as swiftly in the night as in the day.’
Rutherford's Christ Dying, pp. 12, 157. ‘This is the world's old age; it is declining; albeit it seem a fair and beautiful thing in the eyes of them who know no better, and unto them who are of yesterday and know nothing, it looks as if it had been created yesterday; yet the truth is, and a believer knows, it is near the grave.’
Binning's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 372.
555
‘This, then, I say, is the state all things ye see are in, – it is their old age. The creation now is an old rotten house that is all dropping through and leaning to the one side.’ Binning's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 398.
556
‘The lilies and roses, which, no doubt, had more sweetnesse of beauty and smell, before the sin of man made them vanity-sick.’ Rutherford's Christ Dying, p. 185.
557
‘The heavens that are supposed to be incorruptible, yet they wax old as doth a garment.’ Binning's Sermons, vol. i. p. 95.
558
‘The neerer the sun drawes to the end of his daily course, the lesse is his strength, for we see the Sunne in the evening decayes in heat; so it is, the longer by reuolution he turnes about in his sphere, he waxes alway the weaker; and, to vse the similitude of the holy spirit, as a garment the older it groweth becomes the lesse beautifull.’ Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 255.
559
‘It is so delicate by nature, that since it was the first sense that offended, it is, aboue all the rest, made subject (as a condigne punishment) to as many maladies, as there are weekes in a yeere.’ Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 501. The Scotch divines were extremely displeased with our eyes. Rutherford contemptuously calls them ‘two clay windows.’ Rutherford's Christ Dying, p. 570. Gray, going still further, says, ‘these cursed eyes of ours.’ Gray's Great and Precious Promises, p. 53.
560
‘The true visible Kirk where God's ordinances are set up, as he hath appointed, where his word is purely preached, is the most beautifull thing under heaven.’ Dickson's Explication of the First Fifty Psalms, p. 341.
561
I have one very late, and, on that account, very curious, instance of the diffusion of this feeling in Scotland. In 1767, a vacancy occurred in the mastership of the grammar-school of Greenock. It was offered to John Wilson, the author of ‘Clyde.’ But, says his biographer, ‘the magistrates and minister of Greenock thought fit, before they would admit Mr. Wilson to the superintendance of the grammar school, to stipulate that he should abandon “the profane and unprofitable art of poem-making.”’ Lives of Eminent Scotsmen by the Society of Ancient Scots, 1821, vol. v. p. 169.
562
‘Sept. 22. 1649. – The quhilk day the Sessioune caused mak this act, that ther sould be no pypers at brydels, and who ever sould have a pyper playing at their brydell on their mariage day, sall loose their consigned money, and be farder punisched as the Sessioune thinks fitt.’ Extracts from the Registers of the Presbytery of Glasgow, and of the Kirk Sessions of the Parishes of Cambusnethan Humbie and Stirling, p. 34. This curious volume is a quarto, and without date; unless, indeed, one of the title-pages is wanting in my copy.
563
See the Minutes of the Kirk Session of Glasgow, in Wodrow's Collections upon the Lives of Ministers, vol. ii. part ii. p. 76; also the case of ‘Mure, pyper,’ in Selections from the Minutes of the Presbyteries of Saint Andrews and Cupar, p. 72.
564
This notion lingered on, probably to the beginning of this century; certainly to late in the last. In a work published in Scotland in 1836, it is stated, that a clergyman was still alive, who was ‘severely censured,’ merely because, when Punch was performing, ‘the servant was sent out to the showman to request him to come below the windows of her master's house, that the clergyman and his wife might enjoy the sight.’ Traditions of Perth by George Penny, Perth, 1836, p. 124.
565
‘17 Feb. 1650. Ane act of the commissioun of the Generall Assemblie wes red in all the churches of Edinburgh dischargeing promiscuous dansing.’ Nicoll's Diary, p. 3. See also Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1638–1842, p. 201; Register of the Kirk Session of Cambusnethan, p. 35; Minutes of the Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar, pp. 55, 181; Minutes of the Synod of Fife, pp. 150, 169, 175; and a choice passage in A Collection of Sermons by Eminent Divines, p. 51.
566
See Selections from the Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen, pp. 77, 78, forbidding any one to ‘giwe ony meatt or drink to these sangsteris or lat thame within thair houss.’ The singers were to be ‘put in prisoun.’
567
In 1643 the Presbytery of St. Andrews ordered that ‘because of the great abuse that is likewayes among them by conveening multitudes at baptismes and contracts, the ministers and sessions are appointed to take strict order for restraineing these abuses, that in number they exceid not sixe or seven. As also ordaines that the hostlers quho mak such feists salbe censured by the sessions.’ Minutes of the Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar, p. 11. See also Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen, pp. 109, 110, complaining of the custom ‘that everie base servile man in the towne, when he has a barne to be baptesed, invitis tuelff or sextene persones to be his gossopes and godfatheris to his barne,’ &c.; and enacting ‘that it shall not be lesume to any inhabitant within this burt quhasoever, to invite any ma persones to be godfatheris to thair barne in ony tyme cumming bot tua or four at the most, lyk as the Kirk officier is expresslie commandit and prohibitt that from hence furth he tak vp no ma names to be godfatheris, nor giwe any ma vp to the redar bot four at the most, vnder all hiest censure he may incur be the contrairie, and this ordinance to be intimat out of pulpitt, that the people pretend no ignorance thairof.’
568
They forbade music and dancing; and they ordered that not more than twenty-four persons should be present. See the enactment, in 1647, respecting ‘Pennie bryddells,’ in Minutes of the Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar, p. 117. In 1650, ‘The Presbyterie being sadly weghted with the report of the continwance, and exhorbitant and unnecessarly numerous confluences of people at pennie brydles, and of inexpedient and wnlawfull pypeing and dancing at the same, so scandalous and sinfull in this tyme of our Churches lamentable conditioun; and being apprehensive that ministers and Kirk Sessiouns have not bein so vigilant and active (as neid werre), for repressing of these disorders, doe therfor most seriously recommend to ministers and Kirk Sessiouns to represse the same.’ Ibid. pp. 169, 170. See, further, Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark, p. 29; and Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie, pp. 4, 144.
569
See two curious instances of limitation of price, in Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, p. 567; and in Wodrow's Collections upon the Lives of Ministers, vol. ii. part ii. p. 34.
570
‘What a vile, haughty, and base creature he is – how defiled and desperately wicked his nature – how abominable his actions; in a word, what a compound of darkness and wickedness he is – a heap of defiled dust, and a mass of confusion – a sink of impiety and iniquity, even the best of mankind, those of the rarest and most refined extraction, take them at their best estate.’ Binning's Sermons, vol. ii. p. 302. Compare Boston's Human Nature in its Four-fold State, pp. 26, 27.
571
‘The least sin cannot but deserve God's wrath and curse eternally.’ Dickson's Truth's Victory over Error, p. 71. ‘All men, even the regenerate, sin daily.’ Ibid. p. 153.
572
‘Our best works have such a mixture of corruption and sin in them, that they deserve his curse and wrath.’ Ibid. p. 130.
