God's Special Day

Henry Scudder, The Christian's Daily Walk, p. 137:

Motives to keep holy the Lord's day.
...
Neither is there any ordinary means of gaining strength and grace in the inward man like this, of due observing the sabbath. For this is God's great mart or fair-day for the soul, on which you may buy of Christ wine, milk, bread, marrow and fatness, gold, white raiment, eye salve, -- even all things which are necessary, and which will satisfy, and cause the soul to live. It is the special day of proclaiming and sealing of pardons to penitent sinners. It is God's special day of publishing and sealing your patent of eternal life. It is a blessed day, sanctified for all these blessed purposes.

Even Unto Death

The 1561 Belgic Confession speaks of the duty of all Christians to join the true church despite whatever obstacles may providentially stand in the way, even the violent opposition of wicked magistrates, including capital punishment.

Belgic Confession, Chap. 28:

EVERY ONE IS BOUND TO JOIN HIMSELF TO THE TRUE CHURCH

We believe, since this holy congregation is an assembly of those who are saved, and out of it there is no salvation,1 that no person, of whatsoever state or condition he may be, ought to withdraw himself to live in a separate state from it;2 but that all men are in duty bound to join and unite themselves with it, maintaining the unity of the church;3 submitting themselves to the doctrine and discipline thereof; bowing their necks under the yoke of Jesus Christ;4 and as mutual members of the same body,5 serving to the edification of the brethren, according to the talents God has given them.

And that this may be the more effectually observed, it is the duty of all believers, according to the Word of God, to separate themselves from all those who do not belong to the church,6 and to join themselves to this congregation wheresoever God hath established it,7 even though the magistrates and edicts of princes be against it, yea, though they should suffer death or any other corporal punishment.8 Therefore all those who separate themselves from the same, or do not join themselves to it, act contrary to the ordinance of God.

8 Dan. 3:17, 18—If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Dan. 6:8-10—Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. Wherefore king Darius signed the writing and the decree. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Rev. 14:14—And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. Acts 4:17—But that it spread no further among the people, let us straitly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name. Acts 4:19—But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. Acts 17:7—Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. Acts 18:13—Saying, This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law.

Guido de Brès, the author of this confession of, sealed these words with his own blood on May 31, 1567, when he died a martyr's death at a prison in Valenciennes, France. The story of his life and death is a remarkable one, even in an age when many held fast to the faith even unto death itself. Wes Bredenhof, among others, has done a great service through his research and translation work concerning de Brès, and rather than give a biographical sketch of our hero of the faith here, I encourage the reader to tolle lege, take up and read, concerning his life and death, most particularly, a first-hand account of the martyr's death, and de Brès' final letter to his wife, which is comparable to those letters from Christopher Love to his wife (and hers to him) as he likewise awaited death.

The Apostle Paul teaches that "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2 Tim. 3.12). It is worth considering if this text speaks truly of us. Yet, not all are called to lay down their lives for the gospel, at least not as martyrs, though no Christian should shrink from the privilege of walking the same path which our Master walked at such a cost if it is given to us to lay down our lives for his sake. We do not choose the age in which we live "but," as Gandalf told Frodo once, "that is not for [us] to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

As we remember Guido de Brès on the anniversary of his death-day, his entrance into the heavenly reward of the faithful, we do well to consider what William Gouge reminds us, that even in an age of peace and calm for the Church of Christ -- and while it is so in many respects today in the United States, there are places even now where there is great persecution against the saints, and our brethren who suffer for righteousness sake stand in need of our prayers -- it is our duty, and our blessed privilege, to be martyr-minded:

O that all who profess the Faith of Christ were like minded! It well becomes us all to be so minded. And if indeed we be so minded, God who knows the mind, heart, and spirit of a man will answerably account of him, and accept him, though he never be brought to the fiery trial, as if he had been brought to it, and endured it to the very uttermost: The virtues and graces of the mind sometimes are manifested in their deed or work: and sometimes lie hid in their habit, as the virtue of Martyrdom. Many may have the same prowess that Martyrs have, who are not brought to the same proof thereof....As it is therefore needful and useful in the prime and strength of our age, when we have best health to meditate on the sundry kinds of diseases, and manifold casualties whereunto we are subject, and on death, the end of all: so in the most flourishing times of the Church, meditation on the uttermost that may be endured even to the shedding of blood for fast-holding our profession of Christ, is a most meet meditation.

Pipe Aria and Coffee Cantata

Today's Friday entertainment from Virginia is for Huguenots comes in the form of two compositions by J.S. Bach in tribute to the pleasures of pipe tobacco and coffee.

First, the Coffee Cantata [Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht ("Be still, stop chattering"), BWV 211], which is a comic opera, as the title indicates. One may read the text in English here and more about the piece here. And now, for your listening pleasure, a portion of the Coffee Cantata:



Finally, the Pipe Aria is a composition that appears in Bach's Noten-Bchlein vor Anna Magdalena Bach ("Little Notebook for A.M.Bach") of 1725 as Erbauliche Gedanken eines Tobackrauchers: Sooft ich meine Tobackspfeife" ("Edifying Thoughts of a Tobacco-Smoker: Whenever I take my good pipe"). There is some uncertainty as to the author of the text, and a portion may be derived from another source; but Bach is a known poet, the theme is one that Bach appreciated, and the musical composition is certainly Bach's. There are various English translations, several of which are here provided for comparison, along with a peformance of BWV 515a (in G minor). One version ends: "On land, at sea, at home, abroad / I smoke my pipe and worship God." Enjoy!

Edifying Thoughts of a Pipe Smoker (Version 1)

Whene'er I take my pipe and stuff it
And smoke to pass the time away
My thoughts, as I sit there and puff it,
Dwell on a picture sad and grey:
It teaches me that very like
Am I myself unto my pipe.

Like me this pipe, so fragrant burning,
Is made of naught but earthen clay;
To earth I too shall be returning,
And cannot halt my slow decay.
My well used pipe, now cracked and broken,
Of mortal life is but a token.

No stain, the pipe's hue yet doth darken;
It remains white. Thus do I know
That when to death's call I must harken
My body, too, all pale will grow.
To black beneath the sod 'twill turn,
Likewise the pipe, if oft it burn.

Or when the pipe is fairly glowing,
Behold then instantaneously,
The smoke off into thin air going,
'Til naught but ash is left to see.
Man's fame likewise away will burn
And unto dust his body turn.

How oft it happens when one's smoking,
The tamper's missing from it's shelf,
And one goes with one's finger poking
Into the bowl and burns oneself.
If in the pipe such pain doth dwell
How hot must be the pains of Hell!

Thus oer my pipe in contemplation
Of such things - I can constantly
Indulge in fruitful meditation,
And so, puffing contentedly,
On land, at sea, at home, abroad,
I smoke my pipe and worship God.

Edifying Thoughts of a Pipe Smoker (Version 2)

Whenever I pick up my tobacco-pipe,
Stuffed with good tobacco
For pleasure and pastime,
It gives me a sad impression -
And leads to the conclusion
That I resemble it in many ways.

The pipe was made from clay and earth
And so was I.
One day I will be earth again -
It often falls from the hand
And breaks before you know,
My destiny is the same.

The pipe is usually not colored;
It remains white. So therefore,
One day when I am dying
My body will turn pale.
Once buried it becomes black, just like
A pipe that has been used for a long time.

When the pipe is lit,
One sees the smoke disappear instantly
In the free air,
Leaving nothing but ashes behind.
The glory of all mankind is consumed
And the body turns to dust.

So often it happens while smoking,
That the stuffer is not handy,
And instead the finger is used,
Then I wonder when I burn myself,
If the ashes make such pain
How hot will it be in Hades?

Since such is the case,
From my tobacco I can always
Erect enlightening thoughts.
Therefore, in comfort I smoke
On Land, at sea and at home
My little pipe, with devotion.

Edifying Thoughts of a Pipe Smoker (Version 3)

As oft I fill my faithful pipe,
To while away the moments glad,
With fragrant leaves, so rich and ripe,
My mind perceives an image sad,
So that I can but clearly see
How very like it is to me.

My pipe is made of earth and clay,
From which my mortal part is wrought;
I, too, must turn to earth some day.
It often falls, as quick as thought,
And breaks in tow, -- puts out its flame;
My fate, alas! is but the same!

My pipe I color not, nor paint;
White it remains, and hence 'tis true
That, when in Death's cold arms I faint,
My lips shall wear the ashen hue;
And as it blackens day by day,
So black the grave shall turn my clay!

