A LETTER BY THE LATE REV. GEORGE COWIE, HUNTLY.*
18th February, 1801.
DEAR SIR,—Having been lately in great distress of body, I shall note down some of those thoughts which occurred to me, when I seemed to myself and others to be about to take my passage for another world. Could my pen at present accompany my thoughts, I could soon write a volume, but the flesh is weak. Instead, therefore, of attempting a connected discussion I shall, for a little, indulge myself in saying a few things without order, just as they occur to my thoughts.
At present nothing pierces me so sensibly as my not having lived more constantly under near impressions of the eternal world. While I glow with joy at the prospect, and thirst ardently after the waters of life, I feel much regret that, during a course of very many years since I was favoured with a distinct outgate as to my soul’s case, I have not lived under the impressions of the eternal state. This occasions me tears and much rending of heart. This remorse does not immediately arise from doubt or dismay; but from a pungent sense of the fault, wrong, and evil of such a neglect, of the great loss sustained thereby, and of the folly and insipidity of a life spent in any other way. When I seem to be near eternity, alas! I feel that I have the true way of living too much to begin, which is to ‘look not at the things that are seen, that are temporal, but at the things that are not seen which are eternal.’
Since the Lord first manifested Himself to my soul, I could never take much satisfaction from views or prospects of safety, when I could not attain the present exercise of grace in the heart. I think Paul was right in reckoning himself wretched by reason of indwelling sin, though he had no doubt of his saving interest. The true happiness of a rational and immortal being lies in communion with God and real holiness. To the spiritual mind, what prospects open in God, in Christ, and in the eternal world! We gaze, we wonder, we stand aghast at the immense ocean of the Divine fulness, and of an endless eternity. O sight never enough enjoyed, and the more enjoyed the more coveted! O waters of life, that increase the desire of those that taste them! Even the awful glories of eternity have charms for me. They tell me that man shall be immortal. They remind me of the evil of sin, of the Holiness of the Eternal Majesty, Who hates it, and will punish it; and of my obligations to my humbled Saviour, Who endured the most bitter agonies and drank a cup of unmixed wrath on my account. They also serve to awake my sluggish heart to a sense of the importance of my soul concerns. I am sufficiently persuaded that, though Jesus has delivered us from the hard terms and from the curse of a broken law, He has not delivered us from the use thereof for instruction (‘Confession of Faith,’ chap. xix., sec. 6; ‘Larger Catechism,’ Qu. 95-97). This is sufficiently evident by the frequent practice of Christ and His apostles in their admonitions to real believers: ‘And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after he hath killed, has power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him’ (Luke xii. 4, 5). ‘What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey: whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?’ (Rom. vi. 15, 16) ‘Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live’ (Rom. viii. 12, 13). ‘Wherefore, we, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire’ (Heb. xii. 28, 29). And, indeed, without some real apprehensions of the tenor and sentence of a broken law, I cannot see how we understand or enjoy the Gospel, or realise the atonement of Christ the Redeemer, and the exceeding riches of grace. Blessed be God, the same Spirit that enlightens us in the knowledge of Christ does also open our eyes to see the evil of sin, the strictness of justice, and the reality of the wrath to come. ‘And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged’ (John xvi. 8-11). ‘I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich: and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see’ (Rev. iii. 18). And without the illumination of the Spirit we will never believe these things in a right and proper manner.
