5. Preacher of the Gospel
Roy Middleton
Becomes a probationer. John Love finished his divinity course in May 1778. The students’ association then concluded until the next term. Love’s diary of 13 May 1778 reads, “The Lord gave me something of His presence at the Society this night. It met in order to be dismissed. And, through the remaining part of the evening, He was graciously with me” (2:26-27).^2 The year ended, however, on a solemn and sad note for James Baillie’s students. Love’s diary for the 21 April 1778 refers to a discourse he was preparing, to be delivered before the professor and the class: “I could make no progress in my discourse; but I heard of the Professor’s being taken ill, so that I will not be required to deliver it to-morrow” (2:26-27). Just a week later Baillie was dead – he was just 55.
Having finished his divinity course, John Love returned to Paisley till he would apply for a licence to preach the gospel. On returning home he had a long conversation with his minister, James Morrison, which in Love’s words, “edified, cheered and comforted”. He then writes in his diary, “I felt encouraged, in my prospect of the work of the ministry, to think of laying the matter before the Lord, that He would give clearness in my going forward to it, so that I might venture to allow myself to be named to the Presbytery, as an applicant for licence by the month of August next. Felt an inclination towards ministerial work more stirred up in me than before. . . . Felt inclined to visit Mrs S, and had two passages of Scripture in my view, as very suitable to her case. Had a comfortable and refreshing meeting and conference with her. That part of a minister’s work, which consists in supporting and comforting the saints when in dark exercises, appeared sweet and desirable to me” (2:258-9).
In the weeks that followed, John Love experienced a measure of spiritual perplexity which seems to have temporarily shaken his resolve to enter the ministry. After his spiritual anxieties were removed, his call to serve Christ as a minister was finally resolved. The chief means used by the Lord to clear his way was James Durham’s Commentary on Revelation, which he had been reading since early June 1778. The details are in his diary insert for 12 June 1778: “I was stirred up, this morning, to bless the Lord for preserving in the Church the tract of Mr Durham on the ‘Call to the Ministry’, whereby I have thus, as it were, him to advise with, when such faithful, tender, conscientious ministers are nearly all gone. This makes me hope that the Lord intends to bless it for clearing my way to the ministry. I had designed to read it this day, and this confirms my purpose” (2:325-6).^3
After Durham’s tract had cleared his way, he applied to the Presbytery for licence. On 24 June 1778 he records that James Morrison wanted to see him: “He wishes me to hasten my trials, so that I may be licensed shortly after the meeting of Synod. O that I could get the matter put into the Lord’s hands! He proposed that I should take some old discourses, but this I declined. He then proposed that I should choose subjects for myself: this also I declined. I desire that all may come from the Lord Himself, in His own appointed way, without my having any hand in the matter. . . . My inclination to the work of the ministry is more solid, spiritual and believing, than ever. Though I see myself to be far, very far from what I should be, yet I hope in the Lord for endless supplies of grace” (2:354-5).
The last biographical note supplied by the editor comes after Love’s final diary insert printed in the Memorials; it is for Tuesday, 28 July 1778 and reads: “Mr Love was informed on this day that the Presbytery had appointed
as the subjects of his trial discourses the second clause of John 15:4 (‘Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me’), and the question, ‘Are we justified by faith alone?’ (2:454).
The Presbytery’s choice of the doctrine of justification as the theological topic on which Love would have to deliver a trial discourse fitted in rather well with some of his recent studies. On the day after James Morrison asked to see him, and a month before the Presbytery set the subjects for his trials, he wrote a paper titled, “On the definition of justification”. Love then went to Renfrew, just five miles from Paisley, mainly to visit his grandfather but also to see Colin Campbell, the minister of the Established Church there. Campbell persuaded Love to go with him on a pastoral visit to see a Mr H. In conversation, Love must have explained his morning activity of writing a paper on justification. At this point Mr H pressed the young student to read what Thomas Goodwin had written on justifying faith, and particularly on the gospel offer.^4
During the month of June 1778 Love was occupied in writing short papers on different aspects of the doctrine of salvation. There are three papers on the evidences of regeneration, another on justification, this time focusing on the imputed righteousness of Christ as the sole title to everlasting life, and one on the connection between regeneration and justification.^5 All these papers were written a month before his Presbytery’s decision that he would deal with justification by faith alone.
