The preservation of these memorials of Cook’s ministry is due, under the hand of God, to the intelligent industry of Duncan MacIver, a cabinet-maker in Inverness. His labour in taking down these excellent sermons was the fruit of his profound spiritual attachment to the gracious herald of the gospel of Christ who delivered them.
MacIver left in manuscript an account of his own early religious experience. He did not intend it for any other purpose than to remind himself of the Lord’s goodness to him. But I venture to introduce it into this preface, even at the risk of appearing to violate MacIver’s pious intention. I do this for three reasons: first, it gives a glimpse of Cook that one would not willingly miss; second, the experience recorded in it is of distinct religious value; and third, it reveals the hidden springs of that activity which resulted in our now possessing these sermons.
While still a youth, MacIver left home in the Black Isle, Ross-shire, for Edinburgh about 1851. In 1852 the Lord laid His hand on him in a serious illness. It pleased the Lord at the same time to bring his sins to his remembrance, and it seemed, for a time, as if mind and body must sink under the intolerable burden. In his sore trouble he cried unto the Lord, who promises His people that, while they yet call, He will answer them. The Lord was found of him and, as he had ground to hope, made His great love in Christ known to him. The effect was that he abhorred himself on account of his previous vain manner of life. Along with spiritual health, physical health began to return. At this stage, however, his doctor ordered him home and, as he now enjoyed peace of conscience, he looked forward to the happiness of meeting pious relatives in the North again, such as his much-loved uncle, Kenneth MacIver, a cabinetmaker in Inverness, and his own mother, not less distinguished for her piety than her brother Kenneth.
The rest will be told in MacIver’s own words: “On the Monday evening [this was about the end of December 1852] as I was to leave on the following morning for the North, the people of the house in which I lodged and one or two friends from outside had a social tea-party to congratulate me on my being restored to health again. Tea over, the usual pack of cards was brought forward. I rose from the table refusing to join in the game, and sat at a distance reading D’Aubigné’s History of the Reformation. Card-playing continued for a long time. I was urged to come to the fireside, and so I sat between Mrs Drummond (his landlady) and the fire.
“I continued my reading, forgetting everything else, until, alas, a rap came to the door. It was a person wanting a word with Mrs Drummond. She rose hastily from the table, clapped her cards into my hands, and I, to my sore after experience, took them from her, and played for, I think, not more than three minutes, when she returned. But this action of mine was enough to open the door for the flood to rush in upon a poor inexperienced soul. The immediate feeling was that of a cold sensation in the heart which oozed out through the whole body. But I did not quite understand it, until I went to my bedside to pray. I found that the Lord had left me. I could get nothing, no Scripture, no warmth. I went to bed thinking that, when I would turn up my promises in the morning, I would recover all.
“In the morning I hurried to my Bible, but the first sentence to meet my eye was: ‘No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God,’ flashing my last night’s card-playing on me, concerning which I had before this said that, although I would live a thousand years, a card would never be seen in my hand. This was a terrible blow when about to leave for the North to tell my friends what mercies I had experienced. On the way, before arriving at Inverness, I looked again into my Bible, and the first sentence that met me was: ‘If any man draw back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him’. On arriving in the town, I again opened the Bible, and the first statement that met my eye was the still-more-terrifying Hebrews 6:4-8. All this made me think – so far was I now from telling my friends what the Lord had done for me – that if they knew what I was they would throw me outside and trample on me as on the mire of the streets. O that dreadful gloom over which I tried to keep a smiling face, while I thought there was no apostate in modern times but myself!
“I remained in Inverness over the New Year week, and liked to hear [at his uncle’s house] good people who visited at that time at worship and spoke of Christ, although to be seeing in them what I had forfeited was only adding to my grief. The half-yearly Communion was to be in Inverness on the first Sabbath of February, and everyone who came into Uncle’s house was delighted to have somehow heard that Mr Cook, Daviot, was expected to take a large part of the services. I had heard Mr Cook once some years before this, and I remembered that his declarations of the wrath of God against sin were such that I now thought that he would be to me the iron rod that would break me in pieces. To shun this I went over to Resolis, although afraid to see any person, even my mother. There my trouble increased. Every time I opened my Bible it was some alarming text that met me. I could not then look at the Bible – it was all against me – and I sometimes felt as if the air over me was full of the wrath of God and that my prayer might kindle it. But I carefully concealed my state.”
