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
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
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.
<p>527</p>
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.
<p>528</p>
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.
<p>529</p>
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.
<p>530</p>
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.
<p>531</p>
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.
<p>532</p>
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.
<p>533</p>
‘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.
<p>534</p>
‘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.
<p>535</p>
‘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.
<p>536</p>
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.
<p>537</p>
‘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.
<p>538</p>
‘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.
<p>539</p>
‘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.
<p>540</p>
‘People of all sortes rane to the churches to deprecat God's wrath.’ Balfour's Annales, vol. i. p. 403. This was in 1598.
<p>541</p>
‘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.
<p>542</p>
‘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.
<p>543</p>
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.
<p>544</p>
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.’
<p>545</p>
‘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.’
<p>546</p>
‘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.’
<p>547</p>
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.’
<p>548</p>
‘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.
<p>549</p>
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.
<p>550</p>
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.
<p>551</p>
‘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.
<p>552</p>
‘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.
<p>553</p>
‘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.
<p>554</p>
‘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.
<p>555</p>
‘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.
<p>556</p>
‘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.
<p>557</p>
‘The heavens that are supposed to be incorruptible, yet they wax old as doth a garment.’ Binning's Sermons, vol. i. p. 95.
<p>558</p>
‘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.