was generally believed, that the world was overrun by evil spirits, who not only went up and down the earth, but also lived in the air, and whose business it was to tempt and hurt mankind.484 Their number was infinite, and they were to be found at all places and in all seasons. At their head was Satan himself, whose delight it was to appear in person, ensnaring or terrifying every one he met.485 With this object, he assumed various forms. One day, he would visit the earth as a black dog;486 on another day, as a raven;487 on another, he would be heard in the distance, roaring like a bull.488 He appeared sometimes as a white man in black clothes;489 and sometimes he came as a black man in black clothes, when it was remarked that his voice was ghastly, that he wore no shoes, and that one of his feet was cloven.490 His stratagems were endless. For, in the opinion of divines, his cunning increased with his age; and having been studying for more than five thousand years, he had now attained to unexampled dexterity.491 He could, and he did, seize both men and women, and carry them away through the air.492 Usually, he wore the garb of laymen, but it was said, that, on more than one occasion, he had impudently attired himself as a minister of the gospel.493 At all events, in one dress or other, he frequently appeared to the clergy, and tried to coax them over to his side.494 In that, of course, he failed; but, out of the ministry, few, indeed, could withstand him. He could raise storms and tempests; he could work, not only on the mind, but also on the organs of the body, making men hear and see whatever he chose.495 Of his victims, some he prompted to commit suicide,496 others to commit murder.497 Still, formidable as he was, no Christian was considered to have attained to a full religious experience, unless he had literally seen him, talked to him, and fought with him.498 The clergy were constantly preaching about him, and preparing their audience for an interview with their great enemy. The consequence was, that the people became almost crazed with fear. Whenever the preacher mentioned Satan, the consternation was so great, that the church resounded with sighs and groans.499 The aspect of a Scotch congregation in those days, is, indeed, hard for us to conceive. Not unfrequently the people, benumbed and stupefied with awe, were rooted to their seats by the horrible fascination exercised over them, which compelled them to listen, though they are described as gasping for breath, and with their hair standing on end.500 Such impressions were not easily effaced. Images of terror were left on the mind, and followed the people to their homes, and in their daily pursuits. They believed that the devil was always, and literally, at hand; that he was haunting them, speaking to them, and tempting them. There was no escape. Go where they would, he was there. A sudden noise, nay, even the sight of an inanimate object, such as a stone, was capable of reviving the association of ideas, and of bringing back to the memory the language uttered from the pulpit.501
Nor is it strange that this should be the case. All over Scotland, the sermons were, with hardly an exception, formed after the same plan, and directed to the same end. To excite fear, was the paramount object.502 The clergy boasted, that it was their special mission to thunder out the wrath and curses of the Lord.503 In their eyes, the Deity was not a beneficent being, but a cruel and remorseless tyrant. They declared that all mankind, a very small portion only excepted, were doomed to eternal misery. And when they came to describe what that misery was, their dark imaginations revelled and gloated at the prospect. In the pictures which they drew, they reproduced and heightened the barbarous imagery of a barbarous age. They delighted in telling their hearers, that they would be roasted in great fires, and hung up by their tongues.504 They were to be lashed with scorpions, and see their companions writhing and howling around them.505 They were to be thrown into boiling oil and scalding lead.506 A river of fire and brimstone, broader than the earth, was prepared for them;507 in that, they were to be immersed; their bones, their lungs, and their liver, were to boil, but never be consumed.508 At the same time, worms were to prey upon them; and while these were gnawing at their bodies, they were to be surrounded by devils, mocking and making pastime of their pains.509 Such were the first stages of suffering, and they were only the first. For the torture, besides being unceasing, was to become gradually worse. So refined was the cruelty, that one hell was succeeded by another; and, lest the sufferer should grow callous, he was, after a time, moved on, that he might undergo fresh agonies in fresh places, provision being made that the torment should not pall on the sense, but should be varied in its character, as well as eternal in its duration.510
