Unsearchable Riches, Selected Sermons of Rev Donald MacLean, published by Reformation Press, 213 pages, hardback £17.25, paperback £8.95.
After a 10-page biographical sketch of Mr MacLean, there follow 12 sermons, mostly from the second half of his ministry. The first of these is from Ephesians 3:8, the verse from which the book’s title is taken. After speaking of “Paul the saint” and “Paul the preacher”, Mr MacLean goes on to describe “the content of Paul’s preaching” – “the unsearchable riches of Christ”. “If we think of these riches being in a field,” he declares, “then it is a field without boundary, riches that can never be exhausted by searching.” There are “infinite riches . . . riches of glory in the person of Christ as the Son of the Father in truth and love”. Yet “not only is He the Son of God, but He is the Son of God who became the Son of man. . . . It was . . . our humanity through which the glory of God was manifested in this world – and through which the glory of God is to be manifested throughout the endless ages of eternity, for the glorified Saviour is the Lamb in the midst of the throne.”
The preacher goes on to refer to the unsearchable riches of Christ’s office as mediator – as Prophet, Priest and King (these three points provide the subjects for three later sermons in this book). Mr MacLean ended by exclaiming, “How greatly blessed Paul was! How greatly blessed the people of God are! And what a blessed gospel it is to preach! How worthy it is to be preached, and how worthy it is to live for, and (as many of the people of God in Scotland believed and proved in the past) it is even worthy to die for.”
The final sermon here is the last Mr MacLean ever preached. Its text is the words of the Saviour: “Come unto Me . . .” (Matthew 11:28). Naturally it is much shorter than the others, as the preacher was now becoming frail, but it is a proclamation of the same unsearchable riches that he had always delighted in.
Mr MacLean preached with authority. And while such authority does not always carry over into the cold print of the printed page, yet those of us who once heard him preach regularly can recognise, in the sermons printed here, something of that authority still. May his sermons in printed form be blessed to the spiritual good of many readers, including those who never had the privilege of hearing him preach!
Further volumes of Mr MacLean’s sermons are planned. It is to be hoped that sales of this volume will be more than sufficient to encourage the publishers to produce these others. These will be welcomed, not least, by those who profited by, Mr MacLean’s preaching as they sat under him.
1Both books are obtainable from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom.
The Way to True Happiness, by Ralph Venning, published by the Banner of Truth Trust in their Pocket Puritans series, paperback, 109 pages, £3.25.
A short introduction gives a brief account of the author, who lived from 1621 to 1674 and ministered in London. He was “highly respected and ‘much followed’ by fellow Puritans”.
This little book gives us a single, substantial sermon, on Matthew 7:21, in which the Saviour warned those who were not fit to enter heaven. Says Venning, “None can enter the kingdom of heaven, but they who are prepared for it; and none are such but they who do the will of God”. Scriptures are generally taken from the Authorised Version, but sometimes the author has quoted it somewhat freely.
Here we have faithful warning and a gracious encouragement to pursue godliness. Venning prayed that his readers would have God’s kingdom as their portion. May we join in that desire!