Alexander Comrie: A Second Pastoral Letter

In a previous article we saw that Dr. Alexander Comrie, even when he was old and had retired, gave pastoral guidance, also to young ministers. In his first letter to Rev. J. L. Verster, in October 1773, he gave not only loving warnings against the legalistic inclinations of the heart, but also encouragements.

His second letter was dated April 1774. In the meantime, Rev. Verster had moved to Dordrecht, a place very different from Wageningen, where the people had a simple, experiential, and heartfelt spontaneity. Comrie knew that the devil would be busy in Dordrecht also, and that he would cooperate with his two friends who accompany us our whole life, namely our inborn legalistic tendency and our deep rooted unbelief. “Thus he will endanger us, obscure our light, and sift us as the wheat, so that we finally grope as the blind for the wall.”

From the letter he received from Verster, he concluded that his assumption was right. The devices of the enemy were not unfamiliar to Comrie himself, already from his youth. But even when he was old, Comrie said, he had still to wrestle with them. Often he thought he had to go back to kindergarten in his old age.

From the contents of Verster's letter Comrie noticed with gladness that the Lord had kept his young friend from spiritual pride. For “when we prosper outwardly or inwardly, we often lose that childlike, humble, and prayerful dependency upon the Lord, as a poor, lost sinner who does not have, or cannot do, anything, but who must receive everything by free grace, out of the fullness of the Savior.”

Comrie then mentioned that, since he had come to live in the Netherlands, a metamorphosis had occurred among the Christians, so that he hardly knew where he could find one of those old Christians anymore. He said that there were fanatic zealots who insisted on assurance of faith, who trampled everything under their feet. “They know how to pull down, but not how to water the tender plants.

“There are also those who, with a natural understanding, work with the offer of the gospel and thus with a rational faith, without experience, live at ease, and even become big Goliaths. There are those who are busy with many speculations and who speak haughtily, but not from the heart and from experience.” Comrie then said, “My tenderly beloved fellow-brother, stay away from company in which there are such high, wise, and clever talkers. We now have a talk-Christendom. In your new charge there will be simple, upright ones who live tenderly, and for whom the separation which they sometimes experience between God and their soul is unbearable. They only can be relieved and will be revived when they may see the reconciled countenance of God in Christ, even if it would be only through a narrow opening in the fence.”

You will see what is offered to everyone is wrought in a special manner in your soul by the Spirit of God

Then Comrie addressed some of the difficulties Verster had experienced. He said, “The first trouble you have seems to originate from conversations which you heard, in which it was stated that repentance, regret, and sorrow are conditions to come to Christ. By this you became troubled because you had understood before that the actual embracing of Christ's atonement was the only ground from which a poor sinner received— or let me rather say, could receive— any comfort.

“I want to say to you, dear brother, stay with the opinion you had before. Let devil and people, under whatever appearance or beautiful words it may be, never drive you away from this truth and experience. Before God revealed His Son to your soul, you were of the same opinion as those people. Then, because of the legalistic condition of your heart, you could elaborate on all these things as being fitting and necessary. Without these you did not dare to go to Christ. And thus you kept the yoke on your jaws (Hosea 11:4).

“But when God opened the gospel for you and revealed His Son in you in the free offer of the gospel, you did not look for repentance and sorrow as preparing matters, but you flew with your soul into the open arms of the Savior, offered and revealed to you by divine light. Then this embracing and receiving of Christ and forsaking of yourself were wholeheartedly accompanied with such a repentance, sorrow, and melting of the heart as you had never before experienced under the discipline of Moses.

“Why do you doubt, then? Consider that those who preach in such a way do not know the Son as God reveals Him in the gospel. Remember that you have received a light that they have never seen nor known, since they want to climb up to grace and not to receive it freely as poor sinners.

“e diligent in the communion of faith with Christ to receive with clearness more and more light in the free offer of God's grace, of Christ, of forgiveness of sin, and of eternal salvation.

