ABERDEEN, _Feb. 7, 1637_.
[187] Mr. John Ridge was an English minister, whom opposition to
ceremonial impositions on conscience led to leave his native country
for Ireland. He was admitted to the vicarage of Antrim on the 7th of
July 1619, in which he laboured with success for many years; but being
deposed by Henry Leslie, the Bishop of Down, for nonconformity, he
came over to Irvine, where he died.
[188] Mr. Henry Colwart was also a native of England; and, like Mr.
Ridge, left the land of his birth, and went to Ireland. He was
admitted to the pastoral charge of Oldstone in 1630; but, being
deposed by Bishop Leslie for refusing to submit to the innovations of
Prelacy, he came over to Scotland, and was admitted minister of
Paisley, where he died.
XC.--_To his Reverend and Dear Brother_, MR. JOHN LIVINGSTONE.
[JOHN LIVINGSTONE (the son of Alexander Livingstone, minister
first at Monyabroch or Kilsyth, and afterwards at Lanark) was
born at Monyabroch on the 21st of January 1603. At the College of
Glasgow, he enjoyed the advantage of having as his regent for two
years the famous Robert Blair, for whom he continued ever after
to retain the highest veneration. He was first settled minister
at Killinchie, in Ireland, towards the close of the year 1630,
but had not laboured above twelve months in that charge when he
was suspended by the Bishop of Down, for nonconformity. To enjoy
religious liberty, he set out with Mr. Blair and others in their
intended emigration to America; but, with the rest, was forced by
the adverse state of the weather to return. Shortly after, he
received calls from two parishes, Stranraer and Stewarton, but
preferred the call from the former, and his induction took place
on the 5th of July 1638. Here he continued in the assiduous
discharge of his pastoral functions until 1648, when, by the
sentence of the General Assembly, he was translated to the parish
of Ancrum, in the Presbytery of Jedburgh. Upon the death of
Charles I., he was sent to the Hague, and afterwards to Breda, as
one of the commissioners from the Church of Scotland to treat
with his son Charles II., whose character he had the penetration
to discover. In the controversy between the Resolutioners and
Protesters, Livingstone took the side of the latter, but was
dissatisfied with the violence manifested by his party. After the
restoration of Charles II., being summoned to appear before the
Privy Council in 1662, he appeared; but, declining to engage to
observe the anniversary of the death of Charles I., and to take
the oath of allegiance in the precise way in which it was
dictated to him, he was sentenced to quit his native land within
two months. Having repaired to Rotterdam, he preached
occasionally to the Scottish congregation there, and devoted the
remainder of his life to the cultivation of Biblical literature.
He died in that city on the 9th of August 1672, in the seventieth
year of his age.
It was this same Livingstone that was so blessed in awakenings.
By a sermon which he preached in 1630 at the Kirk-of-Shotts, on
the Monday after the dispensation of the Lord's Supper, five
hundred souls, it is believed, were converted. On a similar
occasion, at Holywood, in the north of Ireland, in one day, he
was the instrument of awakening double that number to inquiry
after salvation. (See Brief Historical Relation of the Life of
John Livingston in "Select Biographies," vol. i., Wodrow Society,
1845.)]
(_RESIGNATION--ENJOYMENT--STATE OF THE CHURCH_.)
MY REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I
long to hear from you, and to be refreshed with the comforts of The
Bride of our Lord Jesus in Ireland. I suffer with you in grief, for
the dash that your desires to be at New England have received of late;
but if our Lord, who hath skill to bring up His children, had not seen
it your best, it would not have befallen you. Hold your peace, and
stay yourselves upon the Holy One of Israel. Hearken to what He hath
said in crossing of your desires; He will speak peace to His people.
I am here removed from my flock, and silenced, and confined in
Aberdeen, for the testimony of Jesus. And I have been confined in
spirit also with desertions and challenges. I gave in a bill of
quarrels, and complaints of unkindness against Christ, who seemed to
have cast me over the dyke of the vineyard as a dry tree, and
separated me from the Lord's inheritance; but high, high and loud
praises be to our royal crowned King in Zion, that He hath not burnt
the dry branch. I shall yet live, and see His glory.
Your mother-Church, for her whoredom, is like to be cast off. The
bairns may break their hearts to see such chiding betwixt the husband
and the wife. Our clergy is upon a reconciliation with the Lutherans;
and the Doctors are writing books, and drawing up a common confession,
at the Council's command. Our Service Book is proclaimed with sound
of trumpet. The night is fallen down upon the prophets! Scotland's
day of visitation is come. It is time for the bride to weep, while
Christ is a-saying that He will choose another wife. But our sky will
clear again; the dry branch of cut-down Lebanon will bud again and be
glorious, and they shall yet plant vines upon our mountains.
Now, my dear brother, I write to you for this end, that ye may help me
to praise; and seek help of others with you, that God may be glorified
in my bonds. My Lord Jesus hath taken the withered, dry stranger, and
His prisoner broken in heart, into His house of wine. Oh, oh, if ye,
and all Scotland, and all our brethren with you, knew how I am
feasted! Christ's honey-combs drop comforts. He dineth with His
prisoner, and the King's spikenard casteth a smell. The devil cannot
get it denied that we suffer for the apple of Christ's eye, His royal
prerogatives, as King and Lawgiver. Let us not fear or faint. He will
have His Gospel once again rouped in Scotland, and have the matter
going to voices, to see who will say, "Let Christ be crowned King in
Scotland." It is true that Antichrist stirreth his tail; but I love a
rumbling and raging devil in the kirk (since the Church militant
cannot or may not want a devil to trouble her), rather than a subtle
or sleeping devil. Christ never yet got a bride without stroke of
sword. It is now nigh the Bridegroom's entering into His chamber; let
us awake and go in with Him.
I bear your name to Christ's door; I pray you, dear brother, forget me
not. Let me hear from you by a letter; and I charge you, smother not
Christ's bounty towards me. I write what I have found of Him in the
house of my pilgrimage. Remember my love to all our brethren and
sisters there.
The Keeper of the vineyard watch for His besieged city, and for you.
Your brother, and fellow-sufferer,