John Kennedy of Dingwall¹

1. His Background and Conversion

Two hundred years ago, on 15 August 1819, a child was born in the Killearnan parish manse, on the north side of the Beauly Firth, a few miles from Inverness. The child was the fourth son of Rev John and Jessie Kennedy; he was given his father’s Christian name and was to become Dr John Kennedy, Free Church minister of Dingwall until his death in 1884, one of the most appreciated and most used preachers of his generation.

He was born into a godly home, in a district where there were many godly people, and others visited at communion seasons, no doubt having a considerable influence for good on the parish of Killearnan. The younger John Kennedy describes some of them in his tribute to his father, The Minister of Killearnan.² One of them was Alexander Hutcheson, a former catechist. “He was but 11 years of age when he first felt the impression of the truth. Engaged in tending his father’s sheep, one night, as he was shutting them up in the fold, he was strongly moved to kneel down and pray. There, in the midst of his little flock, he fell on his knees, and ere he rose he thought that Christ had won his heart. The impression then made gradually wore away, till he had fallen back into the lethargy that preceded it. Just a year had elapsed, when the same feeling was again excited, and in the same circumstances as before. This, once more, in the course of time wore away.

“The listlessness, which succeeded continued till, one night, just after he lay down in bed, an impression of his guilt and danger as a sinner was made with irresistible power on his heart. So sudden and so overpowering was the awe that came upon his spirit, that he had sprung out of bed, to rush out to the hill, when, suddenly, the light of the glorious gospel illuminated his soul. Never from that hour did Alexander Hutcheson return to the ways of sin, and thus began his Christian life. Enjoying unwonted nearness to God, he was at the same time a most humble, loving, tender-hearted Christian.”³

The future minister of Dingwall described his father’s last days: “His last sermon in church was preached on the Tuesday evening before his death, and closed the series of discourses” on the words, “We are come . . . to God, the Judge of all” (Heb 12:22,23). “At the close of the service he announced

¹The first section of a paper, now somewhat enlarged, given by the Editor at the Theological Conference in 2019.

²It is bound up with The Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire and is particularly recommended as a warm, spiritual biography.

³John Kennedy, The Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, Christian Focus Publications reprint, 1979, p 189.

that on Thursday, he would preach in the schoolhouse in the eastern district of the parish, in order to take the last opportunity of wiping off his skirts the blood of the people who resided there. The congregation was then dismissed by him under the assured persuasion that he and they would never meet again on earth. On coming out of church he stood for a few minutes looking to the people as they were retiring under the clear moonlight. ‘My poor people’, he was heard exclaiming by one who had come up beside him, and whose approach caused him to turn away and to hurry on to the manse.”

There was then no indication of declining health, yet he was convinced that death was near. “His sermon on Thursday was on spiritual worship, and in preaching it his whole soul seemed to go out in aspirations after the pure service of heaven.” The next day he became unwell. “He expressed no anxiety and uttered no complaint, and his family had no distinct anticipation of danger. Remaining in bed, he seemed lost in contemplation, an expression of placid joy resting on his face. He had calmly laid himself down to die. His work was done; he knew that his eternal rest was nigh; and with his eye fixed on the glory that was dawning on his vision, he awaited with joyful expectation the coming of death. His reply to all enquiries about himself was, ‘I’ll soon be quite well’. . . . On Sabbath evening he fell asleep in Jesus.”⁴ The death of John Kennedy of Killearnan was a great loss to the cause of Christ in the wider area, but as we will see, the Lord was to use it for the spiritual good of the son.

Young Kennedy attended the local parish school and was already learning Latin by the time he was six. He began attending university in Aberdeen about the age of 17. In due course he graduated MA, having won several prizes during his course. His biographer, Alexander Auld of Olrig, in Caithness, does not credit him with having applied himself “with more than a moderate degree of diligence”,⁵ but another writer states that “he really began to apply himself to classwork” towards the end of this course.⁶

In 1840 Kennedy began his divinity course, again in Aberdeen. A fellow student, John Mackay, indicates that Sir Walter Scott’s novels occupied more of his time than the teachings of Calvin’s Institutes. Mackay went on: “Apart from this, there was nothing in his character and conduct outwardly inconsistent with his profession. But to his intimate acquaintances there appeared a want of that high sense of the sacredness and solemnity of the

⁴Kennedy, Days of the Fathers, pp 196-7.

