Seventh Pastoral Letter

Unexpected Calls to Labor—Parting Counsels to Believers.
from MEMOIRS OF MCCHEYNE

Edinburgh, March 13, 1839.

TO all of you who are my brethren, and my companions in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, your pastor wishes grace, mercy, and peace.

It gives me great joy to address you once more; and if I could only grave on your heart some of those words which make wise unto salvation, my time and labor would be amply repaid. The providences of every day convince me that I have followed not my own will, but God’s, in leaving you for a time. If the Lord permit, I shall come to you again, and I trust more fully taught by the Spirit—a holier, happier, and a more useful minister. I did not know when I last preached to you that I was to be so long parted from you; and though I felt a solemn tenderness stealing over my soul which I could not well account for, and eternity seemed very near, and your souls seemed very precious, yet the Lord was “leading the blind by a way which we knew not.” I have been searching God’s Word to find examples of this, and I find them very many

You remember Abraham, how he was living quietly in his father’s house, in Ur of the Chaldees, when the Lord appeared to him, and said, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee” (Gen. 12:1). And he went out, not knowing whither he went. You remember Jacob: his mother said unto him, “Arise, flee thou to Laban, my brother, to Haran, and tarry with him a few days.” But the Lord meant it otherwise; and it was twenty years before Jacob came back again (Gen. 27:43, 44). You remember Joseph his father sent him a message to his brethren: “Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks, and bring me word again” (Gen. 37:14). He expected to see him return in a few days; but God had another purpose with him. It was more than twenty years before he saw the face of Joseph again; till he said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: and I will go and see him before I die.”

You will find the same method of dealing in the New Testament. How little Peter knew that morning when he went up to the housetop to pray, that he was that very day to be sent away to open the door of faith to the Gentiles (Acts 10:9); and yet God said to him, “Arise, get thee down, and go with them, nothing doubting” (v. 20). Again, you remember Barnabas and Saul, how happily they were engaged with the brethren at Antioch, ministering to the Lord and fasting. Little did they think that the next day they would be sailing away to carry the gospel to other lands. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and said their hands on them, they sent them away” (Acts 13:2, 13).

Once more, when Paul had preached the gospel in all the cities of Asia, and was come to Troas, on the seacoast, how little did he think that night when he laid his head upon his pillow, that by the next morning the swift ship would be carrying him across the seas, to bear the message of salvation to another continent! “A vision appeared to Paul in the night: there stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come ever into Macedonia and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them” (Acts 16:9, 10).

Now, has not God dealt with us in a similar manner? Although we are nothing in ourselves but evil and hell–deserving creatures, yet, when accepted in the Beloved, God cares for us. Oh! we err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God, when we think that God is indifferent to the least of all that are in Christ. We are fastened on the Redeemer’s shoulder. We are graven on His breastplate, and that is on the Redeemer’s heart. Surely He has directed our steps. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!” In other circumstances, I suppose, I would not have listened to this proposal. I could not have torn myself away had I been in strength and usefulness among you, and indeed the expedition probably would never have been thought of.

But God, who chose Israel to be His peculiar treasure, can easily open up ways when His set time is come. I parted from you only for a few days; but God meant otherwise, and He will make it His own fixed time. And now, behold, I know that there are some of you among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, who “shall see my face no more.” “He that keepeth Israel” may preserve your pastor under His almighty feathers. I know you will pray for me, as you have done in secret, and in your families, and in your meetings for prayer, “that the sun may not smite me by day, nor the moon by night;” but if I should come back again, will I find you all where I left you? Alas! I know it cannot be so. “For what is your life? It is even a vapor;” and God is still crying, “Return, return, ye children of men.”

For some among you, I give thanks unto the Father that He hath made you meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light (Col. 1:12). There are some among you from whom I have learned more than I taught you, “who have been succorers of many, and of myself also” (Rom. 16:2), and who have often reminded me of corn, when it was fully ripe. Shall we be surprised if the Son of Man puts in the sickle? (Rev. 14:13, 16). Dear advanced believers, we may never meet again. I feel it almost wrong to pray that ye may be kept to comfort us on our return. It is wrong to grudge you “an entrance into perfect day,” where you shall lay aside that body of death and sin which is your greatest grief; yet may the Lord spare you, and bless you, and make you a blessing, that ye may bear fruit in old age. Oh, fill up the little inch of time that remains to His glory; walk with God; live for God. Oh, that every thought, and word, and action might be in His favor, and to His praise! The Lord grant that we may meet again here, and with you be refreshed; but if not, may we meet where we shall walk with Christ in white. God, who knows my heart, knows it would be a hell to me to spend an eternity with unconverted, Christless souls; but to be with Christ and His people is heaven to me, wherever it is.

There are many young believers among you, whom I may never meet again. It is hard to think of parting with you; the mother feels it hard to part with the sucking child. It was my highest delight in this world to see you growing day by day—to see your sense of the plague in your own heart deepening—to see you cleaving to Christ with full purpose of heart— to see your “peace widening like a river,” and to see your love burning higher and higher toward the throne of God. You are in my heart to live and to die with me. Still He who at any time fed you by me, can as easily feed you by another. I commend you to the Lord, on whom you believe. Read 2 Peter 3:17; meditate over it, pray over it; beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness; but grow in grace.

The only way to be kept from falling is to grow. If you stand still, you will fall. Read Proverbs 11:28, “The righteous shall flourish as a branch.” Remember you are not a tree, that can stand alone; you are only “a branch,” and it is only while you abide in Him, as a branch, that you will flourish. Keep clear your sense of justification; remember it is not your own natural goodness, nor your tears, nor your sanctification, that will justify you before God. It is Christ’s sufferings and obedience alone. Seek to be made holier every day; pray, strive, wrestle for the Spirit, to make you like God. Be as much as you can with God. I declare to you that I had rather be one hour with God, than a thousand with the sweetest society on earth or in heaven. All other joys are but streams; God is the fountain: “all my springs are in Thee.”

Now may the blessings that are on the head of the just be on your head. Be faithful unto death, and Christ will give you a crown of life; and if I never meet you again in this world, may I meet you as pillars in the house of my God, where you “shall go no more out.” Pray for me when you have access to the throne, when you have a heart for it. I will try to pray for you, that ye may endure to the end. I have a word more for those of you that are still unconverted, whom I may never see again in the flesh. My heart bleeds to think of parting with you; but I must defer this to my next letter, for I expect to write you again before I go. Farewell for the present, and may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.