EXTRACTS FROM OLD AUTHORS.
"God would have us pitch our faith upon The Person of His Son, and not barely upon the Promise. And therefore, He has so ordered things in His divine wisdom that the Promises should all hold on Christ, and be Yea and Amen in Him." - TILLINGHAST's Six Sermons, p. 9.
"Saving faith is in the nature of it not a mere assent to a testimony, but a receiving and resting upon The Person of Jesus Christ alone, for salvation both from sin and wrath, and unto all the grace and glory of God." - CUDWORTH's Experience, p. 10.
"Those Divines who in their Catechetical Systems have made the formal object of Faith to be the Promise, rather than The Person of Christ, have failed in their expressions, if not in their intentions." - SPURSTOW on Rom. vi. 1.
"Folk must go first to Christ's Person before they can get good of His offices. Folk must make a direct address to the Person of the Mediator before they reap His purchase. Pardon is sweet, adoption is sweet, grace is sweet, heaven is sweet; but Christ is sweeter. " - WEBSTER'S Sermons, p. 88.
"Faith does not marry the soul to the portion, benefits, and privileges of Christ, but to Christ Himself. I don't say that the soul may not have an eye to these, and a respect to these in closing with Christ; yea, usually these are the first things that faith has in its eye. But the soul does, and must go higher; he must look at and pitch upon The Person of Christ, or his faith is not so right and complete as it ought to be. It is The Person of Christ that is the great fountain of all grace and of all manifestations of God to us; and faith accordingly does close with His Person." - PEARSE's Best Match, p. 160.
Such delight had Samuel Rutherford in The Person of Christ that he writes to his friends such things as the following : - " Holiness is not Christ; the blossoms and flavours of the Tree of Life are not the Tree itself" (Lett. 335). "He, He Himself, is more excellent than heaven. Oh, what a life were it to sit beside this Well of Love, and drink and sing, sing and drink!" (Lett. 288). "My greatest pain is want of Him; not of His joys and comforts, but of a near union and communion." "I have casten this work upon Christ, to get in Himself" (Lett. 187; Lett. 112). "I would be farther in upon Christ than at His joys, in where love and mercy lodgeth - beside His heart !" (Lett. 286). "Oh, if I could doat as much upon Himself as I do upon His love!" (Lett. 160). "I would fain learn not to idolise comfort, sense, joy, and sweet-felt presence. All these are but creatures, and nothing but the kingly robe, the golden ring, the bracelets of the Bridegroom. The Bridegroom Himself is better than all ornaments that are about Him" (Lett. 168). "If the comparison could stand, I would not exchange Christ with heaven itself" (Lett. 111).
Once more. A century ago, Romaine (Life of Faith, p. 159) thus wrote in expounding the verses 1 John ii. 13, 14, - " Many continue little children and weak in faith, because they do not presently attain a solid acquaintance with The Person of Christ."
The sum of the matter is this. There is a vast difference between, on the one hand, believing day by day in a living Saviour, and on the other, resting satisfied with the salvation He brings, as if that were all.
Be the first to react on this!
Andrew Bonar (1810 - 1892)
He was a well-known pastor in Scotland with the Free Church. His brother Horatius was another well-known minister who was contemporary with Robert Murray Mchyene and others in those days. They saw a move of revival in their churches where the Spirit brought many immediate conversations in a short period of time.He is best known for his work on compiling the life of the prophet of Dundee: Robert Murray Mchyene: "Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray McCheyne." One cannot read this volume and feel the sobriety of eternity and the fear of the Lord. He also wrote a wonderful volume on Leviticus.
Andrew Alexander Bonar was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, and the youngest brother of Horatius Bonar.
He studied at Edinburgh; was minister at Collace, Perthshire, 1838 - 1856 (both in the Church of Scotland and the Free Church); and of Finnieston Free Church, Glasgow, 1856 till his death.
He was identified with evangelical and revival movements and adhered to the doctrine of premillennialism. With Robert Murray McCheyne he visited Palestine in 1839 to inquire into the condition of the Jews there. During the visit of Dwight L. Moody to Britain in 1874 and 1875, Moody was warmly welcomed by Bonar, despite the latter receiving considerable criticism from other Calvinist ministers in the Free Church.
Andrew Bonar preached from the whole Bible, the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation. When one of his friends remarked on his originality in finding subjects for preaching, and wondered where he got all his texts, he just lifted up his Bible. He did not ignore any part of it, but explained it all. He did not shy away from any passages that might be seen as unpopular or unpleasant. Even the first chapters of Chronicles became 'God calling the roll of mankind.' He made it come alive as a history of men and women, living in their time, as we live in ours, accountable to God.
Christ and Him crucified was at the centre of all his preaching, in all parts of the Bible. He declared 'the whole counsel of God', and was deeply aware of his responsibility as a man of God. He spent hours every day in prayer and meditation of the Scriptures, and asking for the Holy Spirit to show the truth to him, so that he might pass it on to his flock. He wrote in a letter: "Persevering prayerfulness is harder for the flesh than preaching."
Above all, he was aware that his personal holiness would be of crucial importance to his preaching, as his remark shows: "Sins of teachers are teachers of sins."