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 Born in 1685, Ralph Erskine got his start early, entering Edinburgh University at the age of fifteen to study theology. As a minister he was so dedicated and passionate about serving Christ through preaching, praying, and studying the Word that he worked long hours into the night. By 1713, the Spirit was so working through his efforts that his congregation was fervent in piety. In fact, after the church’s evening service, small group prayer would continue, sometimes well after midnight. On one account, a congregant came to the church at 2am to pray privately and found instead a multitude of people praying on their knees around the church to the effect that the countryside rumbled with murmured prayer.
And while the Lord obviously blessed his preaching of the Word with much success [and his sermons are certainly worth our time to read], Erskine was also a gifted poet. He published his Gospel Sonnets in 1720 with extreme eloquence coupled with intense and profound theology. They are basically the message of the gospel in poetic form and were an incredibly popular treasure at the time of publication: in fact, seeing over twenty editions by 1793. It is a happy side note to point out that it was a large influence on the father of another of our other “Passionate Presbyterians” in these posts: John G Paton. In his autobiography, Paton recalls how his father used to go out into the woods and memorize Erskine’s poetry as part of his devotional time. It is remarkable how God uses the faith of one to affect the faith of another and how huge and wide that impact it can be! Let us as college students never underestimate God’s power in using the work of our hands, and may that knowledge spur us to use our creativity and strength no matter how unimpressive the task may seem; who knows perhaps you may influence the next great missionary of the world as well!
Here are a few excerpts from Erskine’s wonderful Gospel Sonnets:
But thou that sav’st by price, must save by power;
O send thy spirit in a fiery show’r
This cold and frozen heart of mine to thaw,
That naught, save cords of burning love, can draw.
O draw me, Lord, then will I run to thee,
And glad into thy glowing bosom flee.
I own myself a mass of sin and hell,
A brat that can do nothing but rebel.
O then let me a rebel now come speed,
Thy holy spirit is the gift I need.
And since thou design’st the like of me to wed,
O come and make my heart thy marriage-bed.
Fair Jesus, wilt thou marry filthy me!
Amen, Amen, Amen; so let it be”.
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Hence many falls and plunges in the mire,
As many new conversions do require.
Who, to reprove her aggravated crimes,
Leaves her abandon’d to herself at times;
That, falling into frightful deeps, she may
From sad experience learn more stress to lay,
Not on her native efforts, but at length
On Christ alone, her righteousness and strength;
Conscious, while in her works she seeks repose,
Her legal spirit breeds her many woes.
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Hence none believe in Jesus, as they ought,
‘Till once they first believe they can do nought.
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Faith makes us joyfully content that he
Our head, our husband, and out All should be,
Our righteousness and strength, our stock and store,
Our fund for food and raiment, grace and glore.
It makes the creature down to nothing fall,
Content that Christ alone be all in all.
The law requires on pain of death,
The gospel courts with loving breath…
Both law and gospel close combine,
to make each other’s lustre shine;
The gospel all law-breakers shames,
The law all gospel-slighters damns…
Next, what by law I’m bound unto,
The same the gospel makes me do;
What preceptively that can crave,
This effectively can ingrave.
To run, to work, the law commands;
The gospel gives me feet and hands:
The one requires that I obey,
The other does the pow’r convey.
What in the law had duty’s place,
The gospel changes to a grace:
Hence legal duties therein nam’d,
Are herein gospel-graces fam’d.
The righteous law condemns each man
That dare reject the gospel-plan:
The holy gospel none will save,
On whom it won’t the law ingrave…
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At sovereign grace’s feet does prostrate fall [the repentant sinner],
Content to be in Jesus’ debt for all.
While sweetly, humbly, she beholds at length,
Christ, as her only righteousness and strength.
He with the view throws down his loving dart,
Impressed with pow’r into her tender heart.
The deeper that the law’s fierce dart was thrown,
The deeper now the dart of love goes down:
Hence, sweetly pain’d, her cries to heaven do flee;
‘O none but Jesus, none but Christ for me.’
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 Samuel Rutherford was a remarkable Scottish Presbyterian in the 17th Century. Those of us who admire our great Westminster Confession of Faith will be glad to know that he was one of the few Scottish Divines at the Westminster Assembly during its drafting.
