True Faith¹

John Dick

Faith implies giving up our own righteousness as the foundation of our hope. It is not a partial but an unreserved reliance on Christ for salvation. To believe is not to call on Him to assist us in what we have commenced and carried on to a certain extent, but to commit the work of our salvation wholly to Him from a consciousness of our utter inability even to begin. This is the test of genuine faith. The faith of God’s elect leads the sinner away from himself to the Saviour, fixes his undivided attention on the cross; he derives his peace and hope solely from the sacrifice which was offered upon it.

It is a spurious faith which forms a treacherous alliance with good works, and attempts to introduce them as a partial cause of our acceptance with God. “To him that worketh,” says Paul, “the reward is not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth in Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom 4:4,5). These words are worthy of attention. To work and to believe are opposed to each other. He who believes does not work; that is, he does not work that he may live, perform duties with a view to obtain God’s favour, associate his own obedience with that of the Redeemer as the ground of his justification. He simply believes; that is, he receives the testimony of God concerning His Son, and expects salvation through Him alone.

It is on this account that true faith is so rare. Men would not object to the aid of Jesus Christ, for their own power is insufficient to save them; but to depend on Him to the exclusion of all their own qualifications and good deeds, to owe every thing to Him, and to have nothing left of which they may boast as their own – all this is so contrary to the natural bias of the heart, so mortifying to pride, so destructive of our schemes for appearing respectable in our own eyes and maintaining what we falsely call the dignity of human nature, that we all revolt from it at first with secret indignation, and will not

¹Taken, with editing, from Dick’s Lectures on Theology, vol 3.

submit to the humiliating plan, till we have been prepared by the discipline of the law and the grace of the gospel.

It is the function of faith to receive Christ as He is revealed in the Scriptures. He is offered freely, and we must receive Him without presenting any price in exchange. He is exhibited as the only Saviour; and to receive Him as such is to trust, neither in the merits of any saint, the intercession of any angel, or our own repentance and obedience, but in Him whose arm brought us salvation, and who claims the undivided glory of a work which He accomplished without an associate. To believe is to submit to the righteousness of God; it is to desist from our vain attempts to establish our own righteousness, and to say, “In the Lord have I righteousness and strength”.

Musical Instruments in Worship¹

2. Their Use in Old Testament History

Rev K M Watkins

Musical instruments were invented in an entirely secular context, for it was Jubal, seven generations from Adam and son of ungodly Lamech, who “was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ” (Gen 4:21). So neither Adam and Eve in the sinless worship of Eden, nor men like Abel and Enoch in their spiritual worship afterwards, could have used them. Neither do we have any record of subsequent patriarchs such as Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph using them in worship.

Yet instruments were used for secular purposes. Ungodly Laban chided Jacob for leaving without a family celebration: “Wherefore didst thou flee away secretly, and steal away from me; and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away with mirth, and with songs, with tabret and harp?” (Gen 31:27). Job speaks of carnal men at harvest time, who “take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ” (Job 21:12). But for two and a half millennia – more than half of the Old Testament dispensation – no musical instrument was used in God’s worship!

Instruments were used to express patriotic joy at times of national deliver-

¹The first article asserted that instrumental music appearing in Christian worship is a strange phenomenon, given its almost universal absence from the Church for more than a millennium. Its appearance in Reformed churches is even stranger, given that the purest streams of the Protestant Reformation cast out instruments along with various Roman Catholic inventions. Strangest of all, Scripture, the only authoritative guide for worship, gives no warrant for using instruments in Christian worship. Their use in worship was tied to the elaborate ceremonial of the Old Testament dispensation. In this second article we review the historical evidence of the Old Testament.

ance. “Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances” (Ex 15:20). She was celebrating Israel’s recent deliverance at the Red Sea, not engaging in formal worship, nor setting a pattern for it. For only women were involved, whereas Israel’s public worship was always to be conducted by men. Also they danced as well as used these percussion instruments called timbrels; and dancing was never appointed for the solemn worship of God.²

Instruments and worship were not brought together until the time of Moses. In Numbers 10:1-2, “The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Make thee two trumpets of silver”. In addition to secular uses,³ the Lord appointed them to be used in worship: “Ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings” (v10). This being the first time instruments were to be used in worship, the lessons are vital.

1. The first use of instruments in worship was expressly instituted by God. He did not leave it to men to introduce them. Prescribing elements of worship is always God’s prerogative; only He has the right to do it, and that includes the use or non-use of instruments. This sets a precedent. God does not leave His Church, at any period of its existence, to decide whether instruments should be used in worship. We may use them in Christian worship only if Scripture shows that this is His will.

