A LEX AN i:)EF< ‘Dr. Whyte has at last written his “Life of Christ.”’— Expository Times. Large Crown 87jo. Price 35. bd. net. THE WALK, CONVERSATION AND CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD ‘ Dr. Alexander Whyte’s book commands, like all its writer’s works, the attention of the reader. The author has great dramatic power, and a marked felicity of expression. Dr. Whyte uses the imagery, and even some of the catchwords, of a Calvinism of the past ; but he manages to put new life into them, and to show, sometimes with startling clearness, the lasting truth within the perishable formula.’—Spectator. ‘ It is distinguished by the exegetical and literary qualities that characterise all Dr. Whyte’s writings. His preaching is always intensely earnest, it is thoroughly evangelical, and Dr. Whyte never fails to enforce its lessons by illustrations drawn from his everyday experience, whether in the study or in pastoral visitation.’—Scotsman. ‘ Will rank with every competent judge of Dr. Whyte’s expositions as his very best book. It represents Dr. Whyte at his best. It is practically a life of Christ—and it is that life on its inner side. The titles of the lectures are expressed in a characteristic way, and the treatment of the subject is fresh and original in every case.’—Christian Leader. JAMES FRASER, LAIRD OF BREA —Probed many hearts, beginning with his own. Yea, this man’s brow, like to a title-leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragic volume: Thou tremblest, and the whiteness in thy cheek Is apter than thy tongue to tell thine errand. Even such a man Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night. Ruins of the House of Brea 1 JAMES FRASER LAIRD OF BREA PARISH MINISTER OF CULROSS BASS ROCK, BLACKNESS, AND NEW¬ GATE PRISONER, AND AUTHOR OF ‘THE BOOK OF THE INTRICACIES OF MY HEART AND LIFE’ By ALEXANDER WHYTE, D.D., LL.D. PRINCIPAL OF NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH I PUBLISHEB BY OLIPHANT ANDERSON AND FERRIER EDINBURGH AND LONDON 1911 CONTENTS CHAP. I'AGE I. INTRODUCTORY ....... I II. ‘ MY DISPOSITION WAS SULLEN AND MY TEMPER PEEVISH ’ . .II HI. ^ POUR FALSE STEPS THAT I TOOK TOWARD MY CONVERSION ’ . .21 IV. 'my CONVERSION ON A COMMUNION WEEK M'HEN A STUDENT OF SEVENTEEN IN EDINBURGH’ . 31 V. 'my WHOLE LIFE IS A CONTINUAL CONVERSION* . 40 VI. ' I WAS TOO LAZY TO ROAST WHAT I TOOK IN HUNTING ’ . .47 VII. 'l WASHED MY FACE* ..... 57 VIII. ' UNLIKE PAUL, 1 WAS ASHAMED OP THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST* ....... 65 vii viii CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE IX. ‘ 5IY BEn-PRAYERS ’ . 77 X. ‘ MY SILENT PRAYERS 87 XI. ‘ BUT I ABHORRED AND WAS AT ENMITY WITH MR. BAXTER, AS A STATED ENEMY TO THE GRACE OF GOD 96 XII. I TOOK THE CUP OP SALVATION AND I CALLED UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD ’ . 106 XIII. ^THE CANAANITES WOULD DWELL IN THAT LAND ’ 115 XIV. ‘ LIKEWISE, BEING IN THE SOUTH, THE LORD TRYSTED ME WITH A POWERFUL NEW TESTA- .MENT MINISTRY ’ . 124 XV. ^YES, I .SAID IN RETURN, COME AND LET US REASON together’ . 134 XVI. ‘in thee both the fatherless and the .MOTHERLESS FINDETH MERCY ’ . 144 XVII, ‘ AUDIENCE OF PRAYER MADE OUT MORE DISTINCTLY THAN FORMERLY 154 CONTENTS IX CHAP. PAGE XVIII. ‘ I FIND ADVANTAGES PROM MY SINS. AS HOLY MR. FOX SAID, SO WILL I SAY, MY SINS, IN A MANNER, HAVE DONE MB MUCH MORE GOOD THAN MY graces’ . , , . 164 XIX. ‘ I THOUGHT THAT FAITH WAS SOME GREAT FULGOR AND GLORY IN THE SOUL ’ . *175 XX. ‘1 SET UP ANOTHER SAIL ’ . I84 XXI. ^LIKE JOHN IN THE EMPTY SEPULCHRE, I SAW, AND believed’ ...... I93 XXII. ^ SIGNIFYING WHAT DEATH HE SHOULD DIE FOR ME ’ . 204 XXIII. ‘the book of the intricacies of my heart’ 213 XXIV. ‘ HE takes over ALL MY OLD AND ACCUMU¬ LATED DEBTS’...... 222 XXV. ‘1 NOW BOTH LIVE AND WORK PAR MORE EVANGELICALLY THAN I WAS WONT TO DO ’ . 232 XXVI. ‘ THE BOOK THAT BREA WROTE ON THE BASS ROCK WITH NO BOOK BESIDE HIM BUT HIS BIBLE AND HIMSELF 241 X CONTENTS CHAl'. PAGE XXVII. ‘ A LITTLE ARLES AS WELL AS MUCH ’ 249 XXVIII. ‘ I WILL STAND UPON MY WATCH, AND WILL SET ME UPON MY TOWER, AND WILL WATCH TO SEE WHAT HE WILL SAY TO ME, AND WHAT I SHALL ANSWER WHEN I AM REPROVED 261 ILLUSTRATIONS Ruins of thk House of Brea in the Frontispiece Buack IsuE, ..... From a Photoijraph hp D. Fraser. I’AGE CuLUOSS, ...... 18'J From an Old Print, The Bass Rock, .... 