102

All this was the work of the God of the Scotch clergy. It was not only his work, it was his joy and his pride. For, according to them, hell was created before man came into the world; the Almighty, they did not scruple to say, having spent his previous leisure in preparing and completing this place of torture, so that, when the human race appeared, it might be ready for their reception.103 Ample, however, as the arrangements were, they were insufficient; and hell, not being big enough to contain the countless victims incessantly poured into it, had, in these latter days, been enlarged.10 There was now sufficient room. But in that vast expanse there was no void, for the whole of it reverberated with the

shrieks and yells of undying agony.' 105 They rent the air with horrid sound, and, amid their pauses, other scenes occurred, if possible, still more excruciating. Loud reproaches filled the ear: children reproaching their parents, and servants reproaching their masters. Then, indeed, terror was rife, and abounded on every side. For, while the child cursed his father, the father, consumed by remorse, felt his own guilt; and both children and

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in Binning's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 130: "You shall go out of one hell into a worse; eternity is the measure of its continuance, and the degrees of itself are answerable to its duration." The author of these sermons died in 1653. 102 And, according to them, the barbarous cruelty was the natural result of His Omniscience. It is with pain, that I transcribe the following impious passage. Consider, Who is the contriver of these torments. There have been some very exquisite torments contrived by the wit of men, the naming of which, if ye understood their nature, were enough to fill your hearts with horror; but all these fall as far short of the torments ye are to endure, as the wisdom of man falls short of that of God." "Infinite wisdom has contrived that evil." The Great Concern of Salvation, by the late Reverend Mr. Thomas Halyburton, edit. Edinburgh, 1722, p. 154.

103 Men wonder what he could be doing all that time, if we may call it time which hath no beginning, and how he was employed." ... "Remember that which a godly man answered some wanton curious wit, who, in scorn, demanded the same of him-' He was preparing hell for curious and proud fools,' said he." Binning's Sermons, vol. i. p. 194.

104 "Hell hath inlarged itselfe." Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule,

p. 146.

105 "Eternal shriekings." Sermons by Eminent Divines, p. 394. "Screakings and howlings." Gray's Great and Precious Promises, p. 20. "O! the screechs and yels that will be in hell." Durham's Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation, p. 654. "The horrible scrieches of them who are Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 175.

burnt in it.

fathers made hell echo with their piercing screams, writhing in convulsive agony at the torments which they suffered, and knowing that other torments more grievous still were reserved for them.106

Even now such language freezes the blood, when we consider what must have passed through the minds of those who could bring themselves to utter it. The enunciation of such ideas unfolds the character of the men, and lays bare their inmost spirit. We shudder, when we think of the dark and corrupted fancy, the vindictive musings, the wild, lawless, and uncertain thoughts which must have been harboured by those who could combine and arrange the different parts of this hideous scheme. No hesitation, no compunction, no feelings of mercy, ever seem to have entered their breasts. It is evident, that their notions were well matured; it is equally evident, that they delighted in them. They were marked by a unity of conception, and were enforced with a freshness and vigour of language, which shows that their heart was in their work. But before this could have happened, they must have been dead to every emotion of pity and tenderness. Yet, they were the teachers of a great nation, and were, in every respect, the most influential persons in that nation. The people, credulous and grossly ignorant, listened and believed. We, at this distance of time, and living in another realm of thought, can form but a faint conception of the effect

106"When children and servants shall go, as it were, in sholes to the Pit, cursing their parents and their masters who brought them there. And parents and masters of families shall be in multitudes plunged headlong in endless destruction, because they have not only murdered their own souls, but also imbrued their hands in the blood of their children and servants. O how doleful will the reckoning be amongst them at that day! When the children and servants shall upbraid their parents and masters. Now, now, we must to the Pit, and we have you to blame for it; your cursed example and lamentable negligence has brought us to the Pit."" "And on the other hand, how will the shrieks of parents fill every ear? I have damn'd myself, I have damn'd my children, I have damn'd my servants. While I fed their bodies, and clothed their backs, I have ruined their souls, and brought double damnation on myself." Halyburton's Great Concern of Salvation, pp. 527, 528. See this further worked out in Boston's Human Nature in its Four-fold State, pp. 378, 379: curses instead of salutations, and tearing of themselves, and raging against one another, instead of the wonted embraces."

