(see below, and context, "and the plain reason was because the ministry had never been fully cleansed.")
CXLIX. For Mr. John Hunter, Minister of the Gospell at Ayre.[1] D. B., I had yours of the 17 current last week which was most acceptable, and the more that it is the beginning of a correspondence I so much desired. I am heartily glad you begin at the 1638. I can help you very little as to that period from any converse that I have had with old ministers. Anything that occurs you shall have after I have made a remark or two upon the accounts you give, and assure yourself that my design is only to draw some further light from you, and rectify anything that lies in my power. That there was much deadness like to creep in I shall not much question, but I would run it some 8 or 9 years higher. I think there was a general reviving in the west some year's before that happy turn in the 1637. I suppose you will easily grant it from the excellent sett of nobility and gentry a little before, you will meet with many of them in Rutherford’s letters, and the extraordinary love and close correspondence among private Christians. I date this from the ministry of Mr. David Dickson and the general awakening that fell out in Stewarton, Irvine, and thereabout, commonly called Stewarton sickness;[2] and the communion of the Shotts, both which were some 7 or 8 years before the change. I earnestly beg by the way all the accounts you can recollect about Mr. David Dickson, his sayings, success, &c., and particularly whither he was the first that advanced the now common doctrine of the Covenant of Redemption, and your accounts of the circumstances, measure, beginning, nature, and end of Stewarton sickness. I believe from this reviving that fell in and some others I could instance I may lay it down as a general remark that the most of the outward deliverances this Church, I may say the Church Christian in most places have met with, have had a sensible reviving on the Spirits of Gods own people going before them. I fancy likewise this good temper among the remnant in these years and the change itself 1638 was much helped on by the prelates forcing out a great many worthy ministers from their charges in the north of Ireland such as Messrs. Livingstone, Blair, &c. The security or the prelates as to their own settlement, their corruption in principles and practice, doctrine and discipline, which Doctor Burnett very candidly represents in the beginning or his History of the House of Hamilton, and the growing learning of some of the Presbyterians such as Mr. G. Gillespie, who wrote his E[nglish] Popish ceremonies at 22 years old,[3] Mr. Henderson, Dickson, &c. and several other things wrought together to bring about that sudden turn.
I doubt somewhat of your account of Bishop Lindsay,[4] if it be the man that defends the articles of Perth against Calderwood and others, as I suppose it is, though then not a Bishop, for the book, though full of pedantism and ill reasoning, is not evidence of such a dunce as your informer represents him. I have heard of Mr. Baillie’s refusal to preach before the Synod, and yet I know that at the Assembly [of] 1638 he was against the excommunication of the Bishops, and a favorer of their cause a little, though no approver of it; and I remember an account I have heard my father give of him[5]—he was Mr. Baillie’s scholar and a particular favorite when Professor at Glasgow. About the year 1656 when the differences between the Protesters and Resolutioners were very high, my father asked the Professor his judgment about that debate. ‘Jacob’ says he, ‘I am too much engaged in that debate and so too much a party in the affair to give you my judgment’ (you know he was a violent Resolutioner), ‘but there is all that I know written on both sides,’ and so gave him all the papers pro & con. ‘Read you closely, ponder the arguments, and be earnest with God for light to help you to make a just determination.’ Afterwards in the '62, when that great man was keeping his chamber a little before his death, my father went in to him and asked his advice how to carry himself & his judgment about Episcopacy. Mr Baillie answered: ‘I won't deal with you in the matter of Episcopacy as I did in that of the public Resolutions. I have had occasion as much to consider that head as many men now alive, and to be concerned in the affairs of the Church since Presbytery was settled, and I will say that as far as ever I could see Episcopacy is contrary to Scripture, primo-primitive antiquity, and the real interest of these 3 lands, and though it do come in I can assure it will be butt like a land flood that will fall again.’—This I the rather set down to you because the memory of that extraordinary person is stained by some of his relations as being a favorer of Episcopacy, which I know is a great untruth, though indeed he was in a little suspense for a time about the '38.
