GOD’S Word is full of mysteries—wonderful things past finding out. Some of these are deeper and profounder than others. Among these may be mentioned the Incarnation—the Son of God—co-eternal, coequal, and consubstantial with the Father taking to Himself a true body and a rational soul. The mysterious meeting together in Him of the Divine nature and the Human in perfection is a mystery past finding out to finite minds. The faith of the Church is admirably summed up in the Westminster Shorter Catechism answer to the question—”Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect?”—”The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever.” One will have to search theological literature long ere one will come across a statement on the Person of the Redeemer so scripturally and sententiously expressed. Into the deep mystery of the Incarnation it is not our purpose, at present, to enter, nor is it required of the believer to solve this mystery in order that he may be saved. But the Incarnation has many important lessons that can be learned by all, whether endowed with mental gifts of a high order or not. We have reason to be thankful that entrance into the Kingdom is not dependent on a high mental equipment or an exact training in theological science. These may be and are very useful, but the very nature of the spiritual truths of the Kingdom of Heaven put all men on the same level—the Apostle Paul is as dependent on the teaching of the Spirit to understand God’s truth as the half-witted Angus of the Hills—all, from the least to the greatest, must be taught by the Spirit. Let us then briefly consider some lessons taught us by the Incarnation. These may be briefly summarised under three divisions, viz.—That the Incarnation shows us (1) What God is; (2) What man ought to be; and (3) What redeemed man shall yet be.
Jesus Christ Incarnate showed to men (1) What God is. This is a truth He taught His disciples as the awful hour approached when He was to leave them and go to the Father. It was the hour and power of darkness, and we know the enemy was not idle, judging by his effect on Peter and his work in Judas. Here was a splendid opportunity to drive home to the agitated mind of the disciples the insinuation that this cause was frowned on by God. John the Baptist had been beheaded, Peter was soon to deny Him three times, and Judas to betray Him, and when all these happened, what clearer evidence, Satan might ask, did the disciples require of God’s frowning countenance? Agitated and ill at ease, in perplexity as to the dark present, and dreading the still darker future, He announced to them that He was going away to prepare a place for them that where He was they might be also. They knew not the way, as Thomas said—”Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?” It was then He announced to them that He Himself was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that no man came to the Father but by Him. It was when He made this announcement that Philip put the question—”Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.” “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?” came the telling rebuke. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” On this night, weighted with mysterious happenings and events that shook the faith of the disciples to its very foundations, the Redeemer steadies their agitated minds by taking away their thoughts of what is so soon to happen to the great truth that in seeing Him they have seen God Himself. This opens to us a wide field for meditation. The tender pity and infinite compassion of the Son of God, His pardoning mercy, and His redeeming love, all show us what God is. His holiness, which so impressed His disciples, and so awed Peter as he got a glimpse of it to make him say—”Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man,” revealed what God in His holiness is. His mighty works of wonder in the realm of nature when He stilled the winds and calmed the sea, when He raised the dead, and cured the diseased, and also in the realm of spirit, when He cast out demons, these were all manifestations of what God is in His power. On the mountain of Transfiguration the disciples present caught a glimpse of the glory of the Eternal, and were awed as they beheld it.
But the Incarnation also shows (2) What man ought to be. When man came from the hand of God he was perfect, with a nature in keeping with all the requirements of God’s law. That law requires that we should
“love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbour as ourselves.” This is what man would have done had it not been for sin, and this is what man is still under obligation to do. But all power is now gone, and were it not that One came who did all this, and paid the penalty of a broken law, there would be no righteousness for any of the children of men such as God requires. In all things He did the Father’s will; it was His meat and drink to do it, and in this perfect obedience rendered even unto death the Redeemer showed what man ought to be.
