104 [Her name was _Mary_, or _Maria_ Simpson. The inventory of the

effects of “Mr. Hew Binning, at Govane, deceiasit in ye monith of

Sept. 1658,” is given up “be Marie Sympsone, his relict, and onlie

exerix dative.” (Com. Rec. Glasg.). Towards the close of her life,

Mrs. Binning became connected with the Society people. She seems to

have corresponded with the Rev. James Renwick, one of their

ministers, who, in a letter dated July 9, 1685, speaks of her as

“like to die in prison,” and in another, of her having “gone to

Ireland” (Renwick’s Letters, pp. 104, 179). Howie of Lochgoin, the

author of “Lives of the Scots Worthies,” assures us that it is Mrs.

Binning who is alluded to by Renwick in his Letters pp. 49, 104. He

likewise quotes part of a letter written to her in 1692 by Sir

Robert Hamilton of Preston, who commanded the army of the

Covenanters at the battle of Bothwell bridge (Shields’ Faithful

Contendings, pp. 486, 487). In a catalogue of the manuscripts of the

Rev. Robert Wodrow, minister of Eastwood, which is in the library of

the Faculty of Advocates vol. xxiv. folio is stated to contain “50

letters from Mrs. Binning to Mr. Ham.” It is not known where this

volume is now to be found.—_Ed._]

105 [“The Rev. James Simpson was chaplain to the Lord Sinclair’s

regiment. He appears to have settled in the charge of a congregation

in Ulster, perhaps at Newry, which was the headquarters of his

regiment for several years—He was still in his charge in Ireland in

1650 in which year the Rev. Hugh Binning, minister of Govan, was

married to his daughter.” Dr. Reid’s History of the Presbyterian

Church in Ireland, vol. i. pp. 369, 370.—_Ed._]

106 [What Koelman says is this that the adjoining parish to which he and

his friends went was the one in which after sermon, the marriage

ceremony was to be performed. Mrs. Binning it is probable was

residing there at the time.—_Ed._]

107 [His eloquence procured for him, according to Macward, the name of

the Scots Cicero. Along with a distinct articulation be possessed

great fluency. When he preached in Glasgow, which being the minister

of a neighbouring parish was frequently the case, he was much

admired and followed (Koelman’s “Het Leven en Sterven van Mr. Hugo

Binning” prefixed to his translation of Binning’s Common Principles

of the Christian Religion). With regard to the estimation in which

as a preacher, he was held in his own parish, his mode of preaching

being so completely different from what they had been accustomed to,

it is said “he was more valued by Govan people after his death, than

when alive.” Analecta, vol. i. p. 338, MSS in Bib. Ad.—_Ed_.]

108 [The writer of “A Short Account of the Life and Writings of Mr. Hugh

Binning,” prefixed to the small volume of his sermons, published for

the first time in 1760, remarks “By the _haranguing way_ I suppose

he means those sermons that are not divided or sub-divided into

dominant observations and heads, marked by the numbers 1, 2, 3, &c.

But the reader will see many of these discourses, where there are no

figures, no first, second, third, or any number of heads mentioned,

as regularly divided or sub-divided, as those sermons where we will

see a good number of doctrines and heads.… Some useful sermons have

been often perplexed with a great multitude of minds consisting of

two or three sentences without any proof or illustrations of which

the hearer or reader will remember or retain less than some sermons

that contain five or six heads, or have not their distinct divisions

marked with different figures or faces;” pp. xxii-xxiii.—_Ed_.]

109 [It being “the perfection of art to conceal art.”—_Ed_.]

110 [Mr. James Durham, minister of the Inner High church, Glasgow, was

the son and heir of John Durham of Easter Powrie, now named

Wedderburn, a considerable estate in the parish of Muirhouse, and

county of Forfar (Old Stat. Acc. of Scot., vol. xiii, pp. 162, 163).

In the time of the civil wars, and before he contemplated being a

clergyman, he was a captain in the army. He held the office of

king’s chaplain, when Charles the Second was in Scotland. The

description which “Old Aitkenhead, who had it from the gentlewoman,”

gave, of Cromwell’s visit, in April 1651, to the High church of

Glasgow, where Mr. Durham was preaching, is this: “The first seat

that offered him was P. Porterfield’s, where Miss Porterfield sat,

and she, seeing him an English officer, was almost not civil.

However he got in and sat next Miss Porterfield. After sermon was

over he asked the minister’s name. She sullenly enough told him, and

desired to know wherefore he asked. He said because he perceived him

to be a very great man, and in his opinion might be chaplain to any

prince in Europe, though he had never seen him nor heard of him

before. She inquired about him, and found it was O. Cromwell”

(Wodrow’s Anal., vol. v. p. 186, MSS in Bib. Ad.).

Mr. Durham sided neither with the Resolutionists nor Protestors. For

this he was strongly blamed at the time by Principal Baillie, who

took a keen part in the controversy, (Let. and Jour., vol. ii. p.

376) though after his death, he recorded, in the following terms,

his opinion of Mr. Durham’s character and talents. “From the day I

was employed by the presbytery to preach, and to pray, and to

impose, with others, hands upon him, for the ministry at Glasgow, I

did live to the very last with him in great and uninterrupted love,

and in high estimation of his egregious endowments, which made him

to me precious among the most excellent divines I have been

acquainted with in the whole isle. O, if it were the good pleasure

of the Master of the vineyard to plant many such noble vines in this

land!” (Durham’s Commentary upon the book of Revelation, Address to

the Reader, p. vi). The work written by Durham, entitled, “The Law

Unsealed, or a Practical Exposition of the Ten Commandments,” has

commendatory prefaces prefixed to it, by two distinguished English

puritans, Dr. John Owen, and Mr. William Jenkyn. Dr. Owen wrote

likewise a preface to the Clavis Cantici, or an Exposition of the

Song of Solomon, by James Durham, minister at Glasgow, 4to, 1669.

Doubts have been expressed, however, whether Wood, in his Athenæ

Oxomenses, (vol. ii, p. 747, Lond. 1721) was warranted to attribute

this preface to Owen, “as the preface is anonymous” (Orme’s Life of

Owen, Append., p. 505). But the only copy of the work, which is in

my possession, (Glas. 1723) has attached to it the name of “John

Owen, May 20, 1669.”

The widow of Mr. Durham, who was the daughter of Mr. William Muir of

Glanderston, a branch of the family of the Muirs of Caldwell, was,

in 1679, twice committed to prison, for having in her house

religious meetings, or conventicles, as they were called in those

days of relentless tyranny and oppression. On one of the occasions,

she was taken to Edinburgh, and imprisoned there, along with her

sister, the mother of Principal Carstairs. Wodrow’s Hist. of the

Suff. of the Church of Scot., vol. iii, pp. 10, 54.—_Ed_.]

111 [See page 368.—_Ed._]

112 [See page 406.—_Ed._]

113 [The following account of the origin of the differences between the

Resolutioners and Protesters, is that given by Kirkton. “After the

defeat of Dumbar, the king required a new army to be levyed, wishing

earnestly it might be of another mettale than that which hade been

lossed. So he desired that sort of people who were called

Malignants, his darlings, might be brought into places of trust,

both in council and army, though they hade been secluded from both

by their own consent. And this request was granted both by committee

of estates and commission of the church sitting at Perth. But there

was a party in both these councils which alledged confidently, that

though the malignants were content to profess repentance for their

former practices, yet they should be found to be men neither sincere

in their profusions, nor successful in their undertakings. This was

the beginning of the fatal schism in the Scottish church. For though

the king, to secure Scotland, was content once more to take the

covenant at his coronation in Scoon (which instrument he caused burn

at London) yet the dissatisfied party continued still in their

jealousies, and even of the king himself whom they doubted most of

all. This party was called Protesters and Remonstrators as the other

was called Resolutioners, which names occasioned lamentable

distraction” (History of the Church of Scotland p. 53). A more

particular account of this unhappy controversy, so fatal in its

results to both parties, may be seen in the introduction to Wodrow’s

history.

Though Baillie was a Resolutioner, he seems to have had some

misgivings as to the course he adopted. “We carried unanimously at

last,” says he in a letter to Mr. Spang, dated Perth, January 2,

1651, “the answer herewith sent to you. My joy for this was soon

tempered when I saw the consequence, the loathing of sundry good

people to see numbers of grievous bloodshedders ready to come in,

and so many malignant noblemen as were not like to lay down arms

till they were put into some places of trust, and restored to their

vote in parliament.” (Letters and Journals, vol. ii, p. 366). In the

Life of Professor Wodrow written by his son, (pp. 29, 30, Edin.

1828) it is said, “There were great endeavours used in the year

1659, and 1660, entirely to remove that unhappy rent ’twixt the

public Resolutioners and Protesters in this church, and had not Mr.

Sharp struck in by his letters from London in order to serve his own

designs, and ruin both, and made Mr. Douglas and other ministers at

Edinburgh cold in this matter of the union, it had no doubt

succeeded. These put Mr. Wodrow upon an inquiry into that debate,

and when leaving the lessons during the vacation in the summer he

desired Mr. Baillie’s directions what to read for understanding that

subject. The professor said to him, ‘Jacobe, I am too much engaged

personally in that debate to give you either my judgement on the

whole, or to direct you to particular authors on the one side and

the other,’ but taking him into his closet he gave him the whole

pamphlets that had passed on both sides in print and manuscript,

laid ranked in their proper order, and said, there is the whole that

I know in that affair; take them home to the country with you, and

read them carefully and look to the Lord for his guiding you to

determine yourself aright upon the whole.”—_Ed._]

114 [This treatise was afterwards printed and is included in the present

edition of the works of the author.—_Ed._]

115 [See page 226.—_Ed._]

116 [Mr. Patrick Gillespie, who was brother to George Gillespie one of

the ministers of Edinburgh, was for some time minister of Kirkcaldy.

On the 4th December, 1641, “Mr. Pa. Gillespie produceit,” to the

magistrates and council of Glasgow, “a presentation grantit to him,

be his Majestie, of the place of the Highe Kirke, instead of the

bischope” (Glasgow Burgh Records). He was one of the three ministers

who, in 1651, were summarily deposed by the Assembly, for their

opposition to the Public Resolutions, and protesting against the

lawfulness of that Assembly (Lamont’s Diary, p. 33). His sentence

was reversed by the Synod of Glasgow (Baillie’s Letters, vol. ii.,

pp. 414, 415). Gillespie was evidently desirous to effect a

reconciliation between the Resolutioners and Protesters, by means of

mutual concessions (Id. pp. 388, 401, 411). In the year 1553, he was

elected principal of the University of Glasgow, by the English

sequestrators (Id. p. 371, Lamont’s Diary, p. 53).

