Thursday, July 22, 2010

M'Cheyne Poem Written After Reading Richard Baxter

I have recently started reading Andrew Bonar's biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyney (along with way too many other books). This poem was written in October of 1834 by M'Cheyne after he read Richard Baxter's Call to the Unconverted. The poem is a challenge which I have recently taken to heart, as one of my greatest fears in life is to be of no use to the Kingdom of God.
Though Baxter's lips have long in silence hung,
And death long hush'd that sinner-wakening tongue
Yet still, though dead, he speaks aloud to all,
And from the grave still issues forth his "Call,"
Like some loud angel-voice from Zion Hill,
The mighty echo rolls and rumbles still,
O grant that we, when sleeping in the dust,
May thus speak forth the wisdom of the just.
This emphasis on making an eternal difference was tempered, however, by the sort of self-forgetfulness I especially sense the need to be humbled under. I consider the following quote to be especially convicting:
I need to be made willing to be forgotten. Oh, I wish that my heart were quite refined from all self-seeking! I am quite sure that our truest happiness is not to seek our own, just to forget ourselves and to fill up the little space that remains, seeking only and above all that our God may be glorified. But when I would do good, evil is present with me.

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