Letters to Mr. Patrick Chalmers
No. CXLI.
Kit-many Manse, 21st May 1812.
DEAR PATRICK, — I have been too long of answering your letter, from the perusal of which I obtained the truest satis faction. It would give me great pleasure to hear that you had read the books recommended in my last, and how yoi
Mil. PATKICK CHALMERS. 183
liked them. I look upon Baxter and Doddridge as two most impressive writers; and from them you are most likely to carry away the impression, that a preparation for eternity should be the main business and anxiety of time. But, after all, the Bible should be the daily exercise of those who have decidedly embarked in this great business; and if read with the earnest sense and feeling of its being God’s message — if perused with the same awe, and veneration, and confidence, as if the words were actually coming out of His mouth — if, while you do read, you read with the prayer and the desire that it might be with understanding and profit, — you are in a far more direct road to “becoming wise unto salvation,” than any other that can possibly be recommended to you. There is no subject on which people are readier to form rash opinions than religion. The Bible is the best corrective to these. A man should sit down to it with the determination of taking his lesson just as he finds it; of founding his creed upon the sole principle of “Thus saith the Lord;” and deriving his every idea and his every impression of religious truth from the authentic record of his will and of his doctrine.
I was at Anster last week, and found them all in tolerable health. There is now a very fine appearance on our fields. The good weather was long of setting in, but it has set in at last, and the country is in all its glory. I have purchased a horse lately. I ride about ten miles a-day upon it, and find myself much the better of the exercise. The keep is rather expensive, but health and comfort are worth the purchasing; nor will I grudge the whole rent of my glebe upon my riding expenses. I let my grass-field again this year at £8, 6d. per acre, and get about forty guineas for my land. This will nearly all go upon the horse-tax, maintenance, and person that takes care of him. My bcddel takes care of my horse and garden for 10s. a month.
People here are all in their usual state of health. Are you to be over soon? I expect Sandy to be with me a few weeks soon. My Sacrament is to be held on Sunday the 21st of June. Let me hear from you. — I am, yours truly, No. CXLII.
Kilmany Manse, 18th November 1812.
MY DEAR PATRICK, — I have been most negligent in not writing you sooner. I hope you are to be on this side soon, in which case you will of course spend some time at Kilmany. Mrs. Chalmers has neither seen you nor Charles. Will you write me soon, and give me an account of your employments and your prospects? I am no judge of farming; nor am I competent to offer any observations upon it. I trust that you continue to give satisfaction to Mr. Cowan, and should rejoice to hear that the concern was now a prosperous one.
I hope you have never lost sight of the important subject of your last correspondence. It would give me pleasure to understand that, amid all your other pursuits, you kept firmly and perseveringly by the Bible. If we would only think of it as God’s message, as a letter from our greatest friend, as a record of His will for our salvation, I know not what apology could be thought adequate to justifying our neglect and inattention to it. I should like to hear from you on this subject. It is the greatest and the happiest event of life, when the mind takes a decided hold of eternity, and when it becomes its first care to seek the kingdom of Grod and His righteousness. I hope you have not merely begun, but are advancing in the inquiry; and I give it as the result of my own experience and my own feelings, that you will never feel the firmness of your ground till you have laid on the foundation of Christ, and put your confidence in that name, than which there is no other given under Heaven whereby men can be saved. A true faith in Christ works by love, and love aims at obedience. Again, a true faith in Christ is followed by the gift of the Spirit, (John vii. 39; Gal. iii. 14; Rom. viii. 32;) the Spirit gives strength for the execution of the aim, and you actually yield obedience. In this way your faith will not be dead; it will abound in fruit, and you will rise from one degree of grace unto another, till you arrive at a mcctncss for the inheritance of the saints in light. — May such be your progress, and such your destination. Be up and doing; and let the numerous calls given us, both by the Bible and by experience, have the happy effect to stir you up in the ways of wisdom and of piety.
You would hear of Mr. Johnson of Rathillet’s death. — Write soon. — Yours most truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. CXLIII.
Anstruther, 18th January 1813.
