POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 583 They find a certain relation between the two. Moreover, as Lehre nnd Wehre, 1874, p.81, points out, the Hades gospel grew out of the limbus dogma. "Es ist darum die Hadeslehre der neueren Theologen eine muessige und ueberfluessige Spekulation, eine Ummodelung und Neugestaltung des roemischen, altmodish gewordenen limbns patrum, nur mit etwas erweiterten Grenzen." And, worst of all, it supports the fundamental thesis of the Hades gospel, that the eternal fate of man is not decided at death, by teaching that the believers of the Old Testament were not prepared to enter heaven at their death. Even if some limbns patrnm advocates strictly adhere to Heb. 9: 27, their teaching might cause men to look for exceptions to the rule laid down in Heb. 9: 27. Some Famous Scottish Preachers of Post -Refo:fIL.dti.;n Times By F. R. WEBBER It is hard to mention a country that has produced more famous preachers than Scotland. In proportion to the total population Wales may have done so, but the sermons of many of the eminent Welsh preachers have never been translated into English. Scotland's area is about one half that of our State of Wisconsin, and less than one half that of our State of Iowa. Until about a century ago the total population of Scotland was a little over one million, and even today it is less than five million. The history of the Scottish Kirk is extremely dramatic. John Knox convinced the people intellectually that the Roman Church was wrong, but it required the folding stool of an unlettered applewoman, hurled at the head of the Dean of Edinburgh, to cause a popular uprising, with people surging through the streets of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and St. Andrews, shouting in unison, "Down with the papal Antichrist! The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" Then, on a memorable day in 1638, 60,000 people crowded into Edinburgh, at that time a small town, and signed an enormous sheet of parchment which contained the half-for-584 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS gotten National Covenant. Many of them signed it with their own blood, swearing to keep Rome out of Scotland forever. Two centuries later, 474 pastors, among them many prominent men, arose quietly and filed out of their national convention, giving up good congregations, manses, salaries and lifelong friends, as a protest against the State Church, from which they seceded. The individual preachers were equally interesting. One of them was an uncouth shepherd boy, who studied Latin and Greek as he watched his sheep, compiled his own crude Greek grammar, walked 24 miles by night to buy a Greek New Testament, and astonished a professor of St. Andrews at the ease with which he read Greek at sight. Other famous preachers suffered hideous tortures and physical mutilation because they protested against an attempt to force bishops upon the Kirk. One of the most eloquent of them all started his ministry as an outspoken liberalist, and through his own reading of the Scriptures became one of the most fearless champions of conservative doctrine of his age. The history of the Scottish Kirk is colorful. John Knox (1505-1572). Knox lived in obscurity, as an unknown tutor, for the first 42 years of his life. Called upon suddenly to preach, he fled from the castle church in terror and tears. Knox was born at Haddington, near Edinburgh, in 1505, of humble parentage. He attended grammar school, and his name is found among the students of Glasgow University in 1522, but not among the graduates. He is supposed to have followed his famous teacher, John Major, to St. Andrews University.1 About the year 1530 he was ordained, but instead of taking a parish, he became tutor to one or more wealthy families, and continued to teach until 42 years of age. His conversion to Protestantism was gradual. He read Augustine, and this led him to study the Scriptures. Doubts arose in his mind in regard to the correctness of Roman doctrine. In 1544 he heard a sermon by George Wishart, and two years later he became a companion to Wishart, accompanying him on his journeys with a two-handed sword. When Wishart was seized by his enemies, Knox prepared to defend him, but Wishart 1 A. F. Mitchell, The Scottish Reformation, p. 79. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 585 said: "Nay, return to your bairns, and God bless yeo Ane is sufficient for a sacrifice." 2 After Wishart's execution Knox went to St. Andrews, then a village of but 4,000 people. His friendship for Wishart made him a marked man, and he fled with his pupils to the castle, where a group of Protestants had entrenched themselves for safety. There he continued his school. His ability was quickly recognized by the Protestant leaders, and one day, when they were gathered for worship, John Rough, pastor of the castle church, arose and said: "Brother, ye shall not be offended, albeit that I speak unto you that which I have in charge, even from all those that are here present, which is this: In the name of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, and in the name of those that presently call you by my mouth, I charge you that ye refuse not this holy vocation, but that, as ye tender the glory of God, the increase of Christ's kingdom, the edification of your brethren,. and the comfort of me, whom ye understand well enough to be oppressed by the multitude of labours, that ye take upon you the public office and charge of preaching, even as ye look to avoid God's heavy displeasure, and desire that He shall multiply His graces with you." 3 John Rough called upon the congregation for approval, and everyone present said, "We approve it." It was then that Knox arose and fled from the room in tears. However, he began to preach in the castle church, and with such great conviction that within seven months many of the people of St. Andrews were attending his services, and many gave up their Roman Catholic faith.4 In 1547 the refugees in the castle were captured by the French, who had sent a fleet and had invaded Scotland. For 20 months Knox was made to toil as a galley slave. In 1549 he was released and allowed to go into exile in England. Edward VI, the boy king, received Knox with great joy, and made it possible for him to serve congregations at Berwick and at Newcastle, and later in London and vicinity. In 1551 he was made one of the King's chaplains, and often, as the 2 D. Calderwood, Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, Vol. I, p. 195. 3 Thos. McCrie, Life of Johtn Knox, p. 47. ~ Ibid., p. 54. 586 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS Duke of Warwick said, "Master Knox hurled his thunderbolts" at all wrongdoers. When the boy King died in 1553, great trouble came upon England. Henry VIII on his deathbed had fixed the order of succession: his son Edward, then his daughter Mary, then Elizabeth, then a kinsman, Lady Jane Grey. He had pronounced a curse upon any man who should alter this order of succession: "Mayall that he holds dear turn traitor to him; may his soul perish in the everlasting fires; may his head rot on London bridge, and may the crows pick out his eyes." The powerful and crafty Duke of Warwick, the hypocritical Protector Somerset, and the latter's vain and superficial brother, Thomas Seymour, all plotted to put their favorites on the throne. Lady Jane Grey became Queen. She was nominally a Lutheran, 17 years of age, very beautiful, and unusually well educated. Mary Tudor raised an army and defeated the army of the Duke of Warwick, and the ill-fated Queen Jane was imprisoned and later on charged with high treason and beheaded in the Tower of London, protesting from first to last, "I do not wish to be Queen." Her tragic reign had lasted but nine days! At the dethronement of Queen Jane, Knox was obliged to flee for his life to the Continent. Through John Calvin's influence he was made pastor of a church of English and Scottish refugees at Frankfurt-am-Main. From 1555 to 1559 he was pastor of l'Eglise de Notre Dame la N euve in Geneva, made up of English and Italian refugees. Knox returned to Scotland in 1559, where his powerful oratory caused even his enemies to fear him. In 1560 the Roman Church was overthrown in Scotland and Calvinistic Protestantism made the recognized religion, John Knox and five others drawing up the Scottish Confession of Faith. Knox became pastor of St. Giles' Church, the most important congregation in Edinburgh, then a town of but 25,000 inhabitants. Here he preached twice on Sunday and on three weekdays to congregations that overflowed the great church. He hurled defiance at idolatry, and the people hurried to the churches and cast out carved images and pictures. He denounced the Mass in such terrible terms that people made haste to profess publicly their belief in Calvinism. Knox was a man without fear. In 1561 Mary, Queen of Scots, ascended the Scottish POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 587 throne. She was but 19 years old, of fascinating beauty and what would today be termed glamor, but thoroughly unscrupulous and believed to be of questionable morality. Knox soon became her most powerful opponent, not hesitating to rebuke her conduct in stern language. In his thunderous sermons he denounced all women rulers, and especially Mary Tudor of England, and, by implication, Mary, the Scottish queen. One of Knox's most famous sermons, and said by some to be the only complete sermon that has been preserved to posterity, is called nowadays "The Source and BOlmds of Kingly Power." It exists in print to this day.5 It was preached in Edinburgh in 1565, and Lord Darnley, whom Queen Mary had married that year, was offended by it and had Knox cast into prison. He was soon released, and spent the last seven years of his life in Edinburgh, preaching, catechizing, directing the affairs of the Kirk. Knox preached the Law with terrible force, but it must be said of him that he preached the Gospel as well, from his Calvinistic viewpoint. W. M. Taylor, an authority on Scottish church history, says that Knox believed firmly in the Trinity, in the Atonement, and in the mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ. "Luther did not proclaim the doctrine of Justification by faith more energetically than he; and in every appeal he made to his fellow men, they were sure to see that Jesus was in the midst." 