The Night of Weeping: Words for the Suffering Family of God [Updated and Annotated]

by Horatius Bonar, P. Miller (editor)

It was God’s purpose from the beginning not merely to redeem sinners from His condemnation but also to bring those people into a special relationship with Himself. It is His desire to draw mankind closer to Himself than any other of His creatures and to establish a most special link between His people and Himself.

Trials, then, have a purpose. They awaken us to a sense of our self-pleasing ways and to our indifference to the condition of the world we live in – not only as being a world of sin but thoroughly, and all over, a world of misery. They bring us into contact with solid certainties, and that produces thoughtfulness. They make us acquainted with grief, which drives off all levity.

Since we know that God has our best intentions in mind, what should move us? What can ruin our joy? Our rejoicing is in the Lord, and He is good and has good plans for us. We know that this current life is not our rest, nor do we wish it were, for it is polluted; but our joy is this, that Jehovah is our God, and His promised glory is our inheritance forever. We are being molded and shaped into a vessel fit for His Kingdom!

Do not seek, then, to please yourself, even as Jesus did not seek to please Himself. Live for Him, not for yourself. Live for Him, not for the world. Walk worthy of your name and calling. Walk worthy of Him who bought you as His bride. Walk worthy of your everlasting inheritance. Earth’s dream will soon be done, and then comes the day of songs and everlasting joy (Isaiah 35:10) – the long reality of delight!

About the Author
In 1808, Horatius Bonar was born into a family of several generations of ministers of the gospel. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh and was ordained in 1838. As a young pastor at North Parish, Kelso, he preached in villages and farmhouses, proving himself to be a comforter and guide. In 1843, he joined 450 other pastors to form the Free Church of Scotland after the “Disruption.” Horatius Bonar wrote numerous books, tracts, periodicals, and more than 600 hymns. He believed that people needed truth, not opinions; God, not theology; and Christ, not religion. From his first sermon to his last, he ended with “In such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.”

123 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 9, 2024

About the author

Horatius Bonar (19 December, 1808 – 31 May, 1889) was a Scottish churchman and poet.

The son of James Bonar, Solicitor of Excise for Scotland, he was born and educated in Edinburgh. He comes from a long line of ministers who have served a total of 364 years in the Church of Scotland. One of eleven children, his brothers John James and Andrew Alexander were also ministers of the Free Church of Scotland. He had married Jane Catherine Lundie in 1843 and five of their young children died in succession. Towards the end of their lives, one of their surviving daughters was left a widow with five small children and she returned to live with her parents. Bonar's wife, Jane, died in 1876. He is buried in the Canongate Kirkyard.
In 1853 Bonar earned the Doctor of Divinity degree at the University of Aberdeen.

He entered the Ministry of the Church of Scotland. At first he was put in charge of mission work at St. John's parish in Leith and settled at Kelso. He joined the Free Church at the time of the Disruption of 1843, and in 1867 was moved to Edinburgh to take over the Chalmers Memorial Church (named after his teacher at college, Dr. Thomas Chalmers). In 1883, he was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland.

Reviews

[☾❀Apple✩ Blossom⋆｡˚ · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We cannot be trusted with too full a cup, or too pleasant a resting-place. We abuse everything that God has given us, and prove ourselves not trustworthy as to any one of them. Some God cannot trust with health; they need sickness to keep them low and make them walk softly all their days. They need spare diet, lest the flesh should get the mastery. Others He cannot trust with prosperity; they need adversity to humble them, lest, like Jeshurun, they should wax "fat and kick." Others He cannot trust with riches; they must be kept poor, lest covetousness should spring up and pierce them through with many sorrows. Others He cannot trust with friends; they make idols of them, they give their hearts to them; and this interferes with the claims of Jehovah to have us altogether as His own."

[Gabriel Magill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bonar is an author that was completely unknown to me, but he has a way with words that is powerful and profound. So many thoughtful, quotable lines in this short work. It’s always hard to rate books on suffering when you are not in the midst of suffering yourself, but I think this book would minister to any Christian wrestling against hardships.

[Craig Williford · Rating 5 out of 5]

At heart, Bonar is a poet and so his writing is brimming with images, contrasts, and warmth. Here, he builds out a helpful and comforting metaphor of family and the first 2 chapters are worth the whole book. The sections I most dreaded on discipline also ended up being really practical and insightful. Puritan Work #2/24

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glorious.