Rev D Campbell

(3) Faith and assurance. In reading Robert Bruce’s Sermons on the Sacrament, the following question will arise: How is faith exercised in rightly partaking of the sacrament? Both Bruce and Calvin argue that this exercise of faith is something more than under the preaching of the gospel and that it involves a personal appropriating and application of Christ as ours personally. Calvin says, “I maintain that the flesh of Christ is eaten by believing because it is made ours by faith, and that that eating is the effect and fruit of faith . . . and . . . it seems to me to be the consequence of faith”.² Bruce devotes a large part of his fourth and most of his fifth sermon to the importance of having true faith when coming to the Lord’s Supper.

For Bruce the sacrament is primarily a nourishing ordinance, designed to strengthen faith. The faith that believers are called to exercise in partaking of the sacrament is an applying of Christ as theirs and to their own soul. To quote Bruce, it is “believing that He has shed His blood for me and has purchased remission of sins for me”. This is what the eating and drinking by faith consists of. It is an “applying of Christ, an applying of His death and passion to my soul. This is done only by faith; therefore he who lacks faith cannot eat Christ.”³ Bruce is even more emphatic in the third sermon: “Spiritual eating consists in this: that I and every one of you believe firmly that He died for me in particular, that His blood was shed on the cross for a full remission and redemption of me and my sins”.⁴ This view of the faith exercised by the communicant shows the necessity of the preached Word accompanying the sacrament and of the particular promise of Christ in the words of institution being clearly declared. It also explains the nature of Christ’s presence in the sacrament by virtue of the sacramental union – He is present to the believer who apprehends Him.

Bruce makes an interesting point when discussing eating and drinking unworthily and being guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. An unbeliever, he says, cannot receive Christ; only a person who has faith can receive Him and He can only be received worthily. The scripture does not say that any eat and drink “the body and blood of the Lord” unworthily but rather the

¹The previous article, last month, dealt with the first two points in this section: (1) the sacramental union and (2) the word and the sacrament.

²John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 4:17:5 (emphasis added).

³The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper, Christian Focus edition, p 90.

⁴The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper, p 98.

bread and wine (1 Cor 11:27). Their doing so makes them, in God’s eyes, guilty of Christ’s body and blood because they refuse Christ Himself and only partake of the elements. It is the refusal of men to partake of Christ’s body and blood by faith that renders their eating and drinking of the elements unworthy. The judgement is pronounced upon those who thus show contempt of Christ by “not discerning the Lord’s body”.⁵

Bruce is perhaps at his most beautiful in applying this doctrine. It can be clearly seen that he knows from experience the blessing of which he speaks. We get the same Christ in the sacrament as in the Word but, he says, we get the same thing better. “We get a better grip of Christ now, for by the sacrament my faith is nourished, the bounds of my soul are enlarged, and so where I had a little grip of Christ before, as it were between my finger and my thumb, now I get Him in my whole hand, and indeed the more my faith grows, the better grip I get of Jesus Christ.”⁶ Speaking of the believer, Bruce says, “Although there is as great a distance between my body and the Body of Christ as there is between heaven and earth, Christ’s Body is really given to me . . . it is because the right and title to His Body and Blood is given to me that I am made to possess His Body and Blood.”

The Reformed doctrine of assurance is worthy of notice at this point. Principal John Macleod in his Scottish Theology draws attention to a change in emphasis among reformed theologians when defining the faith that saves. The early Reformers, he says, spoke of faith in terms which could be a stumbling block to weak believers. Speaking of saving faith, Macleod poses the question, Who is warranted to be persuaded that Christ is theirs – the hearer of the gospel or the one who receives the Christ whom the gospel commands?⁷ It seems clear that only such as have embraced Christ are entitled to have this assurance. It is this persuasion that both Calvin and Bruce insist upon as being the spiritual eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. In their view, the Lord’s Supper is especially designed to nourish assurance of our title to Christ and our interest in Him. Bruce’s ministry coincided with the change in emphasis over the definition of faith. Macleod numbers him among a small group – “Men of the Sub-Reformation age”. He is a link between the first and second Reformations in Scotland.

In Bruce’s sacramental theology, faith is described, as we have tried to show, in terms coming close to assurance or at least to a faith free from fetters. In his discussion of the faith that is saving, he meets the weakest believer and acknowledges faith to consist in the desire for mercy. One very conspicuous

⁵See Bruce’s discussion of this on pages 85-88 of The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper.

⁶The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper, p 85.