⁵Alexander Auld, John Kennedy, DD, London, 1887, p 2. Unidentified quotations in this paper are from this volume.

⁶“Memoir of the Rev John Kennedy DD” by John Noble, in John Kennedy, The Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, Inverness, 1897 edition, p xxxiv.

ministerial office which might be expected in . . . an aspirant to the gospel ministry. Mr Kennedy’s religion . . . seemed to consist of little more than a strong dislike to a cold and heartless Moderatism⁷, a high admiration and peculiarly warm affection for his venerated father, and great confidence in the efficacy of that father’s prayers – a confidence which, in his own case, proved to be well founded.”

One day in January 1841, Kennedy and Mackay were talking together in Kennedy’s room when another student, also from Killearnan, walked in with a very sad expression on his face. Kennedy jokingly asked what was the matter. The visitor remained silent. Kennedy became alarmed and asked, “What has happened?” and asked further if he had heard bad news from home.

“I had a letter this morning,” was the reply, “and I hear your father is seriously ill.” Upset, Kennedy asked, “Is my father gone?” and was told, “I fear he is”.

Kennedy turned slowly and silently away and threw himself on his bed with a half-stifled moan. Early the next morning he caught the stagecoach for Inverness. Back at the Killearnan manse, he was too upset to go inside and found somewhere in the garden to pour out his heart in prayer to God. Colin Forsyth, a noted godly man in the district, noticed him and was able to overhear his petitions, commenting later: “He became a man of prayer before he became a preacher, and to my mind his prayers were always ahead of his preaching” (p 7).

Auld summed up what Kennedy long afterwards told him about this spiritual experience at this time: (1.) “Indescribable agony of mind under a sense of sin against God, especially in the neglect of the admonitions, instructions and example of his father, now lost to him for ever.” (2.) “Striving to keep himself from sinking into utter despair of God’s mercy by betaking himself to prayers and meditation on passages of Scripture.” (3.) “An apprehension that the way of salvation by Jesus Christ was opened in the gospel to the very chief of sinners” (p 8). This apprehension came mainly as a result of conversations with Forsyth. Kennedy was to write later, thinking of his father’s death: “The memory of that loss I can bear to recall, as I cherish the hope that his death was the means of uniting us in bonds that shall never be broken” (p 5).

Mackay continues his recollections: “Within a fortnight he returned to Aberdeen another, and to all appearance a new, man. No change could be more complete than that which was visible in his whole nature. His former indifference to divine things had given place in his mind to deep seriousness, his self-sufficiency to self-abasement, the things of time to the things of eter-

⁷The opponents of the Evangelical party in the Church of Scotland of the time.

nity. . . . He did not then profess to experience much of the peace which flows from believing and a well-grounded assurance of sin forgiven, and certainly he knew nothing of those raptures and high joys of which we nowadays hear so much, but which too often prove so deceptive. His mind during that period, and until the close of the session, appeared to me to be chiefly occupied with that sense of the majesty and sovereignty of God, the purity of the divine law, and the exceeding sinfulness of sin which is the best preparative for an intelligent and saving appreciation of the gospel remedy” (pp 6,7).

About that time, as part of his course, he had to preach before a professor, who commented that it contained “much that was excellent” and “gave promise of future eminence, but [was] at the same time too Methodistical in its tone and spirit”. In other words, the professor (presumably a Moderate in his religious outlook) found too much of the spirit of the gospel in the sermon (p 7).

Some entries in his diary illustrate Kennedy’s spiritual condition in the months after his conversion. First, on 24 September 1841, he notes, “Felt this morning, while on my knees, somewhat humbled and assured when reflecting on, and being enabled in a measure to appropriate, the free offer of Christ, with all His fullness and in all His offices. On going downstairs was tempted by Satan to believe that I had renounced Christ. Relieved by these three short but unspeakably rich words, ‘in no wise’ (Jn 6:37). . . .