No one in Scotland had more influence with Cromwell than Principal

Gillespie, who is said to have been the first minister in the Church

of Scotland, who prayed publicly for him (Nicol’s Diary, p. 162). In

April 1654, the Protector called him up to London, along with Mr.

John Livingston of Ancrum, and Mr. John Menzies of Aberdeen, to

consult with them on Scottish affairs (Life of Livingston, p. 55).

He preached before the Protector in his chapel, and obtained from

him, for the University of Glasgow, the confirmation of “all former

foundations, mortifications, and donations made in its favour,

particularly that of the bishopric of Galloway, to which he added

the vacant stipends of the parishes, which had been in the patronage

of the bishop of Galloway, for seven years to come; and also in

perpetuity the revenues of the deanery and sub-deanery of Glasgow”

(Old Stat. Acc. of Scot., vol. xxi., Append. pp. 25, 26). Through

his influence with the Protector, he likewise procured a grant to

the town of Glasgow, “for the use of the poor who had been injured

by the fire in 1653,” [1652] (Brown’s Hist. of Glasg., p. 120) and

“assisted and pleasured sundry in the matter of their fines”

(Baillie’s Letters, vol. ii. p. 390). As to what is said by the

editor of Kirkton’s History, that after the Restoration, “Gillespie

had made great efforts for a pardon, and offered to promote

episcopacy in Scotland” (p. 111), the reader is referred to a Review

of that work, in the Christian Instructor (Vol. xvii. pp. 339, 340).

He died not long after this at Leith (Law’s Memorials, p. 11).

Gillespie’s work, entitled “The Ark of the Covenant Opened,”

(London, printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1677) has a preface from the

pen of Dr. John Owen, who was with Cromwell in Scotland, as one of

his chaplains, and in this way, no doubt, became acquainted with

Gillespie (Wood’s Athenæ Oxomensis, vol. ii., p. 738, London, 1721).

In his preface, Dr. Owen says, “My long Christian acquaintance with

the author made me not unwilling to testify my respects unto him and

his labours in the church of God, now he is at rest, for whom I had

so great an esteem while he was alive.” Wodrow expresses his regret,

that “the other three parts” of Gillespie’s work have not been

printed, which, he informs us, the author “wrote and finished for

the press” (Hist. of the Suff. of Ch. of Scot., vol. i., p. 204,

Glasg. 1829). The Synod of Glasgow were informed, on the 8th of

Oct., 1701, that “Mr. Parkhurst, at London,” possessed two

unpublished parts of Gillespie’s Ark of the Covenant. They,

therefore, appointed a committee to communicate with him on the

subject, through some of the booksellers of Glasgow, “conceiving

that the publishing of these pieces may be of use to the Church,

from the experience they have had of the works of that worthy author

already come to light, upon the same subject” (Records of Synod). On

the 5th April, 1709, “Mr. Robert Wodrow reports, that Mr. Parkhurst

continues still indisposed, so that nothing can be done with respect

to the printing of Mr Gillespie’s book formerly mentioned.

Wherefore, the Synod lets the matter fall out of their minutes.” Id.

Chalmers (Caledonia, vol. iii., p. 591) seems to have imagined that

Patrick Gillespie was the “Galasp” ridiculed by Milton, in one of

his sonnets. Warton says, this was “George Gillespie, one of the

Scotch ministers of the Assembly of Divines” (Warton’s Milton, p.

339, Lond. 1791). But Milton referred neither to the one nor the

other, but to Allaster Macdonald _Macgillespie_, (_son of

Archibald_) otherwise known by the name of Colkittoch, or Colkitto,

who commanded the Irish auxiliaries in Montrose’s army. See the new

edition of Baillie’s Letters, now in course of publication, formerly

quoted, vol. ii. p. 499.—_Ed_.]

117 [This is a simple marble tablet surmounted with a heart, and the

emblems of mortality. It was placed in a niche in the front wall of

the old parish church; but, in 1826, when the present church was

erected, which is a Gothic structure, it was removed to the

vestibule. It is seen in the vignette of the title page. The

inscription may be turned into English, thus “Mr. Hugh Binning is

buried here, a man distinguished for his piety, eloquence, and

learning, an eminent philologist, philosopher, and theologian; in

fine, a faithful and acceptable preacher of the gospel, who was

removed from this world in the 26th year of his age, and in the year

of our Lord 1653. He changed his country, not his company, because

when on earth he walked with God. If thou wish to know any thing

beyond this, I am silent as to any thing further, since neither thou

nor this marble can receive it.”—_Ed_.]

118 [John Binning of Dalvennan was served heir to his grandfather on the

19th of March, 1672 (Inq. Ret. Ab. Ayr, 580). And the Retour of his

heritable property, at the date of his forfeiture, specifies, as

having belonged to him, the ten mark land of the ten pound land of

Keires, comprehending the lands of Dalvennan, Yondertoun and

Burntoun, Daluy, Milntown, The Fence, Drumore, Hillhead,

Rashiefauld, Chappel, the mill of Keires, &c., in the parish of

Straiton; the lands of Over Priest-Craig and Nether Priest-Craig in

the parish of Colmonell; and a house, garden, and land in the parish

of Maybole, in the county of Ayr—Inq. De Possess Quinquen

(18).—_Ed_.]

119 [The name of “Binning of Dalvennan” appears in the Act of the

Scottish parliament, “Rescinding the Forefaultures and Fynes since

the year 1665” (Acts of the Parl. of Scot. vol. ix. p. 165) Previous

to the passing of that Act, however, a petition was presented to the

parliament by Mr. Roderick McKenzie, who had been a Depute Advocate

in the former reign, in which he stated, “That John Binning of

Dalvennan having been forefault for being in armes at Bothwell

bridge, anno 1679, and the deceased Matthew Colvill, writer in

Edinburgh, John Binning’s greatest enemy, being very active to

obtain the gift of his forefaulture, with a designe of his ruine,

and the prejudice of his numerous and just creditors, the deceased

Mr. James Gordon, minister at Cumber in Ireland, John Binning’s

father in law and former Curator, to whom he was oweing a

considerable soume of money, came over to Scotland, at John

Binning’s desire, who was then in Ireland, to obtaine the said gift,

to disappoint Matthew Colvill thereof, who prevailed with the

petitioner to lend the money to pay the compositione and expenses of

the gift.” Mr. McKenzie also affirmed, that he had “no other

security for the money soe lent, but a right to the said gift,” and

that the money he had advanced “to the said Mr. James Gordon for the

compositione and expenses of the gift, with what he has payed of

John Binning’s reall and confirmed debts, far exceeds the value of

his land.” In consequence of these representations, “Their Majesties

High commissioner and said Estates of Parliament remitt the case of

Mr. Roderick McKenzie, petitioner, anent the forfaulture of

Dalvennan, to the consideratione of the commission nominate in the

General Act recissory of ffynes and forefaulters, with power to them

to hear the parties concerned thereanent, and to report to the next

session of this, or any other ensuing parliament.”—Id. pp. 162, 163.

John Binning was declared at this period to be “altogether

insolvent.” This is the reason probably, if he was not in the mean

time satisfied that his claim was untenable, that his case does not

appear to have been brought under the notice of parliament again,

and that he did not persist in his attempts to regain possession of

Dalvennan (Id. Appendix, p. 32). To confirm his title to a property,

which considering the office he held, seems to have been acquired

under very suspicious circumstances, McKenzie had contrived to get

an act of parliament passed in his favour, in the year 1685. In this

Act, he is lauded for “suppressing the rebellious fanatical partie

in the western and other shires of the realme, and putting lawes to

vigorous execution against them, as His Majesties Advocate Deput,”

and the lands of Dalvennan are said to have been transferred to him

by “Jean Gordon, as donatrix,” who was the uterine sister of John

Binning, and who is described as “relect of the deceist Daniel

McKenzie sometime ensign to the Earle of Dalhousie, in the Earle of

Marr’s Regiment” (Id. vol. viii. pp. 565-567). John Binning taught a

school for some time (Faithful Contendings p. 66). The General

Assembly showed kindness to him, on different occasions, for his

father’s sake. In 1702, the Commission of the Assembly being

informed by a petition from himself of his “sad circumstances,”

recommended him to the provincial Synods of Lothian and Tweedale,

and of Glasgow and Ayr “for some charitable supply” (Rec. of

Commission, Sess. 39). In 1704, he applied for relief to the General

Assembly, and stated that he had obtained from the Privy Council a

patent to print his father’s works, of which twelve years were then

unexpired, and that it was his intention to publish them in one

volume. The Assembly recommended “every minister within the kingdom

to take a double of the same book, or to subscribe for the same.”

They likewise called upon the different presbyteries in the church

to collect among themselves something for the petitioner (Unprinted

Acts, Sess. 11). The last application he made to the Assembly for

pecuniary aid was in 1717, when he must have been far advanced in

life—Idem, 13th May.—_Ed_.]

120 [Mr. James Gordon was minister of Comber, in the county of Down. He

was ordained about the year 1646. We find his name in Wodrow’s list

of the non-conforming ministers in the synod of Ballimenoch in

Ireland (Hist. of Suff. of Ch. of Scot. vol. i. p. 324). According

to Dr Reid, “Mr. Gordon, after having been deposed with the rest of

his brethren in 1661, continued to officiate privately at Comber for

many years, but about the year 1683, in his old age, he appears to

have deserted his principles, and conformed to prelacy.” Hist. of

the Presb. Ch. in Ireland, vol. ii. pp. 129, 130.—_Ed_.]

121 [May 14, 1654—“Sederunt Mr John Carstaires and the Elders.

“The qlk day the session being conveened for election and calling of

a minr to the kirk of Govan, and having now this forenoon heard Mr.

David Veetch, with whom most are satisfied, but for the satisfaction

of all persons interested, who heard him never but once, both of

heritors and elders, the session have delayed their election till

they hear him again in the afternoon, and the session then were to

meet again for that effect.

“Sederunt Mr John Carstaires and the Elders.