And when the pipe is put alight
The smoke ascends, then trembles, wanes,
And soon dissolves in sunshine bright,
And but the whitened ash remains.
'Tis so man's glory crumble must,
E'en as his body, into dust!

How oft the filler is mislaid;
And, rather than to seek in vain,
I use my finger in its stead,
And fancy as I feel the pain,
If coals can burn to such degree,
How hot, O Lord, must Hades be!

So in tobacco oft I find,
Lessons of such instructive type;
And hence with calm, contented mind
I live, and smoke my faithful pipe
In reverence where'er I roam, --
On land, on water, and at home.

Sing David's Psalms With David's Spirit

Isaac Watts complained that it was needful for himself to "teach my Author [David] to speak like a Christian," and therefore in his hymnbook aimed to

have rather exprest myself as I may suppose David would have done, had he lived in the Days of Christianity. And by this means perhaps I have sometimes hit upon the true Intent of the Spirit of God in those Verses, farther and clearer than David himself could ever discover, as St. Peter encourages me to hope. I Pet.i.11,12.

Puritans, however, often spoke of the need to, as Richard Rogers put it, "sing David's psalms with David's spirit; sing with spirit and sing with understanding; regard that more than the tune."

Lewis Bayly's "Rules to be observed in Singing of Psalms" from The Practice of Piety, p. 154, include:

2. Remember to sing David’s psalms with David’s spirit (Matt. xxii.43.)

3. Practise St. Paul’s rule—“I will sing with the spirit, but I will sing with the understanding also.” (1 Cor. xiv.15.)

George Swinnock wrote in The Christian Man's Calling (Works, Vol. 1, p. 342):

Only, reader, be careful to sing David's psalms with David's spirit, and not like a nightingale to sing by rote: 'I will sing with my spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.' Making melody with grace in the heart, is the best tune to set all David's psalms with.

Thomas Ford, Singing of Psalms the Duty of Christians Under the New Testament, pp. 38-39:

Only God's own people have an inward experimental knowledge of the glorious excellencies and attributes of God, (viz.) his power, wisdom, goodness, &c. They only have tasted how sweet the Lord is in his promises and providences. They know, and none but they, what the offices of Christ are, in the power, fruit, and benefit of them. They know what it is to be redeemed from the earth, and from death, and from the nethermost hell. They only have experience of the mercy and loving kindness of the Lord, supporting, supplying them, and ordering all for good to them. And they alone have a lively feeling of their infirmities, sigh and groan under the burden of their corruptions, are troubled for the indisposition and untowardness of their hearts. These and such as these, who are so inspired and affected, can sing David's psalms with David's spirit. Others may sing more pleasingly to the ear, but these alone make melody in the ears of the Lord, who looks at the heart.

Question. That is it we desire to be satisfied in: how we may sing David's Psalms with David's spirit.

Answer 1. It is commonly, truly, and piously said, we must sing David's Psalms with David's spirit, though there is no text in the Bible, to my remembrance that hath those very words; but some speak somewhat to this effect, as Col. 3:16, we must sing with grace in our hearts, that is as much as if he should have said, sing David's Psalms with David's spirit.

2. We grant it is impossible for any to sing psalms so, but one that is a new creature, renewed in the spirit of his mind, as David was.

3. We say in the general, to sing David's Psalms with David's spirit, or to sing with grace in our hearts unto the Lord, there must be not only an habitual, but an actual disposedness; as when a man sets upon any duty, he must stir up the grace that is in him; so it is not enough in singing psalms to have an habit of grace, but we must stir up, and act the gifts and graces of God within us.

Here then this will be the great question: how our spirits ought to be disposed when we are to sing, that we may so do it as to give God the glory, and gain benefit to our own souls? Or, (which is all one) how we may sing David's Psalms with David's spirit? Or how we may sing with grace in our hearts unto the Lord? which is the doctrine in the text.

John Wells resolves the matter for us in his Cripplegate morning exercise ("How We May Make Melody in Our Hearts to God in Singing of Psalms," in Puritan Sermons, 1659-1689, Vol. 2, p. 74):

Singing of psalms must only be the joyous breathing of a raised soul; and here the cleanness of the heart is more considerable than the clearness of the voice. In this service we must study more to act the Christian than the musician. Many in singing of psalms are like the organs, whose pipes are filled only with wind. The apostle tells us, we must "sing with our hearts." (Col. iii. 16.) We must sing David's psalms with David's spirit. One tells us, "God is a spirit; and he will be worshipped in spirit even in this duty."

Favor of the Lord

In 1854, young Charles Spurgeon shared these lines from "Of Marriage," a poem from Martin Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy, with the woman who would become his wife, Susannah Thompson.

Seek a good wife from thy God, for she is the best gift of His providence;
Yet ask not in bold confidence that which He hath not promised;
Thou knowest not His good will: be thy prayer then submissive thereunto,
And leave thy petition to His mercy, assured that He will deal well with thee.
If thou art to have a wife of thy youth, she is now living on the Earth;
Therefore think of her, and pray for her weal.

Spurgeon indeed received favor from the Lord (Prov. 18.22). They married in 1856. After a honeymoon in Paris, Spurgeon years later wrote to his wife a line that seems like a gracious version of something out of Forget Paris.

Charles Ray, Mrs. C.H. Spurgeon, reports it thus:

A brief honeymoon of ten days was spent in Paris, and as Mrs. Spurgeon had often been to that city before and was a good French scholar, she acted as cicerone to her husband. Together they visited the various churches and palaces and museums, the lady finding a new interest in all these familiar places on account of “those loving eyes that now looked upon them” with her. Years afterwards during one of C. H. Spurgeon’s frequent visits to the French capital he wrote to his wife, “My heart flies to you as I remember my first visit to this city under your guidance. I love you now as then, only multiplied many times.”

Before they were married, Susannah began to help her future husband by, under his direction, collecting wisdom from the works of Thomas Brooks. This project resulted in great fruition as a book published later and entitled Smooth Stones From Ancient Brooks: Being a Collection of Sentences, Illustrations, and Quaint Sayings, From the Works of That Renowned Puritan, Thomas Brooks (1860). This is mentioned both as a singular instance of her role as a godly help-meet, and as an example of their shared love of Puritan literature.

Susannah became an invalid at age 33, but she aided her husband all her life in various capacities, most especially in her loving encouragement of his life and ministerial labors, and through her support of the Book Fund for ministers who were too poor to purchase books for their libraries, which became an invaluable resource for such pastors in need. She was "an angel of God" to her husband, in his words, and after a life of love together, when he died in 1892, she cabled a message to her son Thomas who was in Australia, "Father in Heaven Mother resigned." He died in his beloved French Riveria, in Menton, known as "the pearl of France." In her grief, she found peace in the magnificent botanical Hanbury gardens of La Mortola, Italy, overlooking the Mediterranean. She was later to write:

There amid the olive-groves and rose-covered terraces the dear Master taught me His estimate of true affection by recalling to my mind His own words to His disciples, 'If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I go to the Father,' and thus He made me understand that the thought of my darling’s everlasting bliss must overcome and banish my own selfish grief and sorrow.

They were reunited upon her death in 1903.

When I Consider Thy Heavens

George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Chap. 3:

The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead.

Like David who considered the heavens, "the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained," (Ps. 8.3), Puritans engaged often in occasional meditation, taking inspiration from the book of nature, that is, the creation around them, to raise their thoughts towards heavenly matters. Who can look at the clear night sky, beholding the countless stars above, and not be humbled by one's insignifance before the mighty expanse of the universe and God's omnipotent power in the creation and superintendence of it

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?
Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? (Job 38.31-33)

and at the same time blessed to consider how our Creator made us for himself and cares for us more than the sparrows that fly overhead (Matt. 10.31) leading our hearts to cry out "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" (Ps. 8.4)

Joseph Hall, Occasional Meditations, pp. 46, 108-109:

39. On the small Stars in the Galaxy, or Milky Circle, in the Firmament.

What a clear lightsomeness there is, in yonder circle of heaven, above the rest! What can we suppose the reason of it, but that the light of many smaller stars is united there, and causes that constant brightness? And yet those small stars are not discerned; while the splendor, which ariseth from them, is so notably remarkable.