I shall only add 2 or 3 remarks upon this period from the [years] 1638 to the 1660 and so put an end to your trouble at this time. 1. The Church wanted hands at that time to make a through reformation in the ministry, and because they could do no better, the whole of the clergy that had served under Episcopacy were let sit still in their charges through many parts of the kingdom. All that took the Covenant were suffered to continue, and except the Bishops and some few others, all almost were comprehended. And 21y, this corrupt part of the ministry was a dead weight in most of the judicatories upon the honest party, and even in the General Assemblies themselves the honest ministers durst scarce let things of any ticklish nature come to a vote, but carried things by the force of reasoning and their influence in their [harangues] in open Assembly. There were few or none of the received ministers able to reason with the Gillespies, Dickson, Douglas, Henderson, Durham, Baillie, and the other shinning lights of that day. I am willing 3ly to attribute to this both the long continuance of forms of prayer in many places—these read prayers were continued in Glasgow till or after the year 1645—and the common use of the Lord’s Prayer as a form, which was generally in use till the 1649, when it was tabled before the Assembly, but believed to be waved and wore out by little and little after that. And the heights that were run to in these good times in ministers meddling so much in the civil affairs, that· I humbly think were a little out of their road, as for instance Mr. Henderson’s subscribing the Treaty of Ripon that was purely civil. 41y, to this same cause I attribute likewise some of the heats and heights that were run into in the lamentable difference about the Resolutions, which made the great Mr. Ja. Ferguson say that he indeed thought the Resolutioners had reason and truth on their side but they had a black and foul backing, and to this same I am willing to ascribe part of that general falling away among the ministry to Episcopacy in the year 1662, 600 of whom you know conformed, and the plain reason was because the ministry had never been fully cleansed.
Thus you have some of my raw undigested thoughts on this time, which I give only as an evidence of my willingness to satisfy your desire, if I had any stock of knowledge of these times, and to draw a better account from you of this period and that which follows to the 1688 with any accounts that you can recollect of the lives of ministers or private Christians, remarkable conversions, judgments, mercies, answers of prayer, &c. in this former or succeeding periods. My wife remembers you and Mss. Hunter most kindly. I hope you will write as frequently and fully by post as you can to, R. & D. B., yours in all affection, R. W. East., Feb. 28, 1709.
Early Letters of Robert Wodrow, 1698–1709, ed. L. W. Sharp, Publication of the Scottish History Society, third series, volume 24 (Edinburgh, 1937), 300–304. Spelling modernized.
[1] This answers Hunter’s letter of February 17, 1709, Quarto ii.83.
[2] There is an account of ‘The Stewarton Sickness’ in Hewison’s The Covenanters, 1.204-5.
[3] [Gillespie (George.)] A dispute against the English-Popish ceremonies obtruded upon the Church of Scotland. [Edin.] 1637. [This is said to have been printed in the Netherlands and smuggled to Scotland. See the critical edition (Naphtali Press, 2013).]
[4] David Lindsay, Bishop of Edinburgh.
[5] These anecdotes are repeated in Analecta, 1.21, and in Wodrow’s Life of James Wodrow, Edin., 1828, pp. 29-31.
CXLIX. For Mr. John Hunter, Minister of the Gospell at Ayre.[1] D. B., I had yours of the 17 current last week which was most acceptable, and the more that it is the beginning of a correspondence I so much desired. I am heartily glad you begin at the 1638. I can help you very little as to that period from any converse that I have had with old ministers. Anything that occurs you shall have after I have made a remark or two upon the accounts you give, and assure yourself that my design is only to draw some further light from you, and rectify anything that lies in my power. That there was much deadness like to creep in I shall not much question, but I would run it some 8 or 9 years higher. I think there was a general reviving in the west some year's before that happy turn in the 1637. I suppose you will easily grant it from the excellent sett of nobility and gentry a little before, you will meet with many of them in Rutherford’s letters, and the extraordinary love and close correspondence among private Christians. I date this from the ministry of Mr. David Dickson and the general awakening that fell out in Stewarton, Irvine, and thereabout, commonly called Stewarton sickness;[2] and the communion of the Shotts, both which were some 7 or 8 years before the change. I earnestly beg by the way all the accounts you can recollect about Mr. David Dickson, his sayings, success, &c., and particularly whither he was the first that advanced the now common doctrine of the Covenant of Redemption, and your accounts of the circumstances, measure, beginning, nature, and end of Stewarton sickness. I believe from this reviving that fell in and some others I could instance I may lay it down as a general remark that the most of the outward deliverances this Church, I may say the Church Christian in most places have met with, have had a sensible reviving on the Spirits of Gods own people going before them. I fancy likewise this good temper among the remnant in these years and the change itself 1638 was much helped on by the prelates forcing out a great many worthy ministers from their charges in the north of Ireland such as Messrs. Livingstone, Blair, &c. The security or the prelates as to their own settlement, their corruption in principles and practice, doctrine and discipline, which Doctor Burnett very candidly represents in the beginning or his History of the House of Hamilton, and the growing learning of some of the Presbyterians such as Mr. G. Gillespie, who wrote his E[nglish] Popish ceremonies at 22 years old,[3] Mr. Henderson, Dickson, &c. and several other things wrought together to bring about that sudden turn.