“The heritors and elders having now heard the said Mr. David Veetch

twise, and both being well satisfied, and clear, and unanimous, the

satisfaction of the session being first enquired, and next of the

heritors, which, being both of one mynd, cordially for the thing, a

call was presently drawn up, and subt by moderator and clerk, also

by session and heritors, according to order. After the forsd

draught, at appointment of the presbytery and session, Mr. John

preached in the sd church, and, after sermon, did intimat to the

people their nomination of Mr. David to take charge in the ministrie

of that congregation, and ordained, that if any person had any thing

to object agt the said Mr. David being minr at the sd church, they

would come and signifie it to the session, now presently to meet at

the sd church for that effect, according to the practice in such

cases. The session having met, and none compearand to signifie their

dissent, or assent, they take their non compearance for their

signification of satisfaction, so, after three severall byesses at

the most patent door of the sd church, by the officer intimating the

forsd words, none at all appeared. So the sd Mr. David being desired

to come in to session, they presented to him their unanimous and

cordiall call of election to the ministrie of the kirk of Govan,

which he accepted.” Records of Kirk-Session of Govan—_Ed_.]

122 [12mo., Glasgow, 1609.—_Ed._]

123 [Macward’s words are, _a prima manu_. Het Leven en Sterven van Mr.

Hugo Binning.—_Ed._]

124 [A copy of “The Common Principles of Christian Religion” is now

before me which was Printed by R. S. Printer to the Town of Glasgow,

1666, and which bears to be “The 5 Impression”.—_Ed._]

125 [All the works of Binning, which were published in the lifetime of

Koelman, were translated by him into the Dutch language. No fewer

than four editions of these have been printed at Amsterdam.—_Ed._]

126 [See page 457.—_Ed._]

127 [See page 465.—_Ed._]

128 [A contemporary of Binning, Mr. P. Simson, minister of Renfrew,

informed Wodrow, “That Dr. Strang was in hazard to have been staged

for his Dictates qch wer smoothed in his printed book, _De Voluntate

Dei_, and would have been removed from his place if he had not

demitted.” (Life of Dr. Strang, Wodrow MSS. vol. xiii. p. 9, in Bib.

Coll. Glas.) Complaints regarding Dr. Strang having been presented

to the General Assembly, a committee was appointed, on the 18th of

June, 1646, to examine his written dictates, a copy of which was

produced by Dr. Strang, and to find out whether the doctrines which

he taught were in accordance with the doctrines of their own and

other reformed churches, and whether there were any expressions used

by him which gave countenance to the views of the enemies of the

truth. This committee was composed of some of the most able men in

the church, including several professors from the four universities

The list contains, along with others, the names of Alexander

Henderson, John Sharpe, the author of _Cursus Theologicus_, Robert

Douglas, George Gillespie, Robert Blair, Samuel Rutherford, James

Wood, William Strahan, David Dickson, Robert Baillie, John Neave,

Edward Calderwood and Robert Leighton, afterwards Archbishop of

Glasgow. On the 27th of August, 1647, the committee gave in a Report

to the General Assembly, to the effect that Dr. Strang had employed

some expressions in his dictates which were calculated to give

offence, but that on conferring with him, they were satisfied in

regard to his orthodoxy, and that to put an end to all doubts as to

his meaning, the Doctor had gratified them by proposing of his own

accord the addition of certain words to what was previously somewhat

ambiguous (Vita Autoris, Strangu De Interpret. Script.).

So far as can be collected from the imperfect account we have of the

circumstances of the case, Dr. Strang discovered, it was imagined, a

bias to Arminianism, whereas he seems to have been merely more of a

sublapsarian than a supralapsarian. The “peculiar notions” he

entertained were vented, we have been told, upon that profound

subject _De concursi et influxu deimo cum actionibus creaturarum_ or

the concurrence and influence of God in the actions of his

creatures. In the two chapters of his published work which treat

expressly upon this point, we can perceive nothing that is at

variance with our own Confession. But this does not warrant us to

infer that the dictates, as originally delivered and before they

were amended and enlarged by the author himself, may not have

contained some very objectionable language at least, especially when

we look to the Report of the committee of the Assembly regarding

them. Indeed, all that Baillie himself says, who was one of that

committee, is, that Dr. Strang was pursued “without any ground at

all _considerable_,” and that “he got him _reasonably_ fair off.”

Letters and Journals, vol. ii., p. 338.

The publication of Dr. Strang’s work, “De Voluntate et Actionibus

Dei circa Peccatum” (Amstelodami Apud Ludovicum et Danielson

Elzeurios, 1657. 4to. pp. 886), was intrusted to Mr. William Spang,

minister of the English church at Middleburgh in Zealand. The

manuscripts were sent to him by his cousin, Mr. Robert Baillie, at

that time Professor of Theology in the University of Glasgow, who,

after the death of his first wife, had married a daughter of Dr.

Strang. “Dr. Strang, your good friend,” says Baillie, in a letter to

Mr. Spang, dated July 20, 1654, “having to do in Edinburgh with the

lawyers, concerning the unjust trouble he was put to for his

stipends, did die, so sweetly and graciously, as was satisfactory to

all, and much applauded over all the city, his very persecutors

giving him an ample testimony. His treatise, _Dei circa peccatum_,

he has enlarged, and made ready for the press. Be careful to get it

well printed, according to the constant friendship that was always

betwixt you and him.” (Letters, vol. ii. pp. 382, 383) At the

request of Mr. Spang, Alexander Morus furnished a preface, and _Ad

Lectorem Commomito,_ for Dr. Strang’s work.—_Ed._]

129 [“This is somewhat strange, observes Howie of Lochgoin, “that a

nameless author should quarrel that book because the publisher hath

omitted to tell his name, and hath only inserted the author’s name.

He might have known that it was not long a secret that Mr. James Kid

(who was afterwards settled minister in Queensferry) was the

publisher, and upon that account suffered both long imprisonment at

Utrecht, and the seizure of all that they could get of the books.

And as for vouchers, Mrs. Binning the relict of the worthy author,

being then alive, had connexion and much correspondence with Mr.

Hamilton, Mr. Renwick, and many of the persecuted Society people,

and was of the same sentiments with them, as appears by several

letters yet extant in their own hand-writ—and Mr. Renwick speaks of

her in some of his letters, as in the 49 and 104 pages of the

printed volume of his letters but especially it appears, by a

paragraph which is omitted in the printed copy, page 58, (which

shall be here transcribed from the original, written with his own

hand,) wherein he says, ‘Likewise, according to your direction, I

challenged Mrs. Binning upon the commendation she gave to John

Wilson in her letter to you. But she says that she had not then seen

his testimony, and was sorry when she saw it that it was so contrary

both to her thoughts and commendation of him.’ And likewise a

postscript to the 20th Letter, relative to the same matter is also

omitted. And about the same time that Mr. Binning’s book was

printed, while Sir Robert Hamilton was prisoner, upon account of the

declaration [Sanquhar Declaration] in 1692, he wrote a letter to

Mrs. Binning, wherein he complains of her unwonted silence, in his

honourable bonds for such a noble Master. Yet trusting her sympathy

is not diminished, he adds, ‘O, my worthy friend, I cannot express

Christ’s love and kindness since the time of my bonds. He hath broke

up new treasures of felt love and sweetness, and hath been pleased

to give me visitations of love and access to himself, to comfort and

confirm poor feckless me many ways, that this is his way that is now

persecuted, and that it is his precious truths, interests, and

concerns, that I am now suffering for, whatever enemies with their

associated ministers and professors may allege, &c.’ ”

“By which it is evident that they had much correspondence with Mrs.

Binning. And there is yet a fair and correct manuscript copy of the

foresaid book extant, which was in Sir Robert’s custody, and it is

more than probable that it was procured from Mrs. Binning,

especially as she survived its publication without quarrelling it.

“It is unnecessary to notice what further is thrown out by the

foresaid anonymous writer, against the book and the publisher, as

Mr. Wodrow, in the preface to Mr. Binning’s octavo volume of

sermons, printed 1760, hath modestly animadverted thereupon, and

says there is no reason to doubt if it was Mr. Binning’s. He also

ingenuously confesseth, that there is in it the best collection of

scriptures he knows, concerning the sin and danger of joining with

wicked and ungodly men, &c., and that it was wrote in a smooth good

style, agreeable enough to Mr. Binning’s sentiments in some of his

sermons.” Faithful Contendings Displayed, pp. 486, 487, note. See

likewise Faithful Witness-bearing Exemplified, preface, p.

iv.—_Ed._]

130 [See page 527.—_Ed._]

131 [See page 527.—_Ed._]

132 [See page 528.—_Ed._]

133 [Ibid.—_Ed._]

134 [The word _reduce_ is here used in its literal etymological sense,

as signifying _to bring back_ or to _restore_.—_Ed._]

135 [The allusion here appears to be to the doctrines of the Quakers

who, in Binning’s time, were increasing in the west of Scotland, and

accustomed to rail, with impunity, at ministers in the face of their

congregations. See Baillie’s Letters, vol. ii., pp. 393, 413,

419.—_Ed._]

136 [That is _felt_.—_Ed._]

137 [These terms were made use of as descriptive of themselves by the

sect called the Familists. See Discovery of Familism, p. 7 _apud_

Baillie’s Anabaptism, pp. 102-127, Lond. 1647.—_Ed._]

138 [That is, propound a nice question.—_Ed._]

139 [That is, careless.—_Ed._]

140 [The heathen poet whose words these are, (“We move towards what is

forbidden”), describes well the perversity and the imbecility of our

nature. Vid Ovid Amor. lib. iii. eleg. 4 ver. 17 Met. lib. vii. ver.

20.—_Ed._]

141 [That is, the most natural.—_Ed_]

142 [That is, a twist or undue bend.—_Ed._]

143 [That is, "His will stands for reason." Juv. Sat. vi. ver.

222.—_Ed._]

144 [Mr. Binning was a Supralapsarian. In this and the two following

Lectures he treats of the “high mystery of predestination,” the

consideration of which, though it should be handled with special

prudence and care, (West. Conf. of Faith, ch. 3) is nevertheless,

full of sweet pleasant and unspeakable comfort to godly persons.

