Taken, with editing, from John B Johnston, Remains of the Rev Robert Shirra, Edinburgh, 1851. This is the first part of a series of seven conversations, under the heading “A Death-bed Dialogue”, between Shirra (1724-1803) of Kirkcaldy and Thomas Lister (1739-1766) of Dundee. Both men were Secession ministers. It is not intended to print the other parts.
Being informed that Mr Lister was in the dark as to the state of his soul, I waited upon him; and inquired how it was with his inner man, and what he had to say concerning the Lord’s goodness. His reply was: “Nothing; I have nothing to say; I am a poor stupid one”.
I asked him if he had not, in some period in his life, met with deliverances from the Lord and found joy in His Word? He answered, “The stony-ground hearers received the Word with joy: and although I have met with deliverances, they were such as were common” [to both believers and unbelievers].
I observed that it seemed to be a common deliverance, a common mercy, that Jacob spoke of on his deathbed: “The God which fed me all my life long, unto this day, and the angel who redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads” (Gen 48:15,16). And it is a common relation, a common deliverance, that David pleads: “Thou art He that took me out of the womb” (Ps 22:9). And it follows, “Thou art my God from my mother’s belly” (v 10). “Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn Thy commandments” (Ps 119:73). Now God makes, fashions, and takes all from their mother’s womb and, in these respects, He is the God and deliverer of all.
Yet none but a believer makes this use of these common relations and mercies – to cry for understanding that he may learn God’s commandments and that God may not be far from him, as in Psalm 22:11. In a day when God hides Himself, faith can take an argument from a general relation, until it gets a more special one to plead upon.
We read the parable of the sower (Matt 13:18-24), with which we compared Hebrews 6:1-11. Here we observed four things: (1.) There are only four sorts of hearers in the visible Church. (2.) The attainments of the stony-ground hearers are greater than those of the wayside hearers; and the attainments of the thorny-ground hearers are greater than those of the stony-ground hearers. (3.) It is the attainments of the thorny-ground hearers which Paul describes: once enlightened, tasting of the heavenly gift, made partakers of the Holy Ghost, tasting the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come” (Heb 6:4,5). That these are the attainments of the thorny-ground hearers is evident from verses 7 and 8: “The earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it . . . but . . . bareth thorns and briers . . . is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned”. (4.) As the attainments of the three first sorts of hearers differ gradually, the one from the other – the second rising above the first, and the third above the second – so the work on the good-ground hearers differs not only gradually, but specifically, in the very nature of it, from the work on the stony and thorny-ground hearers.
Paul says to the Hebrew believers, who were good-ground hearers: “We are persuaded better things of you” (v 9) – better than what? Than that illumination, tasting of the heavenly gift, partaking of the Holy Ghost, tasting the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come. Men may have these, and yet go to hell and be damned; but the things we are persuaded of you “accompany salvation”. And Paul instances one of these better things – their “work and labour of love to the saints”; he says, “God is not unrighteous, to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed towards His name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister” (v 10). Here is love to the saints, not only in word, but also in deed. Now I pose this to your conscience and charge it to tell the truth before God, who is omniscient, Do you love the saints?
Mr Lister answered, “If my heart does not deceive me, I love the saints”. Then, said I, that is a thing better than receiving the “Word with joy”, than being “enlightened”, than “tasting of the heavenly gift”, etc; it is one of the “things that accompany salvation”. God will not damn the man that loves the saints (1 Jn 3:14).
We proceeded next to observe that the self-emptiness to be perceived in him was another evidence in him of the grace of God, which is always accompanied with self-abasement. “Surely”, says Agur, “I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy” (Prov 30:2,3). He answered, “My self-emptiness is not of the right kind”.
Upon which I quoted: Jesus “spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others. Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. . . . and the publican standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:9-13). Here the publican owns that he is not righteous, but unrighteous, a sinner; and so betakes himself for salvation to the mercy of God, as flowing out through the blood of Christ. Now, tell me, what do you think of this prayer? I ask if you can feelingly put it up? He answered, “It suits my case so exactly, as if the Spirit had composed it for me alone”.
“Then,” said I, “the publican went down to his house justified rather than the other,” so we translate it; but Cameron (John Cameron (died 1625) was a Scottish theologian of Amyraldian views who spent most of his life in France.) reads it: “He went to his house justified, and not the other”. The Pharisee was justified by himself and condemned by God; but the publican was justified freely by the grace of God, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.
We proceeded, thirdly, to consider Matthew 5:6: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled”. We observed that desires in the soul are what hunger and thirst are in the body. To “hunger and thirst after righteousness” is to desire communion with Christ in His justifying righteousness, and conformity to Him in His holiness (Phil 3:7-9). Now, I ask you, are there not desires in your soul after Christ? Is not your heart crying, “O living God, for Thee”? He said, “I cannot speak of my desires”. I asked him, Is it not your burden and grief that your desires after Christ are not so constant and strong as they should be? He replied, “It is my burden and grief”.
I then said, The grace of God is in you; a desire of grace is an evidence of grace; and, as Bradford said to Careless (John Bradford, prominent among the English Reformers, was martyred in 1555 under Queen Mary; John Careless, a weaver who was one of Bradford’s special friends, was imprisoned for his faith and died in prison in 1556.): “Thy sins are undoubtedly pardoned, for God hath given thee a believing and penitent heart;” that is to say, a heart which desires to believe and repent, for such an one is taken by Him for a believing and penitent heart indeed. A sense and hatred of corruption opposite to grace is an evidence, though among the least, of the reality of grace; thus a sense and hatred of unbelief is a sign of faith; a sense and hatred of heart-hardness is a sign of heart-softness.
Here he opened his mind more fully, and told me: “The Lord began a work in my soul about nine or ten years of age; then my conscience was struck with the arrows of conviction, for the sins of my former years, which made me tremble; and the remembrance of them still galls me. Indeed these convictions were a means in the Lord’s hands of keeping me from youthful follies at the college; but when I heard Christians talk of words coming with power for their relief, it did always sink my spirits, as I had always so little to say that way.”
I answered, You know that self-examination is an ordinance appointed by God for bringing persons to clearness as to the quality of the work on them. And from what has passed, you may perceive the work of God on your heart to be saving, and so a spring of comfort, so far as it evidences union to Christ, in whom “all the seed of Israel shall be justified”.
But, as the comfort arising from marks [of grace] is very variable and fluctuating, it is both your duty and interest to have your eye fixed on an absolute promise, such as: “I am the Lord thy God” (Ex 20:2); or: “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions, for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Is 43:25). The blood of Jesus shed for the remission of sins, as brought nigh in these or the like words, is a never-failing and an overflowing source of consolation. “All true Christians”, as a godly divine expresses it, “when they come to die and to knock at heaven’s gate, for entrance into their Master’s joy, think far more of the blood that bought the inheritance than anything wrought in them to make them meet for it, or than any pains they have been at in walking or running their race towards it.” The greatest part of the believer’s inherent righteousness, in this world, lies in his faith going out of himself to Christ for all.