Thomas Halyburton
About five in the morning, when he was asked to lie quiet and try if he could rest, he answered, “No, no, should I lie here altogether useless? Should I not spend the last portion of my strength to show forth His glory?” He held up his hands (his hands and legs were greatly swollen) and said, “Lame hands and lame legs, but see a lame man leaping and rejoicing!”
Speaking of his children to his wife, he said, “They are all a devoted thing to the Lord; and I can say, sometimes, when they were baptised, that the Lord helped me to devote them to Him and bade me bring the rest, and He would accept them”.
Afterwards finding some disorder in his body, he said, “This is just one of the forerunners of the change, the great change”. Someone said, “Blessed be the Lord that He is providing you with relief”. He replied, “His Word is a good word; and He has been condescending, astonishingly condescending! And I am even made to say, Why are His chariot wheels so long a-coming? (Judg 5:28). When shall I be admitted to see the glory of the higher house and, instead of that cloudy light of a created sun, to see that clear and perfect glory and the Lamb in the midst of the throne?”
After a while’s silence in the forenoon, finding himself very low, he took farewell of his wife and children, greeting them all one by one, and spoke particularly to each of them. Then he said, “A kind and affectionate wife you have been to me; the Lord bless you, and He shall bless you”.
To a minister who came in, he said, “I am at a trying work; I am parting with my wife and children. Resolve on that, I bless His name, though I have had one of the best of wives, yet she is no more mine, but the Lord’s.”
Then to his children he said, “Now you are fatherless; your father is to be taken from you, but seek God. I had you from the Lord, and I give you to Him. Now I leave you upon Him; you are no more mine.”
To his son he said, “God bless the lad, and let my name be named upon him. But O what is my name? Let the name of the Lord be named upon him. I do not say, Keep up my name; but O that you may be honoured to tell the generation following how good God is and to hand down the testimony! And O that you may all be the Lord’s.”
After that, he spoke to his servants and said, “As for you, my servants that
1This is a further edited extract from “an account of some of his last words on his death-bed”, in 1712, taken from Faith and Experience, volume 4 of the James Begg Society edition of Halyburton’s Works. This is the second of two articles at present, giving an account of what he said on September 19. The previous article appeared in October.
have been in my family, my dear friends, make religion your main business and mind that above all things. I charge all my servants in my house, beware of graceless masters. Avoid them, as what may turn to your destruction; seek to be with them that fear the Lord.”
Then he said, “I will not bring up an ill report on religion; nay, I cannot but give a testimony to it: ‘Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed’ (Rom 5:3-5). God has shed abroad His love in my heart, and I am waiting for His salvation. Here is a demonstration of the reality of religion: that I a poor, weak, timorous man, once as much afraid of death as any – I that have been many years under the terrors of death – come now in the mercy of God and by the power of His grace, composedly and with joy, to look death in the face. I have seen it in its paleness and all the circumstances of horror attending it; I dare look it in the face in its most ghastly shape and hope within a little to have the victory.” Then he said, “I hope He will deal tenderly; but pray for me that my ‘faith fail not’ (Lk 22:32); I loved to live preaching Christ and love to die preaching Christ”.
To some ministers that had come in, he said, “My brethren, I have been taking farewell of wife and children; I have been giving them up to God, from whom I received them. I am upon the wing of eternity; but glory to God, I know in whom I have believed (2 Tim 1:12).”
Then he said, “Dear brethren, will you begin and speak a word to one who longs to hear of Christ? I love to hear the gospel! I love to preach it; it is a joyful sound, a sweet sound; I love to hear of His name; His ‘name is as ointment poured forth’ (Song 1:3); the efficacy lies here: they are His ordinances, His institutions, and He has promised to bless them. That makes me desire them. The gospel as dispensed is the ‘ministration of the Spirit’ (2 Cor 3:8). I have need of grace that I may be helped to stand to it to the last, and in the last conflict to honour Him.”
Someone said, “God has been gracious to you hitherto, and you know He is always the same; He is the same to those that belong to Him. Here is a good word: ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee’ (Heb 13:5).” He answered, “Blessed be His name that He will stand by me. O to have Him shut my eyes Himself and then to open them, that I may behold Him in His own light.”