All this was the work of the God of the Scotch clergy.511 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.512 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.513 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.514 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 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.515
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 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
СКАЧАТЬ
<p>484</p>
Durham, after mentioning ‘old abbacies or monasteries, or castles when walls stand and none dwelleth in them,’ adds, ‘If it be asked, If there be such a thing, as the haunting of evill spirits in these desolate places? We answer 1. That there are evill spirits rangeing up and down through the earth is certain, even though hell be their prison properly, yet have they a sort of dominion and abode both in the earth and air; partly, as a piece of their curse, this is laid on them to wander; partly as their exercise to tempt men, or bring spirituall or temporall hurt to them,’ &c. Durham's Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation, p. 582. So, too, Hutcheson (Exposition of the Book of Job, p. 9): ‘We should remember that we sojourn in a world where Devils are, and do haunt among us;’ and Fleming (Fulfilling of the Scripture, p. 217): ‘But the truth itself is sure, that such a party is at this day, encompassing the earth, and trafficking up and down there, to prove which by arguments were to light a candle to let men see that it is day, while it is known what ordinary familiar converse many have therewith.’ One of their favourite abodes was the Shetland Islands, where, in the middle of the seventeenth century, ‘almost every family had a Brouny or evil spirit so called.’ See the account given by the Rev. John Brand, in his work entitled A Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland-Firth, and Caithness, pp. 111, 112, Edinburgh, 1701.
<p>485</p>
‘There is not one whom he assaulteth not.’ Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 101. ‘On the right hand and on the left.’ Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 273. Even early in the eighteenth century, the ‘most popular divines’ in Scotland, affirmed that Satan ‘frequently appears clothed in a corporeal substance.’ Memoirs of Charles Lee Lewes, written by Himself, vol. iii. pp. 29, 30, London, 1805.
<p>486</p>
‘This night James Lochheid told me, that last year, if I mistake not, at the Communion of Bafrou, he was much helped all day. At night, when dark somewhat, he went out to the feilds to pray; and a terrible slavish fear came on him, that he almost lost his senses. Houever, he resolved to goe on to his duty. By (the time) he was at the place, his fear was off him; and lying on a knou-side, a black dogg came to his head and stood. He said he kneu it to be Satan, and shooke his hand, but found nothing, it evanishing.’ … ‘Lord help against his devices, and strenthen against them!’ Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p. 24. The Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark, p. 77, contain a declaration, in 1650, that ‘the devill appeared like a little whelpe,’ and afterwards, ‘like a brown whelpe.’
<p>487</p>
The celebrated Peden was present when ‘there came down the appearance of a raven, and sat upon one man's head.’ … Thereupon, ‘going home, Mr. Peden said to his land-lord, I always thought there was Devilry among you, but I never thought that he did appear visibly among you, till now I have seen it. O, for the Lord's sake quit this way,’ The Life and Death of Mr. Alexander Peden, late Minister of the Gospel at New Glenluce in Galloway, pp. 111, 112, in vol. i. of Walker's Biographia Presbyteriana.
<p>488</p>
‘I heard a voice just before me on the other side of the hedge, and it seemed to be like the groaning of an aged man. It continued so some time. I knew no man could be there; for, on the other side of the hedge, where I heard the groaning, there was a great stank or pool. I nothing doubted but it was Satan, and I guessed his design; but still I went on to beg the child's life. At length he roared and made a noise like a bull, and that very loud. From all this I concluded, that I had been provoking God some way or other in the duty, and that he was angry with me, and had let the enemy loose on me, and might give him leave to tear me in pieces. This made me intreat of God, to shew me wherefore he contended, and begged he would rebuke Satan. The enemy continued to make a noise like a bull, and seemed to be coming about the hedge towards the door of the summer-seat, bellowing as he came along.’ Stevenson's Rare, Soul-Strengthening, and Comforting Cordial for Old and Young Christians, p. 29. This book was published, and prepared for the press, by the Rev. William Cupples. See Mr. Cupples' letter at the beginning.
<p>489</p>
In 1684, with ‘black cloaths, and a blue band, and white handcuffs.’ Sinclair's Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 8.
