. . . just as the body lives its natural life through the soul, so the soul lives the life of grace through God.
—Thomas Aquinas, In Rom. 1.6.108; trans. Fr. Fabian Richard Larcher, OP (Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute, 2012).
There are some hymns which did good service in my young days, which have since lost favor. “‘Tis a point I long to know,” “Come, humble sinner, in whose breast,” are now regarded as too hypothetical. “I can but perish if I go.” There is no if in the case. However this may be in logic, it should be remembered that there is a faith which saves, which cannot recognize, much less avow itself. Many get to heaven who can only say, “Lord, help my unbelief;” for that is a cry of faith.
— Charles Hodge, ”Autobiography” in The Life of Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge, 1–38 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1880), 31; freely available via Google Books.
For the best Christians are not those “who are very learned and read much and own many books. But they are the best who most freely do what they read in books and teach others. However, they are not able to act freely unless they possess love through the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, in our age they are most to be feared who become very rich in book learning but remain unlearned as Christians.
– Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 195; citing Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, ed. H. C. Oswald (St. Louis: Concordia, 1972), 25:326.
Wilhelmus à Brakel’s The Christian’s Reasonable Service is an English translation of De Redelijke Godsdienst,* a classic work from the Nadere Reformatie (Dutch Second Reformation). The translator, Bartel Elshout, has generously provided free PDF downloads of the entire 4-volume translation:
Additionally, Bartel maintains a Brakel-related blog that includes useful introductory materials, such as the following video from the translator himself:
For more on Brakel’s life and work, see the biographical sketch by Dr. W. Fieret included in volume 1, starting at p. xxxi. The hardback edition of The Christians Reasonable Service is available at WTS Books.
*NB: The English translation omits the final sections of De Redelijke Godsdienst, deel 3, including:
From now until January 27th Michael Horton’s Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology For Pilgrims on The Way is 45% off (i.e., $27.49) at WTS Books.
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To John Gordon of Cardoness, the ElderMuch Honored and Dearest in My Lord,
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.
My soul longeth exceedingly to hear how matters go betwixt you and Christ; and whether or not there be any work of Christ in that parish, that will bide the trial of fire and water. Let me be weighed of my Lord in a just balance, if your souls lie not weighty upon me. Ye go to bed and ye rise with me: thoughts of your soul, my dearest in our Lord, depart not from me in my sleep. Ye have a great part of my tears, sighs, supplications, and prayers. Oh, if I could buy your soul’s salvation with any suffering whatsoever, and that ye and I might meet with joy up in the rainbow, when we shall stand before our Judge!
Sir, show the people this; for when I write to you, I think I write to you all, old and young. Fulfill my joy and seek the Lord. Sure I am, that once I discovered my lovely, royal princely Lord Jesus to you all. Woe, woe shall be your part of it for evermore, if the Gospel be not the savor of life to you. Believe me, I find heaven a city hard to be won.
I know your accounts are many, and will take telling and laying, and reckoning betwixt you and your Lord. Fit your accounts, and order them. Lose not the last play, whatever ye do, for in that play with death your precious soul is the prize: for the Lord’s sake spill not the play, and lose not such a treasure. Ye know that, out of love which I had to your soul, and out of desire which I had to make an honest account of you, I testified my displeasure and disliking of your ways very often, both in private and public. I am not now a witness of your doings, but your Judge is always your witness. I beseech you by the mercies of God, by the salvation of your soul, after the sight of this letter to take a new course with your ways and now, in the end of your day, make sure of heaven.
I never knew so well what sin was as since I came to Aberdeen, howbeit I was preaching of it to you. To feel the smoke of hell’s fire in the throat for half an hour; to stand beside a river of fire and brimstone broader than the earth; and to think to be bound hand and foot, and casten into the midst of it quick, and then to have God locking the prison door, never to be opened to all eternity! O how it will shake a conscience that has any life in it!
Look up to Him and love Him. O, love and live! It were life to me if you would read this letter to the people and if they did profit by it. My dearest in the Lord, stand fast in Christ, keep the faith, contend for Christ. Wrestle for Him and take men’s feud for God’s favor; there is no comparison betwixt them. O that the Lord would fulfill my joy and keep the young bride that is at Anwoth to Christ!
