(Continued from vol. xli., p. 445.)
II.
A NUMBER of books which do not strictly come under the category of experimental theology are worthy of attention, because they deal with, to a more or less extent, Christian experience. Among these may be mentioned a book that has been read by thousands far beyond Scotland, Samuel Rutherford’s Letters. Who can tell how many will bless God forever and ever for these seraphic outpourings of a heart that was aflame with love to Christ? One of the highest compliments ever paid to them were the attacks made on them by such men, as Prof. J. Hepburn Millar of the order of Scottish ecclesiastical Philistines.
In Scottish religious biography there is also a rich field of experimental truth. Among these may be mentioned Halyburton’s Memoirs; Boston’s Memoirs; Dr. Love’s Memorials; Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s Memoir and Remains, and Memoir of John Duncan. Halyburton was of Covenanting stock, his father being one of the ministers ejected in 1662. After his father’s death he went with his mother to Holland. He was ordained minister at Ceres in 1700 and was appointed to the chair of divinity in St. Andrews ten years later. His heavenly death-bed utterances are enshrined in the Memoirs. Dr. Duncan addressing his students said: “Gentlemen, there are three great books in the world—Augustine’s Confessions, Halyburton’s Memoirs, and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.” This is high praise from such a scholar and saint as Dr. Duncan. But high though the estimate is it is confirmed by a writer in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review who says: “Than which a more powerful delineation of intense and valid spiritual experience and consciousness has never been given to the Church.” It has been well said that his death-bed sayings may be put beside those of Baxter or Rutherford or Bunyan’s pilgrims as they gather on the banks of the bridgeless river. “O blessed be God that ever I was born! I have a father, a mother, and ten brethren and sisters in heaven, and I shall be the eleventh. O blessed be the day that ever I was born” is one of those sayings.
Boston’s Memoirs is full of the ups and downs in the spiritual life of this devoted and highly honoured servant of Christ. Boston is the unconscious master of a fine nervous literary style. One need not read many pages, if he has a taste for the beauty and rhythm of words without being arrested by literary gems of the first water. In the Memoirs he lays bare his heart, His was a sore and tried life through his wife’s mental affliction; death, also often visited his home and in addition there were the ecclesiastical troubles in his congregation and in the Church at large. The spiritual life of the saintly minister of Ettrick, as revealed in the Memoirs, is helpful and edifying to those who delight in such food as is to be found in its pages.
Dr. Love’s Memorials is a perfect mine of rich spiritual experiences. He was a profound theologian, a clear thinker, and above all a man deeply taught by the Holy Spirit. If space permitted some of his utterances might have been quoted here but this must be omitted meantime. If what has been said, however, will send some of our readers in search of the finest of the wheat to the two goodly volumes of the Memorials we are sure they will not have any regrets. The volumes of the Memorials are useful, also as a corrective to certain statements made by the great New England preachers—Thomas Shepard, David Brainerd and Jonathan Edwards—which will be referred to when reference is made to their works.
Perhaps no biography of a Scottish minister has had such a circulation as the Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne. The consecrated life so early ended, the holy walk, and the faithfulness combined with the gentleness of a child has embalmed his memory forever in the minds of those who have read his life by Dr. Andrew A. Bonar. He was highly honoured of God and the words used by Bunyan in describing the picture of the grave person in the house of Interpreter may well be applied to him: “It had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books in its hand, the law of truth was written upon its lips, the world was behind its back; it stood as if it pleaded with men, and a crown of gold did hang over its head.” M’Cheyne’s experiences as recorded in the Memoir produce a similar effect to that in reading Brainerd’s life. It makes one feel as if one had not yet really begun to live for Christ in comparison to these saintly men.
Piety and the profoundest mental gifts are not always found together but in Dr. Duncan and others these shine out with arresting clearness. Endowed with intellectual gifts of the highest order he was able to plumb depths unknown to ordinary intellects. Combined with his he had a remarkable felicity in clothing his thoughts in language of the choicest fitness. But great though his mental endowments were and shining as were his gifts he had the simplicity of a little child. He passed through in early life a trying spiritual experience—passing from the darkness of atheism to the light of the gospel. Dark clouds often shut out the rays of the Sun of Righteousness from his troubled soul and these experiences are set forth in Dr. Brown’s Memoir and also in Rich Gleanings of Rabbi Duncan, both of which are worth perusal by all who delight in rich, spiritual and scriptural experimental teaching.
Passing from biography to another field attention may be called to a book that is not so well known as it ought to be—Dr. Gillies’ Historical Collections—published originally in 1754. It was reprinted in 1845 with a continuation to that date by Dr. Horatius Bonar. It contains accounts of remarkable revivals in Scotland and other parts of the world. It quotes at considerable length the experiences of those who came under the power of the truth and at places indicates the truths that were preached and blessed to the hearers. The revivals of religion at the Reformation in 1560, at Stewarton and Irvine in 1630, at Cambuslang and Kilsyth in 1742, in Sutherland and Easter Ross in the middle of the 18th century, and at Kilsyth, Dundee, etc., in 1839 are referred to. Accounts, also, are given of the great revivals under the preaching of George Whitefield, David Brainerd, Jonathan Edwards, etc. The Historical Memorials, it will thus be seen, is an invaluable work for all those who desire to get further knowledge of God’s ways when turning sinners from darkness to light.
In Dr. Kennedy’s Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire and Rev. Alexander Auld’s Ministers and Men in the Far North we have the gleanings of the wise sayings of experienced Christians especially in Easter Ross and Caithness which have been much appreciated by the spiritually minded. The men whose sayings are recorded were Christians who had passed through deep religious experiences and were well instructed in divine things.
In coming to more modern times we have the searching sermons of the Cooks—especially those of the Rev. Archibald Cook. A volume of these sermons (Gaelic and English) was published at Glasgow in 1907 and another volume of Gaelic sermons in 1916. Both volumes are now out of print and can only be had second-hand. No preacher of modern times, as far as we know, was so searching and experimental in his preaching if it were not Mr. J. C. Philpot* whose two great experimental discourses The Heir of Heaven and Winter Afore Harvest with many of his other sermons are well-known to many of our readers. Archibald Cook was a polished shaft in the hand of his Master and his preaching must have troubled the hypocrites and those who were making the refuge of lies hiding places where they delighted to dwell.
*In connection with this reference to Mr. J. C. Philpot attention may be called to two volumes published in 1930 and 1932 under the title: The Seceders (1829-1869) which contain letters by William Tiptaft and J. C. Philpot brimful of rich religious experience—Editor.
(To be continued).