John Knox Tracts, No. 62: The Outcasts Gathered:
By the late Rev. J. R. Anderson. Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis.
IN the true Church of God there will always be an afflicted and poor people, “tossed with tempest and not comforted,” ready to perish, and outcast in their feelings. The sense of the exceeding sinfulness of their sin causes self-loathing, “cuts them off from God, and turns all their comeliness into corruption.” To such sorely tried souls this Tract—the last issued of an admirable series—is offered as a message of peace. It describes in lucid and sympathetic language the distressful experience in outcasts of Israel, and proclaims the superabounding grace of their Almighty Gatherer. Beginning with man’s ruined and condemned state by nature, the judicious author turns to the Lord God of Salvation as the only hope of the perishing, and addresses solemn heart-searching questions to his readers as he proceeds. “The knowledge of Him whose titles we are now considering is to be obtained in Christ Jesus only by supernatural revelation. There is an unfathomable mystery in Jehovah God” (p. 5). He shows that to understand the meaning of the outcasts of Israel one must know Israel to be a spiritual, holy people, and he must be spiritually minded. Such outcasts are anxious about their souls’ welfare. “They deal first and chiefly with God Himself for their souls.” They “find themselves away from the God of Israel.” And the reader is pertinently asked if he knows anything of darkness, confusion, weakness, a cleaving to the dust, of vile crawling lusts making him a terror to himself, of inward rebellion and self-will—all producing separation. Utterly unable to get back to Him of themselves, they sob out, “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him! As the outcast Jonah, they are sometimes crying from “the belly of hell.” They “may be separated from their brethren. So was it with Joseph. So was it with Christ Himself.” Some “outcasts in perilous times may be separated from His truth, His ordinances, and the assemblies of His people.”
“The grand provision He makes for the gathering of outcasts of Israel is in the gift of His dear Son.” His blood-bought redemption is applied by the Holy Spirit. And “what a glory pertains to Jehovah God as He that gathers the outcasts of Israel. . . . He gathers them, in grace, and then into glory.” The application contains precious, appropriate promises. May the Tract prove a word in season to many weary souls!
“Lord, pity outcasts vile and base,
The poor dependants on Thy grace,
Whom men disturbers call.”
The present writer ventures to mention that he had the privilege of repeatedly meeting and hearing the author of the Tracts fifty-two years ago. He said severe things at times; but he was a Barnabas as well as a Boanerges. The doctrines of grace were the rejoicing of his own heart, and he preached a full and free Gospel “to sinners of mankind” with rare fidelity, unction, persuasiveness, and power. What he had heard and seen and handled of the Word of life in secret study and devotion, he declared to eager, solemnised, and deeply impressed listeners.
R. M’D.