In a world full of troubles and difficulties, our biggest problem is our own sin. Sometimes, even to think of the mercy of God only adds to our realisation of how sinful we are, because how can we explain why we continue to rebel against the Lord our God who is so full of mercies and forgiveness? (Dan. 9:9). It can from time to time be appropriate, or indeed unavoidable, to sit for a while with a sense of our sinfulness and sorrow over it. In the following updated extract, this is what the scholar-poet and Glasgow minister Zachary Boyd (c.1585–1653) invites us to do, as a salutary exercise which will help us both loathe our own sins more and have more compassion for our brothers and sisters in their afflictions. We have no reasons for self-congratulation; if the Lord saves sinners like us, it must be for His own sake (Dan. 9:17).

I come now to you, brothers and sisters, and I entreat every one of you, for the Lord’s sake, to lament your own sins first, and thereafter, let us come and lament for the sins and afflictions of our brethren. As you profess yourselves to be the fellow-members of your brethren, have also a fellow-feeling for their troubles. It is not possible that someone who cannot weep for his own misery can be moved to compassion towards others. Also, the Lord will laugh at your lamentations for others, if He finds you playing with your own sins, and turning His grace into wantonness.

By mourning for our sins and for the sins and afflictions of God’s people, we shall reap this comfort, that we shall be hidden in the day when the Lord comes to judge.

Let us therefore prepare ourselves for lamentations. Let it not be grievous to us to weep today, for better is the house of mourning than the house of dancing. It is far better to be at the cross of Christ, weeping with good Mary, than dancing in King Herod’s hall with the daughter of Herodias (Matthew 14). I would rather be washing the blessed feet of Jesus with my teras in Simon’s house with the sinful woman (Luke 7), than be eating dainty meals with Dives clothed in purple and scarlet (Luke 16). I would rather be lying in the stocks with Joseph (Genesis 39) than dancing around the golden calf with idolaters (Exodus 32).

Lamentations for the fear of sin not yet committed

Before a sin is committed, while it is but being conceived, in the concupiscence, the regenerate person will mourn and lament, for he perceives the devil busy looking to bring forth sin so that death may ensue. He continually laments and groans and cries, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24). The brittleness of our nature, and the strong inclination that we have to sin, should always make our heart tremble.

For this reason, the Lord has given a precept to every one of His servants to “work out the work of their salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12), and where fear and trembling are present, lamentation and mourning cannot be absent.

Lamentations for sins already committed

Lamentation, mourning and misery follow after sin as the shadow follows the body. Where sin is present, shame will not be absent. Where shame is, pain is. Where pain is, there is mourning. “We have sinned,” said Daniel, “we have committed iniquity” (Dan. 9:5). And what follows? “To us appertains open shame” (Dan. 9:8).

But there is something worse than the shame that comes by sin. That is when the soul is so darkened that in God’s light it cannot see light. It is only sin that hides God’s face from the soul. It is only sin that separates between God and the soul. Hence lamentations like, “Will the Lord absent himself for ever? Will he show no more favour? Is his mercy clean gone for ever?” (Psalm 77:7–9).

Sin is like a pill of aloes covered with sugar, sweet on the outside but bitter inside. All the painted pleasures of sin are only like tombs, having nothing inside but rottenness and stink. Sins in youth cost old age many a sore sigh. You will feel the truth of this one day, if either grace or glory are appointed for you. Go to those who are old, and enquire of them what profit they have now from those things of which they are now ashamed. They will say to you, “If only we had not been fools! If only we had been wise, and had done all the good which we have not done, and not done the evil which we have done! Woe is us now because we have sinned!” (Lam. 5:16).

When Peter denied his master, he thought he had achieved a lot for himself in saving his own life. But after Christ turned and looked on him, he went out and wept bitterly (Luke 22:62). See David in his palace, glancing towards Bathsheba, pursuing her from a distance till he obtained his desire. After that, he covered his adultery with murder. “Now,” he thought to himself, “I have wisely sorted things! Now instead of adultery I shall have a wife!” But while this sugar was in his mouth, in comes Nathan with the bitter parable of the sheep, ending in, “Thou art the man!” Then all his joy was turned into mourning, so that out of the bitterness of his heart he cried out with a heavy lamentation, “I have sinned against the Lord!”

Who now would buy these deceitful pleasures with such terrible terrors of a conscience crammed with the horrors of hell? Solomon’s advice to the young man is to keep himself from the sins of youth. The reason he gives is because he shall mourn in the end, when he has consumed his flesh and his body (Proverbs 15:11). The least taste of sin shall set your teeth on edge, it is so sour.