But He also showed (3) What redeemed man is yet to be. The case of a sinner is now utterly hopeless for anything he can do himself when he is confronted with the high and broad claims of God’s law. Men who have never been brought face to face with these claims may foolishly entertain a hope of getting to heaven by their own righteousness; but no man who has sat down and solemnly faced these claims will ever imagine that his own efforts will take him to heaven. The Gospel of the grace of God reveals the righteousness of God by faith, the simple, sure, and only hopeful way for sinners lost and ruined. This righteousness is imputed to them, and received by faith in the day when they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and the work of sanctification by the Holy Spirit is to be carried on until they shall be like Him. The very best of them are very far from being like Him, now. But however unlike His people are to Him now, yet the whole process of their sanctification and discipline is working towards the fulfilment of the Divine purpose. However incredible it may appear to themselves at times, yet one day they shall be like Him, for this is a work that will not be left half-finished, for He that began it will carry it on until the day of Jesus Christ, and in sure anticipation of this desirable consummation, the Beloved Disciple says—”Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him” (John iii. 2). Between their present state and that long-distant goal the distance may seem immeasurable and unattainable. Still, the counsel of the Lord shall stand, and as they lament and mourn their unlikeness to Him here, as they view His perfect and holy character, they are called upon by His word to take a look at the distant goal, and with their eyes fixed on that, and these words ringing in their ears—”We shall be like Him”—they are encouraged to continue the journey, waiting for the dawning of the day when the shadows shall flee away and they shall see Him as He is.
A Sermon.
BY THE REV. DONALD MACFARLANE, DINGWALL.
Preached 23rd September 1917.
“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”—Matt. v. 4.
IN this chapter we have the beginning of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. It begins with this chapter, and ends with the 7th chapter. As He went up to the Mount a great multitude followed Him, for various reasons. Some because He healed many that were suffering from many diseases. Others because they heard of His fame as a worker of miracles, and as a great preacher; but His own disciples followed Him, because they loved Him, and were fed and edified by the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth. It is remarkable that notwithstanding the hatred of the world against Him, wherever He preached in the synagogue or in the open air, the people flocked to hear Him, for He taught with authority, and not as the Scribes and Pharisees. On this occasion His audience was composed of a mixed multitude, His own disciples and those who were still in a state of nature. He preached to both classes, saints and sinners, setting an example before ministers when preaching to mixed congregations. While He began by speaking a word to His own disciples, who, no doubt, sat nearer Him than the rest, He did not neglect to speak to those outside, as we see He did in the 7th chapter, 13th verse—”Enter ye in at the strait gate,” or as we have it in another place, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate,” or agonise to enter in, to use the utmost effort, to struggle as between life and death in order to be saved. But as already mentioned, He gave the first part of His discourse to His own disciples. He calls them several times blessed, and addresses them in the third personal pronoun—”Blessed are they”; but latterly He speaks to them more directly—”Blessed are ye.” He calls them blessed several times, because they were blessed with perfect and manifold blessings. The description He gives of them as poor in spirit, as mourning, as meek, etc., does not mean that some are poor in spirit, others mourn, and so on, but that this is true of each individual of them.
In addressing you from the words of our text, we shall speak—(1) Of the mourners; (2) Of the promise given to
them—”They shall be comforted”; and (3) Of their blessedness.
(1.) The mourners. Although the Lord’s people have a joy of which the world is ignorant, yet they mourn, for several reasons—(1) They have what may be called personal mourning, because the reason of their mourning is in themselves. They mourn because of indwelling sin, and because of their imperfections and shortcomings in everything they endeavour to do in serving the Lord. They are imperfect in their prayers, and those who have to preach are imperfect in their preaching, and all this causes them mourning. They began to mourn in a legal sense when God by His Spirit convinced them of their sin and misery. They mourn for the misery they brought upon themselves by sin; but not until they believed in Christ did they mourn with the mourning that is blessed. “Then they shall look to Him whom they had pierced, and mourn.” They mourn now for being the cause of His death. Though forgiven their sins, they still mourn for them every time they remember them, and pray with the Psalmist—”Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions, according to thy mercy remember thou me, for thy goodness’ sake, O Lord” (Ps. xxv. 7). They shall continue to mourn for causes in themselves, so long as they are in the valley of tears, but not afterwards. The Apostle Paul mourned for his persecution all the days of his life, after his conversion, though all his sins were blotted out as a thick cloud, and covered by God’s pardoning mercy. Mourning is more lasting than weeping. Sometimes they weep, but when they do not weep they mourn. In weeping they shed tears, but in mourning they shed what may be called dry tears, which are more painful than wet tears.
