“A Basket of Fragments” by Robert Murray McCheyne, published by Christian Focus Publications; £2.
This book consists of a collection of thirty-seven sermons preached, for the most part, during the last two years of McCheyne’s ministry. Indeed, McCheyne preaches as though he were a watchman already looking into the eternal world and describing what he sees there. The more speculative-minded will find these sermons disappointing. Here there is no discussion of rival views on the Person of Christ, on Inspiration of Scripture, or the composition of the soul. To McCheyne, a sermon is “a tool, not a work of art, nor a philosophical enquiry.” As one who knows both the terror of the Lord and the constraining love of Christ he believes and therefore speaks with the severely practical intent of communicating “the truth as it is in Jesus.”
In a ministry of this kind, much will evidently be lost when the personal presence of the preacher is no longer with us. (“It was not so much what you said,” one hearer acknowledged, “as your manner of speaking that struck me. I saw in you a beauty in holiness that I never saw before.”) Nevertheless that beauty shines from the printed page likewise, even if only in the way McCheyne so clearly sets out to “know nothing but Christ and him crucified.” The name of the Lord Jesus is glorified in McCheyne and, in turn, McCheyne is glorified in Christ.
Particular points that might be underlined are McCheyne’s excellence as:—
- (a) a Teacher. His divisions and sub-divisions are clear and easily remembered. The style is simple and direct with continual application. Although the ecclesiastical state of Scotland was in a ferment during these years, 1842-43, prior to the Disruption, and McCheyne took a lively interest in these things, he rigidly excludes such issues from the pulpit apart from the occasional passing reference.
- (b) a Steward. McCheyne is mindful of all sections of his flock. Judgment and mercy are proclaimed to the Christless in such sermons as “Future Punishment Eternal,” “Christ the Door into the Church,” “The Saviour’s Tears over the Lost.” Christians are fed on a varied diet — experimental (e.g. “The True Pleasantness of being a Child of God”); doctrinal (e.g. “Electing Love”) and practical (e.g. “The Improvement of Affliction”).
- (c) a Herald. It is as such that McCheyne, probably, excels most. His sermons are entirely without any distracting embellishment, even without extra-Biblical illustration. The end of the lost is faithfully proclaimed. Of one of the sermons, No. 35, on 1 Cor. 9; 27, Bonar says in his “Memoir” that it was “a sermon so solemn that one said it was like a blast of the trumpet that would awaken the dead.” Equally, the trumpet gives no uncertain sound in proclaiming the jubilee, “the acceptable year of the Lord.” Such appeals as that in the close of the first sermon based on “Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth,” demonstrate the clarity with which he not merely appeals to sinners “stay not in all the plain,” but points the way to “the heavenly Zion” and “Jesus the mediator of the new covenant.”
Christian Focus Publications are to be congratulated on this their second production in which the Reformed Faith is set forth in a mode more popular, if less comprehensive, than in their first production. Christian Focus Publications are based in 118 Academy Street, Inverness, and take as their motto “To Reach and Teach.” I quote from their brochure, copies of which are available from them: “Why another publishing venture? Because the need for sound books far outweighs the present output of the Christian press . . . The Communists, the false sects and the avant-garde of our day are flooding the world with the output of their presses. They are battling for the minds of men. The Gospel, we believe, is of greater relevance to the needs of men, its message more urgent, and the promises of success more certain, than anything else offered to man. This should stir us up to work with conviction and confidence for the day when ‘the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea’.” Such a work of faith coupled with patience of hope can hardly be too highly commended. It might not be amiss, however, to suggest that the production of present-day material would be welcomed. The Communists do not confine their literature to successive reproductions of “Da Capital” and works of that vintage. Language changes, style changes (as indeed the now empty pulpit of archaic design on the cover seems symbolically to indicate) currents of thought change. The faith remains the same, but the mould in which the faith is presented may make a great difference as to impact on the present-day world.
McCheyne, however, must have the last word. The themes he deals with are timeless and since he confines himself to the Bible and its relation to the souls of men his manner of dealing with these themes is timeless too. It is doubtful, if he lived in the present, whether his manner of preaching would be substantially different. If these sermons are blessed to the edifying of the Church and perhaps to the raising up of McCheynes in our own time, or Bonars who will devote their pen to the service of their master, the patience of hope of the originators of this venture will be abundantly rewarded.
S. FRASER TALLACH.