[492] In Professor Sinclair's work (_Satan's Invisible World

Discovered_, p. 141), we find, in 1684, 'an evident instance, that

the devil can transport the bodies of men and women through the

air. It is true, he did not carry her far off, but not for want of

skill and power.' Late in the seventeenth century, it was

generally believed that one of Satan's accomplices was literally

'strangled in his chair by the devil, least he should make a

confession to the detriment of the service.' _Crawfurd's History

of the Shire of Renfrew_, part iii. p. 319.

[493] See the account of a young preacher being deceived in this way, in

_Wodrow's Analecta_, vol. i. pp. 103, 104. The Rev. Robert Blair

detected the cheat, and 'with ane awful seriousness appearing in

his countenance, began to tell the youth his hazard, and that the

man whom he took for a Minister was the Divel, who had trepanned

him, and brought him into his net; advised him to be earnest with

God in prayer, and likewise not to give way to dispair, for ther

was yet hope.' The preacher had, on this occasion, been so far

duped as to give the devil 'a written promise' to do whatever he

was requested. As soon as the Rev. Mr. Blair ascertained this

fact, he took the young man before the Presbytery, and narrated

the circumstance to the members. 'They were all strangely affected

with it, and resolved unanimously to dispatch the Presbitry

business presently, and to stay all night in town, and on the

morrow to meet for prayer in one of the most retired churches of

the Presbitry, acquainting none with their business, (but) taking

the youth alongst with them, whom they keeped alwise close by

them. Which was done, and after the Ministers had prayed all of

them round, except Mr. Blair, who prayed last, in time of his

prayer there came a violent rushing of wind upon the church, so

great that they thought the church should have fallen down about

their ears, and with that the youth's paper and covenant' (_i.e._

the covenant which he had signed at the request of Satan) 'droops

down from the roof of the church among the Ministers.'

[494] 'The devil strikes at them, that in them he may strike at the

whole congregation.' _Boston's Sermons_, p. 186. Fleming

(_Fulfilling of the Scripture_, p. 379) gives an account of his

appearing to one of the Scotch clergy. Compare _Wodrow's

Analecta_, vol. iv. p. 110. In 1624, Bruce writes, 'I heard his

voice as vively as ever I heard any thing, not being sleeping, but

waking.' _Life of Bruce_, p. 8, prefixed to _Bruce's Sermons_. The

only remedy was immediate resistance. 'It is the duty of called

ministers to go on with courage in the work of the Lord,

notwithstanding of any discouragement of that kind, receiving

manfully the first onset chiefly of Satan's fury, as knowing their

ceding to him will make him more cruel.' _Fergusson's Exposition

of the Epistles of Paul_, p. 74. In the seventeenth century, the

Scotch clergy often complimented each other on having baffled him,

and thereby put him in a passion. Thus, in 1626, Dickson writes to

Boyd: 'The devil is mad against you, he fears his kingdom.' _Life

of Robert Boyd, in Wodrow's Collections upon the Lives of

Ministers_, vol. ii. part i. p. 238. See also pp. 165, 236.

[495] 'He can delude ears, eyes, &c., either by misrepresenting external

objects, or by inward disturbing of the faculties and organes,

whereby men and women may, and do often, apprehend that they hear,

see, &c. such and such things, which, indeed, they do not.'

_Durham's Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation_, p. 128.

'Raise tempests.' _Binning's Sermons_, vol. i. p. 122. 'His power

and might, whereby through God's permission, he doth raise up

storms, commove the elements, destroy cattle,' &c. _Fergusson's

Exposition of the Epistles of Paul_, p. 264. 'Hee can work

curiously and strongly on the walls of bodily organs, on the shop

that the understanding soule lodgeth in, and on the necessary

tooles, organs, and powers of fancie, imagination, memory,

humours, senses, spirits, bloud,' &c. _Rutherford's Christ Dying_,

p. 212. Semple, giving notice of his intention to administer the

sacrament, told the congregation 'that the Devil would be so

envious about the good work they were to go about, that he was

afraid he would be permitted to raise a storm in the air with a

speat of rain, to raise the waters, designing to drown some of

them; but it will not be within the compass of his power to drown

any of you, no not so much as a dog.' _Remarkable Passages of the

Life and Death of Mr. John Semple_, _Minister of the Gospel_, pp.

168, 169, in vol. i. of _Walker's Biographia Presbyteriana_.

[496] _Sinclair's Satan's Invisible World Discovered_, p. 137. _Memoirs

of the Life and Experiences of Marion Laird of Greenock, with a

Preface by the Rev. Mr. Cock_, pp. 43, 44, 45, 84, 85, 172, 222,

223.

[497] 'I shall next show how the murderer Satan visibly appeared to a

wicked man, stirred him up to stab me, and how mercifully I was

delivered therefrom.' _The Autobiography of Mr. Robert Blair,

Minister of St. Andrews_, p. 65. See also _Fleming's Fulfilling of

the Scripture_, pp. 379, 380.

[498] 'One Mr. Thomas Hogg, a very popular presbyterian preacher in the

North, asked a person of great learning, in a religious

conference, whether or not he had seen the Devil? It was answered

him, "That he had never seen him in any visible appearance."

"Then, I assure you," saith Mr. Hogg, "that you can never be happy

till you see him in that manner; that is, until you have both a

personal converse and combat with him."' _Scotch Presbyterian

Eloquence_, pp. 28, 29.

[499] 'Ye go to the kirk, and when ye hear the devil or hell named in

the preaching, ye sigh and make a noise.' _The Last and Heavenly

Speeches of John, Viscount Kenmure_, in _Select Biographies_,

vol. i. p. 405.

[500] Andrew Gray, who died in 1656, used such language, 'that his

contemporary, the foresaid Mr. Durham, observed, That many times

he caused the very hairs of their head to stand up.' _Howie's

Biographia Scoticana_, p. 217. James Hutcheson boasted of this

sort of success. 'As he expressed it, "I was not a quarter of ane

hour in upon it, till I sau a dozen of them all gasping before

me." He preached with great freedome _all day_, and fourteen or

twenty dated their conversion from that sermon.' _Wodrow's

Analecta_, vol. i. p. 131. When Dickson preached, 'many were so

choaked and taken by the heart, that through terrour, the spirit

in such a measure convincing them of sin, in hearing of the word

they have been made to fall over, and thus carried out of the

church.' _Fleming's Fulfilling of the Scripture_, p. 347. There

was hardly any kind of resource which these men disdained.

Alexander Dunlop 'entered into the ministry at Paislay, about the

year 1643 or 1644.' ... 'He used in the pulpit, to have a kind of

a groan at the end of some sentences. Mr. Peebles called it a holy

groan.' _Wodrow's Analecta_, vol. iii. pp. 16, 21.

[501] A schoolmaster, recording his religious experiences (_Wodrow's

Analecta_, vol. i. p. 246), says: 'If any thing had given a knock,

I would start and shiver, the seeing of a dogg made me affrayed,

the seeing of a stone in the feild made me affrayed, and as I

thought a voice in my head saying, "It's Satan."'

Nor is it strange that this should be the case. All over Scotland, the

sermons were, with hardly an exception, formed after the same plan, and

directed to the same end. To excite fear, was the paramount object.[502]

The clergy boasted, that it was their special mission to thunder out the

wrath and curses of the Lord.[503] In their eyes, the Deity was not a

beneficent being, but a cruel and remorseless tyrant. They declared that

all mankind, a very small portion only excepted, were doomed to eternal

misery. And when they came to describe what that misery was, their dark

imaginations revelled and gloated at the prospect. In the pictures which

they drew, they reproduced and heightened the barbarous imagery of a

barbarous age. They delighted in telling their hearers, that they would

be roasted in great fires, and hung up by their tongues.[504] They were

to be lashed with scorpions, and see their companions writhing and

howling around them.[505] They were to be thrown into boiling oil and

scalding lead.[506] A river of fire and brimstone, broader than the

earth, was prepared for them;[507] in that, they were to be immersed;

their bones, their lungs, and their liver, were to boil, but never be

consumed.[508] At the same time, worms were to prey upon them; and while

these were gnawing at their bodies, they were to be surrounded by devils,

mocking and making pastime of their pains.[509] Such were the first

stages of suffering, and they were only the first. For the torture,

besides being unceasing, was to become gradually worse. So refined was

the cruelty, that one hell was succeeded by another; and, lest the

sufferer should grow callous, he was, after a time, moved on, that he

might undergo fresh agonies in fresh places, provision being made that

the torment should not pall on the sense, but should be varied in its

character, as well as eternal in its duration.[510]

[502] Only those who are extensively read in the theological literature

of that time, can form an idea of this, its almost universal

tendency. During about a hundred and twenty years, the Scotch

pulpits resounded with the most frightful denunciations. The sins

of the people, the vengeance of God, the activity of Satan, and

the pains of hell, were the leading topics. In this world,

calamities of every kind were announced as inevitable; they were

immediately at hand; that generation, perhaps that year, should

not pass away without the worst evils which could be conceived,

falling on the whole country. I will merely quote the opening of a

sermon which is now lying before me, and which was preached, in

1682, by no less a man than Alexander Peden. 'There is three or

four things that I have to tell you this day; and the first is

this, A bloody sword, a bloody sword, a bloody sword, for thee, O

Scotland, that shall reach the most part of you to the very heart.

And the second is this, Many a mile shall ye travel in thee, O

Scotland! and shall see nothing but waste places. The third is

this, The most fertile places in thee, O Scotland! shall be waste

as the mountain tops. And fourthly, The women with child in thee,

O Scotland! shall be dashed in pieces. And fifthly, There hath

been many conventicles in thee, O Scotland! but ere it be long,

God shall have a conventicle in thee, that shall make thee

Scotland tremble. Many a preaching hath God wared on thee, O

Scotland! but ere it be long God's judgments shall be as frequent

in Scotland as these precious meetings, wherein he sent forth his

faithful servants to give faithful warning in his name of their

hazard in apostatizing from God, and in breaking all his noble

vows. God sent out a Welsh, a Cameron, a Cargill, and a Semple to

preach to thee; but ere long God shall preach to thee by a bloody

sword.' _Sermons by Eminent Divines_, pp. 47, 48.

[503] To 'thunder out the Lord's wrath and curse.' _Durham's Commentarie

upon the Book of the Revelation_, p. 191. 'It is the duty of

Ministers to preach judgments.' _Hutcheson's Exposition on the

Minor Prophets_, vol. i. p. 93. 'If ministers when they threaten

be not the more serious and fervent, the most terrible threatening

will but little affect the most part of hearers.' _Fergusson's

Exposition of the Epistles of Paul_, p. 421.

[504] The clergy were not ashamed to propagate a story of a boy who, in

a trance, had been mysteriously conveyed to hell, and thence

permitted to revisit the earth. His account, which is carefully

preserved by the Rev. Robert Wodrow (_Analecta_, vol. i. p. 51)

was, that 'ther wer great fires and men roasted in them, and then

cast into rivers of cold water, and then into boyling water;

others hung up by the tongue.'

[505] 'Scortched in hell-fire and hear the howling of their

fellow-prisoners, and see the ugly devils, the bloody scorpions

with which Satan lasheth miserable soules.' _Rutherford's Christ

Dying_, pp. 491, 492.

[506] 'Boiling oil, burning brimstone, scalding lead.' _Sermons by

Eminent Divines_, p. 362.

[507] 'A river of fire and brimstone broader than the earth.'

_Rutherford's Religious Letters_, p. 35. 'See the poor wretches

lying in bundles, boiling eternally in that stream of brimstone.'

_Halyburton's Great Concern of Salvation_, p. 53.

[508] 'Tongue, lungs, and liver, bones and all, shall boil and fry in a

torturing fire.' _Rutherford's Religious Letters_, p. 17. 'They

will be universal torments, every part of the creature being

tormented in that flame. When one is cast into a fiery furnace,

the fire makes its way into the very bowels, and leaves no member

untouched: what part then can have ease, when the damned swim in a

lake of fire burning with brimstone?' _Boston's Human Nature in

its Four-fold State_, p. 458.

[509] 'While wormes are sporting with thy bones, the devils shall make

pastime of thy paines.' _Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule_, p.

97. 'They will have the society of devils in their torments, being

shut up with them in hell.' _Boston's Human Nature in its

Four-fold State_, p. 442. 'Their ears filled with frightful

yellings of the infernal crew.' _Ibid._ p. 460.

[510] This fundamental doctrine of the Scotch divines is tersely summed

up in _Binning's Sermons_, vol. iii. p. 130: 'You shall go out of

one hell into a worse; eternity is the measure of its continuance,

and the degrees of itself are answerable to its duration.' The

author of these sermons died in 1653.

