Take Up the Cross

And her neighbours and her cousins heard how the Lord had shewed great mercy upon her; and they rejoiced with her.
~ Luke 1:58

My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine.
~ Proverbs 23:15

The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him.
~ Proverbs 23:24

Robert M’Cheyne’s Preparation for the Ministry, by Andrew Bonar.

“Many shall rejoice at his birth; for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord”.—LUKE 1:14.

Nothing could more fully prove the deep impression which the event made than these verses. But it was not a transient regret, nor was it the “sorrow of the world.” He was in his eighteenth year when his brother died; and if this was not the year of his new birth, at least it was the year when the first streaks of dawn appeared in his soul. From that day forward his friends observed a change. His poetry was pervaded with serious thought, and all his pursuits began to be followed out in another spirit. He engaged in the labours of a Sabbath school, and began to seek God to his soul, in the diligent reading of the word, and attendance on a faithful ministry.

How important this period of his life appeared in his own view, may be gathered from his allusions to it in later days. A year after, he writes in his diary: “On this morning last year came the first overwhelming blow to my worldliness; how blessed to me, Thou, O God, only knowest, who hast made it so.” Every year he marked this day as one to be remembered, and occasionally its recollections seem to have come in like a flood. In a letter to a friend (8th July 1842), upon a matter entirely local, he concludes by a postscript: “This day eleven years ago, my holy brother David entered into his rest, aged 26.” And on that same day, writing a note to one of his flock in Dundee (who had asked him to furnish a preface to a work printed 1740, Letters on Spiritual Subjects), he commends the book, and adds: “Pray for me, that I may be made holier and wiser—less like myself, and more like my heavenly Master; that I may not regard my life, if so be I may finish my course with joy. This day eleven years ago, I lost my loved and loving brother, and began to seek a Brother who cannot die.”

It was to companions who could sympathize in his feelings that he unbosomed himself. At that period it was not common for inquiring souls to carry their case to their pastor. A conventional reserve upon these subjects prevailed even among lively believers. It almost seemed as if they were ashamed of the Son of man. This reserve appeared to him very sinful; and he felt it to be so great an evil, that in after days he was careful to encourage anxious souls to converse with him freely. The nature of his experience, however, we have some means of knowing. On one occasion, a few of us who had studied together were reviewing the Lord’s dealings with our souls, and how He had brought us to himself all very nearly at the same time, though without any special instrumentality. He stated that there was nothing sudden in his case, and that he was led to Christ through deep and ever-abiding, but not awful of distracting, convictions. In this we see the Lord’s sovereignty In bringing a soul to the Saviour, the Holy Spirit invariably leads it to very deep consciousness of sin; but then He causes this consciousness of sin to be more distressing and intolerable to some than to others. But in one point does the experience of all believing sinners agree in this matter, viz. their soul presented to their view nothing but an abyss of sin, when the grace of God that bringeth salvation appeared.

The Holy Spirit carried on his work in the subject of this Memoir, by continuing to deepen in him the conviction of his ungodliness, and the pollution of his whole nature. And all his life long, he viewed his original sin, not as an excuse for his actual sins, but as an aggravation of them all. In this view he was of the mind of David, taught by the unerring Spirit of Truth. See Psalm 51:4, 5.

At first light dawned slowly; so slowly, that for a considerable time he still relished an occasional plunge into scenes of gaiety. Even after entering the Divinity Hall, he could be persuaded to indulge in lighter pursuits, at least during the two first years of his attendance; but it was with growing alarm. When hurried away by such worldly joys, I find him writing thus: —“Sept. 14.—May there be few such records as this in my biography.” Then, “Dec. 9.—A thorn in my side—much torment.” As the unholiness of his pleasures became more apparent, he writes:—“March 10, 1832.—I hope never to play cards again.” “March 25.—Never visit on a Sunday evening again.” “April 10.—Absented myself from the dance; upbraidings ill to bear. But I must try to bear the cross.” It seems to be in reference to the receding tide, which thus for a season repeatedly drew him back to the world, that on July 8, 1836, he records: “This morning five years ago, my dear brother David died, and my heart for the first time knew true bereavement. Truly it was all well. Let me be dumb, for Thou didst it: and it was good for me that I was afflicted. I know not that any providence was ever more abused by man than that was by me; and yet, Lord, what mountains Thou comest over! none was ever more blessed to me.” To us who can look at the results, it appears probable that the Lord permitted him thus to try many broken cisterns, and to taste the wormwood of many earthly streams, in order that in after days, by the side of the fountain of living waters, he might point to the world he had for ever left, and testify the surpassing preciousness of what he had now found.