Afterwards he said, “Well, Sirs, what shall we say of the Lord Christ? ‘He is altogether lovely’ (Song 5:16). Religion is a mystery; but I was looking through the promises this night, and observing how to provide against the last conflict. I was astonished and at a stand when I saw the sweet accomplishment of them; every promise of the Word of God is sweet; they are sure
promises. O Sirs, study the Word; observe the accomplishment of it; it was the thing I loved all my days, and it is sweet to the last. O the accomplishment of the Word is worthy to be observed, and especially when I was looking this same night to what He has already fulfilled to me.”
To a minister he said, “Now, Sir, though I will not limit the Lord as to time, I am expecting the onset from the last enemy; and I know not but I may get my enemies about me ere then.”
Then exhorting some to think on death, he said, “To remember death is a profitable thing; to remember death is not to go to churchyards and visit tombs, but it lies in this: to be habitually under the impression of death in its rise and cause, in its present state and relation to both covenants, the various issues and consequences of it and the way of delivery from it and all the circumstances attending it.”
Then, as to his spiritual enemies, he said, “I think I am now almost out of their hand”. Someone said, “That is a great victory”. He answered, “I dare not speak of victory; but He holds me up, though I cannot keep pace. I am afraid to speak, lest a cursed enemy, namely self, lie at the door to catch; for when I had the greatest advantages, I have felt corruption stirring and making no small work, inclining me to spoil my Lord of His glory.”
Someone said, “We shall neither under mercies nor afflictions be free of this trial”. He said, “O strange that when death has so long been kept in view, it should be so!” Someone said, “You have reason to count it a victory that the Lord has helped you over your recent fears. You know what a dread you had on Wednesday, and what a sweet relief you got.” He answered, “I desire to bless His name for it, but I should yet have as great a dread if He should withdraw. Holy fear, caution and jealousy are still needful.”
After that, he said to the ministers: “Brethren, I take this opportunity to acknowledge your tenderness to me, that I am most unworthy of it in many respects. I can say I desired to live in love with you, and I bless God there was harmony amongst us. The Lord bless you and your labours; the Lord himself multiply spiritual blessings on you and your families, support you against discouragements, and the Lord in mercy look on the rising generation. The Lord keep His hands about the schools in this place. God look with pity on them.”
Then he said to one of them: “My dear brother, who has been my comfort in affliction, stand your ground; quit yourself like a man; be strong. Now, my dear friend, I shall only say, as I wish you the blessing of God on your family, so I desire that you will even show kindness to the dead, in sympathy and kindness to my dear wife and children. I recommend her to your care; she has been the friend of my bosom, the wife of my youth, a faithful friend.”
And turning to all the ministers present, “O Sirs, check my poor babies if ye see anything in them disorderly; I have lent and devoted them to the Lord. Last spring the Lord has made proof of it, and has taken me at my word.2 Sirs, it is an evidence of the decay of religion that sympathy and love among the saints are decayed. O that the Spirit were poured out from on high!”
Then he said, “Pray, Sirs, pray for grace. I would have the praise of the victory to Him.” Afterwards he said, “Patience must have its perfect work. I will wait for it; my soul longs more than they that wait for the morning. Sweet Lord Jesus, make haste, ‘until the day break, and the shadows flee away’ (Song 2:17). Then to a minister he said, “Pray a word for patience to me to stand this last trial”.
Effectual Calling1
3. Its Circumstances Vary
James Foote
In so far as effectual calling consists in the mind becoming obedient to the word of the truth of the gospel, through the influence of the Holy Spirit, it is always substantially the same. But it differs in various circumstances.
It is not practicable in most cases, to ascertain exactly when it takes place, nor is it necessary in any of them; but it is clearly justifiable to say that it varies in the circumstance of time. One person is called in very early life, so that he can say with Isaiah: “The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath He made mention of my name”. And Paul says it is a special privilege to be called early, and a cause for much thankfulness: “Salute Andronicus and Junia, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me”. Others are called in middle age; a few, and only a few – so that no one may despair and no one may presume – are called towards the close of life. In the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, some were called very early in the morning, and others at the third, sixth, ninth and eleventh hours.
Effectual calling varies also in the circumstance of place. Some become obedient to the faith in the privacy of their closet, many more in public worship. Some accept the gospel invitation in the land where they were born, in the midst of kind friends and abounding privileges. Others have, in a state
2A reference to the death of his son George.