“Found a hell within me, rebelling during the day against God’s right to charge the guilt of sin. O the flinty hardness of my heart, equalled only by its rebellion against the Creator, the Author of the law, the Ruler of providence and the God of salvation! Wherever God is to be seen and found, thither will the hellish enmity of the human heart pursue to dishonour His holy name to His face and vent its weak but infernal malice against the Most High. . . . O to have higher conceptions of the Almighty in His moral perfections, as shining forth in the sufferings of Christ! . . . May the Spirit of grace teach and lead me. Ignorance, enmity and the devil are strong when they go together, and all the three lay snares for my understanding; but the Holy Ghost is almighty” (pp 11-12).

On September 25, he wrote, “Experienced, while engaged in prayer, somewhat of soul satisfaction in viewing the sufferings of Christ. O to find shore on the interminable continent of His Godhead and personality! [I] see more of the holiness and justice of God than I experience of the drawing power of the love of Christ – am more engaged with the odiousness of sin than the love of the Redeemer. ‘Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and for ever.’ What a wonder that He waited at my door for a second refusal! Fear I have not given Him my heart. I think I may say, I would give it to

none else. Were I assured that He would receive my soul, ’twere easier to give him the heart. . . . How different are the effects of a carnal and legal notion of faith! Never does a sinner cease to work till he begins to believe. O Lord, preserve me from stumbling on the dark mountains to rise no more! Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound” (pp 12-13).

Comfort in Bereavement¹

A letter from Samuel Murray

Although my loss of a worthy brother, an eminent and faithful servant of the Lord, is very great in many respects, yet I must own that your loss, considering the special intimate relation between you and him, which was continued for many years to your mutual comfort, is more heavy on that account. But we cannot quarrel with what the sovereign Lord of death has done. He does all things well, and for the best to His own family, of which I am persuaded you are one. If one servant or member of a family is sent away before another to an infinitely better lodging than any here, even to an everlasting habitation in heaven, where the whole family is to be transplanted at last, who can speak against it? That servant is a gainer beyond what we can conceive, and those who are left behind should encourage themselves in Him who, in due time, even most seasonably, will transplant them to the paradise of God that they may be all together, and for ever with Him, without any danger of parting from Him or from one another. They will encircle the throne to eternity without wearying, and with perfect delight and joy.

Those who died in Christ will rejoice to see such as were their endeared relations here, walking in white and crowned with victory and, through redeeming love, made more than conquerors over all the evils they were liable to, either from within or from without. No sin, nor any of its consequences, will give them the least disturbance; they will sing to the praise of sovereign grace for eternal redemption from all these. Yet their exceeding joy, and the source of it, will be God and the Lamb, who are in the temple above. There is no need there of ordinances and sacraments; in the triumphant Church all her members are perfectly taught and comforted, although there are degrees among them. They are exactly like Christ and see Him as He is, which the strongest believer cannot attain in this imperfect state.

¹This letter of sympathy was written, on 26 June 1732, to Catherine Boston, after the death of her husband, Thomas Boston of Ettrick, in the Scottish Borders. It was written by the minister of Penpont, in Dumfries-shire, and is taken, with editing, from The Scottish Christian Herald, vol 1 (1836).

They are favoured with near and direct views of their exalted Redeemer which are unspeakably ravishing. They all say, without one dissenting voice: It is good for us to be here. Therefore we may not say that it is ill for us, having a sweet, comprehensive promise that all things, even the death of dear friends, shall work together for our good, which will be fully accomplished – as all the promises will be – in the perfection of believers and in their enjoyment of the chief good. We will then understand this clearly, to our everlasting comfort. The promises, being confirmed and ratified by our Surety, will not fail; they will be made out to all that embrace them in Christ, even though providence seems sometimes to go counter to them, and our misbelieving haste is ready to say, “Doth His promise fail for evermore?” This is graciously overruled in love and mercy to us, that we may believe and hope against hope and that the Lord may surprise us with His faithfulness in performing His good word.

