My Conversion on a Communion Week When a Student of Seventeen in Edinburgh

GEORGE GILLESPIE, following John Calvin and other evangelfcal reformers, argues with convinc¬ ingness that the Lord’s Supper was not originally intended to be a converting ordinance. The Lord’s Supper, Gillespie conchively proves, was instituted by our Lord in order to nourish and to strengthen the life of grace where it has been already begun. But neither ,John Calvin nor George Gillespie ever said.that the Lord’s Slupper is not often over¬ ruled to be a conyertingQjica’-S.ioxu As a matter of iU ha& been made a converting occasion to many men in all ages of the Church. And it is James Fraser’s thankful testimony that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, when he was a student in Edinburgh, was the gracious occasion of his own so intricate conversion.

‘ I being at the University, and being about seventeen years of age, our minister one Sabbath morning intimated that the Lord’s Supper would be dispensed by him next Sabbath. I had always been brought up to have a holy fear concerning that great ordinance, lest I should ever eat and drink to my own condemnation. I knew quite well that I was still in an unconverted condition, and the Lord did consequently put it into my mind to do my very utmost that week, both by ordinary and by extraordinary means, to win to a converted condition before next Lord’s Day. Nor did I think that my conversion was within the compass of my own power; but I hoped that I doing my diligence the Lord might come to my help. And for that reason I set to work immediately. On the preparation Sabbath I went back to public worship in the evening, and that evening I felt a relish for the whole service that I had never felt before. And on returning to my lodgings I spent the night in the same relish for what I was doing.’ That communion week in Edinburgh saw the commencement of James Fraser’s spiritual life. And now if you will go with me I will do my best to take you through some of the days and nights of that eventful week, so that you may see with some clearness in what way that Lord’s Supper in this city was made the occasion of that so fruitful and so far-reaching conversion. And to begin with, the very intimation of the approaching communion day was made an eminent means of grace to young Fraser. For he was led of God to take his first step toward his coming conversion when his minister made the intimation from the pulpit that the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was to be dispensed in that church next Lord’s Day. Now there is surely a great lesson to us all in that fact: a great lesson both to our ministers and to our people. For there is nothing that is more of a mere formality, and, so to say, more monotonous, to the most of us, than just the returning intimation of the session clerk that ‘ If the Lord will, the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper will be dispensed here next Lord’s Day.’ But after reading the third chapter of James Fraser’s Autobiography I can never make that quarterly intimation again without adding to it both the prayer and the hope that the mere intimation itself may be made the first step to the speedy conversion of some young persons present.

And not our communion intimation only. But let all our pulpit intimations be so many means of grace to the congregation, and in this way: Let every returning intimation of our women’s Sabbath morning prayer-meeting lead some one to ask her¬ self what reason she can give why she is not present at that meeting, and there saying with her sisters:

‘ O God, Thou art my God: early will I seek Thee! ’ And let every returning intimation of our Tuesday evening prayer-meeting lead some one to say for the first time:

Jesus! where’er Thy people meet.

There they behold Thy mercy-seat;

Where’er they seek Thee Thou art found.

And every place is hallowed ground.’

And let every returning intimation of the monthly meeting of the Deacons’ Court lead some one to recollect himself and say with the thankful Psalmist:

‘ I will go into Thy House with burnt- offerings; I will pay Thee my vows, which my lips uttered, and my mouth spoke, when I was in my trouble.’ And let every weekly intimation of our choir practice lead all the choir itself, and many more who have the talent, to say:

‘ Take my voice and let me sing
Always, only, for my King:

Take my lips and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee.’

And also let every returning intimation of the Children’s Friday Hour lead every father and mother to say to themselves:

‘ Those that within the house of God
Are planted by His grace:

They shall grow up and flourish all
In our God’s holy place.’

After having seen James Fraser’s conversion beginning to spring up out of a mere pulpit intimation, I can never again grudge the handfuls of intimation papers on a Sabbath morning. Nor will you let drop out of your mind the divine opportunities and occasions that are intimated from God every new week to you and to your children.