1Taken, with editing, from Foote’s Treatise on Effectual Calling. Foote (1781-1856) was a minister in Aberdeen, latterly in the Free Church. Last month’s section spoke of effectual calling as secret, taking place in the secrecy of the soul.
of carelessness and rebellion, gone abroad to countries where there was, humanly speaking, everything to fear and nothing to hope for, as to their highest concerns; there they have been graciously arrested by the Lord’s call, and thus in the land of heathens, or at least the land of strangers where they had gone in quest of gold that perishes, they have been brought home to God and gained a better fortune than the wealth of all such countries. The woman of Samaria was effectually called by Christ at Jacob’s well, whither she had gone to draw water. Lydia had left Thyatira to be a seller of purple at Philippi, and there the Lord opened her heart, so that she attended to the things which were spoken by Paul.
When we were considering the outward means which the Spirit of God uses to bring sinners to Christ, we found that they varied, and we need not say more on that point here. It is important, however, to observe that, while the change is radically the same in all cases, it differs as to the exact process through which the mind passes, especially as to the degree in which the different ideas and impressions prevail. In all, there is some conviction of sin and misery; but that conviction is much deeper and more painful in some than in others. In all, there is knowledge; but the illumination is far clearer in some than in others. In all, there is a quickening to newness of life; but in some there is much more vigour than in others. In all, there is some faith; but some are weak in the faith, even very weak, and others are strong. In all, there is some feeling, both of the danger arising from the violated law, and of the attractions of gospel grace – something of the influence of terror and something of the influence of love; but some cases are characterised chiefly by one of these features and others by the other.
It may be useful to keep properly in mind this diversity as to circumstances. It should prevent those whose duty it is to act as instructors to others from laying down positively and minutely any fixed and regular process, holding it necessary for people to pass through all its steps, and in a certain order. It should also prevent all from judging rashly and unfavourably of the state of others, whose experience may not have been conformed to theirs, or to their favourite model. This too should serve to allay that uneasiness which some serious people are ready to feel, because they have not been led on in the same way as some others whom they are accustomed rightly to regard as true Christians.
The great question is, Are they indeed savingly called? If they are, the circumstantial points are of comparatively little importance. These points ought not, it is true, to be disregarded. On the contrary, as far as they are known, they should be devoutly considered. Still it is beyond dispute that the calling itself is the grand work, a work which must ultimately be referred to
the Spirit of God, in whatever way it may have been accomplished. When God exerts His ordinary converting power, as well as when He exerted His miraculous power, “there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who worketh all in all. . . . All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.”
The Forgotten Bunyan1
2. The Background to The Pilgrim’s Progress
Matthew Vogan
2. The forgotten companions of The Pilgrim’s Progress. These are the books Bunyan wrote beyond Grace Abounding and The Holy War. Indeed, he wrote almost 60 books in all. They all had the purpose of engaging spiritual experience with the Scriptures, even in the case of A Book for Boys and Girls. Many of them were expanded sermons or sermon-treatises. These were popular at the time, accounting for about 30% of the cheap book market – some cost as little as sixpence (for example, Bunyan’s The Strait Gate, 1676). There are various types of sermon-treatises – most are straightforward practical treatises, but others have a doctrinal or typological emphasis or deal with controversial issues.
The more straightforward of the expanded sermons often develop a central metaphor. Some of these are obvious, such as The Water of Life and The Holy City. Others, such as The Saints’ Privilege and Profit, deal at length with meditating on the throne of grace and the heavenly realities of prayer. The Saints’ Knowledge of Christ’s Love spends time meditating on, and fully exploring, the breadth, length, depth and height of Christ’s love. The Acceptable Sacrifice focuses at length on what it means spiritually to have a broken heart, comparing it to the pain and disability of having broken limbs. The Advocateship of Jesus Christ dwells on many legal terms as Bunyan seeks to set forth Christ by the comparison of a lawyer. This practice of meditating on a biblical metaphor and ransacking Scripture to understand it is the approach to Scripture and to preaching that gave rise to The Pilgrim’s Progress.
Bunyan’s preaching could have descriptive power. For instance, at the end of The Barren Fig Tree, terrifyingly to the reader, Bunyan seems to foresee the deathbed experience of the fruitless professing Christian in all its horror: “Wherefore death comes not to this man as he doth to saints, muzzled, or without his sting, but with open mouth, in all his strength. . . . Now he hath
1This series discusses aspects of Bunyan’s life and work that have been forgotten. Last month’s article spoke of him as a preacher.
his fruitless fruits beleaguer him round his bed, together with all the bands and legions of his other wickedness. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden in the cords of his sins (Prov 5.22). . . Now some terrible discovery is made out unto him, to the perplexing and terrifying of his guilty conscience. . . The dark entry he is to go through will be a sore amazement to him; for fear shall be in the way, yea terrors will take hold on him, when he shall see the yawning jaws of death to gape upon him, and the doors of the shadow of death open, to give him passage out of the world. Now who will meet me in this dark entry, how shall I pass through this dark entry into another world?”