I doubt somewhat of your account of Bishop Lindsay,[4] if it be the man that defends the articles of Perth against Calderwood and others, as I suppose it is, though then not a Bishop, for the book, though full of pedantism and ill reasoning, is not evidence of such a dunce as your informer represents him. I have heard of Mr. Baillie’s refusal to preach before the Synod, and yet I know that at the Assembly [of] 1638 he was against the excommunication of the Bishops, and a favorer of their cause a little, though no approver of it; and I remember an account I have heard my father give of him[5]—he was Mr. Baillie’s scholar and a particular favorite when Professor at Glasgow. About the year 1656 when the differences between the Protesters and Resolutioners were very high, my father asked the Professor his judgment about that debate. ‘Jacob’ says he, ‘I am too much engaged in that debate and so too much a party in the affair to give you my judgment’ (you know he was a violent Resolutioner), ‘but there is all that I know written on both sides,’ and so gave him all the papers pro & con. ‘Read you closely, ponder the arguments, and be earnest with God for light to help you to make a just determination.’ Afterwards in the '62, when that great man was keeping his chamber a little before his death, my father went in to him and asked his advice how to carry himself & his judgment about Episcopacy. Mr Baillie answered: ‘I won't deal with you in the matter of Episcopacy as I did in that of the public Resolutions. I have had occasion as much to consider that head as many men now alive, and to be concerned in the affairs of the Church since Presbytery was settled, and I will say that as far as ever I could see Episcopacy is contrary to Scripture, primo-primitive antiquity, and the real interest of these 3 lands, and though it do come in I can assure it will be butt like a land flood that will fall again.’—This I the rather set down to you because the memory of that extraordinary person is stained by some of his relations as being a favorer of Episcopacy, which I know is a great untruth, though indeed he was in a little suspense for a time about the '38.
I shall only add 2 or 3 remarks upon this period from the [years] 1638 to the 1660 and so put an end to your trouble at this time. 1. The Church wanted hands at that time to make a through reformation in the ministry, and because they could do no better, the whole of the clergy that had served under Episcopacy were let sit still in their charges through many parts of the kingdom. All that took the Covenant were suffered to continue, and except the Bishops and some few others, all almost were comprehended. And 21y, this corrupt part of the ministry was a dead weight in most of the judicatories upon the honest party, and even in the General Assemblies themselves the honest ministers durst scarce let things of any ticklish nature come to a vote, but carried things by the force of reasoning and their influence in their [harangues] in open Assembly. There were few or none of the received ministers able to reason with the Gillespies, Dickson, Douglas, Henderson, Durham, Baillie, and the other shinning lights of that day. I am willing 3ly to attribute to this both the long continuance of forms of prayer in many places—these read prayers were continued in Glasgow till or after the year 1645—and the common use of the Lord’s Prayer as a form, which was generally in use till the 1649, when it was tabled before the Assembly, but believed to be waved and wore out by little and little after that. And the heights that were run to in these good times in ministers meddling so much in the civil affairs, that· I humbly think were a little out of their road, as for instance Mr. Henderson’s subscribing the Treaty of Ripon that was purely civil. 41y, to this same cause I attribute likewise some of the heats and heights that were run into in the lamentable difference about the Resolutions, which made the great Mr. Ja. Ferguson say that he indeed thought the Resolutioners had reason and truth on their side but they had a black and foul backing, and to this same I am willing to ascribe part of that general falling away among the ministry to Episcopacy in the year 1662, 600 of whom you know conformed, and the plain reason was because the ministry had never been fully cleansed.
Thus you have some of my raw undigested thoughts on this time, which I give only as an evidence of my willingness to satisfy your desire, if I had any stock of knowledge of these times, and to draw a better account from you of this period and that which follows to the 1688 with any accounts that you can recollect of the lives of ministers or private Christians, remarkable conversions, judgments, mercies, answers of prayer, &c. in this former or succeeding periods. My wife remembers you and Mss. Hunter most kindly. I hope you will write as frequently and fully by post as you can to, R. & D. B., yours in all affection, R. W. East., Feb. 28, 1709.
Early Letters of Robert Wodrow, 1698–1709, ed. L. W. Sharp, Publication of the Scottish History Society, third series, volume 24 (Edinburgh, 1937), 300–304. Spelling modernized.
[1] This answers Hunter’s letter of February 17, 1709, Quarto ii.83.
[2] There is an account of ‘The Stewarton Sickness’ in Hewison’s The Covenanters, 1.204-5.
[3] [Gillespie (George.)] A dispute against the English-Popish ceremonies obtruded upon the Church of Scotland. [Edin.] 1637. [This is said to have been printed in the Netherlands and smuggled to Scotland. See the critical edition (Naphtali Press, 2013).]
[4] David Lindsay, Bishop of Edinburgh.
[5] These anecdotes are repeated in Analecta, 1.21, and in Wodrow’s Life of James Wodrow, Edin., 1828, pp. 29-31.