2. God specified the exact number and kind of instruments that were to be used: two trumpets, made of silver. Even when God did require instruments in worship, He did not leave men to choose what instruments to use. The idea that God has left the Christian Church free to choose the instruments that it thinks most suitable, whether an organ or anything else, is unscriptural.

3. From their very first use in worship, instruments were to be used only in connection with animal sacrifices – “over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings”. This connection with sacrifice remained throughout the rest of the Old Testament dispensation. When Christ sacrificed Himself on the accursed tree, thereby putting an end to animal sacrifices, that necessarily brought an end to the use of instruments in worship. To go on using them now is contrary to the finished nature of Christ’s work.

4. Only the priests were to play the trumpets. “The sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow with the trumpets” (v8). This reinforces the connection

²It was the same later when Jephthah’s daughter “came out to meet” her victorious father “with timbrels and with dances” (Jdg 11:34); and when David killed Goliath and “the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music. And the women answered one another as they played” (1 Sam 18:6,7).

³“For the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps” (v2), and “if ye go to war” (v9).

with the typical service of the Old Testament. Playing instruments in worship was a priestly activity, and when the priesthood ended with the sacrifice of Christ, the great High Priest, the instruments ended too.

1. The first use of instruments in worship did not accompany congregational singing of praise. The Mosaic ritual gives no warrant for using instruments to accompany singing as is done in many Christian churches today.

From Moses until David, we have no record of instruments being used in worship in any other way, not even during the four degenerate centuries of the Judges, when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Jdg 17:6). We have Saul meeting “a company of prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, before them” who prophesied (1 Sam 10:5); and, later, the prophet Elisha asking for a minstrel to play an instrument, and then prophesying (in 2 Ki 3:15-16). Neither of these were part of formal, congregational worship. Both involved only prophets, not priests, without any connection to the tabernacle or temple. The prophetic office was temporary, pointing to the temporary nature of instruments in the things of God. No one was singing, so this lends no support for using instruments to accompany congregations today in their singing of praise.

It is not until David’s time that we meet with instruments in worship on a grander scale. Significantly, for those who find it hard to conceive of singing praise without musical accompaniment, by that time only about one quarter of the Old Testament dispensation remained. The best harpist in Israel, David, was chosen to play for the King. “David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him” (1 Sam 16:23). This secular use of music to lift Saul’s mood had nothing to do with worship.

It took two attempts to bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. The first failed because it was not done according to God’s appointed will. Referring to the death of Uzzah, David confessed, “The Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought Him not after the due order” (1 Chr 15:13).

On the second, successful, attempt, “all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the cornet, and with trumpets, and with cymbals, making a noise with psalteries and harps” (1 Chr 15:28). This use of instruments was strictly regulated: “David spoke to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of music, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy” (v16). David was now painstakingly careful to follow the “due order”, doing exactly and only what God had revealed to him: even down to the very instruments used.

As always, the instruments were used on that occasion only in connection

with typical, temporary institutions: not only the ark and the Levites, but also sacrifice, for “it was so, that when they that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings” (2 Sam 6:13); and when they reached their destination, “they offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings before God” (1 Chr 16:1). There was shouting too. If this gives authority for using instruments today, then churches should shout as well as sing, and have numerous instruments, not one, including crashing cymbals.

Matthew Henry comments: “This way of praising God by musical instruments had not hitherto been in use. But David, being a prophet, instituted it by divine direction, and added it to the other carnal ordinances of that dispensation, as the apostle calls them (Heb 9:10). The New Testament keeps up singing of psalms, but has not appointed church-music.”⁴

With the ark safely installed in Jerusalem, David ordered the worship connected with it: “He appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of the Lord, and to record, and to thank and praise . . . with psalteries and with harps . . . Asaph made a sound with cymbals; Benaiah also and Jahaziel the priests with trumpets continually before the ark of the covenant of God” (1 Chr 16:4-6). This worship, centring on the ark, the Levites and the priests, was ceremonial. Again, instrumental music is part of the typical system of the Old Testament, which was brought to an end with Christ’s finished work.

God instructed David exactly how the temple was to be built and its worship conducted. “David gave to Solomon . . . the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit, of the courts of the house of the Lord . . . also for the courses of the priests and the Levites, and for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord . . . All this, said David, the Lord made me understand in writing by His hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern” (1 Chr 28:11-13,19). Everything David introduced was expressly sanctioned by God, including the musical instruments. None of it came from his own imagination. What he had, he “had by the Spirit”. His understanding was “by His hand upon me”. The whole pattern was from the Lord.