Mr Alexander Somerville (afterwards minister of Anderston Church, Glasgow) was his familiar friend and companion in the gay scenes of his youth. And he, too, about this time, having been brought to taste the powers of the world to come, they united their efforts for each other’s welfare. They met together for the study of the Bible, and used to exercise themselves in the Septuagint Greek and the Hebrew original. But oftener still they met for prayer and solemn converse; and carrying on all their studies in the same spirit, watched each other’s steps in the narrow way.

He thought himself much profited, at this period, by investigating the subject of Election and the Free Grace of God. But it was the reading of The Sum of Saving Knowledge, generally appended to our Confession of Faith, that brought him to a clear understanding of the way of acceptance with God. Those who are acquainted with its admirable statements of truth, will see how well fitted it was to direct an inquiring soul. I find him some years afterwards recording:—“March 11, 1834.—Read in the Sum of Saving Knowledge, the work which I think first of all wrought a saving change in me. How gladly would I renew the reading of it, if that change might be carried on to perfection!” It will be observed that he never reckoned his soul saved, notwithstanding all his convictions and views of sin, until he really went into the Holiest of all on the warrant of the Redeemer’s work; for assuredly a sinner is still under wrath, until he has actually availed himself of the way to the Father opened up by Jesus. All his knowledge of his sinfulness, and all his sad feeling of his own need and danger, cannot place him one step farther off from the lake of fire. It is “he that comes to Christ” that is saved.

Before this period he had received a bias towards the ministry from his brother David, who used to speak of the ministry as the most blessed work on earth, and often expressed the greatest delight in the hope that his younger brother might one day become a minister of Christ. And now, with altered views,—with an eye that could gaze on heaven and hell, and a heart that felt the love of a reconciled God,—he sought to become a herald of salvation.

He had begun to keep a register of his studies, and the manner in which his time slipt away, some months before his brother’s death. For a considerable time this register contains almost nothing but the bare incidents of the diary, and on Sabbaths the texts of the sermons he had heard. There is one gleam of serious thought—but it is the only one— during that period. On occasion of Dr Andrew Thomson’s funeral, he records the deep and universal grief that pervaded the town, and then subjoins: “Pleasing to see so much public feeling excited on the decease of so worthy a man. How much are the times changed within these eighteen centuries, since the time when Joseph besought the body in secret, and when he and Nicodemus were the only ones found to bear the body to the tomb!”

It is in the end of the year that evidences of a change appear From that period and ever onward his dry register of every-day incidents is varied with such passages as the following:—

“Nov. 12.—Reading H. Martyn’s Memoirs. Would I could imitate him, giving up father, mother, country, house, health, life, all—for Christ. And yet, what hinders? Lord, purify me, and give me strength to dedicate myself, my all, to Thee!”

“Dec. 4.—Reading Legh Richmond’s Life. ‘Pœnitentia profunda, non sine lacrymis. Nunquam me ipsum, tam vilem, tam inutilem, tam pauperim, et præcipue tam ingratum, adhuc vidi. Sint lacrymæ dedicationis meæ pignora!’ ” )“Deep penitence, not unmixed with tears. I never before saw myself so vile, so useless, so poor, and, above all, so ungrateful. May these tears be the pledges of my self-dedication!”) There is frequently at this period a sentence in Latin occurring like the above in the midst of other matter, apparently with the view of giving freer expression to his feelings regarding himself.