As for the wicked, though they seem to sin securely and be very happy, yet in laughing their heart is sorrowful. When Judas kept the money bag, the stolen pennies were sweet. To Judas, thirty pieces of silver for the life of his master seemed to be great gain. “Now,” said Judas to himself, “I am rich! I have my wages in my hand!” But as soon as the devil began to rake up his conscience and show him the blood of God which he had betrayed, he threw bag and silver and all away, and went and hanged himself. Where was all Judas’ joy now?

Lamentations for the judgments which follow sin

Few lament for fear of the inclination they have to sin, wishing they were delivered from the body of death. There are also only few who lament after sin is committed. But everyone, both good and bad, will weep and lament when the judgments of the Lord come upon them. Some say, “Woe to us now because of murderers!” (Jeremiah 4:31). But only the godly can cry from the heart in time of trouble, “Woe to us now, for we have sinned!” (Lamentations 5:16). The wicked man’s woe is not for his sin. He howls like a dog only because he is beaten, not because he is at fault. But the godly man’s woe is not only because he is beaten with stripes, but chiefly because of his sins.

The wicked man’s cry to God is always, “Deliver me from this plague!” But the godly man’s cry is chiefly, “Forgive me my sins, which are the cause of the plague!” It often happens that a child of God will laugh and loiter in sin, when he should lament for it. But when the Lord brings judgments, then he will arise from his complacency and weep, lament, and confess.

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Faith should be recognised as very precious, because its presence or absence is what makes the difference between an eternity of happiness and an eternity of woe. But do we have enough faith? Shouldn’t we have stronger faith? Of course the answer is that more and stronger faith is a good thing, but for the purposes of obtaining eternal life, what matters more is to have genuine faith. What really makes faith precious is that it gets a grip of the Lord Jesus. In the following updated excerpt John Welch of Ayr (d. 1622) (husband of Elizabeth Knox and grandfather of John Welch of Irongray) explains this for our comfort and consolation.

Two eternities

Jesus said, “He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). What should be dear to you but this eternal life? For if you would gain the whole world, and lose your own souls, I assure you, your gain would be very little. In the time of your life here, what should you be thinking on, but on these two eternities — the eternity of joy and the eternity of pain.

You see that it is sworn by Him who is truth itself, and who came out of the Father’s bosom, the one who will not trick you. His word is spirit and life, for He has the words of eternal life. He has sworn here, and what does He swear? “Verily, he that hears my word …” — and good for you, that you hear the words of God, for without hearing there is no faith — “… and believes in him that sent me, has everlasting life.”

You have eternal life! You have the eternity of peace and joy begun in your soul which shall never have an end, and you shall never come into condemnation. You have passed from death to life, you have gone over the back of death, and made it a stepping-stone to heaven, and you have come within the boundaries of eternal life. He that believes shall get a new heaven and a new earth, and shall dwell in the tabernacle of God for ever more. If you do not believe, the wrath of God abides on you for ever more, and you are already condemned (John 3:17).

I would like to tell you how to test whether you have a true saving faith. This is very needful for you to know. If you lack faith, there is nothing between you and hell but the small thread of your life. There are, in brief, four things by which you can tell if you have true faith or not. (1) By the manner by which God produced it in your heart, (2) by the seals or stamps of faith (if you have been sealed by the Spirit of promise), (3) by the fight and the battle you have, and (4) by the things which accompany faith.

If you have faith and its works in your heart, then you may rejoice, for Christ says, “Your names are written in the Book of Life.” You may rejoice that you are within the love of God, for those who have faith are within His love. You may rejoice that you are within the election, redemption, calling, justification and sanctification, and perseverance.

One faith

If ever you got true faith, it will have been in the following manner. I grant that some get it more clearly, and some more obscurely. Some can name the day, like Zacchaeus, “This day salvation has come to my heart” (Luke 15:5). Some get it easily, like Lydia, “whose heart was opened” in an instant, at one Paul’s sermons (Acts 16:14). Others get it with more difficulty, and are longer in coming to it. Saul was cast to the ground, and was led by hand to the city, and for the space of three days was blind, and neither ate nor drank, only prayed all that time, till Ananias came to him, and preached the gospel.

Now can you remember the glorious day when you were wounded and bandaged up again? When you saw clearly that you had been in darkness all your life before but a light came from heaven and shone into your heart, to show you that you were lying bathing in your blood and filthiness? When you were pricked in your heart and cried out, “Men and brethren, what shall I do to be saved?” and there came glad tidings to your soul that day? You should remember that day. Even kings remember their birthday. Some can tell with what great difficulty they went to the throne of grace, and how long they had to wait before they could get faith and consolation.

Therefore look to the manner how faith was worked in your heart. Look and see if you thought your past ignorance was a lost thing. Look and see if you wanted to have the time redeemed, and you would have given ten thousand worlds to anyone who could let you know if ever there was mercy for you in the blood of Jesus.