All this was the work of the God of the Scotch clergy.[511] It was not

only his work, it was his joy and his pride. For, according to them, hell

was created before man came into the world; the Almighty, they did not

scruple to say, having spent his previous leisure in preparing and

completing this place of torture, so that, when the human race appeared,

it might be ready for their reception.[512] Ample, however, as the

arrangements were, they were insufficient; and hell, not being big enough

to contain the countless victims incessantly poured into it, had, in

these latter days, been enlarged.[513] There was now sufficient room. But

in that vast expanse there was no void, for the whole of it reverberated

with the shrieks and yells of undying agony.[514] They rent the air with

horrid sound, and, amid their pauses, other scenes occurred, if possible,

still more excruciating. Loud reproaches filled the ear: children

reproaching their parents, and servants reproaching their masters. Then,

indeed, terror was rife, and abounded on every side. For, while the child

cursed his father, the father, consumed by remorse, felt his own guilt;

and both children and fathers made hell echo with their piercing screams,

writhing in convulsive agony at the torments which they suffered, and

knowing that other torments more grievous still were reserved for

them.[515]

[511] And, according to them, the barbarous cruelty was the natural

result of His Omniscience. It is with pain, that I transcribe the

following impious passage. 'Consider, Who is the contriver of

these torments. There have been some very exquisite torments

contrived by the wit of men, the naming of which, if ye understood

their nature, were enough to fill your hearts with horror; but

_all these fall as far short of the torments ye are to endure, as

the wisdom of man falls short of that of God_.' ... '_Infinite

wisdom has contrived that evil_.' _The Great Concern of Salvation,

by the late Reverend Mr. Thomas Halyburton_, edit. Edinburgh,

1722, p. 154.

[512] 'Men wonder what he could be doing all that time, if we may call

it time which hath no beginning, and how he was employed.' ...

'Remember that which a godly man answered some wanton curious wit,

who, in scorn, demanded the same of him--"He was preparing hell

for curious and proud fools," said he.' _Binning's Sermons_,

vol. i. p. 194.

[513] 'Hell hath inlarged itselfe.' _Abernethy's Physicke for the

Soule_, p. 146.

[514] 'Eternal shriekings.' _Sermons by Eminent Divines_, p. 394.

'Screakings and howlings.' _Gray's Great and Precious Promises_,

p. 20. 'O! the screechs and yels that will be in hell.' _Durham's

Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation_, p. 654. 'The

horrible scrieches of them who are burnt in it.' _Cowper's Heaven

Opened_, p. 175.

[515] 'When children and servants shall go, as it were, in sholes to the

Pit, cursing their parents and their masters who brought them

there. And parents and masters of families shall be in multitudes

plunged headlong in endless destruction, because they have not

only murdered their own souls, but also imbrued their hands in the

blood of their children and servants. O how doleful will the

reckoning be amongst them at that day! When the children and

servants shall upbraid their parents and masters. "Now, now, we

must to the Pit, and we have you to blame for it; your cursed

example and lamentable negligence has brought us to the Pit."' ...

'And on the other hand, how will the shrieks of parents fill every

ear? "I have damn'd myself, I have damn'd my children, I have

damn'd my servants. While I fed their bodies, and clothed their

backs, I have ruined their souls, and brought double damnation on

myself."' _Halyburton's Great Concern of Salvation_, pp. 527, 528.

See this further worked out in _Boston's Human Nature in its

Four-fold State_, pp. 378, 379: 'curses instead of salutations,

and tearing of themselves, and raging against one another, instead

of the wonted embraces.'

Even now such language freezes the blood, when we consider what must have

passed through the minds of those who could bring themselves to utter it.

The enunciation of such ideas unfolds the character of the men, and lays

bare their inmost spirit. We shudder, when we think of the dark and

corrupted fancy, the vindictive musings, the wild, lawless, and uncertain

thoughts which must have been harboured by those who could combine and

arrange the different parts of this hideous scheme. No hesitation, no

compunction, no feelings of mercy, ever seem to have entered their

breasts. It is evident, that their notions were well matured; it is

equally evident, that they delighted in them. They were marked by a unity

of conception, and were enforced with a freshness and vigour of language,

which shows that their heart was in their work. But before this could

have happened, they must have been dead to every emotion of pity and

tenderness. Yet, they were the teachers of a great nation, and were, in

every respect, the most influential persons in that nation. The people,

credulous and grossly ignorant, listened and believed. We, at this

distance of time, and living in another realm of thought, can form but a

faint conception of the effect which these horrible conceits produced

upon them. They were convinced that, in this world, they were incessantly

pursued by the devil, and that he, and other evil spirits, were

constantly hovering around them, in bodily and visible shape, tempting

them, and luring them on to destruction. In the next world, the most

frightful and unheard-of punishments awaited them; while both this world

and the next were governed by an avenging Deity, whose wrath it was

impossible to propitiate. No wonder that, with these ideas before them,

their reason should often give way, and that a religious mania should set

in, under whose influence they, in black despair, put an end to their

lives.[516]

[516] William Vetch, 'preaching in the town of Jedburg to a great

congregation, said, "There are two thousand of you here to day,

but I am sure fourscore of you will not be saved;" upon which,

three of his ignorant hearers being in despair, despatch'd

themselves soon after.' _Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence_, p. 23.

See also the life, or rather panegyric, of Vetch in _Howie's

Biographia Scoticana_, where this circumstance is not denied, but,

on the contrary, stated to be no 'disparagement to him,' p. 606.

The frame of mind which the teachings of the clergy encouraged,

and which provoked self-murder, is vividly depicted by Samuel

Rutherford, the most popular of all the Scotch divines of the

seventeenth century. 'Oh! hee lieth down, and hell beddeth with

him; hee sleepeth, and hell and hee dreame together; hee riseth,

and hell goeth to the fields with him; hee goes to his garden,

there is hell.' ... 'The man goes to his table, O! hee dare not

eat, hee hath no right to the creature; to eat is sin and hell; so

hell is in every dish. To live is sinne, _hee would faine chuse

strangling_; every act of breathing is sin and hell. Hee goes to

church, there is a dog as great as a mountaine before his eye:

Here be terrors.' _Rutherford's Christ Dying_, 1647, 4to, pp. 41,

42. Now, listen to the confessions of two of the tortured victims

of the doctrines enunciated by the clergy; victims who, after

undergoing ineffable agony, were more than once, according to

their own account, tempted to put an end to their lives. 'The

cloud lasted for two years and some months.' ... 'The arrows of

the Almighty did drink up my spirits; night and day his hand lay

heavy upon me, so that even my bodily moisture was turned into the

drought of summer. When I said sometimes that my couch would ease

my complaint, I was filled with tossings to the dawning of the

day.' ... 'Amidst all my downcastings, I had the roaring lion to

grapple with, who likes well to fish in muddy waters. He strongly

suggested to me that I should not eat, because I had no right to

food; or if I ventured to do it, the enemy assured me, that the

wrath of God would go down with my morsel; and that I had

forfeited a right to the divine favour, and, therefore, had

nothing to do with any of God's creatures.' ... 'However, so

violent were the temptations of the strong enemy, that I

frequently forgot to eat my bread, and durst not attempt it; and

when, through the persuasion of my wife, I at any time did it, the

enemy through the day did buffet me in a violent way, assuring me

that the wrath of God had gone over with what I had taken.' ...

'The enemy after all did so pursue me, that he violently suggested

to my soul, that, some time or other, God would suddenly destroy

me as with a thunderclap: which so filled my soul with fear and

pain, that, every now and then, I looked about me, to receive the

divine blow, still expecting it was a coming; yea, many a night I

durst not sleep, lest I had awakened in everlasting flames.'

_Stevenson's Rare Cordial_, pp. 11-13. Another poor creature,

after hearing one of Smiton's sermons, in 1740, says, 'Now, I saw

myself to be a condemned criminal; but I knew not the day of my

execution. I thought that there was nothing between me and hell,

but the brittle thread of natural life.' ... 'And in this dreadful

confusion, I durst not sleep, lest I had awakened in everlasting

flames.' ... 'And Satan violently assaulted me to take away my own

life, seeing there was no mercy for me.' ... 'Soon after this, I

was again violently assaulted by the tempter to take away my own

life; he presented to me a knife therewith to do it; no person

being in the house but myself. The enemy pursued me so close, that

I could not endure so much as to see the knife in my sight, but

laid it away.' ... 'One evening, as I was upon the street, Satan

violently assaulted me to go into the sea and drown myself; it

would be the easiest death. Such a fear of Satan then fell upon

me, as made my joints to shake, so that it was much for me to walk

home; and when I came to the door, I found nobody within; I was

afraid to go into the house, lest Satan should get power over me.'

_Memoirs of the Life and Experiences of Marion Laird of Greenock_,

pp. 13, 14, 19, 45, 223, 224.

Little comfort, indeed, could men then gain from their religion. Not only

the devil, as the author of all evil, but even He whom we recognise as

the author of all good, was, in the eyes of the Scotch clergy, a cruel

and vindictive being, moved with anger like themselves. They looked into

their own hearts, and there they found the picture of their God.

According to them, He was a God of terror, instead of a God of love.[517]

To Him they imputed the worst passions of their own peevish and irritable

nature. They ascribed to Him, revenge, cunning, and a constant

disposition to inflict pain. While they declared that nearly all mankind

were sinners beyond the chance of redemption, and were, indeed,

predestined to eternal ruin, they did not scruple to accuse the Deity of

resorting to artifice against these unhappy victims; lying in wait for

them, that He might catch them unawares.[518] The Scotch clergy taught

their hearers, that the Almighty was so sanguinary, and so prone to

anger, that He raged even against walls and houses and senseless

creatures, wreaking His fury more than ever, and scattering desolation on

every side.[519] Sooner than miss His fell and malignant purpose, He

would, they said, let loose avenging angels, to fall upon men and upon

their families.[520] Independently of this resource, He had various ways

whereby He could at once content Himself and plague His creatures, as was

particularly shown in the devices which He employed to bring famine on a

people.[521] When a country was starving, it was because God, in His

anger, had smitten the soil, had stopped the clouds from yielding their

moisture, and thus made the fruits of the earth to wither.[522] All the

intolerable sufferings caused by a want of food, the slow deaths, the

agony, the general misery, the crimes which that misery produced, the

anguish of the mother as she saw her children wasting away and could give

them no bread, all this was His act, and the work of His hands.[523] In

His anger, He would sometimes injure the crops by making the spring so

backward, and the weather so cold and rainy, as to insure a deficiency in

the coming harvest.[524] Or else, he would deceive men, by sending them a

favourable season, and, after letting them toil and sweat in the hope of

an abundant supply, He would, at the last moment, suddenly step in, and

destroy the corn just as it was fit to be reaped.[525] For, the God of

the Scotch Kirk was a God who tantalized His creatures as well as

punished them; and when He was provoked, He would first allure men by

encouraging their expectations, in order that their subsequent misery

might be more poignant.[526]

[517] Binning says, that 'since the first rebellion' (that is, the fall

of Adam), 'there is nothing to be seen but the terrible

countenance of an angry God.' _Binning's Sermons_, vol. iii.

p. 254.

[518] 'He will, as it were, lie in wait to take all advantages of

sinners to undo them.' _Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor

Prophets_, vol. i. p. 247.

[519] 'His wrath rages against walls, and houses, and senselesse

creatures more now then at that time' (_i.e._ at the time when the

Old Testament was written). 'See what desolation he hath wrought

in Ireland, what eating of horses, of infants, and of killed

souldiers, hath beene in that land, and in Germany.' _Rutherford's

Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience_,

pp. 244, 245.

[520] 'Albeit there were no earthly man to pursue Christ's enemies; yet

avenging angels, or evil spirits shall be let forth upon them and

their families to trouble them.' _Dickson's Explication of the

First Fifty Psalms_, p. 229.

[521] 'God hath many wayes and meanes whereby to plague man, and _reach

his contentments_.' _Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor

Prophets_, vol. i. p. 286. 'God hath variety of means whereby to

plague men, and to bring upon them any affliction he intendeth

against them; and particularly he hath several wayes whereby to

bring on famine. He can arme all his creatures to cut off men's

provision, one of them after another; he can make the change of

aire, and small insects do that worke when he pleaseth.' _Ibid._,

vol. i. p. 422. The same divine, in another elaborate treatise,

distinctly imputes to the Deity a sensation of pleasure in

injuring even the innocent. 'When God sends out a scourge, of

sword, famine, or pestilence, suddenly to overthrow and cut people

off, not only are the wicked reached thereby (which is here

supposed), but even the innocent, that is such as are righteous

and free of gross provocations; for, in any other sense, none are

innocent, or free of sin, in this life. Yea, further, in trying of

the innocent by these scourges, _the Lord seems to act as one

delighted with it_, and little resenting the great extremities

wherewith they are pressed.' _Hutcheson's Exposition of the Book

of Job_, 1669, folio, p. 123. Compare p. 359. 'It pleaseth the

Lord to exercise great variety in afflicting the children of men,'

&c. But, after all, mere extracts can give but a faint idea of the

dark and malignant spirit which pervades these writings.

