* We intend reprinting, in instalments, this valuable Diary, with Notes by the late Rev. William Taylor, M.A., Stirling, who was at one time minister of the Free Church, Pulteneytown, Wick, but afterwards retired owing to ill-health. During the closing period of his life he acted at Stirling as Editor of the “British Messenger,” and edited some valuable books. The present Diary was originally published by Mr. Peter Drummond, Stirling.—ED.
CHAPTER I.—INTRODUCTORY.
THE northern part of the Highlands of Scotland—that part which extends from the River Findhorn to the Atlantic Ocean, and from the Pentland Firth to the spurs of the Inverness-shire Grampians—has had a distinct religious history of its own. During the latter half of last century, when some other parts of the Scottish Church lay paralysed under a prevalent unbelief that did not even wear the guise of orthodoxy, there existed in this district an earnest religion of the Puritan type, that animated many individual souls, and at the same time exerted a controlling influence over the general population, including even those who did not experience its heart-changing power.
This religious life was largely connected, instrumentally, with the labours of a succession of evangelical ministers, some of whom were men of great gifts as well as deep piety, and whose parishes became centres from which Gospel light and influence spread into darker places around. In the district especially that skirts the Moray, Cromarty, and Dornoch Firths, these men of God were pretty thickly clustered. One of the most honoured among them was James Calder, minister first of Ardersier and then of Croy, in Inverness-shire. In the latter parish and its neighbourhood there took place under his ministry a remarkable revival of vital godliness, about the same time that God was so abundantly honouring the labours of Wesley and Whitefield in the south. We think we shall do service by publishing extracts from his valuable Diary, such as may illustrate not only his ministerial labours and experience, but the secrets of that personal, hidden life wherein he obtained power with God and men, and prevailed.
Genealogically, James Calder stands in the middle of a line of worthies. His maternal grandmother, Mrs. Lillias Dunbar or Campbell, was a Morayshire lady of rank, piety, and heroic spirit, who, during the persecutions under Charles II. and James II., endured imprisonment and many other hardships on account of the practical sympathy she displayed towards the suffering servants of Christ. His father, John Calder, was minister of Cawdor in Nairnshire in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and was a man very eminent in his day for ministerial excellencies, whose premature death cast a gloom over the district, and whose name is still reverently cherished in popular tradition. Then followed James Calder’s own life and ministry. This, however, by no means closed the remarkable succession; for his three sons became, all of them, devoted ministers; a grand-daughter became wife of another eminent servant of Christ, Dr. Angus Mackintosh, of Tain in Ross-shire; and her son—James Calder’s great grandson—has been but lately removed from his ministerial labours in the Church below, leaving a character for Christian consistency and holiness rarely equalled, and a blank not soon to be filled in many a heart.*
* It has been our privilege to edit, in another volume, some of the remains of this holy and beloved man of God, of whom Mr. Spurgeon has said in the “Sword and Trowel”: “One of earth’s best men passed away when Dr. Mackintosh fell asleep. . . . We were stirred as with the sound of a trumpet ringing loud and clear in reading specimens of his sermons.”—See “Memorials of the Life and Ministry of Charles Calder Mackintosh, D.D., of Tain and Dunoon; with a Sketch of the Religious History of the Northern Highlands of Scotland.” Edinburgh: Edmonstone & Douglas.
James Calder himself was born at Cawdor in the year 1712. Brought up under the ministry of his eminent father, and amid a family circle where probably mother as well as grandmother lent their influence and prayers to his training, the young “Timothy” appears to have become early the subject of a remarkable work of divine grace. It was no surface religion; it was founded on large and scriptural views of the attributes of God, of the evil of sin and the ruin of the sinner, and of the glorious grace and wisdom of the plan of redemption; and it penetrated into his inmost being. It abased him in the dust; it filled him with love to the Redeemer, and with joy at times so great that the frail vessel of clay could scarcely hold it; and it stimulated him to a life of humble, holy watchfulness, of close communion with the Lord, and of self-denying, loving labour in His cause. We possess no record of the date of his conversion, but we fortunately do possess a record of his early Christian experience, written when he was about twenty-three years of age—five years before his ordination to the ministry. We give this entire, as showing whereon his faith rested, and as furnishing a key to his subsequent life of consecration and usefulness.
CHAPTER II.—“A BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE.”
Cul., † 24th June, 1735.—Yesterday, hearing that the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was to be celebrated in a few days in the neighbourhood, I retired in order to look into my heart, and know how I was disposed for setting about this solemn ordinance; but scarcely did I resolve to be a partaker, and in consequence thereof to essay some preparation of soul, when corruption sallied forth furiously upon me, and made great efforts to suppress these thoughts and resolutions; lust and corruptions haling one way, a sense of duty and gratitude counteracting, opened a mournful scene, raised a horrid discord in my mind, and caused a sullen gloom and unrelenting damp sit heavy on my soul for the most part of the day. In this straitening posture I resolved to wait on God for relief, and He was pleased to encourage my hope and trust, which made me press after further deliverance, in order to my engaging in the great work I had in view with the greater freedom and enlargement; and accordingly I set some time apart this forenoon for meditation and prayer. And it pleased a gracious God, in some measure, to shine upon me. I desire to mind and record it to the praise of His free, sovereign, and rich grace. He made me see and believe His willingness to receive into favour a poor, returning prodigal, and sweetly allured and constrained my soul to stoop to Jesus’ government and righteousness, to desire earnestly that my will might be entirely, eternally lost and resolved up into His holy and perfect will. And when I complained to Him of my impotency, weakness, and insufficiency for the performance of any duty—specially for that great duty of communicating—He was graciously pleased to encourage and satisfy by suggesting, sweetly and powerfully, that it was His province and business to carry the lambs of His flock in His bosom and tenderly to lead those that are with young; that He would not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax (Isaiah xlii. 2). Even so, Lord, be it unto Thy servant according to Thy promise! I laid hold of this promise in the Lord’s strength, and then pleaded, and still plead, its gracious accomplishment in His time and way.