One faith, different amounts

Not everyone gets faith in the same measure. If you have it in any measure, you will know there are three degrees of faith — the weakest, the middling, and the strongest faith.

The weakest faith that any of you must have is this. You see your sin, you see there is nothing for you but wrath, unless you are clothed in the righteousness of the Son, you see that the blood is able to pacify the wrath and extinguish the fire, you desire nothing more but to be ducked in that blood. If someone asks you, “What is your special desire?” you answer, “To be at that blood, to be at that Lord over there, and to have Him in my arms, and to have my soul washed in that fountain! Yet I can’t get Him! Yet I will keep waiting! Even if I don’t have the full persuasion, yet He is my Lord, and I won’t admit a contrary thought. Even if I lack the true Comforter, I won’t admit another in His place.”

If you have this much, you have true faith. This is the bruised reed that every wind shakes, and yet it isn’t broken. This is the smoking flax, or smouldering tow, that a little water would put out, yet He will not quench it (Isaiah 42:3). This is true believing, and if you have it, you cannot perish, for it is not the measure of your faith that saves, but He whom faith grips.

I grant you will never have peace or rest in your conscience until you reach that full measure of faith, the full persuasion, the exulting joys, the ravishment within the third heavens. But suppose you cannot be content with this least and weakest measure, that is a sign that your faith is true. You labour more and more to make it sure, yet the measure you have at present is true faith.

One faith, however weak

Because everything depends on it, I will confirm this to you by Scripture. Can any be blessed without faith? No. This is why David says, “Blessed is the man whose sin is forgiven.” Can any have their sins forgiven but those who believe? No. Christ says, “Blessed is he who hungers and thirst for righteousness” (Matt. 5:6). You who are hungry and thirsty are blessed, and therefore you must have true faith, even if you don’t see it. When it is easy to demonstrate that you are full of these heavenly joys and of the Holy Ghost, as Stephen was (Acts 7:55), then it is easy to demonstrate that you have faith, because you feel it inside you. But when you are hungry and thirsty, and feel your heart empty and void of all grace, and your soul is withered for lack of Christ’s blood, it is hard then to persuade you that you believe, yet, if you have this hunger and thirst, you are blessed. Why? because you will get your fill.

It is not the quantity of your faith that saves you. Why? In the same way as a drop of water is just as truly water as the whole ocean sea! So, a little faith is just as true or genuine as the greatest, even if it is not so strong, just as a child of eight days old is just as really human as a man of sixty years, and a spark is just as truly fire as a great bonfire. A sickly man is just as truly living as a healthy man, even if his life is not so comfortable to him.

So, I say again, it is not the measure of your faith that saves you — it is the blood it grips to that saves you. The weak hand of a toddler that leads the spoon to its mouth feeds just as really as the strongest arm of a grown man. It is not the hand that feeds you, although it puts the food in your mouth, but it is the food in your stomach that feeds you. It is not the hand that clothes you, although it puts your garments on you, but the garment itself. It is not the gold ring that cures you, but the pearl set in the ring. So it is not your faith, however precious it is, that will heal your wounds, but Christ, the precious pearl, set within the ring of your faith.

So if you can grip Christ, however weakly, He will not let you perish. All who looked to the serpent of brass, though never so far off, were healed of the sting of the fiery serpents, yet all did not see it equally clearly, for some were near at hand, and some were far off. Those who were nearby of course saw more clearly than those who were far off, nevertheless, those who were far off were healed of the sting just as quickly as those nearby when they looked at the serpent, for it was not their look that cured them, but He whom the serpent represented (who they believed was to come). So if you can look to Christ, ever so feebly, He can take away the sting of your conscience.

You know that the weakest hand can take a gift as just as well as the strongest. Christ is the gift, and weak faith may grip Him as well as a strong faith, and Christ is as truly yours when you have weak faith, as when you have come to these triumphant joys through strong faith. Comfort yourselves with meditation on these things.

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We are surrounded by things which tell us about God — a glimpse of His power here, a hint of His goodness there. But not everything that tells us about God will let us get to know God as our Saviour. Robert Traill (1642–1716) names four places where we will find out something about God yet may still fall short of salvation. A friend of William Guthrie and James Guthrie, Robert Traill studied at Edinburgh University, was exiled to Holland, and pastored presbyterian churches in Kent and London. The following updated extract is taken from one of the sermons preached on Jesus’ prayer in John 17, which he calls “the Lord’s prayer.”

You cannot know God except as He reveals Himself. He reveals Himself no other way but in Christ, so as to be savingly known. There are four books (if I may so call them) that many use in studying to know God, but they are only poor scholars if they do not have better, and fitter, and plainer books.