<p>490</p>
‘He observed one of the black man's feet to be cloven, and that the black man's apparel was black, and that he had a blue band about his neck, and white hand-cuffs, and that he had hoggers upon his legs without shoes; and that the black man's voice was hollow and ghastly.’ Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 9. ‘The devil appeared in the shape of a black man,’ p. 31. See also Brand's Description of Orkney, p. 126: ‘all in black.’
<p>491</p>
‘The acquired knowledge of the Devill is great, hee being an advancing student, and still learning now above five thousand yeares.’ Rutherford's Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himselfe, p. 204. ‘He knowes very well, partly by the quicknesse of his nature, and partly by long experience, being now very neere six thousand yeeres old.’ Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 219. ‘Hee, being compared with vs, hath many vantages; as that he is more subtill in nature, being of greater experience, and more ancient, being now almost sixe thousand yeeres old.’ Ibid. p. 403. ‘The diuell here is both diligent and cunning, and (now almost of sixe thousand yeeres) of great experience.’ Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 142. ‘Satan, such an ingenious and experimented spirit.’ Binning's Sermons, vol. i. p. 67. ‘His great sleight and cunning.’ Ibid. p. 110. Other eulogies of his skill may be seen in Fergusson's Exposition of the Epistles of Paul, p. 475; and in Fleming's Fulfilling of the Scripture, p. 45. A ‘minister,’ whose name is not mentioned, states that he is ‘of an excellent substance, of great natural parts, long experience, and deep understanding.’ Sinclair's Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 78.
<p>492</p>
In Professor Sinclair's work (Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 141), we find, in 1684, ‘an evident instance, that the devil can transport the bodies of men and women through the air. It is true, he did not carry her far off, but not for want of skill and power.’ Late in the seventeenth century, it was generally believed that one of Satan's accomplices was literally ‘strangled in his chair by the devil, least he should make a confession to the detriment of the service.’ Crawfurd's History of the Shire of Renfrew, part iii. p. 319.
<p>493</p>
See the account of a young preacher being deceived in this way, in Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. pp. 103, 104. The Rev. Robert Blair detected the cheat, and ‘with ane awful seriousness appearing in his countenance, began to tell the youth his hazard, and that the man whom he took for a Minister was the Divel, who had trepanned him, and brought him into his net; advised him to be earnest with God in prayer, and likewise not to give way to dispair, for ther was yet hope.’ The preacher had, on this occasion, been so far duped as to give the devil ‘a written promise’ to do whatever he was requested. As soon as the Rev. Mr. Blair ascertained this fact, he took the young man before the Presbytery, and narrated the circumstance to the members. ‘They were all strangely affected with it, and resolved unanimously to dispatch the Presbitry business presently, and to stay all night in town, and on the morrow to meet for prayer in one of the most retired churches of the Presbitry, acquainting none with their business, (but) taking the youth alongst with them, whom they keeped alwise close by them. Which was done, and after the Ministers had prayed all of them round, except Mr. Blair, who prayed last, in time of his prayer there came a violent rushing of wind upon the church, so great that they thought the church should have fallen down about their ears, and with that the youth's paper and covenant’ (i. e. the covenant which he had signed at the request of Satan) ‘droops down from the roof of the church among the Ministers.’
<p>494</p>
‘The devil strikes at them, that in them he may strike at the whole congregation.’ Boston's Sermons, p. 186. Fleming (Fulfilling of the Scripture, p. 379) gives an account of his appearing to one of the Scotch clergy. Compare Wodrow's Analecta, vol. iv. p. 110. In 1624, Bruce writes, ‘I heard his voice as vively as ever I heard any thing, not being sleeping, but waking.’ Life of Bruce, p. 8, prefixed to Bruce's Sermons. The only remedy was immediate resistance. ‘It is the duty of called ministers to go on with courage in the work of the Lord, notwithstanding of any discouragement of that kind, receiving manfully the first onset chiefly of Satan's fury, as knowing their ceding to him will make him more cruel.’ Fergusson's Exposition of the Epistles of Paul, p. 74. In the seventeenth century, the Scotch clergy often complimented each other on having baffled him, and thereby put him in a passion. Thus, in 1626, Dickson writes to Boyd: ‘The devil is mad against you, he fears his kingdom.’ Life of Robert Boyd, in Wodrow's Collections upon the Lives of Ministers, vol. ii. part i. p. 238. See also pp. 165, 236.