(2) They mourn with what may be called sympathetic mourning. They are in sympathy with their brethren who mourn. When one member of the body suffers, the other members feel it, and are in sympathy with it. In like manner, when one member of Christ’s mystical body suffers, all the other members are affected by it, and those who are not so are like an artificial leg, that does not feel any pain though all the living members of the body would be pierced through by a knife. This is a test by which you may know whether you are a living member that can have sympathy with the Lord’s people in their sufferings. When the Lord’s cause is low they mourn, as Nehemiah did when he heard that the remnant that was left of the Captivity were in great affliction and reproach, and the walls of Jerusalem also broken down, and the gates
thereof burned with fire. When he heard these words he sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven—(Neh. i. 3 and 4). He not only mourned, but he made an effort to do all he could to help the cause which he had so much at heart. If you mourn when the Lord’s cause is low, you will do all you can to raise it up and cause it to prosper.
They mourn in sympathy with their fellow-creatures, though these might not be the Lord’s people. Many are suffering bereavement in these days by the loss of near relatives who have been killed in the present terrible war. We feel deeply for parents whose sons have been killed on the field of battle, and as we feel for them we pray for them that God’s dealings with them in His holy providence might be sanctified, and might work for good to their souls.
(3) They mourn when they see sinners transgressing God’s laws, like the Psalmist, who said—”I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved because they kept not thy word (or law),” and in the present day there is much cause of mourning on this account, and unless the transgressors of God’s law repent and forsake their evil ways they shall mourn for ever in eternity.
(4) They mourn when the Lord’s people are removed from this world, and so few of them left, as the Prophet Micah did—”Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape gleanings of the vintage; there is no cluster to eat; my soul desired the first ripe fruit. The good man is perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men; they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net. That they may do evil with both hands earnestly.—(Micah vii. 1, 3). Oh, how much we would rejoice if we saw the Lord’s people so numerous now as we have seen in our younger days, and we cannot help mourning because they are so few in this evil generation.
(5) They mourn when Christ is absent from their souls, and they must continue to mourn till He comes again, according to His promise—”I will not leave you comfortless: I will come unto you” (John xiv. 18). Other causes of mourning might be mentioned, but we proceed to consider—
(II.) The Promise—”They shall be comforted.” It is comfort that the mourners need, and who will comfort them? (1) God the Father will comfort them—”As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.” (Is. lxvi. 13). A loving mother will do all she can to comfort her weeping child; much more will the Heavenly Father,
who loves His children, comfort them. Christ will comfort them, as He comforted His disciples when they were sorrowful. “And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you” (John xvi. 22). (2) The Holy Spirit will comfort them. He is called the Comforter, because it is part of His work to comfort those that mourn. Christ promised to send them this Comforter. He was to convince the world of sin, but He was to be a Comforter to God’s people. The means by which they are comforted is the word of the Gospel. The Gospel is full of comfort. Ministers of the Gospel are instruments of comforting those that mourn in Zion. It is part of their work to do so, and they are commanded to do it—”Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God” (Is. xl. 1). The Apostles needed comfort themselves, and they comforted God’s people with the same comfort wherewith they were comforted themselves. (II. Cor. i. 4). Sometimes they are comforted before they meet with trouble, in order that they might be supported in the time of trial, as Christ comforted His disciples—”These things I have spoken unto you that ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer I have overcome the world” (John xvi. 33). Some have been accustomed to receive comfort beforehand, so that when they get great comfort they look forward for a great trial; but if they do not receive comfort before hand, they shall receive it when in trouble, the time they need it most, or after the trials. When they are long without comfort they are apt to come to dark conclusions concerning themselves, and like the Church of old who said—”The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me” (Is. xlix. 14), but it was not so, for the Lord said—”Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee on the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me” (verses 15 and 16). Or, like the Psalmist who said—”Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will He be favourable no more? Is His mercy clean gone for ever? Doth His promise fail forever more? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies?” (Ps. lxxvii. 7, 9), but he found out he had spoken this in his infirmity, and then he remembered God’s gracious dealings with him in the past—”I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember thy wonders of old” (verses 10, 11).