I do not doubt that you have sweet experience of this, as to former incidents in your life and after this great trial of your faith. I hope you will say with pious Durham,² when his wife died, “that if all the world had said this will work for my good, I would not believe them, but seeing my faithful God hath said it, I will believe Him”. The Lord may rightfully pull up His strongest cedars while He continues the weaker, to show that His thoughts are far above ours and to display His strength in bearing up the weak. According to human reason and probability, which He often baffles, that we may lean more to infinite understanding than to it, few or none thought you would have stood out against so many storms; but He is the glory of your strength. Trust in Him; wait on Him. Before long we will forget all our troubles and rejoice together. Our sorrows will be turned into joy, and no man will be able to take our joy from us. He has broken us on earth, that He may set us up in heaven.

I hope, through grace, your family and mine will make a greater figure there than many who have prospered in the world more than we have. A sight of Christ shining brighter than angels and saints will make us forget all our sad days and nights. Here we often sit in black, but we shall at last put off all our mourning for ever. I bless the Lord for what is intended about your son’s passing his “trials”.³ May he be blessed and long spared to make up for the absence of his worthy and renowned father. May the Father of all mercies and the God of all comfort grant that your consolations may abound through Christ. My wife and I sympathise with you.

²James Durham of Glasgow (1622-58), noted minister and author.

³This is a reference to trials, before a presbytery, for license to preach the gospel. This son, also named Thomas, was his father’s successor in Ettrick.

Christian Holiness¹

John Brown

As sanctification cannot be enjoyed by anyone whose state has not been changed by union to Christ, so it is to be found only in those whose characters have been transformed by the regenerating influences of God’s Spirit. No man can be holy who is not “born again”, “created anew in Christ Jesus”, and thus made a partaker of a “divine nature”. It is a fatal mistake, under which many labour, that those living in the Christian dispensation, and observing the external ordinances of the Christian Church, have all they need to entitle them to be called regenerate. We find, however, that after his baptism Simon Magus was told he was in “the gall of bitterness”. Many who are baptized, and enjoy the advantages of the New Testament dispensation, have nothing of Christianity but the name. Good education is not regeneration. This may restrain from external sins, but it cannot change the heart. It may polish the exterior and tame the wildness of human nature, but it leaves the springs of action unaltered; it cannot remove their depravity.

We have a striking illustration of these remarks in the case of Joash, the king of Judah. He had received a wise religious education from Jehoiada the high priest and, as long as Jehoiada lived, he walked in the ways of the Lord, but the death of his teacher was the death of his piety. To abandon vices, to which we were formerly addicted, is not regeneration. This may be done, and yet our righteousness may not exceed, or even equal, the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Even though we are distinguished by strictly performing many duties, we must not conclude from this that we are born again. Before his conversion, Saul of Tarsus lived according to the strictest form of the Jewish religion. Sharp convictions do not necessarily prove that we have undergone this change, or else Pharaoh, Judas and Simon Magus were regenerated. It is dangerous to draw this inference, even from a great moving of the affections. Esau sought the blessing with many tears; the stony-ground hearers received the word with joy; and the hypocrites in the time of Isaiah took delight in approaching to God.

The change is represented in Scripture as the creation of a new man – a change pervading the whole mind and consisting in a radical alteration of its tempers and habits. The result of this change is a divine nature, proceeding from God, resembling His moral image, disposing to fellowship with Him, and leading to enjoyment of Him. Regeneration may be described as a great, inward, complete, supernatural change, consisting in making the subject of

¹Taken from Letters on Sanctification by John Brown of Whitburn (1754-1832), son of John Brown of Haddington.

it pursue the glory of God as the great end of his conduct, leading him to rest in God as his chief happiness, and manifesting itself in new apprehensions, affections and habits, in spiritual things. True holiness originates in this radical change, which increases gradually till the saint becomes a perfect man in Christ Jesus.

From the view which we have taken of sanctification and regeneration, as arising from the free operation of divine influence, we must beware of drawing the conclusion that God’s grace supersedes the necessity for our exertions. Our exertions and God’s gracious influences, so far from opposing each other, co-operate harmoniously in the great work of sanctification. Some legal teachers would separate these as entirely incongruous. A command, they seem to think, leaves no room for a promise; and a promise detracts from the authority of a command.

