The Beauties of Ebenezer Erskine, published by Reformation Heritage Books and Christian Focus Publications, hardback, 696 pages, £19.99, obtainable from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom for £15.99.
The Beauties of the Rev Ebenezer Erskine first appeared in 1830. It is a selection from his sermons compiled by Samuel McMillan, who was himself a minister in Aberdeen.
One might feel slight reservations in commending this book, in that the unedited Works of Ebenezer Erskine are in print again. They are presently available in a set of three volumes, published by Free Presbyterian Publications1. What is given in the Beauties in isolated parcels is printed in the Works in a meaningful order and in its native context.
However, there is no doubt that this volume of extracts has been useful to the Lord’s people since it was first produced. Often books that claim to be the abbreviated essence of a work are more like painful amputations than sweet distillations. This book, however, covers in great variety some of the most refreshing themes a thirsty soul could wish for, in extracts of varying length. The hinge upon which all turns is the glory of God in salvation: that supernatural application to sinners, by His Holy Spirit, of the redemptive
1Available from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom for £44.50, reduced from £59.50.
work of Christ. Together with the memoir of Ebenezer Erskine published in the original edition, the present reprint of the Beauties has a very interesting and useful 53-page introductory essay, “Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine: their lives and their preaching”, which identifies the distinctive emphasis of the Marrowmen’s preaching.
The Marrowmen were ministers who filled their churches with the heavenly sound of the doctrines of free grace, at a time when that was rare. While many of the Scottish pulpits had become legalistic because of the pernicious effects of the dangerous error of Neonomianism2, poor perishing sinners heard the law and the gospel from the Marrowmen. The law showed them their lostness; the gospel, the Saviour. Their preaching was wine on the lees well refined to those who, by the imparting of spiritual life to their souls, had ears to hear and hearts to understand. While others hid the freeness of God’s grace behind legal husks, they presented the truth as it is in Jesus, which is what the Holy Spirit will bless to the salvation of souls. Their hearers were presented with those doctrines of the grace of God which have found many a lost soul and have fed and built up believers in holiness and comfort, through faith, unto the consummation of their salvation. While the Neonian preachers hung about the foot of Sinai, pointing to an atonement which was obtained by, and veiled in, a new law, the Marrowmen stood at the foot of the cross of Christ directing sinners and saints to a complete salvation. From that stance, they compelled sinners to come to Jesus Christ, by authority of the divine warrant.
We live in a day when the Holy Spirit is grieved by our worldliness, and we fear His blessed influences have largely – but not, we trust, entirely – departed from us. In the hope that the Lord will bless this work to our present generation as He did in the past, we heartily commend it.
(Rev) Roderick MacLeod