He Went About Doing Good
by Rev. David T. Myers

Thomas Gouge is not a household name to countless American Presbyterians today, but maybe he should be, considering his ministering of good to all. Born on September 19, 1605 (though some say September 29, 1609) in England, he was the oldest son of celebrated William Gouge, member of the Westminster Assembly which produced our Confession and Catechisms.

Educated in the finest institutions of his day (Cambridge), Thomas graduated in 1626. After a time of three years, and marrying the daughter of a prominent family of that day, Thomas was called to the St. Sepulchre’s Church in London, England, where for the next twenty-four years he preached and pastored the membership and surrounding area. Not only did he minister to their spiritual needs, but also to their material needs.

Catechizing the people every morning of the week, Thomas Gouge would distribute gifts among the aged poor on varying days of the week so as to encourage regular attendance upon his catechism studies. These monies came out of his own pocket. To those abled-bodied among the poverty-stricken members, he distributed flax and hemp for them to spin, paying them for their yarn to be worked into cloth. Often in selling them later, he took the financial loss himself.

All of these benevolent work, including his proclamation of the Word of God, came to an end when the Great Ejection of 1662 took place. Hundreds of Presbyterian clergy were ejected from their Anglican pulpits, including Thomas Gouge. Unlike many others, he simply entered another ministry instead of continuing on to minister in secret to  his pastor-less flock. With two or three other ministers, he raised a considerable annual sum of money, to make provision for the ejected ministers then in desperate need. Even when the Great Fire of 1666 devastated London and brought a considerable loss to his income, he still continued to live on less and distribute to those in real need. He believed full the promise of the Psalmist when the latter wrote in Psalm 37:26, “He is ever merciful and lendeth; and his seed is blessed.” (KJV)

Looking to minister in ever widening circles, he had a heart for Wales.  Traveling there, he went from town to town to find out whether there would be interest in teaching willing children to read and write in the English language, and—oh yes—be catechized, no doubt using the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly.  Great droves of children came under the influence of the Scriptures, along with their families. Rev. Gouge began to preach regularly to the families, until the prelates of the Anglican church forbid him to preach the Word.  So in addition to the catechism classes, he arranged for the Word of God to be translated and printed into Welsh to be given freely to  Welsh families.  Added to the Scriptures were Christian books in Welsh which he freely handed out.

He entered heaven on October 29, 1681, remembered widely for his character and conduct in times of persecution.

Words to Live By:
“And let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season, we shall reap if we faint not.  As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good to all men, especially unto those who are of the household of faith.”  Galatians 6;9, 10 (KJV)

If a minister of the gospel is to introduce people to his Lord, the triune God, he ought himself to know the Lord. The deeper, richer, more extensive this knowledge is, the better. And what impatient Christians are inclined to castigate as the dry bones of theology is this knowledge of God and His attributes.

Recently I’ve been reading John Flavel’s short treatise on Isa. 26:20, titled The Righteous Man’s Refuge [highly recommended and found in Flavel’s Works, vol. 3]. Flavel’s main point in this work is that God Himself—particularly as displayed in His attributes—is a very real refuge for the believer in times of trial and testing. Finishing that work, it was only natural then to turn to Stephen Charnock’s masterpiece, The Existence and Attributes of God. As it turns out, my copy was a 1958 edition and I noticed that it includes a foreword by Gordon H. Clark. Since the PCA Historical Center houses the Papers of Dr. Clark and since I don’t see this foreword elsewhere on the web or in print, I thought I would post it here. I’ve placed at the top of our page today in bold print one particularly relevant comment.
If I were to make one point, I think that had Dr. Clark read or kept Flavel’s treatise in mind, he would have had at hand even greater arguments for Christians to study the attributes of God.

Gordon H. Clark’s Foreword to the 1958 Sovereign Grace Book Club edition
of Stephen Charnock’s work, The Existence and Attributes of God.