He had a passionate heart and was ceaseless in his work for the church. It was said of him that, "He was always praying, always preaching, always visiting the sick, always catechising, always writing and studying." His life was not without sorrow though, and his first years of being a pastor saw the death of his wife and two of his children. Furthermore, he was punished for his Presbyterian faith when he refused to conform to the episcopacy favored by the crown. But God sovereignly ordained these things for, among other effects, the advancement of his ministry; when one reads his letters to his flock comforting them in their suffering, it is easy to see the authentic heartbreak behind the pen and the genuine lessons that he learned and then applied to their lives.
What’s more, this giant of faith left us a remarkable treasury of true religious expression. His collected letters have been lauded with exceptionally uncommon praises by some other incredible Christians. Here are just two:
C.H. Spurgeon considered Rutherford’s letters to be “the nearest thing to inspiration which can be found in all the writings of mere men.” And Richard Baxter explained: “Hold off the Bible, such a book the world never saw.”
Here are some excerpts from The Letters of Samuel Rutherford:
I doubt not but that, if hell were betwixt you and Christ, as a river which ye behoved to cross ere you could come at Him, but ye would willingly put in your foot, and make through to be at Him, upon hope that He would come in Himself, in the deepest of the river, and lend you His hand… and ye have also a promise that Christ shall do more than meet you, even that He shall come Himself, and go with you foot for foot, yea and bear you in His arms.
Build your nest upon no tree here; for ye see God hath sold the forest to death; and every tree whereupon we would rest is ready to be cut down, to the end that we may fly and mount up, and build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock. What ye love besides Jesus, your husband, is an adulterous lover. Now it is God’s special blessing to Judah, that He will not let her find her paths in following her strange lovers. “Therefore, behold I will hedge up her way with thorns, and make a wall that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow her lovers, but she shall not overtake them” (Hos. 2:6-7). O thrice happy Judah, when God buildeth a double stone wall betwixt her and the fire of hell!
Duties are ours, and events [outcomes] are God’s.
His reproaches are sweet, His cross perfumed, the walls of my prison fair and large, my losses gain.
Yet Christ hath another sea-compass which He saileth by, than my short and raw thoughts. I leave His part of it to Himself. I dare not expound His dealing as sorrow and misbelieve often dictate to me.
Wants are my best riches, for I have these supplied by Christ. Dry wells send us to the fountain.
I rejoice that he is come and hath chosen you in the furnace; it is even there where ye and he set tryst; that is an old gate of Christ’s. He keepeth the good old fashion with you, that was in Hosea’s days: ‘Therefore, behold I will allure her, and bring her to the wilderness and speak to her heart’ (Hos. 2:14). There was no talking to her heart while he and she were in the fair and flourishing city and at ease; but only in the cold, hungry, waste wilderness, he allureth her, and whispered in news into her ear there, and said, ‘Thou art mine.’
I’ll leave you with an excerpt from one of his letters to a youth (like us) in his congregation in 1637:
I entreat you now, in the morning of your life, to seek the Lord and His face. Beware of the follies of dangerous youth, a perilous time for your soul. Love not the world. Keep faith and truth with all men in your covenants and bargains. Walk with God, for He seeth you. Do nothing but that which ye may and would do if your eye-strings were breaking, and your breath growing cold. Prize Christ and salvation above all the world.
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 David Brainerd was a 1700s Presbyterian missionary determined to preach Jesus to the Native Americans in the colonial American frontier. Even today, he is considered a giant of faith by men of all denominations and has been the inspiration of countless missionaries.
With such a reputation, it would be easy to assume he led a charmed life. This is not true at all. In fact he died at a young age (29), and for the short life he did live, he was chronically ill and depressed. During his college years (just like us now), he had to drop out of Yale for a time because his tuberculosis was causing him to cough up blood. Later, not letting his sickness get in his way, he pushed on and preached to the Native Americans with much success.
Listen to some of his journal and diary excerpts that show how brutally hard life can sometimes be but what authentic faith in God does in even such heartbreak:
“Rode several hours in the rain though the howling wilderness, although I was so disordered in body that little or nothing but blood came from me.”
“Exercised with a violent cough and a considerable fever; had no appetite to any kind of food; and frequently brought up what I ate, as soon as it was down; and oftentimes had little rest in my bed, by reason of pains in my breast and back: was able, however, to ride over to my people, about two miles, every day, and take some care of those who were then at work.”