Now, worthy Sir, now my dear people, my joy and my crown in the Lord, let Him be your fear. Seek the Lord, and His face: save your souls. Doves! flee to Christ’s windows. Pray for me, and praise for me. The blessing of my God, the prayers and blessing of a poor prisoner, and your lawful pastor, be upon you.
Your lawful and loving pastor.
Aberdeen 16 June 1637
To John Fullerton of Carleton in GallowayWorthy and Much Honored,
Grace, mercy and peace be to you.
I received your letter from my brother, to which I now answer particularly. I confess two things of myself: First, woe is me, that men should think there is anything in me. He is my witness, before whom I am as crystal, that the secret house-devils that bear me too often company, and that this sink of corruption which I find within, make me go with low sails. And if others saw what I see, they would look by me, but not to me.
Secondly, I know that this shower of free grace behaved to be on me, otherwise I should have withered. I know, also, that I have need of a buffeting tempter, that grace may be put to exercise, and I kept low.
Worthy and dear brother in the Lord Jesus, I write that from my heart which ye now read. I avouch that Christ, and sweating and sighing under His cross, is sweeter to me by far, than all the kingdoms in the world could possibly be. If you, and my dearest acquaintance in Christ, reap any fruit by my suffering, let me be weighed in God’s even balance, if my joy be not fulfilled. What am I, to carry the marks of such a great King! I have gotten the wale and choice of Christ’s crosses, even the tithe and the flower of the gold of all crosses, to bear witness to the truth; and herein find I liberty, joy, access, life, comfort, love, faith, submission, patience and resolution to take delight in on waiting. And, withal, in my race He has come near me and let me see the gold and crown. Let no man think he shall lose at Christ’s hands in suffering for Him.
I doubt not but my Lord is preparing me for heavier trials. I am most ready at the good pleasure of my Lord, in the strength of His grace, for anything He will be pleased to call me to; neither shall the black faced messenger, Death, be holden at the door when it shall knock. If my Lord will take honor of the like of me, how glad and joyful will my soul be. Let Christ come out with me to a hotter battle than this, and I will fear no flesh. I know that my Master shall win the day, and that He has taken the order of my suffering into His own hand. I have not yet resisted to blood.
Oh, how often am I laid in the dust, and urged by the tempter (who can ride his own errands upon our lying apprehensions) to sin against the unchangeable love of my Lord! When I think upon the sparrows and swallows that build their nests in the kirk of Anwoth, and of my dumb Sabbaths, my sorrowful, bleated eyes look asquint upon Christ, and present Him as angry. But in this trial (all honor to our princely and royal King!) faith saileth fair before the wind, with topsail up, and carrieth the passenger through. I lay inhibitions upon my thoughts, that they receive no slanders of my only, only Beloved.
Now my dearest in Christ, the great Messenger of the Covenant, the only wise and all-sufficient Jehovah, establish you to the end. I hear that the Lord has been at your house, and has called home your wife to her rest. I know, Sir, that ye see the Lord loosing the pins of your tabernacle, and wooing your love from this plastered and over-gilded world, and calling upon you to be making yourself ready to go to your father’s country, which shall be a sweet fruit of that visitation. Ye know ‘to send the Comforter’ was the King’s word when He ascended on high. Ye have claim to, and interest in, that promise.
All love, all mercy, all grace and peace, all multiplied saving consolations, all joy and faith in Christ, all stability and confirming strength of grace, and the goodwill of Him that dwelt in the Bush be with you.
Your unworthy brother.
Aberdeen 15 June 1637
To John Gordon of Cardoness, the youngerMuch Honored Sir,
I long to hear whether or not your soul be hand-fasted with Christ. Lose your time no longer: flee the follies of youth: gird up the loins of your mind, and make you ready for meeting the Lord. I have often summoned you, and now I summon you again, to compear before your Judge, to make a reckoning of your life. While ye have time, consider your ways.
Oh that there were such an heart in you, as to think what an ill conscience will be to you, when ye are upon the border of eternity, and your one foot out of time! Oh then, ten thousand thousand floods of tears cannot extinguish these flames, or purchase to you one hour’s release from that pain! Oh, how sweet a day have ye had! But this is a fair-day that runneth fast away. See how ye have spent it, and consider the necessity of salvation! And tell me, in the fear of God, if ye have made it sure.