The temple was dedicated to the Lord with worship that included instruments: “Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets . . . the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and . . . they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord” (2 Chr 5:12-13).

Although the “trumpeters and singers were as one”, this is not a blueprint for instruments to accompany congregational singing in New Testament Churches. This accompanied singing was a function of the temporary, Levitical priesthood, on this occasion in their ceremonial attire of “white linen”. “Four thousand” of them were appointed, who “praised the Lord with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith” (1 Chr 23:5). Just as the Levitical priesthood was brought to an end by the finished work of Christ, so of necessity was Levitical playing of instruments.

For the next millennium, until the advent of the Saviour, the worship of God was to continue just the way that David left it. The instruments that he introduced, the manner in which they were to be used, who was to play them, and at what times, remained constant.

After Jehoshaphat’s victory over the Ammonites, the Israelites “came to Jerusalem with psalteries and harps and trumpets unto the house of the Lord” (2 Chr 20:27-28). That house was of course the temple, with its ceremonial service. Again, they were “Levites, of the children of the Kohathites, and of the children of the Korhites, [who] stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high” (v19). This was not a case of instrumental music accompanying the whole congregation singing, as is done in so many churches today.

Hezekiah restored God’s worship. “He set the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the king’s seer, and Nathan the prophet: for so was the commandment of the Lord by His prophets. And the Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets. And Hezekiah commanded to offer the burnt offering upon the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also with the trumpets, and with the instruments ordained by David . . . And all the congregation worshipped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded: and all this continued until the burnt offering was finished” (2 Chr 29:25-28). “So the service of the house of the Lord was set in order” (v35).

As before, instruments were used only as previously instituted by God, which we now learn had been revealed by God through His prophets Gad and Nathan, as well as David. None of the instruments had been introduced into God’s worship at David’s personal whim, but only by the express appointment of God. Again, the connection with the temporary, sacrificial system is emphasised. The instruments, played by certain Levites, were sounded only during the actual offering of the sacrifices. Both the singing and the instruments fell silent as soon as the sacrifices were ended (see v28). We think there was something illustrative in that. The singing of God’s praise

is to continue to the end of time, but singing accompanied with musical instruments was to finish as soon as Christ’s sacrifice was finished.

When the Jews returned from captivity, they began work on a replacement temple. “When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David king of Israel” (Ezra 3:10). They used their instruments in accordance with what God had appointed through David – the appointed people using the appointed instruments in the appointed context.

When Jerusalem’s wall was rebuilt, again the celebration included the use of instruments: “At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, to keep the dedication with gladness, both with thanksgivings, and with singing, with cymbals, psalteries, and with harps” (Neh 12:27). Instruments were to be used in this worship; so the Levites had to be gathered. It was connected with the temple and sacrifices, for they “gave thanks in the house of God” (v40) and “that day they offered great sacrifices” (v43). All was expressly “according to the commandment of David, and of Solomon his son” (v45).

This brief review of Old Testament history has established that musical instruments were used in worship only when expressly appointed by God, and are always mentioned in the closest possible connection with the typical, ceremonial aspects of that dispensation. We would expect, therefore, that when the Levitical priesthood and animal sacrifices at the temple were finished, at the coming of Christ, the instruments were also to finish. In the next article, God willing, we will go to the New Testament, where we will find it confirmed that musical instruments are no longer to be used in worship. In Christian worship, God’s praise is to be offered with the voice alone.

Charles Gordon¹

Neil Macleod

Among Gordon’s ancestors were men prominent in the religious history of the Highlands. His great-grandfather, John Mackay, had a powerful frame, great mental vigour, and apostolic zeal. From 1707 to 1714 he was minister of Durness, in the far north-west of Scotland, which at that time included the neighbouring districts of Tongue and Eddrachillis. It was an

¹Taken with editing from Disruption Worthies of the Highlands. The writer was the Free Church minister of Newport, Fife, and a son of the eminent Free Church minister of Lochbroom, whose principal place of worship was in Ullapool.

area so immense that he used to be three months absent from home when he made his round of parochial visitation. In 1714 he came to Lairg, where he laboured for nearly 40 years. The people were wholly uncivilized; quarrelling and fighting around the church on the Lord’s day were not uncommon. By God’s blessing on his ministry, he lived to see, not only a great reformation in the district, but earnest living Christianity flourishing there.