⁷Scottish Theology, pp 28,29.

feature of Bruce’s sermons is how low he descends for the encouragement of the doubting and trembling believer. This can be found in his other published sermons also. He speaks for the benefit of weak believers when he says that the weakest faith will be afraid to call God Father, but that it cannot admit the contrary. He dwells on the question of how faith is wrought in the soul and how we may know we have it. This balance is, in our view, one of the excellent features of the Calvinism of our Westminster Confession, where the subject is dealt with comprehensively in the chapters on Assurance and the Lord’s Supper, in both of which the language of sealing is used.

Before we pass from this subject, we must briefly touch on Bruce’s discussion of assurance in the fifth sermon. Bringing his hearers to make personal inquiry of whether they have true faith or not, he identifies faith with a thirst of the heart for reconciliation. This thirst, the Lord will always answer with some measure of the possession of that peace desired. The effect is calmness in the soul and a “taste of mercy” with a resulting joy. Principal Macleod says that the first act of believing has “the germ of conviction that I indeed believe”.⁸ This taste, or “feeling of mercy”, as Bruce calls it, is a pledge of the confirmation to come and keeps the soul from fainting. The feeling of mercy which the Lord gives in answer to the desire makes the soul dare to say what he did not dare to say before, that mercy belongs to me. Assurance of mercy arises therefore from that feeling of mercy in the heart and conscience of one who has fled to God rather than away from Him. The feeling and the assurance are directly linked, and so, Bruce argues, assurance rises out of faith and grows stronger with faith. In this application of mercy to himself, Bruce teaches, the believer dares to say, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” It is as if no one had an interest in God’s mercy but myself. Faith also purifies and consecrates the whole soul to obedience and denial of self. It rests not only on the faithfulness and power of God, but “especially and chiefly upon the promise of grace and mercy in Christ”.⁹

(4) Preparation and conscience. Bruce descends to the place where the weakest believer may be found, in order to comfort and encourage him. Duly-prepared communicants “taste of the sweetness and of the powers of the life to come”¹⁰ and feel that mercy belongs to them personally. Thus his sacramental theology aims to raise believers up, in the proper use of the sacrament, to possess the heavenly life. Yet Bruce does not spare in dealing directly with the conscience on the duty of preparation.

The fourth and fifth sermons are devoted to the doctrine of preparation

⁸Scottish Theology, p 29.

⁹The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper, p 185.

¹⁰The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper, p 179.

and contain full instruction on that subject and practical application. Conscience, carefully defined, is shown to have five offices – observer, accuser, witness, judge and executioner. Bruce is most solemn in addressing the hardened conscience and labours to bring the Word to bear on all classes among his hearers. He concentrates on the need to obtain a clean conscience by fleeing to the merits of Christ.

Maintaining a healthy conscience is also one of his chief concerns and it is here that he addresses the question of due preparation for the Lord’s Supper. Three particular directions are given. Besides keeping a “steadfast persuasion of the mercy of God in Christ”, believers must flee from sin, or “bid good-night to your lusts and renounce the affections of your heart”. The third means of preserving a healthy conscience is to “study to do well – to do better and better continually; at least in purpose of heart to do better daily”. In other words, by the exercise of evangelical repentance, as that would later be defined in the Shorter Catechism, the conscience is maintained in a healthy state.

The chief points of examination of our conscience are two – whether we have peace with God and whether we have love towards our neighbour. Concerning the former, Bruce calls believers to look for a harmony between the heart, the mouth and the hand. This is evidence that the Holy Spirit has wrought faith in the soul and so brought the soul into peace with God. Bruce shows that it is by the outward fruit in the life that we can come to be sure of our salvation. No less is this true with respect to love for our neighbour, which Bruce deals with most faithfully. “Peace and amity” are pressed on all as essential. It may be of interest to note that, in the early Reformed Church, the Lord’s Supper was sometimes postponed because of quarrels between communicants and that a special day of reconciliation was appointed in some places to reconcile parties before they sat together round the communion table.¹¹

Bruce recommends frequent receiving of the sacrament. He says that every day would not be too often if properly prepared. He places great stress on the centrality of the desire for mercy and the desire after new obedience in approaching the ordinance. He also says that doubting is never entirely extinct here but that God preserves the gracious soul from despair, even in the darkest of times. He gives three proofs that grace is still in the soul even when greatly clouded by corruption: (1) the smallest sparks of grace are never completely idle in you, (2) conscience is never totally silent but speaks “at least once every 24 hours”, and (3) grace forces the soul to cry out against

¹¹See Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland, chapter 5 – “Keeping the Peace”, especially pages 232-235 and 258-261.

the sin it finds within. Where these are absent, Bruce judges that soul to be spiritually dead.