† Perhaps Culloden or Cullicudden.
Invergordon, 11th Dec., 1735.—Yesternight I was greatly alarmed with the shocking consideration of my dreadful formality, and my habitual coldness and deadness in duties. Oh, says I, my soul, how void of an inward principle of spiritual life, motion, and action dost thou appear in these gloomy days, in this wearisome intricate scene of woe that environs me on all sides! What’s become of thy faith, thy love, thy hope? Where is thy life? This soft answer sunk with a gentle cadence into my soul: Col. iii. 3, “Your life is hid with Christ in God.”—Blessed, blessed be the source and . . . * of my life; Lord, let me live this life for evermore, even a life of dependence on Jesus Christ; let me live, because He lives; may I become as nothing (and indeed I am so to all spiritual purposes), that Christ may become all and in all to me for ever and ever! Amen.
* The word is illegible in the MS. We may state here, that though we may occasionally allow the old spelling to stand, we generally modernize it.
Invergordon, 11th Dec., 1735.—This morning, being deeply affected to find my soul tossed and distracted for a long time like a wave of the sea, and casting up its noisome mire and dirt, so that I was a stranger to that peace, serenity, and composure that results naturally from stayedness of mind on God and faith in Christ, and which sometimes I sweetly felt; in this disconsolate situation, being rankled and pained with what I felt and still feared from these inward storms and spiritual ailments and annoyances, my mind was wrought to a calm trust and humble confidence in God for my deliverance by these sweet words suggested to me, “Hitherto thy proud waves shall come, and no further.”—Even so, Lord, be it unto Thy servant according to Thy word on which thou hast caused me to hope.
Inverg., 12th Dec., 1735.—Being somewhat concerned last night about the spiritual circumstances of some of my nearest relations, and the state of my own soul, which I thought was much in the same situation, what exercised me was the small appearance we had of real, vital religion, the faint impressions of the Divine power and ravishing sweetness of piety and godliness which we discovered; as likewise the tentations, discouragements, and snares that outwardly threatened us. While I was mournfully poring over these things, my mind was somewhat stayed with this promise—”Instead of the fathers shall come up the children.” Oh, thinks I, there’s little appearance of that; but I know He that promised is able to perform it, which I trust He’ll do.—Because this word was not attended and borne home on my mind with that glowing evidence and warm emotion of soul which usually excludes all doubting concerning the certainty of the accomplishment of the promise, and of its coming really from the Spirit of God; because of the want of this, I questioned whether it might not be barely from my natural power of memory and reflection, or suggested by the enemy, and that, therefore, I had no right to this promise. I was resolved of this scruple by considering that faith’s embracement of the promise, and dependence on God’s faithfulness for the accomplishment thereof, gives a title to the promise. I was likewise made to reflect that the kingdom of heaven comes not always with observation; that the wind of the Spirit bloweth where it listeth, and though we hear the sound thereof we cannot always tell whence it comes or whither it goes.
Inverg., 14th Dec., 1735.—This night I had a clear but sad sight of the dreadful enmity, hellish pride, desperate wickedness, and horrid unbelief of my heart. Being importunate for a gracious visit from Christ, and making a boast and show of my willingness to have Him, and of my impatience in His absence, and pleading the freedom of His promises and offers, His gracious counsels, declarations, and invitations in the Word,—Christ seemed to come close to my heart, to knock at it, and offer Himself freely to me, counselling me to buy eye-salve, white raiment, etc., without money or price; when, on a sudden, pride, or unbelief, or carnality, or all of them (for my want of spiritual discerning conceals the subtle agency of these plagues), broke my resolutions, damped my zeal and fervour, shattered my faith, clouded my mind, and put my soul to a wretched stand; chained me up that I could not rise to open to Christ. Meanwhile I found a party within me upbraiding and condemning my pride, unbelief, and ingratitude, and sometimes looking up and sighing for supernatural assistance. But still my desperate heart continued obstinately shut; when, on a sudden, Christ, I thought, withdrew with a frown which pierced my heart and diffused remorse and pain, terror and amazement, throughout my soul. I cried after Him, but in vain; He left me quaking, shrinking, drooping, and crying out against my base, disingenuous, unbelieving heart. However, I faintly recommended my soul and the work of its salvation to the Spirit of Christ, pleading that He should make me willing in a day of His power, and work faith in my soul; which is His peculiar province, which I am afraid I was secretly usurping in the beginning of this exercise, leaning on my frame as something naturally belonging to myself, and meritorious of Christ’s acceptance and presence. Oh! vain man would be wise, and good, and great, and happy in and of himself, though he be born as the wild ass’s colt, dead in trespasses and entirely reprobate to every good work. Oh my soul! after this night let self-sufficiency and pride be for ever hid from your eyes; abandon and abjure for ever your own wisdom, righteousness, and strength; and depend on Christ humbly, constantly, and entirely for justification, sanctification, and complete and eternal salvation.
(To be continued.)
It was the priest’s office in the time of the law, to keep the fire in the sanctuary from going out; and it is the office of our Lord Jesus, as He is our High Priest, our Head, our Husband, our Mediator, for to blow up that heavenly fire that He hath kindled in any of our souls.—T. Brooks.