“Then you will not work with the general offer, nor be able to do so with a rational faith, but you will see that what is offered to everyone is wrought in a special manner in your soul by the Spirit of God. Consequently this will give you the liberty to embrace this with a particular appropriation and to rest upon Jesus, who alone brings the proclamation of peace into the soul and causes her to melt away in true sorrow and abhorrence of self.

“

Comrie calls those who require repentance and sorrow before the embracing of Jesus and His satisfaction the very friends of Satan. This is a strong expression, but he means that they do what Satan always tries to do and that is “to keep us away from the Savior who is offered to us. This he does either by magnifying our sins so much that it seems that they are committed against the Holy Spirit and thus are unpardonable, or, if this is not possible, by coming as an angel of light to torment our soul by urging the necessity of repentance and contrition. And since our legalistic heart and unbelief have a delight in this and agree with it, we are starved and kept back from the gospel.

“The second difficulty concerns our activities from our relationship to God and Christ. My dear brother, I rejoice that this relationship is so clear to you. It is very good if we cling to that. But in regard to our working from this relationship I must make the remark that this relationship sometimes may enable us to plead and to knock, but it does not immediately restore our spiritual welfare.”

Comrie here explained that the realization that we have been unfaithful to God will not cause us to work, but to lament and to be terrified.

“But,” he continued, “since the guilt we brought on ourselves conceals from us His kind countenance, we ought to be diligent to flee again by renewal to Jesus' blood, that God may take away the burden of this guilt by the sealing of the Holy Spirit, and by speaking forgiveness to our heart, and by the sprinkling of His blood to the cleansing of our conscience of dead works.

Oh, how precious it is when Christ's blood is sprinkled so warmly upon our polluted souls.

“Oh, how precious it is when Christ's blood, in His everlasting value, is sprinkled so warmly upon our polluted souls, that as if for the first time it were streaming from His veins and heart on Golgotha.

“Thus we will be able to serve the living God. But if we linger on that way of reconciliation, then 'shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth' (Proverbs 6:11).”

Comrie then mentioned that some days previously he had received strength and encouragement from these words from Hebrews 4:14-16, “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

He said, “The more we make use of Jesus, by embracing Him upon God's own offer as the only ground whereupon our receiving must rest, the more sap and nourishment we will also receive out of Him.”

Comrie concluded the letter with an expression of his heartfelt affection and concurrence. He said it would be pleasant to meet Verster and to embrace and greet him in love.

This was another example of the pastoral love Comrie showed to young and inexperienced believers, also among his fellow-laborers in God's vineyard.

His warnings must be considered in the context of the battle which Comrie had to fight against those who wanted to introduce all kinds of requirements and conditions before a soul even was allowed to flee to Christ.

Comrie warned against the Roman Catholic tendency of the human heart first to find some suitableness and readiness in our own heart, before we might take refuge to the only Physician. He saw this as a deadly danger which changed the gospel into a new law.

How necessary it is that the Holy Spirit show us these popish tendencies in our own heart and teach us to flee as a naked sinner to the Fountain which is “opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.”

On the other hand, it is also necessary to consider how Comrie warned against a mere historical believing in Christ, and against becoming big Christians, who look down on the truly poor and needy souls who are yearning for the forgiveness of their sins in Christ. In his writings we can see that Comrie often warned against the vain confidence and false assurance of those who build up themselves by their own intellectual contemplations.

Therefore the writings of Comrie are very applicable also for our days. Even in his old age he had to wrestle with these legalistic tendencies in his own heart, yet he was a clear guide to Christ.

May the Lord give such instructors, also today, taught in the school where He teaches all His children. Then the meaning of “free grace” would be more understood, and God alone would receive the praises for His own work. Christ would be exalted, and the fruits would be seen. What a blessing this would be, also for our young people, to the glory of His worthy Name!

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