6 Knox prepared his sermons with great care, but never wrote them out, neither before nor after preaching them. Thus it is that we have little by which to judge his theology. He preached Justification, but as a follower of Calvin he no doubt preached reprobation as well as election. The form of his preaching is said to have been expository. This is based upon statements to be found in his existing letters. When 66 years of age he was so frail, according to James Melville, an eyewitness, that two servants had to lead him to the pulpit. After half an hour in the pulpit, Melville, who was taking notes, says that he was so moved that he could no longer write. Although very weak at first, yet "ere he had done with ~ H. C. Fish, Masterpieces of Pulpit Eloquence, pp. 207-228. However, see G. Kleiser, The World's Great Sermons, pp. 173-201. 6 W. M. Taylor, The Scottish Pulpit, p. 60. 588 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS his sermon, he was so active and vigorous that he was like to ding that pulpit in blads and flee out of it." 7 Knox taught "that there is no other name by which men can be saved but that of Jesus, and that all reliance on the merits of others is vain and delusive; that the Saviour having by His one sacrifice sanctified and reconciled to God those who should inherit His promised kingdom, all other sacrifices which men pretend to offer for sin are blasphemous; that all men ought to hate sin, which is so odious before God that no sacrifice but the death of His Son could satisfy for it." 8 Thomas Carlyle pictures Knox as a stern-faced preacher of Sinai. "He resembles, more than any of the moderns, an old Hebrew prophet. The same inflexibility, intolerance, rigid, narrow-looking adherence to God's truth, stern rebuke in the name of God to all that forsake truth: an old Hebrew prophet in the guise of an Edinburgh minister of the sixteenth century. We are to take him for that; not require him to be other." 9 Thomas McCrie, his most careful biographer, says of Knox: "Of the many sermons preached by him during his ministry, he published but one, which was extorted from him by peculiar circumstances. It affords a very favorable specimen of his talents and shows that if he had applied himself to . writing, he would have been qualified for excelling in that department. He had a ready command of language and expressed himself with great perspicuity, animation, and force.1o Dargan says of him: "Small of stature and frail of body, like Calvin, he was far more vehement and excitable than the reserved Frenchman. His eye gleamed, and his frame worked with the inward power of his convictions, and his mastery of his audience was that of the born speaker. The first sermon at St. Andrews, when he attacked the Papacy, showed his coming power, and the far later one in the same place, when he defied Archbishop Hamilton's threats and put aside the warnings of his friends to urge the immediate reformation of worship, was a triumph of brave and powerful preaching." 11 NOTE.-The accounts of George Wishart, John Rough, John McAlpine, etc., belong properly to the Pre-Reformation period. 7 Melville's Diary, p. 26. 8 Thos. McCrie, Life of John Knox, p. 125. 9 Thos. Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship, p. 181. 10 Thos. McCrie, Life of John Knox, p. 298. 11 E. C. Dargan, A History of Preaching, Vol. I, p. 521. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 589 James Lawson (1538-1584). As death approached, John Knox selected a young man of exceptional ability to succeed him at St. Giles' Church. This man was James Lawson. Born in 1538, he was educated in Perth grammar school and St. Andrews University. After his graduation he was tutor to a private family, and spent some time on the Continent, studying Hebrew. In 1567 or 1568 he became professor of Hebrew in St. Andrews University, and was the first to teach Hebrew in Scotland. In 1569 he became subprincipal of King's College, Aberdeen, and pastor of Old Machar Church. This combination of teaching and preaching was favored at the time, so that the men who teach theology may be in direct touch themselves with the current problems of parish work. James Lawson became one of the leaders among the Protestant clergy in the north of Scotland. In 1572 John Knox called him to Edinburgh, and urged him to become pastor of St. Giles' Church. Knox was so ill that he had to be carried to the church, and one of his last acts was to help install his chosen successor. Lawson proved to be a faithful pastor and "a man of singular learning, zeal, and eloquence," 12 although at times somewhat intolerant. In 1584 he preached with considerable fire against the State's meddling in the affairs of the Kirk. A warrant was issued for his arrest, and his execution was a foregone conclusion. However, he succeeded in fleeing to London, and nothing further was done to punish him. William Harlow. One of the friends and helpers of John Knox was a simple merchant tailor, named William Harlow, of whose life not much is known. During the reign of the boy-king Edward VI (1547-1553), Harlow went to England "and preached sometimes as a Deacoun, according to the corrupt custom of that Kirk. . .. He was not very learned, yitt his doctrine was plaine and sound, and worthy of commendatioune." 13 He returned to Scotland and preached "with great fervor and diligence." During the exile of John Knox it was Harlow who did much to encourage the people to stand firm until the return of their leader. A little later he became pastor of West Kirk, just out of Edinburgh. 12 Jas. Melville, Diary, p. 33. 13 David Calderwood, Historie 'of the Kirk of Scotland, Vol. I, p. 303. 590 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS While Harlow was not an educated man, he nevertheless deserves a place in the history of preaching because it was his plain, earnest sermons that gave courage to the people at a time when the exile of their more famous leader might well have caused them to give up in despair. Thus it fell to the lot of a tailor to see the infant Scottish Church through one of its first periods of trial. John Willock (c. 1512-1585). John Willock, a preacher of much influence and an able assistant to John Knox, was born in Ayrshire early in the sixteenth century. He attended Glasgow University and became a friar in Ayr. About the year 1541 he went to London, where he was pastor of St. Catherine's Church and chaplain to the Duke of Suffolk, father of Lady Jane Grey, who was Queen of England for nine days before Mary Tudor seized the throne by force of arms, charged Queen Jane with high treason, and beheaded her. It is possible that it was Willock who walked to the scaffold with the 17-year-old Queen, and read the 121st Psalm just before the ax fell. After Mary seized the throne, Willock fled to the Continent, where he became a physician for a few years in Emden. In 1558 he ventured back to Scotland and became pastor of St. John's Church, Ayr, but his Protestant preaching caused him to be charged with heresy; however, for some reason the sentence was never enforced. In 1559 the queen regent took the city of Edinburgh, and John Knox was forced to flee. It was John Willock who became interim pastor at st. Giles during the absence of Knox. In 1562, for a reason that has never been made clear, Willock left Scotland and became pastor of a congregation in Loughborough, Leicestershire. An eminent authority says: "Willock was not inferior to Knox in learning, and though he did not equal him in eloquence and intrepidity, he surpassed him in affability, in moderation, and in address, qualities which enabled him sometimes to maintain his station and to accomplish his purposes when his colleagues could not act with safety or success." 