These men, however, greatly err. We ought to show due regard to both God’s promise and His command and, if we are really sanctified, we will do so. Believers will have their consciences impressed with a sense of the supreme authority of God’s command, because it is His command; their judgment will be convinced of its reasonableness, equity, holiness and usefulness, and their affections will be fixed on it as morally lovely. On the other hand, they will constantly have to refer to God’s promise. Under a habitual sense of their own inability to comply with God’s command from any power in themselves, they adore that kindness which has provided help for them and rely on the promise for supplies of grace to enable them to perform every duty.

Let us never forget that it is Christian holiness of which we are speaking – holiness derived from Christ, effected by His grace in the heart, and exemplified in the life through continued supplies of spiritual strength. We are not sufficient of ourselves to think even a good thought, “but our sufficiency is of God”. Believers desire to enjoy Christ, and be perfectly conformed to Him in faith, humility and every grace. Nothing but Christ will satisfy a sanctified soul. The predominant wish is that they may “be found in Him”. No set of feelings, however pleasing, may be the ground of our hope. Jesus Himself must be all our salvation and all our desire. All graces and duties, prayers and tears, must be connected with Christ and washed in the fountain opened.

Never, never let us forget, that all our attempts to be holy, in a natural state, will necessarily be vain. In dwelling on this truth, I am far from wishing to give men an excuse for remaining under the dominion of their corrupted desires, but I do wish to set them right about the true method of seeking holiness. No man can seek holiness too eagerly, if he will only seek it in the due order. No man can be holy too soon. But by attempting to be holy in a way not sanctioned by God’s appointment, we may place ourselves at a greater

distance from gospel holiness than ever. It is folly to look for good fruit on a tree not grafted into the true vine. Not less foolish is it to expect a new life without a new heart. Many men, in a natural state, suppose (and the delusion is cherished by too many preachers) that, in order to be holy, they have nothing to do but to reform their lives, according to God’s law, not recollecting, or not knowing, that men must be made spiritually alive before they can act. The person must be accepted before his services can be acceptable.

The first duty of a sinner is certainly to receive the record of God concerning His Son. He is to rely on Christ Jesus as an all-sufficient Saviour, so that in Him, and from Him, he may receive that change of heart and state, disposition and situation, which is necessary for true holiness.

Famous Books and their Authors¹

2. Augustine’s Confessions

Rev Donald Beaton

Of all the works that have come down to us from the Fathers of the early Christian centuries, none is so well known or appreciated so universally as the Confessions of Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo. It is what its title states: it is the confessions of a master-mind in search of rest and peace. The work describes with touching eloquence that long and eager search which ultimately ended in the finding of that true life so much longed for and so eagerly pursued.

The author of this religious classic was the son of Patricius and Monica. He was born at Tagaste, a village of Numidia,¹ on 13 November 354. His father, a burgess of Tagaste, was a pagan and so continued until near the end of his life. His mother, however, was an earnest Christian, and some of the most beautiful and touching passages of the Confessions refer to the mother that watched, with all a woman’s devotion and a mother’s anxiety, the career of her distinguished but wayward son. Augustine began his education at Tagaste, where he studied grammar and rhetoric – these studies being further prosecuted at Carthage.

While still a young man, he gave scope to his wayward passions and fell into a course of sin. It was while leading this abandoned life that he was impressed with reading a passage in Cicero’s² Hortensius on the value of philosophy; this was the beginning of that long and eventful struggle which

¹Taken, with editing, from the October 1902 issue of this Magazine.

¹A Roman province on the North African coast.

²A Roman philosopher.

was watched with so much solicitude by his devoted mother. Her character as set forth by her son reveals one of the purest and noblest types of womanhood known to history. Augustine might become an abandoned wretch, but still he was her son and, as one hoping against hope, she poured out her soul to God.

With a heart touched by the remembrance of these prayers, he says in the Confessions: “And Thou sentest Thine handmaid from above and deliverest my soul out of that profound darkness; my mother, Thy faithful one, weeping to Thee for me, more than mothers weep [over] the bodily deaths of their children. For she, by that faith and spirit which she had from Thee, discerned the death wherein I lay and Thou heardest her, O Lord; Thou heardest her, and despisedst not her tears when, streaming down, they watered the ground under her eyes in every place where she prayed; yea, Thou wast pleased to hear her.” In her solicitude for her son, she pled with a bishop to converse with him, if by any means he might be turned from his ways, and received as an answer from the good man: “Go thy way and God bless thee, for it is not likely that the child of these tears should perish”.

