MINISTER OF CROY, INVERNESS-SHIRE. BORN, 1712; DIED, 1775.
Edited from the Original MSS., with Illustrative Notes,
BY THE LATE REV. WM. TAYLOR, M.A., STIRLING.
(Continued from page 55.)
AFTER this time his “days of retirement” become again more frequent. We can perceive, too, that his soul is cheered, perhaps more than ever, with the light of God’s countenance. His bodily strength is indeed declining, he suffers from frequent feverish fits, pains, and other ails; so that, in going to the pulpit, it is sometimes against medical advice. Let us cull a few flowers from the diary of this period.
“December 6th, 1771.—Would wish to be retired to-day, if the Lord will. Many a loud call at present to be fervent and importunate at a throne of grace. . . .
“Afternoon.—Blessed for ever be the Lord for His wonderful and undeserved goodness and mercy to my soul this day. He was pleased to give me very humbling and affecting views of the atheism and infidelity, and iniquity and ingratitude, and vileness and baseness of my heart, and the numberless errors of my life; and to lead me with shame and confusion of face, with contrition and sorrow, and an appropriating faith, to the atoning blood and perfect righteousness of Christ, and to the infinite mercy of Jehovah flowing in that precious channel; in consequence of which I found my fears silenced, my bonds loosed, my conscience calmed, my heart satisfied and sanctified in some measure, my affections weaned from earth and sense, and fixed with unusual steadiness and delight on Christ and the glorious things that are above. I was helped to pour out my heart before the Lord in a great variety of requests, with a degree of liberty and enlargement, and importunate pleadings, which, alas! I do but very seldom experience. I scarce ever rose from my bended knees with more solid and delightful evidence of gracious audience and acceptance in the Beloved than this eve. What shall I render to the Lord? . . . O that it might please the Lord to stamp and rivet these things for ever on the thoughts of the imagination of my heart! Amen. Spent an hour or two in spiritual conference with some of the Lord’s people who came to visit me from a distant corner. . . . This has been a sweet and blessed day to my soul from first to last. . . . O! if this happy frame, this contrite, believing, loving, rejoicing, triumphant frame would last and abide always! O! Lord, stay with me to cause me abide with Thee continually—with Thee, my light, my life, my chiefest joy, my all in all for evermore! Amen! Amen!
“January 1st, 1772.—This being the first day of the New-year, gave my servants some short exhortations suitable to the day. Conversed more privately for a little time on the most spiritual
subjects with a most pious domestic, on whom I look as an ornament and a blessing to my family, being indeed a living lovely image of Christ. Lord, increase the number of such!
“Friday 3rd, Eve.—[After a ‘day of retirement.’] For ever blessed be the Lord for His marvellous lovingkindness, sweetly and clearly manifested to my poor unworthy soul to-day—the happiest day mine eyes have seen these seven years, a heavenly boon, a blessed New-year’s gift I have received freely from the Lord to-day—never, never to be forgotten—a sealed pardon of all my sins, an assured sense of redeeming everlasting love; the most firm and unshaken belief that sin, and all the works of the devil in me, particularly pride, unbelief, carnality, and idolatry should be utterly destroyed from out my soul. Amen! Blessed Lord, so be it! Amen! Blessed Lord, so shall it be. Amen! Amen! What shall I render to the Lord? Heaven and earth praise Him! Ye angels that excel in strength, praise Him for evermore! Amen!
“Saturday, 4th.—The sweet savoury sense and impressions of things spiritual, divine, and eternal which my soul was blessed with yesterday continue in some measure with me to-day; though I perceive they are like the ebbing sea, gradually abating, so that I apprehend it will be soon low water with me. But though my poor leaky cistern should run dry, glory be to His name, the fountain is always full and overflowing, and ever free and open, and accessible to poor things like me. In this may I rejoice more than in any little pittance I have received. O! may I learn to keep near this blessed fountain of light and life, and grace and glory, and live continually on it. May ‘the life I live in the flesh be a life of faith on the Son of God!’ Amen.
