THE SCHOOL & FAMILY CATECHIST
by Rev. William Smith (1834)

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Questions 71 & 72.

Q. 71. What is required in the seventh commandment?

A. The seventh commandment requireth the preservation of our own and our neighbor’s chastity, in heart, speech, and behaviour.

EXPLICATION.

Chastity. –An abhorrence of all uncleanness, whether in the body, or in the mind and affections.

Chastity in heart. –Purity of thought, or freedom from wanton desires.

Chastity in speech. –Modesty in our language and conversation.

Chastity in behavior. –Modesty in our outward conduct, and in all our actions.

ANALYSIS.

The duties required in the seventh commandment, are five in number:

1. We are required to preserve our own chastity. –1 Thess. iv. 4. That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor.
2. To preserve the chastity of our neighbor. –Eph. v. 11, 12. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them; for it is a shame even to speak of whose things which are done of them in secret.
3. We are required to do this in our heart. –2 Tim ii. 22. Flee also youthful lusts; but follow righteousness, faith, charity.
4. To preserve our own and our neighbor’s chastity also in our speech. –Col. iv. 6. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt. Eph. iv. 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.
5. To do the same in our behavior. –1 Pet. iii. 2. While they behold your chaste conversation, coupled with fear.

   The seventh commandment forbiddeth all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions.

Q. 72. What is forbidden in the seventh commandment?

A. The seventh commandment forbiddeth all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions.

EXPLICATION.

Unchaste. –Immodest, wanton, unclean.

ANALYSIS.

The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment, are of three sorts:

1. Unchaste thoughts. –Matt. v. 28. Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
2. Unchaste words. –Eph. v. 4. Neither filthiness nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient.

3. Unchaste actions. –Eph. v. 3. Fornication, and all uncleanness, let it not be once named among you. Rom. xiii. 13. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness.

Bookplates

Here’s a great quote that would be well suited for a bookplate:

Beginnings can be Interesting
by Rev. David T. Myers

Beginnings of anything can be interesting. And I’ve noticed that it is in those times that the Lord’s blessings are particularly notable. This author once planted a mission church in a sizeable Midwest city. He had done all the preliminary preparation for the mission. Several families committed themselves to the endeavor. The first worship service was planned in a spacious worship center of an evangelical church, rented for the occasion. We all went with expectations of a good beginning, but only one family showed up for the beginning worship time.  It is true that God did some extraordinary things in the first six years of our ministry there. I rejoice that this established church is progressing ahead by means of being a mother church to several congregations.

In 1560, a Scottish Reformation Parliament abrogated and annulled the papal jurisdiction for Scottish churches, ending all the authority flowing from Rome.

This set the grounds for the establishment of the Church of Scotland that same year. Let W. M. Hetherington in his History of the Church of Scotland pick up the account. He writes on page 53,

“They (the Reformation Parliament) enacted no ecclesiastical jurisdiction whatever in its stead. This it left the reformed Church to determine upon and effect by its own intrinsic powers. And this is a fact of the utmost it cannot be too well known and kept in remembrance. It is, indeed, one of the distinctive characteristics of the Church of Scotland, that it owes its origin, its form, its jurisdiction, and its discipline, to no earthly power. And when the ministers and elders of the church of Scotland resolved to meet in a General Assembly, to deliberate on matters, which might tend to the promotion of God’s glory and the welfare of the Church, they did so in virtue of the authority which they believed the Lord Jesus Christ had given to the Church. The parliament which abolished the papal jurisdiction made not the slightest mention of General Assembly. In that time of comparatively simple and honest faith, even statesmen seem instinctively to have perceived, that to interfere in matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, so as to appoint ecclesiastical tribunals, specify their nature, and assign their limits, was not within their province. It had been well for the kingdom if statesmen of succeeding times, certainly not their superiors in talent and in judgment, had been wise enough to follow their example.”

The first meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was held on this day, December 20, 1560. Forty delegates were in attendance. For that number, only six were ministers. They were John Knox (Edinburgh), Christophere Gudman (St. Andrews), John Row (Perth), David Lindesay (Leith), William Harlaw (St. Cuthberts), and William Christesone (Dundee). While their names, with the exception of Knox and possibly Row, are unknown to many of our readers, Hetherington remarks that “they were men of great abilities, of deep piety, fitted and qualified by their Creator for the work which He had given them to do.” (p. 53)

Words to Live By:
Not only had the Creator fitted and qualified them, but so had their Great Redeemer fitted and acquired them to raise up a Church faithful and true to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It may have been small in man’s estimation at the beginning, but the Spirit of God judged it otherwise. He would bring the increase in His time. So be faithful, dear reader, in the place where God has planted you. Keep looking to Him, for He will accomplish His will through you, in the work and place where you have been planted to serve our Lord and Savior.

The Prince of Scottish Hymnists
by Rev. David T. Myers

Among the Presbyterian hymn writers of the Church, none stand higher than that of Horatius Bonar. Born on this day December 19, in 1808, Horatius Bonar came from two centuries of ministers, a total ministerial ancestry of 364 years of ministry.  When Horatius was just twelve years old, death took his father, James Bonar.  His saintly mother, Marjory, and his elder brother James, took over his spiritual upbringing.  Attending Edinburgh University, the beneficial influence of Dr. Thomas Chalmers added to that training.