[522] 'The present dearth and famine quhilk seases vpon many, quhairby

God his heavie wrath is evidentlie perceaved to be kindlit against

vs.' _Selections from the Minutes of the Synod of Fife_, p. 98.

'Smiting of the fruits of the ground.' _Hutcheson's Exposition on

the Minor Prophets_, vol. i. p. 277. 'Makes fruits to wither.'

_Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 183. 'Hee restraines the clouds, and bindeth

up the wombe of heaven, in extreme drought.' _Rutherford's Christ

Dying_, p. 52. 'Sometime hee maketh tho heauen aboue as brasse,

and the earth beneath as iron; so that albeit men labour and sow,

yet they receiue no increase: sometime againe hee giues in due

season the first and latter raine, so that the earth renders

abundance, but the Lord by blasting windes, or by the caterpillar,

canker-worme and grasse-hopper doth consume them, who come out as

exacters and officers sent from God to poind men in their goods.'

_Cowper's Heaven Opened_, p. 433.

[523] 'Under the late dearth this people suffered greatly, the poor were

numerous, and many, especially about the town of Kilsyth, were at

the point of starving; yet, as I frequently observed to them, I

could not see any one turning to _the Lord who smote them_, or

crying to him because of their sins, while _they howled upon their

beds for bread_.' _Robe's Narratives of the Extraordinary Work of

the Spirit of God_, p. 68.

[524] _Nicoll's Diary_, pp. 152, 153. Much rain in the autumn, was 'the

Lord's displeasure upon the land.' _Minutes of the Presbyteries of

Saint Andrews and Cupar_, p. 179.

[525] 'Men sweat, till, sow much, and the sun and summer, and clouds,

warme dewes and raines smile upon cornes and meddowes, yet God

steppeth in betweene the mouth of the husbandman and the sickle,

and blasteth all.' _Rutherford's Christ Dying_, p. 87. Compare

_Baillie's Letters_, vol. iii. p. 52, on the 'continuance of very

intemperate rain upon the corns,' as one of the 'great signs of

the wrath of God.'

[526] 'When the Lord is provoked, he can not only send an affliction,

but so order it, by faire appearances of a better lot, and

heightening of the sinners expectation and desire, as may make it

most sad.' _Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor Prophets_,

vol. iii. pp. 9, 10.

Under the influence of this horrible creed, and from the unbounded sway

exercised by the clergy who advocated it, the Scotch mind was thrown into

such a state, that, during the seventeenth, and part of the eighteenth,

century, some of the noblest feelings of which our nature is capable, the

feelings of hope, of love, and of gratitude, were set aside, and were

replaced by the dictates of a servile and ignominous fear. The physical

sufferings to which the human frame is liable, nay, even the very

accidents to which we are casually exposed, were believed to proceed, not

from our ignorance, nor from our carelessness, but from the rage of the

Deity. If a fire chanced to break out in Edinburgh, the greatest alarm

was excited, because it was the voice of God crying out against a

luxurious and dissolute city.[527] If a boil or a sore appeared on your

body, that, too, was a divine punishment, and it was more than doubtful

whether it might lawfully be cured.[528] The small-pox, being one of the

most fatal as well as one of the most loathsome of all diseases, was

especially sent by God; and, on that account, the remedy of inoculation

was scouted as a profane attempt to frustrate His intentions.[529] Other

disorders, which, though less terrible, were very painful, proceeded from

the same source, and all owed their origin to the anger of the

Almighty.[530] In every thing, His power was displayed, not by increasing

the happiness of men, nor by adding to their comforts, but by hurting and

vexing them in all possible ways. His hand, always raised against the

people, would sometimes deprive them of wine by causing the vintage to

fail;[531] sometimes, would destroy their cattle in a storm;[532] and

sometimes, would even make dogs bite their legs when they least expected

it.[533] Sometimes, He would display His wrath by making the weather

excessively dry;[534] sometimes, by making it equally wet.[535] He was

always punishing; always busy in increasing the general suffering, or, to

use the language of the time, making the creature smart under the

rod.[536] Every fresh war was the result of His special interference; it

was not caused by the meddling folly or insensate ambition of statesmen,

but it was the immediate work of the Deity, who was thus made responsible

for all the devastations, the murders, and other crimes more horrible

still, which war produces.[537] In the intervals of peace, which, at that

period, were very rare, He had other means of vexing mankind. The shock

of an earthquake was a mark of His displeasure;[538] a comet was a sign

of coming tribulation;[539] and when an eclipse appeared, the panic was

so universal, that persons of all ranks hastened to church to deprecate

His wrath.[540] What they heard there, would increase their fear, instead

of allaying it. For the clergy taught their hearers, that even so

ordinary an event as thunder, was meant to excite awe, and was sent for

the purpose of showing to men with how terrible a master they had to

deal.[541] Not to tremble at thunder, was, therefore, a mark of impiety;

and, in this respect, man was unfavourably contrasted with the lower

animals, since they were invariably moved by this symptom of divine

power.[542]

[527] In 1696, there was a fire in Edinburgh; whereupon Moncrief, in his

sermon next day, 'told us, "That God's voice was crying to this

city, and that he was come to the very ports, and was crying over

the walls to us; that we should amend our ways, lest he should

come to our city, and consume us in a terrible manner." I cannot

tell what this Dispensation of Providence wrought on me,' &c.

_Memoirs or Spiritual Exercises of Elizabeth West, written by her

own Hand_, pp. 41, 42. See also, at pp. 122, 123, the account of

another conflagration, where it is said, 'there was much of God to

be seen in this fire.' Compare a curious passage in _Calderwood's

History of the Kirk of Scotland_, vol. vii. pp. 455, 456.

[528] The Rev. James Fraser had a boil, and afterwards a fever. 'During

this sickness he miraculously allayed the pain of my boil, and

speedily, and that without means, cured it; for however I bought

some things to prevent it, yet, looking on it as a punishment from

God, I knew not if I could be free to take the rod out of his

hand, and to counterwork him.' _Memoirs of the Rev. James Fraser

of Brea, Minister of the Gospel at Culross, written by Himself_,

in _Select Biographies_, vol. ii. p. 223. Durham declaims against

'Sinful shunning and shifting off suffering;' and Rutherford says,

'No man should rejoice at weakness and diseases; but I think we

may have a sort of gladness at boils and sores, because, without

them, Christ's fingers, as a slain Lord, should never have touched

our skin.' _Durham's Law Unsealed_, p. 160; _Rutherford's

Religious Letters_, p. 265. I do not know what effect these

passages may produce upon the reader; but it makes my flesh creep

to quote them. Compare _Stevenson's Rare, Soul-strengthening, and

Comforting Cordial_, p. 35.

[529] It was not until late in the eighteenth century, that the Scotch

clergy gave up this notion. At last, even they became influenced

by the ridicule to which their superstition exposed them, and

which produced more effect than any argument could have done. The

doctrines, however, which they and their predecessors had long

inculcated, had so corrupted the popular mind, that instances

will, I believe, be found even in the nineteenth century, of the

Scotch deeming precautions against small-pox to be criminal, or,

as they called it, flying in the face of Providence. The latest

evidence I can at this moment put my hand on, is in a volume

published in 1797. It is stated by the Rev. John Paterson, that,

in the parish of Auldearn, in the county of Nairn, 'Very few have

fallen a sacrifice to the small-pox, though the people are in

general averse to inoculation, from the general gloominess of

their faith, which teaches them, that all diseases which afflict

the human frame are instances of the Divine interposition, for the

punishment of sin; any interference, therefore, on their part,

they deem an usurpation of the prerogative of the Almighty.'

_Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol. xix. p. 618,

Edinburgh, 1797. See also vol. xiv. p. 52, Edinburgh, 1795. This

is well said. No doubt, so abject, and so pernicious, a

superstition among the people, was the result of 'the general

gloominess of their faith.' But the Rev. John Paterson has

forgotten to add, that the gloominess of which he complains, was

in strict conformity with the teachings of the most able, the most

energetic, and the most venerated of the Scotch clergy. Mr.

Paterson renders scant justice to his countrymen, and should

rather have praised the tenacity with which they adhered to the

instructions they had long been accustomed to receive.

[530] The Rev. John Welsh, when suffering from a painful disorder, and

also from other troubles, writes: 'My douleurs ar impossible to

expresse.' ... 'It is the Lord's indignation.' See his letter, in

_Miscellany of the Wodrow Society_, vol. i. p. 558. See also

_Cowper's Heaven Opened_, p. 128. A pain in one's side was the

work of 'the Lord' (_Memoirs of Marion Laird_, p. 95); so was a

sore throat (_Wast's Memoirs_, p. 203); and so was the fever in

pleurisy. _Robe's Narratives of the Extraordinary Work of the

Spirit of God_, p. 66.

[531] In January 1653, 'This tyme, and mony monethis befoir, thair wes

great skairshtie of wynes. In this also appered Godis justice

toward this natioun for abusing of that blissing many yeiris

befoir.' _Nicoll's Diary_, p. 105.

[532] This idea was so deeply rooted, that we actually find a public

fast and humiliation ordered, on account of 'this present uncouth

storme of frost and snaw, quhilk hes continewit sa lang that the

bestiall ar dieing thik fauld.' _Records of the Kirk Session,

Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen_, p. 82.

[533] 'There was a dog bit my leg most desperately. I no sooner received

this, but I saw the hand of God in it.' _Wast's Memoirs_, p. 114.

[534] 'The evident documentis of Goddis wrath aganes the land, be the

extraordinarie drouth.' _Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery,

and Synod of Aberdeen_, p. 78.

[535] 'The hynous synnes of the land produced much takines of Godis

wraith; namelie, in this spring tyme, for all Februar and a great

pairt of Marche wer full of havie weittis.' _Nicoll's Diary_,

p. 152.

[536] _Halyburton's Great Concern of Salvation_, p. 85. _Fleming's

Fulfilling of the Scripture_, pp. 101, 149, 176. _Balfour's _,

vol. i. p. 169. _Boston's Sermons_, p. 52. _Boston's Human Nature

in its Four-fold State_, pp. 67, 136. _Memoirs of Marion Laird_,

pp. 63, 90, 113, 163. _Hutcheson's Exposition of the Book of Job_,

pp. 62, 91, 140, 187, 242, 310, 449, 471, 476, 527, 528.

[537] 'War is one of the sharp scourges whereby God punisheth wicked

nations; and it cometh upon a people, not accidentally, but _by

the especial providence of God_, who hath peace and war in his own

hand.' _Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor Prophets_, vol. ii.

p. 3. In 1644, 'Civill war wracks Spaine, and lately wracked

Italie: it is coming by appearance shortlie upon France. The just

Lord, who beholds with patience the wickednesse of nations, at

last _arises in furie_.' ... 'The Swedish and Danish fleets, after

a hott fight, are making for a new onsett: great blood is feared

shall be shortly shed there, both by sea and land. The _anger of

the Lord_ against all christendome is great.' _Baillie's Letters

and Journals_, vol. ii. pp. 190, 223.

[538] 'Earthquakes, whereby God, when he is angry, overthrows and

overturns very mountains.' _Hutcheson's Exposition of the Book of

Job_, p. 114. 'The ministris and sessioun convening in the

sessioun hous, considdering the fearfull erthquak that wes

yisternicht, the aucht of this instant, throughout this haill

citie about nine houris at evin, to be a document that God is

angrie aganes the land and aganes this citie in particular, for

the manifauld sinnis of the people,' &c. _Records of the Kirk

Session, Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen_, p. 64.

[539] 'Whatever natural causes may be adduced for those alarming

appearances, the system of comets is yet so uncertain, and they

have so frequently preceded desolating strokes and turns in public

affairs, that they seem designed in providence to stir up sinners

to seriousness. Those preachers from heaven, when God's messengers

were silenced, neither prince nor prelate could stop.' _Wodrow's

History of the Church of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 421.

[540] 'People of all sortes rane to the churches to deprecat God's

wrath.' _Balfour's Annales_, vol. i. p. 403. This was in 1598.

[541] 'By it, he manifests his power and shows himself terrible.'

_Durham's Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation_, p. 33.