3. The Forgotten Origin of The Pilgrim’s Progress. What has been forgotten is that The Pilgrim’s Progress is a sermon – or at least a sermon-treatise, an expanded sermon. It has the same purpose and approach as his sermons. It actually has its origin in a sermon preached 20 years before this book was ever published. It is even possible that it was the sermon he intended to preach when first arrested in 1660. This indicates that the themes and approach of The Pilgrim’s Progress were germinating from the very outset of Bunyan’s work of preaching.
The sermon was eventually published four decades later as The Heavenly Footman, or, A Description of the Man That Gets to Heaven. It is a sermon on the text, “So run, that ye may obtain” (1 Cor 9:24). It is constantly emphasised, “They that will have heaven must run for it”, and there are clear directions as to how to do this. The sermon develops very fully the comparison that the Christian life is a race – a race to heaven. That is a long distance. “It is an easy matter” says Bunyan, “for a man to run hard for a spurt, for a furlong, for a mile or two. O but to hold out for a hundred, for a thousand, for ten thousand miles! That man that doth this must look to meet with cross, pain and wearisomeness to the flesh; especially if, as he goeth, he meeteth with briars and quagmires and other encumbrances, that make his journey so much the more painful.” “Because the way is long (I speak metaphorically), and there is many a dirty step, many a high hill.”
It is easy to see how the ideas of The Pilgrim’s Progress are forming there. Those who run in this race must be clear that they are in the right way, the gospel way of trusting in the death and righteousness of Christ alone. They must beware bypaths and wrong turnings. “Notwithstanding the kingdom of heaven be the biggest city, yet usually those bypaths are most beaten, most travellers go those ways; and therefore the way to heaven is hard to be found, and as hard to be kept in.” Many will seek to turn them back or aside. They must run in a particular way – so run that they may obtain. There are many who seem to be running for a while but they do not last the course.
There must be perseverance. They must get rid of all that would weigh them down or keep them back.
It is likely that Bunyan returned to this sermon to enlarge it around a decade later. This was during the latter part of his first imprisonment, which lasted from 1660 to 1672. He tells us how this process of writing then turned into The Pilgrim’s Progress:
When at the first I took my pen in hand
Thus for to write, I did not understand
That I at all should make a little book
In such a mode; nay, I had undertook
To make another; which, when almost done,
Before I was aware, I this begun.
And thus it was: I, writing of the way
And race of saints, in this our gospel day,
Fell suddenly into an allegory
About their journey, and the way to glory,
In more than twenty things which I set down.
This done, I twenty more had in my crown;
And they again began to multiply,
Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly.
Nay, then, thought I, if that you breed so fast,
I’ll put you by yourselves, lest you at last
Should prove ad infinitum, and eat out
The book that I already am about.
It would be fair to say that The Pilgrim’s Progress is clearly a very expanded sermon. It expounds the same text as The Heavenly Footman and has the same purpose; only it does this in a much fuller way and to a greater extent.
4. The Forgotten Historical Context of The Pilgrim’s Progress. The Heavenly Footman was probably written during 1667 and after this The Pilgrim’s Progress was developed. The period 1667-1673 was the first Restoration crisis during which there was hope that the repression of non-conformists would be relaxed. John Owen and others published pleas for greater religious freedom. There were even riots in London concerning the way that brothels were being tolerated by the authorities while religious meetings or conventicles were being repressed. But by the end of this period in 1673, there were heightened fears of Roman Catholicism regaining strength in the land – and the kind of absolute rule that Charles II exercised was being associated with Romanism.
The period during which The Pilgrim’s Progress was eventually published
was just after Bunyan’s second imprisonment – it was a time that witnessed renewed efforts to repress the conventicles or illegal meetings of nonconformists. Meetings were being broken up forcibly and the consequences for those attending them could be severe, involving heavy fines if not imprisonment and banishment. Frequently the authorities might take away the tools of their trade, which was a huge economic blow for working people. The Bedford church certainly suffered in this way as a publication from the year 1670 records. In general, there was considerable pressure on people in remaining true to the gospel way. There was considerable suffering involved in continuing to hear those who were preaching the gospel outside the Church of England. There is a record of Bunyan needing to admonish a church member from withdrawing from worship in 1668.
