xvi. p. 34, Edinburgh, 1795. At an earlier period, no one might be shaved on that day. See
The Spottiswoode Miscellany, vol. ii. p. 276; and
Lawson's Book of Perth, pp. 224, 225.
593
‘Compeired John Gordon of Avachie, and confessed that he had transgressed in travailing on the Sabbath day with horse, going for a milston. Referred to the session of Kinor for censure.’ Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie, p. 236. See also the case mentioned in Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland, vol. i. p. 172; ‘This riding on horseback of a Sunday was deemed a great scandal.’
594
In 1647, the punishment was ordered of whoever was guilty of ‘sitting or walking idle upon the streetes and feildes’ on Sunday. Selections from the Minutes of the Synod of Fife, p. 152. In 1742, ‘sitting idle at their doors’ and ‘sitting about doors’ was profane. Robe's Naratives of the Extraordinary Work of the Spirit of God, pp. 109, 110. In 1756, at Perth, ‘to stroll about the fields, or even to walk upon the inches, was looked upon as extremely sinful, and an intolerable violation of the fourth commandment.’ Penny's Traditions of Perth, p. 36.
595
In 1656, ‘Cite Issobell Balfort, servand to William Gordone, tailyeor, beeing found sleeping at the Loche side on the Lord's day in tyme of Sermon.’ Selections from the Records of the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen. p. 137. It was a sin even for children to feel tired of the interminable sermons which they were forced to hear. Halyburton, addressing the young people of his congregation, says, ‘Have not you been glad when the Lord's day was over; or, at least, when the preaching was done, that ye might get your liberty. Has it not been a burden to you, to sit so long in the church? Well, this is a great sin.’ See this noticeable passage, in Halyburton's Great Concern of Salvation, p. 100.
596
In 1719, the Presbytery of Edinburgh indignantly declares, ‘Yea, some have arrived at that height of impiety, as not to be ashamed of washing in waters, and swimming in rivers upon the holy Sabbath.’ Register of Presbytery of Edinburgh, 29th April 1719, in Arnot's History of Edinburgh, p. 204.
597
So late as 1691, the Kirk-Session of Glasgow attempted to prevent all boys from swimming, whatever the day might be. But as the Church was then on the decline, it was necessary to appeal to the civil authority for help. What the result was, I have not been able to ascertain. There is, however, a curious notice, in Wodrow's Collections upon the Lives of Ministers, vol. ii. part ii. p. 77, stating that, on ‘August 6th, 1691, the Session recommends it to the magistrates to think on some overtures for discharging boyes from swimming, in regard one was lately lost.’ I have met with other evidence respecting this; but I cannot remember the passages.
598
The Rev. James Fraser says, ‘The world is a dangerous thing and a great evil, and the comforts of it a hell.’ Select Biographies, vol. ii. p. 220. Compare Gray's Spiritual Warfare, p. 22.
599
‘It is good to be continually afflicted here.’ Select Biographies, vol. ii. p. 220. Gray, advocating the same doctrine, sums up his remarks by a suggestion, that, ‘I think David had never so sweet a time as then, when he was pursued as a partridge by his son Absalom.’ Gray's Great and Precious Promises, p. 14.
600
‘Suspect that which pleaseth the senses.’ Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 63.
601
Durham, in his long catalogue of sins, mentions as one, ‘the preparing of meat studiously, that is, when it is too riotously dressed, for pleasing men's carnal appetite and taste, or palate, by the fineness of it, and other curiosities of that kind.’ Durham's Law Unsealed, p. 333. See also p. 48, on ‘palate-pleasers;’ and Dickson's opinion of the ‘rarest dishes and best meats.’ Dickson's Explication of the Psalms, p. 84. According to another of the Scotch divines, whoever makes one good meal and has enough left for a second, is in imminent peril. ‘He that is full, and hath enough to make him fuller, will easily deny God, and be exalted against him: his table shall be a snare to his body, and a snare to his soule.’ Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 421.
602
For, says Abernethy (Physicke for the Soule, p. 488), ‘men are loth to lend their eare to the Word, when they abound in prosperity.’ So, too, Hutcheson, in his Exposition of the Book of Job, p. 387: ‘Such is the weakness even of godly men, that they can hardly live in a prosperous condition, and not be overtaken with some security, carnal confidence, or other miscarriage.’
603
See this theory worked out in Cockburn's Jacob's Vow, or Man's Felicity and Duty, pp. 71–75. He says, ‘And certainly to crave and be desirous of more than what is competent for the maintenance and support of our lives, is both inconsistent with that dependence and subjection we owe to God, and doth also bespeak a great deal of vanity, folly, and inconsiderateness.’ Boston, striking at the very foundation of that practice of providing for the future, which is the first and most important maxim in all civil wisdom, and which peculiarly distinguishes civilized nations from barbarians, asks his hearers, ‘Why should men rack their heads with cares how to provide for to-morrow, while they know not if they shall then need anything?’ Boston's Human Nature in its Four-fold State, p. 300. Hutcheson thinks that those who are guilty of such impious prudence, deserve to be starved. ‘When men are not content with food and rayment, but would still heap up more, it is just with God to leave them not so much as bread; and to suffer men to have an evil eye upon them, and to pluck at them, even so long as they have meat.’ Hutcheson's Exposition of the Book of Job, p. 296. Binning, going still further, threatens eternal ruin. ‘Ye may have things necessary here, – food and raiment; and if ye seek more, if ye will be rich, and will have superfluities, then ye shall fall into many temptations, snares, and hurtful lusts which shall drown you in perdition.’ Binning's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 355.
604
‘If God loved riches well, do ye think he would give them so liberally, and heap them up upon some base covetous wretches? Surely no.’ Binning's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 366. Gray, in his zeal against wealth, propounds another doctrine, which I do not remember to have seen elsewhere. He says, ‘All that the owner of riches hath, is, the seeing of them; which a man, who is a passer by, may likeways have, though he be not possessor of them.’ Gray's Spiritual Warfare, p. 128. I hope that the reader will not suspect me of having maliciously invented any of these passages. The books from which they are quoted, are, with only two or three exceptions, all in my library, and may be examined by persons who are curious in such matters.
605
‘The absence of external appearances of joy in Scotland, in contrast with the frequent holidayings and merry-makings of the continent, has been much remarked upon. We find in the records of ecclesiastical discipline clear traces of the process by which this distinction was brought about. To the puritan kirk of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, every outward demonstration of natural good spirits was a sort of sin, to be as far as possible repressed.’ … ‘The whole sunshine of life was, as it were, squeezed out of the community.’ Chambers' Annals of Scotland, vol. i. p. 336, vol. ii. p. 156.
