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Horatius Bonar

Horatius Bonar

Horatius Bonar (1808 - 1889)

Bonar has been called “the prince of Scot­tish hymn write­rs.” After grad­u­at­ing from the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Ed­in­burgh, he was or­dained in 1838, and be­came pas­tor of the North Par­ish, Kelso. He joined the Free Church of Scot­land af­ter the “Dis­rupt­ion” of 1843, and for a while edit­ed the church’s The Border Watch. Bonar re­mained in Kel­so for 28 years, af­ter which he moved to the Chal­mers Me­mor­i­al church in Edin­burgh, where he served the rest of his life. Bonar wrote more than 600 hymns.

He was a voluminous and highly popular author. He also served as the editor for "The Quarterly journal of Prophecy" from 1848 to 1873 and for the "Christian Treasury" from 1859 to 1879. In addition to many books and tracts wrote a number of hymns, many of which, e.g., "I heard the voice of Jesus say" and "Blessing and Honour and Glory and Power," became known all over the English-speaking world. A selection of these was published as Hymns of Faith and Hope (3 series). His last volume of poetry was My Old Letters. Bonar was also author of several biographies of ministers he had known, including "The Life of the Rev. John Milne of Perth" in 1869, - and in 1884 "The Life and Works of the Rev. G. T. Dodds", who had been married to Bonar's daughter and who had died in 1882 while serving as a missionary in France.


Horatius Bonar comes from a long line of ministers who have served a total of 364 years in the Church of Scotland.

He entered the Ministry of the Church of Scotland. At first he was put in charge of mission work at St. John's parish in Leith and settled at Kelso. He joined the Free Church at the time of the Disruption of 1843, and in 1867 was moved to Edinburgh to take over the Chalmers Memorial Church (named after his teacher at college, Dr. Thomas Chalmers). In 1883, he was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

He was a voluminous and highly popular author. He also served as the editor for "The Quarterly journal of Prophecy" from 1848 to 1873 and for the "Christian Treasury" from 1859 to 1879. In addition to many books and tracts wrote a number of hymns, many of which, e.g., "I heard the voice of Jesus say" and "Blessing and Honor and Glory and Power," became known all over the English-speaking world.

      Horatius Bonar, had a passionate heart for revival and was a friend and supporter of several revivalists, He was brother to the more well-known Andrew Bonar, and with him defended D. L. Moody's evangelistic ministry in Scotland. He authored a couple of excellent revival works, one including over a hundred biographical sketches and the other an addendum to Rev. John Gillies' 'Historical Collections...' bringing it up to date.

      He was a powerful soul-winner and is well qualified to pen this brief, but illuminating study of the character of true revivalists.

      Horatius was in fact one of eleven children, and of these an older brother, John James, and a younger, Andrew, also became ministers and were all closely involved, together with Thomas Chalmers, William C. Burns and Robert Murray M'Cheyne, in the important spiritual movements which affected many places in Scotland in the 1830s and 1840s.

      In the controversy known as the "Great Disruption," Horatius stood firmly with the evangelical ministers and elders who left the Church of Scotland's General Assembly in May 1843 and formed the new Free Church of Scotland. By this time he had started to write hymns, some of which appeared in a collection he published in 1845, but typically, his compositions were not named. His gifts for expressing theological truths in fluent verse form are evident in all his best-known hymns, but in addition he was also blessed with a deep understanding of doctrinal principles.

      Examples of the hymns he composed on the fundamental doctrines include, "Glory be to God the Father".....on the Trinity. "0 Love of God, how strong and true".....on Redemption. "Light of the world," - "Rejoice and be glad" - "Done is the work" on the Person and Work of Christ. "Come Lord and tarry not," on His Second Coming, while the hymn "Blessed be God, our God!" conveys a sweeping survey of Justification and Sanctification.

      In all this activity, his pastoral work and preaching were never neglected and after almost twenty years labouring in the Scottish Borders at Kelso, Bonar moved back to Edinburgh in 1866 to be minister at the Chalmers Memorial Chapel (now renamed St. Catherine's Argyle Church). He continued his ministry for a further twenty years helping to arrange D.L. Moody's meetings in Edinburgh in 1873 and being appointed moderator of the Free Church ten years later. His health declined by 1887, but he was approaching the age of eighty when he preached in his church for the last time, and he died on 31 May 1889.

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Horatius Bonar

Expulsion and Re-Entrance

"So he drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." —Genesis 3:24 WE may safely conclude that this solemn act on the part of God is not separate from, or in contradiction of the previous... Read More
Horatius Bonar

Faithful And Just To Forgive

It is by a perfect law that we are saved; else it would be an unholy salvation. It is by a perfect law fulfilled in "every jot and tittle" that we are saved; else it would be an unrighteous salvation. The Son of God has kept this law for us; He has magnified it and made it honorable; and thus we hav... Read More
Horatius Bonar

False Religion and Its Doom.

