(Many of these Notes were hitherto unpublished.)
(Continued from page 145.)
A HEARER came to a minister one day and said: “There is a passage in the Epistle to the Romans I cannot understand.” “What passage is it?” said the minister. The man replied, “The place where it is written, ‘Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated'” (Rom. ix. 13). “Well,” said the minister, “I can well understand why He should hate Esau, but I could never understand why He should love Jacob, or any other of the sinful race of mankind.”
One made the comment that Satan broke in on the woman as “the weaker vessel,” but that Christ, the eternal wisdom, said, “I’ll be before thee, Satan; I will baffle thee, make a fool of thee, and overcome thee by the woman on whose weakness thou hast broken in; the seed of the woman shall yet bruise thy head.”
Donald Grant, Latheronwheel, said that Renwick was the last martyr Christ took out of Scotland (1688), and no wonder though Scotland was getting rusty now. (This was said perhaps fifty years ago.)
Two men were once driving cattle west of the Ord of Caithness, and it came on a broken night of rain and thunder. Said one to the other, “We must go to the Most High about this, as we have other people’s property in our hands.” So each of them went by himself to a place to pray. When they came back, one said to the other, “What did you get?” “Oh, I hope,” he replied, “there is no fear of us, but what did you get yourself?” “I got,” said the other,
“Lord, thou preservest man and beast.
How precious is thy grace.”
“Well, well,” said he who spoke first, “we need not be afraid, then.”
A godly man in Reay who seldom went to hear ministers, as he did not like the teaching of many of them, had occasion one day to call at a minister’s house. Two ministers, who happened to be there, asked him why he did not attend more frequently at church. He answered, “Because I don’t hear the Gospel when I go.” They asked him what did he call the Gospel, or what Gospel did he want? “Well,” he replied, “I will tell you what I call the Gospel for myself: ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Cor. ii. 9, 10). The ministers were silent. The point appears to be that he was missing the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing the things of God out of the preaching that was common, and that the doctrine was thus not satisfying to his soul.
It is related of the eminent Joseph Mackay, who was in the British Army at the Battle of Waterloo, that after his return home he paid a visit to the noted John Grant. On his way to John’s house Joseph was reflecting on the painful and dangerous experiences he had passed through, and the gracious care the Lord had exercised over him, and it occurred to him that, if he were asked to engage in any religious exercise when he met John, he would require to have something specially good to offer. After Joseph arrived at the house, John ordered food to be set down, and then requested Joseph to ask a blessing, which he did at some length. No sooner did he conclude than John, whose discernment of any formality was exceptionally acute, and his criticisms often severe, remarked, “Oh, well, yourself and the devil formed an excellent prayer on the way this morning.” [This smiting, however, did not break Joseph’s head, as he and John mutually esteemed one another in the Lord.]
A man once said, when speaking of poverty of spirit (Matt. v. 3): “I don’t count him a poor man who can stretch out his hand to take what is offered him, but he is poor indeed who needs another to put into his mouth what he begs. ‘The poor in spirit’ have no ability to receive Christ in the Gospel till a living faith is given them from above.”
Another said on the same text: “One sign of those who are ‘poor in spirit’ is that they grow poorer and poorer every day,” meaning, of course, feelingly so—more self-emptied.
At a Communion season the word given at the fellowship meeting on the Friday was: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. v. 3). One man remarked that one difference between the naturally poor and ‘the poor in spirit’ was the following:—Beggars seeking food for their bodies did not like to meet any of their own kind on the same journey, for they thought this would lessen their chances of gain, but spiritual beggars at God’s throne were all the happier the more of them that were together.
A man remarked that the gracious soul sometimes would not walk twice around his house when his experience of spiritual things would be wearing away, and he would be finding himself empty again, and as needful of renewing grace as ever.
The same man also said that some were brought to an experimental knowledge of God as their own God before they were brought to know much about sin, but that in their course afterwards before death they might be brought to know more of the evil of their hearts, and of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, than he who might be kept ten years at first lying condemned in his own experience and, as it were, on the brink of ruin, because the Most High was sovereign in His dealings with His own people.
One, addressing his fellows, said: “If Christ has begun to work savingly in your soul, Satan will be after you wherever you go. He will be on your back when reading or hearing, and on your back when praying or sitting at the Communion table. Satan never went mad against you till the Saviour began with you in mercy.”
Rev. Finlay Cook was one day catechising, and having spoken to all in the house, he said, “Is there anyone left to whom I have not spoken?” Donald Sutherland, a godly elder, sitting close by, replied, “O yes, I am here who was not catechised, and none in the house has more need than I have.” “O no,” said Mr. Cook, “we are not to catechise you; we will leave you to the devil to catechise, Donald.”
Rev. Robert Finlayson said to a godly woman in a trial of temptation that Christ sometimes used Satan to snuff His candles—to purify His own children by trials.
Rev. John Munro, Halkirk, was going to preach on the Monday of a Communion at Thurso. He met a godly man, Neil MacPherson, in the morning, and said, “What do you think of a man going to preach this day, who has neither text nor sermon prepared for a congregation?” When all the elders and men were seated together before the pulpit, and Mr. Munro began to preach, Neil said audibly to them, “Now, my friends, let us be one another’s helpers in prayer.” The result was that those present said that Mr. Munro was seldom heard to, have more freedom in preaching the Gospel than he had that day.
Rev. John Macdonald, Helmsdale, said that, although a dyke was put around the Lord’s table as high as Capernaum, the hypocrite would come over the top of it, but, if a straw were sometimes put in the Christian’s way, it would be a stumbling-block to him.
One man, referring to the case of Manasseh, supposed the Lord saying to Satan, when Manasseh was at his worst, “Hast thou made Manasseh as black as thou canst now?” “Yes,” replied Satan, “he will do now.” “Well,” said the Lord, “I shall now let you see how white free grace can make him.”
(To be continued.)