Compare _Row's History of the Kirk_, p. 333; and a passage in

_Laird's Memoirs_, p. 69, which shows how greedily their credulous

hearers imbibed such notions: 'There were several signal evidences

that the Lord's righteous judgments were abroad in the earth;

great claps of thunder,' &c.

[542] 'The stupidity and senselessnesse of man is greater than that of

the brute creatures, which are all more moved with the thunder,

then the hearts of men for the most part.' _Dickson's Explication

of the First Fifty Psalms_, p. 193. Hutcheson makes a similar

remark concerning earthquakes. 'The shaking and trembling of

insensible creatures, when God is angry, serves to condemn men,

who are not sensible of it, nor will stoop under his hand.'

_Hutcheson's Exposition of the Book of Job_, p. 115.

These visitations, eclipses, comets, earthquakes, thunder, famine,

pestilence, war, disease, blights in the air, failures in the crops, cold

winters, dry summers, these, and the like, were, in the opinion of the

Scotch divines, outbreaks of the anger of the Almighty against the sins

of men; and that such outbreaks were incessant is not surprising, when we

consider that, in the same age, and according to the same creed, the most

innocent, and even praiseworthy, actions were deemed sinful, and worthy

of chastisement. The opinions held on this subject are not only curious,

but extremely instructive. Besides forming an important part of the

history of the human mind, they supply decisive proof of the danger of

allowing a single profession to exalt itself above all other professions.

For, in Scotland, as elsewhere, directly the clergy succeeded in

occupying a more than ordinary amount of public attention, they availed

themselves of that circumstance to propagate those ascetic doctrines,

which, while they strike at the root of human happiness, benefit no one

except the class which advocates them. That class, indeed, can hardly

fail to reap advantage from a policy, which, by increasing the

apprehensions to which the ignorance and timidity of men make them too

liable, does also increase their eagerness to fly for support to their

spiritual advisers. And the greater the apprehension, the greater the

eagerness. Of this, the Scotch clergy, who were perfect masters of their

own art, were well aware. Under their influence, a system of morals was

established, which, representing nearly every act as sinful, kept the

people in perpetual dread, lest unwittingly they were committing some

enormous offence, which would bring upon their heads a signal and

overwhelming punishment.

According to this code, all the natural affections, all social pleasures,

all amusements, and all the joyous instincts of the human heart were

sinful, and were to be rooted out. It was sinful for a mother to wish to

have sons;[543] and, if she had any, it was sinful to be anxious about

their welfare.[544] It was a sin to please yourself, or to please others;

for, by adopting either course, you were sure to displease God.[545] All

pleasures, therefore, however slight in themselves, or however lawful

they might appear, must be carefully avoided.[546] When mixing in

society, we should edify the company, if the gift of edification had been

bestowed upon us; but we should by no means attempt to amuse them.[547]

Cheerfulness, especially when it rose to laughter, was to be guarded

against; and we should choose for our associates grave and sorrowful men,

who were not likely to indulge in so foolish a practice.[548] Smiling,

provided it stopped short of laughter, might occasionally be allowed;

still, being a carnal pastime, it was a sin to smile on Sunday.[549] Even

on week-days, those who were most imbued with religious principles hardly

ever smiled, but sighed, groaned, and wept.[550] A true Christian would

be careful, in his movements, to preserve invariable gravity, never

running, but walking soberly, and not treading out in a brisk and lively

manner, as unbelievers are wont to do.[551] So, too, if he wrote to a

friend, he must beware lest his letter should contain any thing like

jocoseness; since jesting is incompatible with a holy and serious

life.[552]

[543] Lady Colsfeild 'had born two or three daughters, and was sinfully

anxious after a son, to heir the estate of Colsfeild.' _Wodrow's

Analecta_, vol. iii. p. 293.

[544] Under the influence of this terrible creed, the amiable mother of

Duncan Forbes, writing to him respecting his own health and that

of his brother, speaks 'of my sinful God-provoking anxiety, both

for your souls and bodies.' _Burton's Lives of Lovat and Forbes_,

p. 724. The theological theory, underlying and suggesting this,

was, that 'grace bridles these affections.' _Boston's Human Nature

in its Four-fold State_, p. 184. Hence its rigid application on

days set apart for religious purposes. The Rev. Mr. Lyon (_History

of Saint Andrews_, vol. i. p. 458) mentions that some of the

Scotch clergy, in drawing up regulations for the government of a

colony, inserted the following clause: 'No husband shall kiss his

wife, and no mother shall kiss her child on the Sabbath day.'

[545] 'The more you please yourselves and the world, the further you are

from pleasing God.' _Binning's Sermons_, vol. ii. p. 55. Elsewhere

(vol. ii. p. 45): 'Amity to ourselves is enmity to God.'

[546] 'Pleasures are most carefully to be auoided: because they both

harme and deceiue.' _Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule_, p. 251.

At p. 268, the same authority says, 'Beate downe thy body, and

bring it to subiection by abstaining, not only from vnlawfull

pleasures, but also from lawfull and indifferent delights.'

[547] According to _Hutcheson's Exposition of Job_, p. 6, 'there is no

time wherein men are more ready to miscarry, and discover any

bitter root in them, then when they are about the liberal use of

the creatures, and amidst occasions of mirth and cheerfulness.'

How this doctrine ripened, cannot be better illustrated than from

the sentiments entertained, so late as the early part of the

eighteenth century, by Colonel Blackader, a Scotch officer, who

was also an educated man, who had seen much of the world, and

might, to some degree, be called a man of the world. In December

1714, he went to a wedding, and, on his return home, he writes: 'I

was cheerful, and perhaps gave too great a swing to raillery, but

I hope not light or vain in conversation. I desire always to have

my speech seasoned with salt, and ministering profit to the

hearers. Sitting up late, and merry enough, though I hope

innocent; but I will not justify myself.' _The Life and Diary of

Lieut.-Col. J. Blackader, by Andrew Crichton_, p. 453. On another

occasion (p. 511), in 1720, he was at an evening party. 'The young

people were merry. I laid a restraint upon myself for fear of

going too far, and joined but little, only so as not to show

moroseness or ill-breeding. We sat late, but the conversation was

innocent, and no drinking but as we pleased. However, much time is

spent; which I dare not justify. _In all things we offend._' At p.

159, he writes, 'I should always be mixing something that may

edify in my discourse;' and, says his biographer (p. 437),

'Conversation, when it ceased to accomplish this object, he

regarded as _degenerating into idle entertainment_, which ought to

be checked rather than encouraged.'

[548] 'Frequent the gravest company, and the fellowship of those that are

sorrowfull.' _Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule_, p. 416. Compare

the attacks on 'too much carnal mirth and laughter,' in _Durham's

Law Unsealed_, p. 323; in _Fleming's Fulfilling of the Scripture_,

p. 226; and in _Fergusson's Exposition of the Epistles of Paul_,

p. 227. See also _Gray's Spiritual Warfare_, p. 42. Cowper says,

'Woe be unto them that now laugh, for assuredly they shall weepe,

the end of their joy shall be endleese mourning and gnashing of

teeth, they shall shed tears abundantly with Esau, but shall find

no place for mercy.' _Cowper's Heaven Opened_, p. 271. Hutcheson,

in a train of unusual liberality, permits occasional laughter. He

says, 'There is a faculty of laughing given to men, which

certainly is given for use, at least at sometimes; and diversions

are sometime needfull for men who are serious and employed in

weighty affairs.' ... 'And particularly, laughter is sometimes

lawful for magistrates and others in publick charge, not only that

they may recreate themselves, but that, thereby, and by the like

insinuating carriage, they may gain the affection of the people.'

_Hutcheson's Exposition of the Book of Job_, edit. folio, 1669,

pp. 389, 390.

[549] In 1650, when Charles II. was in Scotland, 'the clergy reprehended

him very sharply, if he smiled on those days' (Sundays).

_Clarendon's History of the Rebellion_, book xiii. p. 747, edit.

Oxford, 1843.

[550] It is said of Donald Cargill, that, 'his very countenance was

edifying to beholders; often sighing with deep groans.' _A Cloud

of Witnesses for the Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ_, p. 423.

The celebrated James Durham was 'a person of the utmost gravity,

and scarce smiled at anything.' _Howie's Biographia Scoticana_, p.

226. Of Livingston, we are told 'that he was a very affectionate

person, and weeped much; that it was his ordinary way, and might

be observed almost every Sabbath, that when he came into the

pulpite he sate doun a litle, and looked first to the one end of

the kirk, and then to the other; and then, ordinarly, the tear

shott in his eye, and he weeped, and oftimes he began his preface

and his work weeping.' _Wodrow's Analecta_, vol. ii. p. 249. James

Alexander 'used to weep much in prayer and preaching; he was every

way most savoury.' _Ibid._, vol. iii. p. 39. As to the Rev. John

Carstairs, 'his band in the Sabbath would have been all wett, as

if it had been douked, with tears, before he was done with his

first prayer.' p. 48. Aird, minister of Dalserf, 'weeping much'

(_Ibid._, vol. iii. p. 56), 'Mr. James Stirling tells me he was a

most fervent, affectionat, weeping preacher.' p. 172; and the Rev.

Alexander Dunlop was noted for what was termed 'a holy groan,'

vol. iii. p. 21. See also, on weeping as a mark of religion,

_Wast's Memoirs_, pp. 83, 84; and _Robe's Narrative of the

Extraordinary Work of the Spirit of God_, pp. 21, 31, 75, 150. One

passage from the most popular of the Scotch preachers, I hesitate

as to the propriety of quoting; but it is essential that their

ideas should be known, if the history of Scotland is to be

understood. Rutherford, after stating whom it is that we should

seek to imitate, adds: 'Christ did never laugh on earth that we

read of, but he wept.' _Rutherford's Christ Dying_, 1647, 4to, p.

525. I publish this with no irreverent spirit; God forbid that I

should. But I will not be deterred from letting this age see the

real character of a system which aimed at destroying all human

happiness, exciting slavish and abject fear, and turning this

glorious world into one vast theatre of woe.

[551] 'Walk with a sober pace, not "tinkling with your feet."' _Memoirs

of the Rev. James Fraser, written by Himself_, in _Select

Biographies_, vol. ii. p. 280. 'It is somewhat like this, or less

than this, which the Lord condemneth, _Isa._ iii. 16, 'Walking

and mincing, or tripping and making a tinkling with their feet.'

What is that but disdaining the grave way of walking, to affect

an art in it? as many do now in our days; and shall this be

displeasing to the Lord, and not the other? seeing he loveth, and

is best pleased with, the native way of carrying the body.'

_Durham's Law Unsealed_, p. 324. 'The believer hath, or at least

ought to have, and, if he be like himself, will have, a well

ordered walk, and will be in his carriage stately and princely.'

_Durham's Exposition of the Song of Solomon_, p. 365.

[552] 'At home, writing letters to a friend. My vein is inclined to jest

and humour. The letter was too comical and jocose; and after I had

sent it away, I had a check that it was too light, and jesting

foolishly. I sent and got it back, and destroyed it. My temper

goes too far that way, and I ought to check it, and be more on my

guard, and study edification in every thing.' _Crichton's Life and

Diary of Blackader_, pp. 536, 537. Even amongst young children,

from eight years old and upwards, toys and games were bad; and it

was a good sign when they were discarded. 'Some very young, of

eight and nine years of age, some twelve and thirteen. They still

inclined more and more to their duty, so that they meet three

times a day, in the morning, at night, and at noon. Also they have

forsaken all their childish fancies and plays; so these that have

been awakened are known by their countenance and conversation,

their walk and behaviour.' _Robe's Narratives of the Extraordinary

Work of the Spirit of God_, pp. 79, 80.

It was, moreover, wrong to take pleasure in beautiful scenery; for a

pious man had no concern with such matters, which were beneath him, and

the admiration of which should be left to the unconverted.[553] The

unregenerate might delight in these vanities, but they who were properly

instructed, saw Nature as she really was, and knew that as she, for about

five thousand years, had been constantly on the move, her vigour was

well-nigh spent, and her pristine energy had departed.[554] To the eye

of ignorance, she still seemed fair and fresh; the fact, however, was,

that she was worn out and decrepit; she was suffering from extreme old

age; her frame, no longer elastic, was leaning on one side, and she soon

would perish.[555] Owing to the sin of man, all things were getting

worse, and nature was degenerating so fast, that already the lilies were

losing their whiteness, and the roses their smell.[556] The heavens were

waxing old;[557] the very sun, which lighted the earth, was becoming

feeble.[558] This universal degeneracy was sad to think of; but the

profane knew it not. Their ungodly eyes were still pleased by what they

saw. Such was the result of their obstinate determination to indulge the

senses, all of which were evil; the eye being, beyond comparison, the

most wicked. Hence, it was especially marked out for divine punishment;

and, being constantly sinning, it was afflicted with fifty-two different

diseases, that is, one disease for each week in the year.[559]

[553] 'To the unmortified man, the world smelleth like the garden of

God' ... 'the world is not to him an ill-smelled stinking corps.'

