The Book That Brea Wrote on the Bass Rock
Or an evangelical masterpiece like Fraser of’Brea oir’JirstianglFmth we must go to the Lutherans, or to the Calvinists, or to the Puritans, or to the Presbyterians. The Catholics and the Anglicans have their own masterpieces; but with some noble exceptions, Richard Hooker for one, they are not on the Pauline faith that alone justifies the ungodly. And over and above its evangelical value to its properly prepared readers what will always give a truly patriotic interest to this remarkable little book is the fact that it was written in a Covenanter’s prison cell on the Bass Rock and with no book beside its author but his Bible. Amid the surging waves of the North Sea, with the flocks of solan geese scream¬ ing incessantly in his ear, and with ‘a rabble of savage soldiers ’ all about him, James Fraser planned and executed this true masterpiece of apostolical and evangelical and experimental religion. Jacob Behmen was wont to say that he had no books, he had only himself. And when he was in his prison on the Bass Rock the laird of Brea had no books but only his Bible; his Bible and his own scholarly and intricate and saintly self.
As God would have it, as the Covenanter laird of Brea lay in his Bass Rock cell, and as he paced his daily round under his military guard, this all-important, ever-present, and ever-pressing problem filled and fascinated his powerful mind: this supreme problem — How shall I, the chief of sinners, find an immediate and an abiding acceptance with God? And how shall I stand fast in that acceptance amid all my indwelling sinfulness, and amid all my daily outbreaks of actual transgression? And as he read day and night in David and in Paul, and day and night pondered and prayed and believed, by degrees no less than sjx Gospel grounds of j ustifying faith were revealecTlEb him, on all of which his God would have him to rest his own faith, and then to set those six grounds down in his manuscript, till such time as he could send out his printed book to find its fit readers in evangelical and constitutional Scotland.
In his own clear-headed and sure-footed way Brea begins his through-going book with an all-important chapter on What are not to be the foundations of our faith and our hope and our full assurance. I will sum up that true and able chapter in one word. Nothing whatever of ours; nothing whatever in ourselves; nothing that we possess by nature, and nothing that we can attain to by grace can ever be to us a sure rest and a solid support for our faith for forgiveness and for our hope of eternal life. Our best, and our best at its best, can never be a sure
The Bass Rock foundation for our souls to build upon. No, not if vve had all Abraham’s faith, and all Moses’ meekness, and all David’s penitence, and all Paul’s spiritual¬ mindedness in one man. Nor can we ever plead our best services. Not if we could write Augustine’s Confessions, and Luther’s sermons, and Ruthei-ford’s Letters, and Bunyan’s allegories, and all the Olney hymns to boot. Were all these things to meet in any one man he must, all the more, count all these things but loss that he may win Christ and be found in Him. He must, all the more, seek to have Christ made to him all his wisdom, and all his righteousness, and all his sanctification, and all his redemption.
Now, if none of these things, no nor all of them taken together, can ever secure our justification before God, what are our, sure Gospel grounds, given us of God, for our souls to rest on? Well, as every one knows — in words, at any rate — the one and the only and the always sure ground on which our faith is to rest for the forgiveness of all our sinslftid for our full and final justification before God, is that Atonement for sin which the Son of God made and tim for er on the Cross. The Cross of Christ alone speaks ])erfect peace to the guilty conscience. The Cross of Christ alone sheds abroad the love of God in the broken heart. ‘ My sin,’ says Fraser, ‘ is such, and it has been such, and it will remain such, that its full wages would demand not only my death, but that death a thousand times told. And a thousand deaths of mine would still leave my scarlet sins unexpiatcd, and my raging conscience ‘’.unpropitiated. But “the blood of God/” as Paul preached that blood to the elders of Ephesus who I were old enough and exercised enough to receive it, I the sin-atoning blood of very God Himself — that kbringsTiome to me my pardon and my acceptance land my peace with God as nothing else ever can. Irhe Cross of Christ is the one Foundation laid In Zion. And it is such a Foundation that the chief of sinners, whoever he is, may safely build the house of his soul upon it, till all the rains that will ever descend, and all the winds that will ever blow, and all the storms that will ever beat, will only serve to discover how wise that man is who builds his house for life and for death and for the day of judgment on that Rock which is Christ; and especially, on that Rock which is Christ crucified.’
‘ The Cross! it takes our guilt away;
It holds the fainting spirit up:
It cheers with hope the gloomy day:
It sweetens every bitter cup.
It makes the coward spiiut brave,
And nei’ves the feeble arm for light;
It takes the terror from the grave,
And gilds the bed of death with light.
The balm of life, the cure of woe.
The measure and the pledge of love:
The sinner’s refuge here below:
The angels’ theme in heaven above.’