FOREWORD

The life of Stephen Charnock (1628-1680), in contrast to the turbulence of England in the mid-seventeeth century, was almost uneventful. The occurrence of one event, however, secures his reputation for adherence to gospel principles, for, although he was not immprisoned as John Bunyan was, he was one of the ministers ejected under the inquitous Restoration of Charles II.

For the rest, he had an early charge in Southwark; became a Fellow and then a Senior Proctor at Oxford (1649-1656); went to Dublin as chaplain to the Governor; then in 1675, when restrictions on the reformed ministers were somewhat relaxed, he accepted a call to Crosby Square, where he remained until his death.

How he spent his time, in addition to preaching carefully prepared sermons, became evident upon the posthumous publication of his manuscripts, of which the Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God is the most famous. This edition includes every word of Charnock’s remarks on the attributes of God, and the existence of God. However, in most editions in the past, his discourses on Providence, Practical Atheism, and God as a Spirit have been included. These are omitted here with regret. However, 1100 pages would be too much for this one volume.

The Puritan writers are noted for long-windedness. Some, perhaps much, of our impatience with them, however, is more to our discredit than to theirs. In our bustling era the practice of meditation is not popular; and our educational standards have encouraged the substitution of short comic books for solid volumes. Even Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, who in the twentieth century is busy battling for the Atonement and the Resurrection against modernism and neo-orthodoxy in the churches (and who can condemn him for such sorely needed activity?), has scarcely any time to ponder the divine glory and to reflect on the nature of God.

But when, unexpectedly, the essence and attributes of God are called into question, to whom else can we better go than to Stephen Charnock?

Is our knowledge of God mainly negative, or do we have positive information? Is there a positive sense in the words eternal, immutable, and spirit? Or are they merely denials of their temporal and sensory opposites? Can man’s mind possess an adequate or suitable conception of God? Is the impossibility of having a mental image of God the equivalent of the impossibility of having a mental concept of God? And is it true that all human knowledge originates in sensation, as Charnock seems to say in one place; or, as he says elsewhere, has God impressed innate knowledge on man’s heart from birth and by creation?

Some devoted and energetic Christians consider such questions useless and a waste of time. Evangelistic campaigns, personal work, missionary rallies, youth fellowships, and spectacular sunrise services should, they claim, exhaust all our energy. Theology is a valley of dry bones on which the Spirit will never breathe : let the dead Christian doze with his deadening volumes. Ours shall be life abundant.

With respect to this complaint let it be said that Stephen Charnock, though he was neither a John Wesley nor a Billy Graham, faithfully discharged those pastoral duties that everyone would admit are practical and necessary. It was in fact this cure of souls that motivated his study. If a minister of the gospel is to introduce people to his Lord, the triune God, he ought himself to know the Lord. The deeper, richer, more extensive this knowledge is, the better. And what impatient Christians are inclined to castigate as the dry bones of theology is this knowledge of God and His attributes. Must one labor to emphasize the obvious importance of knowing what sort of Being the Divine Being is? He is not the Deus sive Natura of Spinoza’s philosophy; He is not the Unmoved Mover of Aristotle; nor is He their modern counterparts. Then what is the nature, the essence, the attributes of God? Charnock wants his readers to become acquainted with God.

There are other sincere, though we believe mistaken, men who consider this study worse than useless : they consider it an impious curiosity into things that are too high for us. Although Protestant writers have sometimes warned against such a danger, it is hard in this day to believe that it is a frequent sin. The large majority of people want to know too little instead of too much. Undoubtedly, “the secret things belong unto the Lord our God;” but for this very reason it is more futile than sinful to try to know them.

