# “When the Bible runs dry, then I shall” by Robert Murray M’Cheyne

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2018/04/05/when-the-bible-runs-dry-then-i-shall-by-robert-murray-mcheyne/
- Published: 2018-04-05T12:00:14-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“He spoke from the pulpit as one earnestly occupied with the souls before him. He
made them feel sympathy with what he spoke, for his own eye and heart were on them.

And while his style was singularly clear, this clearness itself was so much the 
consequence of his being able thoroughly to analyse and explain his subject, that
all his hearers alike reaped the benefit.

He went about his public work with awful reverence. So evident was this, that I 
remember a countryman in my parish observed to me: ‘Before he opened his lips, as
he came along the passage, there was something about him that sorely affected me.’

In the vestry there was never any idle conversation; all was preparation of heart
in approaching God; and a short prayer preceded his entering the pulpit. Surely 
in going forth to speak for God, a man may well be overawed.

Surely in putting forth his hand to sow the seed of the kingdom, a man may even 
tremble! And surely we should aim at nothing less than to pour forth the truth upon
our people through the channel of our own living and deeply affected souls.

After announcing the subject of his discourse, he used generally to show the position
it occupied in the context, and then proceed to bring out the doctrines of the text,
in the manner of our old divines. This done, he divided his subject; and herein 
he was eminently skilful.

‘The heads of his sermons,’ said a friend, ‘were not the mile-stones that tell you
how near you are to your journey’s end, but they were nails which fixed and fastened
all he said. Divisions are often dry; but not so his divisions,—they were so textual
and so feeling, and they brought out the spirit of a passage so surprisingly.’

It was his wish to arrive nearer at the primitive mode of expounding Scripture in
his sermons.

Hence when one asked him, If he was never afraid of running short of sermons some
day? he replied, ‘No; I am just an interpreter of Scripture in my sermons; and when
the Bible runs dry, then I shall.’

And in the same spirit he carefully avoided the too common mode of accommodating
texts,—fastening a doctrine on the words, not drawing it from the obvious connection
of the passage.

He endeavoured at all times to preach the mind of the Spirit in a passage; for he
feared that to do otherwise would be to grieve the Spirit who had written it.

Interpretation was thus a solemn matter to him. And yet, adhering scrupulously to
this sure principle, he felt himself in no way restrained from using, for every 
day’s necessities, all parts of the Old Testament as much as the New.

His manner was first to ascertain the primary sense and application, and so proceed
to handle it for present use. He regarded the prophecies as history yet to be, and
drew lessons from them accordingly as he would have done from the past.

Every spiritual gift being in the hands of Jesus, if he found Moses or Paul in the
possession of precious things, he forthwith was led to follow them into the presence
of that same Lord who gave them all their grace.

There is a wide difference between preaching _doctrine_ and preaching _Christ_. 
Mr M‘Cheyne preached all the doctrines of Scripture as understood by our Confession
of Faith, dwelling upon ruin by the Fall, and recovery by the Mediator.

‘The things of the human heart, and the things of the Divine Mind,’ were in substance
his constant theme. From personal experience of deep temptation, he could lay open
the secrets of the heart, so that he once said, ‘He supposed the reason why some
of the worst sinners in Dundee had come to hear him was, because his heart exhibited
so much likeness to theirs.’

Still it was not doctrine alone that he preached; it was Christ, from whom all doctrine
shoots forth as rays from a centre.”

–Robert Murray McCheyne and Andrew A. Bonar, _[**Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne**](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1372104968?tag=toletaupanre-20)_(
Edinburgh; London: Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier, 1894), 71-73.

More on [Preaching](https://tollelege.net/category/preaching/)