ABERDEEN, _Feb. 7, 1637_.
XCI.--_To_ MR. EPHRAIM MELVIN.
[EPHRAIM MELVIN, or MELVILLE, was first ordained minister of
Queensferry, and afterwards translated to Linlithgow, where he
died. His ministry was signally blessed of God for bringing many
to the saving knowledge of the truth, among whom were some who
afterwards became eminent ministers of the Gospel in their day.
One of these was the famous Mr. James Durham of Glasgow.
Happening, with his pious wife, a daughter of the laird of
Duntervie, to pay a visit to her mother, also a religious woman,
in Queensferry, when the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was to
be observed in that place, his mother-in-law, upon the Saturday,
desired him to go with her to hear sermon. Being then a stranger
to true religion, he was disinclined to go, and said, with a tone
of indifference, "that he had not come there to hear sermon;" but
upon being pressed, to gratify his pious relative, he went. The
discourse which he heard, though plain and ordinary, was
delivered with an affection and earnestness that arrested the
attention of Durham, and so impressed him, that on coming home he
said to his mother-in-law, "Your minister preached very
seriously, and I shall not need to be pressed to go to hear
to-morrow." Accordingly he went, and Mr. Melvin, choosing for his
text these words, "To you which believe, He is precious," 1 Peter
ii. 7, opened up the preciousness of Christ with such unction and
seriousness, that it proved, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the
means of his conversion. In that sermon he closed with Christ,
and then took his seat at the Lord's Table, though to that day he
had been an absolute stranger to believing. He was accustomed
afterwards to call Mr. Melvin his father, when he spoke of him or
to him. On another occasion, Mr. Melvin, by a sermon which he
preached at Stewarton, when a probationer and chaplain to the
excellent Lady Boyd, was the instrument of converting Mr. John
Stirling in the fourteenth or sixteenth year of his age--one who
proved a useful minister in his day, "Some say also," remarks
Wodrow, "that he was a spiritual father to Mr. John Dury of
Dalmeny, a man much esteemed of in his time, as having a taking
and soaring gift of preaching, much like Mr. William Guthrie's
gift." When Rutherford heard of Melvin's death, he is represented
to have said, "And is Ephraim dead? He was an interpreter among a
thousand." (Wodrow's "Anal.," vol. iii.)]
(_THE IDOLATRY OF KNEELING AT THE COMMUNION_.)
REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--I received your letter, and am contented,
with all my heart, that our acquaintance in our Lord continue.
I am wrestling as I dow, up the mount with Christ's cross: my Second
is kind and able to help.
As for your questions, because of my manifold distractions, and
letters to multitudes, I have not time to answer them. What shall be
said in common for that shall be imparted to you; for I am upon these
questions. Therefore spare me a little, for the Service Book would
take a great time. But I think; "Sicut deosculatio religiosa imaginis,
aut etiam elementorum, est in se idololatria externa, etsi intentio
deosculandi, tota, quanta in actu est, feratur in Deum πρωτοτυπὸν;
ita, geniculatio coram pane, quando, nempe, ex instituto,
totus homo externus et internus versari debeat circa elementaria
signa, est adoratio relativa, et adoratio ipsius panis. Ratio:
Intentio adorandi objectum materiale, non est de essentiâ externæ
adorationis, ut patet in deosculatione religiosâ. Sic geniculatio
coram imagine Babylonicâ est externa adoratio imaginis, etsi tres
pueri mente intendissent adorare Jehovam. Sic, qui ex metu solo, aut
spe pretii, aut inanis gloriæ, geniculatur coram aureo vitulo
Jeroboami (quod ab ipso rege, qui nullâ religione inductus, sed
libidine dominandi tantum, vitulum erexit, factitatum esse, textus
satis luculenter clamat), adorat vitulum externâ adoratione. Esto
quod putaret vitulum esse meram creaturam, et honore nullo dignum:
quia geniculatio, sive nos nolumus, sive volumus, ex instituto Dei et
naturæ, in actu religioso, est symbolum religiosæ adorationis. Ergo,
sicut panis significat corpus Christi, etsi absit actus omnis nostræ
intentionis; sic religiosa geniculatio, sublatâ omni intentione
humanâ, est externa adoratio panis, coram quo adoramus, ut coram signo
vicario et repræsentativo Dei." [As the religious homage done to an
image, or even to elements, is in itself an external act of idolatry,
in so far as the act is concerned, although the _intention_ of such
homage may be directed to God the Great First Cause,--so the act of
kneeling to a piece of bread, seeing that, according to the ordinance,
the whole man, internal and external, ought to be engaged in the
elementary signs, is a relative act of worship and an adoration of the
bread itself. The reason is: an _intention_ to worship a material
object is not of the essence of external adoration, as appears in a
religious act of homage. Thus, the bending of the knee before the
Babylonish image is an external act of worship, even though the three
youths had no intention to worship any but the true God; and in like
manner, those who, from fear or the hope of reward or vain-glory, bend
the knee to Jeroboam's golden calf (which the text clearly enough
proclaims to have been done by the king himself, from no religious
motive but the mere desire to rule), do pay adoration to the calf by
the external act, although, no doubt, they may suppose the calf a mere
created object and unworthy of honour,--because the act of homage,
whether we mean it or not, is, from the ordinance of God and nature, a
symbol of worship. Therefore, as the bread denotes the body of Christ
(even though that idea be not present to the mind), so in like manner,
kneeling, when used as a religious service, is the external adoration
of that bread, in presence of which we bow as before the delegated
representative of God, be our intention what it may.][189]
[189] The Latin is to be accounted for as being an extract from some
learned treatise. It is in substance what we find in Calderwood's
"Altare Damascenum," p. 595.
Thus recommending you to God's tender mercy, I desire that you would
remember me to God. Sanctification will settle you most in the truth.
Grace be with you, Brother in Christ Jesus,