In this lower heaven of ours, many a man is made conspicuous, by his good qualities and deserts: but I most admire the humility and grace of those, whose virtues and merits are usefullly visible, while their persons are obscure. It is secretly glorious, for a man to shine unseen. Doubtless, it is the height, that makes those stars so small and invisible: were they lower, they would be seen more. There is no true greatness, without a self-humiliation. We shall have made an ill use of our advancement, if, by how much higher we are, we do not appear less: if our light be seen, it matters not for our hiding.

96. On Sight of a bright Sky full of Stars.

I cannot blame Empedocles, if he professed a desire to live upon earth, only that he might behold the face of the heavens: surely, if there were no other, this were a sufficient errand, for a man's being here below, to see and observe these goodly spangles of light above our heads; their places, their qualities, their motions.

But the employment of a Christian is far more noble and excellent. Heaven is open to him; and he can look beyond the veil; and see further above those stars, than it is thither; and there discern those glories, that may answer so rich a pavement: upon the clear sight whereof, I cannot wonder, if the Chosen Vessel desired to leave the earth, in so happy an exchange.

O God, I bless thine infiniteness for what I see with these bodily eyes: but, if thou shalt but draw the curtain, and let me by the eye of faith see the inside of that thy glorious frame, I shall need no other happiness here. My soul cannot be capable of more favour, than sight here, and fruition hereafter.

William Spurstowe, The Spiritual Chymist: or, Six Decades of Divine Meditations on several Subjects, Meditation III, pp. 3-5:

Upon the Galaxia or milky-Way.

The milkie way, according to Aristotle, is a shine or Brightness caused by the joint rays of a multitude of imperceptible Stars, and not a Meteor; But it is not my purpose so much to find out, or determine what it is, as to meditate a little upon the place where it is. The Milkie way is in Heaven, the true Canaan and Land of Promise, in which Rivers of pleasure and sweetness do everlastingly overflow; and while we are absent from it, we are like Israel in the Desert, apt to complain of daily wants, and to be discouraged with daily fears. How greatly therefore is it becoming us who profess to seek such a Country to long earnestly after it in our desires, and to travel towards it in patience; not fearing the difficulty of the way, but animating ourselves with the perfection of the end, in which rest and glory, which are here divided, shall both meet, and forever dwell together? If Mare rubrum, the Red Sea of Affliction, be the passage; Via lactea, the milkie way of life, and bliss will be the end. And is it not better to wade through a Sea of blood to a Throne of glory, than to glide alone the smooth stream of pleasure unto an Abyss of endless misery? A good end gives an amiableness to the means, though never so unpleasing; The bitter Potion which brings health is gladly taken down by the Patient: But Poison in a golden Cup, when made as pleasing as Art and Skill can temper it, can never be welcome to any who understand the sweetness of life, or dread the terrors of death. The way is good (saith Chrysostom) if it be to a Feast, though through a blind Lane; if to an Execution not good, though through the fairest Street of the City; himself was bidden to a Marriage Dinner, as was to go through divers Lanes and Allies, crossing the high street he met with one led through it to be Executed, he told his Auditors, Non qua, sed quo, not the way, but the term whither it led, was to be thought upon. Lord then let not me be anxious what the path is that I tread, whether it be plain or thorny, pleasant or difficult, bloody or milky, so it lead to thee, who are Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending of blessedness, but to walk cheerfully in it till I come to thee my everlasting rest.

Surprised With Joy

When C.S. Lewis published in 1955 an autobiographical work describing his conversion to Christianity, he borrowed a phrase from the title of a poem by William Wordsworth, "Surprised by Joy." Going back further in history, a similar phrase appears in a poetical work by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder (1503-1542). He is considered "the Father of English Poetry" for introducing the sonnet to English poetry, and the story of his love for Anne Boleyn is well known, which he had to concede to another, for she later married King Henry VIII. "Whoso List to Hunt" is thought by some to be written about her:

THE LOVER DESPAIRING TO ATTAIN UNTO

HIS LADY'S GRACE RELINQUISHETH THE PURSUIT.

HOSO list to hunt ? I know where is an
hind !
But as for me, alas ! I may no more,
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore ;
I am of them that furthest come behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer ; but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow ; I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt
As well as I, may spend his time in vain !
And graven with diamonds in letters plain,
There is written her fair neck round about ;
' Noli me tangere; for Cæsar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'

In the 1530s and early 1540s, he wrote metrical versions of the Seven Penitential Psalms, published posthumously as Certayne psalmes chosesn out of the psalter of David/ commonly called thee .vii. penytentiall psalmes (1549). His work precedes that of Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins, making him the first English poet to render the Psalms in metre. The postscript to his rendering of Psalm 32 speaks of David in the cave as he finds pardon from the Lord. The wording is striking:

Surprised with joy, by penance of the heart [modern spelling]

There are some who find in his metrical psalms an acknowledgment of sin in his love affair with Anne Boleyn and a connection with David's sin with Bathsheba. It may have been so, or perhaps it was platonic. Regardless, as a man and as a poet, he was drawn to versify select penitential psalms, and who cannot sing with the Psalmist (in Wyatt's tongue) "To thee above, to thee have I trespassed" (Psalm 51) or

From depth of sin, & from deep despair
From depth of death, from depth of hart's sorrow
From this deep cave, of darkness, deep repair
Thee have I called (O Lord) to be my borow
Thou in my voice, O Lord, perceive and hear (Psalm 130)

The songs of a broken spirit and a contrite heart, whose sin is known to God alone and covered by the blood of Jesus, are timeless. Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder lived a life that encompassed much greatness and much suffering. His son, Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger, led a Protestant revolt against 'Bloody' Queen Mary and was executed for it in the Tower of London. I remember speaking with a guard at the Tower about it as a child on a visit to London for the Wyatts are my ancestors. So I sing their song too, and to the glory of God.

Pray For Your Pastor

John Shaw, The Character of a Pastor According to God's Heart, a sermon preached on August 25, 1752, pp. 14-15:

They [the people] should be much in prayer for him. The best minister in the world, though abounding in gifts and graces, is yet desirous to have the pious and godly among his hearers, not insensible that he needs them. So was the Apostle, Romans 15:30, Now I beseech you brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me, in your prayers to God for me. So it is in Ephesians 6:18-19, Praying always...for me that utterance may be given me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel. If such a minister of Christ as the Apostle, who was filled with the Holy Ghost in an extraordinary manner, yet needed and desired the prayers of the godly, certainly, then, the ordinary and standing ministers of the gospel need them. And, if they need and desire the prayers of a people, it is the duty of a people to pray for them.

True-Blue Presbyterian

The following is extracted from an article which appeared in the May 1852 issue of The Presbyterian Magazine (available from Google Books here; reproduced also here). I encourage the reader to peruse the full article, but the abbreviated text below is offered as a summary of an article worth reading by Presbyterians and others alike.

A "TRUE-BLUE PRESBYTERIAN."

A "TRUE-BLUE Presbyterian" is an enlightened, true-hearted son of a Church that aims at pursuing the "chief end of man," according to the Scriptures.

Let us glance at the origin of this homespun word -- often a term of reproach -- but, like the banner of Caledonia, significant of strength and loyalty.

The term seems to be suggested by some part of the dress which was of blue; and some say that, after the fashion of other Presbyterian things, it is taken from the Scriptures. ["Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue:" (Num. 15.38)]

Another theory is, that the Scotch Covenanters assumed blue ribbons as their colours, and wore them as scarfs, or in their bonnets, in opposition to the scarlet badge of Charles I. Other antiquarians trace the Scotch blue up to the aboriginal races on the island of Great Britain. Caesar thus describes the Britons of his day: "All the Britons dye themselves with woad, which produces a cerulean or blue colour." (Lib. v. 14, de B. G.) Other inquirers satisfy themselves with the fact that blue predominates in the tartans of the most ancient and gallant clans, while it enteres as a constituent colour more or less into all. Hence, "true blue" became symbolic of Scotch patriotism and national renown.

"It's guid to be upright and wise,
It's guid to be honest and true,
It's guid to support Caledonia's cause,
And bide by the bonnets o'blue."

Without entering deeper into the origin of our clannish blue, (the reproach of which colour, by the bye, tinges the vesture of our Congregational brethren, whose far-famed legislation was scandalized with blue-laws,) we will content ourselves with assuming that blue characterized the Scotch tartan from time immemorial, like red the dress of the Southern Englishers, and that in the civil wars of the seventeenth century, "a true-blue Presbyterian" was synonymous with a Scotchman who fought for liberty and his Church.

What is the meaning of the word now-a-days? That, dear reader, we shall explain very briefly, and in its truest sense. The word has some definite meaning at hearth-stones, and in our school-houses and churches.