Art. of Ch. of Eng. Art. xvii. His views of this mysterious doctrine

are stated with singular clearness, and the objections to it, which

he notices and answers, are brought forward with the utmost

ingenuousness and candour and expressed, it must be admitted, as

strongly as a caviller could desire.—_Ed._]

145 [The reader will remember that at this time the country was

convulsed from one end of it to the other.—_Ed._]

146 [That is, Fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling.—_Ed._]

147 [This was the only consolation which one learned Roman could

administer to another on the death of a friend. “This is hard,” said

he, “but what cannot be remedied is more easily borne, with

patience.” Hor. Carm. lib. I. carm. xxiv.—_Ed._]

148 [Or _by the by_.—_Ed._]

149 [That is grains or particles.—_Ed._]

150 [What a sublime answer was that which one of the deaf and dumb

pupils of M. Sicard gave to the question, “What is eternity?” It is

“a day,” said Massieu, “without yesterday or to-morrow,—un jour sans

hier ni demain.” The thoughts of our author on this boundless theme

are hardly less sublime.—_Ed._]

151 [That is, to have the same desires and aversions, that, in a word is

strong friendship—_Sallust in Catil._ c. xx.—_Ed._]

152 [That is, twist.—_Ed._]

153 [Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, made no law against ingratitude, it

is said, because he conceived that no one could be so irrational as

to be unthankful for kindness done to him.—_Ed._]

154 [That is, quarter.—_Ed._]

155 [The discourse ends so abruptly here, as plainly to show that it is

an unfinished production, and was not designed by the learned and

pious author for publication.—_Ed._]

156 [Perhaps the word ought to be museum, used in the sense of a place

for study.—_Ed._]

157 [That is, not to speak of.—_Ed._]

158 [This simple vernacular expression, which is used by other Scottish

theological writers of the period as employed here, is particularly

expressive. It signifies a place where either foes or friends have

agreed to meet. Is that place the temple of the Lord? There surely

will peace and harmony prevail. Is our Daysman there? He will make

intercession for us and reconcile us to God.—_Ed._]

159 [That is, orders us into his Son.—_Ed._]

160 [The following baneful and impious doctrines, which were, in

England, in those days, openly proclaimed from the pulpit, and

disseminated through the press, were, it seems, not altogether

unknown in the northern part of the island:

1. That the moral law is of no use at all to a believer, no rule for

him to walk or examine his life by, and that Christians are free

from the mandatory power of it.

2. That it is as possible for Christ himself to sin, as for a child

of God to sin.

3. That a child of God need not, nay ought not, to ask pardon for

sin, and that it is no less than blasphemy for him to do this.

4. That God does not chastise any of his children for sin.

5. That if a man, by the Spirit, know himself to be in a state of

grace, though he should commit the greatest crimes, God sees no sin

in him.

Three leading Antinomian teachers were brought before a committee of

the House of Commons, for promulgating, in different ways, these and

similar opinions, which were justly regarded as subversive of all

morality.—_Gataker’s _“God’s Eye on his Israel”,—preface, Lond.

1645.—_Ed._]

161 [“Antinomians, contending for faith of assurance, and leading men to

be persuaded that God loveth every one, whom he commandeth to

believe, with an everlasting love, and that ‘no man ought to call in

question more whether he believe or no, than he ought to question

the gospel and Christ,’ do with Libertines acknowledge a faith of

assurance, but deny all faith of dependence on God through Christ,

as if we were not justified by such a faith.”—“A Survey of the

spiritual Antichrist, opening the secrets of Familisme and

Antinominianisme.” by Samuel Rutherford, Professor of Divinity in

the University of St. Andrew’s, part II. p. 235. London,

1648.—_Ed._]

162 [These observations discover an accurate knowledge of the philosophy

of the human mind, as well as of the doctrines of Scripture. It is

certainly one thing to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and another

thing to feel assured of one’s salvation, or to be persuaded that we

are possessed of that true faith which is the gift of God, and by

which the just shall live. To identify, as is sometimes done, faith

in Christ and the assurance of salvation, is calculated, on the one

hand, to encourage presumption; and, on the other hand, to give rise

to despair, Prov. xxx. 12, Ezek. xiii. 22, 23. What an earlier

writer even than Binning says upon this subject, is not unworthy of

notice. “St. Paul, wishing well to the church of Rome, prayeth for

them after this sort. ‘The God of hope fill you with all joy in

believing.’ Hence an error groweth, when men in heaviness of spirit

suppose they lack faith, because they find not the sugared joy and

delight, which indeed doth accompany faith, but so as a separable

accident, as a thing that may be removed from it, viz. there is a

cause why it should be removed. The light would never be so

acceptable, were it not for that usual intercourse of darkness. Too

much honey doth turn into gall, and too much joy, even spiritual,

would make us wantons. Happier a great deal is that man’s case,

whose soul by inward desolation is humbled, than he whose heart is,

through abundance of spiritual delight, lifted up and exalted above

measure. Better it is sometimes to go down into the pit, with him,

who, beholding darkness, and bewailing the loss of inward joy and

consolation, crieth from the bottom of the lowest hell, My God, my

God, why hast thou forsaken me? than continually to walk arm in arm

with angels, to sit as it were in Abraham’s bosom, and to have no

thought, no cogitation; but, ‘I thank my God it is not with me as it

is with other men.’ No; God will have them that shall walk in light

to feel now and then what it is to sit in the shadow of death. A

grieved spirit, therefore, is no argument of a faithless

mind.”—_Hooker’s Works_, vol. iii. pp. 527, 528. Oxford.

1807.—_Ed._]

163 [That is, collect or obtain.—_Ed._]

164 [That is, between extremes.—_Ed._]

165 [Perhaps the word should be plungy, that is _rainy_. _Chauc._—_Ed._]

166 [That is, cover with mist.—_Ed._]

167 [That is, deserving of consideration.—_Ed._]

168 [In the year 1661 Winston and some others sent a letter to Cromwell,

through General Lambert, in which they charge the English army in

Scotland “with divers errors countenancing of deposed ministers to

preach _silencing of ministers that preach of state proceedings_,

and suffering officers to preach,” &c.—_Whithel’s Memorials_ p.

497.—_Ed._]

169 [Cromwell, in his despatches, after the battle of Dunbar, states the

number of his prisoners, exclusive of officers, to be near

10,000.—_Cromwelliana_, p. 90. “The same daye the minister declaired

yt yr wes a petitioune come from the prisoners at Tinmouth quho wer

taiken at Dunbar, and representit to the presbyterie for support,

because they wer in ane sterving conditione, and all comanders. And

yt ye presbyterie hes recomendit the samen to ye several kirks of ye

presbyterie, Therfoir ordaines that ane collectione be yranent upon

Sondaye come 8 deyes, and intimation to be maid of it the next

sabbathe to ye effect ye people may provide some considerable thing

yranent.” Records of the kirk session of Govan, 1st July, 1652.

“Upon the desire of the Guinea Merchants (20th Sept., 1651,) 1,500

of the Scots prisoners were granted to them, and sent on shipboard

to be transported to Guinea to work in the mines there.”—Whitelock’s

Mem. p. 485. “Letters (25th October, 1651,) that many of the Scots

prisoners and others at Shrewsbury were dead of a contagious

fever.”—Id. p. 488.—_Ed._]

170 [That is, in this world.—_Ed._]

171 [That is, he will get, or meet with, a fall or fall lower as he, who

aims at being wise above what is written, is in danger of falling

into error.—_Ed._]

172 [That is, treat with indignity.—_Ed._]

173 [That is, check (from _compesco_, Lat.).—_Ed._]

174 [Or, hesitation.—_Ed._]

175 [That is, more honoured.—_Ed._]

176 [That is, than.—_Ed._]

177 [That is, concourse.—_Ed._]

178 [Or pre-eminence above others.—_Ed._]

179 [That is, directions, or different points of the compass.—_Ed._]

180 [That is careless or slight.—_Ed._]

181 [This was long a current tradition. But Maundrell avers that he saw

“several birds flying about and over the lake of Sodom,” or Dead Sea

as it is called “without any visible harm”—Journey from Aleppo to

Jerusalem A.D. 1696 p. 137. Edin. 1812.—_Ed._]

182 [That is, destitute of reason.—_Ed._]

183 [Or property.—_Ed._]

184 [That is not so likely to happen.—_Ed._]

185 [That is, the obscurity or mystery of the gospel.—_Ed._]

186 [Coldly or carelessly.—_Ed._]

187 [That is, “If thou lovest the earth, thou art earth”.—_Ed._]

188 [Increase.—_Ed._]

189 [Antiperistasis (αντιπεριστασις from αντι περ and ισταημ, the act of

hemming round) a term employed in ancient times by the Peripatetics

to denote the increase of one quality by the action of another of an

opposite nature as when internal heat or inflammation is increased

by external cold. It would be “a holy Antiperistasis in a

Christian,” it is said (p. 216) were the surrounding ignorance and

wickedness of the world to make the grace of God unite itself and

work more powerfully as fire out of a cloud and shine more brightly

as a torch in the darkness of the night. A learned English divine

who lived in the same age with Binning declares that in the case of

the faithful themselves sin derives additional power, by

_antiperistasis_ from the law, to deceive, captivate, sell as a

slave to make them do that which they hated and allowed not and do

not that which they would and loved.—Bishop Reynold’s Works vol. I.

p. 146, Lond. 1826.—_Ed._]

190 [Exuberant or abundant.—_Ed._]

191 [That is, conceived like that.—_Ed._]

192 [That is, _than_ to look.—_Ed._]

193 [That is, opposite.—_Ed._]

194 [See Note, p. 208.—_Ed._]

195 [That is disfigure.—_Ed._]

196 [That is, “The soul is where it loves, not where it

animates.”—_Ed._]

197 [That is, indictment or accusation.—_Ed._]

198 [That is, exert.—_Ed._]

199 [These were booths, or other temporary erections, put up for the

reception of such as were infected with the plague.—_Ed._]

200 [In some of his epistles to his friends, Cicero expresses himself as

if he thought death was to be followed by utter annihilation. But he

speaks very differently in some of his other writings. The following

passage occurs in a work (_Consolatio_) which has been ascribed to

him—_Gorgias orator, jam ætate confectus ac morti proximus rogatus

num libenter moreretur maxime vero inquit nam tamquam ex putri

miseraque domo lætus egredior—Mortem igitur in malus nullo modo esse

ponendam sed in præcipius bonus numerandam debitaturum puto

neminem_—Gorgias the orator, when worn out with age and near death

being asked whether he would die willingly said: Very willingly

indeed for I depart as if I were gladly leaving a filthy and

wretched house.—I therefore think that no one will hesitate to

believe that death is not by any means to be ranked among evils but

included among things which we account good in the highest

degree.—Cic. Oper. tom. iv. pp. 1347, 1348. Basil 1681.—_Ed._]

201 [Animals that have a sting are called aculeata animalis. _Plin. Nat.