They shall be comforted when they see the Lord’s cause prospering, sinners awakened and coming to the means of grace, desiring, like the Greeks of old, to see Jesus, and it will be a comfort to them to see their fellow-sinners mourning for their sins.
(III.) Their blessedness—“Blessed are they that mourn.” By nature they were cursed; cursed in their persons, cursed in their basket and their store, in their going in and out, wherever they were in the world, but now the curse is removed, and they are blessed in Christ with all spiritual blessings. They are blessed with the forgiveness of sin; their sins are put away far from them, “as far as the east is from the west.” They shall never meet them again to condemn them. They are blessed with a new nature that hates sin and loves holiness. They are blessed with the privilege of adoption, and they are heirs of the inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for them (I. Peter, i. 4). They are blessed by having Christ as their Saviour and portion, and as Christ is theirs, all things are theirs. They are so blessed that they cannot be cursed. Balaam was employed by Balak to curse the people of Israel, and was promised a reward for his evil work, and although he tried to curse them, he could not do it, and instead of cursing them he pronounced them blessed—“How shall I curse whom the Lord hath not cursed? or how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not defied? . . . Who can count the dust of Jacob, and the number of the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!” (Numbers xxiii. 8, 10). Wicked people curse the Lord’s people, but their cursing is of as little effect as the curse of Balaam, and their blessing shall do no good to themselves or to others.
In a world of sin and misery you cannot escape mourning; but there are two kinds of mourning—a godly sorrow that worketh repentance which is not to be repented of, and the sorrow of the world which worketh death—which of these have you? The rich man who came to Jesus asking Him what he should do in order to obtain eternal life, when he was told that he had to part with his riches, went away sorrowful, for he preferred his riches to eternal life. Many prefer the world and the things thereof to eternal life. As there is a great difference between godly sorrow and the sorrow of the world that worketh death, there is a great difference between the subjects of these sorrows.
There are times when the Lord’s people feel in such bondage, and are so mournful that they cannot sing the songs of Zion, like the people of Israel in Babylon, when taunted by their enemies, answered—”How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” (Ps. cxxxvii. 4). They had their harps hung up on the willow trees. They did not throw away their harps, but preserved them there in the hope of using them when God in His good time would bring them back from captivity. There are some who can sing the songs of Zion when they like themselves, but the Lord’s people cannot sing till their hearts are attuned by the Holy Spirit. There is a difference in singing by art and singing by the heart. Singing by art is the rule in many churches in our day, and singing by the heart is the exception. The singing of the former class shall cease at death, and that of the latter shall continue throughout eternity. When the Lord’s people who now mourn shall be brought home to heaven, after they finish their course in this world, who can express their comfort and fulness of joy there, without any mixture of mourning. The days of their mourning are ended at death, and nothing can deprive them of their comfort throughout eternity.
Some Noted Preachers of the Northern Highlands.
REV. JAMES FRASER, ALNESS.