While The Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory of spiritual experience it is written in a particular historical context of suffering. Those who seek to turn Christian from the narrow way are figures of a particular social standing as well as of religious views. Mr Worldly Wiseman, for instance, represents a particular self-satisfied, comfortable, affluent lifestyle as well as a self-righteous outlook. The restrictions on nonconformists in education, politics and society meant that social status went hand in hand with the religion of the Church of England. By-ends is a similar figure who conforms to what is popular in religion in order to suit his worldly ease. He loves to follow religion as long as it goes in silver shoes. Others are Money-love, Save-all and Hold-the-World.
It does not take much of a stretch to see in Vanity Fair the sinful debauchery of Restoration England and its repression of the truth. Ignorance rejects the gospel way and thinks he can follow his own path to the Celestial City, showing the danger of such courses. Christian must resist constant pressure to turn back from those who are leaving the true way. There are Pliable, Timorous and Mistrust, Turn-away and Talkative. There is also Atheist who has searched for the celestial city for 20 years and concluded “there is no such place as you dream of in all this world”, because he can only think in terms of this world. These were realities too often known in the persecuting England of Bunyan’s time. The pressures were similarly described by the nonconformist Benjamin Keach in a poetic dialogue published in 1673 called War with the Devil. A young man called Youth is instructed by Truth in relation to conflict with the powers of evil. In an appendix, Youth is discouraged by an old man called Apostate, who is turning back from the journey towards Canaan.
Obituaries
Mr Ian G MacLean
Ian G MacLean was born, the eldest of four children, on 24 June 1926 at Mulchaich, Ferintosh, on the Black Isle. He was called up for his national service in August 1944 and was stationed in India and Japan, serving in the military police. He was discharged from the forces in February 1948. Back in civilian life, he became a lorry driver and then a bus driver with Highland Omnibuses. He was later promoted to the position of bus regulator, the company’s term for an inspector. After that he worked for Gilbert Ross, in an ironmongery shop in Inverness, and later in their Invergordon branch. He was then asked to manage the new Farm and Household Stores in Inverness, which he did for 21 years, until he retired in 1997.
In later life he referred to his disappointment when he was not accepted for the police service in Scotland. He unexpectedly failed the medical because of his eyesight. But, looking back, he used to say that this disappointment was from the Lord: he believed that it was for his spiritual good.
Ian married Margaret MacLeod in August 1953; the service was conducted by Rev D A Macfarlane, then minister of the Dingwall and Beauly congregation, and they settled in Inverness. They had four sons and, having been spared to a ripe old age, they had grandchildren and great grandchildren.
As a boy, Ian had attended the Free Church, and Margaret had been brought up a Free Presbyterian. After their marriage they used to attend the Free Church for one service on Sabbaths and the Free Presbyterian Church for the other, but by the time their first child was born, they realised that this was not a practical arrangement, and they started attending the Free Presbyterian Church all the time. Before seeking baptism for his first child, Kenneth, Ian gave up his employment with Highland Omnibuses – it involved Sabbath work – and moved to Gilbert Ross’s shop.
When he arranged to meet Rev A F Mackay, then the Inverness minister, with a view to receiving baptism for Kenneth, he was reluctant to go alone and asked Hugh Gunn, who was married to his sister-in-law, to go along with him, which he duly did. During the course of the meeting, it became evident that both Ian and Hugh were under concern about their souls and, shortly afterwards, they were both accepted as members in full communion in the Church. When he came to the Kirk Session in June 1959 to profess faith in Christ, he told them that since beginning to attend the Free Presbyterian Church he had come to see that he was a sinner and to feel his need of Christ. He indicated that a sermon on the verse, “The Spirit and the bride say,
Come,” had been blessed to him. He mentioned also that some of Rev A F Mackay’s sermons and Mr Finlay Beaton’s addresses had been helpful to him. He had a life-long regard for Mr Mackay.
He was elected an elder in 1962 (at the same time as his brother-in-law Hugh Gunn). He acknowledged the benefit he received as a young elder, from the advice of more experienced men on the Inverness Kirk Session, including Finlay Beaton, Robert Watt and Murdoch Campbell. He was very conscious of his duties as an elder, and people found Ian approachable when they had matters they wanted to discuss. He is recalled as a balanced man who always sought to resolve difficulties in kirk session meetings amicably but without compromise of biblical principles.