Hist._ lib. xx. cap. 91.—_Ed._]

202 [That is, not knowing.—_Ed._]

203 [Dr. Mead describes the means which were formerly resorted to in

this country to check the progress of the plague. “The main import

of the orders issued out at these times was as soon as it was found

that any house was infected, to keep it shut up, with a large red

cross, and these words ‘Lord, have mercy upon us,’ painted on the

door, watchmen attending day and night to prevent any one’s going in

or out except such physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, nurses,

searchers, &c., as were allowed by authority, and this to continue

at least a month after all the family was dead or recovered.

“It is not easy to conceive a more dismal scene of misery than this,

families locked up from all their acquaintance, though seized with a

distemper which the most of any in the world requires comfort and

assistance, abandoned it may be to the treatment of an inhuman

nurse, (for such are often found at these times about the sick,) and

strangers to every thing but the melancholy sight of the progress

death makes among themselves, with small hopes of life left to the

survivors and those mixed with anxiety and doubt, whether it be not

better to die, than to prolong a miserable being, after the loss of

their best friends and nearest relations.”—_Dr. Mead’s Medical

Works_ p. 273.—_Ed._]

204 [That is, stupified.—_Ed._]

205 [That is obstruction. “Mr. Prin and the Erastian lawyers are now our

_remora_”—Baillie’s Letters and Journal, vol. ii., p. 158.—_Ed._]

206 [The ancient heathens seem to have looked upon a future state, says

Leland, (Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation, vol.

ii. p. 305, Glasgow, 1819,) as too uncertain a thing to be relied

upon, and therefore endeavoured to find out motives to virtue

independent on the belief of the rewards prepared for good men after

this life is at an end. They represented, in an elegant and

beautiful manner, the present conveniences and advantages of virtue,

and the satisfaction which attends it, but especially they insisted

upon its intrinsic excellency, its dignity and beauty, and

agreeableness to reason and nature, and its self sufficiency to

happiness, which many of them, especially the stoics,—the most rigid

moralists among them,—carried to a very high degree. Cicero, in his

Offices, and those excellent philosophers, Epictetus and Marcus

Antoninus, in their works, which seem to be the best moral treatises

pagan antiquity has left us, go upon this scheme. They were

sensible, indeed that, in order to recommend virtue to the esteem of

mankind, and engage them to pursue it, it was necessary to show that

it would be for their own highest advantage.—_Ed._]

207 [The Sun and the Wind had once a dispute which of them could soonest

prevail with a certain traveller to part with his cloak. The Wind

began the attack and assaulted him with much noise and fury; but the

man, wrapping his cloak still closer about him, doubled his efforts

to keep it, and went on his way. And now the Sun silently darted his

warm insinuating rays which, melting our traveller by degrees at

length obliged him to lay aside that cloak which all the rage of the

Wind could not compel him to resign. _Learn_ hence, said the Sun

_that soft and gentle means will often accomplish what force and

fury can never effect_. (Fable of the Sun and the Wind. Boreas et

Sol.) This is one of forty two fables ascribed to Æsop, which

Avienus, a Latin poet who lived in the age of Theodosius turned into

elegiac verse. The employment of apologues, which is sanctioned by

scripture, seems to be a natural mode of imparting instruction.

These arrest the attention, disarm prejudice, give to unwelcome

truths a pleasing form and imprint deeply on the memory the lesson

that is intended to be conveyed. It is mentioned by Vincent of

Beauvais, who wrote in the middle of the thirteenth century, that

the preachers of his age were accustomed to quote the fables of Æsop

in order to rouse the indifference and relieve the languor of their

hearers. Special Hist. lib. iii. cap. viii. p. 31. Ven. 1391, ap.

Warton’s Diss. on Gesta Romanorum p. i.—_Ed_]

208 [That is united or interwoven.—_Ed._]

209 [Or available.—_Ed._]

210 [Mr. Binning had the authority of Jerome for saying this. When

speaking of the Dead sea or as it is styled in Scripture, the Salt

sea, his words are Demque si Jordanis auctus imbribus pisces illuc

influens rapuerit statim mortuntur, et pinguibus aquis supernatant.

In fine, if the Jordan, which runs into it, should when swollen with

rain, carry any fish along with it, they die immediately, and float

upon the surface of the bituminous waters. (Hieron Comment in Ezek.

cap. xlvii.) He also states that no living creature of any

description was to be found in the Dead sea. (Comment in Joel cap.

ii.) According to Volney, clouds of smoke are still observed to

issue from this lake, and he represents the lava and pumice stones

which have been thrown upon its banks to be likewise indubitable

indicators of the agency of fire. The water however of what Milton

describes as—

“That bituminous lake where Sodom dam’d”

—though excessively bitter, and so heavy that the most impetuous

waves can scarcely ruffle its surface is now perfectly transparent.

M. de Chateaubriand who mentions this also informs us that he heard

a noise upon the lake about midnight, which the Bethlehemites who

accompanied him told him, proceeded from legions of small fish,

which come and leap about on the shore.—(Travels, vol. 1, p. 397.,

Lond. 1812). He adds, “M. Seetzen, who is yet travelling in Arabia,

observed in the Dead sea neither the helix nor the muscle, but found

a few shell snails.”—Ibid.—_Ed._]

211 [That is, guardians.—_Ed._]

212 [Or attempt to walk.—_Ed._]

213 [That is governed. “Most people in the world are _acted_ by levity

and humour.” _South’s Sermons_.—_Ed._]

214 [That is, spark.—_Ed._]

215 [That is, set conscience aside.—_Ed._]

216 [That is, corollary or consequence.—_Ed._]

217 [Of good spirit.—_Ed._]

218 [That is, compared to.—_Ed._]

219 [That is, disburthen.—_Ed._]

220 [That is, respecting.—_Ed._]

221 [Oyes, (from oyez, the old imperative of the French verb _ouir_, to

hear) a word used by public criers, before making their

proclamations.—_Ed._]

222 [That is, “pious frauds”.—_Ed._]

223 [That is, sue for you or make their suit to you.—_Ed._]

224 [That is, compared to those &c.—_Ed._]

225 [That is, the quarter.—_Ed._]

226 [It is unquestionably a remarkable fact that Pythagoras, one of the

most celebrated philosophers of antiquity, represented the Great

Author of all things to be possessed of a threefold form (Cudworth

System. Intell. cap. iv. p. 446, June 1733). Nor is it less

wonderful, as a learned writer has shown, that even the Chinese seem

to have received, from the dispersed Jews, long before the birth of

Christ, some knowledge of the doctrine of the Trinity. Bryant’s

Philo Judaeus, pp. 283-290.—_Ed._]

227 [That is, a bottom, or ball of thread.—_Ed._]

228 [That is, to be manifested.—_Ed._]

229 [The word _furniture_ had formerly a more varied and extensive

signification than is now assigned to it. The old divines employed

it to denote the union of the divine and human natures in the person

of Christ, or the peculiar properties or qualifications with which,

as the Messiah, he was furnished, to act in the character of our

Mediator. “Consider that Christ’s calling to the office of

Mediatorship may import three things his designation, his

_furniture_, his investiture in the office.”—_Gillespie’s Ark of the

Covenant_, p. 176. Lond. 1677.—_Ed._]

230 [Codrus respecting whom this incident is recorded was the last king

of the Athenians. His subjects from reverence to his memory resolved

that with him should terminate their regal form of government.—_Val.

Max._ lib. v. cap. 6. _Just. Hist._ lib. v. cap. 6.—_Ed._]

231 [That is, appeal.—_Ed._]

232 [“What Mahomet did, lies within any man’s reach. He was authorized

by no miracle, he was countenanced by no prediction. But what was

performed by Jesus Christ, is absolutely above the power and the

imitation of man.

“Mahomet established himself by slaughter, Jesus Christ by

commanding us to lay down our lives. Mahomet, by forbidding his law

to be read, Jesus Christ by engaging us to search and read. In a

word, the two designs are in all respects so directly opposite that

Mahomet took the way, in human probability to succeed, Jesus Christ,

humanly speaking, to be disappointed. And hence, instead of so

irrational a conclusion, as that because Mahomet succeeded, Jesus

Christ might, in like manner have succeeded before, we ought to

infer, that since Mahomet has succeeded, Christianity must

inevitably have perished had it not been founded and supported by a

power altogether divine” (Pascal’s Thoughts p. 95. Lond. 1886).

Whoever wishes to see this comparison carried farther, may consult

the masterly sermons of Professor White, preached before the

University of Oxford at the Bampton Lecture. These contain a view of

Christianity and Mahometanism, in their history, their evidence and

their effects pp. 225-463. Lond. 1792.—_Ed._]

233 [This was Cyrus, the younger son of Darius Nothus, king of Persia,

and the brother of Artaxerxes. He was slain in battle, when fighting

against his own brother. Plut. in Artax.—_Ed._]

234 [It has been said that the following circumstance led Alexander to

lay claim to a divine origin. As he entered the temple of Jupiter

Ammon in Libya, the high priest approached him, intending to address

him as his son. But not being master of the Greek language, instead

of saying παιδιον, (paidion) which signifies _son_ he substituted

_s_ for _n_, calling him παι διος (pai dios) which signifies _son of

Jupiter_. (Plot. in Alex.). Alexander required his soldiers to

address him as the son of Jupiter. This excited the indignation and

contempt of Hegelochus, one of his generals. “Do we acknowledge,” he

said, “him to be our king, who refuses to own Philip to be his

father? It is all over with us if we can submit to these things. He

who demands to be thought a God (qui postulat deus credi) despises

not men only, but likewise the gods. We have lost Alexander. We have

lost our king. We have encountered pride, not to be endured by the

gods, to whom he equals himself nor by men from whom he withdraws

himself.”—_Quint. Curt._ lib. vi. cap. 11. See also the speech of

Callisthenes in the presence of Alexander himself.—_Arrian_ lib. iv.

cap. 10.—_Ed._]

235 [These are the words of the Vulgate, signifying literally, that

“grief occupies the heights of joy.” A humiliating truth, akin to

this, is contained in one of the maxims of Hippocrates: Ultimus

sanitatis gradus est morbo proximus. “The highest state of health is

as near as possible to disease.”—_Ed._]

236 [The first of Francis Quarles, Emblems Divine and Moral, is the

picture of a heart. A representation of the globe covers the whole

of the heart with the exception of the three angles or corners on

each of which a syllable of the word Tri ni tas is imprinted.