MY DEAR PATRICK, — I am glad to observe that your society at Pcnnicuik is fairly set agoing. I however must decline the honour of being a member of it. The whole amount of the advantage would be 4s. 4d. additional to the cause, which I have it in my power to send by nearer and more convenient channels. The truth is, that I find I have gone too far in the way of connecting myself with other societies, and have frittered away in smalls what would have made a handsome sum at home, where it would have done more good in the way of example and effect among my immediate neighbours. I am besides called upon to preach occasional sermons often, and do not like to pass without a suitable offering to the collection. You must see that having a neighbourhood and a parish of my own to attend to, I must resist these foreign applications. I must stop somewhere; and knowing that from my acquaintance in different parts, I shall probably be exposed
Q to similar applications afterwards, I think it right to begin with you, in the confidence that you will perceive that in refusing your application, I do it on proper and reasonable grounds.
I hope that your society will have a happy influence on the minds of its individual supporters. If so much zeal and activity should be employed in the work of sending the Bible to others, it seems quite obvious, that it ought not to be neglected for ourselves, or suffered to lie beside us unread, unopened, and unattended to. It gives me great pleasure to think that this in all probability is the effect in your case; and one great sentiment with us all should be, that we ought not to think that we have yet attained or are already perfect. The career of Christian sanctification is boundless, and it is our duty to press forward; and when one looks to himself and feels his woful deficiencies in the mildness, the patience, the charity, the holiness of the Gospel, he must perceive how much he has yet to aspire after. We should at the same time never forget inf what way the above virtues are formed and have their increase)’ in the soul: they are the fruits of the Spirit, Gal. v. 22. And as the Saviour is the dispenser of the Spirit — as it is through l faith in Him that the Spirit is given — as without Him we can do nothing — hence the necessity of laying all upon this foundation, of a vital union with Jesus Christ by faith, that He may be our sanctification as well as our redemption.
I should have been happy to have heard of your calling on
Mr. Anderson. I got a letter from S, but he says nothing
of it. Could any prudent or effectual method be devised of
bringing S ’s mind under the influence of the truth, it
were most desirable. Give your attention to this particular. There is a danger sometimes in the imprudent use of means; but prayer for one another is a resource which is always at hand, and can never be carried to excess. Do write me soon. Tell me of your numbers in the Bible Society of Pennicuik. Give me all the information you have about other parishes. It will be a wonderful sum if the parish system can be realized over the whole country. Grace desires her kind love to you. — Yours most truly, No. CXLIV.
Glasgow, 2d September 1818.
MY DEAR PATRICK, — I received yours some time ago, and yesterday had a visit from Mr. Thomas Thomson, with whose appearance and conversation I was much pleased. I regret that I was so particularly occupied — it being a day of meetings and of parish business with me. He went off this morning for Edinburgh. I would not have known how to address you but for him; and I am glad to think that you have the opportunity of intercourse with such a family as that which he belongs to.
I trust that the impression of my excellent father’s death will ever remain with us. His meekness, under all the crosses and provocations of life, formed a most memorable trait of his character. Above all, let us labour to emulate him in his jxalted piety — a piety founded on the faith of the New Testament in all its peculiarity and in all its power. I hope you will read his favourite authors, Newton and Harvey; but still more, that the Bible, accompanied with earnest prayer to God, will be with you that daily exercise which shall at length make you wise unto salvation.
Anster has now become sadly different to me from what it was. I now feel towards it as if it had sustained a fatal and irrecoverable mutilation. The remembrance of my father’s Sabbaths, and of the whole routine of his week-day employments, always stood associated with all my thoughts of the place; and these associations arc now irretrievably broken up. There is a tender melancholy in these recollections. There is a sorrow which nature herself prompts and awakens, but it is grace alone which can impart the godly sorrow that worketh repentance unto salvation never to be repented of.
I trust that you will give all your strength to the one thing needful; and that your zeal, and earnestness, and integrity in the service of your earthly master will, in fact, with you be so many offerings to your Master in Heaven — spiritual sacrifices unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Could the love of God be instated in our hearts in its rightful supremacy, every thing else would find its right place. Enter into reconciliation with Him through the atoning blood and justifying righteousness of the Mediator, and render unto Him, as the God of your redemption, the fruits of gratitude in all holy and affectionate obedience.
I shall be very glad, indeed, of an occasional letter from you; and, be assured, that the details of your situation and employment — accounts of the neighbourhood and country — and, above all, the news of your spiritual progress and welfare, would be highly interesting to me. — I am, my dear Patrick, yours most truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.