_Rutherford's Christ Dying_, p. 498. But those who were properly

mortified, knew that 'the earth is but a potter's house' (_Ibid._,

p. 286); 'an old thred-bare-worn case' (_Ibid._, p. 530); a 'smoky

house' (_Rutherford's Religious Letters_, p. 100); a 'plaistered,

rotten world' (_Ibid._, p. 132); and 'an ashy and dirty earth'

(_Ibid._, p. 169). 'The earth also is spotted (like the face of a

woman once beautifull, but now deformed with scabs of leprosie)

with thistles, thornes, and much barren wilderness.' _Cowper's

Heaven Opened_, p. 255.

[554] 'Wearinesse and motion is laid on Moon and Sunne, and all

creatures on this side of the Moon. Seas ebbe and flow, and that's

trouble; winds blow, rivers move, heavens and stars these five

thousand yeares, except one time, have not had sixe minutes rest.'

... 'The Sunne that never rests, but moves as swiftly in the night

as in the day.' _Rutherford's Christ Dying_, pp. 12, 157. 'This is

the world's old age; it is declining; albeit it seem a fair and

beautiful thing in the eyes of them who know no better, and unto

them who are of yesterday and know nothing, it looks as if it had

been created yesterday; yet the truth is, and a believer knows, it

is near the grave.' _Binning's Sermons_, vol. iii. p. 372.

[555] 'This, then, I say, is the state all things ye see are in,--it is

their old age. The creation now is an old rotten house that is all

dropping through and leaning to the one side.' _Binning's

Sermons_, vol. iii. p. 398.

[556] 'The lilies and roses, which, no doubt, had more sweetnesse of

beauty and smell, before the sin of man made them vanity-sick.'

_Rutherford's Christ Dying_, p. 185.

[557] 'The heavens that are supposed to be incorruptible, yet they wax

old as doth a garment.' _Binning's Sermons_, vol. i. p. 95.

[558] 'The neerer the sun drawes to the end of his daily course, the

lesse is his strength, for we see the Sunne in the evening decayes

in heat; so it is, the longer by reuolution he turnes about in his

sphere, he waxes alway the weaker; and, to vse the similitude of

the holy spirit, as a garment the older it groweth becomes the

lesse beautifull.' _Cowper's Heaven Opened_, p. 255.

[559] 'It is so delicate by nature, that since it was the first sense

that offended, it is, aboue all the rest, made subject (as a

condigne punishment) to as many maladies, as there are weekes in a

yeere.' _Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule_, p. 501. The Scotch

divines were extremely displeased with our eyes. Rutherford

contemptuously calls them 'two clay windows.' _Rutherford's Christ

Dying_, p. 570. Gray, going still further, says, 'these cursed

eyes of ours.' _Gray's Great and Precious Promises_, p. 53.

On this account, it was improper to care for beauty of any kind; or, to

speak more accurately, there was no real beauty. The world afforded

nothing worth looking at, save and except the Scotch Kirk, which was

incomparably the most beautiful thing under heaven.[560] To look at that

was a lawful enjoyment, but every other pleasure was sinful. To write

poetry, for instance, was a grievous offence, and worthy of especial

condemnation.[561] To listen to music was equally wrong; for men had no

right to disport themselves in such idle recreation. Hence the clergy

forbade music to be introduced even during the festivities of a

marriage;[562] neither would they permit, on any occasion, the national

entertainment of pipers.[563] Indeed, it was sinful to look at any

exhibition in the streets, even though you only looked at it from your

own window.[564] Dancing was so extremely sinful, that an edict,

expressly prohibiting it, was enacted by the General Assembly, and read

in every church in Edinburgh.[565] New Year's Eve had long been a period

of rejoicing in Scotland, as in other parts of Europe. The Church laid

her hands on this also, and ordered that no one should sing the songs

usual on that day, or should admit such singers into his own private

house.[566]

[560] 'The true visible Kirk where God's ordinances are set up, as he

hath appointed, where his word is purely preached, is the most

beautifull thing under heaven.' _Dickson's Explication of the

First Fifty Psalms_, p. 341.

[561] I have one very late, and, on that account, very curious, instance

of the diffusion of this feeling in Scotland. In 1767, a vacancy

occurred in the mastership of the grammar-school of Greenock. It

was offered to John Wilson, the author of 'Clyde.' But, says his

biographer, 'the magistrates and minister of Greenock thought fit,

before they would admit Mr. Wilson to the superintendance of the

grammar school, to stipulate that he should abandon "the profane

and unprofitable art of poem-making."' _Lives of Eminent Scotsmen

by the Society of Ancient Scots_, 1821, vol. v. p. 169.

[562] 'Sept. 22. 1649.--The quhilk day the Sessioune caused mak this

act, that ther sould be no pypers at brydels, and who ever sould

have a pyper playing at their brydell on their mariage day, sall

loose their consigned money, and be farder punisched as the

Sessioune thinks fitt.' _Extracts from the Registers of the

Presbytery of Glasgow, and of the Kirk Sessions of the Parishes of

Cambusnethan Humbie and Stirling_, p. 34. This curious volume is a

quarto, and without date; unless, indeed, one of the title-pages

is wanting in my copy.

[563] See the Minutes of the Kirk Session of Glasgow, in _Wodrow's

Collections upon the Lives of Ministers_, vol. ii. part ii. p. 76;

also the case of 'Mure, pyper,' in _Selections from the Minutes of

the Presbyteries of Saint Andrews and Cupar_, p. 72.

[564] This notion lingered on, probably to the beginning of this

century; certainly to late in the last. In a work published in

Scotland in 1836, it is stated, that a clergyman was still alive,

who was 'severely censured,' merely because, when Punch was

performing, 'the servant was sent out to the showman to request

him to come below the windows of her master's house, that the

clergyman and his wife might enjoy the sight.' _Traditions of

Perth by George Penny_, Perth, 1836, p. 124.

[565] '17 Feb. 1650. Ane act of the commissioun of the Generall Assemblie

wes red in all the churches of Edinburgh dischargeing promiscuous

dansing.' _Nicoll's Diary_, p. 3. See also _Acts of the General

Assembly of the Church of Scotland_, 1638-1842, p. 201; _Register

of the Kirk Session of Cambusnethan_, p. 35; _Minutes of the

Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar_, pp. 55, 181; _Minutes of

the Synod of Fife_, pp. 150, 169, 175; and a choice passage in _A

Collection of Sermons by Eminent Divines_, p. 51.

[566] See _Selections from the Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery,

and Synod of Aberdeen_, pp. 77, 78, forbidding any one to 'giwe

ony meatt or drink to these sangsteris or lat thame within thair

houss.' The singers were to be 'put in prisoun.'

At the christening of a child, the Scotch were accustomed to assemble

their relations, including their distant cousins, in whom, then as now,

they much abounded. But this caused pleasure, and pleasure was sinful. It

was, therefore, forbidden; the number of guests was limited; and the

strictest supervision was exercised by the clergy, to prevent the

possibility of any one being improperly happy on such occasions.[567]

[567] In 1643 the Presbytery of St. Andrews ordered that 'because of the

great abuse that is likewayes among them by conveening multitudes

at baptismes and contracts, the ministers and sessions are

appointed to take strict order for restraineing these abuses, that

in number they exceid not sixe or seven. As also ordaines that the

hostlers quho mak such feists salbe censured by the sessions.'

_Minutes of the Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar_, p. 11. See

also _Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery, and Synod of

Aberdeen_, pp. 109, 110, complaining of the custom 'that everie

base servile man in the towne, when he has a barne to be baptesed,

invitis tuelff or sextene persones to be his gossopes and

godfatheris to his barne,' &c.; and enacting 'that it shall not be

lesume to any inhabitant within this burt quhasoever, to invite

any ma persones to be godfatheris to thair barne in ony tyme

cumming bot tua or four at the most, lyk as the Kirk officier is

expresslie commandit and prohibitt that from hence furth he tak vp

no ma names to be godfatheris, nor giwe any ma vp to the redar bot

four at the most, vnder all hiest censure he may incur be the

contrairie, and this ordinance to be intimat out of pulpitt, that

the people pretend no ignorance thairof.'

Not only at baptisms, but also at marriages, the same spirit was

displayed. In every country, it has been usual to make merry at

marriages; partly from a natural feeling, and partly, perhaps, from a

notion that a contract so often productive of misery, might, at all

events, begin with mirth. The Scotch clergy, however, thought otherwise.

At the weddings of the poor, they would allow no rejoicing;[568] and at

the weddings of the rich, it was the custom for one of them to go for the

express purpose of preventing an excess of gaiety. A better precaution

could hardly be devised; but they did not trust exclusively to it. To

check the lusts of the flesh, they, furthermore, took into account the

cookery, the choice of the meats, and the number of the dishes. They

were, in fact, so solicitous on these points, and so anxious that the

nuptial feast should not be too attractive that they fixed its cost, and

would not allow any person to exceed the sum which they thought proper

to name.[569]

[568] They forbade music and dancing; and they ordered that not more

than twenty-four persons should be present. See the enactment, in

1647, respecting 'Pennie bryddells,' in _Minutes of the

Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar_, p. 117. In 1650, 'The

Presbyterie being sadly weghted with the report of the

continwance, and exhorbitant and unnecessarly numerous confluences

of people at pennie brydles, and of inexpedient and wnlawfull

pypeing and dancing at the same, so scandalous and sinfull in this

tyme of our Churches lamentable conditioun; and being apprehensive

that ministers and Kirk Sessiouns have not bein so vigilant and

active (as neid werre), for repressing of these disorders, doe

therfor most seriously recommend to ministers and Kirk Sessiouns

to represse the same.' _Ibid._ pp. 169, 170. See, further,

_Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark_, p. 29; and _Extracts from

the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie_, pp. 4, 144.

[569] See two curious instances of limitation of price, in _Irving's

History of Dumbartonshire_, p. 567; and in _Wodrow's Collections

upon the Lives of Ministers_, vol. ii. part ii. p. 34.

Nothing escaped their vigilance. For, in their opinion, even the best man

was, at his best time, so full of turpitude, that his actions could not

fail to be wicked.[570] He never passed a day without sinning, and the

smallest sin deserved eternal wrath.[571] Indeed, every thing he did was

sinful, no matter how pure his motives.[572] Man had been gradually

falling lower and lower, and had now sunk to a point of debasement, which

made him inferior to the beasts that perish.[573] Even before he was

born, and while he was yet in his mother's womb, his guilt began.[574]

And when he grew up, his crimes multiplied thick and fast; one of the

most heinous of them being the practice of teaching children new

words,--a horrible custom, justly visited by divine wrath.[575] This,

however, was but one of a series of innumerable and incessant offences;

so that the only wonder was, that the earth could restrain herself at the

hideous spectacle which man presented, and that she did not open her

mouth, as of old, and swallow him even in the midst of his

wickedness.[576] For, it was certain, that in the whole creation, there

was nothing so deformed and monstrous as he.[577]

[570] 'What a vile, haughty, and base creature he is--how defiled and

desperately wicked his nature--how abominable his actions; in a

word, what a compound of darkness and wickedness he is--a heap of

defiled dust, and a mass of confusion--a sink of impiety and

iniquity, _even the best of mankind_, those of the rarest and most

refined extraction, _take them at their best estate_.' _Binning's

Sermons_, vol. ii. p. 302. Compare _Boston's Human Nature in its

Four-fold State_, pp. 26, 27.

[571] 'The least sin cannot but deserve God's wrath and curse eternally.'

_Dickson's Truth's Victory over Error_, p. 71. 'All men, even the

regenerate, sin daily.' _Ibid._ p. 153.

[572] 'Our best works have such a mixture of corruption and sin in them,

that they deserve his curse and wrath.' _Ibid._ p. 130.

[573] 'But now, falling away from God, hee hath also so farre degenerated

from his owne kind, that he is become inferiour to the beasts.'

_Cowper's Heaven Opened_, p. 251. 'O! is not man become so brutish

and ignorant, that he may be sent unto the beasts of the field to

be instructed of that which is his duty?' _Gray's Spiritual

Warfare_, p. 28. 'Men are naturally more bruitish than beasts

themselves.' _Boston's Human Nature in its Four-fold State_,

p. 58. 'Worse than the beast of the field.' _Halyburton's Great

Concern of Salvation_, p. 71.