Men have been strangely ingenious to defeat the kind intentions of the Gospel for their salvation and comfort. By no method has this been more successfully effected, than by attempting to make the way to heaven easier than God has made it. By this, they have made it not only more difficult, but in a manner impracticable to fallen creatures. From long experience I am very little taken with new and more gentle theories of the Gospel. I never find that they answer the ends proposed by the projectors thereof; but, instead of this, they prove stumbling-blocks in our way, which we can hardly ever get over. In opposition to all these I have long maintained the paradox, That the hardest way to Heaven is in truth the easiest. It is the only way that will succeed. It is the way that presents the Divine atonement, the riches of grace, and the seal of the Holy Spirit, for our encouragement. It is the way which by the abundant satisfaction which it will give in due time, will repay the vast pains taken by the Christian to get forward. Many are for plucking the fruit, while it is green and good for nothing, by a mere speculative and notional faith, and therefore they never know the satisfying consolations of real Christianity. They are loath to continue wrestling hard, labouring, striving, and knocking. But they ought to learn that, when the Lord comes with power, one half hour of communion with Him will repay the loss, sufferings, conflicts, griefs and troubles of a whole life! For the comfort of His love has a beginning, but it will never have an end, and though it may be eclipsed, will never be totally lost. If we seek according to the Gospel we have this consolation, that though the Lord may delay giving us a sensible outgate for a time, yet when He comes, He will pay for the delay of time with interest. ‘And He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint: saying, There was in a city a judge which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them? I tell you he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?’ (Luke xviii. 1-8). ‘Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?’ (Psalm lvi. 8). ‘That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no greater, He swared by Himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured he obtained the promise’ (Hebrews vi. 12, 15). ‘Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled’ (Matt. v. 4-6).
Men would need to begin where many end, that is at judgment and the eternal world. We do but dream about the Gospel, free grace, and faith, till we have laid judgment and eternity seriously to heart. The foolish plans of taking down the Gospel serve only to make men take up with a shadow instead of the substance; and by delaying the time (while we are taken up with a mere notion which will give us no solid comfort in the end) to deprive us of these solid and genuine consolations which will infinitely recompense all the labour, care and conflicts of them that refuse to be satisfied with anything short of real communion with Christ, and the restoration of the genuine image of God’s holiness upon their souls by the renewing power of the Holy Ghost. Men are frightened at repentance and mourning for sin: but this is owing to their ignorance and want of experience. For there is a luxury in the sorrows of the Christian far beyond the best joys of the world. He mourns, and he often mourns from the very heart: he mourns with an earnest desire to turn, and with an excruciating sense of past errors. But he does not mourn as they that have no hope. He sees a redemption by price and power in Christ; he sees a solid excellence in that holiness that he reaches forth unto; the attainment of a further degree of this will compensate all his agonies; and poor as his tears are, he would not exchange them for the world’s joys. He sees eternity before him, and to this he hastens as the final out-gate from all his sins and sorrows! Men grudge the restraints of religion; but a day of power makes them to know that these are the guards against the distempers of our minds. They are a strait gate and a narrow way only to the flesh and old man; but to the new man they are a wide gate, a broad and easy way—a way of pleasantness and of peace. Give man a taste for holiness, and holiness will make him happy. The pleasures of sin are sweet poison, which would destroy our present peace and prove mortal in the end.
Why do men despise the Holy Ghost, Who is the applier of the whole of our redemption? Can any man that seriously considers what it is to be a Christian according to the Holy Scriptures, and knows the degeneracy of his fallen nature, entertain the vain hope of being able to recover the lost image of God’s holiness, and to restore it in himself without the renewing power of Jehovah? No. But it makes this work easy indeed, when we are led to One for help, Who is mighty to save! If we believe the holiness of God, the strictness of His judgment, and the magnitude and eternity of the great salvation, can we hope to merit heaven by our best services even in a state of grace? No. But what a relief have we in the grace of Jehovah, and in the sacrifice of Him Who obtained eternal redemption for us! O eternity, eternity! thou pleasing awful sound! Terrible to the ungodly and the hypocrite, but as seen in Jesus Christ, the balm of life, and the grand solace in death!
G. C.
* Mr. Cowie was a very worthy minister of the Anti-Burgher Secession Church. He died in 1806. As the result of an unfortunate controversy on the question of countenancing the eminent preachers, the Haldanes who were of the Independent persuasion and whom Mr. Cowie actively supported, he found himself, during his latter years, outside the body to which he belonged, while he still held Secession principles. The present letter, which came into the hands of the late Rev. R. Macdougall, Resolis, was written to the godly William Fraser, weaver, Inverness.—ED.