Bailhache’s thoughts on Christian Doctrine, Faith, Duty, Privilege, Experience, and Hope. I trust that the collection, as it stands, will give as comprehensive an idea, as any posthumous publication could give, of the character and style of a ministry to which, under God, many souls – some in heaven, and some still on earth – owe their truest spiritual light and their best spiritual strength.

It must have been a privilege of no ordinary value to listen Sabbath after Sabbath to preaching such as this. No one could read, as I have had to read, the whole mass of sermons entrusted to me, without perceiving that he who wrote and spoke them was “a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” He was penetrated to the very centre of his being with a sense of the grandeur of the Bible as a Divine Revelation, and of the glory of the Gospel as a Divine remedy for the sin and sorrow of the world. He had his own way of developing religious truth, and of applying it to the mind, the conscience, and the heart. He preserved his individuality of thought and of method in every part of every discourse. But he was no theological speculatist. With all needful fearlessness in his thinking and reading, his constant endeavour was to ascertain “the mind of the Spirit,” and to present that , in its enlightening and sanctifying power, to his hearers in all their manifold spiritual conditions. He was familiar with the forms of scepticism prevalent in our time, and with the reasonings which give to them more or less of plausibility. “The riddle of the world” had its saddening aspects for him, as it has for all earnest souls. But the anxieties which spring from such sources found in his mind an all-sufficient solace in the beautiful adaptations and the splendid triumphs of the truth as it is in Jesus. He could see clearly enough that, by the Gospel, God was filling the world’s darkness with light, and turning its curse into a blessing. Science might advance, and in its advance might seem to set itself against Biblical facts, and against the principles founded upon them; but he was all along calmly and intelligently assured that Science rightly so called, and Revelation rightly interpreted, so far from meeting in antagonism, must meet in cordial and comely agreement, and take their place side by side for the higher instruction of mankind. He did not preach on these matters controversially, but contented himself with the quiet announcement, on all appropriate occasions, of the results of his own studies; and those results were always on the side of an implicit faith in Evangelical Christianity. One of the most marked characteristics of his ministry was the uninterrupted and profound reverence he paid to what he believed, on honest and mature investigation, to be the Divine authority of Scripture teaching. He knew, of course, that a conscientious and enlightened criticism has its work to do upon the Book; but his comprehensive and careful reading only strengthened his conviction that such criticism, so far from invalidating its authority, must render the nature of that authority increasingly transparent, and its basis increasingly firm. Thus he could draw forth from the Book the teaching contained in it, and could present it to the reverent faith of his congregation, without misgiving. His ministry was eminently evangelical, in the broadest and best sense of the word. It was this all-pervading quality which gave to it its special beauty and impressiveness. He wanted to be wise, and to make his people wise, up to what is written; above that he did not attempt to soar.

Mr. Bailhache was an able Biblical Expositor. I find amongst the papers before me, expositions of the Decalogue, the First Psalm, the Lord’s Prayer, the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, the Messages to the Seven Churches, and the Epistles to the Galatians and the Philippians. These comprise eighty discourses, and many of them are so good that they ought not to remain in seclusion. Possibly some channel of publicity may yet be found for them.

The estimate in which Mr. Bailhache was held as a Christian teacher by those best fitted to judge, is fitly expressed in the following extract from the Address which was presented to him by the Congregation at Islington, on his retirement from the pastorate there in the autumn of 1870: – “During a period of six years and a half, you have ministered to us in holy things, and, as the servant of the Lord Jesus, you have sought our highest spiritual good. In all your ministerial work in our midst, you have so impressed us with the conviction of your entire devotedness to our interests, and to the exaltation and glory of Christ, that our minds have been the more easily constrained to give heed to your instructions, and we have the more deeply felt the force of your influence and your example. The thought has often occurred to us (and it has been often expressed), that if we were not becoming better Christians – more conformed to the image of Christ – our shame was the greater, considering how constantly you have been the faithful and able exponent of the mind of the Spirit, and with what freshness, variety, and power, you have been enabled to set before us things new and old out of the treasury of the Lord’s word. Nor have you ever permitted us to feel that you occupied a region remote from ourselves, or that the isolation of the study and of your official character, made you self-absorbed or unsympathetic. The very contrary of this has been our happy experience. With an almost surprising power of appropriation, you have made our doubts and difficulties, our hopes and fears, our joys and sorrows, all your own, and, with a whole-hearted sympathy that has entered into all the experiences of the Christian life, you have, in the pulpit and in the class, and in the more private opportunities of the family and of friendship, been made eminently useful in the communication of help and strength. To not a few your ministrations have been made the savour of life unto life, who will be your crown and rejoicing one day, since through your word they have been reconciled to God by Jesus Christ. We magnify the grace of God in you, and none the less when we declare that your life and labours in our midst have placed us under lasting obligations of gratitude and love.”

I regret that I have not space for a few pages of pithy, condensed jottings extracted from the Author’s “Diary,” and written by him during hours of private devotion. They would testify, in common with every other part of the volume, to the atmosphere of piety in which our beloved friend habitually lived. In social life, he was playful and jocose; and many who have thought that they knew him well, knew him almost exclusively as he was in such moods as these. He was however emphatically a man who “walked with God.” Many others knew him only in connection with his official work, and gave to him their unstinted admiration for his plodding, almost pertinacious industry. He had “a mind to work,” but he sanctified and ennobled all his work by prayer. I have often had, as, no doubt, many more have had, the privilege of his society in the lone hours of the night, when he could talk with the unreserved frankness of a confiding friend; and I never left him after such hallowed times as these without feeling that I had been drawn nearer to him, and through him, nearer to the Saviour, by the modest, holy, Christian beauty of his spirit.