return to Scotland, at least he might have liberty to preach at
London, which king James would never grant, till he heard all hopes
of life were past, and then he allowed him liberty to preach, not
fearing his activity.
Then as soon as ever he heard he might preach, he greedily embraced
this liberty, and having access to a lecturer’s pulpit, he went and
preached both long and fervently: which was the last performance
of his life; for after he had ended his sermon, he returned to his
chamber, and within two hours quietly and without pain, he resigned
his spirit into his Maker’s hands, and was buried near Mr. Deering,
the famous English divine, after he had lived little more than
fifty-two years.
FINIS
THE
LIFE
AND
PROPHECIES,
OF
ALEXANDER PEDEN
[Illustration]
GLASGOW;
PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS.
THE
LIFE AND PROPHECIES
OF
ALEXANDER PEDEN.
That most excellent minister of the gospel, and faithful defender
of the Presbyterian Religion, MR. ALEXANDER PEDEN, was born in the
parish of Sorn, near Ayr. After his course at the College, he was
sometime school-master, precentor, and session-clerk to Mr. John
Guthrie, minister of the gospel at Tarbolton. When he was about to
enter on the ministry, a young woman fell with child, in adultery,
to a servant in the house where she stayed; when she found herself
to be so, she told the father thereof, who said, I’ll run for it,
and go to Ireland, father it upon Mr. Peden, he has more to help
you to bring it up (he having a small heritage) than I have. The
same day that he was to get his licence, she came in before the
Presbytery and said, I hear you are to licence Mr. Peden, to be
a minister; but do it not, for I am with child to him. He being
without at the time, was called in by the moderator; and being
questioned about it, he said, I am utterly surprised, I cannot
speak; but let none entertain an ill thought of me, for I am
utterly free of it, and God will vindicate me in his own time and
way. He went home, and walked at a water-side upwards of 24 hours,
and would neither eat nor drink, but said, I have got what I was
seeking, and I will be vindicated, and that poor unhappy lass will
pay dear for it in her life, and will make a dismal end; and for
this surfeit of grief that she hath given me, there shall never one
of her sex come into my bosom; and, accordingly he never married.
There are various reports of the way that he was vindicated; some
say, the time she was in child-birth, Mr. Guthrie charged her to
give account who was the father of that child, and discharged the
women to be helpful to her, until she did it: some say, that she
confessed: others, that she remained obstinate. Some of the people
when I made enquiry about it in that country-side, affirmed, that
the Presbytery had been at all pains about it, and could get no
satisfaction, they appointed Mr. Guthrie to give a full relation of
the whole before the congregation, which he did; and the same day
the father of the child being present, when he heard Mr. Guthrie
begin to speak, he stood up, and desired him to halt, and said, I
am the father of that child, and I desired her to father it on
Mr. Peden, which has been a great trouble of conscience to me; and
I could not get rest till I came home to declare it. However it
is certain, that after she was married, every thing went cross to
them; and they went from place to place, and were reduced to great
poverty. At last she came to that same spot of ground where he
stayed upwards of 24 hours, and made away with herself!
2. After this he was three years settled minister at New Glenluce
in Galloway; and when he was obliged, by the violence and tyranny
of that time, to leave that parish, he lectured upon Acts xx. 17.
to the end, and preached upon the 31st. verse in the forenoon,
‘Therefore watch, and remember that for the space of three years I
ceased not to warn every one, night and day, with tears:’ Asserting
that he had declared the whole counsel of God, and had kept nothing
back and protested that he was free of the blood of all souls. And,
in the afternoon he preached on the 32d verse, ‘And now, brethren,
I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able
to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them that
are sanctified.’ Which was a weeping day in that kirk; the greatest
part could not contain themselves. He many times requested them to
be silent; but they sorrowed most of all when he told them that
they should never see his face in that pulpit again. He continued
until night; and when he closed the pulpit-door he knocked hard
upon it three times with his Bible, saying three times over, I
arrest in my Master’s name, that never one enter there, but such
as come in by the door, as I did. Accordingly, neither curate
nor indulged minister ever entered that pulpit, until after the
revolution, that a Presbyterian minister opened it.
3. After this he joined with that honest and zealous handful in the
year 1666, that was broken at Pentland-hills, and came the length
of Clyde with them, where he had a melancholy view of their end,
and parted with them there. James Cubison, of Paluchbeaties, my
informer, to whom he told this, he said to him, ‘Sir, you did well
that parted with them, seeing you was persuaded they would fall and
flee before the enemy.--Glory glory to God, that he sent me not
to hell immediately! for I should have stayed with them though I
should have been cut all in pieces.’
