History of Civilization in England, Vol. 3 of 3. Henry Buckley

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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.

522

‘The present dearth 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 Christ Dying, p. 52. ‘Sometime hee maketh tho heauen aboue as brasse, and the earth beneath as iron; so that albeit men labour and sow, yet they receiue no increase: 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 caterpillar, 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.

523

‘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.

524

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.

525

‘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,’ as one of the ‘great signs of the wrath of God.’

526

‘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.

527

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 West, 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.

528

The Rev. James Fraser had a boil, and afterwards a fever. ‘During 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 declaims against ‘Sinful shunning and shifting off suffering;’ and Rutherford says, ‘No 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.

529

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

530

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

531

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.

532

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.

533

‘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.

534

‘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.

535

‘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.

536

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

537

‘War СКАЧАТЬ