JAMES FRASER was the son of Rev. John Fraser, Glencorse, in the Presbytery of Dalkeith, and latterly of Alness. His mother was Miss Jean Moffat. His father suffered for his adherence to the Covenanter cause, having been deported to America. On the coming of William, Prince of Orange, to England, Mr Fraser and his wife returned to Scotland. He was called to Glencorse soon after his arrival in this country. In 1695 the people of Alness addressed a call to him, which was set aside by the General Assembly. The congregation, however, renewed their call the following year. The people of Glencorse set about building a new church, in the hope that Mr Fraser would remain with them, but just as the church was nearing completion it went on fire, and was burnt to the ground. The minister felt that God was speaking to him in this incident, and that it was his duty
to exercise his Gaelic where it was needed; so he accepted the call to Alness, where he was inducted in 1696. He laboured at Alness for fifteen years, dying in 1711. His son, James, was born there in 1700. He passed through the ordinary curriculum of arts and divinity at Aberdeen. On the death of Mr Mackilligan, son of the better known Covenanter minister of Fodderby, James Fraser was called in 1726 to the charge once ministered to by his father. A certain section of the congregation opposed the settlement, and on the day of his ordination the Presbytery found the doors of the Church shut against them. The ordination services were conducted in the open air in the church-yard, and for some Sabbaths the young minister had to preach in the open air. The opposition, as time went on, died away, and soon his influence as a preacher began to be felt. The solemn and searching truths he declared made careless sinners ill at ease. The claims of God’s law and its threatenings were set before them. Christ was held up before them as God’s provision for the lost after they had been driven out of all refuges of lies.
His near neighbour was the godly Mr Porteous, Kilmuir, a cousin of his own. Some of the people who had been awakened under Mr Fraser’s preaching began to find their way to Kilmuir. Mr Porteous’s people were afraid that this might awaken a spirit of jealousy in the mind of Mr Fraser, whom they highly respected and loved. They, therefore, asked Mr Porteous to speak to Mr Fraser, and assure him that he had done nothing to induce the people from Alness to become occasional worshippers in his church. Mr Porteous readily complied with the request. Mr Fraser’s reply showed a fine Christian spirit and sanctified commonsense. “My dear brother,” was his answer, “this will never produce any alienation of feeling between us. It is entirely of the Lord. He has given me a quiverful of arrows, and it is not yet exhausted, and these arrows are piercing their consciences; hence their pain and cry for relief. But the Lord has given you a cruise of oil, and they run to you for relief. The whole is from the Lord, and no coolness shall arise between us.” It has been well said in connection with this incident that “it not only reflects most creditably the unselfishness of Mr Fraser, and his absolute surrender of himself to the interests of his Master’s kingdom, and the wise consideration and modesty of Mr Porteous, but also the sterling Christian good sense of the people, who loved them both.” (Macpherson’s Edition of Fraser’s “Treatise on Sanctification,” p. xix).
Once a month Monday was observed as a “question day,” and the exercises were similar to the Friday “question meeting” of sacramental occasions, when topics of doctrine and experience were discussed.
Mr Fraser inherited from his father the estate of Pitcalzean, in the Parish of Nigg. His wife was one of the Macleods of Geatnies, in the Parish of Tarbat. These Macleods were connected with the Assynt family. Dr Kennedy describes Mrs Fraser as “a cold, unfeeling, bold, unheeding, worldly woman,” but even such a wife may be made a blessing, as the well-known story sets forth. “Never did her godly husband,” to quote Dr Kennedy again, “sit down to a comfortable meal in his own house, and often would he have fainted for sheer want of needful sustenance but for the considerate kindness of some of his parishioners. She was too insensate to try to hide her treatment of him, and well was it for him, on one account, that she was.”—(“Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire,” p. 37, 5th Edit.). Light and fire were denied him in his study in the long, cold winter evenings, and “as his study was his only place of refuge from the cruel scourge of his wife’s tongue and temper, there shivering and in the dark, he used to spend his winter evenings at home. In this way he actually wore a hole through the plaster of each end of his accustomed seat, on which some eyes have looked that glistened with light from other fire than that of love at the remembrance of his cruel wife,”—(Ibid., p. 38). But all this was one of the things that Mr Fraser found working for his good. While in company with a number of his brethren, who had no reason to be tongue-tied as to the virtues of their wives, one of them hinted that Mr Fraser could not join with them in the chorus of praises. “How so?” was the instant question. “She has sent me seven times a day to my knees when I would not otherwise have gone; that is more than any of you can say of yours.” On the day of his death, some of his elders, grief-stricken, came to the manse, and found Mrs Fraser busy feeding her poultry. One of them, approaching her, said respectfully and sorrowfully—”So Mr Fraser has gone to his rest?” “Oh, yes; the poor man died this morning,” was the icy reply from the tearless widow.