4. That night the Lord’s people fell, and fled before the enemy at
Pentland-hills, he was in a friend’s house in Carrick, sixty miles
from Edinburgh; his landlord seeing him mightily troubled enquired
how it was with him; he said, ‘To-morrow I will speak with you,’
and desired some candle. That night he went to bed. The next
morning calling early to his landlord, said, ‘I have sad news to
tell you, our friends that were together in arms, appearing for
Christ’s interest, are now broken, killed, taken, and fled every
man.’--the truth of which was fully verified in about 48 hours
thereafter.
5. After this, in June 1673, he was taken by Major Cockburn, in the
house of Hugh Ferguson, of Knockdow, in Carrick, who constrained
him to tarry all night. Mr. Peden told him that it would be a dear
night to them both. Accordingly they were both carried prisoners
to Edinburgh, Hugh Ferguson was fined in a thousand merks, for
resetting, harbouring, and conversing with him. The Council ordered
fifty pounds sterling to be paid to the Major out of the fines,
and ordained him to divide twenty-five pounds sterling among the
party that apprehended him. Some time after examination he was sent
prisoner to the Bass, where, and at Edinburgh, he remained until
December, 1668, that he was banished.
6. While prisoner in the Bass, one Sabbath-morning being about
the public worship of God, a young lass, about 13 or 14 years of
age, came to the chamber-door mocking with loud laughter: He said,
‘Poor thing, thou mocks and laughs at the worship of God, but ere
long God shall write such a sudden, surprising judgment on thee,
that shall stay thy laughing, and thou shalt not escape it.’ Very
shortly after, she was walking upon the rock, and there came a
blast of wind and sweeped her into the sea, where she perished.
While prisoner there, one day walking upon the rock, some soldiers
passing by him, one of them said, Devil take him. He said, ‘Fy,
fy, poor man, thou knowest not what thou art saying; but thou wilt
repent that.’--At which word the soldier stood astonished, and
went to the guard distracted, crying aloud for Mr. Peden, saying,
the devil would immediately take him away. He came to him again,
and found him in his right mind under deep convictions of great
guilt. The guard being to change, they desired him to go to his
arms; he refused, and said, he would lift no arms against Jesus
Christ his cause, and persecute his people, he had done that too
long. The governor threatened him with death, to-morrow about ten
of the clock; he confidently said, three times, though he should
tear all his body in pieces, he should never lift arms that way.
About three days after, the governor put him out of the garrison,
setting him ashore. He having a wife and children, took a house in
East Lothian, where he became a singular Christian. Mr. Peden told
these astonishing passages to the foresaid John Cubison and others,
who informed me.
7. When brought from the Bass to Edinburgh and sentence of
banishment passed upon him, in Dec. 1678. and sixty more
fellow-prisoners, for the same cause, to go to America, never to
be seen in Scotland again, under the pain of death; after this
sentence was past, he several times said, that the ship was not
yet built that should take him and these prisoners to Virginia; or
any other of the English plantations in America.--One James Kay, a
solid and grave Christian, being one of them, who lives in or about
the Water of Leith, told me, that Mr. Peden said to him, ‘James,
when your wife comes in, let me see her;’ which he did.--After some
discourse, he called for a drink, and when he sought a blessing, he
said. ‘Good Lord, let not James Kay’s wife miss her husband, till
thou return him to her in peace and safety; which we are sure will
be sooner than either he or she is looking for.’ Accordingly, the
same day-month that he parted with her at Leith, he came home to
her at the Water of Leith.
8. When they were on shipboard at the Water of Leith, there was a
report that the enemies were to send down thumbkins to keep them
from rebelling; at the report of this, they were discouraged:
Mr. Peden came above the deck and said, ‘Why are ye discouraged?
You need not fear, there will neither thumbkins nor bootkins
come here: lift up your hearts and heads, for the day of your
redemption draweth near; if we were once at London, we will be set
at liberty.’--And when sailing on the voyage, praying publicly,
he said, ‘Lord, such is the enemies hatred at thee and malice
at us for thy sake, that they will not let us stay in thy land
of Scotland, to serve thee, though some of us have nothing but
the canopy of thy heavens above us, and the earth to tread upon;
but, Lord, we bless thy name, that will cut short our voyage, and
frustrate thy enemies of their wicked design, that they will not
get us where they intend; and some of us shall go richer home than
we came from home.’ James Pride, who lived in Fife, an honest man,
being one of them, he said many times, he could assert the truth of
this, for he came safely home; and beside other things, he bought
two cows: and before that, he never had one. I had these accounts
both from the foresaid James Kay and Robert Punton, a known public
man, worthy of all credit, who was also under the same sentence,
and lived in the parish of Dalmeny, near Queensferry.
