THIS letter was written in 1893 to the Rev. D. Macfarlane, Dingwall (then of Raasay), and makes reference to the testimony raised for the truth in that year.
BEAUFOY STREET, WICK,
27th November, 1893.
I got your letter in due time, but, as you were from home, I was not in a hurry to write. I hope the Most High accompanied your labours in Glasgow. He needs not send any labourer out on his own charges, and the labourer is worthy of his hire. Any true labourer would like to see something of the true work of the Lord on the souls of lost sinners, and, indeed, that is much lost sight of in our age. The best of ministers now, I am afraid, are not equal to some we read of, wrestling at the throne of grace, that the Lord would have fruit of their labour in getting souls for Christ. Paul was saying, “We are ambassadors for Christ.” But they are all in His own hand, and He can bless His own work in connection with His own servants called through grace, and make them messengers for Christ. But I do not believe that the Holy Spirit will give the honour of such great work to any uncircumcised in heart; they have no concern about it, and do not know what it is; it will be hid from them in time, and the guilt will be on them through eternity of their ignorance of the work they took to themselves in the world. Mr. Cook, who was in Bruan here, and then in Daviot, would say about such that their work in the world would bring showers of fire on them through all eternity. But the Apostle wrote of the Lord’s servants, “We are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.” It is good for them that the Lord has called, whatever work they are engaged in, but there is not so honourable a work as to be ambassadors for Christ. Their calling to salvation is through free grace, as others are called, but their calling to be ambassadors for Christ makes a double calling. Paul was thanking Christ for putting him in the ministry. He saw his calling out of Satan’s school a great miracle, and putting him in the ministry made it greater. It is the beginning of an eternal wonder to anyone He calls, to see the wonder of it, and the more they see of it, it will make them less in their own sight. To be found in Him—what an unspeakable gift! And it will appear greater that it is a few who will be made partakers of it; but the few will be a company that no man can number.
When you were in Glasgow, I found you at times very near my mind. I hope He will shine with His countenance, power and grace, on this, I may say, new work—a few young students, and fewer ministers. But it is miracles the Lord was doing in every age when He made a reformation—a Luther, in Germany, carrying on the reformation unknown to himself; and Calvin, in France, in the middle of the heat of Popery, the Lord carrying him through, so as to be a wonder to himself, a Roman Catholic being made a true Christian, and one of the greatest theologians on record. The work of the Lord is all miracles. If the Lord is not showing great wonders in this movement here and there—not many mighty and not many noble are called, but the Lord will make them noble whom He will call through grace. We must leave His work in His own hand, that He may do according to His purpose and love in Christ, who can and will give power for His own work to His ambassadors.
I see a greater work in this little beginning than I could see in the coming out of the Free Church (in 1843). They had no such darkness before them; they left their all, in a way, but they were sure of the whole congregations. All the people signed for them before they gave up their houses, etc. But the cause of their coming out was not equal to the cause now for coming out. What they call a Free Church now has not a scrap of the cause the Church of Chalmers came out with. They came out on the Establishment principle and Bible—a whole Bible and a whole Confession of Faith. But now they have not a Bible, but a part; or a Confession of Faith, but a part. Their leaders and professors threw all out of their calendar except what they liked. I may say, a thousand of their ministers are preaching what they are taught in their Colleges, Assemblies, Synods and Presbyteries. The churches in every place are full of error and war against the Bible, but a very few ministers and elders among them who see no fault in the Free Church. They say they can preach pure doctrine, but it’s the S.F. that keeps them in the name of a Church, and the glory of God does not come before their eyes. The Free Church is as corrupt as any Church nearly in all Europe, and the congregations are getting as vain. I was told that last harvest, ten thousand of the population of Edinburgh and thereabout went out from Leith, one Sabbath morning, on pleasure, across the Firth of Forth. The generation is getting mad on its idols, and their ministers are content, because they never knew (but very few of them) what sin is.
The Lord is leaving our land. Everyone is doing what is right in his own eyes, and the few that are seeing the evil cannot mourn for them or for themselves. There was never such a dark day in Scotland that I can see in history. In the days of the hottest persecution, there was a lot of true witnesses who were mourning for the state of the land, and the Lord delivered them in His own time, when they were giving up hope, and their enemies rejoicing in getting the victory. The Lord turned their captivity as streams of water in the south. None can put bounds to the Lord’s way. He can work, when men are giving over hope, and he often does.
I was thirty-two years of age when the Free Church came out. There was nothing wrong in the Church of Scotland at the time concerning false doctrine, but there were plenty of carnal ministers in it,* and a great many godly ministers and great men, but as soon as they came out they took a false turn in their Church Government; they made choice of the richest men in their congregations as head elders, without a spark of grace, in order to get plenty of money. That was the first error, and all the rest followed. Now, nothing but error. I will weary you with this scroll.
All friends here are in their ordinary health. With kind regards to Mrs. M. and yourself.
ROBERT ROSS.
P.S.—Mr. Archibald Cook, the last time he was here, said to a friend that the Lord would not honour the Free Church, because they had too much pride in what they did. R. R.
Not too strong for Death.—When the directors of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway resolved to run trains on the Lord’s Day, William Burns announced his intention of holding open-air services at the Haymarket (the Edinburgh terminus in those days), at the hours of departure and arrival of the trains. On one of these occasions he was interrupted by a tall, strong-looking man, who was slightly intoxicated. Turning to him, the preacher addressed him in the following impressive words:—“You are tall and strong; but you are not too tall for a coffin, nor too strong for the worms! You are tall and strong; but not too tall for the grave, nor too strong for death! You are tall and strong; but you will soon have to stand forth, one of the crowd, before the great white throne; and how will you face the Judge of the whole earth! Tall and strong as you are, you cannot be hid from God; the rocks and the mountains will not cover you; His all-seeing eye is on you now.” These words fell like a sentence of doom on the ears of the poor trifler—that sentence about the great white throne, and the eye that even then was upon him seemed to bring the day of final reckoning near to him, and he and his fellow-listeners stood awestruck as they heard the words, with calm deliberation, fall from the lips of the preacher.—Memoir of Rev. Wm. C. Burns.
* The writer evidently means that there was no distinctly doctrinal error prevailing in the Church in 1843, but that the division arose through the practice of carnal ministers.—Ed.