In any case, the present subject does not fall under this category. The remainder of the verse reads, “but those things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever.” Now, the material that Charnock discusses is firmly founded in the Word of God. To a small extent we learn about God from nature; but chiefly He has revealed Himself in Scripture. This revelation is more extensive than meets the eye; it is not exhausted by merely making a list of pertinent passages. When these passages are compared and used as premises of syllogisms, conclusions hitherto unperceived will appear. And as the great Westminster Confession says, “The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.” Drawing inferences from Scriptural premises is not impious curiosity, but divinely commanded meditation.

The verse just alluded to, after it says that all revelation belongs to us and to our children forever, ends with the words “That we may do all the words of this law.” These sentiments are reinforced later by the well-known verse, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and (all of it) is profitable for doctrine . . . for instruction in righteousness . .. that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”

Both the Old Testament and the New Testament therefore emphasize these two things : we should study the whole revelation, not just some easy or favorite parts of it; and, this study is not dry as dust theology, but is ‘practical’, i.e., it leads to righteousness.

GORDON H. CLARK
Butler University.

Words to Live By:
Study to know the Lord. Seek Him with all your heart, soul, body and mind. Press in to know Him, to worship Him, to praise Him for His great work of salvation and for His every blessing. Let your heart be “fully set and resolved for God.”

A Post You Can Tell Your Children
by Rev. David T. Myers

Her name was Grisell. Yes, I know that is a strange sounding name, but it was a Scottish name. She was born on December 25, 1665. That’s Christmas, you say.

But Scottish Christians then did not celebrate this day as the birth of Jesus. Grisell Hume was the oldest child of Patrick and Grisell Hume. You can see that she was named after her mother. She had 16 brothers and sisters! Talk about a large family. Her parents were from a royal line of ancestors in Scotland, and they lived in the main city of that nation, Edinburgh.

Both of her parents were Christians. Being a Christian in that time period meant that you were considered an enemy of the government. Despite that, her father continued to witness for Christ. For example,  you couldn’t even hold a Bible study in your home or field without the government soldiers coming in to arrest every one attending that meeting. Hearing of a government plan to place soldiers in every home of Scotland to better keep a watch over Christians in the land, Patrick Hume planned to protest that plan. Because of that, he was thrown into jail when his daughter Grisell was only twelve years of age.

It was at this time that Grisell began to visit her father in prison.The mother couldn’t go because she had the care of the family, and even if she could  have traveled, she would not have been given permission to see her imprisoned husband. But a twelve year old girl could get into the prison cell. In those visits, she carried under her garments a letter from her mother to her father, and carried back any messages the father had for her mother. Most of all, she was able to provide  him some comfort for  her father. After a year of being in jail, the father was let go, but he knew that it would not be for long.

When government orders came for his arrest again, Patrick  Hume wanted to flee to Holland, which was a safe location for religious people in Europe. But he wasn’t able to get there due to the many soldiers who were looking for him.  So he hid himself in the family burying place, a vault under ground near their church about a mile away from  his home. (Kids, ask your dad or mom to explain this place further) Placing a bed and bed-clothes there, he began to live there. His only visitor was again his daughter Grisell. At midnight, she would walk to the vault, with food which she had saved from supper, seeking to comfort  him with her presence, telling him the events from the family, including humorous incidents, and walk home around daylight, so no one would see her. Soon, this hidden place was not a good place to continue in for the health of the father.  (How would you like to live in a tomb?)  Finally he was able to escape to Holland, with his family joining him there after three years.  When King William and Queen Mary came to the throne in February of 1689, the reign of evil against Christianity was ended, and the whole family was able to return to Scotland.

Grisell, with her adventurous years behind her, married George Baillie on this day, September 17, 1692, to rear a family where Christ was honored. She continued to take care of her parents until they died and went to  heaven. She was the darling and comfort to her parents all of their lives.

Words to Live By: 
The fifth commandment in Exodus 2012 tells us “to honor your father and mother,” and Paul adds in Colossians 3:20 to “be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord.” It is clear that Grisell Hume was a child who honored and obeyed her parents in the Lord. For this, she had a long life in return,  and served Christ all of her life.