14 John Craig (c. 1512-1600). Another impressive preacher of post-Reformation Scotland was John Craig, who was born about the year 1512 in Craigston, Flodden. After his educa-14 Thos. McCrie, Life of John Knox, p. 115. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 591 tion at St. Andrews University he tutored for two years and then became a Dominican monk. In 1536 he went to England and from there to Rome. He became a teacher in Bologna and master of the novices in a Dominican convent. Craig read John Calvin's Institutes and became convinced that the Roman Church contained errors of teaching. Because of his Protestant views, he was imprisoned for a time, but in 1559, during the riots that followed the death of Pope Paul IV, he was released from prison by the rioters and went to Vienna. In 1560 he returned to Scotland, was ordained, and preached with great acceptability at St. Magdalen, Cowgate, Edinburgh, and at Holyrood. In 1562 Knox invited him to become his colleague at the High Church, Edinburgh. When Knox died in 1572, John Craig became one of the leaders of the Scottish Kirk. After the murder of Lord Darnley, the young husband of Mary Queen of Scots, Mary straightway prepared to marry Bothwell. John Craig refused to publish their banns. In 1580 he helped draft the National Covenant. In 1580, King James VI, then but 14 years of age, appointed John Craig his court preacher, a position which he retained until his death. As a preacher, John Craig has something of the fearlessness and the candor of John Knox, and at all times he was faithful in proclaiming the teachings of the Scottish reformers. Although hardly a theologian of the first rank, yet he preached the truths of the Reformation to the best of his ability.15 ChristolJher Goodman (c. 1520-1603). Another eloquent preacher of the Scottish reformation was John Knox's associate at Geneva and his co-worker in Edinburgh, Christopher Goodman. He was a Scotsman by adoption, for he had been born in Chester, England, about the year 1520. He was graduated from Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1541, and in 1547 he was senior student at Christ Church College, Oxford, and in 1549 a proctor. He was also made Lady Margaret professor of divinity. In 1554 he went to the Continent, and a year later he joined John Knox at Geneva, and at the request of the latter he became his associate pastor. Knox at the time was serving a congregation of refugees. Goodman shared with Knox his opposition to women rulers, and in 1558 delivered a sharp dis-15 See Thos. McCrie, Life of John Knox, pp. 236---240. 592 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS sertation on this subject. When Knox returned to Scotland in 1559, he begged Goodman to follow him, which he did. Goodman became minister of Ayr in 1559, and in 1560 he was "translated" to St. Andrews. In 1556 he was appointed chaplain to Sir Henry Sidney of Ireland; and in 1570 he was given the congregation at Alford, Cheshire. A year later his opponents deprived him of Alford, and he was sentenced to be beaten with rods because of his outspoken nonconformity. Dargan says of him: "He was highly esteemed as a preacher, but, like his greater friend and colleague, he had a sharp tongue and a vehement spirit, which often hurt more than they helped." 16 Andrew Melville (1545-1622). Greater in every way than any of these able associates of John Knox was Andrew Melville. This exceptional preacher and fearless leader, more than any other man, had the qualifications to take Knox's place when he died. Melville was born at Baldovy, Montrose, Scotland, and his father was a laird of Baldovy. He was educated in the grammar school at Montrose and in St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, from which he was graduated with very high honors in 1564. He went to Paris the same year and studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Philosophy. He was able to deliver orations in Greek. In 1566 he became regent in St. Marceon College, Poitiers, at the same time studying civil law. Upon Beza's recommendation he was made teacher of Latin at Geneva. During his five years at that place he studied theology with Beza. He returned to Scotland in 1574, to the great regret of all his Genevan associates. Melville became principal of Glasgow University, and so ably did he direct its affairs that the classrooms were soon filled to overflowing. He taught Theology, Greek, Hebrew, Old and New Testament Exegesis, Moral Philosophy, Natural History, Logic, Rhetoric> and Mathematics; and his fame as a teacher was so great that the reputation of the university became world-wide. Even the alumni came back in numbers and enrolled as beginners, merely to attend the classes of this superb scholar. Finally students had to be turned away because of the crowded condition of the classrooms. From a languishing school Glasgow University became 16 E. C. Dargan, A History of Preaching, Vol. I, p. 524. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 593 so famous that "there was no place in Europe comparable to Glasgow for good letters during these years." 17 Melville did not confine himself to teaching his ten subjects. He preached regularly and was easily the most influential clergyman in Glasgow. A controversy in church government had arisen in the Scottish Kirk as to whether it should be ruled by bishops or by the presbytery or, as we would say, the larger conference, which in their case contained not only pastors but lay representatives as well. Melville expressed his dislike for prelacy in emphatic terms. He was pastor of Govan Church for three years as well as head of the University. He was a powerful champion of the Scottish Reformation, and a determined opponent of the scheme of King James to force the episcopate upon Scotland. Andrew Melville was among the first to declare that n Q E < 1 ( 3 { r t E Q o ~ and EnLmwnOr; are words that denote the same office in the New Testament Church. His strong convictions and his eloquent controversial preaching drew multitudes to his church. As time went on, he went farther than the New Testament and declared that government by the presbytery alone is God-pleasing, bishops must be abolished, and complete parity of the clergy established. It has been said that "Knox made Scotland Protestant but Melville made it Presbyterian." 18 In 1580 Melville was made principal of St. Mary's College, St. Andrews. In 1581 the government abolished the episcopacy, and Melville triumphed. Melville had declared vehemently that the State has no right to interfere with the spiritual affairs of the Kirk, and he looked upon the abolishment of prelacy as the righting of a great wrong. In 1583 the King and his party had their revenge, and Melville was charged with treason and compelled to flee to England. In 1597 he was deprived of St. Andrews, and in 1606 he was imprisoned in the Tower of London and for a time denied all visitors, and even writing materials. With a bit of metal he covered the walls of his room with beautiful inscriptions. The pretext for his imprisonment was a Latin couplet which he had composed after seeing a highly ritualistic service in 17 Quoted by Thos. McCrie, Life of Andrew Melville, Vol. I, p. 75. 18· W. M. Taylor, The Scottish P'u,lpit, p. 75. 38 594 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS the Chapel Royal. He was released from the Tower in 1610 and allowed to go into exile at Sedan, where he taught theology for 12 years. Melville knew no fear. When summoned before King James he said: "Sir, as diverse times before I have told you, so now again I must tell you, there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland. There is King James, the head of the Commonwealth, and there is Jesus Christ, the King of the Church, whose subject James VI is, and of whose Kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member .... We will yield to you your place, and give you all due obedience; but again I say, you are not the head of the Church; you cannot give us that eternal life which we seek for, even in this world, and you cannot deprive us of it. Permit us then freely to meet in the name of Christ, and to attend to the interests of that Church of which you are the chief member." 19 "Though he was not himself for any length of time a preacher, he must have preached through them for years after he had been driven into exile. Even yet there come from his words sparks enough to kindle our souls into eager loyalty to Christ, and that is greatness, wherever and howsoever it may be manifested." 20 Robert Bruce (1554-1631). Robert Bruce of Kinnard was born in 1554 at Airth, and was a son of Sir Alexander Bruce. After his education at St. Andrews, he studied law in Paris, returned to Scotland, and began a successful career in the legal profession. Feeling an urgent call to preach, he went back to St. Andrews and studied theology with Andrew Melville. Urged to succeed Lawson at Edinburgh, he declined, but continued his theological studies, contenting himself by expounding the Scriptures to groups of students gathered about him. In 1587, at the age of 33, he was called to a church in Edinburgh. For a time he was in the good graces of the King, but his opposition to the King's efforts to establish bishops over the Kirk led, in 1596, to his imprisonment and then to his banishment from Edinburgh. Twice he was allowed to return, only to be banished again in 1600 and in 1620. 