<p>495</p>
‘He can delude ears, eyes, &c., either by misrepresenting external objects, or by inward disturbing of the faculties and organes, whereby men and women may, and do often, apprehend that they hear, see, &c. such and such things, which, indeed, they do not.’ Durham's Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation, p. 128. ‘Raise tempests.’ Binning's Sermons, vol. i. p. 122. ‘His power and might, whereby through God's permission, he doth raise up storms, commove the elements, destroy cattle,’ &c. Fergusson's Exposition of the Epistles of Paul, p. 264. ‘Hee can work curiously and strongly on the walls of bodily organs, on the shop that the understanding soule lodgeth in, and on the necessary tooles, organs, and powers of fancie, imagination, memory, humours, senses, spirits, bloud,’ &c. Rutherford's Christ Dying, p. 212. Semple, giving notice of his intention to administer the sacrament, told the congregation ‘that the Devil would be so envious about the good work they were to go about, that he was afraid he would be permitted to raise a storm in the air with a speat of rain, to raise the waters, designing to drown some of them; but it will not be within the compass of his power to drown any of you, no not so much as a dog.’ Remarkable Passages of the Life and Death of Mr. John Semple, Minister of the Gospel, pp. 168, 169, in vol. i. of Walker's Biographia Presbyteriana.
<p>496</p>
Sinclair's Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 137. Memoirs of the Life and Experiences of Marion Laird of Greenock, with a Preface by the Rev. Mr. Cock, pp. 43, 44, 45, 84, 85, 172, 222, 223.
<p>497</p>
‘I shall next show how the murderer Satan visibly appeared to a wicked man, stirred him up to stab me, and how mercifully I was delivered therefrom.’ The Autobiography of Mr. Robert Blair, Minister of St. Andrews, p. 65. See also Fleming's Fulfilling of the Scripture, pp. 379, 380.
<p>498</p>
‘One Mr. Thomas Hogg, a very popular presbyterian preacher in the North, asked a person of great learning, in a religious conference, whether or not he had seen the Devil? It was answered him, “That he had never seen him in any visible appearance.” “Then, I assure you,” saith Mr. Hogg, “that you can never be happy till you see him in that manner; that is, until you have both a personal converse and combat with him.”’ Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, pp. 28, 29.
<p>499</p>
‘Ye go to the kirk, and when ye hear the devil or hell named in the preaching, ye sigh and make a noise.’ The Last and Heavenly Speeches of John, Viscount Kenmure, in Select Biographies, vol. i. p. 405.
<p>500</p>
Andrew Gray, who died in 1656, used such language, ‘that his contemporary, the foresaid Mr. Durham, observed, That many times he caused the very hairs of their head to stand up.’ Howie's Biographia Scoticana, p. 217. James Hutcheson boasted of this sort of success. ‘As he expressed it, “I was not a quarter of ane hour in upon it, till I sau a dozen of them all gasping before me.” He preached with great freedome all day, and fourteen or twenty dated their conversion from that sermon.’ Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p. 131. When Dickson preached, ‘many were so choaked and taken by the heart, that through terrour, the spirit in such a measure convincing them of sin, in hearing of the word they have been made to fall over, and thus carried out of the church.’ Fleming's Fulfilling of the Scripture, p. 347. There was hardly any kind of resource which these men disdained. Alexander Dunlop ‘entered into the ministry at Paislay, about the year 1643 or 1644.’ … ‘He used in the pulpit, to have a kind of a groan at the end of some sentences. Mr. Peebles called it a holy groan.’ Wodrow's Analecta, vol. iii. pp. 16, 21.
<p>501</p>
A schoolmaster, recording his religious experiences (Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p. 246), says: ‘If any thing had given a knock, I would start and shiver, the seeing of a dogg made me affrayed, the seeing of a stone in the feild made me affrayed, and as I thought a voice in my head saying, “It's Satan.”’