His son, Thomas Mackay², was minister of Lairg for half a century after his father’s death. He too was an eminent man of God, though of a different type from his father. He had an affectionate and winning nature. He was the close companion of Hector Macphail, Resolis, and other like-minded men. His great theme was the love of Christ, and he had much unction and power. He left behind him a very fragrant memory.

In his later years, Thomas Mackay was assisted by George Gordon, who married Mackay’s second daughter. Charles Gordon, the subject of this sketch, was born in the Lairg manse in 1799, and lived there till his grandfather’s death in 1803. His father had been settled the previous year in Helmsdale, where he ministered till his death in 1822. Charles Gordon was a divinity student within a year of license at that time. He was early brought to the knowledge of the truth. Angus Mackintosh of Tain was, under God, of much spiritual benefit to him; and between him and the two Mackintoshes of Tain, father and son, there was a lifelong, unbroken intimacy.

In 1825 Charles Gordon was ordained in Assynt.³ Some of the people thought his extremely-youthful appearance an objection. When this was spoken of in a praying company, Neil Bain, one of the elders and a deeply-experienced Christian, said, after a pause, “Let him alone; he is a chosen vessel”.⁴ Among those who feared the Lord in that part of the country, the feeling thus expressed continued to be cherished toward him throughout his long ministry.

Assynt, with its magnificent mountain scenery, is a pleasant place for a tourist to visit in summer. But in 1825 it was a particularly heavy sphere of labour for a faithful minister. There was no road to it, or through it. It had not been divided into two ministerial charges, as happened later. It was a vast parish, with a considerable population scattered along the rugged coastline. In the heights of the parish, many miles inland, at the head of Loch Assynt, stand the old church and manse. In those days Gordon had seven preaching stations; with his characteristic faithfulness, he carried on tire-

²Brief accounts of John and Thomas Mackay appear in Records of Grace in Sutherland, recently reprinted by the Scottish Reformation Society.

³The west Sutherland parish where Lochinver is now the main village.

⁴See Acts 9:15.

lessly the work of preaching, visiting and catechising; his solitary and weary journeys on foot or on horseback, through bogs or over rocks, were not without danger.

As most of the people lived 20 miles from the parish church, it was only occasionally, particularly at communion times, that they could gather together. There are pleasant memories connected with these sacramental seasons in the heights of Assynt, at which, among other worthies, John Kennedy of Redcastle⁵ was always present till his death. Notwithstanding all difficulties, Gordon’s pre-Disruption ministry was a happy one. The parish was blessed by having a large number of godly elders, who held up their minister’s hands by prayer. He had a bright home, on which the cloud of sorrow had not yet fallen.

From its beginning, Gordon took a deep interest and an active part in the Ten Years’ Conflict, prior to the Disruption of 1843. He had very clear, decided views on the great principles involved in the struggle. He was much strengthened through the prayers offered at the Convocation in November 1842, and in touching terms referred to this in his letters at the time. The Disruption was a particularly great trial to him. He had to encounter the displeasure of powerful friends. He had no prospect of being able to remain in Assynt. Unmistakable warnings had been given that there was to be no toleration in Sutherland for dissenters.

He writes in March 1843: “A very mournful reflection for me is that here I shall have no footing after resignation or ejection”. But he had no hesitation as to his course of action. From the first Free Church Assembly he pens these words to his wife, who bravely stood by him through the darkness: “I am now no longer minister of Assynt in connection with the Establishment. In many respects the thoughts of this are overwhelming. But when I consider the clearness with which God points out the path of duty, I do not fear but God will provide.”

On the lawn before the old manse, the first Free Church service was held. The people all rallied round their minister; not one native of Assynt remained behind at the Disruption. But according to the stern rule of the hour, he could now have no home among his flock. His family removed to Tain, 70 miles away. Providentially, a lady in Assynt had a house from which, by some peculiarity in her tenure, she could not be ejected. She gave her minister a room, the best she had. It was very small; so low that only in the centre was it possible to stand upright, so ill-lighted that reading was a work of difficulty, with the raindrops trickling through it, and only two feet of

⁵Previously assistant minister in Assynt, he was the father of the better-known John Kennedy of Dingwall.

space between the bed and the damp roof. But it was a gift most seasonable and welcome. In it the minister found that “footing” among his people which he feared he would never get, and this humble room furnished him a shelter during three winters.