1. A true-blue Presbyterian is a Christian who loves the old fashioned Bible doctrine in the Confession of Faith.

2. He is a strict friend of the Sabbath and of divine ordinances.

3. A true-blue Presbyterian exalts the covenant of grace in the training of his children.

4. A thorough Presbyterian is a conservative in Church and State.

5. A thorough Presbyterian loves his own Church.

6. The thorough Presbyterian aims at extending the knowledge of the truth, as he understands it, among all nations.

7. The true Presbyterian is an uncompromising foe to the Man of Sin and Popish idolatry.

8. The thorough Presbyterian, notwithstanding his uncompromising ecclesiastical principles, has a sectarianism more tolerant and magnanimous than that of some sects which boast of larger charity -- as will be discovered at the last day.

9. Finally, the true Presbyterian, after aiming at a life of holiness, which acknowledges its imperfections at the best, wishes to die trusting alone in the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

These remarks on the characteristics of a consistent and loyal Presbyterian are not offered in the spirit of "we are the church," but simply as descriptive of one of the many shades of doctrinal belief and practice which prevail in the Christian world.

What to Do When the Commandments of God are Pitted Against Each Other?

Ethical subjectivism is the common approach in our day of those who wrestle with seemingly conflicting moral duties, thus reducing God's law to a matter of individual preference at a given moment, but, as Richard Baxter shows, there is a better way when it appears that keeping one commandment of God requires one to break another. This is in part why our catechism teaches us the "first principles of the Christian religion," that is, in order to point us first to the Lord, our Lawgiver, and to understand our relation to the law aright in Him who taught us the Golden Rule:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself (Luke 10.27).

Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory, p. 39:

Labour to understand the true method of divinity, and see truths in their several degrees and order; that you take not the last for the first, nor the lesser for the greater. Therefore see that you be well grounded in the catechism; and refuse not to learn some catechism that is sound and full, and keep it in memory while you live.

Method, or right order, exceedingly helpeth understanding, memory, and practice. Truths have a dependence on each other; the lesser branches spring out of the greater, and those out of the stock and root. Some duties are but means to other duties, or subservient to them, and to be measured accordingly; and if it be not understood which is the chief, the other cannot be referred to it. When two things materially good come together, and both cannot be done, the greater must take place, and the lesser is no duty at that time, but a sin, as preferred before the greater. There it is one of the commonest difficulties among cases of conscience, to know which duty is the greater, and to be preferred. Upon this ground, Christ healed on the sabbath day, and pleading for his disciples rubbing the ears of corn, and for David's eating the shew-bread, and telleth them, that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath, and that God will have mercy, and not sacrifice."

Divinity is a curious, well-composed frame. As it is not enough that you have all the parts of your watch or clock, but you must see that every part be in its proper place, or else it will not go, or answer its end; so it is not enough that you know the several parts of divinity or duty, unless you know them in their true order and place. You may be confounded before you are aware, and led into many dangerous errors, by mistaking the order of several truths; and you may be misguided into heinous sins, by mistaking the degrees and order of duties; as, when duties of piety and charity seem to be competitors; and when you think that the commands of men contradict the commands of God; and when the substance and the circumstances or modes of duty are in question before you as inconsistent; or when the means seemeth to cease to be a means, by crossing of the end: and in abundance of such cases, you cannot easily conceive what a snare it may prove to you, to be ignorant of the methods and ranks of duty.

Afflictions in Wrath, Crosses in Mercy

Timothy Rogers, Trouble of Mind and the Disease of Melancholy, pp. 124-126:

Do not mistake those things for evidences of the certain wrath of God which, perhaps, are not really so. He may suspend the expressions of His love, though He loves us still. Joseph had the tenderness of a brother, while his brethren thought he was very angry with them. Nay, in our secret supports we are not destitute altogether of His care, though we may not know how it comes. Metals that lie deep in the ground partake of the influence of the sun, though it does not shine upon them directly with light. There are few afflictions but have rather the marks of a fatherly kindness, in the seasonable correction of our faults, than the marks of displeasure. No outward losses or inward troubles, that are but for a time, are the certain signs of wrath; no, though they are very long and very grievous. It was not so in the case of Job.

Some of us will ask, "How shall I know when afflictions are in wrath?" It is a question to be answered with great tenderness and caution.

Divines have answered in this way. Afflictions are said to be in wrath:

1. When they come with great violence and suddenly destroy, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the great deluge. Psalm 58:9: "Before your pots can feel the thorns, He shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in His wrath." Nahum 1:9: "He will make an utter end; affliction shall not rise up the second time." And yet this must have some limitations; for a good man may be seized with a violent disease and die suddenly, of whom we ought not to say that he died by the wrath of God.

2. When there is no discernible mercy in the cross, but only what is evil.

3. When one evil makes way for another, and none are sanctified.

4. When the affliction brings some special sin to remembrance, and when sin itself deprives us of a mercy; when intemperance brings sickness, ambition brings disgrace, or covetousness and an overeager desire for riches bring poverty.

But then, even great crosses are in mercy:

1. When God not only afflicts us, but teaches us at the same time.

2. When we can be thankful for that comfort which we have lost, that is, if it is an outward loss; for I do not see how any person can be thankful for desertion while it remains upon him. That would be to thank God that He has departed, or that He has restrained the manifestations of His love, which no man is obliged to do.

3. When all our losses are made up in God, and in the graces of His Spirit.

Matthew Henry Was Robbed

Crime affects everyone, even a Puritan Biblical scholar was not immune from it. The singular example of what happened to Matthew Henry one day (near the end of his life) and how he responded to a hard providence has been reported before. His diary records the event thus (J.B. Williams, Memoirs of the Life, Character, and Writings of the Rev. Matthew Henry, pp. 187-188):

1713. March 8th. Lord's-day. In the evening I went to London. I preached Mr. [Samuel] Rosewell's evening lecture, Psalm lxxxix. 16. -- the joyful sound. As I came home I was robbed. The thieves took from me about ten or eleven shillings. My remarks upon it were, -- 1. What reason have I to be thankful to God, who have travelled so much, and yet was never robbed before? 2. What a deal of evil the love of money is the root of, that four men would venture their lives and souls, for about half a crown a piece. 3. See the power of Satan in the children of disobedience. 4. See the vanity of worldly wealth; how soon we may be stripped of it. How loose, therefore, we should sit to it.

Somewhere along the way, his meditations upon the event were reported as a prayer, the accuracy of which I cannot confirm, although the sentiment is fully in accord with the apostolic injunction to "in everything give thanks" (1 Thess. 5.18):

Lord, I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.

New RPCNA Psalter in the Pipeline

It has been announced that the newest edition (which supplements the 1973 edition) of the RPCNA Psalter, The Book of Psalms for Singing, is at the printer and is expected to arrive at Crown & Covenant by the end of June 2009, DV. For more details, see here.

Christianus Sum, Nihil Christiani A Me Alienum Puto

William Lisle Bowles, Life of Thomas Ken (1830), Vol. 1, p. 172:

"Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto," says the humane voice of Antiquity. "CHRISTIANUS sum," replies the humble CHRISTIAN!

Andrew Campbell Armstrong, The Hartford Seminary Record (1902), Vol. 12, p. 194:

Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto; thus singing, the pagan poet found nothing human of alient interest, seeing that he himself was a man. Christianus sum; Christiani nihil a me alienum puto; so the Christian thinker made religion the basis of his sympathy from the vantage-ground of faith. May we not unite the sentiments and venture a watchword for the Christian in our later age? Christianus sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto, Christianity in sympathy with essential and universal humanity! For who shall challenge the agreement of this motto with the mind of Christ?

Philip Schaff more than once explored how the Christian might adapt that famous saying of Terence, "Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto" (I am a man, I consider nothing that is human alien to me.") (Heauton Timorumenos) and employ a paraphrase which was en vogue among ecumenicals of his day. In fact, he used as the motto of his series, History of the Christian Church, "Christianus sum, nihil Christiani a me alienum puto" ("I am a Christian, I consider nothing that is Christian alien to me") and explained why below. I leave it to the reader to consider wherein consists the noble wisdom of his sentiments and wherein he may have missed the mark.

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 1., General Introduction. §6 [on the duty of a Christian historian]:

3. Both scientific research and artistic representation must be guided by a sound moral and religious, that is, a truly Christian spirit. The secular historian should be filled with universal human sympathy, the church historian with universal Christian sympathy. The motto of the former is: "Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto;" the motto of the latter: "Christianus sum, nihil Christiani a me alienum puto."