[In one of his depressions] “Was so overwhelmed with dejection that I knew now how to live: I longed for death exceedingly: My soul was ‘sunk in deep waters,’ and ‘the floods’ were ready to ‘drown me’; I was so much oppressed that my soul was in a kind of horror.”
[But he always depended on God] “Oh I longed to fill the remaining moments all for God! Though my body was so feeble, and wearied with preaching and much private conversation, yet I wanted to sit up all night to do something for God. To God the giver of these refreshments, be glory forever and ever; Amen”
“When I really enjoy God, I feel my desires of him the more insatiable, and my thirstings after holiness the more unquenchable…Oh, for holiness! Oh for more of God in my soul! Oh, this pleasing pain! It makes my soul press after God.”
This is a perfect example that God doesn’t require the most fit people; he calls those who are faithful and who depend on him in all things. And then when God does use such dismal vessels to accomplish such amazing things, He gets all the more glory. Just amazing.
I pray that we as college students, though natural as it is to seek independence and to strive for our own glory, will consider the God that Brainerd worshipped, count Him as worthy, and let Him use us in the same way. May we be just as passionate about missions as feeble Brainerd was.
Side Note:
This is an excellent time to talk about a related side note: the sovereignty of God. Many have claimed that the natural outworking of our Presbyterian theology (most notably, predestination) is that it would create lazy Christians who think they don’t need to evangelize because what would be the point? If God has already decided who was to be saved, then why try to save anybody? However, we see time and time again in lives like David Brainerd that this is not what happens to true Calvinists. Why?
Well when we examine his journal and diary we see that the only thing that kept him preaching to the Native Americans was God’s sustaining him and his discernment that there was more than just his feeble effort at work. In fact, it is the ‘free will position’ that would have paralyzed his evangelism. If he had thought that God had not already called and decided to efficaciously save numbers of the Indians that he was preaching to, he would have known how useless it was. I mean, think about how inadequate he felt at trying to communicate to people who spoke a different language, were part of a different culture, and were frequently out of his reach. And on top of that the Bible teaches that all natural men are dead in sin (Eph 2:1). Dead people can’t choose to save themselves. So he would be preaching to dead people who had no chance of responding in the affirmative. So it is precisely his belief in the electing love of God that pushed him to preach Christ to people. And this is what Brainerd journaled about in one of his entries: “All my desire was the conversion of the heathen, and all my hope was in God.” His faith was not in the man he was preaching to, or in his own ability to persuade; it was in God’s ability to save. That is comforting and missions inspiring.
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Presbyterians were once known for their missionary activity full of heart-warming zeal and self-sacrificing love. In fact, Marj Carpenter, 1995 PCUSA Moderator, even asserts that “the Presbyterians have opened more mission fields than any other church in history.”
I wonder if we have fallen from that godly apex. Let us, as college students with our lives probably before us, consider the inspiring life of John G Paton.
Paton was a Scottish Presbyterian missionary who went to the New Hebrides even though the islands were inhabited by hostile cannibals who had already eaten two missionaries and driven others away. Though many of us today would proffer excuses that it was too dangerous or that we were not the best fit to serve there or that we were clearly not wanted, this passionate Presbyterian, was unceasingly dedicated to God’s glory and His command to “preach the word … in season and out of season” (2 Tim 4:2). And once Paton was there, he tragically lost his wife and newborn son to fever. Yet he would not throw in the towel … he continued to serve on alone. Listen to one of his quotes revealing the depths of his heart and his devotion to Christ: “At the moment I put the bread and wine into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer's love, I had a foretaste of the joy of glory that well nigh broke my heart to pieces. I shall never taste a deeper bliss, till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus himself.”
Oh how vain my desires and pleasures are. How absolutely Christ-centered this man was that he could really glory in the salvation of others with such authentic passion! What would we recall as our deepest bliss? I pray that if you and I do not measure up, that we will be convicted by our shallowness in comparison to great Presbyterians like this man. But further, I pray that rather than shrinking away from these towering figures in shame, we will rise for the glory of Christ and be counted faithful servants as well: seeking his glory in such magnificently, self-sacrificing ways that really do show the worth of Christ.