He served on a number of the Synod committees, including those with responsibility for Foreign Missions, for Finance and for Ballifeary Care Home. He was an assessor elder for other congregations in the Northern Presbytery for many years. He was often asked to take services in the Inverness congregation and elsewhere, particularly in places within the Presbytery. Psalm 40 was a particular favourite of his and he would often give it out to be sung when he was taking a service. He was an able speaker and people found his addresses interesting; they were much appreciated. He could explain the truth well and present it in an evangelical way. He taught the senior class in the Sabbath School for many years.
A member of the Inverness congregation recalls that “he was listened to with attention, holding your interest throughout the service”. She mentioned two Scripture passages which she associates with Mr MacLean. He used them as texts but also quoted them in prayer and when speaking in public. “The first is Psalm 106:4: ‘Remember me, Lord, with that love which Thou to Thine dost bear; / With Thy salvation, O my God, to visit me draw near’. The second is Ezekiel 16:6-9, but especially verse 8: ‘Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love . . . and thou becamedst Mine’.” He was in the Inverness congregation for 65 years and an elder for 57 years.
Hugh Gunn and Ian MacLean often attended communion seasons together and no doubt received spiritual benefit from doing so. He visited Zimbabwe in March 1992 with Mr Eleneth Sutherland, also an Inverness elder; it was a trip which he thoroughly enjoyed. The Mission staff showed them much kindness and they were able to see almost all aspects of the Church’s work there. He also visited the Kenya Mission on a number of occasions.
Due to his wife’s failing health and need for 24-hour care, they moved into Ballifeary Care Home in Inverness in September 2016, and it was a pleasure to visit him there. Another minister also recalls: “I always enjoyed
conversations with him as they inevitably centred around the truth”. His wife passed away in May 2018, and naturally he felt the loss deeply. Just under a year later he suffered a further stroke, which meant that he had to be taken into hospital. While there, he developed pneumonia and passed to his eternal rest on 2 May 2019, aged 92.
When the Lord removes His children to a better world, we would wish that the Lord would bring many others to Himself who would be clearly on His side, not least in an ungodly generation such as this – and particularly men who would serve Him as office-bearers in His Church. We would express our sincere sympathy to Mr MacLean’s family, and to his sons in particular.
“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord” (Rev 14:13).
(Rev) K D Macleod
Mr William G Macleod
The Ullapool congregation have suffered a great loss in the removal by death of Mr William (Willie) George Macleod, at the age of 87 years on 3 October 2020. William was born on the 12 December 1932, one of six siblings. He was brought up in Strathkanaird, eight miles from Ullapool. After the normal course of schooling he entered further training in agriculture at Balmacara and Craibstone before returning home and in providence built up a successful business over the years. In 1969 he was moved to profess faith in Christ publicly for the first time and thereby began what would be a long and sometimes very trying wilderness journey to the heavenly Canaan.
On 12 August 1975 William was joined in marriage to Morag Macaskill, daughter of the late Rev A Macaskill, Lochinver, who had been a spiritual father to William and now in providence his father-in-law, whom he held in the highest regard. This marriage was blessed with three daughters but sadly the eldest died at four months of age.
William became an elder in April 1981. He was esteemed in many respects and chiefly his attention to the preaching of the gospel. He was gifted by God for this duty and obviously blessed with much understanding in the fear of God. He had clear and deep spiritual experience which manifested itself in prayer and preaching along with clear evidence of his humility, esteeming others greater than himself.
Ullapool congregation had been left vacant following the departure of Rev Neil Ross and William felt this most keenly. Since then, until now, the task of the elders was increased in the absence of a settled ministry. The burden fell on William and his brother elder, and for many years this led to William being engaged more frequently in taking church services and in other aspects of church life. It could be said of him as David, King of Israel, said about
Abner, who had come to his help: “Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel?” (2 Sam 3:38)
The Kirk Session together with the congregation express their genuine sorrow and sense of loss and would extend their sympathy to his widow, a true helpmeet, and those of the family that remain. Our prayer is that they would experience the promises, “Thy God commands thy strength”; “As thy days, so shall thy strength be” (Ps 68:28; Deut 33:25). (Rev) A E W MacDonald
Book Reviews1
From the Mouth of Lions, Sermons on the Book of Daniel, by Hugh M Cartwright, published by Reformation Press, 240 pages, hardback, £23.40; paperback, £12.90.