God in Himself

Some study an absolute God, God in Himself. But an absolute God is an abyss, and all that go near it, fall into it and are destroyed. Luther boldly said, “Let hypocrites and unbelievers do as they please, I will have nothing to do with an absolute God.”

God in His Son, God in covenant with His Son, God clothed with grace and mercy and shining in His promises in Christ, is the God we must seek to know, and when by grace we attain to knowing Him, we may humbly glory in it. “Let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord, which exercise loving-kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, saith the Lord” (Jeremiah 9:24).

God in His works

Some study God in His works. And much of His glory does shine there, and we ought to observe it. But what is all the fruit of this alone? Only to “render us inexcusable” (Romans 1:20). The light of the knowledge of the glory of God is both dim and cold light. It has no heat nor power in it. Never did anyone come by the saving knowledge of God by studying the book of creation and providence, though a true Christian may both study it and profit much by it, when he “has known God, or rather is known of God.”

God in His law

Some study God in His holy law. And in it, indeed, is a glorious display of God. But it discloses a holy, just, sin-hating, sin-forbidding, sin-threatening God. Here He is seen as a terrifying judge. No one ever did, or can, know God savingly in the bare light of the law. God can only be known savingly in that representation of Him where He is manifested as a saving God, and that is only in His Son Jesus Christ.

God in His ordinances

Some study to know God in and by His ordinances. To be sure, the ordinances are precious appointments of God, much to be valued and used by us, and their profit is great, when they are blessed by God who appointed them, and when we use them in the right manner. But we must know that, as the virtue of all the Old Testament ordinances lay in their relation to, and shadowing forth of, the Messiah who was then to come, so all the virtue of the New Testament ordinances lies in their relation to and showing forth of Christ who has now come. If therefore you study to know God savingly in and by even the greater light of the gospel ordinances, without regard to Christ in them, you will perish in ignorance of God just as surely as any Jew uncircumcised in heart (see Jeremiah 9:26; Romans 2:20, 29; Philippians 3:3).

God in His Son

Above all these, if you want to know God savingly, study to know Him in and by the only saving representation He has made of Himself — in His Son.

Jesus Christ is the place to find God

Here you have the only true place to find God. Job in his distress said, “O that I knew where I might find him!” He is only to be found in Christ. God dwells in Christ (Colossians 2:9). There, and there only, you must seek Him, and find Him, and know Him savingly.

No creature, no part of the work of God’s hands, is so nearly related to God as the humanity of Christ assumed by the divine person of the Word, “the only begotten of the Father.” This is “the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man” (Hebrews 8:2). This is “the new and living way which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh” (Hebrews 10:20). This is the only “way to the holiest” (Hebrews 20:19).

The devil works hard to darken and disgrace this way to the world. On the one hand, by the gross idolatry which makes a great show of images of Christ and His physical sufferings. On the other hand, by a mystical and metaphysical gospel and supposedly greater spirituality, in which Christ’s saving works in His body are turned into myths and metaphors. Let Christians beware of both, and by faith fix on the flesh of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ which He gave “for the life of the world” (John 6:51). In this tabernacle of His body we see by faith God the Son personally dwelling, and by the same faith see God the Father dwelling in the Son. This is the only way to know God savingly.

Jesus Christ has the words to make God known

In Christ alone we have the new names and relations of God, the only ways in and by which God can be savingly known. When God sent Moses to Israel and to Pharaoh, Moses says to the Lord, “If they shall say to me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say unto them?” What a deep answer is given to this bold question! “God said unto Moses, ‘I AM THAT I AM,’ and he said, ‘Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, “I AM” hath sent me unto you’” (Exodus 3:13–14).

So, if we ask, “What is the name of God? How can we know Him savingly?” it is easily answered. “By His name in Christ.” God can only be savingly known in and by that saving name by which He makes Himself known, and that is His name in Christ. “Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him” (Exodus 23:21). (This awful word about Christ, that He will not pardon those who refuse Him, is only the same as what we have in Hebrews 12:25–26.) But all the saving names and relations of God to us are all in and from His names in Christ and relations in Christ. He Christ’s God and Christ’s Father, and so ours (John 20:17).

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When someone encounters Jesus, everything changes. It can be difficult to explain this to other people, especially if they don’t come from a church background, and this can sometimes lead to testimonies which underemphasise things which we fear unbelievers might be put off by. However, there is benefit to ourselves and to others when we rehearse what the Lord God has done in our lives with the details intact and within a doctrinal framework. Mrs Goodal, a Covenanter, wrote down her conversion experience in the form of a signed statement that she had totally committed herself to the Lord Jesus. She recalls her initial disinterest in Him, then her growing realisation of her need of Him, and then how His Word became the basis of her faith and hope, while praising Him in very specific ways for His gracious and glorious work of redemption. In the following updated extract, naming not only some of the Christians who had given her advice, but also the places and dates which stood out in her experience, she remembers her first love.

