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, ‘Civill 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 Danish 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.
538
‘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.
539
‘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.
540
‘People of all sortes rane to the churches to deprecat God's wrath.’ Balfour's Annales, vol. i. p. 403. This was in 1598.
541
‘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.
542
‘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.
543
Lady Colsfeild ‘had born two or three daughters, and was sinfully anxious after a son, to heir the estate of Colsfeild.’ Wodrow's Analecta, vol. iii. p. 293.
544
Under the influence of this terrible creed, the amiable mother of Duncan Forbes, writing to him respecting his own health and that of his brother, speaks ‘of my sinful God-provoking anxiety, both for your souls and bodies.’ Burton's Lives of Lovat and Forbes, p. 724. The theological theory, underlying and suggesting this, was, that ‘grace bridles these affections.’ Boston's Human Nature in its Four-fold State, p. 184. Hence its rigid application on days set apart for religious purposes. The Rev. Mr. Lyon (History of Saint Andrews, vol. i. p. 458) mentions that some of the Scotch clergy, in drawing up regulations for the government of a colony, inserted the following clause: ‘No husband shall kiss his wife, and no mother shall kiss her child on the Sabbath day.’
545
‘The more you please yourselves and the world, the further you are from pleasing God.’ Binning's Sermons, vol. ii. p. 55. Elsewhere (vol. ii. p. 45): ‘Amity to ourselves is enmity to God.’
546
‘Pleasures are most carefully to be auoided: because they both harme and deceiue.’ Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 251. At p. 268, the same authority says, ‘Beate downe thy body, and bring it to subiection by abstaining, not only from vnlawfull pleasures, but also from lawfull and indifferent delights.’
547
According to Hutcheson's Exposition of Job, p. 6, ‘there is no time wherein men are more ready to miscarry, and discover any bitter root in them, then when they are about the liberal use of the creatures, and amidst occasions of mirth and cheerfulness.’ How this doctrine ripened, cannot be better illustrated than from the sentiments entertained, so late as the early part of the eighteenth century, by Colonel Blackader, a Scotch officer, who was also an educated man, who had seen much of the world, and might, to some degree, be called a man of the world. In December 1714, he went to a wedding, and, on his return home, he writes: ‘I was cheerful, and perhaps gave too great a swing to raillery, but I hope not light or vain in conversation. I desire always to have my speech seasoned with salt, and ministering profit to the hearers. Sitting up late, and merry enough, though I hope innocent; but I will not justify myself.’ The Life and Diary of Lieut. – Col. J. Blackader, by Andrew Crichton, p. 453. On another occasion (p. 511), in 1720, he was at an evening party. ‘The young people were merry. I laid a restraint upon myself for fear of going too far, and joined but little, only so as not to show moroseness or ill-breeding. We sat late, but the conversation was innocent, and no drinking but as we pleased. However, much time is spent; which I dare not justify. In all things we offend.’ At p. 159, he writes, ‘I should always be mixing something that may edify in my discourse;’ and, says his biographer (p. 437), ‘Conversation, when it ceased to accomplish this object, he regarded as degenerating into idle entertainment, which ought to be checked rather than encouraged.’
548
‘Frequent the gravest company, and the fellowship of those that are sorrowfull.’ Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 416. Compare the attacks on ‘too much carnal mirth and laughter,’ in Durham's Law Unsealed, p. 323; in Fleming's Fulfilling of the Scripture, p. 226; and in Fergusson's Exposition of the Epistles of Paul, p. 227. See also Gray's Spiritual Warfare, p. 42. Cowper says, ‘Woe be unto them that now laugh, for assuredly they shall weepe, the end of their joy shall be endleese mourning and gnashing of teeth, they shall shed tears abundantly with Esau, but shall find no place for mercy.’ Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 271. Hutcheson, in a train of unusual liberality, permits occasional laughter. He says, ‘There is a faculty of laughing given to men, which certainly is given for use, at least at sometimes; and diversions are sometime needfull for men who are serious and employed in weighty affairs.’ … ‘And particularly, laughter is sometimes lawful for magistrates and others in publick charge, not only that they may recreate themselves, but that, thereby, and by the like insinuating carriage, they may gain the affection of the people.’ Hutcheson‘s Exposition of the Book of Job, edit. folio, 1669, pp. 389, 390.
549
In 1650, when Charles II. was in Scotland, ‘the clergy reprehended him very sharply, if he smiled on those days’ (Sundays). Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, book xiii. p. 747, edit. Oxford, 1843.
550
It is said of Donald Cargill, that, ‘his very countenance was edifying to beholders; often sighing with deep groans.’ A Cloud of Witnesses for the Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ, p. 423. The celebrated James Durham was ‘a person of the utmost gravity, and scarce smiled at anything.’ Howie's Biographia Scoticana, p. 226. Of Livingston, we are told ‘that he was a very affectionate person, and weeped much; that it was his ordinary way, and might be observed almost every Sabbath, that when he came into the pulpite he sate doun a litle, and looked first to the one end of the kirk, and then to the other; and then, ordinarly, the tear shott in his eye, and he weeped, and oftimes he began his preface and his work weeping.’ Wodrow's Analecta, vol. ii. p. 249. James Alexander ‘used to weep much in prayer and preaching; he was every way most savoury.’ Ibid., vol. iii. p. 39. As to the Rev.
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