This is an excellent volume. It contains 12 sermons, one on each chapter in the Book of Daniel. And in each of these sermons – preached on consecutive Sabbath evenings from mid-January 2008 – Mr Cartwright succeeds in giving an overview of the whole chapter.
For example, in summing up the account of the fiery trial of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, he notes that attention is concentrated especially on “the faithfulness of these three men to God and their readiness to adhere to the principles of their religion, no matter what the consequences. They were instrumental in maintaining a testimony to God in Babylon, and they did so, not knowing . . . what the outcome of their stand would be. But they did believe that it was for them to worship the one living and true God, and not to give way, not to compromise the principles of their religion in any way.” This leads him to announce his three main points: (1.) They “were habitually prepared for this crisis”. (He goes on to explain that this was “because it was their habit, by the grace of God, to be governed by the fear of God”). (2.) They “were sustained by their confidence in God”. (3.) They “were committed to God, whatever the outcome”. And in his concluding remarks, Mr Cartwright makes the point: “That is the call that is addressed to us in our generation – not to compromise with evil”.
In concluding this sermon, the preacher also notes that “in the book of Daniel, Christ is at the heart of it. In Chapter 2, Christ was the stone that was going to break the great image. In Chapter 3, Christ was there to sustain His people.” At the start of his sermon on Chapter 6, there is a further comment on the main theme of Daniel: “The incidents recorded in the first six chapters of the book of Daniel illustrate the theological message of the book – the
1Both books reviewed here may be obtained from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom.
sovereignty of God in the affairs of men and the care which God takes of His own people and His own cause”. Again, at the start of the final sermon, the preacher notes that “the general thrust of this book is . . . that the history of the Church is completely under the control of God, and that although God brings His people through times of great trial and testing, both individually and collectively, yet He is making everything work together to the accomplishing of the purposes which He has in view”.
Chapter 4 of Daniel records Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and his being cast out to eat grass as an animal. This lesson is brought out: “We have a God who really is God – a God who rules. We see that working out in the salvation of sinners. We see how the sovereignty of God comes to expression in saving sinners – in bringing sinners to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see it in all of providence, that God was working everything according to His plan, in a way that will manifest the glory of all His perfections.”
Again, the concluding remarks on chapter 6 begin thus: “Surely this whole incident is calling on us to set the Lord always before us. To be governed by the fear of the Lord. To be aiming at the glory of God. And to follow the Lord fully – to be faithful to Him, in all the pressures which may be brought to bear on us. Whatever the seeming outcome may be, we are to believe that the right way, whether it leads to a den of lions or not, is always to be followed. The right way is not to be determined by the consequences, but by the revealed will of God.”
When Mr Cartwright comes to the more difficult parts of Daniel, in chapters 7-12, he continues to expound the passage before him and to apply it, with his feet firmly fixed on solid Scripture principles. He emphasises, “Whatever may be said about the details, there is no doubt that the overall thrust of these visions is to convey to Daniel and to God’s people that, however triumphant the powers of ungodliness may seem to be, God is in complete control of the situation. All these kingdoms will pass away. But the kingdom of Christ will endure for ever.” He mentions the general principle: “When we come to the Bible, we should come with a desire to understand something of what God is saying to us and to benefit from it, and to be stirred up to live in a way that is glorifying to Him”. Yet he warns that “when people are trying to work out what this and that puzzling thing means, they risk losing sight of the purpose for which it has been given to us”.
In expounding chapter 8, for instance, the preacher explains the fulfilment of the prophecy in some detail, but the main thrust lies in the general lessons to be learned. His main points are: (1.) “Evil may rise to great heights and seem to triumph.” (2.) “Everything is under God’s control, and He will triumph in the end.” (3.) The “instruction we should derive from these facts”.
He makes the further point, in introducing Chapter 12: “Many people are very serious about trying to work out the times and the seasons. But whatever may be the particular significance of these times and years and days, the emphasis is certainly that although the time may be long, yet it is limited. It is controlled by God, and He has His time for everything, and when His time would come, Christ would appear.”
