Brought unto the King, The Diary and Writings of Rhoda A Gosden
published by Gospel Standard Trust Publications, paperback, 166 pages, £6.50.
Rhoda Fenner was born in 1872 in West Sussex and, as a young woman of 22, she began to record her spiritual experiences in a diary. She continued her diary until she married John H Gosden, a respected pastor among the Gospel Standard Strict Baptists. One feels a sense of disappointment that the diary was not continued longer, as she consistently gives expression to the reality of true religion in these pages – a reality that one would wish to see much more of in this spiritually-dark generation.
Much of what is recorded consists in her reactions to the preaching of her pastor, J K Popham, of Brighton. On 23 March 1908, having enjoyed the morning service, she notes that she felt that she did “disclaim all my own filthy self-righteousness, and in my very heart did embrace and submit to Christ’s righteousness. . . . By faith I do trust I saw Christ made unto me righteousness. Now I cannot describe the perfection I saw in this righteousness – that it perfectly satisfied the demands of the law, that God was well pleased with me, a guilty sinner – with this righteousness imputed to me and put upon me.
“My very soul wanted to praise the three Persons in the Trinity for this imputed righteousness. How I desired to praise the dear Holy Spirit that He ever condescended to show me my need of it, that He applied the law to my conscience, which demanded a better righteousness than my own, made me feel an attraction to it, and in due time applied it. And praise to God the Father that from all eternity He devised this way and put me into the covenant, that He gave His Son to be my law-fulfiller and accepted me – a worthless sinner – in Christ, that ever He could look upon me and smile upon my soul through the perfect atonement and righteousness of Christ.”
This welcome book also contains some “notes on her life” supplied by her husband, who includes some pages of her later reflections on her spiritual experience. Also included are a few letters and poems, and a sermon by Mr Popham “on the occasion of receiving [Rhoda Fenner] into the church”.
The books reviewed are obtainable from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom.
One Lord, One Plan, One People, A Journey Through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation
by Roger Crooks, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, paperback, 479 pages, £8.50.
This book aims to describe the main features of the 66 books of the Bible, showing, as the blurb puts it, that the New Testament sheds light on the Old, and the Old Testament provides the framework for understanding the New. Each chapter of the book, generally, surveys one book of the Bible and is likely to be helpful to those who are not yet familiar with the Scriptures. One welcomes the effort made by the author, a Presbyterian minister in Belfast, to show that the Old Testament books point forward to Jesus Christ.
The fact that the author summarises scriptures rather than quoting them means that problems with Bible versions are not frequent. One does have difficulties at times with a rather jocular style, but this becomes less frequent as the book proceeds. Again it is disconcerting that the author’s sporting interests feature prominently in the brief biographical details supplied.