/ And, then, .since the Son of God was delivered Tor our offences, and was raised again for our justification, our author goes on to argue that our Saviour is able to save us to the uttermost. And right noble, and right reassuring is the Gospel argument that he constructs on that apostolic Scripture. Are you the uttermost of all utter¬ most sinners? he asks his reader. Has no other man ever broken God’s holy laws as you have broken them? Has no one else ever gone such lengths in sin as you have gone Then it is to you, before all lesser sinners, that Christ comes with His salvation. Are you the most sensual-minded of all men? Are you the most malicious-minded of all men Are you the most impenitent and the most prayerless of all men: the most God- forgetting and the most God-despising of all men? Nay, do all these evil things meet in you and possess you as they meet in and possess no other man Well, so they met in and possessed Fraser, till he found a sure ground of faith and hope, even for him, in Christ’s allsujhciencv for hitgin His ability7~and midis willingness, and in His preparedness to save even him to the uttermost.
When I draw near and look over Fraser’s shoulder as he sits in his Bass Rock cell and writes with his Bible and his own heart both open before him, I read over his shoulder such remarkable passages of autobiographic homiletic as may be applied thus: The all-sufficiency of Christ is seen in this that He is able to supply out of His fulness all that the wickedest and the vilest and the most hopeless of men needs, in order to make him and on the spot a completely justified man. And, then, to make him at last the holiest of men. There is no guiltinflamed wound in any sinful man’s conscience for which Christ has not a sufficient ointment; and there is no loathsome disease in any sinful man’s heart for which He has not a sure and a certain cure. He who feels himself to be made of sin, and made of nothing but sin, like David, and Paul, and Andrewes, and Beveridge, it was with you in His eye that the Father laid all your help on one mighty to save: on one who is able to save to the uttermost; that is to say, who is able to save even you. You abhor yourself, and hate yourself, till you are sometimes on the point of seeking deliverance from yourself by self-destruction, like James Fraser, and John Bunyan, and Alexander Brodie, and William Cowper. But at that utter¬ most moment Christ comes in between you and your self-destruction, and He says to you that deliverance can never come to you in that direction. I am the only Way of deliverance for you. He says to you. Come to Me, and I will redeem you: I will wash you from all your awful sins in My own blood: I will heal you: I will clothe and adorn you: and I will not leave you till I have presented you faultless before my Father’s presence in glory. Yes! Christ’s is such an all-sufficiency that it answers to the uttermost, to the very uttermost. It answers to all our old guilt, and to all our new guilt; to all the sins of our youth, and to all the remains of the sin that still dwelleth and reigneth in us; to all the sin that still seethes and festers in us. There is an old proverb, says Fraser, to the effect that money answers all things. But there is no money on earth like the unsearchable riches of Christ. For here is the payment of all your debts to the uttermost farthing. Here is abundant supply for every want and every necessity that presses upon you. Here is strength for all your weakness, and light for all your darkness, and support for all your crosses, and a garment of praise for all your heaviness of heart; ay, and in the end the most spotless holiness for all your corruption and depravity of heart. For if you will accept it at God’s hand, of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who is made of God to you wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, and all that, till you are complete in Him.
Only, remember this; and always lay this to heart. This: that the prodigal son had to arise and leave the far country, and come to his father. He had to come to his father’s house before all his nakedness and all his hunger and all his other miseries could be met, and he be satisfied, and made merry. And so must you arise and come to Christ. Even Christ, with all His all-sufficiency, cannot save you unless you come to Him to be saved. You will not come to Me that you may have life — so He accuses you and complains against you. Now, stop that accusation and that complaint of His on the spot. Come to Him now. Come to Him this moment. ‘It was at a quarter to seven that I came,’ writes John Wesley in his Journal. Come you to Him to-night at a quarter to eight. And then never leave Him. Never once leave Him. And if ever in the hour of temptation you are fool enough and madman
JAMES FRASER ON BREA
enough and suicide enough to leave Him for your besetting sin, return to Him again, as soon as it is over, as at the first. And He will receive you, as He received you at the first, and will not upbraid you, nor do anything else but comfort you and bless you.
The laird of Brea did not have our hymn-book on the Bass Rock. Else all the other prisoners would often have heard him singing; ‘ Just as I am, O Lamb of God, I come.’ He could not help out his weak faith with that strong and sweet spiritual and evangelical song. But we have it, and we should sing it to Christ and to ourselves unceasingly. Speaking for myself, there is nothing that is oftener in my mouth and in my heart than just this so heartening hymn: ‘ Just as I am.’ You know it? It is hymn one hundred and seventy-five in your hymn-book. Learn it all by heart, and say it with me continually. Say it and act it day and night, till it is written on every table in your heart, and till it is woven into every hour of your earthly life:
‘Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me.
And that thou bidd’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God I come.
Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot.
To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God I come.
Just as I am. Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come.’