Horatius  Bonar entered the ministry of the Church of Scotland, being ordained in 1837.  His first charge was that of mission work in Leith at St. John’s parish, and then at Kelso, Scotland.  In 1843, he married Jane Catherine Lundie, with five of their nine children dying in succession.  Taking his stand with the Bible-believers in the church, he joined the Free Church of Scotland and then began to display his gift of hymn writing.  Moving to Edinburgh, he ministered in a church named after his former professor, Chalmers Memorial Church.  He was honored by his colleagues by being elected as Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland in 1883.  He died on May 31, 1889.

Such are the facts of his life.  What is more interesting to our readers may be to think upon many of his hymns which have blessed the church world ever since.  Those who come to this site with their worship rooted in the Blue or Red Trinity hymnal will find 19 hymns in the blue Trinity and 14 hymns in the red Trinity hymnal.  We are blessed by them all.

It is clear that his hymns included the state of the sinner outside of Christ.  “I was a wandering sheep,” he wrote in hymn number 464. “I would not be controlled,” he added. Does not that describe our condition before Christ found us? “I was a wayward child, I once preferred to roam,” was our sad testimony.

Then came the wonderful words of life. “I heard the voice of Jesus say, ‘Come unto me and rest.’” And then our testimony, “I came to Jesus as I was, weary and worn and sad; I found in Him a resting place, and he has made me glad.” No. 304. Is this your testimony?

In his life, Bonar was a soul-winner, with a special interest in the salvation of the Jews. He was sent to Palestine in 1839 to visit the principle points of their existence. He visited again in 1856. It is interesting to this author that his eschatology was pre-millennial, with God’s future for Israel upon his heart.

He certainly lived the words of “Go, Labor on” on page 584. Verse 5 should describe you and me when it says, “Toil on, faint not, keep watch and pray; be wide the erring soul to win; go forth into the world’s highway, compel the wand’rer to come in.”

Words to Live By:
There may be great spiritual profit to gather a few Christian friends together around a piano, or at a Sunday evening service, to sing the hymns of Horatius Bonar. Let the pastor and/or song leader do more study on his life.  After each song is sung, discuss what doctrines or duties are found in the words. Share how his words speak to your heart and are seen in your actions.

A Life, and Death, Surrendered to the Lord

This day, December 18th, in 1928, marks the birth of Cecil John Miller. Raised in California, he earned his BA at San Francisco State College in 1953 and a doctorate in English Literature at the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. He graduated from Westminster Seminary in 1966, but by an uncommon arrangement had previously been ordained by the OPC some seven years earlier, in October of 1959, whereupon he was then engaged in church planting work in Stockton, California from 1959 to 1963. He later began serving as pastor of the Mechanicsville Chapel in Pennsylvania a year before graduating from Westminster, serving that pulpit from 1965 to 1972.

Jack Miller was my pastor when I was a student at Westminster Seminary in the late 1970’s. The church at that time was still meeting in the rented gymnasium of a local YMCA. Every Sunday we’d get there early to set up folding chairs, and then prepared for a time of worship, typically up to two hours in length and including a sermon from Dr. Miller which might easily run up to 60 minutes long. But we never noticed the clock. We simply went home for lunch and spent the afternoon dwelling on all we had heard. Then we’d go back at the end of the day for more. Dr. Miller was the pastor of New Life Presbyterian Church from 1973 to 1990, and a number of other New Life churches sprang from the model he established. But his greatest legacy came from his heart for missions, which led him on frequent trips to several countries, most notably Uganda, and from this work, World Harvest Mission began, and Dr. Miller served as director of WHM from 1991 until his death, April 8, 1996. World Harvest is now known as Serge, a name change which was announced just this past summer.

Without recounting here his many books, which have been a great blessing to so many, I will simply note today a “new” work issued in 2012 under the title Saving Grace. I say “new” because the book consists of 366 excerpts drawn from Dr. Miller’s sermons, portioned out for daily devotional reading. It makes for most interesting reading. 

As a sample of the entries in this book, the following is the entry for December 18:

Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.)–John 21:18-19.

How do we develop character in ourselves and others? We can’t teach character unless we have it, and that’s a problem because the church often lacks character. We can only get it as we learn about Jesus’s holy, powerful, transforming love. But we want so many other things besides the love of Christ : an easy life, popularity, acceptance, good principles, and even sound theology. But without love to Christ forming the character, all of it is only self-will. And without the love of Christ shaping our will and character, even good things become demonic, divisive, and cruel.

So Jesus ends his message to Peter by saying, “Follow me. Follow me to your death and you will glorify God. Follow me and I will make you great.” Peter desired to be great and God is going to do that through his death. The heart of love for God is surrendering our will to him. Peter surrendered to Christ and became great. As we surrender to God’s love, our character is formed like Christ, and we also become great in God’s kingdom.

To find out more about the book and how to order from the publisher, New Growth Press, click the title here: Saving Grace.

For a further look at the life and ministry of Dr. C. John Miller, see the finding aid (index) for the C. John Miller Manuscript Collection, preserved at the PCA Historical Center. The collection consists of twelve cubic feet of materials from the academic and ministerial career of the Rev. Dr. C. John (Jack) Miller, with the bulk of the collection focusing on his career at Westminster Theological Seminary, the planting of the New Life Presbyterian Church, Jenkintown, PA, and the later organization of World Harvest Mission. A subseries under Westminster Theological Seminary concerns the justification controversy at that school, 1975-1982, which centered on the teachings of Professor Norman Shepherd.