Where I started

Here, I declare, I do believe my lost estate in Adam. I find myself so polluted in my miserable condition, wherein I find myself all over, in my understanding, and will, and affections, in a state of estrangedness from God. His holy law, which is given to me to be my rule to walk by is my judge — I cannot obey it. I am summoned to the bar of God’s justice, and there I stand sentenced and condemned by God and my own conscience.

This did not appear to me so dangerous a state as indeed it was (though I was born and brought up in the place where I had occasion to have the benefit of the preaching of the gospel in power and purity), until the year 1677, when the Lord revealed my lost state to me.

Then I saw nothing but wrath and displeasure from the Lord, and that which I thought would have (as I thought) given me relief, only increased my sorrow. I found no comfort in the use of any means, either public or private. When I went to the Lord to seek relief, I did not dare say anything but, “Lost, lost! If only there was mercy for a hypocrite!” Tossed about like this, I thought I was a reprobate, destined to damnation, so that I did not need to seek salvation through Jesus Christ, for there was no mercy for me (though I knew He had abundance of mercy for all the sins of the elect).

A pastor’s advice

I continued in this situation for more than a quarter of a year. It came to the point that, after a month, I could not endure it. I went to a minister, and told him my sad condition with a heavy heart (it was Mr Archibald Hamilton, minister of Ardmagh in Ireland). He instructed me, and told me what course I should take, and gave good ground from the Word of God that I, finding myself a lost sinner, had a right to lay hold of Jesus Christ, and that purchased redemption which He had provided for sinners, for He came to seek and to save that which was lost.

However, what he thought would yield me comfort, only aggravated my trouble, for I thought it did not belong to me. When he saw that nothing could prevail, he gave me the advice to begin at the Psalms of David, and read from there to the Revelation, and he assured me that before I had done, I would find ground of hope, for the Spirit of God works with the Word.

Finding the saving love of Jesus in the Bible

I took his advice. I began at the Psalms. I read with grief and torment, because I didn’t dare apply the promise. I was destitute of any sense of comfort, from any quarter, till the 15th of June 1677, a day never to be forgotten.

I was reading in Isaiah, the 54th chapter. When I began, my heart warmed, and when I read verse 4, I found it was to me, and when I read verse 5, “Thy Maker is thy husband, and thy redeemer the Holy One of Israel …” and verse 6, “For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit …” and verse 7, “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer,” and verse 9, “… I have sworn that I would not be wroth with thee …”, and verse 10, “For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee,” this Scripture swallowed me up.

I did not know what to do! It answered all my objections! It took away all my fear! I was not able to bear the weight of love that the Lord manifested to me. O! The height! O! The depth! O! The length, and the breadth, of that eternal love with which He loved His own before the world was!

I embraced Jesus Christ for my Saviour on His own terms, to be my king, priest, and prophet. I gave myself away to Him to be His for ever.

What changed in my life

I found a tangible change. I mourned over my sins, because Christ laid down His life for me, and then that Scripture was made out to me, “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one that mourneth for his only son” (Zech. 12:10). O! Love that laid down His life for me!

Faith and love

I have no ground to fear or doubt, for He has sealed me with the Spirit of promise. I do believe that the Spirit, speaking with the Word, is as sure a way, and is as certainly the Lord’s way of dealing with His people under the gospel, as was His speaking to Moses and giving Him the law on Mount Sinai.

O! Blessed law-maker, He set it before me to let me see my lost estate. O! Blessed law-keeper, He has paid the debt, and answered all that justice can seek or require of me. He has sent me to the law to be my rule — the law sends me to Christ to make use of Him. O! Blessed Jesus, He has taken away the curse of the law. O! Sweet law, it’s the joy of my heart, for it lets me see I have continual need to make use of Christ.

After this discovery of the Lord’s love to me, I lived under the impression of the love of Christ. His ordinances were sweet, I sat down under His shadow, and His fruit was sweet to my taste.

I must make use of three communion days where the Lord met me in Scotland. The first was at East Nisbet, in the year 1678, in the spring of the year. Another at Carrick, 4th August 1678. The third, in the south, at Cherrietrees. They were in the fields, in the time of sad persecution. I set them down, to keep in mind what confirming days they were to me. He made His love known to me, and He drew my heart after Him in covenant transactions with Him. Tongue cannot express it; it is better felt than it can be expressed.