19 Thos. McCrie n, Sketches of Scottish Church History, p. 125. 20 W. M. Taylor, The Scottish Pulpit, p. 79. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 595 Robert Bruce was a preacher of rare gifts, for his contemporaries even went so far as to declare that no man since the days of the Apostles had ever preached with such power.21 Robert Rollock (c. 1555-1598). Robert Rollock was born about the year 1555 at Powis, near Stirling. After finishing the grammar school of Stirling, he entered St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews, in 1574. In 1578 he was made a regent, in 1580 examiner of arts, and in 1580 director of the arts faculty of his college. He continued his theological studies meanwhile. In 1583 he was made a regent of the newly founded college which became Edinburgh University, and in 1585 he was appointed first principal of this university. Two years later he was made professor of theology. In those days the people of Edinburgh were in the habit of assembling in the New Church, and sitting there in idleness. Rollock thought that such an opportunity should not be ignored, and in 1587 he began to preach to these people at seven in the morning -an unusual thing in Edinburgh. So greatly impressed were the people because of Rollock's helpful expositions of the Scriptures that they urged him to become a pastor as well as head of the university. He agreed with reluctance and became a preacher of unusual power, expounding the Scriptures in so deeply spiritual a manner that the people flocked to the church at the early hour of 7 A. M. week after week and were greatly benefited. In 1598 he became pastor of Upper Tolbooth Kirk, Edinburgh. He was "a man of good conversation and a powerful preacher," 22 but unfortunately he died when about 44 years of age, after a very fruitful ministry at Upper Tolbooth and at Magdalen (Greyfriars') Kirks. Political Conditions. James VI of Scotland was but a year old when his mother was forced to abdicate in his favor. Scotland was under a regency, but at the age of 12 he began to take an active part in state affairs. He was arrogant, conceited, wholly without honor, slovenly, and superficial. Although not brilliant, yet he took great pride in what he termed his "kingcraft" and in a pathetic smattering of theology which he had acquired. 21 See E. C. Dargan, A History of Preaching, Vol. 2, pp. 23-24. 22 David Calderwood, Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, Vol. 5, p. 732. 596 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS The reason for the famous Episcopacy-Presbytery Controversy, which broke out after the death of John Knox is not difficult to explain. A careful authority says: "Fully half the wealth of Scotland was in the hands of the clergy, and the greater part of it in the hands of a few. Avarice, ambition, and secular pomp were widespread. A vacant bishopric or abbacy called forth powerful competitors, who contended for it as for a petty kingdom." 23 He states that such vacancies were often taken by force, that benefices were bought and sold without shame, and pluralism (by which one man could hold several profitable livings) multiplied everywhere. Even though Scotland had renounced Romanism, yet the nobles and the former church dignitaries were too often men who were reluctant to yield half the wealth of Scotland to a church controlled by the common people. Selfish interests were at stake. In order to retain possession of this wealth, a convention was called at Leith, in 1572, just after the death of Knox, and a number of bishops were appointed. Men were selected because of their unworthiness. Obscure men, without ability, but who craved the office, the purple, and the pomp of a bishop, were given that title, but with the understanding that their possessions were to be signed away to their patrons.24 These men were the cause of great merriment. They were called the tulchan bishops. A tulchan, in Scotland, is the skin of a calf, carefully stuffed with straw, and set up within sight of an obstinate cow in order to cause her to yield her milk.25 The Prelacy-Presbytery Controversy raged from 1572 to 1638. It was a time of persecution, of cruel tortures, and of inhuman executions -one of the blackest pages in the history of Protestantism. Some of the nobility, eager to add additional lands to their large holdings, and some of the clerical dabblers in church politics, who saw an easy method of rising from obscurity to power at a single leap, sought to bring the reformed Scottish Kirk under the rule of the episcopate. However, it is only fair to say that there were sincere men, both among the landed gentry and the clergy, who held the honest opinion that government by bishops was 23 Thos. McCrie, Life of John Knox, p. 25. 24 N. L. Walker, Scottish Church History, p. 41. 25 John Jameison, Dictionary of the Scottish Language, p. 579. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 597 the better method of the two. Such a man was the great and pious Alexander Henderson in his earlier ministry. In 1584 the notorious Black Acts were passed. They made it mandatory that: 1. No assembly could meet without the King's permission; 2. No one could say a word, whether in public or in private, against the government; 3. To decline the judgment of the Privy Council in any cause was high treason; 4. All ministers must recognize the bishops as their ecclesiastical superiors. 26 Generally speaking, King James was an eager friend of the group who favored rule by bishops, but even here he proved fickle and arrogant. In 1590, just after his marriage, he attended a meeting of the General Assembly in order to express to them his royal greetings. He praised the presbytery group in florid language, declaring that it was good to live in an age of the Gospel, and to be King in the sincerest Kirk in all the world. He ridiculed Geneva for keeping Christmas and Easter, and characterized the Church of England as "an ill-said Mass in English, wanting nothing but the liftings," that is, the elevation of the host.27 He charged the Kirk that it stand firmly in its convictions, and he pledged his ardent support as long as he ruled over Scotland. Two years later Parliament repealed the Black Acts, and declared the Kirk to be the state church of Scotland. Not long after this the vacillating King resumed his efforts to force bishops upon the Kirk, and succeeded in appointing prelates for Ross, Aberdeen, and Caithness. At the death of Elizabeth in 1603, James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne as James 1. He went to London and from there continued his efforts to force prelacy upon Scotland. David Calderwood (1575-1650). This famous historian and preacher was born in Dalkeith in 1575, and was graduated from Edinburgh University in 1593. In 1604 he was ordained and given the parish of Crailing. In the Presbytery-Prelacy Controversy he was a staunch defender of the presbytery. A remonstrance against rule by bishops was drawn up by a group of clergymen and presented to the King by Calderwood, 26 D. Calderwood, Histone of the Kirk of Scotland, Vol. 4, p. 61; also W. M. Hetherington, History of the Church of Scotland. 27 N. L. Walker, Scottish Church HisWry, p. 43. 598 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS Although threatened by the King with imprisonment and banishment, Calderwood could not be induced to reveal the names of the men who had prepared the protest. He alone assumed the blame, and he was imprisoned for a time and then banished. He went to Holland in 1619, returning to Scotland in 1625. In 1640 he was called to Pencaitland in East Lothian. With David Dickson and Alexander Henderson he drew up the Directory for Public Worship for the Scottish Kirk. Calderwood was an expository preacher of considerable ability, and one might hear more of his gifts in this field were it not for the fact that his fame as a historian is world-wide. He was asked by the Kirk to write a church history of Scotland. First he prepared an enormous manuscript of 3,136 pages, which was never published because of its size. Some 1,117 pages of this are in the British Museum. Next he prepared a digest of this larger work. This was published, and fills eight thick volumes, each containing 600 to 800 closely printed pages, and is called Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, from the Beginning of the Reformation to the End of the Reign of King James VI. Finally he prepared a brief summary of this digest, called The True Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, etc., which fills a large folio. The eight-volume edition (used by the present writer for the quotations cited above) is curious. The spelling is archaic -"twa kings and twa kingdoms" -and in the dialect that Calderwood spoke, for in his day there was no standardized spelling in