The manuscript then goes on to record his doleful experiences during that month of January, relieved, however, if only for moments, by meeting such men as James Thomson, who appears to have had an an answer in peace concerning Duncan’s case at the time of his great sickness in Edinburgh; Allan MacMaster, of whom he says that he would spend nearly whole nights in prayer; Rev Donald Sage, Resolis; Rev John Kennedy, Dingwall. He returned from Dingwall on the Monday before the first Sabbath of February, and the manuscript then proceeds: “Allan MacMaster and my mother were preparing to go to Inverness on Wednesday so as to be there at the Communion. I was not to go, but was not telling that I feared the iron rod.
“On the Tuesday afternoon, however, I received a letter from Uncle urgently requesting me to be present at Inverness that week, and adding that perhaps I would not regret it. This could not be respectfully refused, so I went along with Allan and Mother, walking at some distance from them lest I should be a muzzle on their godly converse. On the Thursday I went to the Free High to hear a Mr Shepherd who was highly spoken of, but I would not know a good sermon from a bad one. On the Friday I went to the North Church, understood much of what the Men said, and of their experience, but, alas, none of them came near to an apostate, fallen after tasting the sweet love of Christ.
“A great snowstorm fell on Friday night which blocked all roads. On Saturday there was word that no horse could take the road from Daviot, and that thus Mr Cook, who was expected to preach that day in the North Church, could not be present. I went with the friends to the North Church, where Mr Shepherd again preached in both Gaelic and English. The English sermon ended, I returned to Uncle’s – worthy Mr Rose, teacher, Beauly, walking before me and going before me up the stair to Uncle’s house.
“On opening the door of the sitting room, Mr Rose rushed forward. And on my entering the room after him who should I see there but Mr Cook, sitting on a low stool, and Mr Rose meantime holding his hand between his own hands. There were others in the room, and all seemed so happy to see Mr Cook. He had walked through the snow with his hands on the shoulders of two strong men, while another man, who walked in front, made a track for his feet. As he was taking off his leggings, which were full of snow, he kept looking at me sideways, as I stood as far from him as the room would allow. Mr Rose, observing me, said, ‘O won’t you give your hand to Mr Cook?’ I then went over and, in a cool way, stretched my hand, which he grasped and held. And seeming to forget himself and the hand he held, he began a soliloquy on the wonderful love that was in Christ to a poor sinner. My heart began to feel the thrill, but could not help thinking that, if he knew whose hand he held, that was not how he would speak to me.
“However, instead of the iron rod, it was love, pity and sympathy I met with, and this made me resolve to go on the morrow to the North Church, and it was well for me that this first meeting inclined me so. On Sabbath the declarations of the rich provision of the gospel for believers, for the righteous and for saints, and that there was a hell for rebellious sinners, I knew and understood well. As the communicants were going in to the second table (the first served that day by Mr Cook), my thoughts were going into eternity, the boundlessness of which was opening to my mind, and how awful the thought that the scream, ‘Lost, lost!’ would be filling eternity. In those thoughts I lost consciousness of my surroundings and of where I was, but was called back to consciousness by people around me rising on their feet and stretching themselves forward over my shoulders, wishing to see or hear.
“I then saw Mr Cook standing at the head of the table, as if in agony, with the palms of his hands together, and without uttering a word for some minutes. At last at the height of his voice he exclaimed, ‘Lost, lost, lost, O poor creature here today with that scream in your soul, I’ll tell this to thee: they are now in glory that had that scream before’. (My heart said, ‘O is that true?’) ‘Yes, it is true. They were lost in their feelings, and they were lost in justice, and they are now in glory.’ (My heart said, ‘Can that possibly be true?’) ‘Yes, it is possible. They were lost in their own judgement; yes, and they were lost by the Word of God, and they are now in glory. There was a child that strayed from his father’s house and wandered into a wood. Night came on; he could not make his way back; he was even afraid to move, lest he should go further away or fall into a pit. So he could do nothing but stand still, crying, “Lost, lost, lost!” And by this cry the father found the lost child. And you that have that scream in your soul, you have there a cry that was heard in glory, and that was it for which Christ came out of glory – “to seek and to save that which was lost,” and in your having that scream in your soul you have there an evidence that there is love in God.’