Frances Quarles was secretary to Archbishop Usher. He died in

1644.—_Ed._]

237 [That is, slight.—_Ed._]

238 [These are two adages. The former is quoted by Cicero as an ancient

proverb in his days (De Senect. cap. iii.). The meaning of it is,

that, “equals or persons of the same age and rank, flock together.”

The literal meaning of the other is “like take pleasure in like.” It

(το ὁμοιοι το ὁμοιο φιλευ) is as old as the days of

Aristotle.—Ethic. Nicom. lib. ix. cap. 3.—_Ed._]

239 [That is, compound.—_Ed._]

240 [That is, “the darkness of too much light”.—_Ed._]

241 [That is, a defect.—_Ed._]

242 [That is, genius.—_Ed._]

243 [That is, who look upon a part or portion of the gospel, as if that

were the whole of it.—_Ed._]

244 [A celebrated English preacher, who was cotemporary with Binning

makes a similar remark: “No question but those that have been so

bold as to deny that there was a God have sometimes been much afraid

they have been in error, and have at last suspected there was a God,

when some sudden prodigy hath presented itself to them and roused

their fears. And whatsoever sentiments they might have in their

blinding prosperity, they have had other kind of notions in them in

their stormy afflictions, and like Jonah’s mariners, have been ready

to cry to him for help, whom they disdained to own so much as in

being, while they swam in their pleasures. The thoughts of a Deity

cannot be extinguished, but they will revive and rush upon a man at

least under some sharp affliction. Amazing judgments will make them

question their own apprehensions.” (Charnock’s Works, vol. 1, p. 42

Lond. 1682). An ancient historian relates, concerning Caligula the

Emperor of Rome, whose licentiousness knew no bounds, and who

professed the utmost contempt for the gods of his country, that,

when it thundered, he was accustomed from fear of the gods he

derided, to shut his eyes, cover his head, and even conceal himself

under a bed.—Suet. in Calig. cap. 51 Seneca de Ira, lib. i, cap.

16.—_Ed._]

245 [That is, place or station.—_Ed._]

246 [That is, judge.—_Ed._]

247 [That is, to sue for.—_Ed._]

248 [Many of the speeches and actions of Philip, who was the father of

Alexander the Great, are worthy of being remembered. A collection of

his most memorable sayings has been made by Erasmus, in his

Apothegmata Opus (pp. 268-279, Lutetiæ 154). The conduct of Philip,

in many respects however, was very unlike that of a wise and

virtuous prince. Like mankind in general, though he was reminded

daily of this, he too often forgot that he was mortal.—_Ed._]

249 [There is no fact, connected with the history of former times, which

can be more easily proved than this that religious sacrifices were

prevalent throughout every part of the Gentile world. Animals, which

were deemed suitable for sacrifice by one nation, might be

considered improper for such a purpose by another. But in the most

remote countries victims of one kind or another, and not

unfrequently human victims were seen bleeding on the altars of

superstition, and with the death of these, the idea of substitution,

or of presenting life for life, was almost invariably connected.

When sacrificing her victim, Ovid makes his votaress exclaim—“I like

heart for heart, I beseech thee, take entrails for entrails. We give

to thee this life for a better one”—

Cor pro corde, precor, pro obras sumite fibras.

Hanc animam vobis pro meliore damus

Fast lib. vi. v. 161

But “as Kennicot observes from Delaney, whatever practice has

obtained universally in the world, must have obtained from some

dictate of _reason_, or some demand of _nature_, or some principle

of _interest_, or else from some powerful influence or injunction of

some Being of universal authority. Now the practice of animal

sacrifice did not obtain from _reason_, for no reasonable notions of

God could teach men that he could delight in blood, or in the fat of

slain beasts. Nor will any man say, that we have any natural

_instinct_ to gratify, in spilling the blood of an innocent

creature. Nor could there be any temptation from appetite to do this

in those ages, when the whole sacrifice was consumed by fire; or

when, if it was not, yet men wholly abstained from flesh; and

consequently this practice did not owe its origin to any principle

of _interest_. Nay, so far from any thing of this, that the

destruction of innocent and useful creatures is evidently _against

nature_, _against reason_, and _against interest_, and therefore

must be founded in an authority, whose influence was as powerful as

the practice was universal and that could be none but the authority

of God, the sovereign of the world; or of Adam, the founder of the

human race. If it be said of Adam, the question still remains, what

motive determined him to the practice? It could not be nature,

reason, or interest, as has been already shown, it must therefore

have been the authority of his Sovereign, and had Adam enjoined it

to his posterity, it is not to be imagined that they would have

obeyed him in so extraordinary and expensive a rite, from any other

motive than the command of God. If it be urged, that superstitions

prevail unaccountably in the world, it may be answered, that all

superstition has its origin in true religion; all superstition is an

abuse; and all abuse supposes a right and proper use. And if this be

the case in superstitious practices that are of lesser moment and

extent, what shall be said of a practice existing through all ages,

and pervading every nation?—See Kennic, Two Diss. pp. 210, 211 and

Rev. Exam. Diss. 8 p. 85-89.” Magee on the Atonement, vol. ii. part

i. pp. 27-29.—_Ed._]

250 [That is, restrain.—_Ed._]

251 [See note page 96.]

252 [Lucius Cinna was the grandson of Pompey the Great. It was through

the intercession of Livia, the wife of Augustus, that Cinna was

pardoned. “Do” said she to Augustus, “what physicians are accustomed

to do, who, when the remedies they have employed do not succeed, try

others which are entirely different. You have done no good by

severity—Try now the effect of clemency. Forgive Lucius Cinna. Now

that he has been discovered, he cannot injure you, but he can

advance your reputation”—Seneca de Clem. lib. i.—_Ed._]

253 [Language of this description was in common use with the Antinomians

of the time, as may be seen in Edwards’ Gangræna (Part First, p. 22,

Lond. 1646). Gataker’s Antinomiania Discovered and Confuted, (pp.

18, 19, Lond. 1652) and other similar works written about this

period.—_Ed._]

254 [How inconsistent is this maxim of Machiavel with the semblance even

of Christian integrity! Pascal, however, has supplied us with ample

proofs not only from the books of the Jesuits but from their public

Theses, that they hold it to be perfectly justifiable to calumniate

their enemies or to charge them with crimes of which they know them

to be innocent. He declares that this doctrine is so generally

received by them (si constante,) that should a man dare to oppose

it, he would be treated by them as a fool,—Les Provinciales tome

troisieme quinzieme lettre.—_Ed._]

255 [The philosophy of Aristotle was called architectonica

(αρχιτεκτονικη), _pertaining to building_, from αρχος _a leader_,

and τεκτην an _artificer_), as if every kind of knowledge had been

rendered subservient to it.—_Ed._]

256 [That is, arts or sciences.—_Ed._]

257 [The Records of the Presbytery of Glasgow show, that this Fast was

appointed by the commission of the General Assembly. “The

commissioun of the Generall Assemblie, upone the 25 day of June 1650

did emit ane seasonable warning concerning the present dangeris and

dewties unto all the memberis of the kirk. To draw neir to God, to

murne for thair ayin iniquiteis, and for all the synnes,

prophanitie, and bakslydinges of the land, to studie to mak peace

with God in Cryst Jesus, to searche and try our wayis and to return

speedilie to the Lord, and to lift up our hartis with our handis to

God in the heavines, that he may spair and save his pepill, that

thai be not a prey to the enymie,” &c. (Nicol’s Diary of Public

Transactions in Scotland, p. 17. Printed by Bannatyne Club, Edin.

1836). On the 28th of June, a copy of this warning was presented to

the Scottish parliament, who thanked the commission of the General

Assembly for it, and requested them to delay the printing of it for

a few days, that it might be accompanied with a Declaration from

them suited to the existing crisis (Sir James Balfour’s Annals of

Scotland, vol. iv. p. 63.). When the Presbytery of Glasgow met on

the 31st of July, 1650, “the brethrene that wer present declaired

that yei had keepit the fast, that yei had read the warning” (Presb.

Rec). See also Lamont’s Diary, 7th July 1650. The appointment of

Fasts to be observed on the Lord’s day, was at a subsequent period

disapproved of by the Church of Scotland. “Albeit by the treatise of

fasting emitted by the Assembly 25 December, 1565, the Sundays were

appointed for some fasts as being for the greater ease of the

people, and since by the last act of Assembly 1646, a fast is

appointed on the Sabbath next except one preceding the then

following General Assembly, yet seeing the work to be performed on

the first day of the week is, by divine institution, already

determined, we ought to set about it exactly, which we all

acknowledge to be a thanksgiving and not a fast. Extraordinary

duties are not to interfere with the ordinary, nor is one duty to

shuffle out another. If either should be allowed, it would look

somewhat like the reverse of redeeming the time, for thereby

diligence is rather diminished than doubled in the service of

God.”—Overtures of the General Assembly, 1705.—_Ed._]

258 [“The abstinence is commanded to be from Saterday at eight of the

clock at night, till Sonday eftir the exercise at eftir noone, that

is, after five of the clock. And then onlie bread and drink to be

used, and that with great sobrietie, that the bodie craving

necessarie food, the soul may be provoked earnestly to crave of God,

that which it most neideth, that is mercie for our former

unthankfulnes, and the assistance of his holie spirit in tyme to

cum.” (_The Ourdoure and Doctrine of the General Fast, set down by

John Knox, and John Craig, at the Appoyntment of the Assemblie in

the year 1565, Apud. Dunlop’s Confessions_, vol. ii. p. 686.) This

Order was afterwards observed in all the fasts appointed by the

General Assembly. (Id. p. 699.)—_Ed._]

259 [That is, “Nor does God please all, when he sends rain.”—_Ed._]

260 [That is, parts.—_Ed._]

261 [The army of the Commonwealth was now on its march towards Scotland,

under the command of Cromwell, who had been appointed by the English

parliament captain general of their forces. But the hopes of the

people of Scotland had been revived by the arrival of Charles II.

from Breda, about a fortnight before this, who, at the mouth of the

river Spey, before he landed, had signed the national covenant, and

also the solemn league and covenant, though the commission appointed

to receive his subscription appear, on too good grounds, to have

suspected his sincerity (Sir Edward Walker’s Hist. Disc., p. 158.

