ferings caused by a want of food, the slow deaths, the agony, the general misery, the crimes which that misery produced, the anguish of the mother as she saw her children wasting away and could give them no bread, all this was His act, and the work of His hands.114 In His anger, He would sometimes injure the crops by making the spring so backward, and the weather so cold and rainy, as to insure a deficiency in the coming harvest. 115 Or else, He would deceive men, by sending them a favourable season, and, after letting them toil and sweat in the hope of an abundant supply, He would, at the last moment, suddenly step in, and destroy the corn just as it was fit to be reaped.116 For, the God of the Scotch Kirk was a God who tantalized His creatures as well as punished them; and when He was provoked, He would first allure men by encouraging their expectations, in order that their subsequent misery might be more poignant.117

Under the influence of this horrible creed, and from the unbounded sway exercised by the clergy who advo

Christ Dying, p. 52. "Sometime hee maketh the heauen aboue as brasse, and the earth beneath as iron; so that albeit men labour and sow, yet they receiue no encrease: sometime againe hee giues in due season the first and latter raine, so that the earth renders abundance, but the Lord by blasting windes, or by the caterpiller, canker-worme and grasse-hopper doth consume them, who come out as exacters and officers sent from God to poind men in their goods." Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 433.

"Under the late dearth this people suffered greatly, the poor were numerous, and many, especially about the town of Kilsyth, were at the point of starving; yet, as I frequently observed to them, I could not see any one turning to the Lord who smote them, or crying to him because of their sins, while they howled upon their beds for bread.” Robe's Narratives

of the Extraordinary Work of the Spirit of God, p. 68.

113 Nicoll's Diary, pp. 152, 153. Much rain in the autumn, was "the Lord's displeasure upon the land." Minutes of the Presbyteries of Saint Andrews and Cupar, p. 179.

116 Men sweat, till, sow much, and the sun and summer, and clouds, warme dewes and raines smile upon cornes and meddowes, yet God steppeth in betweene the mouth of the husbandman and the sickle, and blasteth all." Rutherford's Christ Dying, p. 87. Compare Baillie's Letters, vol. iii. p. 52, on the "continuance of very intemperate rain upon the corns,' the "great signs of the wrath of God."

117

as one of

"When the Lord is provoked, he can not only send an affliction, but so order it, by faire appearances of a better lot, and heightening of the sinners expectation and desire, as may make it most sad." Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. iii. pp. 9, 10.

cated it, the Scotch mind was thrown into 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 ignominious 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.118 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.119 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.120 Other disorders, which, though

118 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 Wast, 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. "During

No

119 The Rev. James Fraser had a boil, and afterwards a fever. 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 declains against "Sinful shunning and shifting off suffering;" and Rutherford says, 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.

120 It was not until late in the eighteenth century, that the Scotch

less terrible, were very painful, proceeded from the same source, and all owed their origin to the anger of the Almighty.121 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 ;122 sometimes, would destroy their cattle in a storm ;123 and sometimes, would even make

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. 121 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, Rebe's Narratives of the Extraordinary Work of the Spirit of God, p. 66.

122 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.

123 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.

dogs bite their legs when they least expected it.124 Sometimes, He would display His wrath by making the weather excessively dry;125 sometimes, by making it equally wet.126 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.127 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.128 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;129 a comet

124 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.

125 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.

126 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.

127 Halyburton's Great Concern of Salvation, p. 85. Fleming's Fulfilling of Scripture, pp. 101, 149, 176. Balfour's Annales, 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.

128 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, "Civil 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 Dan

ish 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.

129 66

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.

was a sign of coming tribulation;130 and when an eclipse appeared, the panic was so universal, that persons of all ranks hastened to church to deprecate His wrath.131 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.182 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. 133

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

130 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.

131 66 People of all sortes rane to the churches to deprecat God's wrath." Balfour's Annales, vol. i. p. 403. This was in 1598.

132 66

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.

133 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.