people;’ meaning by his people, the Scotch people. They added, that the fact of their enemies having been repulsed, was a proof of ‘how sore the Lord hath been displeased with their way.’
Clarendon State Papers, vol. ii. p. 424, Oxford, 1773, folio.
424
Two Scotch notices are now before me of the fatal battle of Dunbar. According to one, the defeat was intended to testify against ‘the great sin and wickedness’ of the people. Naphtali, or the Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland, p. 75. According to the other, it was owing to the anger of the Deity at the Scotch showing any favour to the partizans of Charles. For, says the Reverend Alexander Shields, ‘both at that time, and since that time, the Lord never countenanced an expedition where that malignant interest was taken in unto the state of the quarrel. Upon this, our land was invaded by Oliver Cromwell, who defeat our army at Dunbar, where the anger of the Lord was evidently seen to smoke against us, for espousing that interest.’ Shields' Hind let loose, p. 75. These opinions were formed after the battle. Before the battle, a different hypothesis was broached. Sir Edward Walker, who was in Scotland at the time, tells us, that the clergy assured the people that ‘they had an army of saints, and that they could not be beaten.’ Journal of Affairs in Scotland in 1650, in Walker's Historical Discourses, London, 1705, folio, p. 165.
425
‘Each new victory of Montrose was expressly attributed to the admonitory “indignation of the Lord” against his chosen people for their sin, in “trusting too much to the arm of flesh.”’ Napier's Life of Montrose, Edinburgh, 1840, p. 283. Compare Guthrie's Considerations contributing unto the Discovery of the Dangers that threaten Religion, pp. 274, 275, reprinted Edinburgh, 1846. Guthrie was at the height of his reputation in the middle of the seventeenth century. Lord Somerville says of the Scotch, when they were making war against Charles I., that it was ‘ordinary for them, dureing the wholl tyme of this warre, to attribute ther great successe to the goodnesse and justice of their cause, untill Divyne Justice trysted them with some crosse dispensatione, and then you might have heard this language from them, that it pleased the Lord to give his oune the heavyest end of the tree to bear, that the saints and people of God must still be sufferers while they are here away; that that malignant party was God's rod to punish them for their unthankfullnesse,’ &c. Somerville's Memorie of the Somervilles, vol. ii. pp. 351, 352.
426
Baillie mentions, in 1644, an instance of these expectations being fulfilled. He says (Letters and Journals, vol. ii. p. 138), ‘These things were brought in at a very important nick of time, by God's gracious providence: Never a more quick passage from Holy Island to Yarmouth in thirtie houres; they had not cast anchor halfe an houre till the wind turned contrare.’ Compare p. 142: ‘If this were past, we look for a new lyfe and vigoure in all affaires, especiallie if it please God to send a sweet northwind, carrying the certain news of the taking of Newcastle, which we dailie expect.’
427
No one, perhaps, carried this further than John Menzies, the celebrated professor of divinity at Aberdeen. ‘Such was his uncommon fervour in the pulpit, that, we are informed, he “used to change his shirt always after preaching, and to wet two or three napkins with tears every sermon.”’ Note in Wodrow's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 222. James Forbes, also, was ‘an able and zealous preacher, who after every sermon behooved to change his shirt, he spoke with such vehemency and sweating.’ Select Biographies, published by the Wodrow Society, vol. i. p. 333. Lord Somerville, who wrote in 1679, mentions ‘their thundering preachings.’ Memorie of the Somervilles, vol. ii. p. 388. A traditionary anecdote, related by the Dean of Edinburgh, refers to a later period, but is characteristic of the class. ‘Another description I have heard of an energetic preacher more forcible than delicate – “Eh, our minister had a great power o' watter, for he grat, and spat, and swat like mischeef.”’ Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character, by E. B. Ramsay, Dean of Edinburgh, p. 201.
428
He ‘was a very learned and pious man; he had a strange faculty of preaching five or six hours at a time.’ Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. i. p. 38. Even early in the eighteenth century, when theological fervour was beginning to decline, and sermons were consequently shorter, Hugh Thomson came near to Forbes. ‘He was the longest preacher ever I heard, and would have preached four (or) five hours, and was not generally under two hours; that almost every body expected.’ … ‘He was a piouse good man, and a fervent affectionat preacher, and, when I heard him, he had a vast deal of heads, and a great deal of matter, and generally very good and practicall, but very long.’ Wodrow's Analecta, vol. iv. p. 203.
429
In 1653, Lamont casually mentions, in his journal, that ‘the one came doune from the pulpit and the other went vp, in the tyme that the psalme after the first sermon was singing, so that ther was no intermission of the exercise, nether were the peopell dismissed till both sermons were ended.’ The Diary of Mr. John Lamont of Newton, p. 58. Burnet (History of his own Time, vol. i. p. 92) says, ‘I remember in one fast day there were six sermons preached without intermission. I was there myself, and not a little weary of so tedious a service.’
430
When Guthrie preached at Fenwick, ‘his church, although a large country one, was overlaid and crowded every Sabbath-day, and very many, without doors, from distant parishes, such as Glasgow, Paisley, Hamilton, Lanerk, Kilbryde, Glasford, Strathaven, Newmills, Egelsham and many other places, who hungered for the pure gospel preached, and got a meal by the word of his ministry. It was their usual practice to come to Fenwick on Saturday, and to spend the greatest part of the night in prayer to God, and conversation about the great concerns of their souls, to attend the public worship on the Sabbath, to dedicate the remainder of that holy day in religious exercises, and then to go home on Monday the length of ten, twelve or twenty miles without grudging in the least at the long way, want of sleep or other refreshments; neither did they find themselves the less prepared for any other business through the week.’ Howie's Biographia Scoticana, 2nd edit., Glasgow, 1781, p. 311. One woman went forty miles to hear Livingstone preach. See her own statement, in Wodrow's Analecta, vol. ii. p. 249.
431
Spalding gives the following account of what happened at Aberdeen in 1644. ‘So heir in Old Abirdene, upone the sevint of July, we had ane fast, entering the churche be nyne houris, and continewit praying and preiching whill tua houris. Efter sermon, the people sat still heiring reiding whill efternone's sermon began and endit, whiche continewit till half hour to sex. Then the prayer bell rang to the evening prayeris, and continewit whill seven.’ Spalding's History of the Troubles, vol. ii. p. 244, edit. Edinburgh, 1829, 4to. See also p. 42: ‘the people keipit churche all day.’ This was also at Aberdeen, in 1642.
432
‘Out of one pulpit now they have thirty sermons per week, all under one roof.’ A Modern Account of Scotland, in The Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 138, edit. Park, London, 1810, 4to.
433
‘But where the greatest part was more sound, they gave the sacrament with a new and unusual solemnity. On the Wednesday before, they held a fast day, with prayers and sermons for about eight or ten hours together: on the Saturday they had two or three preparation sermons: and on the Lord's day they had so very many, that the action continued above twelve hours in some places: and all ended with three or four sermons on Monday for thanksgiving.’ Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. i. p. 108.
434
‘The power of those kirk-sessions, which are now private assemblages, in whose meetings and proceedings the public take no interest whatever, is defined to be the cognizance of parochial matters and cases of scandal; but in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially during the Covenanting reign of terror after the outbreak of the Civil War against Charles I., the kirk-sessions of Scotland were the sources of excessive tyranny and oppression – were arbitrary, inquisitorial, and revengeful, to an extent which exceeds all belief. It is truly stated by the author of the “Memoirs of Locheill” – “Every parish had a tyrant, who