9. When they arrived at London, the skipper who received them
at Leith, was to carry them no further. The skipper who was to
receive them there, and carry them to Virginia, came to see them,
they being represented to him as thieves, robbers, and evil-doers;
but when he found they were all grave Christian men, banished for
Presbyterian principles, he said he would sail the sea with none
such. In this confusion: that the one skipper would not receive
them, and the other would keep them no longer, being expensive to
maintain them they were all set at liberty. Some reported that both
skippers got compliments from friends at London; however, it is
certain they were all set free without any imposition of bonds or
oaths; and friends at London, and on their way homewards, through
England shewed much kindness unto them.
10. That dismal day, June 22d. 1679, at Bothwel-bridge, that the
Lord’s people fell, and fled before the enemy, he was forty miles
distant, near the border, and kept himself retired until the middle
of the day, that some friends said to him, ‘Sir, the people are
waiting for sermon.’ He said, ‘Let the people go to their prayers;
for me, I neither can nor will preach any this day; for our friends
are fallen, and fled before the enemy at Hamilton; and they are
hanging and hashing them down, and their blood is running like
water!’
11. After this, he was preaching in Galloway: in the forenoon he
prayed earnestly for the prisoners taken at and about Bothwel;
but in the afternoon, when he began to pray for them, he halted
and said, ‘Our friends at Edinburgh, the prisoners, have done
something to save their lives that shall not do with them, for the
sea-billows shall be many of their winding-sheets; and the few of
them that escape, shall not be useful to God in their generation.’
Which was sadly verified thereafter. That which the greatest part
of these prisoners did, was the taking of that bond, commonly
called the Black Bond, after Bothwel, wherein they acknowledged
their appearance in arms, for the defence of the gospel and their
own lives, to be rebellion; and engaged themselves never to make
any more opposition: upon the doing of which, these perfidious
enemies promised them life and liberty. This with the cursed and
subtile arguments and advices of ministers, who went into the New
Yard, where they were prisoners, particularly Mr. Hugh Kennedy, Mr.
William Crighton, Mr. Edward Jamieson, and Mr. George Johnston;
these took their turn in the yard where the prisoners were,
together with a letter that was sent from that Erastian meeting
of ministers, met at Edinburgh in August 1679, for the acceptance
of a third indulgence, with a cautionary bond. Notwithstanding
of the enemies’ promise, and the unhappy advice of ministers
not indulged, after they were ensnared in this foul compliance,
they banished 255, whereof 205 perished in the Orkney-sea. This
foul step, as some of them told, both in their life, and when
dying, lay heavy upon them all their days; and that these unhappy
arguments and advices of ministers, prevailed more with them than
the enemies’ promise of life and liberty. In August 1679, fifteen
of the Bothwel-prisoners got indictments of death. Mr. Edward
Jamieson, a worthy Presbyterian minister, as Mr. Woodrow calls him,
was sent from that Erastian meeting of ministers into the Tolbooth
to these fifteen, who urged the lawfulness of taken the bond to
save their lives; and the refusal of it would be a reflection to
religion, and the cause they had appeared for, and a throwing away
their lives, for which their friends would not be able to vindicate
them. He prevailed with thirteen of them, which soured in the
stomachs of some of those thirteen, and lay heavy upon them both
in their life and death. The prisoners taken at and about the time
of Bothwel, were reckoned about fifteen hundred. The faithful Mr.
John Blackader did write to these prisoners, dissuading them from
that foul compliance; and some worthy persons of these prisoners,
whom he wrote to, said to me with tears, that they slighted his
advice, and swallowed the unhappy advices of these ministers who
were making peace with the enemies of God, and followed their foul
steps, for which they would go mourning to their graves. I heard
the same Mr. Blackader preach his last public sermon before falling
into the enemies’ hands in the night-time in the fields, in the
parish of Livingstone, upon the side of the Muir, at New-house,
on the 23d. of March, after Bothwel, where he lectured upon Micah
iv. from the 9th. verse, where he asserted, That the nearer the
delivery, our pains and showers would come thicker and sorer upon
us; and that we had been long in the fields, but ere we were
delivered, we would go down to Babylon; that either Popery would
overspread this land, or be at the breaking in upon us like on
inundation of water. And preached upon that text, ‘Let no man be
moved with these afflictions, for ye yourselves know, that ye are
appointed thereunto.’ Where he insisted on what moving and shaking
dispensations the Lord had exercised his people with in former
ages, especially that man of God, that went to Jeroboam at Bethel,
and delivered his commission faithfully, and yet was turned out
of the way by an old lying prophet; how moving and stumbling the
manner of his death was to all Israel! And earnestly requested us
to take good heed to what ministers we heard, and what advice we
followed. When he prayed, he blessed the Lord that he was free of
both band and rope: and that he was as clearly willing to hold up
the public blest standard of the gospel as ever: And said, The Lord
rebuke, give repentance and forgiveness to these ministers that
persuaded these prisoners to take that bond. For their perishing by
sea was more moving and shocking to him, than if some thousands of
them had been slain in the field. He was thereafter taken, the 6th.