While the struggle referred to above was going on in his heart, he drifted into Manicheanism as the easiest explanation to his perplexed mind of the conflicting problems of life. This heresy regarded the world as under the control of two great principles – the one evil, the other good; through Satan’s influence they had become mixed in man; to deliver the light from the darkness is a physical process and the work of a succession of prophets, of whom the heavenly Christ, not the Jesus of the New Testament, is one; Mani, the founder of the sect, set himself forth as the promised Comforter.

While Augustine was under the delusion of this false doctrine, there came to Carthage a bishop of the Manicheans, Faustus – a great snare of the devil, as Augustine describes him. But with all his smooth language, instead of confirming Augustine in his error he only made him intensely dissatisfied. And leaving Carthage in disgust, Augustine proceeded to Rome. His mother bewailed his departure – though, all unknown to her, it was leading up to the event for which she so devoutly prayed. She followed him as far as the sea, where he deceived her, putting her off by saying that he had a friend whom he could not leave until he had a fair wind.

“And I lied to my mother,” he says, “and such a mother, and got away that night. . . . I stole away, and she was left behind in weeping and prayer. And what, O Lord, was she with so many tears asking of Thee, but that Thou wouldest not suffer me to sail? But Thou, in the depth of Thy counsels and hearing the main point of her desire, regardedst not what she then asked, that Thou mightest make me that for which she was ever imploring Thee. The

wind blew and swelled our sails and withdrew the shore from our sight; and she on the morrow was there, frantic with sorrow, and with complaints and groans filled Thine ears, who didst then disregard them. For she loved my being with her, as mothers do, but much more than many; and she knew not how great joy Thou wert about to work for her out of my absence. She knew not; therefore did she weep and wail, and by this agony there appeared in her the inheritance of Eve, with sorrow seeking what in sorrow she had brought forth.”

After some time he came to Milan as rhetoric-reader, where he fell in with Ambrose the Bishop, who received him with great kindness. He attended the preaching of Ambrose more to study his oratory than to receive any benefit to his soul. As to the matter of the sermon, he says, “I was a scornful and careless looker on”. It was while at Milan he formally abandoned his Manichean notions, and again lost himself in darksome deeps where he could find no resting place. Fear of the judgement to come acted as a check on him for a time, but still he had no peace. He then turned to the study of the Scriptures and seemed to discern some faint glimmerings of truth in the awful gloom that enveloped his mind, but as yet the day had not dawned. He consulted one Simplicianus about his condition, who related to him the story of the conversion of Victorinus, who was a professor of rhetoric like himself. This conversion made an impression on Augustine for a time, but he then fell into his old sins again.

Shortly after this Pontitianus, a countryman of his own who held high office at the Emperor’s Court, came to him on a visit. He took up a book lying on the table, which turned out to be some of the writings of the Apostle Paul. Pontitianus expressed delight at finding the book in Augustine’s possession. And on Augustine intimating that he bestowed great pains on the study of these writings, his friend was led to make remarks on the conversion of Anthony, an Egyptian monk. The narration of this conversion stirred his soul to its very depths and, while Pontitianus was speaking, he was inwardly stung and exceedingly confounded with horrible shame. A mighty struggle was going on in his soul; “the fever of his irresoluteness” played havoc with his more sober thoughts and, swayed to and fro by the baffling waves of indecision, he poured out his anxious complaint in his remarkable Confessions.

The sins of his nature, to which he gave so much reign in the days of his thoughtless folly, rose up with a new power, proclaiming their right to rule. But the awful struggle was drawing near an end – at least in its present form. When at last his mind had heaped up all the misery in the sight of his heart, there arose a mighty storm bringing a mighty shower of tears. And with these tears he offered up the earnest prayer: “And Thou, O Lord, how long?”

How long, Lord, wilt Thou be angry for ever? Remember not our former iniquities.” “For I felt”, he says, “I was held by them. I sent up these sorrowful words: How long? How long? Tomorrow and tomorrow? Why not now? Why is there not this hour an end to my uncleanness?”