The historian must first lay aside all prejudice and party zeal, and proceed in the pure love of truth. Not that he must become a tabula rasa. No man is able, or should attempt, to cast off the educational influences which have made him what he is. But the historian of the church of Christ must in every thing be as true as possible to the objective fact, "sine ira et studio;" do justice to every person and event; and stand in the centre of Christianity, whence he may see all points in the circumference, all individual persons and events, all confessions, denominations, and sects, in their true relations to each other and to the glorious whole....there is a common Christianity in the Church, as well as a common humanity in the world, which no Christian can disregard with impunity.

Then he must be in thorough sympathy with his subject, and enthusiastically devoted thereto. As no one can interpret a poet without poetic feeling and taste, or a philosopher without speculative talent, so no one can rightly comprehend and exhibit the history of Christianity without a Christian spirit. An unbeliever could produce only a repulsive caricature, or at best a lifeless statue. The higher the historian stands on Christian ground, the larger is his horizon, and the more full and clear his view of single regions below, and of their mutual bearings. Even error can be fairly seen only from the position of truth. "Verum est index sui et falsi." Christianity is the absolute truth, which, like the sun, both reveals itself and enlightens all that is dark. Church history, like the Bible, is its own best interpreter.

Philip Schaff, Theological Propaedeutic: A General Introduction to the Study of Theology Exegetical, Historical, Systematic, and Practical Including Encyclopaedia, Methodology, and Bibliography - A Manual for Students, pp. 257-258:

The moral qualification of the historian may be comprehended in the Christian spirit, which is the spirit of truth and love. "Malice to none, charity for all." The secular historian must have a general sympathy with humanity, according to the motto:

"Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto."

The Church historian must have a general sympathy with Christianity in all its forms and phases, and follow the motto:

"Christianus sum, nihil Christiani a me alienum puto."

No one can interpret poetry without poetic feeling and taste, or philosophy without speculative talent; so no one can rightly comprehend and exhibit the history of Christianity without the spirit that animates and controls it. An unbeliever could produce only a repulsive caricature, or at best a lifeless statue.

The higher the historian stands on Christian ground, the wider is his horizon, and the clearer and fuller his view of the regions below. Even error can be fairly seen only from the position of truth. "Verum est index sui et falsi."

Christianity is the absolute truth, which, like the sun, both reveals itself and enlightens all that is dark.

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3., Chap. 8. §102 [on Christian art]:

Man is a being intellectual, or thinking and knowing, moral, or willing and acting, and aesthetic, or feeling and enjoying. To these three cardinal faculties corresponds the old trilogy of the true, the good, and the beautiful, and the three provinces of science, or knowledge of the truth, virtue, or practice of the good, and art, or the representation of the beautiful, the harmony of the ideal and the real. These three elements are of equally divine origin and destiny.

Religion is not so much a separate province besides these three, as the elevation and sanctification of all to the glory of God. It represents the idea of holiness, or of union with God, who is the original of all that is true, good, and beautiful. Christianity, as perfect religion, is also perfect humanity. It hates only sin; and this belongs not originally to human nature, but has invaded it from without. It is a leaven which pervades the whole lump. It aims at a harmonious unfolding of all the gifts and powers of the soul. It would redeem and regenerate the whole man, and bring him into blessed fellowship with God. It enlightens the understanding, sanctifies the will, gives peace to the heart, and consecrates even the body a temple of the Holy Ghost. The ancient word: "Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto," is fully true only of the Christian. "All things are yours," says the Apostle. All things are of God, and for God. Of these truths we must never lose sight, notwithstanding the manifold abuses or imperfect and premature applications of them.

Pilgrim of the Stars

Of the three men who contributed most to the groundbreaking study of John Calvin's aesthetics, shattering the myth that Calvin was not concerned with, or opposed, the cultivation of the arts -- Abraham Kuyper and Émile Doumergue being the first two -- Léon Wencelius (1900-1971) is credited with authoring "[t]he most extended secondary discussion of Calvin's view on art," that is, L'Esthétique de Calvin (Paris, 1937) (Paul Corby Finney, Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition, p. 28).

He was a French soldier-turned-philosophy professor who left the land of his nativity to teach at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. He is known to Calviniana as the author of Calvin et Rembrandt. Etude comparative de la philosophie de l'art de Rembrandt et de l'esthetique de Calvin (1937); "L'Idee de Moderation dans la Pensee de Calvin," The Evangelical Quarterly 7.1 (Jan. 1935): 87-94; Le Classicisme du Calvin Humanisme et Renaissance (1938), v. 231-246; "L'Idee de joie dans la pensee de Calvin," Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses (1935) 70-109; "L'Idee de moderation dans la pensee de Calvin," Evangelical Quarterly, VII (1935), 87-94; VIII (1936), 75-93; and "The Word of God and Culture" in The Word of God and the Reformed Faith: The Addresses of the Second American Calvinistic Conference of 1942; among other works. But he may be known to readers outside the Reformed tradition as the close friend and sometime editor of works by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the world-famous pilot, adventurer, and writer, author of that most famous of children's stories, The Little Prince, known for poetic and vivid descriptions of the night sky (at least three asteroids are named for him or his works) and as "the pilgrim of the stars."

They met in New York City in 1940, while World War II was raging, where Wencelius had been sent to help influence America to join the French fight against the Nazis. The two men took an instant liking to one another, and became fast friends. Saint-Ex, as he is often called, is one of the great adventurers of the 20th century but -- an admirer of Bach and Pascal -- he sometimes said that he wished he had lived in the 16th century.

Curtis Cate, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: His Life and Times, pp. 553-554:

To feel, like Hamlet, that one's time is "out of joint" and to regret that one was not born in an earlier and "brighter" age is not simply the mark of an incurable romantic. Saint-Exupery's upbringing, in effect that of a monarchist, made him prone to a nostalgia that was tempered, but only momentarily, by the giddy enthusiasm with which he embraced the bright future of aviation. Unlike [Charles] Baudelaire, he was not ready to condemn steam-engines and railway stations out of hand, but like Baudelaire, he was oppressed by the feeling that the poetry was being squeezed out of modern life by the implacable advance of an ever more soulless and utilitarian technology. His ideal was pre-revolutionary -- in the industrial as well as the political sense -- and this even though, as he once wrote to his mother (during his term of Air Force service in Strasbourg) "the eighteenth century, all pink and rosy, fills me with horror". The age of silk stockings and powdered wigs was too soft and effeminate for his robust taste, and the century which had his preference, the one he would have liked to live in, as he one day confided to Dr. Pelissier, was the sixteenth -- the age of Elizabeth and Henri IV, of Francois Premier and the Chevalier Bayard, the century of Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Rabelais, when France, its mind as yet unravished by the eloquence of Rene Descartes, was readier to heed the sceptical voice of Michel de Montaigne.

He wrote of wisdom, childlike simplicity in a world of adults, and of man's striving to live, to truly live, by overcoming the obstacles -- man-made and otherwise -- in one's path, and his writing reflected his life. It is difficult for me to find a label for his religious views. There is an existentialist flavor in his writings and he seemed to waver somewhere between Pascal and Nietzsche, somewhere between faith and reason. His life was cut short in 1944, when his plane mysteriously disappeared on a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean, presumably shot down by Germans. His identity bracelet was recovered in 1998, and his plane finally found in 2000.

Wencelius edited a 1943 edition of Pilot de Guerre (English title: Flight to Arras) with a preface, "Le message d'Antoine de Saint-Exupéry," along with annotations and a glossary. In 1963, he co-edited Citadelle, a massive book that was in rough form at his death, and is difficult to characterize, being the unfinished magnum opus of a man trying to reconcile the unreconcilable.

Léon Wencelius has distinguished no less than one hundred different themes in this book of 213 chapters and 985 typescript pages (reduced to 531 in the printed text). (ibid, 557)

In the friendship of Wencelius and Saint-Exupéry, we find an intersection of life and art, religion and warrior heroics, faith and reason, that co-exists somehow, the sum of which is greater than the parts. To what extent each influenced other I cannot say. But it is certain that they did so, and the aesthetic appreciation of both military men resonates in their writings long after both men are gone. As Saint-Exupéry the pilot-poet himself put it: "J'admire la Science, bien sur. Mais j'admire aussi la Sagesse." ("I admire Science, to be sure. But I admire Wisdom as well.")