“Dec. 9.—Heard a street-preacher: foreign voice. Seems really in earnest. He quoted the striking passage, ‘The Spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say, Come!’ From this he seems to derive his authority. Let me learn from this man to be in earnest for the truth, and to despise the scoffing of the world.”

Dec. 18.—After spending an evening too lightly, he writes: “My heart mast break off from all these things. What right have I to steal and abuse my Master’s time? ‘Redeem it,’ He is crying to me.”

“Dec. 25.—My mind not yet calmly fixed on the Rock of Ages.”

“Jan. 12, 1832.—Cor non pacem habet. Quare? Peccatum apud fores manet.” )“My heart has not peace. Why? Sin lieth at my door.”)

“Jan. 25.—A lovely day. Eighty-four cases of cholera at Musselburgh. How it creeps nearer and nearer like a snake! Who will be the first victim here? Let thine everlasting arms be around us, and we shall be safe.”

“Jan. 29, Sabbath.—Afternoon heard Mr Bruce (then minister of the New North Church, Edinburgh) on Malachi 1:1–6. It constitutes the very gravamen of the charge against the unrenewed man, that he has affection for his earthly parent, and reverence for his earthly master, but none for God! Most noble discourse.”

“Feb. 2.—Not a trait worth remembering! And yet these four-and- twenty hours must be accounted for.”

Feb. 5, Sabbath.—In the afternoon, having heard the late Mr Martin of St George’s, he writes, on returning home: “O quam humilem, sed quam diligentissimum; quam dejectum, sed quam vigilem, quam die noctuque precantem, decet me esse quum tales viros aspicio. Juva, Pater, Fili, et Spiritus!” )“Oh! how humble, yet how diligent, how lowly, yet how watchful, how prayerful night and day it becomes me to be, when I see such men. Help, Father, Son, and Spirit!”)

From this date he seems to have sat, along with his friend Mr Somerville, almost entirely under Mr Bruce’s ministry. He took copious notes of his lectures and sermons, which still remain among his papers.

“Feb. 28.—Sober conversation. Fain would I turn to the most interesting of all subjects. Cowardly backwardness: ‘For whosoever is ashamed of me and my words,’ ” etc.

At this time, hearing, concerning a friend of the family, that she had said, “That she was determined to keep by the world,” he penned the following lines on her melancholy decision:—

She has chosen the world,
And its paltry crowd;
She has chosen the world,
And an endless shroud!
She has chosen the world
With its misnamed pleasures,
She has chosen the world,
Before heaven’s own treasures.
She hath launched her boat
On life’s giddy sea,
And her all is afloat
For eternity.
But Bethlehem’s star
Is not in her view;
And her aim is far
From the harbour true
When the storm descends
From an angry sky,
Ah! where from the winds
Shall the vessel fly?
When stars are concealed,
And rudder gone,
And heaven is sealed
To the wandering one
The whirlpool opes
For the gallant prize;
And, with all her hopes,
To the deep she hies!
But who may tell
Of the place of woe,
Where the wicked dwell,
Where the worldlings go?
For the human heart
Can ne’er conceive
What joys are the part
Of them who believe;
Nor can justly think
Of the cup of death,
Which all must drink
Who despise the faith.
A way, then—oh, fly
From the joys of earth!
Her smile is a lie—
There’s a sting in her mirth.
Come, leave the dreams
Of this transient night.
And bask in the beams
Of an endless light.

“March 6.—Wild wind and rain all day long. Hebrew class—Psalms. New beauty in the original every time I read. Dr Welsh—lecture on Pliny’s letter about the Christians of Bithynia. Professor Jameson on quartz. Dr Chalmers grappling with Home’s arguments. Evening—Notes, and little else. Mind and body dull.” This is a specimen of his register of daily study.