<p>502</p>
Only those who are extensively read in the theological literature of that time, can form an idea of this, its almost universal tendency. During about a hundred and twenty years, the Scotch pulpits resounded with the most frightful denunciations. The sins of the people, the vengeance of God, the activity of Satan, and the pains of hell, were the leading topics. In this world, calamities of every kind were announced as inevitable; they were immediately at hand; that generation, perhaps that year, should not pass away without the worst evils which could be conceived, falling on the whole country. I will merely quote the opening of a sermon which is now lying before me, and which was preached, in 1682, by no less a man than Alexander Peden. ‘There is three or four things that I have to tell you this day; and the first is this, A bloody sword, a bloody sword, a bloody sword, for thee, O Scotland, that shall reach the most part of you to the very heart. And the second is this, Many a mile shall ye travel in thee, O Scotland! and shall see nothing but waste places. The third is this, The most fertile places in thee, O Scotland! shall be waste as the mountain tops. And fourthly, The women with child in thee, O Scotland! shall be dashed in pieces. And fifthly, There hath been many conventicles in thee, O Scotland! but ere it be long, God shall have a conventicle in thee, that shall make thee Scotland tremble. Many a preaching hath God wared on thee, O Scotland! but ere it be long God's judgments shall be as frequent in Scotland as these precious meetings, wherein he sent forth his faithful servants to give faithful warning in his name of their hazard in apostatizing from God, and in breaking all his noble vows. God sent out a Welsh, a Cameron, a Cargill, and a Semple to preach to thee; but ere long God shall preach to thee by a bloody sword.’ Sermons by Eminent Divines, pp. 47, 48.
<p>503</p>
To ‘thunder out the Lord's wrath and curse.’ Durham's Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation, p. 191. ‘It is the duty of Ministers to preach judgments.’ Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. i. p. 93. ‘If ministers when they threaten be not the more serious and fervent, the most terrible threatening will but little affect the most part of hearers.’ Fergusson's Exposition of the Epistles of Paul, p. 421.
<p>504</p>
The clergy were not ashamed to propagate a story of a boy who, in a trance, had been mysteriously conveyed to hell, and thence permitted to revisit the earth. His account, which is carefully preserved by the Rev. Robert Wodrow (Analecta, vol. i. p. 51) was, that ‘ther wer great fires and men roasted in them, and then cast into rivers of cold water, and then into boyling water; others hung up by the tongue.’
<p>505</p>
‘Scortched in hell-fire and hear the howling of their fellow-prisoners, and see the ugly devils, the bloody scorpions with which Satan lasheth miserable soules.’ Rutherford's Christ Dying, pp. 491, 492.
<p>506</p>
‘Boiling oil, burning brimstone, scalding lead.’ Sermons by Eminent Divines, p. 362.
<p>507</p>
‘A river of fire and brimstone broader than the earth.’ Rutherford's Religious Letters, p. 35. ‘See the poor wretches lying in bundles, boiling eternally in that stream of brimstone.’ Halyburton's Great Concern of Salvation, p. 53.
<p>508</p>
‘Tongue, lungs, and liver, bones and all, shall boil and fry in a torturing fire.’ Rutherford's Religious Letters, p. 17. ‘They will be universal torments, every part of the creature being tormented in that flame. When one is cast into a fiery furnace, the fire makes its way into the very bowels, and leaves no member untouched: what part then can have ease, when the damned swim in a lake of fire burning with brimstone?’ Boston's Human Nature in its Four-fold State, p. 458.
<p>509</p>
‘While wormes are sporting with thy bones, the devils shall make pastime of thy paines.’ Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 97. ‘They will have the society of devils in their torments, being shut up with them in hell.’ Boston's Human Nature in its Four-fold State, p. 442. ‘Their ears filled with frightful yellings of the infernal crew.’ Ibid. p. 460.
<p>510</p>
This fundamental doctrine of the Scotch divines is tersely summed up 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.
<p>511</p>
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.
<p>512</p>
‘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.
<p>513</p>
‘Hell hath inlarged itselfe.’ Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 146.
<p>514</p>
‘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 burnt in it.’ Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 175.
<p>515</p>
‘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.’