This is how I lived, without the least questioning of His love (though I knew His comings and goings). He gave me full submission to be disposed at His pleasure, for He said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” So I stand under the sense of my obligation to Him who has purchased this freedom for me.

Why I’ve written this down

Recently something of a check has risen in my heart, by reason of a strong temptation (which I cannot write down) that Satan presented to my thought, which struck at the foundation of my comfort. O! the depths of Satan’s subtlety, and our depraved nature that he has to work on! But blessed be God who doesn’t let Satan get the victory.

When I was in that difficulty, I encountered a merciful dispensation of the Lord, on the 9th–10th January 1686, when I heard a minister (Mr James Kirkton, in Rotterdam in Holland) speak on the sweet subject of Christ and of covenanting with the Lord. He spoke of three ways of covenanting — by the thoughts of the heart, by word of mouth, and by subscribing to the Lord with the hand.

I had done the first two, but I had not done the third. This made me sit and write an account of the Lord’s dealing with me. To show how much I am obliged to Him, I here, with my whole heart, and with my whole soul, take Christ to be my Savour, on His own terms, and I give myself away to Him, to be His for ever. In testimony of this, I subscribe in my own hand to the Lord.

24 January 1686

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There is a dynamic to-and-fro between the Lord and His people when they are united to each other within the covenant of grace. This means that while the Lord makes promises and gives blessings for His people to grasp hold of, they can in turn with reverence hold Him to His word and remind Him to do what He has said. One believer who had a clear sense of this was Janet Hamilton, Lady Earlstoun (who died in 1696). She suffered persecution alongside her husband, Sir Alexander Gordon of Earlston (1650–1726), for Covenanter principles. At various stages in her life, Janet wrote down her reflections on the Lord’s dealings with her, also taking the opportunity to renew of her personal covenant with the Lord. Janet’s writings were discovered after her death and were published at the request of her friends. In the following updated extract, Janet appeals to the Lord for help with her own family, as well as showing a concern for the wider church and national context.

Come to my family

Now, Lord, I desire to enter into covenant with Thee this day, in opposition to all the corruptions of the body of sin that I am mastered with. I desire in Thy sight to protest against all things in me or my family that are not like Thee, and this day to invite Thee back to my house on any terms, and do not break us with Thy long absence. Come, Lord Jesus, and take up Thy dwelling amongst us. We are a heartless company without thee.

Come to the heads, and tell us what is our duty, and put work in our hands. Art Thou passing by us as one that has no work for us to do? O Lord, I cannot contemplate this! Do not let our iniquities put a stop in Thy way. Come over the mountains of oppositions and put us to duty, and keep us at duty, and dwell with us.

I invite thee to come to my poor babes. Let them be included among those little children that Thou permittest to come to Thee. Grant salvation to the one who appears to be near the end of his life. Let him have mercy in and through a complete Mediator, Christ. Let Thy sympathy and free love be extended towards him, for he is one of Thy sufferers, who has gone without the administration of Thy sacrament of baptism because of the unfaithfulness of ministers. Lord, Thou knowest it was not in contempt of Thy holy ordinance that he has not been baptised, but because, in our situation, we could not show, in any more eminent way, our dislike to the injuries done to thee, O Lord, by unfaithful ministers. All their treachery is well known to Thee. Lord, break the snares, and let Thy poor flock escape; and hasten the day when my young ones shall feed beside the shepherd’s tents (Song 1:8).

I invite Thee this day to every soul within my family. Let the work of grace be amongst them all, every one encouraging another in the way of duty, that we may be a little sanctuary for Thee to dwell in.

Come to our country

I invite thee, O Lord, this day to return to poor covenanted Scotland. Although she has broken covenant with Thee, yet Thou must not give up on her. Remember Thy former lovingkindness to her; and, for Thy own name’s sake, return, return, and deliver. Are not enemies rejoicing that they have got some of the sons and daughters of Zion to help them to lay on the gravestone to hold down the work? Are not enemies crying, “Where is the covenanted God of Scotland?” and saying, “If this work had been of God, it would have stood!” All the blood of Thy people, and the cause of God for which they suffered, is now buried under the mockery of some and the joy of others. But rouse up Thyself, Thou who art the Lion of the tribe of Judah! Let it be known to all nations that the covenanted God of Scotland lives and reigns. O that the resurrection of Thy buried work would be more glorious than ever! Let Zion’s walls be built again, so that she may be beautiful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners (Song 6); so that her enemies may tremble; and so that her children, who for a long time have been mourning over her rubbish, may rejoice in her beautiful order, and be compassed about with songs (Psalm 32:7).

