The Works of Robert Traill, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, hard-back, 2 volumes, 1168 pages, £38.00.
The republication of the works of Robert Traill (1642-1716) will be welcomed by those who love the rich biblical expositions of the Puritan and Covenanting divines. Traill was a Scottish Covenanter, partly trained in the Netherlands and, as a result of persecution under the Stuart kings, largely exercised his ministry in Presbyterian congregations in Kent and London. These two fine volumes have been entirely re-typeset. Volume 1 contains Traill’s best known writings, including 12 excellent and helpful sermons on Hebrews 4:16, on the Throne of Grace. Also included in the first volume are 16 precious sermons on what he calls “the Lord’s Prayer”, by which he means Christ’s high-priestly prayer in John 17; these sermons are based on the words of verse 24.
His sermon on the work of how ministers may best win souls may be read profitably time and again by ministers and others concerned in the great business of delivering souls out of the kingdom of darkness and bringing them into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. Traill’s highly-regarded Vindication of the Protestant Doctrine of Justification, and of Its Preachers and Professors, from the Unjust Charge of Antinomianism is a brief, vigorous and comprehensive piece of polemical and practical divinity, brimming with the gospel of the grace of God in its fullness and freeness. It was written at the time when the influence of Richard Baxter’s legalistic interpretation of the gospel (known as Neonomianism) was wreaking much havoc in the Churches and its proponents were casting false aspersions on the true doctrine of justification. Traill makes abundantly plain how faith is the instrument and not the ground of that justification.
The freeness of Divine grace in justification is very evident in the following extracts from the Vindication. Traill emphasises that the gospel is to be preached to sinners without exception, however bad their condition may be: “We call men to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, in that case the first Adam brought them to, and left them in; in that case that the law finds them and leaves them in, guilty, filthy, condemned: out of which case they can only be delivered by Christ, and by believing on Him”. He goes on to encourage sinners to come to Christ as they are: “We tell sinners, that Jesus Christ will surely welcome all that come to Him; and as He will not cast them out for their sinfulness, in their nature and by-past life, so neither for their misery, in the want of such qualifications and graces that He only can give”. And then he points out the wonderful remedy proposed to them in the gospel: “We do hold forth the propitiation in Christ’s blood, as the only thing to be in the eye of a man that would believe on Christ unto justification of life; and that by this faith alone a sinner is justified, and God is justified in doing so” (vol 1, p 254).
The second volume consists almost entirely of sermons, along with a few letters which make for edifying reading. It is good that ten sermons published in a nineteenth-century edition of Traill’s Works, but not included in the previous Banner of Truth edition, are republished here. The sermons in both volumes are largely prolonged studies of doctrinal points arising from various texts and dealing with important spiritual themes. They skilfully deal with the various cases of hearers and exalt Christ in all His offices as the only Saviour of sinners.
The extended series of sermons was, of course, the usual method employed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by Reformed pastors. Preachers like Traill were intent on teaching doctrine to their flocks in an extensive fashion and then to draw out the practical and experimental lessons from the doctrines they expounded. They succeeded in achieving this by painstakingly working their way through many sermons on related subjects, often basing their discourses on the same text. Though these particular sermons are full of good matter, nevertheless they bring it forth in a style that is clear and in terms that are not technical or overly-complicated.
Among the divines of his own day, Traill’s writings stand out for their plainness. It scarcely needs stating that we highly recommend these volumes.
(Rev) A W MacColl
Messages from Captivity, Sermons from Ezekiel 1-24, by Allan W MacColl, published by Ettrick Press, paperback, 176 pages, £8.50.
In this volume we have 12 sermons taken from the first 24 chapters of Ezekiel, eight of which were never preached but sent out by Dr MacColl to be read by his congregation during the first lockdown, during the Spring of 2020. The introduction by Matthew and Catherine Hyde points out that, “although the parallel is not exact, this aspect of lockdown reflects to some extent the context in which Ezekiel prophesied”. Dr MacColl makes several references to this as he expounds and sheds light on the strange and solemn messages and visions which the Lord gave to Ezekiel.
Very suitable titles are given to each of the sermons, such as, “The Likeness of the Lord’s Glory” (Ezek 1:28), “The Silent Prophet” (Ezek 3:24) and “The City Under Siege” (Ezek 4:1). We are taken through the unfolding crisis in Jerusalem, which those already in captivity were being kept abreast of.
In all those sermons, Dr MacColl draws out very appropriate lessons for our own day. In the first of these, “The Likeness of the Lord’s Glory”, we read – under the head, “What it means to see the Lord’s glory” – “Faith purifies the heart (Acts 15:9). We must strictly examine ourselves as to what effect the belief of the truth has upon us. We may believe it with our heads, but unless it is received also into hearts, it will not affect our hands and our feet to go on the highway that is called holiness. That is the only road where we are to journey, if we are to see Christ in glory at the end of our days, for without holiness no man shall see the Lord. It is along that road that the ransomed of the Lord will be conveyed to heaven, and the further along that road they progress, the nearer they are to seeing the Lord with open vision” (p 20).
Another example of application of a most searching nature is to be found in the fifth message, “The Ruined Wall”. Under the title, “We need a well-grounded hope”, we are asked, “Do we have this hope? Every person has some kind of hope for the future, except those who are in a lost eternity. The great question is whether our hope is a right hope or is it a delusion? What are you hoping in, dear friend? Are you surrounding yourself with a tottering fence and building a wall that will soon collapse? To whom do you go with your fears for the future? Where do you take your sins? Do you seriously think there can be peace with God despite not repenting of those sins? Would it not be far better to be really searched, humbled and brought to genuine evangelical repentance? ‘Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death’ (2 Cor 7:10)” (p 68).
Such applications continue throughout, and so do calls to the unsaved to come to the Lord. In “The Humbled Raised up”, we read; “Will you have this glorious One, who became a meek, lowly and afflicted man in this world, to reign over you? Will you take the crucified Saviour to be your Lord and master? Will you join with the dying thief, who took Christ to be his king when all the world had despised and rejected Him? (p 111).
The reviewer’s one area of reserve is in the third message, “The City Under Siege”. In his comments on whether or not Ezekiel actually lay physically on his side for over 400 days, Dr MacColl, following Calvin and Fairbairn, takes the view that this “most likely took place at the spiritual level in his own self-consciousness” (p 40) – that is, this took place in a vision. The reviewer prefers the view of Matthew Henry: “Now we are not to think that the prophet lay constantly night and day upon his side, but every day, when he received visits, and company came in, he was found lying 390 days on his left side, and 40 days on his right side, before his portraiture of Jerusalem, which all that saw might easily understand to mean the close besieging of that city, and people would be flocking in daily, some for curiosity, and some for conscience, at the hour appointed, to see it, and to make their different remarks upon it”.
Also to say that dung was to be used “in the actual mixture being baked” and that, once again, very likely this took place “at the spiritual level under the prophetic influence of God’s Spirit on Ezekiel’s mind” (p 41) is something that the reviewer cannot accept. Otherwise these messages are an excellent introduction into this fascinating book of Ezekiel and are highly recommended.
(Rev) W A Weale