And then comes the ever-memorable description of his conversion. Let us read it in Augustine’s own words, “So was I speaking and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo, I heard from a neighbouring house a voice – as of a boy or girl, I know not – chanting and oft repeating, ‘Take up and read; take up and read’. Instantly my countenance altered; I began to think most intently, whether children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words, nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So, checking the torrent of my tears, I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard of Anthony that, coming in during the reading of the Gospel, he received the admonition, as if what was being read was spoken to him: ‘Go, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow Me,’ and by such an oracle he was forthwith converted unto Thee.

“Eagerly then I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there I had laid the volume of the Apostle when I arose thence. I seized, opened and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: ‘Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof’. No further would I read, nor needed I, for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.”

The day had dawned at last to the weary, wrestling soul, and the light of the morning filled his heart with unspeakable gladness. He told his friend Alypius what had taken place, and they both went to Monica. “Thence we go unto my mother,” he says; “we tell her; she rejoices at it; we relate in order how it took place; she leaps for joy and triumphs and blesses Thee, who art able to do above that which we ask or think; for she perceived that Thou hadst given her more for me than she was wont to beg by her pitiful and most sorrowful groanings.”

For her too the night was already far spent and the day was near at hand. She had prayed for her son by day and in the lonely watches of the night, and her petitions ofttimes were tears and groans. Now they had been answered and, as one whose work on earth was finished, she passed peacefully away at Ostia³, in the fifty-sixth year of her age. She was buried in an alien grave.

³The harbour city of ancient Rome.

“Did she not dread leaving her body at such a distance from her native city?” someone said to her on her deathbed. “Nothing is far to God,” was her answer, “nor need I fear lest He should be ignorant at the end of the world of the place whence He is to raise me up.”

Augustine was now in his thirty-third year and, having sold all his belongings he returned to his native land, where he passed his time in quiet meditation and study. After a period of rest he was ordained a presbyter, and in his forty-first year he became Bishop of Hippo. He held this office for 35 years, and his name is always associated with this little seaport town on the northern coast of Africa. He died in 430, aged 75, while the Vandals were besieging Hippo.

The figure of Augustine is one of those commanding the attention of their fellow men and exercising an untold influence on the centuries. Luther and Calvin came under the spell of his genius, and their teaching was deeply influenced by Augustine’s presentation of the doctrines of grace. “He was greater on the whole than Calvin”, says John Duncan. “Calvin is the more complete, but no thanks to him for that, for he was standing on Augustine’s shoulders.”

Philip Schaff sums up in a few paragraphs the character of Augustine, both as a man and theologian, perhaps as well as could be done. “Augustine,” he says, “the man with upturned eye, with pen in left hand and a burning heart in the right, as he is usually represented, is a philosophical and theological genius of the first order, towering like a pyramid above his age, and looking down commandingly upon succeeding centuries. He had a mind uncommonly fertile and deep, bold and soaring; and with it, what is better, a heart full of Christian love and humility. He stands of right by the side of the greatest philosophers of antiquity and modern times. We meet him alike on the broad highways and on the narrow footpaths, on the giddy Alpine heights and in the awful depths of speculation, wherever philosophical thinkers before him or after him have trod.”

His greatest work is his City of God. It was begun in 413, after the occupation of Rome by Alaric, and finished in 426. A thrill of dismay went through the Roman Empire at the news of the fall of the great city. The wild hordes from the north in their merciless advance wrecked and pillaged everything. The loud cry of unbelief was heard amidst the confusion, and irresponsible tongues proclaimed that the God of the Christians was helpless to stay these devastations. It was partly to meet this state of matters that Augustine wrote his City of God. He points out that calamities as tragic as these happened in the days of the Caesars, when the old gods were acknowledged and, furthermore, that all disasters are not necessarily calamit-

ies; some may have a disciplinary end in view. He then proceeds to show that there have been from the beginning two great communities or cities – the city of God comprising within it all the true worshippers of God, and the city of the world, which in its principles is diametrically opposed to the city of God. His chief controversial works are those against the Donatists and the Pelagians. In the latter he vindicates the doctrines of grace against the opinions of Pelagius.