‘I knew that I was in an unconverted condition, and that knowledge set me to work immediately.’ For one thing, Fraser got his college studies up early every day so as to set himself free to attend jail the pre-communion services advertised for the /evenings of that sacred week. And he testifies to us that he did not attend any one of those services in vain, ‘ Relish ’ is his continually recurring word all that week. The Thursday services especially spoke home to his conscience and then to his heart. And so drawn on, he spent the Thursday night as he had never spent that night before. For he spent it on those spiritual books, Thomas Shepard’s and Thomas Goodwin’s especially, to which his home tutor had introduced him. The readers of Marcus Aurelius will remember how he thanks the gods for the fine books to which his tutor had introduced him to be his lifelong companions. But neither the stoic Emperor nor his devout tutor had any such books to read in their day as young Fraser had in his lodgings in the Sciennes of Edinburgh that preparation week. ‘ I saw a beauty in my books, and I felt a relish for them, such as I had never tasted before.’ Nor will that be wondered at by any one who has read Goodwin especially. I could tell you of another Edinburgh student who found a relish in that greatest of Pauline exegetes, such as he has scarce ever found in any other author, sacred or profane. And that on scores of communion weeks: Thursdays, Saturdays, Sabbaths, and Mon¬ days. I shall not live to see the happy day for Scotland, but you young communicants will, when a free and a re-united and a revived Church will recover to her people the old fast-days, and the old preparation Saturdays, and the old thanksgiving Mondays, and they will be such as shall make the Kirk o’ Shotts itself to be forgotten. ‘ Books and discourses of spiritual divinity were alone sweet to me in those memorable days,’ says Fraser. Paul himself did not surpass the young laird of Brea that never-to-be-forgotten fast-day. Just think of all this taking place in the lodgings of a Highland student down in our own old town. ‘ Hanging by this small thread I went to prayer with many sad complaints. But when I was yet a great way off the Lord Himself came running to meet me. For a Gospel view of Jesus Christ was miraculously and immediately given me. Such spiritual representations of Jesus Christ as these were then made to me. I saw that He is made of God to be the Mediator for poor sinners, their one Friend and their all-sufficient Saviour: the Way, the Truth, the Life. While I was thus exercised a most marvellous light did shine into my mind, till I did see, with the eyes of my mind, not of my body, that Just One in all His Gospel glory. It was such a sight that mortal eye never saw anything at all like it. And it swallowed me up till I turned speechless and could only say: What is this? And where am I now? The love and the loveliness of the Son of God did so far excel all I can ever tell to any. And then, after I had recovered a little, I remember I said; O Lord, Thou hast fairly overcome me! My heart and my hand are henceforth Thine alone. I shall live and die with Thee. What, am I and what is my father’s house, that all this should come to me! After a time I rose from off my knees and went out into the fields and spent how long I do not know in singing songs of salvation. And thus was I made ready for the Lord’s Supper on the next Sabbath.’

‘ Let a man examine himself well in this great matter,’ says the Apostle. Now when young Fraser examined himself in his own so intricate way, this was the clear result. ‘ I look upon that as the time of my conversion, because of these considerations: First, because then and thereafter I found my heart wholly changed as to my friends and my favourites. I now felt a new delight in thinking of those men whom I believed to be true men of God. And men whom I simply hated before because of some real or supposed disobligement I had suffered at their hands, I now forgave and forgot all that, and took them to my heart. I now found myself putting them in the right, and myself in the wrong. I now wished them and theirs all the good that was good for them. I remembered what John said about himself and the other apostles: ‘ We know,’ he said, ‘ that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.’ And as I read that I reasoned that the test which satisfied and assured the disciple whom Jesus loved might surely satisfy and assure me.’ Now, my friends, how does your supposed conversion stand that same test Do you now love those men who at one time had dis¬ obliged you Those men who have injured you and yours? Is it now the case that in spite of all revenge and hatred and envy and ill-will you now, for Christ’s sake, sometimes actually pray for those men by name? ‘ When at any time I read or hear

of a godly man, and a godly action, my heart instantly warms up to that man, as if the action had been done directly to myself.’ Now can you say that? Yes, I am quite sure some of you can.

And then there was this also. ‘ I found my heart consenting to this also. When I read in Peter that I was to lay aside all malice, and all guile, and all evil-speaking, and was to desire the sincere milk of the Word, so that, like a new-born babe, I might live thereby, I found myself in a quite wonderful way doing that. I had now a great desire every day for some of the sincere milk of God’s Word in sermons and in books, till all that was a new world to me. I felt a new and a super¬ natural relish for spiritual books and for spiritual sermons, a relish that made me often stop and say, Surely this must come of my new birth! ’ Now, again, what do you say to that sign of conversion Do you discover in yourselves a new spiritual relish? There is nothing you should know better than the sort of sermons and the sort of books you like best and relish most. W ell, then, what are they? And then, for one thing more, and surely best of all, there was this. As the old evangelical schoolmen had it; ‘ Est aliquid in Christo formosius Salvatore.’ That is to say, the personal excellences of Jesus Christ Himself all make Him far more to be delighted in and adored than all His soul-saving offices. Now, is it not very remarkable to see an Edinburgh student of seventeen making that penetrating discovery concerning Christ, and then taking such true comfort out of that discovery.^ Just listen to our young schoolman: ‘ I reasoned with myself that there must surely be some true reality and some true validity in my supposed conversion, because my whole soul did now see and esteem and love the Lord Jesus Christ Himself above all else. Above all duties, and above all ordinances, and even above all His benefits. And till I made a cordial covenant to be His and to serve Him and His for ever. And till I subscribed to all that which Asaph so well says: Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is no one on earth to be put in comparison with Thee.’ Now what do you think? Can there be any doubt of the reality and the validity and the security of young Fraser’s conversion after all that? I think not. I only wish I had as well grounded an assurance of mine!

And then he sums up in this way: ‘ Although there have been many temptations and many shakings and many interruptions, yet hath that spunk which was kindled that communion week never wholly died out. Some good has always remained with me ever since that far-off week. Till, all

(things considered, I .shall think that I was then savingly converted from my sinful life to my Saviour and to the life everlasting.’

May we all have as sound and saving a conversion!