I invite Thee to the poor, betrayed, scattered societies in Scotland that Thou art now justly contending with. The marks of Thy displeasure are evidently to be seen in every meeting — an absent God in every piece of duty, love and tenderness much gone, the breeding of hot-headedness and contentions and lukewarmness, nothing like a practical work among the majority, or making any progress in the way of Christianity. Has all this not come on us because our God is not amongst us? O that Thou, Lord, wouldst return, and make known for what Thou art contending! Remove these spiritual plagues, and let Thy Spirit be poured out among the poor ones who sigh in Zion, and let them again behold the king’s face in peace.

I desire to invite thee to every afflicted and wearied soul that is tossed and like to faint on the dark mountains, passing through dark steps, and none to speak comfortably unto them, but every one adding to their grief. Lord, appear thou for their help, and shorten these days for the elect’s sake, lest they faint under the burden, and put forth their hands to iniquity.

Come in spite of everything

I desire this day to covenant with Thee in opposition to all the powers, civil and ecclesiastical, that have eaten out the life of Christianity, and are standing in opposition to Thee and Thy precious truths, and I engage never to own them till they be for Thee. This I engage in the strength of the Lord. I adhere to all the truths of the Old and New Testaments, and to all the testimonies given by Thy people for carrying on Thy work. I desire to adhere to the now forgotten Covenants, and to all the work of Reformation which is founded on Thy Word.

Lord, help a poor, weak, insufficient creature to hold by this, vowing and paying vows unto Thee. I do this day give up my dear husband and children unto Thee, that Thou mayest make them for Thee, and employ them in Thy service, whatever the risks may be. O Lord, take them off my hand, that they may be committed in Thy love to Thy service. In the day when Thou goest through the land with the devouring sword, let them get their souls for a prey, and be found within the bounds of the everlasting covenant. This is all my desire. May grace in exercise be their portion.

I do this day solemnly enter into covenant with Thee, holding up my hands, vowing to be Thine, giving myself up unto Thee, closing with Thee on Thy own terms, begging Thee to come and add Thy seal to this great work.

And I desire that this covenant may be as a staff to hold me up from staggering on the dark mountains. O Lord, help me to have a practice in sincerity, like one who is genuinely in covenant with thee! O Lord, I take the stones in the wall, and timber in the house, to be witnesses that I have given up myself and all mine unto Thee, O Lord, this day!

(Signed) Janet Hamilton
Earlstoun
January 1691

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When Paul told Agrippa the plain, rational truth about Christ’s death and resurrection, Agrippa pushed it away. All Paul’s persuasiveness was not enough to make him move more than a little towards becoming one of those despised Christ-followers. For the godly Covenanting minister Alexander Wedderburn, this was not merely an exchange between two long-ago figures. Wedderburn was deeply concerned that in and around the church, too many people are still “almost” Christians. Rational though Christianity is, Wedderburn was painfully aware of those who would only pick and choose the bits of the faith they like, and who therefore remain at as much of a distance from the Saviour as if they were committed non-believers. His appeal therefore in the following updated extract is to realise the shamefulness of being “almost” and not “altogether” a Christian, and to strive to reach Christ really and truly.

“Almost” should make us humble

All of us are committed to doctrinal principles which lead us to be altogether Christians, but we must face the question in point of practice. The Lord could complain of many as He did of Ephraim in Hosea 7:8, “Ephraim is a cake unturned,” that is, raw on the one side and burnt on the other. In some things, they are Christians (especially the things that are consistent with their self-interest), but in other things they deny it, especially in things that are most difficult, and of most absolute necessity.

Why should this make us humble ourselves?

It includes a secret contempt of God

If you cut and carve the laws of your sovereign, taking what you like, and rejecting what you please, you despise the authority that commanded them. To do something at the command of God, and to refuse to do other things, must flow either from some apparent iniquity in the law (which is highly insulting) or from despising the authority that commanded it, and both reflect on God.

It is something God hates

To be a Christian in part, and not altogether, is something God loathes. This was the church of Laodicea, which was neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm. It had some degrees of heat, and some of cold, and God threatens that He will spew her out of His mouth something His stomach loathes.

It means you are pulled two ways

This puts you to serve two masters — to be for God in some things, and for His enemy in other things. “A double-minded man,” says James, “is unstable in all his wayes,” a man who has a mind and a mind. That man must be like Israel in Elijah’s time, lurching between two incompatible alternatives.

It means you never do enough

You may lose out on heaven, even though you do great things for God, because of not doing more. Some things are absolutely necessary for salvation. If we are never so righteous in our dealing with other people, yet, “he that believes not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the only begotten Son of God.” Now how lamentable is it, to do much for Christ, and yet come short of heaven for not doing more?