Scotland. Much of the history of the Scottish Reformation would have been lost forever were it not for the labors of Calderwood. Alexander Henderson, (1583-1646). This eloquent preacher, whose life is associated with so many significant days in Scotland's history, was born in 1583 in Creich, Fifeshire. He was graduated from St. Andrews in 1603, and became regent in the arts faculty, teaching philosophy and rhetoric. In 1611 he was licensed to preach, and in 1614 he was ordained and given Leuchars church, Fifeshire. In his early days Henderson was a champion of the episcopacy, for he had not yet studied the Greek words around which the controversy revolved. The people of Leuchars, aware of Henderson's views, not only protested against his appointment, but POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 599 barred the doors of the church on the day of his installation. It was necessary for the church dignitaries to gain access to the church by means of a window. Shortly after this, Robert Bruce of Kinnard preached in Forgan village, hard by. Henderson slipped in unobserved and sat in a dark corner of the church. It so happened that Bruce used the text "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber." Henderson, in his dark corner, thought of his entry into Leuchars church and the fact that he had not received a call from the congregation. Searching the Scriptures and studying the Greek text, he began to doubt the divine institution of the episcopate. In time, like Andrew Melville, he went to the other extreme, and believed the presbytery to be of divine command. In 1618 Henderson protested against the Five Articles of Perth. These enjoined: 1. That the Lord's Supper be received kneeling; 2. That it might be administered in private; 3. That Baptism might also be private; 4. That children should be confirmed; 5. That Easter, Christmas, etc., should be observed as holidays.28 These enactments caused great offense at the time, not because of the things they commanded, but because the King and his party used dictatorial methods to bring them about.29 It was Henderson who took a leading part in the signing of the National Covenant. It was he who offered the prayer before it was signed. When Aberdeen, St. Andrews, and Crail hesitated, it was Henderson's persuasive preaching that persuaded them. With Dickson and Cant he went to Aberdeen, preached there, and all signed except several doctors. Henderson was moderator of the National Assembly that year and showed as much parliamentary wisdom as he had shown pulpit power. After this Assembly had abolished bishops, rescinded the Five Articles of Perth, rejected Laud's ritual, and adopted a ringing declaration of spiritual freedom, Henderson dismissed the Assembly (which had been in session for one month) with the words: "We have now cast down the walls of Jericho. Let him that rebuildeth them beware of 28 D. Calderwood, Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, Vol. 7, p. 332. 29 Op.cit. 600 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS the curse of Hiel the Bethelite." Henderson had become undisputed leader of the Kirk. In 1639 he was made pastor of the important Greyfriars' Kirk, Edinburgh, at the same time acting from 1640 to 1646 as rector of Edinburgh University. In 1643 he drafted the important Solemn League and Covenant and led a delegation of six men to London, to the Westminster Assembly of Divines, where his Covenant was adonted, and the Westminster Confession and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms as well. Henderson published but three of his sermons, but in his day the sermons of famous preachers were often taken down verbatim by reporters. Thus it was that a volume of his sermons and pulpit prayers appeared in print after his death, but of course, without any editing upon his part. Like most of the other Scottish preachers, his sermons were expository, and the method Scottish, with main divisions, subdivisions and many sub-sub-divisions, and then a number of "inferences" at the end. His exegesis of Hebrews 11 and of "the whole armour of God" exist in print. E. C. Dargan, whose two-volume work 30 is exhaustive and without an equal, looks upon Alexander Henderson as second only to Knox and Melville as a great preacher. He says: "As a preacher he was both popular and powerful, balanced in thought, strong in argument, effective in manner. The published sermons ... show a masculine intellect, a firm faith, a quiet but determined courage. The tone is noble and modest, the grasp of the subject is clear and firm; there is power of appeal and a secure sense of being right without pride or bitterness." 31 Taylor says that Henderson's sermons are strictly textual, practical, strong in their language, but never bitter. "Their style is simple, sometimes almost conversational, and frequently vernacular, but in matter they are always rich in 'that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.' " 32 The Geddes Riots and the Covenant. There were times, after the death of Knox, when the zeal of the people lagged. It remained for an obscure woman named Jenny Geddes, who sold apples in the streets of Edinburgh, to weld the people 30 E. C. Dargan, A History o.f Preaching, Vol. I, 1905; Vol. 2, 1912. 31 Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 175. 32 W. M. Taylor, The Scottish Pulpit, pp. 83-84. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 601 of Scotland into a unit, and to accomplish that which the leaders of the Kirk found difficult. Archbishop Laud, of England, had visited Scotland and was shocked at the liturgical plainness of the church services there. An ardent advocate of uniformity, he prepared a liturgy for the Scottish Kirk. King Charles I, who had come to the English throne, was as unionistic as his father James and desired a union of the English and Scottish state churches, with himself as head. Without consulting the Scottish Assembly, the Laudian liturgy was published, and every pastor ordered by the King to provide himself with two copies, and use it, beginning with a certain Sunday. On the appointed day, the Scottish kirks were crowded. At St. Giles' the Dean of Edinburgh, clad in a white surplice instead of the Scottish black robe and bands, arose and started to read the opening collect. Jenny Geddes, seated near the chancel, arose and cried: "Villain! False loon! Dosi thou say Mass at my loog [ear]?" With this she hurled her stool at the Dean's head. The congregation was in an uproar. They poured out of the great church and surged through the streets, shouting in chorus, "Down with the papal Antichrist! The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" 33 The riots spread to other towns; people paraded the streets and demanded the overthrow of everything remotely resembling Rome, and an end of interference on the part of the Scotsman who sat on the English throne. The climax came in 1638, when 60,000 people crowded into Edinburgh, which was a small town in those days. Greyfriars' Church was filled, and the crowd overflowed into the spacious churchyard and into all the surrounding streets. The National Covenant was a document prepared 58 years before, pledging its signers to defend the doctrine and practice of the reformed Kirk of Scotland. It was copied on an enormous sheet of parchment. Mter a prayer by Alexander Henderson, described as "sublime," the congregation came forward and signed: lords, noblemen, church officials, professional men, shopkeepers, workingmen, peasants. It was carried to the churchyard and laid on a flat tomb, so that those 33 Cf. J. H. Burton, A History of Scotland, pp. 150-152. 602 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS outside could sign it.34 Every square inch of the parchment was covered with signatures and initials. Hymns of praise were sung by the people, who paraded the streets, shouting and weeping for joy. It was the cry of an applewoman that was the signal for this country-wide uprising. Much blood was soon to be shed on the mountains and in the glens; many were to be executed with sickening barbarism; congregations were forced to meet in remote valleys and worship under armed guard; but never again was the Kirk to yield willingly to a despotic king. This feud between two Protestant groups was more farreaching than a mere question of church government. The question really was the sovereign rights of the Kirk as over against State interference in spiritual matters. The National Assembly. This body convened in November of the same year, 1638. It was made up of 140 clergymen, including many of the most prominent in Scotland; and 98 ruling elders, among whom were 17 nobles of the highest rank, nine knights, and 25 landed gentry. Henderson was moderator, and the Kings High Commissioner attended the opening sessions. After an eloquent profession of loyalty to the crown in all civil matters, the Assembly declared its right to carryon the spiritual affairs of the Kirk without interference from King or Parliament. It abolished the rule of bishops, declared vacated those bishoprics that had been established, rescinded the Five Articles of Perth, and cast out Laud's liturgy. The Westminster Assembly. This body met in London in 1643 and continued in session until 1649. Six men, led by Alexander Henderson, represented the Scottish Kirk. The Church of England was represented, and also English Presbyterians and Independents.35 So great had been the change in popular opinion that it seemed at one time that the Assembly would overthrow the episcopacy in England as well and adopt a form of church government like that of Scotland. At this Westminster Assembly of Divines, the Solemn League and Covenant which had been drafted by Henderson was adopted. 