Life of Rev. J. Livingston, written by himself, p. 51. Glasg. 1754.)

A letter, addressed by Charles to the Committee of Estates,

immediately after the battle of Dunbar, and dated Perth, 12

September, 1650, contains the following passage: “Wee cannot but

acknowledge that the stroke and tryall is very harde to be borne,

and would be impossible for us and you, in humane strength, but in

the Lord’s wee are bold and confident, whoe hath always defended

this ancient kingdome, and transmitted the governement of it upon us

from so many worthy predecessors, whoe in the lyke difficulties have

not fainted, and they had only the honor and civill liberties of the

land to defend, but wee have with your religion, the gospel, and the

covenant, _against which Hell shall not prevaile_, much lesse a

number of sectains stirred up by it. Wee acknowledge, that what hath

befallen is just from God for our sinns, and those of our house, and

the whole land, and all the families in it, have lykewise helped to

pull downe the judgement, and to kindle this fierce wrath. Wee shall

strive to be humbled, that the Lord may be appeased, and that he may

returne to the thousands of his people, and _comfort us according to

the days wee have beene afflicted, and the yeares that wee have

seene_. You are going, you sat, upon the deuites, for returne of the

afflicted land, (you do well to do soe,) and to try the

instrumentall causes and occasions of the disaster and surpressal.

Looke not too much upon second causes, the pryme and originall, and

only cause, is God’s just displeasure: for the causes of defeats in

armys, they are harder to be found out than in any other of the

actions of men, a word, a sound, the mooving or remooving of any

body or squadron, may be, and have beane, the causes of the losse of

battles, and how often have pannicke feares seazed upon them, that

never any ground or resone could be given for? Lay not the fault

upon this or that, coming doune, or not staing upon a ground of

advantage, or upon this person or the other. That is the worst way

of all, for nothing devided nor discord can stand or prosper, but

leaste of all ane army; any thing of that kinde is the sodaine ruine

of it. Upon any other constitution it will not worke so soone.

Therefore wee intreete and charge you, as ye feare God, love his

cause in your hands, have affection to your countrie, or respect to

us, that you will remember, you are brethren in a covenant, and that

you now stand up and joyne together as one man for religion, your

countrie, your wives, children, liberties, and us, as your

predecessors have done in their difficulties in their generations.

Wee shall as willingly as any of them be ready to hazarde our lyfe

(nay to lay it down) with you for God, the covenant, and the honor

and freedom of this hitherto unconquered kyngdome, with any handful

you have together, or when it shall be thought convenient.”

(Thurloe’s State Papers, vol. i. p. 163.) The gross hypocrisy of

Charles, in putting his name to a letter containing sentiments like

these, and thus exciting false expectations in the minds of his

credulous subjects, must be apparent to all who are acquainted with

his subsequent history.—_Ed._]

262 [The narrative of Hume presents an affecting posture of the

cruelties perpetrated at the time of the Irish insurrection and

massacre. (Hist. of Eng. vol. iv. pp. 361-366, Lond. 1825). It is

said that “200,000 Protestants in two months space, were murdered,

and many by exquisite torments, and many more were despoiled of all

their worldly fortunes.” (May’s Brevary, p. 33. First printed in the

year 1655. Reprinted London 1813). For several years after this

period, Ireland was laid waste by contending armies and by the wild

rage of the native inhabitants.—_Ed._]

263 [A reference to this passage may be seen in the Life of the Author

prefixed to the Work.—_Ed._]

264 [That is, compensated.—_Ed._]

265 [When the national covenant was first subscribed by King James and

his household, and by persons of all ranks, in the year 1581, a

number of Jesuits and popish priests had unexpectedly made their

appearance in the country. Various dispensations from the Pope

likewise had been intercepted, whereby the Catholics were permitted

to _promise, swear, subscribe, and do what else should be required

of them, so as in mind they continued firm, and did use their

diligence to advance in secret the Roman faith_. These

dispensations, says Archbishop Spotswood, “being showed to the king,

he caused his minister, Mr John Craig, form a short confession of

faith, wherein all the corruptions of Rome, as well in doctrine as

outward rites, were particularly abjured and a clause inserted

(because of these dispensations) by which the subscribers did call

God to witness that in their minds and hearts they did fully agree

to the said confession, and did not feign or dissemble in any sort.

This confession [or covenant] the king, for an example to others,

did publicly swear and subscribe; the like was done by the whole

council and court.” (Hist. of Ch. of Scotland, pp. 308, 309). By an

ordinance of council and at the desire of the General Assembly, the

national covenant, along with a Bond for the maintenance of the true

religion, and the safety of the king’s person and government, was

again subscribed by persons of all ranks in the year 1590. This Bond

had been previously entered into and signed by his majesty, and

various men of rank and station in the kingdom, in anticipation of

the threatened Spanish invasion, and as a counter association to the

Holy League, which had been formed by the most powerful popish

princes in Europe with a view to extirpate the reformed religion.

When the national covenant was renewed in 1638, and once more

subscribed by all classes of the community, the Bond which

accompanied it was altered to suit the circumstances of the times.

It expressed a solemn determination on the part of those who

subscribed it to aim at “a personal reformation,” as well as a

resolution to withhold their sanction from the late innovations in

religion, “till they be tried and allowed in free Assemblies, and in

Parliaments.” These are the words—“And because we cannot look for a

blessing from God upon our proceedings, except with our profession

and subscription we join such a life and conversation as beseemeth

Christians who have renewed their covenant with God. We therefore

faithfully promise for ourselves, our followers, and all others

under us, both in public, and in our particular families and

personal carriage, to endeavour to keep ourselves within the bounds

of Christian liberty, and to be good examples to others of all

godliness, soberness, and righteousness, and of every duty we owe to

God and man” (Dunlop’s Confessions vol. II., p. 136.). The following

corresponding clause is contained in the Solemn League and Covenant,

which was ratified by the parliaments both of England and Scotland,

and subscribed generally by the people of both kingdoms in 1643, and

renewed in Scotland in 1648.—“And because these kingdoms are guilty

of many sins and provocations against God, and his Son Jesus Christ,

as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers, the fruits

thereof, we profess and declare before God and the world, our

unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own sins, and for the sins of

these kingdoms, especially that we have not, as we ought, valued the

inestimable benefit of the gospel; that we have not laboured for the

purity and power thereof, and that we have not endeavoured to

receive Christ in our hearts, nor to walk worthy of him in our

lives, which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much

abounding among us, and our true and unfeigned purpose, desire, and

endeavour for ourselves, and all others under our power and charge,

both in public and in private, in all duties we owe to God and to

man, to amend our lives, and each one to go before another in the

example of a real reformation, that the Lord may turn away his wrath

and heavy indignation, and establish these churches and kingdoms in

truth and peace.”—_Ed._]

266 [Nemo repente fuit turpissimus—Juv. Sat. II. v. 83.]

267 [Num. xxiii. 21.—_Ed._]

268 [Jer. l. 20.—_Ed._]

269 [“About the time of the first renewing of the covenant, there was a

sensible change to the better in men’s carriage and conversation,

most of all those who joined in opposing the defection not only

reforming themselves from common and gross sins such as drunkenness,

uncleanness, swearing, profaning the Lord’s day, slighting of the

ordinances, self seeking, covetousness, oppression, &c., but giving

themselves to the duties of religion and righteousness, such as

sobriety, edifying discourse, chaste behaviour, hallowing of the

Lord’s day, diligent seeking of the Lord in secret and in their

families, attending on the preaching of the word as often as

opportunity is offered, liberality, love, charity one toward

another, a public spirit and zeal for God. But all these things are

now decayed in many and they are again grown as ill if not worse

than before.” Causes of the Lord’s Wrath against Scotland. pp. 48,

49. Printed in the year 1653.—_Ed._]

270 [Much less.—_Ed._]

271 [An inference unfavourable to the religious character of the

countrymen of Binning, has been too hastily drawn from this and some

other passages in his works. (Orme’s Mem. of Dr. Owen, p. 129). The

late Dr M’Crie observed, that this was like “the attempts of popish

writers to prove the _Reformation_ a _Deformation_, by culling

quotations from the sermons of such Protestant preachers as

inveighed most freely against prevailing vices.” (Christ. Inst. vol.

xx. p. 624). In the “Representation, Propositions, and

Protestations,” however, “of divers Ministers, Elders, and

Professors,” printed in the year 1652, and probably about the time

this sermon was preached, it is affirmed, that the religious aspect

of the country had undergone an unhappy change, in the course of the

two preceding years. “If we look back,” it is said, p. 3 “to that

which we have already attained of the work of Reformation,

(notwithstanding our short-coming in the power and practice of

godliness,) what purity was there of worship, what soundness of

doctrine, unity of faithful pastors, order and authority of

assemblies, what endeavours for promoting the power of godliness,

for purging of the ministry, judicatories and armies, and for

employing such in places of power and trust as were of constant

integrity and good affection to the cause, and of blameless

conversation? And again, if we consider how in place of these,

within these two years, have succeeded, for unity, division, for

order, confusion, for purity of worship, outward contempt; for the

power of godliness, atheism and profaneness; for purging of the

ministry, judicatories and armies, sinful mixtures; for zeal,

lukewarmness and toleration,—it is too palpable that we are far gone

on in the way of declining, having lost much of that which we had

attained, and that which remains being ready to die.”—_Ed._]

272 [The author and the other protesters disapproved not only of the

proceedings of the civil and ecclesiastical judicatures, but of the

composition of these courts, after the act of classes had been

rescinded on the 30th of May, 1651. In consequence of the repeal of

this act, they who, on account of what was in the language of the

times called malignancy, had formerly been excluded from their

places in the Scottish parliament, were allowed to take possession

of their seats, by signing a bond, the terms of which the parliament

prescribed. This the protesters considered to be wrong as a matter

both of policy and principle. They likewise declared the assembly,

which in July, 1651, met at St. Andrews, and afterwards adjourned to

Dundee, and also that which was held in Edinburgh, in July, 1652, to

be “unlawful and corrupt,” adding, that “although with the renewing

of the national covenant, and with the casting out of prelates, and

the corruptions introduced by them, the Lord was graciously pleased

to give repentance to not a few who were involved in that defection;

yet, since that time, there hath always remained a corrupt party of

insufficient, scandalous, and ill-affected ministers in the kirk,

enemies to the power of godliness, and obstructors to the work of

reformation, ... that party perceiving that they were not able to

endure trial in a time of reformation and purging, began the last

year to lift up their heads, and speak a language of their own,” &c.