Prior to his trials for licence John Love paid a visit to James Alice, an Antiburgher minister in Paisley. Alice warned Love to expect difficulties in the work of the ministry. It is an indication of the intellectual abilities of the Secession ministry that Alice advised Love to read Thomas Boston’s Latin treatise on the accentual marks in the Hebrew text. Alice offered to let him read his copy of the book, “when I might feel inclined and ready for it” (2:400). John Love’s trials to become a probationer in the Church of Scotland were successful and he was licensed by the Presbytery of Paisley on 24 December 1778, when he was just 21.
How John Love came to write the Memorials before the age of 21.
Practically all the material that forms the two volumes of the Memorials was written before he was licensed by the Presbytery of Paisley. The reader is compelled to ask how a young man, converted for just three years, could write material revealing so firm a grasp of Reformed theology combined with such a depth of experimental religion. Before we seek to address that question, it
is useful to remember that others in the history of the Church have written similar material at a young age. The first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion was published when John Calvin was 27, and much of the material must have been written earlier. The vast body of writings of James Durham, to whom Love was indebted for clearing up his call to the ministry, was written by the age of the 36.
Looking specifically at the factors influencing John Love’s ability to write the material in the Memorials we would suggest the following:
(1) Though his parents were unconverted when he was a child, he was brought up in a home where family worship was held morning and evening.
By the age of 12 he had read the Bible through six times. Hence, from his earliest days he was familiar with the text of Scripture. Added to this, he learned The Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Divines from his earliest years and would, by this means, have had in his memory a systematic grasp of theology.
(2) Academically John Love was a prodigy.
Though not unique, it was rather unusual for a boy to go to university at the age of 10. From a very early age he had a love of mathematics and was competent in both Greek and Latin and could therefore read the New Testament in its original language.
(3) Following his recovery from a lapse into Socinianism, and his subsequent conversion, he had a consuming concern for Calvinistic orthodoxy.
(4) Private prayer and meditation on the Scriptures formed a significant part of his life after his conversion.
From the glimpse we have of this in his diary it seems that five to six hours of each day were given to prayer, Bible reading and meditation. Many of the papers in the Memorials are the fruit of these times of meditation on the Scriptures. One of the earliest accounts of Love states, “A favourite practice, which he continued to the end of his life, was to write short daily meditations, in a regular series, upon connected passages of Scripture”.^6
(5) His attendance at communion seasons and hearing outstanding ministers preach, along with fellowship with the godly in the west of Scotland, would have left an indelible impression on the young convert.
(6) However, by far the greatest influence was his vast reading in the last three years of his divinity course.
He seems to have absorbed the best of the Reformed divines of the Reformation and post-Reformation era, along with the English Puritans and seventeenth and eighteenth-century Scottish experimental writers.
^1This is a further section of an abridgement of a new introduction to John Love’s Memorials, which has now been republished, by Free Presbyterian Publications, and costs £35.50 for the two hardback volumes, running to around 1000 pages in total. The previous section, in November, described Love’s last years as a student. References to the Memorials are placed in the body of the text, with volume and page numbers in brackets.
^2It is not possible to determine how long this voluntary society continued after John Love left Glasgow. It appears to have been still in existence four years later in 1782, when Love sent an address to the “Brethren”. The address is in Memorials, vol 1, pp 457-460.
^3The tract of James Durham that he found so helpful occurs in his exposition of Revelation 1:20, “the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches” in Chapter 1, lecture 9 (on pp 66-77 of the Old Paths Publications reprint of James Durham, A Commentary on the Book of Revelation, 2000).
^4The treatise referred to is in The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Edinburgh, 1864, vol 8.
^5All these papers are preserved in Memorials, vol 2.
^6Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen, vol 5, p 385. The Dictionary account adds, “These, as well as his sermons, were written in shorthand and were therefore unintelligible until the key to his alphabet was found . . . otherwise [they] would not have seen the light.”