His best known work, however, is his Confessions. It consists of 13 books; in the first ten he gives an account of his search for the true life, and in the last three we have discussions on the creation. Even in the Confessions we have statements showing that Augustine inclined to baptismal regeneration and that he believed in prayers for the dead, and there can be no question that in his later writings he contributed to promoting the adoration of the Virgin Mary. He also advocates monasticism and celibacy. From this it is evident that, even as early as his day, the Church began to drift from her apostolic moorings. But with all his shortcomings he stands before us as one of the greatest figures in the history of the Church.

Considering God’s Providence¹

James Renwick

You know, my friends, that this meeting was appointed to have been at another place and occasion, but was disappointed. What the language of this disappointment may be to us, you would seriously consider. I shall tell you we think the Lord would have us to learn these three things by it.

1. He would have us to take a back-look of, and make a more narrow search into, and take serious thoughts of our own sins and iniquities which have provoked him to remove the gospel and gospel ordinances from us.

2. He would have us highly to esteem gospel ordinances and not to look upon them as common mercies and privileges.

3. Yet He would not have us so to esteem them as to put them in His room (which, alas, we have done) but to seek the living God in them. And seeing, in His providence, He has caused us to meet together this day, it may be asked, What is our errand here? We shall tell you this in these three things.

¹Taken from A Choice Collection of Very Valuable Prefaces, Lectures, and Sermons, by James Renwick. These remarks introduced the first public preaching which Renwick had in Scotland. It was on 23 November 1683, a fast day, at Darmead, a remote spot in north Lanarkshire where conventicles were held. This particular conventicle had to be re-arranged because of Renwick’s ill health.

(1.) Our first errand is to set about the great duty of fasting, mourning and humiliation before the Lord; even to mourn over the several steps of our defections; and in order to this, we shall descend, or go down to where we first left the Lord and declined, which hath provoked him to leave us.

(2.) Our second errand here this day is to offer you reconciliation, to tell you this: that God, whom you have offended by these sins and steps of defection and backslidings, is content to be reconciled to you. O therefore turn you, turn you unto Me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord of hosts [see Zec 1:3].

(3.) Our third errand here this day is to lift up and raise the fallen standard of the gospel that did fall in this our land, when that valiant chariot-man, Mr Donald Cargill, fell; yea, that very part of the standard which he held; yet let not any captious creature (if there be any such here) think or say that we are following the examples of men. No, no; for we desire only to follow them in so far as they followed the Lord.

Gold Tried in the Fire¹

W K Tweedie

Revelation 3:18. I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire.

It is the delusive thought of all men by nature, as well as of the lukewarm Laodiceans, that they are rich and increased in goods and in need of nothing. They are proud of their very rags and would offer to God, as a price for His favour, the very thing which He declares that He hates. But the God of the gospel offers the unsearchable riches, the incorruptible inheritance, the crown of glory which does not fade away.

It is true that we read, “I counsel thee to buy”, but it is no less true that it is “without money and without price”. All is a gift – a free gift, an unspeakable gift from God to man. There is rest to the weary. There is peace to the troubled. There is health to the diseased. There is hope for the despairing. There is life for the dead. And, O my soul, is that not as refreshing to the soul as Elim and its palm trees were to the wanderers in the desert? Have we not here vineyards in the wilderness? May we not dig up wells in this valley of Baca, or pluck leaves from the tree which is for the healing of the nations? There is nothing lacking to them that fear God. They have gold tried in the fire and far more than all the gold of Ophir could buy.

The eye rejoices to wander over the green earth and remember that it and the fullness thereof is the Lord’s. It delights to gaze on the midnight sky,

¹Taken, with editing, from Tweedie’s volume, Glad Tidings of the Gospel of Peace.

and meditate on the wonders which are to be seen there – the mighty, silent procession of all those innumerable stars. It looks on the sea, sleeping in its beauty, or swelling in its mightiness – now the emblem of Him who is love, and now of Him who will “by no means clear the guilty”. But none of these things: neither earth, nor sky, nor ocean can tell us aught of grace, of pardon, or of mercy. They utter no voice in reply to the question, How shall man be just before his God? For an answer to that, we must go to the cross, and blessed are they who have ears to hear and a heart to understand its language.