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which these horrible conceits produced upon them. They were convinced that, in this world, they were incessantly pursued by the devil, and that he, and other evil spirits, were constantly hovering around them, in bodily and visible shape, tempting them, and luring them on to destruction. In the next world, the most frightful and unheard-of punishments awaited them; while both this world and the next were governed by an avenging Deity, whose wrath it was impossible to propitiate. No wonder that, with these ideas before them, their reason should often give way, and that a religious mania should set in, under whose influence they, in black despair, put an end to their lives.10

107 William Vetch, "preaching in the town of Jedburg to a great congregation, said, 'There are two thousand of you here to day, but I am sure fourscore of you will not be saved; upon which, three of his ignorant hearers being in despair, despatch'd themselves soon after." Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, p. 23. See also the life, or rather panegyric, of Vetch in Howie's Biographia Scoticana, where this circumstance is not denied, but, on the contrary, is stated to be no "disparagement to him," p. 606. The frame of mind which the teachings of the clergy encouraged, and which provoked self-murder, is vividly depicted by Samuel Rutherford, the most popular of all the Scotch divines of the seventeenth century. "Oh! hee lieth down, and hell beddeth with him; hee sleepeth, and hell and hee dreame together; he riseth, and hell goeth to the fields with him; hee goes to his garden, there is hell."... "The man goes to his table, O! bee dare not eat, hee hath no right to the creature; to eat is sin and hell; so hell is in every dish. To live is sinne, hee would faine chuse strangling; every act of breathing is sin and hell. Hee goes to church, there is a dog as great as a mountaine before his eye: Here be terrors." Rutherford's Christ Dying, 1647, 4to, pp. 41, 42. Now, listen to the confessions of two of the tortured victims of the doctrines enunciated by the clergy; victims who, after undergoing ineffable agony, were more than once, according to their own account, tempted to put an end to their lives. "The cloud lasted for two years and some months." "The arrows of the Almighty did drink up my spirits; night and day his hand lay heavy upon me, so that even my bodily moisture was turned into the drought of summer. When I said sometimes that my couch would ease my complaint, I was filled with tossings to the dawning of the day." "Amidst all my downcastings, I had the roaring lion to grapple with, who likes well to fish in muddy waters. He strongly suggested to me that I should not eat, because I had no right to food; or if I ventured to do it, the enemy assured me, that the wrath of God would go down with my morsel; and that I had forfeited a right to the divine favour, and, therefore, had nothing to do with any of God's creatures." .." However, so violent were the temptations of the strong enemy, that I frequently forgot to eat my bread, and durst not attempt it; and when, through the persuasion of my wife, I at any time did it, the enemy through the day did buffet me in a violent way, assuring me that the wrath of God had gone over with what I had taken.” "The

Little comfort, indeed, could men then gain from their religion. Not only the devil, as the author of all evil, but even He whom we recognise as the author of all good, was, in the eyes of the Scotch clergy, a cruel and vindictive being, moved with anger like themselves. They looked into their own hearts, and there they found the picture of their God. According to them, He was a God of terror, instead of a God of love.108 To Him they imputed the worst passions of their own peevish and irritable nature. They ascribed to Him, revenge, cunning, and a constant disposition to inflict pain. While they declared that nearly all mankind were sinners beyond the chance of redemption, and were, indeed, predestined to eternal ruin, they did not scruple to accuse the Deity of resorting to artifice against these unhappy victims; lying in wait for them, that He might catch them unawares.109 The Scotch clergy taught their hearers, that the Almighty was so sanguinary, and so prone to