Additional Paton excerpt: “I climbed into the tree and was left there alone in the bush. The hours I spent there live all before me as if it were but of yesterday. I heard the frequent discharging of muskets, and the yells of the Savages. Yet I sat there among the branches, as safe as in the arms of Jesus. Never, in all my sorrows, did my Lord draw nearer to me, and speak more soothingly in my soul, than when the moonlight flickered among those chestnut leaves, and the night air played on my throbbing brow, as I told all my heart to Jesus. Alone, yet not alone! If it be to glorify my God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel again my Savior's spiritual presence, to enjoy His consoling fellowship. If thus thrown back upon your own soul, alone, all alone, in the midnight, in the bush, in the very embrace of death itself, have you a Friend that will not fail you then?”
As we continue to think about what we will do with our lives, let us seriously keep such saints’ lives before our minds… let us acutely consider these lines from an anonymous poem: “Only one life, 'twill soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last.”
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 This past week when I was in Israel visiting the places where Jesus walked the earth, I had an 1844 copy of the letters and sermons of an incredible Scottish Presbyterian Minister by the name of Robert Murray McCheyne. His words of reflection after he had visited the very same places were moving and again reminded me of the inspiring strength and depth of faith that our leading Presbyterians had. McCheyne was born in 1813 and was always plagued by fragile health. He was hardworking and labored enduringly for the gospel. One special thing about him was the way he preached; in the words of his biographer Andrew Bonar, “It was not doctrine alone that he preached; it was Christ, from whom all doctrine shoots forth as rays from a centre… the flocking of souls to his ministry, and the deep interest excited, drew the attention of many.”
Listen to one powerful excerpt from a letter of his in 1839:
“The awful disease of leprosy still exists in Africa… It is regarded as perfectly incurable, and so infectious that no one dares to come near a leper. In the south of Africa there is a large lazarhouse for lepers. It is an immense space, enclosed by a very high wall, and containing fields, which the lepers cultivate. There is only one entrance, which is strictly guarded. Whenever any one is found with the marks of leprosy upon him, he is brought to this gate and obliged to enter in, never to return. No one who enters in by that awful gate is ever allowed to come out again. Within this abode of misery there are multitudes of lepers in all stages of disease... Ah! how little we know of the misery that is in the world. Such is this prison-house of disease.
But you will ask, who cares for the souls of the hapless inmates? Who will venture to enter in at this dreadful gate never to return again? Who will forsake father and mother, houses and land, to carry the message of a Savior to these poor lepers? Two Moravian missionaries, impelled by a divine love for souls, have chosen the lazarhouse as their field of labour. They entered it never to come out again; and I am told that as soon as these die other Moravians are quite ready to take their place. Ah! my dear friends, may we not blush, and be ashamed before God, that we, redeemed with the same blood, and taught by the same Spirit, should yet be so unlike these men in vehement, heart-consuming love to Jesus and the souls of men.”
Powerful and convicting.
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 Sometimes it can seem like the world is going to hell in a hand basket. And right now, with the 2008 presidential election approaching, the economy is in shambles, the world is at war, and our politicians are more divided than ever. At this point, it might be all too easy to sink back in apathetic cynicism and just dismiss the whole thing as futile.
But with remarkable poignancy, our Presbyterian ancestors are speaking to us with their lives. And they are speaking loudly. This time we look back 200 years to the founding of this country. The man we see is John Witherspoon. He was a Presbyterian Clergyman as well as an extremely influential founding father. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and in fact, the only clergyman to have signed. That’s incredible and is a great expression of Presbyterian action. We Presbyterians have never been the kind of people to sit back and let other people fix the problem. We are active people who seek to do God’s will in our own areas of influence.
And it was not just John Witherspoon who was influential in early American politics. There were so many Presbyterians who were involved in, and leaders of, the American Revolution that King George III even referred to it as a “Presbyterian rebellion.” And the English Prime Minister Horace Walpole noted to Parliament that, "Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson" (‘parson’ is an old term for minister, and that is a reference to none other than Witherspoon).
So when we go out to the polls in the next few days, let us go remembering that we follow in a very long line of passionate and powerful ancestors that were politically active … for the betterment of the world. Let us as college students seek to be just as effectively useful in this age as they were in theirs (knowing we can change the world, just as they did).
A taste of Witherspoon’s writing:
"Shall we establish nothing good because we know it cannot be eternal? Shall we live without government because every constitution has its old age and its period? Because we know that we shall die, shall we take no pains to preserve or lengthen our life? Far from it, Sir: it only requires the more watchful attention to settle government upon the best principles and in the wisest manner that it may last as long as the nature of things will admit."
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