34 For a detailed account of this dramatic scene, see Thos. McCrie II, The Story of the Scottish Church, pp. 145-147; and Thos. McCrie I, Life of Alexander Henderson, p. 44 ff. 35 See Thos. McCrie II, Story of the Scottish Church, pp. 145-147. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 603 This pledged England and Scotland to defend the Reformed religion in doctrine, practice, form of worship, and form of church government, and to seek greater uniformity in these respects, and in catechizing as well. The Westminster Confession and the two Catechisms were adopted. Of the 121 clergy and 30 lay members of the Assembly, the Scottish delegation was by far the most powerful and had the support of the strong English Puritan party. The Scots were not free from unionism by any means, and they sought to bring about a union of the English and Scottish Churches on the basis of a government by the presbytery. The groups represented were the prelatic, who favored government by bishops; the Erastians, who favored State rule of the Church; the Independents, who were antipresbytery; and the group favoring the rule of the presbytery. David Dickson (c. 1583-1663). "Dickson of Irvine," as he is called, was born about the year 1583 in Glasgow. His father was a wealthy merchant. After his graduation from Glasgow, he was regent from 1610 to 1618, teaching philosophy. In 1618 he was ordained and given the parish of Irvine. In 1622 he protested against the Five Articles of Perth, and for this the High Court deprived him of his congregation. Later he was restored to the active ministry. In 1640 he was made professor of theology in Glasgow University, and ten years later he was appointed to the same professorship in Edinburgh. Dickson is known as a writer of commentaries, and as the author of the hymn "0 Mother dear Jerusalem," much loved to this day in Scotland and England. David Dickson was one of the foremost preachers of his day. A prominent Englishman visited Scotland and said: "I went to St. Andrews, where I heard a sweet, majesticlooking man (Blair), and he showed me the majesty of God; after him I heard a fair little man (Rutherfurd), and he showed me the loveliness of Christ; I then went to Irvine, where I heard a well-informed, proper old man, with a long beard (Dickson), and that man showed me all my own heart." 3S Dickson was a simple, earnest, evangelical preacher. It was the fashion in his day to preach a series of sermons on a single Bible verse. Dickson took three or four verses and 36 Thos. McCrie II, Sketches of Scottish Church History, p. 62. 604 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS expounded them. He said, "God's bairns should get a good blaud [portion] of His own bread." 37 It was customary with some preachers to refute in detail several incorrect interpretations of the text and finally give the true one. Dickson looked upon this as a parade of learning that only wearied the people. He compared such preachers to a cook who might bring to the table several dishes, only to take them away again and declare that he had a better dish. Dickson disliked the current fashion of quoting the Greek text in the pulpit and using Latin phrases in the sermon. He compared this to a cook who might bring his pots and pans into the dining room and show them to a guest.ss He looked upon a study of the Greek text and Latin theological writings as very important, but he declared that these are the expositor's tools, to be used only in the study. In the pulpit they only confuse the humble cottager and the farm laborer. When Dickson returned to Irvine after his inhibition, his preaching of sin and salvation produced a notable spiritual awakening, reminding one of the great period of spiritual zeal in Wales following the preaching of Howel Harris and Daniel Rowland. The awakening in Scotland lasted about five years and spread far beyond Irvine. Character of Scottish Preaching. By this time Scottish preaching had taken definite form. It was not topical, as was so often the case in England and Wales, but definitely expository. Knox was an expository preacher, and this tradition was handed down in Scotland until the days of Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910), the greatest expositor of them all. The Scots are not noted for fiery eloquence. That we find in Wales. Scottish preaching is intensely earnest, often described as "blood-earnestness." Chalmers (1780-1847) is a striking example, and despite his rough Fifeshire brogue and his awkwardness of manner, his tremendous earnestness literally brought great congregations to their feet. The Scottish preachers are not dramatic in the sense that Christmas Evans, George Whitefield, and the phenomenal John Summerfield were dramatic. We find no Scottish congregations leapfug to their feet and expecting to see the Prodigal appear in person. The Scottish preachers have fire, 37 W. M. Taylor, The Scottish Pulpit, p. 98. 38 W. M. Taylor, The Scottish Pulpit, p. 79. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 605 but few of them attempt the vivid descriptions of Whitefield and Evans, nor are they as impassioned as Owen Thomas, whose sermons were heard by people gathered across the Strait of Menai, when Thomas preached in the open air at Bangor. Thomas Guthrie used striking illustrations and John R. Macduff indulged in quiet picturesqueness, but they did not resort to the tricks of the orator. Among the earlier Scottish preachers, and even down to the middle of the nineteenth century, we find emphatic sermons against popery and Sunday desecration. For a long time the public beershop near the church always attracted many before and after the sermon, and this led, about the middle of the nineteenth century, to sermons on temperance.39 The education of the Scottish preacher is very thorough. The Scots have four ancient universities: St. Andrews (1411), Glasgow (1450), Aberdeen (1494), and Edinburgh (1583), each with its theological school, as well as New College, and several other institutions of high standard, maintained by the several free churches. Scotland has always had excellent grammar schools, where boys learn Greek and Latin at an early age and are thoroughly grounded in the classics before entering college. The requirements for graduation in the colleges and universities are high. After graduation a promising student was often given a regent's appointment, to enable him to continue his studies for eight additional years, doing a certain amount of teaching meanwhile. The list of illustrious names of Scottish university and theological professors is ahnost beyond belief. All of this is amazing in a little country whose population until a century ago was but a little over one million people. Samuel Rutherfurd (1600-1661). This eminent preacher, devotional writer, and controversialist was born in 1600 in Nisbet parish, Roxburghshire. He was graduated from Edinburgh in 1621 and was made regent of humanities and teacher of Latin. In 1626 he began his theological studies. In 1627 he became pastor of Anwoth, Kircudbrightshire, but was expelled in 1636 because of the ultra-Calvinism in his book, Exercitationes Apologeticae pro Divina Gratia. He was inhibited from preaching and teaching and not permitted out-39 J. R. Fleming, A History of the Church in Scotland, Vol. I, pp.76-77. 