March 20.—After a few sentences in Latin, concluding with “In meam animam veni, Domine Deus omnipotens,” he writes, “Leaning on a staff of my own devising, it betrayed me, and broke under me. It was not thy staff. Resolving to be a god, Thou showedst me that I was but a man. But my own staff being broken, why may I not lay hold of thine?—Read part of the Life of Jonathan Edwards. How feeble does my spark of Christianity appear beside such a sun! But even his was a borrowed light, and the same source is still open to enlighten me.”

“April 8.—Have found much rest in Him who bore all our burdens for us.”

“April 26.—To-night I ventured to break the ice of unchristian silence. Why should not selfishness be buried beneath the Atlantic in matters so sacred?”

May 6, Saturday evening.—This was the evening previous to the Communion; and in prospect of again declaring himself the Lord’s at his table, he enters into a brief review of his state. He had partaken of the ordinance in May of the year before for the first time; but he was then living at ease, and saw not the solemn nature of the step he took. He now sits down and reviews the past:—

“What a mass of corruption have I been! How great a portion of my life have I spent wholly without God in the world, given up to sense and the perishing things around me! Naturally of a feeling and sentimental disposition, how much of my religion has been, and to this day is, tinged with these colours of earth! Restrained from open vice by educational views and the fear of man, how much ungodliness has reigned within me! How often has it broken through all restraints, and come out in the shape of lust and anger, mad ambitions, and unhallowed words! Though my vice was always refined, yet how subtile and how awfully prevalent it was! How complete a test was the Sabbath—spent in weariness, as much of it as was given to God’s service! How I polluted it by my hypocrisies, my self- conceits, my worldly thoughts, and worldly friends! How formally and unheedingly the Bible was read,—how little was read,—so little that even now I have not read it all! How unboundedly was the wild impulse of the heart obeyed! How much more was the creature loved than the Creator! ——O great God, that didst suffer me to live whilst I so dishonoured Thee, Thou knowest the whole; and it was thy hand alone that could awaken me from the death in which I was, and was contented to be. Gladly would I have escaped from the Shepherd that sought me as I strayed; but He took me up in his arms and carried me back; and yet He took me not for anything that was in me. I was no more fit for his service than the Australian, and no more worthy to be called and chosen. Yet why should I doubt? not that God is unwilling, not that He is unable—of both I am assured. But perhaps my old sins are too fearful, and my unbelief too glaring? Nay; I come to Christ, not although I am a sinner, but just because I am a sinner, even the chief.” He then adds, “And though sentiment and constitutional enthusiasm may have a great effect on me, still I believe that my soul is in sincerity desirous and earnest about having all its concerns at rest with God and Christ,—that his kingdom occupies the most part of all my thoughts, and even of my long-polluted affections. Not unto me, not unto me, be the shadow of praise or of merit ascribed, but let all glory be given to thy most holy name! As surely as Thou didst make the mouth with which I pray, so surely dost Thou prompt every prayer of faith which I utter. Thou hast made me all that I am, and given me all that I have.”

Next day, after communicating, he writes: “I well remember when I was an enemy, and especially abhorred this ordinance as binding me down; but if I be bound to Christ in heart, I shall not dread any bands that can draw me close to Him.” Evening—“Much peace. Look back, my soul, and view the mind that belonged to thee but twelve months ago. My soul, thy place is in the dust!”

“May 19.—Thought with more comfort than usual of being a witness for Jesus in a foreign land.”

“June 4.—Walking with A. Somerville by Craigleith. Conversing on missions. If I am to go to the heathen to speak of the unsearchable riches of Christ, this one thing must be given me, to be out of the reach of the baneful influence of esteem or contempt. If worldly motives go with me, I shall never convert a soul, and shall lose my own in the labour.”

“June 22.—Variety of studies. Septuagint translation of Exodus and Vulgate. Bought Edwards’ works. Drawing—Truly there was nothing in me that should have induced Him to choose me. I was but as the other brands upon whom the fire is already kindled, which shall burn for evermore! And as soon could the billet leap from the hearth and become a green tree, as my soul could have sprung to newness of life.”