241 From an Old Print. xi JAMES FRASER, LAIRD OF BREA I INTRODUCTORY HE religious literature of Scotland is remarkably rich in books of religious autobiography. Telling us each one his own spiritual story we have James Melville, and Robert Blair, and John Livingstone, and Alexander Brodie, and James Fraser, and Thomas Halyburton, and Thomas Boston, and Hugh Miller, and John Duncan, and William Taylor, and Andrew Bonar. And there are not a few fragments of the same kind quite worthy to stand beside those full and finished works ; such as the autobiographical remains of the Lady Coltness, the Lady Anne Elcho, and Marion Veitch. Every one of those famous autobiographies has its own individuality, idiosyncrasy, and phy¬ siognomy ; and each several one of them makes its own special contribution to the noblest catalogue of the books of our native land. I know something of all those great books ; but there is none of them that draws me and holds me and keeps possession of me like the Memoirs of Sir James Fraser of Brea^ xvritten by Himself Dr. Jowett, writing to Lady A 2 JAMES FRASER OF BREA Airlie, said that he had just finished Boswell for the fiftieth time, and Mr. Spurgeon was wont to say that he had read Bunyan a hundred times. I shall not attempt to count up the times I have read James Fraser of Brea, but if I did I feel sure that I would run both Jowett and Spurgeon hard. Dr. Ail’d of Creich has collected the chief facts of Fraser’s life into a short biographical sketch which will be found prefixed to the Inverness edition of Fraser’s autobiography. And Dr. Elder Gumming of Glasgow lias an admirable appreciation of Fraser in his Holy Men of God. The following are the main outlines of Fraser’s much-tried life. He was born at Br£a,_liis_father’s estate in Boss- shire, on the 29th of July 1639. His father died while his son James was still a'bhild, and some of his greatest troubles in life came to him out of his ownership of that estate. Although he began to study for the legal profession, young Fraser even¬ tually gave himself up to the study of divinity, to which study he brought a mind of the first intellec¬ tual order. From his earliest days the Laird of Br^a identified himself with the outed evangelical ministers of the north^ and all along he was a most pronounced Presbyterian and Covenanter, and both by his tongue and by his pen he fought un¬ flinchingly for the freedom of his Church and his I country. Both in the Bass and in Blackness and ; in Newgate he suffered the most unjust imprison- * ment, and the wickedest and the most malicious ill-usage. After the Revolution we find Fraser settled as parish minister of Culross, where he INTRODUCTORY 3 closed his troubled career about the year 1698. Dr. Aird adds this note to his short sketch of Fraser’s life : ‘ He was assisted at a communion at Ci^TOss, very shortly before his death, by the celebrated Bosign^of Ettrick, then a young man.’ But with all that it is in his Memoirs of Himself that James Fraser of Brea will live, and he will live in that remarkable book as long as a scholarly religion, and an evangelical religion, and a spiritual religion, and a profoundly experimental religion lives in his native land. In saying that I do not forget the warning that Dr. Elder Gumming gives me to the effect that Fraser’s will be a Scottish reputation only, and even that will be limited to readers of a special cast of religious experience and spiritual sympathy. At the same time. Dr. Elder Gumming adds that Fraser’s autobiography is a book that for depth and for grip has few, if any, equals among the foremost books of its kind in the whole world. Now you will naturally ask me at this point just what it is that gives James Fraser such a high rank as a spiritual writer, and just what it is that so signalises his Memoirs of Himself Well, in his own characteristic words his Memoirs is ‘ the book of the intricacies of his own heart and life,’ and that on their purely spiritual side. Fraser’s mind was by nature of the most intricate kind—that is to say, his mind was naturally of the most acute and subtle and penetrating and searching-out kind. Had he gone into law, as at one time he intended to do, he would infallibly have taken rank as one of 4 JAMES FRASER OF BREA the acutest of our Scottish lawyers. And with his immense industry he would to a certainty have left writings behind him that would have been of classical authority in that great profession. But to the lasting enrichment of his own soul, and to the lasting enrichment of all his kindred - minded readers’ souls, Fraser was led of God into divinity, and into divinity of the deepest, acutest, most evangelical, and most experimental kind.