606 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS side the boundaries of Aberdeen, then a town of but a few thousand people. In 1638 the Assembly rescinded this sentence and restored him to his parish. In 1639 he became professor of theology in St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, and assistant pastor to the parish church. He was one of the commissioners sent to London to the Westminster Assembly; and when the Solemn League and Covenant was read, he stood with the others, right hands raised, pledging themselves to keep Rome out of England and Scotland forever. In 1647 he became principal of New College, St. Andrews. In 1660, after the Restoration, his Lex, Rex was ordered burned by the public hangman, and Rutherfurd was held for treason. He died a natural death at the age of 61, before his case came to trial. He was a man of fine character and of friendly disposition. His 365 Letters reveal him as a devotional writer of rare talent, but with a tendency toward Pietism. Writers have been puzzled that so gifted a devotional writer was able, at times, to hurl invective at his foes. Taylor suggests a dual personality,40 while Innes describes him as "St. Thomas and St. Francis under one hood." 41 Such a combination is by no means unique. We have had men in our own circles who were gentle by nature, but vehement defenders of sound doctrine when the truth was attacked by false teachers and opportunists. The story of Samuel Rutherfurd and Archbishop Ussher is found in many a book of sermon illustrations. The famous archbishop, having heard of Rutherfurd's great eloquence, once came to his church disguised as a wayfarer. He found Rutherfurd's wife teaching a class made up of servants, gathered in the church before the hour of service. He was invited to join the group. When asked by Mrs. Rutherfurd the number of the Commandments, he replied "Eleven." Samuel Rutherfurd, sitting in the sacristy, overheard it. After service he sought out the wayfarer and attempted to correct him, but the stranger insisted that there are eleven Commandments. "Pray tell me, what is the eleventh one?" asked the unsuspcting Rutherfurd. "'A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another,'" replied Ussher significantly, 40 W. M. Taylor, The Scottish Pulpit, p. 93. 41 A. T. Innes, The Evangelical Succession, 2d Series, pp. 127-172. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 607 with reference to Rutherfurd's well-known sharpness of tongue when drawn into a theological controversy. Few men have portrayed the richness of the grace of Jesus Christ as eloquently as did Rutherfurd. Jesus Christ was the beginning, the substance, and the end of every sermon. When dwelling upon the names by which He is called, his voice became high-pitched with emotion, as he spoke of the beauty of the Rose of Sharon, the brightness of the Morning Star, the courage of the Lion of Judah, the cleansing stream flowing from the Fountain of Salvation, the glory of the Sun of Righteousness, and the submissiveness of the Lamb of God. In a day when one may go to some churches and hear only God mentioned, and go for ten Sundays before the Lord Jesus is mentioned, and when the Holy Ghost is rarely mentioned, it is refreshing to turn to Rutherfurd, in spite of his pronounced Calvinism. If anything, he goes to the opposite extreme, and gives the Father and the Holy Ghost too little notice, in order that his hearers may see no one but Jesus only. At times Rutherfurd's mysticism almost takes the place of doctrine; yet his sermons are almost invariably Christo centric to a degree. John Livingstone (1603-1672). John Livingstone's fame was made through one memorable sermon. He was born in 1603 in Kilsyth, Stirlingshire, educated in the Stirling grammar school, and was graduated from Glasgow in 1621. In 1625 he was licensed to preach and made assistant pastor at Torphichen church and chaplain to the Countess of Wigton. Unable to obtain a parish of his own, he went to Ireland, only to be suspended by the Protestant Bishop of Down for his nonconformity. He was reinstated, but again suspended. He set out for America; but the ship had to turn back because of storms, and he found himself in Scotland once more, where he was pastor from 1638 to 1648 at Stranraer. In 1648 he was transferred to Ancrum. After the Restoration he was banished to Holland, where he pursued his Oriental studies and prepared a Hebrew-Latin Bible. The sermon that made him famous was preached when he was but 27 years old. A carriage containing some ladies of high rank met with an accident at the parsonage of Shotts, where the pastor extended his hospitality. The visitors noticed 608 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS the state of disrepair of the manse, and made it possible for the parish to build a new one. A great service of thanksgiving was arranged, and Livingstone was invited to preach the postCommunion sermon. Young and timid by nature, he was greatly distressed at the thought of his "great unworthiness and weakness," and tempted to slip away without preaching. Then Ezek. 36:25-36 came to his mind, and he "went to sermon and got good assistance." Scotland has never forgotten that sermon, for at its close some 500 people fell to their knees, confessed their sins, and renewed their faith in the righteousness and blood of Jesus Christ. The word spread throughout Clydesdale, and careless people began to crowd the churches "so that many of the most eminent Christians of that country could date either their conversion or some remarkable conformation of their case from that day." 42 It is interesting to observe that this was more than a century before the great awakenings in Wales, in England, and in Colonial America, and long before modern revivals were known. To the Scots, who have always been trained to hide their emotions, and to speak with greatest reluctance on personal religious experiences, such a scene as this must have been bewildering. Days of Persecution. In this brief survey of Scottish preaching, space does not permit an account of the bitter persecutions that the Scottish people had to endure.43 Charles I, the Scottish-born King of England, was infuriated when he heard of the National Covenant and the refusal of the Scottish Kirk to yield to State dictation. He marched on Scotland with an army in 1639 and again in 1640, only to be defeated near Newcastle. Civil War broke out in England in 1642, the Royalists were defeated, and in 1649 King Charles was beheaded. The people of Scotland had suffered greatly under Charles, but worse days were to follow.44 From 1663 to 1666 they were compelled to worship in secluded glens, often with armed outposts to warn them of the approach of their enemies. The bishops passed an act making it illegal for the Scottish preach-42 W. M. Hetherington, History of the Church of Scotland, Vol. I, p.262. 43 Consult R. Wodrow, History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland. 44 N. L. Walker, Scottish Church History, pp. 40-86. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 609 ers to preach. Churches were given to men willing to do the will of the prelatic party. People were ordered to attend their parish churches, and soldiers called the roll at the close of each service. Absentees were dealt with cruelly. Soldiers were quartered in their homes,and the people were robbed of their cattle and other possessions, and even stripped of their clothing. In 1664 pastors who would not conform to the dictation of the crown were imprisoned or banished. Women were whipped publicly, boys were flogged and then sold into slavery in the Barbadoes. John Nelson and Hugh McKail were tortured with a device called "the boots," and Mackail was hanged in public.45 After the Battle of Pentlands many were executed, often with torture. It is a sad story of people imprisoned, banished, or executed merely because they fought for the right of their Church to govern its own spiritual affairs without interference from the crown. Histories of the Scottish Kirk record many pages of it, but we shall pass it over with but a few words. Donald Cargill (1610-1681). Donald Cargill, one of the men who guided the people through these evil days, was born in Rattray in 1610. He was educated at Aberdeen and at St. Andrews University. In 1650 he became pastor of Barony Church, Glasgow, and in 1661, when King Charles II renewed his efforts to force an Erastian form of government on the Kirk, Cargill protested against State interference and refused to recognize the King's bishops. He was ordered banished in 1662, but remained as an outlawed field preacher. In 1679, with Richard Cameron and Thomas Douglas, he became one of the leaders of the Cameronians in their struggle against the episcopacy and State rule of the Kirk. After the defeat at Bothwell Bridge he ,fled to Holland, but returned in 1680 and helped draw up the Sanquhar Declaration, which protested against the tyranny of King Charles II (who was even worse than his father and grandfather). Richard Cameron was slain at Ayrsmoss in 1680, and for a time Cargill was leader of the Cameronians. At one of his field services he publicly excommunicated the King and his nobles. For this he was hunted down by the royal troops, captured in 1681, tried at Edinburgh, and beheaded. 45 Geo. Gilfillan, Martyrs and Heroes of the Scottish Covenant. 