“Then followed a display of the revelation of that love in Christ coming to suffer and to die for that which was lost. Then my own case, with its fears and sufferings for the last month, was gone over as exactly as if he had been with me in every step. All was laid out before me, much better than I could tell it. He did not part with me until he came to distribute the elements, saying, ‘Now, as this is your case, we shall not be longer keeping from you the symbols of the death which He gave for you’. O how I wished I had been at that table, but I was not. Still, my state and feelings were touched upon in every sentence till the close of that service, turning what I was looking on as marks of wrath into evidences of love in God. Mr Cook’s second table service was to me just as wonderful. All that came over me in Edinburgh was set before me in a way that filled me with wonder. I wist not that it was true. I was bewildered. I left church hardly knowing whether I was walking on the earth or swimming in an ocean of love and wonder.
“He preached at night from the text, ‘Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy’. As he opened this subject, I thought the whole Bible shined on the sovereignty of God in appointing and hallowing that day, and on the awful guilt of despising the sovereign authority of God by profaning that day. It was rebellion against God. Thus was my whole life condemned. It was pointed out how this was a day which God gave to His own children to be a sign between Himself and them to the end of time. On this part, the love of God in appointing that day was so opened up that I was again cast into that ocean of the amazing love of God and had questions answered as if I had spoken them aloud. ‘When the Saviour,’ said he, ‘came into the world, Herd and the powers of hell awoke to pursue Him to the death. So also when He comes into a soul, all the powers of hell are against Him, to crucify Him in that soul.’ My heart said, ‘Alas! I joined with them. It was I myself that crucified Him from my soul.’ As soon as the thought passed through my heart, he said: ‘Is that your scream, “It was I myself that crucified Him from my soul”?’ Well, your scream will never be heard in hell.’
“On the Monday, Mr Cook preached from the text, ‘Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom’. This was another surprise to me. My past experiences and present thoughts were taken up and set before me. ‘What part of the soul,’ said he, ‘did Christ lay His hand upon and seize the soul by? He caught them by their sin. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?”‘ I understood that part. It was after leaping over the fence, and when on the edge of the precipice, I was bound; if allowed another leap I should have been over. ‘Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift’, and for that binding. Bewildered in love, mercy and wonder, another week passed over me. But soon these feelings abated; unbelieving suggestions began to spring up – that Mr Cook had mysteriously seen my state, that his pity and sympathy took him off his feet, that he was giving me more than the Scriptures would warrant him, and so forth.
“Still I desired to hear the same words again; they were so sweet and comforting. On the second Sabbath after this, I made my way to Daviot, in snow to the knees. Before I reached the end of the seat in the old church, a word in the first prayer seized me and had me over the very brink of hell, fearing that every word that was to follow would be a blast that would blow me over; instead of which every petition in that prayer was as if drawn out of my own heart, and my intense desire went out for those things which I so greatly needed, although I could not myself give utterance to my needs.”
Thus ends the manuscript, and thus also began MacIver’s attendance on Cook’s ministry, resulting in fruits which the Church of God shall not soon despise. Soon after this MacIver entered his uncle’s business in Inverness; he could then go more often to hear Cook preach, as Daviot was only about seven miles away. By and by it occurred to him that it would be a pity if no record should exist of Cook’s valuable preaching. He set himself to acquire the art of shorthand writing, and soon found he could almost give near-verbatim reports not only of Cook’s English sermons, but, what is more remarkable, of his Gaelic sermons also. Cook came to hear of MacIver’s plan and his approval of it is shown by his supplying MacIver with shorthand textbooks. Cook died in 1865 and MacIver on 6 August 1901.
This is the preface to Sermons (Gaelic and English) “by the late Rev Archibald Cook, Daviot, edited, with an introduction by Rev John R Mackay”; it was published in 1907. Mr Mackay was then the Free Presbyterian minister in Inverness. The preface is included in the volume of sermons by Cook being produced by Free Presbyterian Publications; the forthcoming volume is a translation of a later book of Gaelic sermons, also edited by Mr Mackay and first published in 1916. As reprinted here, the article has been edited (though not MacIver’s own account) and some details about the original volume omitted.
No one can truly believe in Christ without being, in the very act of faith, turned from sin unto God.
George W Bethune