[574] 'Infants, even in their mother's belly, have in themselves

sufficient guilt to deserve such judgments;' _i.e._ when women

with child are 'ript up.' _Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor

Prophets_, vol. i. p. 255.

[575] 'And in our speech, our Scripture and old Scots names are gone out

of request; instead of _Father_ and _Mother_, _Mamma_ and _Papa_,

training children to speak nonsense, and what they do not

understand. These few instances, amongst many that might be given,

are additional causes of God's wrath.' _The Life and Death of Mr.

Alexander Peden, late Minister of the Gospel at New Glenluce, in

Galloway_, in _Walker's Biographia Presbyteriana_, vol. i. p. 140.

[576] 'Yea, if the Lord did not restraine her, shee would open her mouth

and swallow the wicked, as she did Corah, Dathan, and Abiram.'

_Cowper's Heaven Opened_, p. 257. Compare _Hutcheson's Exposition

on the Minor Prophets_, vol. i. p. 507.

[577] 'There is nothing so monstrous, so deformed in the world, as man.'

_Binning's Sermons_, vol. i. p. 234. 'There is not in all the

creation such a miserable creature as man.' _Ibid._ vol. iii. p.

321. 'Nothing so miserable.' _Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule_,

p. 37.

Such being the case, it behoved the clergy to come forward, and to guard

men against their own vices, by controlling their daily actions, and

forcing them to a right conduct. This they did vigorously. Aided by the

elders, who were their tools and the creatures of their power, they, all

over Scotland, organized themselves into legislative bodies, and, in the

midst of their little senate, they enacted laws which the people were

bound to obey. If they refused, woe be to them. They became unruly sons

of the Church, and were liable to be imprisoned, to be fined, or to be

whipped,[578] or to be branded with a hot iron,[579] or to do penance

before the whole congregation, humbling themselves, bare-footed, and

with their hair cut on one side,[580] while the minister, under pretence

of rebuking them, enjoyed his triumph.[581] All this was natural enough.

For the clergy were the delegates of heaven, and the interpreters of its

will. They, therefore, were the best judges of what men ought to do; and

any one whom they censured was bound to submit with humility and

repentance.[582]

[578] 'December 17th, 1635. Mention made of a correction house, which

the Session ordeans persons to be taken to, both men and women,

and appoints them to be whipt every day during the Session's

will.' _Wodrow's Collections upon the Lives of Ministers_, vol.

ii. part ii. p. 67.

[579] On the 22nd October 1648, the Kirk Session of Dunfermline ordered

that a certain Janet Robertson 'shall be cartit and scourged

through the town, and markit with an hot iron.' _Chalmers' History

of Dunfermline_, p. 437.

[580] 'As they punish by pecuniary fines, so corporally too, by

imprisoning the persons of the delinquents, using them

disgracefully, carting them through cities, making them stand in

logges, as they call them, pillaries (which in the country

churches are fixed to the two sides of the main door of the Parish

Church), cutting the halfe of their hair, shaving their beards,

&c., and it is more than ordinary, by their "original" and "proper

power," to banish them out of the bounds and limits of the parish,

or presbytery, as they list to order it.' _Presbytery Displayd_,

p. 4.

[581] The Scotch clergy of the seventeenth century were not much given

to joking; but on one of these occasions a preacher is said to

have hazarded a pun. A woman, named Ann Cantly, being made to do

penance, 'Here' (said the minister), 'Here is one upon the stool

of repentance, they call her _Cantly_; she saith herself, she is

an honest woman, but I trow _scantly_.' _Scotch Presbyterian

Eloquence_, p. 125. From what I have read of Scotch theology, I

can bear testimony to the accuracy of this book, so far as its

general character is concerned. Indeed, the author, through fear

of being entirely discredited, has often rather understated his

case.

[582] As Durham says, in his _Exposition of the Song of Solomon_,

p. 451, 'It is no burden to an honest believer to acknowledge

Christ's ministers, to obey their doctrine, and submit to their

censures.'

The arbitrary and irresponsible tribunals, which now sprung up all over

Scotland, united the executive authority with the legislative, and

exercised both functions at the same time. Declaring that certain acts

ought not to be committed, they took the law into their own hands, and

punished those who had committed them. According to the principles of

this new jurisprudence, of which the clergy were the authors, it became a

sin for any Scotchman to travel in a Catholic country.[583] It was a sin

for any Scotch innkeeper to admit a Catholic into his inn.[584] It was a

sin for any Scotch town to hold a market either on Saturday or on Monday,

because both days were near Sunday.[585] It was a sin for a Scotch woman

to wait at a tavern;[586] it was a sin for her to live alone;[587] it was

also a sin for her to live with unmarried sisters.[588] It was a sin to

go from one town to another on Sunday, however pressing the business

might be.[589] It was a sin to visit your friend on Sunday;[590] it was

likewise sinful either to have your garden watered,[591] or your beard

shaved.[592] Such things were not to be tolerated in a Christian land. No

one, on Sunday, should pay attention to his health, or think of his body

at all. On that day, horse-exercise was sinful;[593] so was walking in

the fields, or in the meadows, or in the streets, or enjoying the fine

weather by sitting at the door of your house.[594] To go to sleep on

Sunday, before the duties of the day were over, was also sinful, and

deserved church censure.[595] Bathing, being pleasant as well as

wholesome, was a particularly grievous offence; and no man could be

allowed to swim on Sunday.[596] It was, in fact, doubtful whether

swimming was lawful for a Christian at any time, even on week-days, and

it was certain that God had, on one occasion, shown His disapproval, by

taking away the life of a boy while he was indulging in that carnal

practice.[597]

[583] A man, named Alexander Laurie, was brought before the Kirk Session

of Perth, 'and being inquired by the minister if, in his last

being out of this country, he had been in Spain, answered that he

was in Portugal, but was never present at mass, neither gave

reverence to any procession, and that he was never demanded by any

concerning his religion. The said Alexander being removed and

censured, it was thought good by the (Kirk) Session that he should

be admonished not to travel in these parts again, except that they

were otherwise reformed in religion.' _Extracts from the

Kirk-Session Register of Perth_, in _The Spottiswoode Miscellany_,

vol. ii. p. 274. Still earlier, that is, in 1592, the clergy

attempted to interfere even with commerce, 'allegeing that the

marchands could not mak vayage in Spayne without danger of their

sawlis, and tharefore willit thayme in the nayme of God to

absteyne.' _The Historie of King James the Sext_, p. 254.

[584] See the case of Patrick Stewart, and Mr. Lawson's note upon it, in

_Lawson's Book of Perth_, p. 238. In this instance, the 'Roman

Catholic gentleman' had been excommunicated, which made matters

still worse.

[585] The Presbytery of Edinburgh, 'by their transcendent sole

authority, discharged any market to be kept on Monday; the reason

was, because it occasioned the travelling of men and horse the

Lord's-day before, which prophaned the Sabbath.' _Presbytery

Displayd_, p. 10. In 1650, Saturday was also taken in by another

ecclesiastical senate. 'The Presbyterie doe appoint the severall

brethren in burghes, to deale with such as have not changed ther

Mondayes and Satterdayes mercats to other dayes of the weeke, that

they may doe the same _primo quoque tempore_.' _Minutes of the

Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar_, p. 53.

[586] In 1650, 'For "the down-bearing of sin," women were not allowed to

act as waiters in taverns, but "allenarly men-servands and boys."'

_Chambers' Annals_, vol. ii. p. 196. This order 'wes red and

publictlie intimat in all the kirkis of Edinburgh.' _Nicoll's

Diary_, p. 5.

[587] 'Forsameikle as dilatation being made, that Janet Watson holds an

house by herself where _she may give occasion of slander_,

therefore Patrick Pitcairn, elder, is ordained to admonish her in

the session's name, either to marry, or then pass to service,

otherwise that she will not be suffered to dwell by herself.'

_Kirk-Session Records of Perth_, in _The Chronicle of Perth_,

p. 86.

[588] 'Ordains the two sisters, Elspith and Janet Stewart, that they be

not found in the house again with their sister, but every one of

them shall go to service, or where they may be best entertained

without slander, under the penalty of warding their persons and

banishment of the town.' _Kirk-Session Register_, in _Lawson's

Book of Perth_, p. 169.

[589] 'Compeirit William Kinneir, and confest his travelling on the

Sabbath day, which he declairit was out of meer necessitie,

haveing two watters to croce, and ane tempestuos day, quhilk

moowit him to fear that he wold not get the watters crost, and so

his credit might faill. He was sharpelie admonished, and promist

newer to doe the lyke again.' _Selections from the Records of the

Kirk-Session of Aberdeen_, p. 136.

[590] 'Compearit Thomas Gray, and confest that one Sunday in the

morning, he went to Culter to visit a friend, and stayed thair all

night. The sessioune warnit him, _apud acta_, to the next day, and

appointed Patrick Gray, his master, to be cited to the next day,

to give furder informatioune in the matter. (Sharply rebuked

before the pulpit.)' _Selections from the Records of the

Kirk-Session of Aberdeen_, p. 146.

[591] 'It was reported that Margaret Brotherstone did water her kaill

wpon the Sabbath day, and thairwpon was ordained to be cited.' ...

'Compeired Margaret Brotherstone, and confessed her breach of

Sabbath in watering of her kaill, and thairwpon ordained to give

evidence in publick of her repentance the next Lord's day.'

_Extracts from the Register of the Kirk-Session of Humbie_, p. 42.

[592] Even so late as the middle of the eighteenth century, 'clergymen

were sometimes libelled' ... 'for shaving' on Sunday. _Sinclair's

Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol. xvi. p. 34, Edinburgh,

1795. At an earlier period, no one might be shaved on that day.

See _The Spottiswoode Miscellany_, vol. ii. p. 276; and _Lawson's

Book of Perth_, pp. 224, 225.

[593] 'Compeired John Gordon of Avachie, and confessed that he had

transgressed in travailing on the Sabbath day with horse, going

for a milston. Referred to the session of Kinor for censure.'

_Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie_, p. 236. See

also the case mentioned in _Letters from a Gentleman in the North

of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 172; 'This riding on horseback of a

Sunday was deemed a great scandal.'

[594] In 1647, the punishment was ordered of whoever was guilty of

'sitting or walking idle upon the streetes and feildes' on Sunday.

_Selections from the Minutes of the Synod of Fife_, p. 152. In

1742, 'sitting idle at their doors' and 'sitting about doors' was

profane. _Robe's Naratives of the Extraordinary Work of the Spirit

of God_, pp. 109, 110. In 1756, at Perth, 'to stroll about the

fields, or even to walk upon the inches, was looked upon as

extremely sinful, and an intolerable violation of the fourth

commandment.' _Penny's Traditions of Perth_, p. 36.

[595] In 1656, 'Cite Issobell Balfort, servand to William Gordone,

tailyeor, beeing found sleeping at the Loche side on the Lord's

day in tyme of Sermon.' _Selections from the Records of the

Kirk-Session of Aberdeen_. p. 137. It was a sin even for children

to feel tired of the interminable sermons which they were forced

to hear. Halyburton, addressing the young people of his

congregation, says, 'Have not you been glad when the Lord's day

was over; or, at least, _when the preaching was done_, that ye

might get your liberty. Has it not been a burden to you, to sit so

long in the church? Well, _this is a great sin_.' See this

noticeable passage, in _Halyburton's Great Concern of Salvation_,

p. 100.

[596] In 1719, the Presbytery of Edinburgh indignantly declares, 'Yea,

some have arrived at that height of impiety, as not to be ashamed

of washing in waters, and swimming in rivers upon the holy

Sabbath.' _Register of Presbytery of Edinburgh, 29th April 1719_,

in _Arnot's History of Edinburgh_, p. 204.

[597] So late as 1691, the Kirk-Session of Glasgow attempted to prevent

all boys from swimming, whatever the day might be. But as the

Church was then on the decline, it was necessary to appeal to the

civil authority for help. What the result was, I have not been

able to ascertain. There is, however, a curious notice, in

_Wodrow's Collections upon the Lives of Ministers_, vol. ii. part

ii. p. 77, stating that, on 'August 6th, 1691, the Session

recommends it to the magistrates to think on some overtures for

discharging boyes from swimming, in regard one was lately lost.' I

have met with other evidence respecting this; but I cannot

remember the passages.