He gives instructive advice to the gracious soul who feels near to despairing of God’s mercy because of the sin he finds. First he calls such to recall their past experience: “Rest your assurance on the fact that as He loved you once, He will love you always and will assuredly restore you to that love before you die”. Bruce’s second point of advice is to look in their hearts for love to their neighbour and particularly to the members of Christ’s body. The practical worth of such possibly surprising advice will be known to those who have passed through the doubt of which Bruce speaks.

Let us now attempt to bring together the four threads which we have identified in Bruce’s sacramental theology. These are (1) the sacramental union, (2) word and sacrament, (3) faith and assurance and (4) preparation and conscience.

Christ is spiritually present in the sacrament to faith; His body and blood, the substance and the virtue flowing from Him, to which true believers have a title, is offered and promised by Him in the sacrament. The sacramental union takes place when the believer receives in his soul the thing signified as he considers the elements and outward actions. His eating and drinking consists in a firm belief and persuasion of Christ and His benefits as his own personally. Thus the sacrament seals to the believing soul that which the words of institution declare and the gospel proclaims. The child of God, prepared by evangelical repentance and possessing sanctity of heart and life, grows in faith to an assurance that Christ is indeed his and has his soul enlarged in love, as Christ’s dwelling place, by the Spirit. In the sacrament he gets a better grip of Christ than he had before.

It is clear that Bruce’s aim in all five sermons is to bring believers to that full assurance of which he speaks so much. He views the sacrament as designed specifically for that purpose. While he does speak very briefly of it as a memorial and as a public witness, these are not the primary ends of the Lord’s Supper. It is this emphasis on the sacrament as a nourishing ordinance that we believe places Bruce’s contribution among those strongly Calvinistic statements of the doctrine which we ought to cherish.

By faith we believe the promises made to us by God; by hope we expect to receive the good things which God has promised. So that faith has properly for its object the promise, and hope has for its object the things promised and the execution of the promise. Faith regards its object as present, but hope regards it as future. Faith precedes hope and is its foundation. We hope for eternal life, because we believe the promises which God has made respecting it; and if we believe these promises, we must expect their effect.

Robert Haldane

FREE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF SCOTLAND – CONGREGATIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS – 2008

