With Mercy and With Judgment

by Alexander Whyte

The welcome given to the volume of Dr. Whyte's Sermons on Prayer, Lord, Teach Us to Pray, has encouraged the hope that a more general volume might also be acceptable. That hope has been turned into a certainty by many specific requests, and the present volume is the result.Dr. Whyte has left so much behind him of weight, worth and beauty that it has been difficult to find a principle of selection. It was desired to make this volume representative of all periods of his ministry. The later sermons were also found to be on the whole more readable than the earlier. Again and again, in comparing the earlier and the later forms of one sermon, it was found that the later had gained in conciseness and force. The oldest sermon in this volume, that on "The Image of God in Man," dates from 1882. It is also the longest, and in its massive, logical style, it may be felt to bring with it the atmosphere of the earlier period when Dr. Whyte's preaching was more closely reasoned and less imaginative than it afterwards became.It was obvious that this volume must include some of the Communion messages which abide among the most precious spiritual memories of the people of St. George's. There is included among those given here the sermon on the Ransom, which, on the testimony of many witnesses, was an unforgettable event in the spiritual life of those who heard it. Scarcely less moving is the prolonged soliloquy of the sermon, "I am crucified with Christ," or the imaginative power of that on "The New Wine of the Kingdom." A special historical interest also attaches itself to the two final messages of his long ministry—that on "The Swelling of Jordan," which was the last he was able to preach, and that on "The Hebrew Child's Question," which was prepared for a Communion service, but which he was unable to deliver.The first section of this volume, contains sermons of a more general type, which fall into two parts, though no absolute division is possible.One of the wonders of Dr. Whyte's ministry was its enlarging and deepening power. Sometimes the deepening was intellectual. Sometimes again it was the imagination or the conscience that was stimulated; or his hearers suddenly felt their devotional life to be far smaller and poorer than it might have been. No sermon he ever preached was far from the twofold theme of mercy and judgment; and the sea of glass mingled with fire is no unfitting symbol of the eternal realities as he saw them and proclaimed them.

211 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 14, 2013

About the author

Alexander Whyte was a Scottish theologian, minister and Principal of New College, Edinburgh. He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland in 1898.

Whyte studied divinity at the University of Aberdeen and then at New College, Edinburgh, graduating in 1866. He entered the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland and after serving as colleague in Free St. John's, Glasgow (1866 - 1870), moved to Edinburgh as colleague and successor to Rev. Dr. Robert Candlish at Free St. George's. In 1909 he succeeded Dr. Marcus Dods as Principal, and Professor of New Testament Literature, at New College, Edinburgh.