That it was a sin to cleanse one's body, might, indeed, have been taken

for granted; seeing that the Scotch clergy looked on all comforts as

sinful in themselves, merely because they were comforts.[598] The great

object of life was, to be in a state of constant affliction.[599]

Whatever pleased the senses, was to be suspected.[600] A Christian must

beware of enjoying his dinner; for none but the ungodly relished their

food.[601] By a parity of reasoning, it was wrong for a man to wish to

advance himself in life, or in any way to better his condition.[602]

Either to make money, or to save it, was unsuited to Christians; and even

to possess much of it was objectionable, because it not only ministered

to human pleasures, but encouraged those habits of foresight and of

provision for the future, which are incompatible with complete

resignation to the Divine will. To wish for more than was necessary to

keep oneself alive, was a sin as well as a folly, and was a violation of

the subjection we owe to God.[603] That it was contrary to His desire,

was, moreover, evident, from the fact that He bestowed wealth liberally

upon misers and covetous men; a remarkable circumstance, which, in the

opinion of Scotch divines, proved that He was no lover of riches,

otherwise He would not give them to such base and sordid persons.[604]

[598] The Rev. James Fraser says, 'The world is a dangerous thing and a

great evil, and the comforts of it a hell.' _Select Biographies_,

vol. ii. p. 220. Compare _Gray's Spiritual Warfare_, p. 22.

[599] 'It is good to be continually afflicted here.' _Select

Biographies_, vol. ii. p. 220. Gray, advocating the same doctrine,

sums up his remarks by a suggestion, that, 'I think David had

never so sweet a time as then, when he was pursued as a partridge

by his son Absalom.' _Gray's Great and Precious Promises_, p. 14.

[600] 'Suspect that which pleaseth the senses.' _Abernethy's Physicke

for the Soule_, p. 63.

[601] Durham, in his long catalogue of sins, mentions as one, 'the

preparing of meat studiously, that is, when it is too riotously

dressed, for pleasing men's carnal appetite and taste, or palate,

by the fineness of it, and other curiosities of that kind.'

_Durham's Law Unsealed_, p. 333. See also p. 48, on

'palate-pleasers;' and Dickson's opinion of the 'rarest dishes and

best meats.' _Dickson's Explication of the Psalms_, p. 84.

According to another of the Scotch divines, whoever makes one good

meal and has enough left for a second, is in imminent peril. 'He

that is full, and hath enough to make him fuller, will easily deny

God, and be exalted against him: his table shall be a snare to his

body, and a snare to his soule.' _Abernethy's Physicke for the

Soule_, p. 421.

[602] For, says Abernethy (_Physicke for the Soule_, p. 488), 'men are

loth to lend their eare to the Word, when they abound in

prosperity.' So, too, Hutcheson, in his _Exposition of the Book of

Job_, p. 387: 'Such is the weakness even of godly men, that they

can hardly live in a prosperous condition, and not be overtaken

with some security, carnal confidence, or other miscarriage.'

[603] See this theory worked out in _Cockburn's Jacob's Vow, or Man's

Felicity and Duty_, pp. 71-75. He says, 'And certainly to crave

and be desirous of more than what is competent for the maintenance

and support of our lives, is both inconsistent with that

dependence and subjection we owe to God, and doth also bespeak a

great deal of vanity, folly, and inconsiderateness.' Boston,

striking at the very foundation of that practice of providing for

the future, which is the first and most important maxim in all

civil wisdom, and which peculiarly distinguishes civilized nations

from barbarians, asks his hearers, 'Why should men rack their

heads with cares how to provide for to-morrow, while they know not

if they shall then need anything?' _Boston's Human Nature in its

Four-fold State_, p. 300. Hutcheson thinks that those who are

guilty of such impious prudence, deserve to be starved. 'When men

are not content with food and rayment, but would still heap up

more, it is just with God to leave them not so much as bread; and

to suffer men to have an evil eye upon them, and to pluck at them,

even so long as they have meat.' _Hutcheson's Exposition of the

Book of Job_, p. 296. Binning, going still further, threatens

eternal ruin. 'Ye may have things necessary here,--food and

raiment; and if ye seek more, if ye will be rich, and will have

superfluities, then ye shall fall into many temptations, snares,

and hurtful lusts which shall drown you in perdition.' _Binning's

Sermons_, vol. iii. p. 355.

[604] 'If God loved riches well, do ye think he would give them so

liberally, and heap them up upon some base covetous wretches?

Surely no.' _Binning's Sermons_, vol. iii. p. 366. Gray, in his

zeal against wealth, propounds another doctrine, which I do not

remember to have seen elsewhere. He says, 'All that the owner of

riches hath, is, the seeing of them; which a man, who is a passer

by, may likeways have, though he be not possessor of them.'

_Gray's Spiritual Warfare_, p. 128. I hope that the reader will

not suspect me of having maliciously invented any of these

passages. The books from which they are quoted, are, with only two

or three exceptions, all in my library, and may be examined by

persons who are curious in such matters.

To be poor, dirty, and hungry, to pass through life in misery, and to

leave it with fear, to be plagued with boils, and sores, and diseases of

every kind, to be always sighing and groaning, to have the face streaming

with tears, and the chest heaving with sobs, in a word, to suffer

constant affliction, and to be tormented in all possible ways; to undergo

these things was deemed a proof of goodness, just as the contrary was a

proof of evil. It mattered not what a man liked; the mere fact of his

liking it, made it sinful. Whatever was natural, was wrong. The clergy

deprived the people of their holidays, their amusements, their shows,

their games, and their sports; they repressed every appearance of joy,

they forbade all merriment, they stopped all festivities, they choked up

every avenue by which pleasure could enter, and they spread over the

country an universal gloom.[605] Then, truly, did darkness sit on the

land. Men, in their daily actions and in their very looks, became

troubled, melancholy, and ascetic. Their countenance soured, and was

downcast. Not only their opinions, but their gait, their demeanour, their

voice, their general aspect, were influenced by that deadly blight which

nipped all that was genial and warm. The way of life fell into the sear

and yellow leaf; its tints gradually deepened; its bloom faded, and

passed off; its spring, its freshness, and its beauty, were gone; joy and

love either disappeared or were forced to hide themselves in obscure

corners, until at length the fairest and most endearing parts of our

nature, being constantly repressed, ceased to bear fruit, and seemed to

be withered into perpetual sterility.

[605] 'The absence of external appearances of joy in Scotland, in

contrast with the frequent holidayings and merry-makings of the

continent, has been much remarked upon. We find in the records of

ecclesiastical discipline clear traces of the process by which

this distinction was brought about. To the puritan kirk of the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, every outward demonstration

of natural good spirits was a sort of sin, to be as far as

possible repressed.' ... 'The whole sunshine of life was, as it

were, squeezed out of the community.' _Chambers' Annals of

Scotland_, vol. i. p. 336, vol. ii. p. 156.

Thus it was, that the national character of the Scotch was, in the

seventeenth century, dwarfed and mutilated. With nations, as with

individuals, the harmony and free development of life can only be

attained by exercising its principal functions boldly and without fear.

Those functions are of two kinds; one set of them increasing the

happiness of the mind, another set increasing the happiness of the body.

If we could suppose a man completely perfect, we should take for granted

that he would unite these two forms of pleasure in the highest degree,

and would extract, both from body and mind, every enjoyment consistent

with his own happiness, and with the happiness of others. But, as no such

character is to be found, it invariably occurs, that even the wisest of

us are unable to hold the balance; we, therefore, err, some in

over-indulging the body, some in over-indulging the mind. Comparing one

set of indulgences with the other, there can be no doubt that the

intellectual pleasures are, in many respects, superior to the physical;

they are more numerous, more varied, more permanent, and more ennobling;

they are less liable to cause satiety in the individual, and they produce

more good to the species. But for one person who can enjoy intellectual

pleasures, there are at least a hundred who can enjoy physical pleasures.

The happiness derived from gratifying the senses, being thus diffused

over a wider area, and satisfying, at any given moment, a greater number

of persons than the other form of happiness is capable of, does, on that

account, possess an importance which many who call themselves

philosophers are unwilling to recognize. Too often have philosophic and

speculative thinkers, by a foolish denunciation of such pleasures, done

all in their power to curtail the quantity of happiness of which humanity

is susceptible. Forgetting that we have bodies as well as minds, and

forgetting, too, that in an immense majority of instances the body is

more active than the mind, that it is more powerful, that it plays a more

conspicuous part, and is fitted for greater achievements, such writers

commit the enormous error of despising that class of actions to which

ninety-nine men out of every hundred are most prone, and for which they

are best fitted. And for committing this error they pay the penalty of

finding their books unread, their systems disregarded, and their scheme

of life adopted, perhaps, by a small class of solitary students, but shut

out from that great world of reality for which it is unsuited, and in

which it would produce the most serious mischief.

If, then, we review the history of opinion in connexion with the history

of action, we may probably say, that the ascetic notions of philosophers,

such, for instance, as the doctrines of the Stoics, and similar theories

of mortification, have not worked the harm which might have been

expected, and have not succeeded in abridging, to any perceptible extent,

the substantial happiness of mankind. There are, I apprehend, two reasons

why they have failed. In the first place, these philosophers have, with

hardly an exception, had little real acquaintance with human nature, and

have, therefore, been unable to touch those chords, and appeal to those

hidden motives, by influencing which one man gains over another to his

side. And, in the second place, they, fortunately for us, have never

possessed authority, and have, therefore, been unable either to enforce

their doctrine by penalties, or to recommend it by rewards.

But, though philosophers have failed in their effort to lessen the

pleasures of mankind, there is another body of men, who, in making the

same attempt, have met with far greater success. I mean, of course, the

theologians, who, considered as a class, have, in every country and in

every age, deliberately opposed themselves to gratifications which are

essential to the happiness of an overwhelming majority of the human race.

Raising up a God of their own creation, whom they hold out as a lover of

penance, of sacrifice, and of mortification, they, under this pretence,

forbid enjoyments which are not only innocent, but praiseworthy. For,

every enjoyment by which no one is injured, is innocent; and every

innocent enjoyment is praiseworthy, because it assists in diffusing that

spirit of content and of satisfaction which is favourable to the practice

of benevolence towards others. The theologians, however, for reasons

which I have already stated, cultivate an opposite spirit, and, whenever

they have possessed power, they have always prohibited a large number of

pleasurable actions, on the ground that such actions are offensive to the

Deity. That they have no warrant for this, and that they are simply

indulging in peremptory assertions on subjects respecting which we have

no trustworthy information, is well known to those who, impartially, and

without preconceived bias, have studied their arguments, and the evidence

which they adduce. On this, however, I need not dilate; for, inasmuch as

men are, almost every year, and certainly every generation, becoming more

accustomed to close and accurate reasoning, just in the same proportion

is the conviction spreading, that theologians proceed from arbitrary

assumptions, for which they have no proof, except by appealing to other

assumptions, equally arbitrary and equally unproven. Their whole system

reposes upon fear, and upon fear of the worst kind; since, according to

them, the Great Author of our being has used His omnipotence in so cruel

a manner as to endow his creatures with tastes, instincts, and desires,

which He not only forbids them to gratify, but which, if they do gratify,

shall bring on themselves eternal punishment.

What the theologians are to the closet, that are the priests to the

pulpit. The theologians work upon the studious, who read; the clergy act

upon the idle, who listen. Seeing, however, that the same man often

performs both offices, and seeing, too, that the spirit and tendency of

each office are the same, we may, for practical purposes, consider the

two classes as identical; and, putting them together, and treating them

as a whole, it must be admitted by whoever will take a comprehensive view

of what they have actually done, that they have been, not only the most

bitter foes of human happiness, but also the most successful ones. In

their high and palmy days, when they reigned supreme, when credulity was

universal and doubt unknown, they afflicted mankind in every possible

way; enjoining fasts, and penances, and pilgrimages, teaching their

simple and ignorant victims every kind of austerity, teaching them to

flog their own bodies, to tear their own flesh, and to mortify the most

natural of their appetites. This was the state of Europe in the middle

ages. It is still the state of every part of the world where the

priesthood are uncontrolled. Such ascetic and self-tormenting observances

are the inevitable issue of the theological spirit, if that spirit is

unchecked. Now, and owing to the rapid march of our knowledge, it is

constantly losing ground, because the scientific and secular spirit is

encroaching on its domain. Therefore, in our time, and especially in our

country, its most repulsive features are disguised, and it is forced to

mask its native ugliness. Among our clergy, a habit of grave and decent

compromise has taken the place of that bold and fiery war which their

predecessors waged against a sensual and benighted world. Their threats

have perceptibly diminished. They now allow us a little pleasure, a

little luxury, a little happiness. They no longer tell us to mortify

every appetite, and to forego every comfort. The language of power has

departed from them. Here and there, we find vestiges of the ancient

spirit; but this is only among uneducated men, addressing an ignorant

audience. The superior clergy, who have a character to lose, are grown

cautious; and, whatever their private opinion may be, they rarely venture

on those terrific denunciations with which their pulpits once resounded,

and which, in times of yore, made the people shrink with fear, and

humbled every one except him by whom the denunciation was uttered.

