“When I look upon the misery and calamity of this nation, I almost lose hope. Your subjects have fallen into such hardness of heart that nothing pleases them but such things as displease God, and what pleases Him displeases them. I ask you, what is it that renders habitual practice almost impossible to change? What is it that constant usage does not harden?”1 So spoke Robert Bruce (c1554-1631) from his pulpit in St Giles’, Edinburgh, particularly addressing King James VI (James I of England), who was present.
If Bruce had the opportunity to speak in an Edinburgh pulpit today, he could speak in much the same terms or, for that matter, in any Scottish city – Inverness included. Here there are people who go to church, but they are presumably a very distinct minority, and the scriptural quality of the preaching in many of the city churches is a big question. And when a recent survey has found that fewer than half of people in the UK identify as religious – all this is to state the obvious. People today are very much hardened against God, the revelation He has given and, particularly, His commandments. Accordingly it is still true that “nothing pleases them but such things as displease God, and what pleases Him displeases them”.
Bruce was, for some time, very much in favour with the King, but that did not last and eventually, in 1605, Bruce was ordered to Inverness, from where he would, it was assumed, have no influence on the life of the nation. Inverness was then just a small town with two intersecting streets, and the castle standing over them. Bruce found it difficult to find a place to stay, but he was able to take a service every Sabbath morning and every Wednesday. He also gave an exposition of Scripture, with “public prayers” every other evening of the week. Bruce had to face considerable opposition during the early part of his stay, and on one occasion a bullet fired from a fisherman’s cottage missed him by only a few inches.
This period of ministry in Inverness, which lasted till 1613, seems to have borne little fruit. In that year Bruce was permitted to return to his family home near Larbert. But in 1622 Bruce was again exiled to Inverness; his
1Bruce, The Way to True Peace and Rest, Banner of Truth reprint, 2017, pp 38-39.
time there was to last till after the King’s death in 1625. As he was about to mount his horse to ride away to exile, his friends saw that his eyes were lifted up towards heaven for about 15 minutes. When he had mounted his horse and he began to move forward, a friend asked, “What was it you did when you fell into that muse?” Bruce replied, “I was receiving my commission from my Master to go to Inverness, and He gave it me Himself, before I set my foot in the stirrup, and thither I go to sow a seed in Inverness that shall not be rooted out for many ages”.2
Again Bruce faced opposition in Inverness. One Sabbath, a minister visiting Inverness was highly offended by a remark Bruce made in preaching, presumably quite unconscious of the identity of this particular hearer. The result was that Bruce was evicted from his lodgings and had to move to the Fortrose district for a time. But crowds of people began to travel from as far as Sutherland to hear the exiled minister preach, and “the Lord blessed his labours to the conversion of many”. One Highland drover came under concern of soul and went to Bruce offering him two cows, all he had, if the minister would “agree me and God”. At the end of the seventeenth century, John Brand, a minister from Bo’ness on the Firth of Forth, recorded “in his diary how he found the memory of that man of God, Robert Bruce, [still] sweet” in Inverness at the time he visited.
By all accounts, Bruce was a remarkable preacher. “No man since the Apostles’ time”, said John Livingstone, himself a remarkable minister of the seventeenth century, “spake with such power”. But we should not focus overmuch on the man and his gifts, not even on Bruce’s natural power of utterance and of personality; we must focus on the source of his power in preaching – on the fact that the Holy Spirit came down powerfully as Bruce proclaimed the good news of salvation for lost, needy sinners. A time of mercy had dawned on a district that desperately needed spiritual blessings.
It is always by divine power that sinners are brought to Christ, whether one at a time or in large numbers under one sermon. When Paul found Lydia and other women by a river outside Philippi, “where prayer was wont to be made”, he declared the Word to them, and the Lord opened her heart, so “that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul” (Acts 16:14). No matter how eloquently and convincingly, in the absence of divine power, he declared the truth which God had revealed, he would have made no saving impression on Lydia’s heart. It was the Holy Spirit, opening her heart and applying the truths declared to her, that brought about a saving change.
So it was with Robert Bruce in Inverness: probably he preached the same
2The historical information and quotations, apart from the first, come from D C MacNicol, Robert Bruce, Banner of Truth reprint, 1961.
truths in the same way, during each of his exiles there. The lack of fruit during his first stay, at least in comparison with the second, is to be put down to the Spirit being withheld; the abundance of fruit during the second, whose effects endured for many years, is to be attributed to the outpouring of the Spirit. The relevance of Paul’s words was demonstrated once more: “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase” (1 Cor 3:6).
When Bruce was first in Inverness, he would have called sinners to come to Christ, but few came. During his second exile, he continued to call sinners to Christ – he gave the outward call – but this time, the Spirit made the call effective. There was an inward call, for many sinners were made spiritually alive and made able to obey the outward call; this was effectual calling, described thus by the Westminster Divines: “Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, He doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel” (The Shorter Catechism, Ans 31). It is this divine power, exerted in connection with the Word of God, that results in sinners being truly convinced of sin and believing in Christ for salvation.
As we look at our own age, we should feel it our duty to pray that the Lord Himself would send out preachers of the gospel in large numbers and direct them to places where He would bless them. Our prayer should be, not only for a degree of blessing, but for large-scale blessing, so that multitudes of sinners would be turned from their state of rebellion in the kingdom of darkness. Or, to borrow the drover’s idea: that God and sinners would be reconciled. That will not take place, of course, by some kind of magical power on the part of a minister, but when the power of the Spirit accompanies his preaching, or his conversation.
Bruce almost lost hope when he considered the spiritual hardness of the Scottish people; so might we today. But God is able, now as in Bruce’s time, to change hard hearts, bringing sinners to Himself in faith and repentance. Then what pleases them will please God also, and what displeases Him will displease them. May that happen on a large scale in our time, in Inverness and throughout the world through the almighty, irresistible power of God, with whom nothing is impossible!
Robert Bruce did indeed sow a seed in Inverness which, by God’s grace, has not yet been rooted out. God is able to preserve that seed in this city and wherever else God’s servants have sown such seeds. And He is able to bless the sowing of such seeds, even today, in many other places, so that they will not be rooted out for many ages. There is absolutely no reason to lose hope, however rebellious against God’s commandments sinners today may be.