"I will scatter your bones round about your altars." – Ezekiel 6:5 "I will lay your corpses in front of your idols and scatter your bones around your altars." Ezekiel 6:5 It is of Israel's idolatries that the prophet is speaking; her false gods, her idol-altars, her lying prophets and priests. Jehov... Read More
Horatius Bonar

Follow the Lamb! (selections)

"My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me." John 10:27 Christian, your whole life is to be one continuous following of the Lord. You began with turning your back upon the world, and 'looking to Jesus'; keep ever thus. Looking to Him brought rest to you at first, and healed your soul; so, looking t... Read More
Horatius Bonar

Gain and Loss for Eternity.

"For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he has gained, when God takes away his soul?" – Job 27:8 "For what hope do the godless have when God cuts them off and takes away their life?" Job 27:8 The word "hypocrite" means properly the "ungodly," and corresponds to the "wicked" and "unrighteous" ... Read More
Horatius Bonar

God Calls To A New Life

It is to a new life that God is calling us, not to some new steps in life, some new habits or ways or motives or prospects, but to A NEW LIFE. To produce this new life the eternal Son of God became flesh, died, was buried, and rose again. It is not life producing life, a lower life rising into a hig... Read More
Horatius Bonar

God Finding A Resting-Place

1 Chronicles 21:1-30 THERE is something very peculiar about this fragment or episode of Israel's history. It is abrupt, and in a manner isolated, though not wholly so. It has also some very remarkable points about it. It is the introduction to the history of the temple. It shews the way in which Dav... Read More
Horatius Bonar

God Seeking Worshippers

For ages before God sought a temple, he had been seeking worshippers. He could do without the former, but not without the latter. His first sanctuary was but a tent; and three thousand years had elapsed before he said, Build me a house wherein I may dwell. Yet all this time he was seeking for worshi... Read More
Horatius Bonar

GOD'S CHARACTER OUR RESTING-PLACE

We have seen that a sinner's peace cannot come from himself, nor from the knowledge of himself, nor from thinking about his own acts and feelings, nor from the consciousness of any amendment of his old self. Whence, then, is it to come? How does he get it? It can only come from God; and it is in kno... Read More
Horatius Bonar

God's Dealing With Sin And The Sinner

"Er, the first-born of Judah, was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him." —1 Chronicles 2:3 HERE we have, in one brief sentence, a statement of the way in which God deals with sin and the sinner. It is the repetition of a verse in Genesis, in a very unlikely place,—in the midst of names and... Read More
Horatius Bonar

God's Desire to Bless the Sinner.

"Woe unto you, O Jerusalem! will you not be made clean? when shall it once be?" – Jeremiah 13:27 Without dwelling on Jerusalem and her apostasy, which this verse specially brings before us, we pass at once to the application of the words to man in general. I. MAN'S UNCLEANNESS. The uncleanness here ... Read More
Horatius Bonar

GOD'S TESTIMONY CONCERNING MAN

God knows us. He knows what we are; he knows also what he meant us to be; and upon the difference between these two states he founds his testimony concerning us. He is too loving to say anything needlessly severe; too true to say anything untrue; nor can he have any motive to misrepresent us; for he... Read More
Horatius Bonar

God’s Trees Grow Slowly

God’s processes are not always rapid. His greatest works rise slowly. Swiftness of growth has been one of man’s tests of greatness; not so is it with God. His trees grow slowly; the stateliest are the slowest. His creatures grow slowly, year by year; man, the noblest, grows the most slowly of all. G... Read More
Horatius Bonar

Going Out and Keeping Out

"Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shall be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless... Read More
Horatius Bonar

Herod's Ball-Room

"But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod."—Matthew 19:6. This birthday ball of Herod was held, in all likelihood, at Machaerus, a fortress beyond Jordan, not far from the Dead Sea. It was a high and royal festival. Pomp, splendor, luxury, an... Read More
Horatius Bonar

His Sun

"He maketh his sun to rise."—Matthew 5:45. Here is the true link between God and "nature" (as men call it), and between us and nature. Here is the divine claim to proprietorship, to lordship over "nature." All things are God's. No created thing is the proprietor of itself or of any other created thi... Read More
Horatius Bonar

Home!

Afflictions are preparing for us a "more abundant entrance," a weightier crown, a whiter robe, a sweeter rest, a home made doubly precious by a long exile and many sufferings here below. However desperate our earthly warfare may be, it is not forever. No, it is brief, very brief. Its end is near, ve... Read More
Horatius Bonar

Horatius Bonar Quotes

Uncertainty as to our relationship with God is one of the most enfeebling and dispiriting of things. It makes a man heartless. It takes the pith out of him. He cannot fight; he cannot run. He is easily dismayed and gives way. He can do nothing for God. But when we know that we are of God, we are vig... Read More
Horatius Bonar

Human Anodynes

1 Samuel 16:14-23 OF Saul we may say, "Thou didst run well, who hath hindered you?" He began well, but ended ill. His first days and works were better than his last. So with Demas; so with the church of Ephesus; so with the Jews, whose following Jehovah at first was belied by their last apostasy. So... Read More
Horatius Bonar

Human Heedlessness and Divine Remembrance.

"They consider not in their hearts that I remember their wickedness.'' – Hosea 7:2 "They do not realize that I remember all their evil deeds. Their sins engulf them; they are always before me." – Hosea 7:2 Let me present this passage to you under these two heads: (1.) human sin; (2.) the divine reme... Read More

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