I am persuaded that ye have a conscience that will be speaking somewhat to you. Why will ye die, and destroy yourself? I charge you in Christ’s name, to rouse up your conscience in time, while salvation is in your offer. This is the accepted time, this is the day of salvation. Therefore, let me again beseech you to consider, in this your day, the things that belong to your peace, before they be hid from your eyes.
Dear brother, fulfill my joy, and begin to seek the Lord while He may be found. Forsake the follies of deceiving and vain youth: lay hold upon eternal life. Shoring, night-drinking, and the misspending of the Sabbath, and neglecting of prayer in your house, and refusing of an offered salvation, will burn up your soul with the terrors of the Almighty, when your awakened conscience shall flee in your face. Be kind and loving to your wife: make conscience of cherishing her, and not being rigidly austere.
Sir, I have not a tongue to express the glory that is laid up for you in your Father’s house, if ye reform your doings, and frame your heart to return to the Lord. Ye know that this world is but a shadow, a short living creature, under the law of time. Within less than fifty years, when ye look back to it, ye shall laugh at the evanishing vanities thereof, as feathers flying in the air, and as the houses of sand within the sea-mark, which the children of men are building. Give up with courting of this vain world: seek not the bastard’s moveables, but the son’s heritage in heaven. Take a trial of Christ. Look unto Him, and His love will so change you, that ye shall be taken with Him, and never choose to go from Him.
There is nothing that will make you a Christian indeed, but a taste of the sweetness of Christ. ‘Come and see’, will speak best to your soul. I would fain hope good of you. Be not discouraged at broken and spilled resolutions; but to it, and to it again! Use the means of profiting with your conscience: pray in your family and read the Word. Remember how our Lord’s day was spent when I was among you. It will be a great challenge to you before God if ye forget the good that was done within the walls of your house on the Lord’s day; and if ye turn aside after the fashions of this world, and if ye go not in time to the kirk, to wait on the public worship of God, and if ye tarry not at it, till all the exercises of religion be ended. Give God some of your time both morning and evening and afternoon; and in so doing, rejoice the heart of a poor, oppressed prisoner. Rue upon your own soul and from your heart fear the Lord.
Now He that brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of His sheep, by the blood Of the eternal covenant, establish your heart with grace, and present you before His presence with joy.
Your affectionate and loving pastor.
Aberdeen 1637
See the note on his father (i.e. Letter 32). The son, to whom this letter was addressed, was an uncivilized loose liver, and made his home a misery. Like his others to the same address, Rutherford’s letter is outspoken and straight to the point. Nor could he ignore the fact that though the young man continued to attend church at times he came late and strode out before the service was over, behaving with the utmost irreverence and as if he was deliberately trying to insult his minister.
To John Clark, a parishionerLoving Brother,
Hold fast Christ without wavering and contend for the faith, because Christ is not easily gotten nor kept. The lazy professor has put heaven as it were at the next door, and thinketh to fly up to heaven in his bed and in a night-dream; but, truly, that is not so easy a thing as most men believe. Christ Himself did sweat ere He wan this city, howbeit He was the freeborn heir. It is Christianity, my heart, to be sincere, unfeigned, honest and upright hearted before God, and to live and serve God, suppose there was not one man nor woman in all the world dwelling beside you, to eye you. Any little grace that ye have, see that it be sound and true.
Ye may put a difference betwixt you and reprobates, if ye have these marks:
Persuade yourself, that this is the way of peace and comfort which I now suffer for. I dare go to death and into eternity with it, though men may possibly see another way. Remember me in your prayers, and the state of this oppressed church. Grace be with you. Your soul’s well-wisher.
Aberdeen
What is the difference between Dr. Phil and Christianity’s Gospel? Not much (sadly!) in many explanations of Christianity. But in the Sacred Scriptures, the two could not be further apart! For, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is by faith alone; Dr. Phil-type behaviorism is by works alone. The one is law and gospel, the other is law only.
In the following interview, professor R. Scott Clark discusses how the law relates to the Gospel in Christianity, how to avoid moralism and antinomianism, and how real change/growth/sanctification takes places in a Christian’s life. Listen to professor Clark explain the world of difference “by faith alone” makes in understanding Christianity (MP3):
[odeo=http://odeo.com/audio/17122523/view]