| CONGREGATION | MINISTER
(Interim Moderator)* | SUSTENTATION FUND | | HOME MISSION FUND | | COLLEGE & LIBRARY FUND | | BOOKROOM FUND | | GENERAL BUILDING FUND | | OUTREACH FUND | | JEWISH & FOREIGN MISSION FUND | | DOMINIONS & OVERSEAS FUND | | TOTAL | |
|—————————————–|———————————-|——————-|———-|——————-|———-|————————|———-|—————|———-|———————–|—|—————|—|——————————-|—|—————————|—|——-|–|
| | | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | | |
| NORTHERN PRESBYTERY | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Aberdeen | Rev D W B Somerset | 7,238.52 | 10.00 | 448.20 | 10.00 | 90.00 | 10.00 | 602.69 | 70.00 | 8,479.41 | | | | | | | | | |
| Creich, Dornoch, etc | Rev G G Hutton | 6,000.00 | 269.20 | 556.62 | 101.00 | 91.00 | 96.00 | 881.23 | 234.20 | 8,229.25 | | | | | | | | | |
| Deviot, Tomatin & Stratherrick | Rev G G Hutton | 4,536.26 | 172.04 | 304.20 | 160.36 | 148.70 | 128.92 | 486.19 | 162.54 | 6,099.21 | | | | | | | | | |
| Dingwall & Beauty | Rev N M Ross | 16,096.05 | 515.83 | 1,286.35 | 374.81 | 410.96 | 521.60 | 2,120.25 | 551.34 | 21,879.19 | | | | | | | | | |
| Halkirk, Strathy, Thurso & Wick | Rev N M Ross | 5,088.20 | 807.92 | 533.72 | 386.97 | 242.95 | 134.10 | 896.67 | 307.31 | 8,397.70 | | | | | | | | | |
| Inverness | Rev N G Hutton | 22,866.23 | 1,381.19 | 2,561.94 | 694.03 | 596.05 | 1,291.21 | 5,284.27 | 818.63 | 35,497.59 | | | | | | | | | |
| Kintochervie & Scourie | Rev N M Ross | 2,132.31 | 262.56 | 277.56 | 132.69 | 99.87 | 130.64 | 954.86 | 201.28 | 4,191.77 | | | | | | | | | |
| | | 63,961.57 | 3,418.64 | 5,988.59 | 1,859.86 | 1,681.53 | 2,312.47 | 11,228.16 | 2,345.30 | 92,774.12 | | | | | | | | | |
| SOUTHERN PRESBYTERY | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Barnoldswick | Rev J MacLeod | 7,087.68 | 162.00 | 199.00 | 261.92 | 842.94 | 192.94 | 1,998.77 | 342.00 | 11,087.25 | | | | | | | | | |
| Broadstairs | Rev J MacLeod | 6,637.95 | – | 84.62 | – | – | – | 501.54 | – | 7,224.11 | | | | | | | | | |
| Chesley | Rev R MacLeod | 3,059.45 | 251.53 | 490.89 | 178.84 | 159.61 | 167.43 | 1,775.75 | – | 1,775.75 | | | | | | | | | |
| Dundee, Perth & Stirling | Rev H M Cartwright | 18,800.41 | 220.26 | 1,599.74 | 375.23 | 299.72 | 700.33 | 2,049.49 | 339.41 | 5,006.07 | | | | | | | | | |
| Edinburgh | Rev H M Cartwright | 498.20 | 10.00 | 20.00 | 20.00 | 10.00 | 20.00 | 48.20 | 10.00 | 576.40 | | | | | | | | | |
| Fort William & Oban | Rev R MacLeod | 23,842.88 | 2,065.40 | 2,259.62 | 1,489.47 | 1,368.08 | 962.41 | 6,146.17 | 1,602.76 | 39,736.79 | | | | | | | | | |
| Glasgow | Rev R MacLeod | 23,842.88 | 2,065.40 | 2,259.62 | 1,489.47 | 1,368.08 | 962.41 | 6,146.17 | 1,602.76 | 39,736.79 | | | | | | | | | |
| Glenroch (Preaching Station) | Rev R MacLeod | 277.95 | 1,755.94 | 282.43 | 32.82 | 42.82 | 42.82 | 689.75 | 279.74 | 4,367.83 | | | | | | | | | |
| Greene | Rev H M Cartwright | 7,143.00 | 250.00 | 220.00 | 210.00 | 150.00 | 200.00 | 1,820.00 | 150.00 | 10,143.00 | | | | | | | | | |
| London | Rev J MacLeod | 22,081.38 | 761.00 | 1,597.69 | 700.00 | 700.00 | 700.00 | 934.33 | 1,250.00 | 28,724.40 | | | | | | | | | |
| Santa Fe, Texas | Rev L T Smith | – | – | 1,556.62 | – | – | – | – | – | 1,556.62 | | | | | | | | | |
| | | 90,117.33 | 3,998.14 | 9,784.12 | 3,497.89 | 3,563.17 | 2,985.93 | 16,474.89 | 4,161.34 | 134,582.81 | | | | | | | | | |
| OUTER ISLES PRESBYTERY | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Achmore | Rev D Campbell | 2,566.24 | 336.92 | 119.97 | 24.23 | 92.92 | 86.51 | 376.51 | 111.61 | 3,714.81 | | | | | | | | | |
| Breaclete (Mission Station) | Rev D Campbell | 546.00 | 50.00 | 110.00 | 70.00 | 30.00 | 100.00 | 180.00 | 100.00 | 1,186.00 | | | | | | | | | |
| Ness | Rev A W MacColl | 8,532.95 | 58.46 | 283.00 | 15.00 | 25.00 | 10.00 | 153.74 | 18.00 | 9,097.15 | | | | | | | | | |
| North Harris | Rev J B Jardine | 7,305.59 | 149.33 | 339.25 | 144.51 | 126.51 | 114.69 | 344.25 | 173.92 | 8,696.05 | | | | | | | | | |
| North Tolsta | Rev D Campbell | 12,973.65 | 768.46 | 938.65 | 313.66 | 414.16 | 377.94 | 1,637.54 | 723.56 | 18,147.62 | | | | | | | | | |
| North Uist | Rev D Macdonald | 7,849.24 | 373.94 | 695.76 | 296.15 | 293.33 | 351.02 | 707.04 | 333.84 | 10,860.22 | | | | | | | | | |
| South Harris | Rev L D Macdonald | 11,121.23 | 274.46 | 1,345.64 | 242.46 | 247.92 | 273.46 | 1,084.62 | 275.46 | 14,925.27 | | | | | | | | | |
| Stornoway | Rev L D Macdonald | 17,691.85 | 700.00 | 1,600.00 | 700.00 | 900.00 | 700.00 | 2,448.59 | 1,082.05 | 25,822.49 | | | | | | | | | |
| Uig | Rev D Campbell | 4,489.00 | 101.00 | 185.00 | 106.00 | 113.00 | – | 220.00 | 103.00 | 5,317.00 | | | | | | | | | |
| | | 73,075.75 | 2,812.37 | 5,617.27 | 1,912.01 | 2,241.84 | 2,013.62 | 7,156.31 | 2,941.44 | 97,766.51 | | | | | | | | | |

4. A High Sacramental Theology (2)

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