June 25.—In reference to the office of the holy ministry; “How apt are we to lose our hours in the vainest babblings, as do the world! How can this be with those chosen for the mighty office? fellow-workers with God? heralds of His Son? evangelists? men set apart to the work, chosen out of the chosen, as it were the very pick of the flocks, who are to shine as the stars for ever and ever? Alas, alas! my soul, where shalt thou appear? O Lord God, I am a little child! But Thou wilt send an angel with a live coal from off the altar, and touch my unclean lips, and put a tongue within my dry mouth, so that I shall say with Isaiah, ‘Here am I, send me.’ ” Then, after reading a little of Edwards’ works: “Oh that heart and understanding may grow together, like brother and sister, leaning on one another!”

“June 27.—Life of David Brainerd. Most wonderful man! What conflicts, what depressions, desertions, strength, advancement, victories, within thy torn bosom! I cannot express what I think when I think of thee. To-night, more set upon missionary enterprise than ever.”

“June 28.—Oh for Brainerd’s humility and sin-loathing dispositions!”

“June 30.—Much carelessness, sin, and sorrow. ‘Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of sin and death?’ Enter thou, my soul, into the rock, and hide thee in the dust for fear of the Lord and the glory of his majesty.” And then he writes a few verses, of which the following are some stanzas:—

I will arise and seek my God,
And, bowed down beneath my load,
Lay all my sins before Him;
Then He will wash my soul from sin,
And pat a new heart me within,
And teach me to adore Him.
O ye that fain would find the joy—
The only one that wants alloy—
Which never is deceiving;
Come to the Well of Life with me.
And drink, as it is proffered, free,
The gospel draught receiving.
I come to Christ, because I know
The very worst are called to go;
And when in faith I find Him,
I’ll walk in Him, and lean on Him,
Because I cannot move a limb
Until He say, “Unbind him.”

“July 3.—This last bitter root of worldliness that has so often betrayed me has this night so grossly, that I cannot but regard it as God’s chosen way to make me loathe and forsake it for ever. I would vow; but it is much more like a weakly worm to pray. Sit in the dust, O my soul!” I believe he was enabled to keep his resolution. Once only, in the end of this year, was he again led back to gaiety; but it was the last time.

“July 7, Saturday.—After finishing my usual studies, tried to fast a little, with much prayer and earnest seeking of God’s face, remembering what occurred this night last year.” (Alluding to his brother’s death.)

“July 22.—Had this evening a more complete understanding of that self-emptying and abasement with which it is necessary to come to Christ, —a denying of self, trampling it under foot,—a recognising of the complete righteousness and justice of God, that could do nothing else with us but condemn us utterly, and thrust us down to lowest hell,—a feeling that, even in hell, we should rejoice in his sovereignty, and say that all was rightly done.”

“Aug. 15.—Little done, and as little suffered. Awfully important question, Am I redeeming the time?”

“Aug. 18.—Heard of the death of James Somerville by fever, induced by cholera. O God, thy ways and thoughts are not as ours! He had preached his first sermon. I saw him last on Friday, 27th July, at the College gate; shook hands, and little thought I was to see him no more on earth.”

“Sept. 2, Sabbath evening.—Reading. Too much engrossed, and too little devotional. Preparation for a fall. Warning. We may be too engrossed with the shell even of heavenly things.”

“Sept. 9.—Oh for true, unfeigned humility! I know I have cause to be humble; and yet I do not know one-half of that cause. I know I am proud; and yet I do not know the half of that pride.”

“Sept. 30.—Somewhat straitened by loose Sabbath observance. Best way is to be explicit and manly.”

“Nov. 1.—More abundant longings for the work of the ministry Oh that Christ would but count me faithful, that a dispensation of the gospel might be committed to me!” And then he adds, “Much peace. Peaceful, because believing.”

Dec. 2.—Hitherto he used to spend much of the Sabbath evening in extending his notes of Mr Brace’s sermons; but now, “Determined to be brief with these, for the sake of a more practical, meditative, resting, sabbatical evening.”

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