(Representation, ut supra, pp. 11, 12). The protesters, moreover,

are found complaining at this period, “how gracious and well

qualified elders are removed and kept out from church judicatories,

and ignorant and profane persons brought in, and more endeavoured to

be brought in in their room, how gifted and gracious young men are

debarred from entering into the ministry, and a door is opened to

others, whereof some are loose and profane, and many are ignorant

and strangers to the work of the Lord upon their own hearts.”—Letter

from Protesters, subscribed in the name of many ministers, &c. met

at Edinburgh, 17th of March 1653, by Mr. Andrew Cant, p. 6. See what

is said in reply to this, in “The Assertor’s Answer,” printed in the

same year, p. 18.—_Ed._]

273 [Acknowledge.—_Ed._]

274 [See note, page 126.—_Ed._]

275 [Recognise.—_Ed._]

276 [That is, genius or ingenuity (from _ingenium_, Lat.) “But gif

corporall doth be commoun to all. Why will ye jeoparde to lois

eternall life to eschap that which neither ryche nor pure, neither

wise nor ignorant, proud of stomoke nor febill of corage, and

finally, no earthlie creature by no craft or engine of man, did ever

avoid?” Letter of John Knox from Dieppe.—_Ed._]

277 [That is, “He who cries up his descent boasts of that which is

another’s.”—_Ed._]

278 [Much less.—_Ed._]

279 [This is a literal translation of a Greek proverb which is quoted by

Aulus Gellius (Noct. Att. lib. xiii. cap. 17) and which has been

rendered into Latin thus:—_Multa cadunt inter calicem labrumque

supremum._—_Ed._]

280 [Diod. Sic. Bibl. lib. i. p. 68.

Venit ad occasum, mun lique extrema Sesostris,

Et Pharios currus regum cervicibus egit.

Lucan lib. x. ver. 276.

The farthest west our great Sesostris saw,

Whilst captive kings did his proud chariot draw.

May’s Translation.

Sesostris was so much affected and humbled, by the delicate appeal

of the enslaved monarch, that he immediately commanded him, and the

other unhappy kings who were harnessed to his car, to be removed

from it.—Theophylact Hist. Maurit. lib. vi. chap. ii. Joan Tzetz.

Hist. Chibad. iii. 69.—_Ed._]

281 [See note page 98.—_Ed._]

282 [Hear, O heavens and give ear, O earth. ver. 2.—_Ed._]

283 [Regret, or accusation.—_Ed._]

284 [Agreeably to the course of discipline in former ages, (Hooker’s

Eccl. Pol. vol. iii. p. 15,) they who had been convicted of any

gross crime were required by the First Book of Discipline, (chap.

ix.) and by subsequent enactments of the Church of Scotland, to

confess their sin in the hearing of the whole congregation. The same

thing was required of delinquents by the canons of the Church of

England. Dr. Grey, in his Impartial Examination of Neale’s History

of the Puritans, (App. pp. 62-68,) has, from original documents

which were in his own possession, furnished us with various forms,

according to which, towards the end of the sixteenth century,

offenders were appointed to make their confession, in different

parts of England, in their respective parish-churches. The dues

which, in cases of scandal, were exacted by the ecclesiastical

courts of Scotland, were imposed and defined by acts of parliament.

Power to levy these was given to justices of the peace, who were

frequently members of the kirk session, or parochial consistory of

their district. In the year 1648, the General Assembly “recommended

to every congregation, to make use of the 9th act of the parliament

1645, at Perth, for having magistrates and justices in every

congregation.” (Rec. of Kirk of Scot. p. 511, Edn. 1839.) It was in

this way, it would seem, or from elders acting both in a civil and

in an ecclesiastical capacity, that the practice of exacting fines

by kirk sessions arose and was continued. “You object that our

church sessions did exact fines. But if you consider, that these

fines, which you mention, are particularly imposed and determined by

statute, and thereby appointed to be applied to pious uses, and

therefore the demanding and uplifting thereof only, as well for the

more summary and effectual restraint of sin, as for the end whereto

they are destined, is in use to be exercised by kirk sessions, or

rather by their officers and beadles in deficiency of the

magistrate, this your scruple must quickly cease.” “The True

Non-Conformist,” p. 55, printed abroad in the year 1671.—_Ed._]

285 [See Note, page 375.—_Ed._]

286 [This passage is quoted in the Life of the Author.—_Ed._]

287 [That is, the persons who prescribe or appoint it.—_Ed._]

288 [“The longer I live in the world the less fond am I of that divinity

that stand upon quirks and subtilties. What should drive us upon

determining whether faith or repentance goes first? What valuable

ends or purposes in religion can it serve to promote? What

edification can it give to an audience to dispute learnedly about a

point of this nature?... I cannot but heartily approve what Mr

Robert Blair, an eminent light of this church now in glory, said

upon the question in hand. He told his people from the pulpit, that

it was a very needless one. ’Tis just (said he,) as if you should

ask me, when we are to walk, which foot should we lift first. If we

should walk to purpose we must make use of both limbs; and so

despatched the thorny question. I wish we may all imitate the wisdom

of that great and good man. Is it not sufficient for us to declare

that both are necessary, without determining the nice point of

priority and posterority?” (Essay on Gospel and Legal Preaching, by

a Minister of the Church of Scotland, pp. 22, 23. Edin. 1723.) “Mr.

Robert Blair, born in Irvine, was first a Regent in the College of

Glasgow, at which time he was licensed to preach the gospel, and was

from the beginning zealous for truth and piety.” (Livingston’s

Memorable Characteristics, p. 73) Mr. Blair died in 1666 in the 73d

year of his age. (See Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Robert Blair, the

first part written by himself, p. 128, Edin. 1754.) Mr. James

Durham, Minister of the High Church of Glasgow, a short time before

his death, intrusted to him the publication of his “Dying Man’s

Testament to the Church of Scotland, or a Treatise concerning

Scandal,” to which Mr. Blair wrote a preface. Principal Baillie

gives this account of Blair, “Truly, I bear that man record that in

all his English voyages, in many passages of the Assembly, private

and public, he contributed as much to the pacifying of our

differences as any, and much more than many.” Journals and Letters,

vol. i. p. 306.—_Ed._]

289 [Or, sin itself.—_Ed._]

290 [That is, _power_ of persuasion.—_Ed._]

291 [This is the word in the first Edition. It would seem to have been

substituted for _arrive_.—_Ed._]

292 [That is, unless you please.—_Ed._]

293 [A proverb, which signifies that conscience does not deceive, and

that its testimony is as overwhelming as that of a thousand

witnesses—_Quintil Inst Orator_ lib. v. chap. xi.—_Ed._]

294 [That is, not to will.—_Ed._]

295 [See Note, page 96. _Si vis cadem semper vella, vera oportet

velis._—“If you are desirous to have always similar wishes, it is

necessary that you should wish for things that are proper.” _Senec.

Epist._ xcv.—_Ed._]

296 [That is, laid open or explained.—_Ed._]

297 [Dispone is a Scots law expression. It signifies to convey a right

or property to another.—_Ed._]

298 See:

Non bene conveniunt, nec in una sede morantur,

Majestus et amor.

_Ovid. Met._ lib. ii. v. 846.—_Ed._]

299 [The name Immanuel ונמע לא signifies, _God with us_. Immelanu ונא

לאמע signifies, _we with God_.—_Ed._]

300 [The Goel (לאג), or nearest kinsman, was, by the Mosaic law,

entitled not only to redeem a forfeited inheritance, but to avenge

the blood of any of the family, by slaying the murderer, if he found

him out of a city of refuge. He was therefore called the redeemer,

or “avenger of blood,” Josh. xx. 3.—_Ed._]

301 [The word λυτρον denotes the price of redemption, or that which is

given to purchase the freedom of those who are in a state of

captivity. “Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered to but

to minister, and to give his life a ransom (λυτρον) for many” (Matt.

xx. 28, Mark x. 45). αντιλυτρον is but once used in the New

Testament. Its gratification is a counter-price, or the ransom that

is paid when the life or person of one is given for that of another.

“For there is but one God and one mediator between God and men, the

man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom (αντιλυτρον) for all,” 1

Tim. ii. 5, 6. Vide Leigh’s Critica Sacra.—_Ed._]

302 [That is, proposed.—_Ed._]

303 [That is, however.—_Ed._]

304 [Verse 6.—_Ed._]

305 [That is, place it upon God or charge him with it.—_Ed._]

306 [That is, adorned itself.—_Ed._]

307 [_Scottice_ for _than_.—_Ed._]

308 [There is some obscurity in this sentence. The sentiment that is

expressed, however, seems to be this:—_Much love to a particular

object makes the act of seeking or praying for it to be loved

more._—_Ed._]

309 [That is, an earnest (_arrha_ Lat.).—_Ed._]

310 [Yule is a name that is still applied to Christmas, in the Northern

parts of England as well as in Scotland. “This name was originally

given to the great annual feast celebrated among the northern

nations, at the time of the winter solstice in honour of the sun.

Hence Odin was denominated Julvatter, or the _Father of Yule_.”

(Jamieson’s Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish language.) “He

praised God that he was born in such a time, as in the time of the

light of the gospel—to such a place as to be king of such a kirk,

the sincerest kirk of the world. The kirk of Geneva keep Pasch and

_Yule_; what have they for them? They have no institution. As for

our neighbour kirk in England their service is an evil sad mass in

English, they want nothing of the mass but the liftings.” (Speech of

King James VI, to the Central Assembly of the Church of Scotland, at

Edinburgh, August 1590. Calderwood’s Hist. of the Ch. of Scot. p.

206.) What is called the birch or “birk in Yule even’” was probably

the _Yule clog_. On Christmas eve at no very remote period, the

_Yule clog_, which was a large shapeless piece of wood, selected for

the purpose, was dragged by a number of persons bearing in their

hand large candles, and placed by them on the fire where it was to

be burned in compliance with an ancient superstitious custom. Our

author may refer to this practice or perhaps he had simply in view

the old proverb, “He’s as bare as the birk at Yule.”—Henderson’s

Scottish Proverbs, p. 47. Edin. 1832.—_Ed._]