It means you are already losing out on the best bit of Christianity

To be only partly a Christian deprives you even now of the sweetest part of Christianity. The peace and joy promised in the gospel is attained by performing the most inward duties of it, while neglecting these makes many find godliness a kind of labyrinth to them, as if they are continually breaking open shells that have no kernel in them.

All these laid together evidence what kind of reasons we have for self-humbling, if we are only “almost a Christian.”

“Almost” should make us strive

If it is the case that many are only “almost Christians,” then each of us must labour to be not only almost but altogether a Christian.

I must exhort all, that while they are avoiding some sins in practice (by which they become Christians in part), they must not sit down contentedly with that, while they are practising other sins no less dangerous. While they avoid, for instance, scandalous sabbath-breaking, they still practise hypocrisy, or empty formality.

Or, while they practice some of the duties whereby one becomes almost a Christian, and not far from the kingdom of God, they may perhaps voluntarily neglect other duties which may be more necessary for salvation.

Or, they practice Christianity at some times, and quite the contrary at another time, ebbing and flowing in Christianity as the sea with the course of the moon, serving times and occasions with religion, and not keeping an even pace.

To help us labour to be not only almost but altogether Christians, I offer these directions.

Strive to be serious

First, Christian, labour to be very serious in the performance of holy duties. Be careful to join with these activities attention of mind (Eze. 33:32), singleness of heart (Psa. 145:18), purpose of affection (Rom. 12:11), and holy fear and reverence (Heb. 12:18).

The lack of these makes even our religious duties to be performed only as “almost Christians.” There is not that reverence of God, that delight, that fellowship and communion with God, which is attained by those who endeavour to be “altogether Christians.”

Therefore, consider well the nature of God whose service it is — His majesty (Mal. 1.14), His holiness (Jer. 48:10). Consider the nature of the service wherein you have to do with Him. Consider them as duties, and a part of your homage, not parts of your Christian liberty. Consider them as privileges, as indeed they are — as talents, of which you are to give an account to God. These and such like considerations may influence us to more seriousness in our performances.

Strive to get right thoughts of God

Labour to get right (i.e., believing) thoughts of God,

• In His all-sufficiency (Gen. 17: 1). That would keep your heart steady and fixed in religion. God is our happiness, and not created things. Whether you have more or less of created things, it all comes to the same thing, if God is ours.
• In His omnipresence (Psa. 139:6–7). This will awe us when we have secret opportunities and temptations to sin (Gen. 39:9). It will possess us with godly fear and reverence (1 Cor. 11:10). It will also comfort us in afflictions (Psa. 23:4).
• In His universal providence. His providence extends itself to every thing that comes to pass, even the least things (Matt. 10:28). Beside the reasons this gives us to adore the perfections of God (Job 37:14; Psa. 107:43), it will help us to thankfulness (Psa. 40:5), and keep us from abusing His mercies (Hos. 2:8), and help us to submit patiently to afflictions (1 Sam. 3:18).

Strive not to neglect known duties

We must be very careful about this. Often, in matters of practice, our zeal is spent on the things that are most doubtful, when clear acknowledged duties are neglected. This is how it was with the Jews in Micah’s time. They were careful to enquire when they should fast, but neglected the duties of moral equity (Mic. 6:7). The best way, as one observes, to know more of the mind of God in what is doubtful, is to be busy in doing what is clear (John 7:17). The best Christian is the one who is most in the fundamentals of a Christian’s duty.

Strive to monitor your walk

Every night, take an account of what has come to pass in the day, and examine what the tendency of your heart has been, and what you have done, and on what grounds, and for what ends, as well as what you have neglected. By this you will come to know what progress you are making against your corruption, and how long you have continued in sin without repenting of it. This record or journal of our daily walkings has been the practice of many godly people, and nothing has a greater tendency to prevent us from resting on being almost Christians.

Strive to model yourself on Christ

Keep the perfect pattern of Christ’s life before you. It is true, not all the actions of Christ are imitable. He was not a mere man, but God and man, and what He did as God, or as mediator between God and man, we cannot imitate. But there are various things in which the Scriptures expressly propose Him as an example, including love (Eph. 5:12), meekness (Matt. 11:29), self-denial (Phil. 2:3), patience (1 Pet. 2:21), making it His work to do good (Acts 10:38).

This serves not only for our example, but also for our encouragement. There is nothing He calls us to, but He did it, and is now crowned.

Strive to do everything in the name of Christ

If you really want to be above being only “almost a Christian,” then labour to do all you do in the name of Christ. The main point of Christianity lies in this, to have in view the authority of Christ as commanding or forbidding what we are or are not called to (Col. 3:17; Matt. 21:23; John 5:43), to do what we do in the strength of Christ (Mark 16:17; Acts 3:12), and to do it for the sake of Christ, for His honour. All this is included in doing something “in His name.”

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