In 1752, a Mr Grant had been intruded on the parish of Nigg, against the wishes of the people. The people refused to attend Mr Grant’s ministry, and Mr Fraser went occasionally to preach and baptise for the dissentients. The intruded minister threatened if he persisted in visiting his parish that he would take steps to have him deposed from the ministry. Mr Fraser replied that should matters
be brought to such a pass he would reside on his own property at Pitcalzean, and preach to the people there. Eventually a minister from the Secession Church was called to Nigg.
Mr Fraser was very helpful to Mr Macphail, Resolis, as already recorded in one of these sketches. The saintly minister of Resolis had become very depressed in mind, and came to the conclusion that he had been so useless that he must resign his charge. He sent for Mr Fraser so that he might preach for him, and intimate thereafter the decision Mr Macphail had come to. Mr Fraser preached in such a way that Mr Macphail asked him not to intimate his resignation, as he had been so encouraged by the precious truth he had listened to.
Mr Fraser is known to many as the author of a “Treatise on Sanctification.” This work is an exposition of Romans, chapters vi. to viii. 4. It has also a number of important essays appended. The manuscript, beautifully written out, was dated July 1769, which was only two or three months before his death. The first edition of the work was issued at Edinburgh in 1774, with a short note by the well-known Rev. Dr John Erskine. A reprint appeared in 1813, and later an abridged edition was issued by the Religious Tract Society. In an introductory note to the sermons appended to the 1834 edition, Mr John Russel, one of the ministers of Kilmarnock, says of Mr Fraser:—”I had the honour to be personally acquainted with the author, and consider that acquaintance as one of the happiest circumstances of my life. In him centred all the amiable qualities of the divine, the scholar, and the Christian. Indeed, one may say, without exceeding the bounds of truth, that the illustrious title marked out for Gospel ministers by Paul, when he says that ‘they are the glory of Christ,’ eminently belonged to him.” The first of the above sermons is an elaborate treatise on Hebrews ix. 14, and occupies no less than fifty-two closely-printed pages. It was usually called by the Gaelic-speaking people “an t-searmon mhor” (the great sermon). The late Principal Cunningham, New College, Edinburgh, said the sermon was uncommonly good, but what astonished him was where a congregation could be found to follow it and appreciate it. But there were giants in spiritual and doctrinal matters in those days. Mr Sage tells us in his “Memorabilia Domestica” that one Sabbath evening he read a passage from Mr Fraser’s work on Sanctification to Hugh Ross, a native of Alness, who had heard Mr Fraser preach in his youth, and received ever-
lasting benefit from it. As he read he noticed his listener became very excited. “What book is that you are reading from?” he asked Mr Sage. “Why do you ask?” “Well,” replied Hugh, “I do not know what book it is; but this I know, that seventy years ago I heard these sentiments on that passage delivered by Mr Fraser, when lecturing on Romans, and they are as fresh in my memory as when I heard them from his lips.”
Mr Fraser died at Alness on the 5th October 1769. His cousin, Mr Porteous, Kilmuir, preached the funeral sermon on Sabbath from the text—”Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him” (Gen, v. 24).