The final main point on this chapter deals with “the encouragement” to Daniel that he would “rest and stand in [his] lot at the end of the days”. The preacher says, “When the Lord’s people leave this world, when soul and body are separated, they rest. Their body rests in the grave, and their soul enters immediately into the blessedness of heaven, where they rest from temptation and they rest from sin. . . . One moment they’re struggling. They’re in conflict with the corruption of their own natures. . . . And the next moment, their souls are made perfect in holiness! Sin has been banished from their lives for ever, they never have to worry about temptation again, and they never have to worry about falling into sin again.”
Mr Cartwright was describing here what we fully believe he has now experienced. We trust that many will profit from these sermons both in understanding the Book of Daniel better and by receiving the scriptural application that is made in them. May readers lay this book down with a (clearer) conviction that God is ruling over everything that happens.
The Priesthood of Christ, by Peter MacBride, published by the Scottish Highlands Reformed Book Trust, paperback, 107 pages, £7.95, MacBride was born in Argyllshire in 1797. For part of his teenage years, he lived with his uncle Neil MacBride in Arran, who was a minister there. During that time, in 1812-13, “a great awakening occurred under the ministry” of his uncle, and it was probably about this time that “he received his first serious religious impressions”.2 As a student in Glasgow, Peter MacBride attended the ministry of the noted John Love and no doubt benefited greatly from what he heard. In 1825 MacBride became a minister in Rothesay, in the Isle of Bute, and continued there till he died, in 1846.
His death brought the following tribute from “Rabbi” John Duncan: “How can I forget that it was ever my privilege to hold familiar converse with one whose mind, naturally of the noblest mould, carefully stored with the best and solidest learning, divine and human – deeply subdued in days long past to the obedience of the gospel, and richly filled with the Word of God dwelling in it in all wisdom and spiritual understanding?” He “was ever”, Duncan continued, “pouring forth without straining, and as it were without
2Disruption Worthies of the Highlands, Edinburgh, 1877, pp 159-60.
effort, streams of wholesome doctrine, hallowed affection, and growing aspirations after the glory of God and the salvation and universal good of his fellow men”.
This book contains a series of sermons on Hebrews 4:14-16: “Seeing then that we have a great high priest . . .”. It treats such subjects as: the Person of Christ, His appointment to be a priest, His work in making atonement, His suffering, the fruit of His sacrifice, His intercession and ascension, and His character as High Priest.
In speaking of Christ’s priestly intercession, MacBride speaks of Him as “perfect in His office, for He engages and undertakes to do for sinners all that they need to be done for them that they may be saved. Are they guilty? He engages to reconcile them to God, and instate them in His favour and Fatherly love. Are they ignorant? He engages to instruct and enlighten them in all that concerns their eternal peace and well-being. And are they disobedient and helpless? He engages to bring them to submit, and to protect them in His service and ways. In short, are they lost? He engages to save them.”
A little later, the preacher shows his warm desire that sinners would come to Christ and receive at once from Him a full salvation: “He is perfect in His salvation. All things are now ready. ‘Come ye’, it is said, ‘to the supper.’ . . . O sinner, come to Christ this day; you will find, on so coming, all that yourself could wish Him to be.”
When speaking of the gifts that Christ procured for sinners, MacBride refers to (1) redemption, so that these gifts may be imparted through the means of grace; (2) the Spirit, “for rendering the means effectual”; (3) “access unto the favour of God through faith”; (4) deliverance from sin, so that God’s people may be sanctified; (5) “grace for every duty and trial”; (6) fellowship with God and “His indwelling by His Spirit in them”. MacBride sums up: “He has secured every blessing of salvation here and eternal glory hereafter; all is enjoyed through the merits and intercession of the glorious Redeemer. See here the rich fruit of His mediation and ministry above.”
MacBride’s Remains were first published in 1848. The book under review is the second, and smaller, section of the Remains. The editor was Alexander MacBride, a relation of his, who also was a minister in Bute. Probably because of a lack of time, the editor had the volume printed directly from Peter MacBride’s manuscripts, apart from omitting repetitious material at the beginning of each sermon. Consequently the present publishers have felt it necessary to do some editing “to improve grammar”, for instance, and “to clarify ambiguous wording”. The Priesthood of Christ is recommended as an example of the profitable preaching from Scottish pulpits in an age which knew more of the blessing of the Holy Spirit than, sadly, we know today.
MacBride concludes this series of sermons by emphasising several aspects of the greatness of this High Priest. No doubt there was sincere worship in his heart when he asked his hearers: “Can you see any to commit your case to [who is] more worthy of it than this Saviour?” May readers come to an end of this book with something of that worshipful spirit in their own hearts!