O Longed For, and Lovely Day, Dawn!

Apostle Paul, Romans 10.1:

Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

Jonathan Edwards, A History of the Work of Redemption in Works, Vol. 1, p. 487:

Nothing is more certainly foretold than this national conversion of the Jews is in the 11th chapter of Romans.

One theme that is prevalent throughout the sayings and writings of Samuel Rutherford is the ardent desire and certain but prayerful expectation that the Jews will one day be converted en masse.

"The Spouse's Longing for Christ" (Song of Sol. 5.3-6) in Quaint Sermons, p. 86:

O! for to see that great stumbling-block that stands into the way of Christian religion tane [taken] out of the way, and then to see the people of the Jews brought in again to Christ, their old Husband, and married upon Him, and the fulness of the Gentiles! O! to see our Redeemer Christ have one fair day of it in the world; to see Jew and Gentile married on Christ, and to see His dominions going from the East to the West and from sea to sea, and to see the whole earth in one sheepfold, obeying the voice of one Shepherd! That is the blessedest day that ever we saw if it were come, and we should pray to the Lord to hasten it that so that may be fulfilled which the Lord promises.

Letters, XII, p. 49:

I have been, this time by-passed, thinking much of the incoming of the Kirk of the Jews. Pray for them. When they were in their Lord's house, at their Father's elbow, they were longing for the coming of their Little Sister, the Kirk of the Gentiles. They said to their Lord, (Cant. viii. ver. 8,) "We have a little Sister, and she hath no breasts; what shall we do for our Sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?" Let us give them a mettering. What shall we do for our elder Sister, the Jews? Lord Jesus give them breasts! That were a glad day, to see us and them both set down at one table, and Christ at the head of the table. Then would our Lord come shortly with his fair guard, to hold his great court.

Letters, XXVI, p. 72:

I am confident, madam, that our Lord will yet build a new house to himself of our rejected and scattered stones; for our Bridegroom cannot want a wife. Can he live a widower? Nay he will embrace both us, the Little young Sister, and the Elder Sister, the Church of the Jews; and there will yet be a day of it: and, therefore, we have cause to rejoice, yea, to sing and shout for joy.

Letters, XXXIX, p. 89:

Oh, to see the sight next to Christ's coming in the clouds, the most joyful! our elder brethren, the Jews, and Christ fall upon one another's necks, and kiss each other! They have been long asunder, they will be kind to one another when they meet: O day! O longed for, and lovely day, dawn! O sweet Jesus, let me see that sight that will be as life from the dead, thee and thy ancient people in mutual embraces!

Letters, CXCIV, p. 303:

Oh, what could my soul desire more, next to my Lord Jesus, while I am in this flesh, but that Christ and his kingdom might be great among Jews and Gentiles; and that the isles, (and amongst them overclouded and darkened Britain,) might have the glory of a noon-day's sun!

Letters, CCLXXXVIII, p. 460:

We do welcome Ireland and England to our Well-beloved. We invite you, O Daughters of Jerusalem, to come down to our Lord's garden, and seek our Well-beloved with us; for his love will suffice both you and us. We do send you love-letters over the sea, to request you to come and to marry our King, and to take part of our bed; and we trust our Lord is fetching a blow upon the Beast, and the scarlet-colored Whore, to the end that he may bring in his ancient Widow-wife, our dear sister, the Church of the Jews. Oh, what a heavenly heaven were it to see them come in by this mean, and suck the breasts of their little sister, and renew their old love with their first Husband, Christ our Lord! They are booked in God's word, as a bride contracted upon Jesus! Oh, for a sight, in this flesh of mine, of the prophesied marriage between Christ and them! The kings of Tarshish, and of the Isles must bring presents to our Lord Jesus, (Psal. lxxii. 10.) And Britain is one of the chiefest isles; why then but we may believe, that our kings of this Island shall comin, and bring their glory to the New Jerusalem, wherein Christ shall dwell in the latter days? It is our part to pray, "That the kingdoms of the earth may become Christ's."

Letters, CCXCIV, p. 479:

Oh, what joy and what glory would I judge it, if my heaven should be suspended, till I might have leave to run on foot to be a witness of that marriage-glory, and see Christ put on the glory of his last married bride, and his last marriage-love on earth; when he shall enlarge his love-bed, and set it upon the top of the mountains, and take in the Elder Sister, the Jews, and the fulness of the Gentiles!

Letters, CCXCV, p. 482:

I shall be glad to be a witness to behold the kingdoms of the world become Christ's. I could stay out of Heaven many years, to see that victorious, triumphing Lord act that prophesied part of his soul-conquering love, in taking into his kingdom the Greater Sister, that Kirk of the Jews, who sometimes, courted our Well-beloved for her Little Sister, (Cant. viii. 8;) to behold him set up as an ensign and banner of love, to the ends of the world.

Testimony to the Covenanted Work of Reformation from 1638 to 1649 in Britain and Ireland:

The royal prerogative of Christ is pulled from his head, and after all the days of sorrow we have seen, we have just cause to fear we shall be made to read and eat that book, wherein is written Mouring, and Lamentation, and Woe. Yet we are to believe, Christ will not so depart from the land, but a remnant shall be saved; and he shall reign a victorious conquering King, to the ends of the earth. O that there were nations, kindreds, tongues, and all the people of Christ's habitable world, encompassing his throne with cries and tears from the spirit of supplication, to be poured down upon the inhabitants of Judah for that effect.

Pray Around the World

How many prayers begin and end with "I" and "me"? Ideal intercessory prayer is certainly concerned with the needs of the one praying, but must not terminate there; rather move beyond petitions for oneself in concentric circles, as it were. "Is there none, O man, that needs the mercy of God besides thyself?" (William Gurnall) Begin at home, with the needs of family, and move outward in your petitions to God. We have neighbors with needs -- are you cognizant of the needs of your neighbors? What of the town in which you live? What of those in authority over you in your county, state or federal government? What of the poor, the sick, the homeless, the aged, the lonely, the downcast, those in prison, those who are destitute? What of the congregation you attend, the denomination of which you are a member, the international church of Jesus Christ? What of the Jews and the Gentiles who must be gathered in, and the kingdoms which must be brought in to God's kingdom? We are not all missionaries, and many of us will not travel around the world, but we can, in contemporary parlance, "pray globally, and act locally." William Gurnall gives us a guide and a motive for praying around the world (The Christian in Complete Armour, Vol. 2, p. 525):

[L]et not the sea that divides thee and the other parts of the earth make thee think thou art not concerned in their happiness or misery. Let thy prayers walk over the vast ocean, and bring matters for thy devotions, like the merchant's ship her freight from afar. Visit the churches of Christ abroad; yea, the poor Indians and other ruins of mankind that lie where Adam's sin threw them with us, without any attempt made as yet upon them by the gospel for their recovery, and carry their deplored condition before the Lord. Our [Sir Francis] Drake is famous for compassing the earth with his ship in a few years; thou mayst by thy prayers every day, and make a more gainful voyage of it too than he did.

Behind a Frowning Providence

William Cowper, Light Shining Out of Darkness:

God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the LORD by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ev'ry hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow'r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
GOD is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

The Wickedest City on Earth

As a boy I lived in Kingston, Jamaica for a season, and nearby is the famous city of Port Royal. Or, I should say, was. In 1692, the city that was known as "the richest and wickedest city on earth," "the Sodom of the New World," and "the Sodom of the Caribbean," was destroyed by an earthquake, and mostly submerged under the sea.

In the 17th century, Port Royal became a pirate haven. It was a melting pot, as well -- a mix of religious refugees, entrepreneurs, sailors, merchants, prostitutes, slaves and many others who made this capital city of Jamaica their home. The pirates were expelled some years before the great earthquake, but it was still very much a boom town consisting of a population of around 6,500 permanent residents (and -- along with churches for Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Huguenots, Baptists, Quakers, Jews and the like -- a ratio of one tavern for every 10 inhabitants) when the ground began to rumble on the morning of June 7, 1692.

Contemporary accounts indicate that the earthquake occurred shortly before noon; in the 1960's, underwater archaeologists uncovered a pocket watch that had stopped at precisely 11:43 am. Following an initial light tremor, a more powerful shockwave caused houses to begin sliding into Kingston Harbor. The city had been unwisely built upon a small bedrock foundation along with built-up sand. Houses built on the bedrock withstood the impact, but those on the unconsolidated sediment collapsed as it began to liquefy, sliding into the water. Two-thirds of the city was destroyed, and around 2,000 inhabitants were killed by the quake, with another 2,000 killed soon after by disease.