Still, though much of this has vanished, enough remains to show what the

theological spirit is, and to justify a belief, that nothing but the

pressure of public opinion prevents it from breaking out into its former

extravagance. Many of the clergy persist in attacking the pleasures of

the world, forgetting that, not only the world, but all which the world

contains, is the work of the Almighty, and that the instincts and

desires, which they stigmatise as unholy, are part of his gifts to man.

They have yet to learn, that our appetites, being as much a portion of

ourselves as any other quality we possess, ought to be indulged,

otherwise the whole individual is not developed. If a man suppresses part

of himself, he becomes maimed and shorn. The proper limit to

self-indulgence is, that he shall neither hurt himself nor hurt others.

Short of this, everything is lawful. It is more than lawful; it is

necessary. He who abstains from safe and moderate gratification of the

senses, lets some of his essential faculties fall into abeyance, and

must, on that account, be deemed imperfect and unfinished. Such an one is

incomplete; he is crippled; he has never reached his full stature. He may

be a monk; he may be a saint; but a man he is not. And now, more than

ever, do we want true and genuine men. No previous age has had so much

work to do, and, to accomplish that work, we need robust and vigorous

natures, whose every function has been freely exercised without let or

hindrance. Never before, was the practice of life so arduous; never were

the problems presented to the human mind so numerous, or so complicated.

Every addition to our knowledge, every fresh idea, opens up new

difficulties, and gives birth to new combinations. Under this accumulated

pressure, we shall assuredly sink, if we imitate the credulity of our

forefathers, who allowed their energies to be cramped and weakened by

those pernicious notions, which the clergy, partly from ignorance, and

partly from interest, have, in every age, palmed on the people, and have,

thereby, diminished the national happiness, and retarded the march of

national prosperity.

In the same way, we constantly hear of the evils of wealth, and of the

sinfulness of loving money; although it is certain that, after the love

of knowledge, there is no one passion which has done so much good to

mankind as the love of money. It is to the love of money that we owe all

trade and commerce; in other words, the possession of every comfort and

luxury which our own country is unable to supply. Trade and commerce have

made us familiar with the productions of many lands, have awakened

curiosity, have widened our ideas by bringing us in contact with nations

of various manners, speech, and thought, have supplied an outlet for

energies which would otherwise have been pent up and wasted, have

accustomed men to habits of enterprise, forethought, and calculation,

have, moreover, communicated to us many arts of great utility, and have

put us in possession of some of the most valuable remedies with which we

are acquainted, either to save life or to lessen pain. These things we

owe to the love of money. If theologians could succeed in their desire to

destroy that love, all these things would cease, and we should relapse

into comparative barbarism. The love of money, like all our appetites, is

liable to abuse; but to declaim against it as evil in itself, and, above

all, to represent it as a feeling, the indulgence of which provokes the

wrath of God, is to betray an ignorance, natural, perhaps, in former

ages, but shameful in our time, particularly when it proceeds from men

who give themselves out as public teachers, and profess that it is their

mission to enlighten the world.

Injurious, however, as all this is to the best interests of society, it

is nothing in comparison with the doctrines formerly advocated by the

Scotch divines. What their ideas were, I have shown from their own

sermons, the reading of which has been the most painful literary task I

ever undertook, since, in addition to the narrowness and the dogmatism

which even the best of such compositions contain, there is, in these

productions, a hardness of heart, an austerity of temper, a want of

sympathy with human happiness, and a hatred of human nature, such as have

rarely been exhibited in any age, and, I rejoice to think, have never

been exhibited in any other Protestant country. These things, I have

resuscitated from the oblivion in which they had long been buried, partly

because it was necessary to do so in order to understand the history of

the Scotch mind, and partly because I desired to show what the tendency

of theologians is, when that tendency is uncontrolled. Protestants,

generally, are too apt to suppose that there is something in their creed

which protects them against those hurtful extravagances which have been,

and, to a certain extent, still are, practised in the Catholic Church.

Never was a greater mistake. There is but one protection against the

tyranny of any class; and that is, to give that class very little power.

Whatever the pretensions of any body of men may be, however smooth their

language, and however plausible their claims, they are sure to abuse

power, if much of it is conferred on them. The entire history of the

world affords no instance to the contrary. In Catholic countries, France

alone excepted, the clergy have more authority than in Protestant

countries. Therefore, in Catholic countries, they do more harm than in

Protestant countries, and their peculiar views are developed with greater

freedom. The difference depends, not on the nature of the creed, but on

the power of the class. This is very apparent in Scotland, where the

clergy, being supreme, did, Protestants though they were, imitate the

ascetic, the unsocial, and the cruel doctrines, which, in the Catholic

Church, gave rise to convents, fastings, scourgings, and all the other

appliances of an uncouth and ungenial superstition.

Indeed, the Scotch divines, in some of their theories, went beyond any

section of the Catholic Church, except the Spanish. They sought to

destroy, not only human pleasures, but also human affections. They held

that our affections are necessarily connected with our lusts, and that we

must, therefore, wean ourselves from them as earthly vanities.[606] A

Christian had no business with love or sympathy. He had his own soul to

attend to, and that was enough for him. Let him look to himself. On

Sunday, in particular, he must never think of benefiting others; and the

Scotch clergy did not hesitate to teach the people, that on that day it

was sinful to save a vessel in distress, and that it was a proof of

religion to leave ship and crew to perish.[607] They might go; none but

their wives and children would suffer, and that was nothing in comparison

with breaking the Sabbath. So, too, did the clergy teach, that on no

occasion must food or shelter be given to a starving man, unless his

opinions were orthodox.[608] What need for him to live? Indeed, they

taught that it was a sin to tolerate his notions at all, and that the

proper course was, to visit him with sharp and immediate punishment.[609]

Going yet further, they broke the domestic ties, and set parents against

their offspring. They taught the father to smite the unbelieving child,

and to slay his own boy sooner than allow him to propagate error.[610] As

if this were not enough, they tried to extirpate another affection, even

more sacred and more devoted still. They laid their rude and merciless

hands on the holiest passion of which our nature is capable, the love of

a mother for her son. Into that sanctuary, they dared to intrude; into

that, they thrust their gaunt and ungentle forms. If a mother held

opinions of which they disapproved, they did not scruple to invade her

household, take away her children, and forbid her to hold communication

with them.[611] Or if, perchance, her son had incurred their displeasure,

they were not satisfied with forcible separation, but they laboured to

corrupt her heart, and harden it against her child, so that she might be

privy to the act. In one of these cases, mentioned in the records of the

church of Glasgow, the Kirk-Session of that town summoned before them a

woman, merely because she had received into her house her own son, after

the clergy had excommunicated him. So effectually did they work upon her

mind, that they induced her to promise, not only that she would shut her

door against her child, but that she would aid in bringing him to

punishment. She had sinned in loving him; she had sinned, even, in giving

him shelter; but, says the record, 'she promised not to do it again, and

to tell the magistrates when he comes next to her.'[612]

[606] 'A Christian should mortifie his affections, which are his

predominant lusts, to which our affections are so much joined, and

our soul doth so much go out after.' _Gray's Spiritual Warfare_,

p. 29. 'That blessed work of weaning of affections from all things

that are here.' _Gray's Great and Precious Promises_, p. 86.

[607] 'One of our more northern ministers, whose parish lies along the

coast between Spey and Findorn, made some fishermen do penance for

sabbath-breaking, in going out to sea, though purely with

endeavour to save a vessel in distress by a storm.' _Letters from

a Gentleman in the North of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 173.

[608] 'The master of a family may, and ought to, deny an act of humanity

or hospitality to strangers that are false teachers.'

_Rutherford's Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of

Conscience_, p. 176. 'The Holy Ghost forbiddeth the master of

every Christian family to owne a hereticke as a guest.' _Ibid._,

p. 219. See also p. 235.

[609] 'We hold that tolleration of all religions is not farre from

blasphemy.' _Rutherford's Free Disputation against Pretended

Liberty of Conscience_, p. 20. 'If wolves be permitted to teach

what is right in their own erroneous conscience, and there be no

"Magistrate to put them to shame," _Judg._ xviii. 7, and no King

to punish them, then godlinesse and all that concernes the first

Table of the Law must be marred.' _Ibid._, p. 230. 'Wilde and

atheisticall liberty of conscience,' p. 337. 'Cursed toleration,'

p. 400. See also, in the same work (pp. 110, 244), Rutherford's

remarks on the murder of Servetus. In 1645, Baillie, who was then

in London, writes, 'The Independents here plead for a tolleration

both for themselfes and other sects. My Dissuasive is come in time

to doe service here. We hope God will assist us to remonstrate the

wickedness of such an tolleration.' And on account of the

Independents wishing to show common charity towards persons who

differed in opinions from themselves, Baillie writes next year

(1646), 'The Independents has the least zeale to the truth of God

of any men we know.' _Baillie's Letters and Journals_, vol. ii.

pp. 328, 361. Blair, who was in London in 1649, was sorely vexed

with 'the most illegal, irreligious, and wicked proceedings and

actings of the sectarian army;' one of their crimes being the

attempt 'to ruin religion by their toleration.' _Continuation of

the Autobiography of Mr. Robert Blair, Minister of St. Andrews_,

p. 213. For other evidence of this persecuting spirit, see

_Dickson's Truth's Victory over Error_, pp. 159, 163, 199-202;

_Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule_, p. 215; _Durham's Exposition

of the Song of Solomon_, p. 147; _Durham's Commentarie upon the

Book of the Revelation_, pp. 141, 143, 330; and _Shields' Hind let

loose_, p. 168.

[610] 'A third benefit (which is a branch of the former), is zeal in the

godly against false teachers, who shall be so tender of the truth

and glory of God, and the safety of the Church (all which are

endangered by error), that it shall overcome natural affection in

them; so that parents shall not _spare their own children_, being

seducers, but shall either by an heroick act (such as was in

Phinehas, _Numb._ XXV. 8), _themselves judge him worthy to die,

and give sentence and execute it_, or cause him to be punished, by

bringing him to the Magistrate,' &c.... 'The toleration of a false

religion in doctrine or worship, and the exemption of the

erroneous from civil punishment, is no more lawful under the New

Testament than it was under the Old.' _An Exposition of the

Prophecie of Zechariah_, in _Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor

Prophets_, vol. iii. p. 203, 8vo. 1654.

[611] _Selections from the Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark_,

pp. x. 33, 56, 63, 65, 73.

[612] I copy the exact words from _Wodrow's Collections upon the Lives

of Ministers of the Church of Scotland_, vol. ii. part ii. p. 71.

An order had been previously obtained from the government,

'requiring the magistrates to expell furth of the Toun all

excomunicated persons.'

She promised not to do it again. She promised to forget him, whom she had

born of her womb and suckled at her breast. She promised to forget her

boy, who had ofttimes crept to her knees, who had slept in her bosom, and

whose tender frame she had watched over and nursed. All the dearest

associations of the past, all that the most exquisite form of human

affection can give or receive, all that delights the memory, all that

brightens the prospect of life, all vanished, all passed away from the

mind of this poor woman, at the bidding of her spiritual masters. At one

fell swoop, all were gone. So potent were the arts of these men, that

they persuaded the mother to conspire against her son, that she might

deliver him up to them. They defiled her nature, by purging it of its

love. From that day her soul was polluted. She was lost to herself, as

well as lost to her son. To hear of such things is enough to make one's

blood surge again, and raise a tempest in our inmost nature. But to have

seen them, to have lived in the midst of them, and yet not to have

rebelled against them, is to us utterly inconceivable, and proves in how

complete a thraldom the Scotch were held, and how thoroughly their minds,

as well as their bodies, were enslaved.

What more need I say? What further evidence need I bring to elucidate the

real character of one of the most detestable tyrannies ever seen on the

earth? When the Scotch Kirk was at the height of its power, we may search

history in vain for any institution which can compete with it, except the

Spanish Inquisition. Between these two, there is a close and intimate

analogy. Both were intolerant, both were cruel, both made war upon the

finest parts of human nature, and both destroyed every vestige of

religions freedom. One difference, however, there was, of vast

importance. In political matters, the Church, which was servile in Spain,

was rebellious in Scotland. Hence the Scotch always had one direction in

which they could speak and act with unrestrained liberty. In politics,

they found their vent. There, the mind was free. And this was their

salvation. This saved them from the fate of Spain, by securing to them

the exercise of those faculties which otherwise would have lain dormant,

if, indeed, they had not been entirely destroyed by that long and

enfeebling servitude in which their clergy retained them, and from which,

but for this favourable circumstance, no escape would have been open.