“Saturday, 25th.—Much liberty and sweetness and nearness this morning in secret; still more in family worship; never more, never so much since the Lord honoured me with the charge of a family. Blessings, blessings, in time and eternity, to God in Christ! Blessed for ever be His name for a throne of grace, and for what I have seen and felt and enjoyed there to-day. O may the adorable Hearer of prayer send answers of peace to the petitions put up in the name of Jesus in behalf of my family and friends absent and present, in behalf of Zion my mother, my children, my flock, my brethren, and of desolate congregations! Amen.
“Friday, 31st.—For ever blessed be Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for His wonderful and undeserved goodness and love, and grace and mercy, manifested to my soul this day, in and through Christ the Son of His love. He was pleased to vouchsafe my poor indigent soul this day much the same light and liberty and enlargement as on the memorable third day of this month, which I should never forget—freedom of access, freedom of speech, freedom of heart and spirit; freedom of praying, pleading, confessing, repenting, believing, appropriating,
enjoying, blessing, praising, and adoring. No language can express the divine joy I felt, and still feel, from the smiles of a reconciled God in Christ, and from the marvellous, unchangeable, unparalleled love of my adorable Jesus manifested to my soul this day by His leaping over the mountains and skipping over the hills of my sins and provocations. . . . I can now come into His presence and embraces with far greater freedom than the most loving child can spring into the bosom-embraces of the most affectionate parent; for which I can never, never enough praise Him in time or eternity. Lord, keep this on the thoughts of the imagination of my heart for ever! Amen! I must close this delightful note of this happy day with marking several of the delightful passages of Holy Writ that were sweet and savoury, and much blessed to my soul to-day, viz.: 1 John iv. 8, ‘God is love;’ Matt. xviii. 11, ‘The Son of Man is come to save that which was lost;’ Jer. iii. 22, ‘Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal,’ etc.: ‘Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God;’ Jer. xxxi. 18, ‘Turn thou me, and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God;’ Heb. iv. 16, ‘Let us come boldly to a throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help,’ etc.; Micah vii. 18, ‘Who is a God like unto thee, who pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy;’ Ezek. xvi. 63, ‘That thou mayest remember and be confounded, and never open thy mouth,’ etc., ‘when I am pacified towards thee;’ Isa. xxxviii. 15, ‘What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it: I will go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.’
“Sabbath, 2nd February.—Blessed be the Lord for . . . the sweet and delightful access I had in secret to the throne of grace at the close of the day, which was sweet and comfortable to my poor soul far beyond what words can express. Three petitions were presented before the throne, and I trust accepted in the Beloved: 1st. To be blessed with a richer measure than ever of the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, and of God in Christ, and of the sacred and sublime, the soul-sanctifying and heart-satisfying mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. 2nd. To be helped by the continued aids of Divine grace to keep steadily in view the glorious prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus—the day of complete redemption, the blessed and joyful resurrection of the body, the starry crown of immortal glory, the peaceful mansions of eternal rest, and especially the ravishing, transporting sight of the unveiled face of my adorable Jesus; the immediate beatific vision and fruition of the ever blessed and adorable three-one Jehovah, my God in Christ and my chosen portion, my all in all to all eternity—together with the sweet society, the heavenly friendship and fellowship of my nearest and dearest relatives, and my sweet,
precious, and dear children in Christ, who are some of them already with Jesus in paradise, and others of them on the highway, the king’s way of holiness, which leads directly to the same celestial Zion. 3rd. To be helped by divine grace during the few days, or at most the very few years, of my sojourning on earth, to cultivate and maintain daily and hourly the weaned, resigned, and elevated temper, disposition, and conversation of a stranger in a strange land,—of a heavenly pilgrim, travelling homewards to his Father’s house, blessed with a holy indifference, a calm, dispassionate temper of mind with regard to the affairs of this mortal life, any farther than they are connected with the hallowing of God’s name, the advancement of His glory, the coming of His kingdom, and the doing of His will on earth as it is in heaven.
(To be continued.)