It was a disaster of Biblical proportions, and it reverberated spiritually on both sides of the Atlantic. Cotton Mather mentioned the event in his diary and in Magnalia Christi Americana, Vol. 1, p. 99. Sermons were preached about the judgment of God upon this debauched city which had provoked the Lord with its audacious display of evil. When a major earthquake hit Belgium and was felt across the Channel in England later that year on September 18, many understood this to be another in a series of God's providential judgments punishing men and calling them to repentance. Example: Thomas Doolittle, Earthquakes Explained and Practically Improved: Occasioned by the Late Earthquake on Sept. 8 1692. in London, Many Other Parts in England, and Beyond Sea (1693).

But while the earthquake was a disaster for many, one tale of delivery at least is worth noting. The story of a French Huguenot refugee who survived has been told and retold in the annals of remarkable providences, and his tombstone (once located at Green Bay, opposite Port Royal, but since transported to the cemetery at St. Peter's Church in Port Royal) summarizes it succinctly:

Here lies the body of Lewis Galdy, Esquire, who departed this life at Port Royal, the 22d of December, 1736, aged eighty years. He was born at Montpellier, France, but left that country for his religion, and came to settle in this island; where he was swallowed up in the great earthquake in the year 1692; and, by the Providence of God, was, by another shock, thrown into the sea, and miraculously saved by swimming, until a boat took him up. He lived many years after in great reputation, beloved by all who knew him, and much lamented at his death.

Port Royal never recovered from this disaster, although the surviving residents tried to persevere. However, a fire in 1703, a flood in 1722, another fire in 1750, a major hurricane in 1774, another fire in 1815, a cholera epidemic in 1850, and another major earthquake in 1907, all ultimately led to the decline of what remained of Port Royal, along with the rise of Kingston in importance. When I visited the site, I saw many artifacts retrieved from the ruins underwater, and I sailed over the submerged city, but what remained on that spit of land by Kingston Harbor was negligible. I also sailed by Rackhams Cay (also known as Hangman's Cay), a tiny uninhabited island, which got its name from being the execution site for pirate Calico Jack (John Rackham) in 1720. I had my own adventure being stranded on nearby Gun Cay for a day, but that is another story.

Port Royal is also the place where Scottish Covenanter Alexander Shields died on June 14, 1700, and was buried, following the failure of the New Caledonia colony in Panama, where the Scottish General Assembly had sent him as a missionary.

Port Royal, once known as "the wickedest city on earth," now known as "the city that sank," is today an historical footnote to some -- an underwater ruined city to archaeologists and a monument to providential judgments to church historians. Increase Mather spoke for the Puritan viewpoint that "[t]here never happens an earthquake, but God speaks to men on the Earth by it: And they are very stupid, if they do not hear his Voice therein" (A Discourse Concerning Earthquakes, Occasioned by the Earthquakes Which Were in New England...June 22, 1705 (1706), p. 8).

Works of Thomas Manton on Sale Today

The Works of Thomas Manton are on sale at Solid Ground Christian Books today only -- Friday, May 15, 2009 -- for the low price of $261.00. Normally, they are sold at SGCB for $290.00. Today is a good day to buy Manton if you are so inclined.

Manton is one of my favorite Puritans to read, and his works are a great spiritual treasure. Charles Spurgeon said of him: "Ministers who do not know Manton need not wonder if they are themselves unknown."

Those who would like to read Manton online may do so at the Internet Archive.

Remembering Francis Schaeffer 25 Years Later

Francis Schaeffer died 25 years ago today, on May 15, 1984, but his legacy lives on (despite a sad portrayal of him by his son Frank that has been disowned by others close to the elder Schaeffer). There are aspects of his belief with which I differ, but his willingness to engage 20th century culture made a deep and lasting impact upon many, myself included. For those who wish to learn more about the man, I commend in particular Colin Duriez's recent biography, Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life.

Os Guiness gave an interview recently in which he commented on Schaeffer's legacy from his close-up, personal point of view. From a much more distant perspective, yet personal to me, I would simply say that of all the subjects upon which Schaeffer expounded, nothing touched me more deeply than his views on art.

In the Kuyperian tradition of one who declared "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, 'Mine!'" (speech given on October 20, 1880, quoted in James D. Bratt, ed., Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, p. 488), Schaeffer too affirmed that art is not be relegated to a Christian ghetto, but that "[t]he Lordship of Christ over the whole of life means that there are no Platonic areas in Christianity, no dichotomy or hierarchy between the body and the soul. God made the body as well as the soul, and redemption is for the whole man" (Art and the Bible, p. 1). Thus, as we are created in the image of our Creator with creative capacity, man can and should glorify God in the arts, and that is beauty -- true beauty, rightly apprehended -- is reflective of who God is, and how he works (Gen. 1.26-27, 31). "If God made the birds, they are worth painting. If God made the sky, the sky is worth painting. If God made the ocean, indeed it's worth writing poetry about. It is worth man's while to create works upon the basis of the great works God has already created" (ibid, p. 60). Art need not consist of religious iconography to glorify God, and indeed, the second commandment, as well as the seventh, do indeed regulate the proper expression of that which is God-honoring art. In fact, there is a whole universe of inspiration which is at the artist's disposal, and as "he shines in all that's fair" (a line from a hymn by Maltbie Babcock, "This is My Father's World," as well as the title of Richard Mouw's book subtitled "Culture and Common Grace"), he who creates glorifies God in heeding the apostolic injunction: "[W]hatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" (Phil. 4.8).

The corpus of Schaeffer's works cover many important subjects ranging from abortion to ecology to apologetics to philosophy and so much more. But, in my personal opinion, Schaeffer's genius is especially to be found in his articulation of the Lordship of Christ over all of life, with particular emphasis upon the creative arts. And for this, I am in his debt.

Matthew Poole's Synopsis on Revelation 1-7 Now Available

The newest volume to be released in the (first-ever) ongoing translation of Matthew Poole's Latin Synopsis Criticorum into English is Revelation 1-7, which is now available for purchase (hardcopy, paperback and electronic download). This volume contains, along with the English Annotations (commentary) by Poole's continuators, an overview of the Book of Revelation by Poole, which is very helpful in understanding this portion of Scripture. For more information and to place an order, visit The Matthew Poole Project and Master Poole Publishing.

Charles Spurgeon once wrote:

If you are well enough versed in Latin, you will find in POOLE'S SYNOPSIS, a marvellous collection of all the wisdom and folly of the critics. It is a large cyclopaedia worthy of the days when theologians could be cyclopean, and had not shrunk from folios to octavos. Query—a query for which I will not demand an answer—has one of you ever beaten the dust from the venerable copy of Poole which loads our library shelves? Yet as Poole spent no less than ten years in compiling it, it should be worthy of your frequent notice—ten years, let me add, spent in Amsterdam in exile for the truth's sake from his native land.

His work was based upon an earlier compilation entitled Critici Sacri, containing the concentrated light of a constellation of learned men who have never been excelled in any age or country.

MATTHEW POOLE also wrote ANNOTATIONS upon the Word of God, in English, which are mentioned by Matthew Henry as having passed through many impressions in his day, and he not only highly praises them, but declares that he has in his own work all along been brief upon that which Mr. Poole has more largely discussed, and has industriously declined what is to be found there. The three volumes, tolerably cheap, and easily to be got at, are necessaries for your libraries. On the whole, if I must have only one commentary, and had read Matthew Henry as I have, I do not know but what I should choose Poole. He is a very prudent and judicious commentator; and one of the few who could honestly say, "We have not willingly balked any obvious difficulty, and have designed a just satisfaction to all our readers; and if any knot remains yet untied, we have told our readers what hath been most probably said for their satisfaction in the untying of it." Poole is not so pithy and witty by far as Matthew Henry, but he is perhaps more accurate, less a commentator, and more an expositor. You meet with no ostentation of learning in Matthew Poole, and that for the simple reason that he was so profoundly learned as to be able to give results without a display of his intellectual crockery....Mind you do not confound the Annotations with the Synopsis; the English work is not a translation of the Latin one, but an entirely distinct performance.

Altar-Wise, Table-Wise

Like the Vestments controversy between Anglicans and Puritans, the controversy over the placement of the communion table in the church is difficult for modern minds to comprehend aright because of its seeming insignificance. The location of the communion table of course is itself a matter indifferent. The Puritan Westminster Confession (21.6) teaches that "Neither prayer, nor any other part of religious worship, is now, under the gospel, either tied unto, or made more acceptable by any place in which it is performed, or towards which it is directed." Yet, the battle for the placement of the communion table involved two distinct positions.