enemy after all did so pursue me, that he violently suggested to my soul, that, some time or other, God would suddenly destroy me as with a thunderclap: which so filled my soul with fear and pain, that, every now and then, I looked about me, to receive the divine blow, still expecting it was a coming; yea, many a night I durst not sleep, lest I had awakened in everlasting flames." Stevenson's Rare Cordial, pp. 11-13. Another poor creature, after hearing one of Smiton's sermons, in 1740, says, "Now, I saw myself to be a condemned criminal; but I knew not the day of my execution. I thought that there was nothing between me and hell, but the brittle thread of natural life." "And in this dreadful confusion, I durst not sleep, lest I had awakened in everlasting flames." "And Satan violently assaulted me to take away my own life, seeing there was no mercy for me.” "Soon after this, I was again violently assaulted by the tempter to take away my own life; he presented to me a knife therewith to do it; no person being in the house but myself. The enemy pursued me so close, that I could not endure so much as to see the knife in my sight, but laid it away." "One evening, as I was upon the street, Satan violently assaulted me to go into the sea and drown myself; it would be the easiest death. Such a fear of Satan then fell upon me, as made my joints to shake, so that it was much for me to walk home; and when I came to the door, I found nobody within; I was afraid to go into the house, lest Satan should get power over me." Memoirs of the Life and Experiences of Marion Laird of Greenock, pp. 13, 14, 19, 45, 223, 224.

...

108

Binning says, that "since the first rebellion" (that is, the fall of Adam), "there is nothing to be seen but the terrible countenance of an angry God." Binning's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 254.

109 "He will, as it were, lie in wait to take all advantages of sinners to undo them." Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. i. p. 247.

anger, that He raged even against walls and houses and senseless creatures, wreaking His fury more than ever, and scattering desolation on every side.110 Sooner than miss His fell and malignant purpose, He would, they said, let loose avenging angels, to fall upon men and upon their families." Independently of this resource, He had various ways whereby He could at once content Himself and plague His creatures, as was particularly shown in the devices which He employed to bring famine on a people." When a country was starving, it was because God, in His anger, had smitten the soil, had stopped the clouds from yielding their moisture, and thus made the fruits of the earth to wither.113 All the intolerable suf

110 "His wrath rages against walls, and houses, and senselesse creatures more now then at that time" (i.e. at the time when the Old Testament was written). "See what desolation he hath wrought in Ireland, what eating of horses, of infants, and of killed souldiers, hath beene in that land, and in Germany." Rutherford's Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience, pp. 244, 245.

111 Albeit there were no earthly man to pursue Christ's enemies; yet avenging angels, or evil spirits shall be let forth upon them and their families to trouble them." Dickson's Explication of the First Fifty Psalms, p. 229.

112 "God hath many wayes and meanes whereby to plague man, and reach his contentments." Hutcheson's Erposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. i. p. 286. "God hath variety of means whereby to plague men, and to bring upon them any affliction he intendeth against them; and particularly he hath several wayes whereby to bring on famine. He can arme all his creatures to cut off men's provision, one of them after another; he can make the change of aire, and small insects do that worke when he pleaseth." Ibid., vol. i. p. 422. The same divine, in another elaborate treatise, distinctly imputes to the Deity a sensation of pleasure in injuring even the innocent. "When God sends out a scourge, of sword, famine, or pestilence, suddenly to overthrow and cut people off, not only are the wicked reached thereby (which is here supposed), but even the innocent, that is such as are righteous and free of gross provocations; for, in any other sense, none are innocent, or free of sin, in this life. Yea, further, in trying of the innocent by these scourges, the Lord seems to act as one delighted with it, and little resenting the great extremities wherewith they are pressed." Hutcheson's Exposition of the Book of Job, 1669, folio, p. 123. Compare p. 359. "It pleaseth the Lord to exercise great variety in afflicting the children of men," &c. But, after all, mere extracts can give but a faint idea of the dark and malignant spirit which pervades these writings.

113The present death and famine quhilk seases vpon many, quhairby God his heavie wrath is evidentlie perceaved to be kindlit against vs." Selections from the Minutes of the Synod of Fife, p. 98. Smiting of the fruits of the ground." Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. i. p. 277. "Makes fruits to wither." Ibid., vol. ii. p. 183. "Hee restraines the clouds, and bindeth up the wombe of heaven, in extreme drought." Rutherford's