The year of the Disruption brought to Gordon a heavier trial than any he had yet borne. His family in Tain were one after another prostrated with fever, and his wife was carried to her grave. In the midst of varied griefs, 30 years afterwards, he used to speak of that as the one earthly sorrow that made all others light in comparison.

Yet he was strengthened in his desolation to go forward with his Master’s work. The removal of the minister who had for several years occupied the Stoer district threw once more into his hands, for five more years, the care of the whole parish. He had periods of deep spiritual depression during these trying times, but he found strength and comfort in the truth he preached to others. The policy of coercion and repression continued for a while, but was at last abandoned. Sites were granted in 1844 on which churches were built and, after harassing delays, Gordon in 1846 once more possessed a manse and had his children about him.

The church near Lochinver was now where he most frequently preached, but he tended the more-distant stations under his charge in his later ministry as diligently as in his earlier years. The hardships of the Disruption era left their effects on him, and he never fully recovered from a very serious gig accident in 1859 when going to preach for his friend, George Macleod of Lochbroom. But up to the very last, when each third Saturday came round, calling him to a journey of 16 or 24 miles to Stronchrubie or Elphin, it never mattered to him how wild the storm might be. Summer and winter, he was always at his post. He had God’s work to do, and to the best of his ability he did it.

The great day will declare what were the saving fruits of his ministry of 48 years. In his preaching he was solid and evangelical, setting forth clearly in a plain and practical way the fundamental doctrines of the gospel. He was perhaps more at home in English than in Gaelic. The weight and worth of his personal Christian character was universally recognised. Whilst firm and bold to the end in defending the truth, he was pre-eminent in the milder graces of spiritual life. In his humility, he ever preferred others to himself. In his meekness, he harboured no unkind thought and uttered no harsh word, even against those who wronged him most. In his unselfishness, he was always thinking of the interests of others, rather than his own, while in his guileless transparency, everyone felt how true and genuine he was. Hostility was disarmed by the consistency and beauty of his life.

The year 1873 closed his life. Bereavement and other things hard to bear, saddened his last days. But he had the consciousness, and often expressed it, that the end was very near and that he would soon be at his rest. In September he was prevailed on to pay a visit to his friends in Ross-shire. He spent a week among them, giving them all to understand that it was his farewell. He returned to Assynt on the 24th, and those who met him on the way remarked on his calm, bright cheerfulness. Till now there had been no special sickness, but that night he became ill, and on the morning of the 26th the good old man passed away and was gathered to his fathers.

Book Reviews¹

With An Everlasting Love, Selected Sermons of Rev Hugh M Cartwright, published by Reformation Press, 219 pages, hardback £19.50, paperback £11.70. Here are 14 sermons from Mr Cartwright’s Edinburgh ministry, prefaced by a brief biographical sketch, based on the obituary which appeared in an earlier issue of this Magazine. The sermons include five which expound successive parts of the passage: 1 John 1:1-2:6, a further four on the “warrants to believe” from The Sum of Saving Knowledge, and finally the sermons Mr Cartwright preached on the last Sabbath he was able to conduct public worship.

It is an indication of how well the sermons published here were spoken originally that the publisher can state that they appear here with a minimum of editing. While the sermons contain much fine doctrine and exposition, there is also appropriate application.

The first sermon, which gives the book its title, is obviously based on Jeremiah 31:3. The divisions of the sermon are: “The Lord’s everlasting love for each one of His people”, “The Lord’s appearance to those He loves”, and “The drawing which expresses and confirms God’s love to His people”. The preacher stresses that people “cannot reason their way” to God “with their own intellect”. For “we cannot know God unless He reveals Himself”. Again he stresses that we will not come to God without being “drawn” as Jeremiah was. He adds, “That should be an encouragement to anyone who feels drawn to the Saviour – that feeling didn’t come from yourself, it wasn’t your own initiative, it’s the doing of the Lord. . . . People come because they are drawn. They don’t help themselves to come . . . they are drawn. Their desires, their endeavours, their prayers, their longings, are all expressive of the fact that they are being drawn to the Lord, by the Lord.”

Another sermon is headed: “Repentance causing joy in heaven”, on Luke

¹The books reviewed here are available from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom.

15:7. The preacher points out that repentance is “something that is wrought in the soul by God. The significant thing about repentance is that it is a turning to God – a turning to God from idols, a turning to God from sin. God becomes the great reality to the repenting sinner. The God who was despised, the God who was forgotten, the God who was rebelled against – He becomes God to the person. He becomes a reality to the person. And because of that, the sinner comes to see his sin in a true light.”