Samuel Gardiner articulates the contrasting points of view, History of England from the Accession of James I. to the Outbreak of the Civil War 1603-1642, Vol. 7, pp. 14-15:

To the Calvinist the pulpit was clearly the first thing in the Church, the place where the Divine Word, through the intervention of the understanding, was dispensed to hungry souls. To those who recurred to older Church traditions the communion-table, or, as they loved to call it, the altar, was worthy of the highest reverence, the place where holy mysteries were dispensed which raised man into communion with God without the intervention of the understanding. The one party would have had the table either standing permanently under the pulpit or brought out occasionally for its special purpose, to be placed 'table wise,' or east and west. The other party would have had it placed permanently 'altar wise,' or north and south, in the place of honour at the east end.

Those aligned with Archbishop William Laud, who first laid the groundwork for his position in a 1633 Act of Privy Council applicable to the church of St. Gregory beside St. Paul's, London, later enforced in a 1635 ruling applicable to the entire Church of England, argued that the mystical nature of the communion table required its permanent placement at the east end of the church in a north-south direction, set apart with rails, as an altar, attributing thus Popish ceremonial significance to the table. Especially in the context of other Anglo-Catholic measures, Puritans understood the meaning of this as articulated in the December 11, 1640 'Root and Branch Petition':

16. The turning of the Communion-table altar-wise, setting images, crucifixes, and conceits over them, and tapers and books upon them, and bowing or adoring to or before them; the reading of the second service at the altar, and forcing people to come up thither to receive, or else denying the sacrament to them; terming the altar to be the mercy-seat, or the place of God Almighty in the church, which is a plain device to usher in the Mass.

They argued instead of a permanent fixture of the table in a north-south direction, that it be placed in an east-west direction and be moveable, without rails. The theological significance of this position is not that east-west is somehow invested with greater spiritual benefit than north-south; on the contrary, the Laudian altar-wise party claimed that point for themselves. One Puritan, Daniel Cawdrey, was known to place the table altar-wise but move it table-wise at communion (Tom Webster, Godly clergy in early Stuart England: the Caroline Puritan movement, 1620-1643, p. 220), thus making the point that the direction was a matter of indifference, except that to the extent that superstitious ceremonial significance was to be resisted and not conceded.

The battle for the placement of the table resulted in not only a war of words, but ecclesiastical and civil enforcement measures and, in some cases, physical violence. Why such conflict over the location of a table which Biblically signifies the unity of Christ's Church? By attributing to it sacerdotal significance, the question of placement of the table was moved from the realm of circumstantial adiaphora to an infringement upon the regulative principle of worship. And thus, it became a battle over the crown prerogatives of Christ to alone dictate the ordinances of worship.

As Matthew Poole rightly stated (A Seasonable Apology of Religion), "What Galen said of Physics is even truer of religion. There is nothing small and trivial in it."

International Museum of the Reformation

The legacy of John Calvin and the Reformation is celebrated most particularly at the International Museum of the Reformation in Geneva, Switzerland. Permanent exhibits at the museum include a rooms dedicated to the place of the Bible and music in the Reformation, the controversy of the age as documented in the 16th century Roman Catholic-Protestant war of pamphlets, Calvin's experience and daily life in 16th century Geneva, collections of rare Reformation literary works, the experience of the Huguenots following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (the 'Church of the Desert'), and other aspects of the history and culture of the Reformation with a focus on Geneva's most famous historical figure, John Calvin. A current temporary exhibit (April 24-November 1, 2009) sketches "A Day in the Life of John Calvin." If you are not able to travel to Geneva to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin in 2009, be sure to at least take a virtual tour of the museum here. For those who can visit, there is a museum shop too at which one may purchase souvenirs, including a 21st century Genevan specialty: Calvinus beer.

Exhortation to Prayer

William Cowper, Exhortation to Prayer:

What various hindrances we meet
In coming to a mercy-seat!
Yet who that knows the worth of pray'r,
But wishes to be often there?

Pray'r makes the dark'ned cloud withdraw,
Pray'r climbs the ladder Jacob saw;
Gives exercise to faith and love,
Brings ev'ry blessing from above.

Restraining pray'r, we cease to fight;
Pray'r makes the Christian's armour bright;
And Satan trembles, when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.

While Moses stood with arms spread wide,
Success was found on Israel's side;
But when thro' weariness they fail'd,
That moment Amalek prevail'd.

Have you no words! Ah, think again,
Words flow apace when you complain;
And fill your fellow-creature's ear
With the sad tale of all your care.

Were half the breath thus vainly spent,
To heav'n in supplication sent;
Your cheerful song would oft'ner be,
"Hear what the LORD has done for me!"

All The World's A Stage

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players...

-- Jacques, in William Shakespeare's As You Like It (c. 1599), Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-140

Or as a Huguenot poet, Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544-1590), put it earlier:

The World's a Stage, where God's Omnipotence,
His Justice, Knowledge, Love, and Providence
Do act their Parts; contending (in their kindes)
Above the Heav'ns, to ravish dullest minds.
The World's a Book in Folio, printed all
With God's great Works in letters Capitall:
Each Creature is a Page: and each Effect
A fair Character, void of all defect.

-- La Sepmaine; ou, Creation du monde (1578), trans. by Joshua Sylvester as Divine Weekes and Workes, First Week, First Day

Not only did Du Bartas influence Shakespeare, his epic poem about creation is thought to have been a major influence upon John Milton's Paradise Lost. In the tradition of hexameral literature, Du Bartas' poetry represents a major achievement. He was not the first to see the world as a stage, although his picture of God's attributes manifested in theatrical glory is, to my way of thinking, more spiritually eloquent than Shakespeare's, nor was he the first to be inspired by contemplation of God's work of creation in the first week of the world. But his influence was such that he is considered to be only French poet of the 16th century who could rival Clement Marot as "the poet of princes, and the prince of poets," and as Joseph Hall wrote in poetic praise of Du Bartas and his English translator, he was certainly a chief poet in two languages:

Bartas was some French angel, girt with bays;
And thou a Bartas art, in English lays.
Whether is more? Mee seems (the sooth to sayn)
One Bartas speaks in tongues; in nations, twain.

Although little-known today, his legacy is behind some of the greatest works of English literature, and when one reads the original French or the English translation, though in eloquence he has been superseded, the Huguenot's combination of spiritual grace and poetic expression tunes the believing heart more sweetly, in my opinion, than England's chief muses.

Consider the Lilies

Rabbi Duncan once said (William Knight, Colloquia Peripatetica, pp. 36-37):

There are times when I cannot rest in the ethical, when I cannot find any satisfaction in historical facts. The very evangel satisfies me not. I cannot read my Bible, and I cannot pray. But I go out into my garden to consider the lilies how they grow. [], they seem to preach: -- Carking care, away!

Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 182:

Without books a man may learn much by keeping his eyes open. Current history, incidents which transpire under his own nose, events recorded in the newspaper, matters of common talk -- he may learn from them all. The difference between eyes and no eyes is wonderful. If you have no books to try your eyes, keep them open wherever you go, and you will find something worth looking at. Can you not learn from nature? Every flower is waiting to teach you. "Consider the lilies," and learn from the roses. Not only may you go to the ant, but every living thing offers itself for your instruction. There is a voice in every gale, and a lesson in every grain of dust it bears. Sermons glisten in the morning on every blade of grass, and homilies fly by you as the sere leaves fall from the trees. A forest is a library, a cornfield is a volume of philosophy, the rock is a history, and the river at its base a poem. Go, thou who hast thine eyes opened, and find lessons of wisdom everywhere, in heaven above, in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth. Books are poor things compared with these.

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Poems, pp. 95-96:

"Consider the Lilies of the Field"

Flowers preach to us if we will hear: --
The rose saith in the dewy morn,
I am most fair;
Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn.
The poppy saith amid the corn:
Let but my scarlet head appear
And I am held in scorn;
Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.
The lilies say: Behold how we
Preach without words of purity.
The violets whisper from the shade
Which their own leaves have made:
Men scent our fragrance on the air,
Yet take no heed
Of humble lessons we would read.

But not alone the fairest flowers:
The merest grass
Along the roadside where we pass,
Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
Tell of His love who sends the dew,
The rain and sunshine too,
To nourish one small seed.