But, from the eminently practical character of his mind, it was not his habit to put the higher doctrines of Calvinism in the forefront of his preaching, or even of his theology. Man must be dealt with as a responsible being; his responsibility must ever have its place beside God's sovereignty. It would be ruinous to handle either of these doctrines in such a manner as to destroy or even impair the force of the other. The combination of the two was one of the great objects of his theological teaching.
Chalmers's style of theological discussion was very unlike the common. It was not fashioned on the anvil of the schoolmen. There was a remarkable combination in it of the philosophical and the popular. His mind was deeply philosophical, delighting in first principles, and eager to concatenate truth, to establish comprehensive laws, to reconcile apparently conflicting doctrines, and to bring what seemed unreasonable into harmony with reason. But his style was so diffuse and flowing that he appeared to want the exactness and correctness of a philosophic mind. Moreover, he could not confine himself to the strictly intellectual aspects of theology; he could not but include its moral and practical aspects. In bringing out the practical bearings of doctrines, he was liable to become somewhat declamatory.
Another peculiarity was his fondness of illustration, the product, as it seemed, of the poetical rather than the philosophic faculty. The result was that, as a philosophic theologian, Chalmers hardly got justice. And since his day philosophic theology has passed into a quite different groove. He was just beginning to know something of German philosophy when he died. He was greatly interested in it, and had he survived, he would in all likelihood have given much of his attention to it. But he could only have known it at second hand, and any discussion of it in these circumstances must have been of but secondary weight. And now that the German standpoint has become so common, the theology of Dr. Chalmers, as well as that of his successor, Principal Cunningham, has fallen into the background. But it would not be easy to say how much is missed by even philosophical students when they give the go-by to his writings.
The academical and other honours conferred on him had more respect to his position as a preacher and a philanthropist than a professor of theology. In 1830 he was appointed one of her Majesty's chaplains for Scotland, the letter from Sir Robert Peel in which the announcement was made to him saying emphatically that the honour was conferred in consideration of his high character and eminent acquirements and services. At the Disruption, when he ceased to be a minister of the Established Church, he resigned this appointment. It was but the other day that it transpired that her Majesty wished him to continue to hold it. But such was his conscientiousness that, though the salary was placed at his credit by the Queen's Remembrancer till his death in 1847, no part of the salary was ever drawn either by him or his family. In 1834 he was elected a corresponding member of the Royal Institute of France, and in the following year he received the degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford. Such honours as these last were without a parallel in the case of any Presbyterian minister. About the same time he was elected a Fellow, and thereafter a vice-president, of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Among other honours, he was asked by the Bridgewater Trustees to write one of their eight treatises on natural theology, the subject assigned to him being 'The Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man.' This essay was afterwards merged in his work on _Natural Theology_. In his visits to Oxford and Cambridge he received almost unbounded attention from the most distinguished men in both universities, and in his intercourse with them he had much enjoyment. At Cambridge he could not restrain his delight at being entertained in the college of Newton--a name which held an extraordinary place in his regard. In recognition of his appointment as a corresponding member of the French Institute, he visited France in 1838, and read a paper to the Institute on the 'Distinction, both in Principle and Effect, between a Legal Charity for the Relief of Indigence and a Legal Charity for the Relief of Disease.'