of April, by Major Johnston, in Edinburgh, and detained prisoner
in the Bass, where he died. As the interest of Christ lay near his
heart through his life, amongst his last words he said, The Lord
will defend his own cause.
17. Shortly after that sad strode at Bothwel, he went to Ireland,
but did not stay long at that time. In his travels through
Galloway, he came to a house, and looking in the goodman’s face,
he said, ‘They call you an honest man, but if you be so, you look
not like it, you will not long keep that name, but will discover
yourself to be what you are.’ And shortly after, he was made to
flee for sheep-stealing. In that short time he was in Ireland,
the Governor required of all Presbyterian ministers that were in
Ireland, that they should give it under their hand, that they had
no accession to the late rebellion at Bothwel-bridge, in Scotland,
and that they did not approve of it; which the most part did; and
sent Mr. Thomas Gowans, a Scotsman, and one Mr. Paton, from the
north of Ireland to Dublin, to present it to the Lord Lieutenant:
the which when Mr. Peden heard, he said, Mr. Gowans and his brother
Mr. Paton are sent and gone the devil’s errand but God will arrest
them by the gate. And accordingly, Mr. Gowans, by the way, was
struck with a sore sickness, and Mr. Paton fell from his horse, and
broke or crushed his leg; and both of them were detained beyond
expectation. I had this account from some worthy Christians when I
was in Ireland.
18. In the year 1682. he married John Brown in Kyle, at his own
house in Priesthall, that singular Christian, upon Marion Weir.
After marriage; he said to the bride, Marion, you have got a good
man to be your husband, but you will not enjoy him long: prize his
company, and keep linen by you for his winding-sheet, for you will
need it when you are not looking for it, and it will be a bloody
one. This came sadly to pass in the beginning of May, 1685, as
afterwards shall appear.
19. After this, in the year 1682, he went to Ireland again, and
came to the house of William Steel, in Glenwharry, in the county
of Antrim; he enquired at Mrs. Steel if she wanted a servant for
threshing victual? She said they did, and enquired what his wages
were a-day, or a-week. He said, the common rate was a common
rule; to which she assented.--At night he was put to bed, in the
barn, with the servant-lad; and that night he spent in prayer and
groaning, up and down the barn. On the morrow he threshed victual
with the lad, and the next night he spent the same way. The second
day, in the morning, the lad said to his mistress, this man sleeps
none, but groans and prays all night; I get no sleep for him: he
threshes very well, and is not sparing of himself, tho’ I think he
has not been used with it, for he can do nothing to the botteling
and ordering of the barn; and when I put the barn in order, he
goes to such a place, and there he prays for the afflicted Church
of Scotland, and names so many in the furnace.--He wrought the
second day, and his mistress watched and overheard him praying, as
the lad had said.--At night she desired her husband to enquire if
he was a minister, which he did, and desired him to be free with
him, and he should not only be no enemy to him, but a friend. Mr.
Peden said, he was not ashamed of his office; and gave an account
of his circumstances. He was no more set to work, nor to lie with
the lad; and he staid a considerable time in that place, and was
a blessed instrument in the conversion of some, and civilizing of
others, though that place was noted for a wild rude people, and the
fruit of his labour appears unto this day. There was a servant-lass
in that house, that he could not look upon but with frowns: and
sometimes, when at family-worship, he said, pointing to her with
a frowning countenance. You come from the barn and from the byre
reeking in your lusts, and sits down among us; we do not want you,
nor none such. At last he said to William Steel and his wife, Put
that unhappy lass from your house, for she will be a stain to your
family, for she is with child, and will murder it, and will be
punished for the same. Which accordingly came to pass, and she was
burnt at Carrickfergus, which is the punishment of murderers of
children there. I had this account from John Muirhead, who staid
much in that house, and other Christian people, when in Ireland.