For his final sermon, entitled “How long halt ye between two opinions?”, Mr Cartwright took as his text 1 Kings 18:21. His concluding paragraph emphasises that we must not think “the Bible presents these things to us in an indifferent manner, as if it doesn’t matter really to us whether people respond believingly, obediently, or not. No, God is commanding sinners to repent. . . . There is an urgency in the matter. . . . When will you turn to the Lord in repentance? We have every encouragement in the Word of God to do so. God presents Himself in the most attractive of lights to sinners . . . revealing that He is a God of mercy, a God with whom there is forgiveness for sinners, a God who will receive those who turn to Him – however long they have been halting between two opinions, however long they have been walking in the ways of the world. But the Lord is putting that before us with a sense of urgency.”

These printed sermons expound the Word of God in a reverent, profitable and readable way. That will not surprise those who heard Mr Cartwright in the flesh. One wishes the book a wide circulation and hopes that it will prove, through the Lord’s blessing, profitable to many readers.

Sermons on Titus, by John Calvin, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, hardback, 293 pages, £15.00.

As the translator, Robert White, brings out in his introduction, “Calvin’s first work on the Pastoral Epistles took the form of a commentary on 1 and 2 Timothy, published in 1548. A separate commentary on Titus appeared in early 1550. It was not until September 1554 that the Reformer, in the course of his regular preaching duties in Geneva, began to expound the first of the Pastoral Epistles, followed by the second in April 1555 and by the third – Titus – in August of that year.”

Those sermons, we are also informed, were all taken down in shorthand by Denis Raguenier, and all three sermon sets were published in one volume in 1561. The present volume of Calvin’s sermons on the Epistle to Titus has been newly translated from the French edition of 1561. After Calvin’s brief outline of the Epistle, there are 17 sermons, along with the preacher’s prayers before and after the sermon (each of these was the same prayer on every occasion).

In his Introduction, Dr White gives a helpful outline of the Epistle. He also helpfully explains that “the preacher frequently quotes Scripture from memory or else is content to paraphrase it, not always in the same form; in every case I have translated the text as he cites it”. The translator also states that he has “not attempted to soften the barbs directed by Calvin either at the Roman Catholic Church – chiefly its hierarchy – or other opponents who, to the Reformer’s chagrin, were sometimes to be found in Geneva itself”.

The sermons themselves, as one would expect, bring out the practical nature of Calvin’s teaching. By way of example, in commenting on what is required of preachers in applying the teaching of Paul to people in different stations in life, he says, “We must teach fathers how to control their children, and children, how to obey their fathers and mothers. We must tell husbands how to live peaceably with their wives, and wives, how to live peaceably with their husbands. Servants should learn that they are to be trustworthy in serving their masters, and masters should be restrained in case they feel free to do whatever they like, or to act cruelly and thus misuse that power. They should be content with the privilege of having authority over reasonable creatures. Thus the apostle briefly explains God’s teaching, in order to show that its purpose is not to tickle our ears but to build us up in all goodness. Let us keep that thought firmly in mind” (p 196).

In explaining how Paul, who lived such a strict life as a Pharisee, could say, “We ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another” (Tts 3:3), Calvin explains, “Thus, despite the fact that Paul did not live a profligate life while he was an unbeliever and an enemy of the gospel, he was driven by many evil desires, as he confesses in the seventh chapter of Romans. There he says that he thought so highly of himself that he considered himself righteous, for he did not understand what the law meant when it said, ‘You shall not covet’ (Rom 7:7-9).

“He was content to have men’s esteem and to know that he had done no wrong or anything deserving blame. Yet he had not examined his conscience or probed his hidden sins; he was blinded instead by hypocrisy, being all the time puffed up and drunk with pride. It was on this that he based his righteousness. When he realised, however, that God’s law is more than an outward code of conduct sufficient to avoid men’s censure, but that it must reform all our thoughts and feelings, requiring perfect righteousness worthy of the angels, then the apostle saw that within him there was nothing but uncleanness. So he tells us that he forsook even the righteousness of the law which he thought he possessed” (p 240).

The Epistle to Titus is of course a Pastoral Epistle and, as such, it has a

particular message for pastors but, as it has all to do with the glorious message of Christ which pastors were and are to deliver, it has relevance for all. And those sermons, which are presented in a clear and very readable manner, are recommended for everyone who desires a clear insight into this brief but very rich Epistle.

(Rev) W A Weale