Principal James Denney

I love biographies, especially those about preachers.

I also love the fact that many out of print books can be found on internet libraries, downloaded and read for free, being in the public domain.

One such work I found was a biographical reflection of the New Testament scholar, Dr. James Denney, who died in 1917. It is a very brief work which didn't take long to read. For posterity, I post a few savory quotes for preachers. (And those who love them)

On being a "popular preacher:"

Denney was ever a true preacher of the Word. He had no ambition to be known as the "popular " preacher. Ah, that blessed word " popular," how potent it becomes in certain quarters.

"It is recalled how even the distinguished Principal John Caird, when first settled in the quiet rural parish of Errol, where he laid the foundations of his fame, could not be said to be a favourite with some at least of his parishioners. The church building was much too large for the people who attended, and the young divine suggested the boarding up of a portion of the premises. This, however,was opposed by an irate elder who sought to impress his views on the minister by saying, "We’ll maybe get a mair (more) popular preacher when ye are awa(y)." No more than Caird at first, did Denney draw crowds to hear him like Chalmers or Spurgeon, of both of whom he was a profound admirer; and he would say at times that he had no desire to be a great but only a useful preacher.

On simplicity in preaching:

He (Denney) wrote once to a friend: "In the course of my Bible studies I have come to have a great faith in the obvious, and to feel that what we have got to do in preaching is not to be original, but to make the obvious arresting.

"These men, Spurgeon and Denney, were ...each (a) master of a pure Saxon style of speech. Each also had learned to write with a majestic sense of simplicity, precision, and directness, and with a resolute limitation of ordinary statement by the severity of facts."

On preaching methodology:

His colleague, Professor Clow, writes: "For this Chair of New Testament Exegesis he was uniquely prepared. Wide as was the range of his reading in all literature, as his apt quotations from many languages gave evidence, and thorough as was his mastery of the whole round of theological scholarship, he was essentially a man of one book. That book- was the New Testament. Its history, its sources, its authors, and especially the Gospel writers, and Paul as their interpreter, called forth from him all his powers, with a deep joy in their exercise. To state the problem of a great passage, to trace and lay bare the writer's thought, to expound the doctrines and apply the message to the lives of men, was a visible delight to him, as it was a devout fascination to his students.

On the cross of Christ:

The Rev. Robert McKinlay, M.A., writes: "One thinks of him pre-eminently as the great exponent of the Cross. Many of his comments on the subject are simply unforgettable. He was speaking once of the tendency of some Protestants to minimize the Cross. "If I had the choice/ said he, between being such an one and a Roman Catholic priest, I had rather be the priest lifting up the Cross to a dying man, and saying, “God loved like that!”

On evangelism:

"Nature and grace had joined hands to make of Dr. Denney an almost ideal teacher of the religious teachers of this generation. He had, to begin with, the and passion of the true evangelist. He held that the first, if often forgotten, duty of the Church is to evangelize, and that to that end all its best energies must be bent. I shall never forget how he emptied all the vials of his scorn on the head of some unlucky minister who had excused himself for giving what he called a simple evangelical address because he had not had time to prepare a proper sermon. As if, said Denney, there was any task that could so tax the strength of the Christian preacher as to preach the love of God, and so to preach it that men should commit themselves to it. . . ."

Denney was a leading exponent of the Temperance Movement of his day. His speech is as telling about big government as it is of Temperance, and is relevant to our day when government is daily expanding its role in American life:

He gave a wonderfully telling speech at the joint Temperance meeting of the Churches in the Assembly Hall, Edinburgh...

"...State Purchase, which he defines as necessarily involving State management, would, he argues, tend to the steady multiplication of Government departments and civil servants, and thus be an undoubted menace to the independence of Parliament and to purity of administration."

Again, he declares:

"The need of the country is urgent and immediate, and any scheme of purchase would be elaborated with difficulty, fiercely contested at every step, and carried if it were carried at all after prolonged delay, during which the present fatal evils would continue unchecked.

It would put an enormous additional responsibility on the shoulders of a Government which is already weighted far beyond its strength, and needs nothing less than a new field for the display of administrative incapacity."

(Adapted from "Principal James Denney, D.D, A Memoir and a tribute," by T. H. Walker.)