Preparing for Eternity by Alexander Nisbet
published by Reformation Press, paperback, 88 pages, £6.30, obtainable from the F P Bookroom.
This book is an extract from a commentary which the author, a Scottish covenanting minister of the seventeenth century, wrote on the Book of Ecclesiastes. Aimed at the ordinary reader, it is accessible to all, while useful on the preacher’s shelf too. It provides succinct, fresh, and most satisfactory explanations of each verse. The twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes abounds in allegorical language and Nisbet’s comments shed floods of light on these passages.
To give an example, he says on verse 2 (“While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain”): “By the returning of the clouds after rain seems clearly to be understood that continual succession and frequent returning of one shower of trouble after another which befall dying men. And the allegory or similitude seems to be borrowed from the tempestuous and stormy seasons of the year, when it is not as in summer, that after a shower clears up again and becomes fair and warm, which represents the time of youth, in which ordinarily, after some fit of sickness and distemper, ease and health come again. But as it is in winter, after one shower the clouds presently [soon] gather for another, so it will be in the time of old age.”
On each verse he also adds applications which tend to emphasise the relevant duties of practical and devotional religion. On the part of verse 4 which speaks of rising up at “the voice of the bird” and which he takes to be the loss of sleep common in old age, he exhorts the reader in the following way: “So, while men enjoy it [sound sleep], they should use it soberly and employ all the refreshment they get by it in the service of the Giver: labouring so to walk in the daytime that their sleep may be sanctified, their reins may teach them in the night season (Ps 16:7), and they may rise early for holy exercises (Ps 5:3), that whenever they awake they may be still with God (Ps 139:18). And if at any time sleep departs from them, they may then think upon and prepare for the case they shall be in when death draws near.”
On verses 9 to 11 suitable advice is given to the minister of the gospel on his duties of studying and preaching. On verse 13 there is a helpful summary of the scriptural use of the term “the fear of God”, where he distinguishes between its being put for “the whole worship and service of God”, and the more precise meaning as “that inward filial reverence and awe of God which the Lord has promised in the covenant of grace to put in the hearts of His people”.
Death, judgement and eternity, along with the need to make urgent preparation for these, are the constant theme throughout. This book is well worth purchasing and reading more than once. (Rev) ID MacDonald
It is an easy thing for a man to fall under the curse of God. It is but forbearing to love Christ; and how easy a thing is that! It is but denying Christ your heart, your hearty love, and the curse is your own; and how easy a thing is that! To obtain the blessing is hard, is exceedingly difficult; for there must be a weaning of our love from the world, and getting that under our feet which was predominant in our hearts; and how hard a task is this! There must be a calling off the love of the heart from sin, which was as our right eye or right hand unto us, and how difficult a work is this!
Thomas Doolittle