39 610 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS Donald Cargill was a preacher of unflinching courage, both in his parochial days and in the time when he was compelled to meet his congregation in some deep glen and proclaim Jesus Christ as King of the Church. Deep in these glens and in secluded valleys brave men such as Cargill, Cameron, Renwick, Peden, and many others, met their outlawed congregations, always with the danger present that royal troops would fall upon them and slay them because of their determination to keep the Kirk free of State dominion. In all, some 400 clergymen were "outed," as the Scots say, for their resistance to the State. Their places were too often filled with poorly trained, servile clergymen, whose only qualification was a readiness to submit to a tyrannical King, whose Scottish background caused him to feel it his duty to govern the Scottish Kirk. Donald Cargill and many others endured persecution, and in many cases death, rather than yield. Strangely enough, there were cases in which the King's spies and his soldiers, concealed in the glens, heard such preachers as Cargill, Cameron, Peden, and Renwick and remained to confess their sins and to seek forgiveness. Robert Leighton (1611-1684). The case of Robert Leighton is a strange one, for he allied himself with the King and the bishops in an effort to be of greater service to the persecuted Kirk. This is all the stranger when one recalls the fact that his father, a clergyman, suffered great physical torture and mutilation because of his religious views.46 The younger Leighton was born in 1611, either in Edinburgh, or perhaps in London, where the family lived for a short time. He was graduated from Edinburgh in 1631, after which he spent a few years on the Continent, studying Latin, Greek Hebrew, and French. There he came into contact with the Jansenists. Licensed and ordained in 1641, he became pastor of Newbattle church, where he preached three times a week and cared for some 900 communicant members. In 1653 he was made principal of Edinburgh University and professor of divinity. He preached twice a week at the University, once in English and once in Latin. His Latin sermons proved extremely popular both for the university people and for the educated classes in Edinburgh. 46 Thos. McCrie II, Sketches of Scottish Church History, p. 267. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 611 In 1661 the episcopate was restored in Scotland, much against the wishes of most of the people. Leighton looked upon forms of church government as matters of indifference, and yielded to the new order of things without opposition. The same year he was appointed bishop of Dunblane. He was very reluctant to accept the office, but was persuaded to do so in the hope that he might, with his ecumenical spirit, heal the bitter feuds that were distressing Scotland. In 1669 he was made Archbishop of Glasgow, but was unhappy in this office, and in 1674 he resigned and spent the last ten years of his life in retirement. Leighton could never be persuaded to publish any of his writings, and he left instructions that everying be destroyed after his death. This was not done, and some of his works, without his revision, were printed. His sermons are devout, evangelical, wonderfully simple, and clear in language. In contrast to the fashion of the day, they are free of classical quotations and allusions, for he strove to preach in language that the simplest people could grasp. For example, in describing the Messianic prophecies, he represents them as a number of streams of living water, which united to form a stream that flowed onward and "grew greater as it went, till it fell in with the main current of the Gospel in the New Testament, both acted and preached by the Great Prophet Himself, whom they foretold to come, and recorded by His Apostles and Evangelists, and thus united into one river clear as crystal; this doctrine of salvation in the Scriptures hath still refreshed the city of God, His Church under the Gospel, and shall do so, till it empty itself into the ocean of eternity." 47 His sermons, while beautiful and simple, lack the ruggedness and force that one finds in the better type of Scottish preaching. Alexander Peden (c. 1626-1686}. One of the preachers whose sermons attracted great multitudes to the secluded valleys in those days of persecution was Alexander Peden. He was born in Auchincloich, Ayrshire, about the year 1626. Mter attending St. Andrews he seems to have taught for a time. In 1660 he was ordained and given the church at New Luce, Galloway. In 1663, after the Glasgow Act had ejected 47 w. M. Taylor, The Scottish Pulpit, p. 127. 612 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS all clergymen who would not recognize the authority of the bishops, he was deprived of his parish. Thereafter he became a field preacher, and toward the end of his life he was forced to live in a cave in a secluded place. Many were attracted to his preaching because of the singularly spiritual tone of his sermons and the firmness of his faith in the promises of the Lord Jesus to abide with His children to the end. Here is an example of his manner of preaching: "Now, sirs, what is it that has carried through the sufferers for Christ these twenty years in Scotland? . .. He bade many, from 1660 to the years of Pentland,48 go forth to scaffolds and gibbets for Him, and they sought no more but His commission; they went, and He carried them through. Then, in 1666, at Pentland,48 He bade so many go to the fields and die for Him, and so many to scaffolds and lay down their lives for Him; they sought no more but His commission; they went, and He carried them well through. Again, in 1679, at Bothwell,49 He bade so many go to the fields and scaffolds to die for Him; they sought no more but His commission; they went, and He carried them through. He bade so many go to the seas and be meat for the fishes for Him; they sought no more but His commission; they went, and He carried them well through. And, afterward in 1680, at Airdsmoss,50 He bade so many go to the fields and scaffolds for Him; they sought no more but His commission and went, and He carried them well through. "This cup of suffering hath come all the way down from Abel to this year 1682 in Scotland. Our Lord hath held this cup to all the martyrs' heads wherever He had a church in the world, and it will go to all the lips of all the marytrs that are to suffer for Christ, even to the sounding of the last trumpet. But yet, people of God, it is only the brim that the saints taste of. Be ye patient in believing. . .. Our noble Captain of Salvation hath vanquished these blood-guilty persecutors in Scotland these twenty-two years, more by the patient suffering of the saints than if He had threshed down all in a moment. The patient suffering of the saints, with 48 Pentland, a battle between the Scottish Covenanters and the royal troops. 49 Bothwell Bridge, a battle, after which 1,200 captured Covenanters were imprisoned for months. 50 The place where the Rev. R. Cameron and others were slain. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 613 their blood running, declares His glory much abroad in the world, and especially in these lands." 51 These are the words of a pastor who had seen many of his fellow clergymen, friends, and classmates slain at his side and who had stood by helplessly and watched them mount the scaffold to be hanged or beheaded in their struggle to free the people from a prelatic form of church government, dominated by a despotic King.52 These Scottish clergymen and lay members, who gave their lives for freedom of worship between 1660 and 1682, contributed their share toward the freedom from State interference that we enjoy today. Richard Cameron (c. 1648-1680}. Richard Cameron, another courageous field preacher, was born in Falkland, Fifeshire, about the year 1648. In 1662, when the Glasgow Act was passed, compelling all clergymen to recognize the authority of the bishops, and when 400 clergymen were "outed" for refusing to do so, Richard Cameron cast his lot with these men. Cameron was then a schoolmaster, and also tutor and chaplain to a nobleman's family. He was licensed to preach about 1662, but in 1679, after the battle of Bothwell Bridge, he fled to Holland with many Scottish refugees. A year later he returned to Scotland, and with Donald Cargill and Thomas Douglas became the leader of the Cameronians, or Society People. In their Declaration of Sanquhar the tyranny of King Charles II was denounced, and his authority in spiritual matters rejected. This was declared treason, and the "rebels" were hunted down by troops, and Cameron and his companions were captured at Ayrsmoss and slain. When the people of England were driven to despair by the despotism of Charles II, and invited William to come to England, the Cameronians welcomed him, but refused to recognize the Established Church and its Erastianism. Richard Cameron was a great preacher, and much of his preaching was done in the fields and the remote glens. He and his fellow pastors did not merely inveigh against the King's tyranny toward the Kirk. Taylor says, "the great 51 W. M. Taylor, The Scottish Pulpit, pp. 142-143. 52 The murder and mutilation of William Sharp, who deserted the Kirk in order to be made Archbishop of St. Andrews, is a blot on the record of the Scots, however. 614 POST-REFORMATION SCO'ITISH PREACHERS object of all their sermons was the presentation of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Nothing can exceed the pathos with which they besought their hearers to be reconciled to God and to endure patiently His cause." 53 Taylor says again: "Then, in the midst of all, was evermore Jesus on the cross. To Him these preachers pointed their hearers; from Him they drew their inspiration; and out of love to Him they carried on the struggle in which they were engaged. 'Ye are bought with a price; be not ye, therefore, the bondservants of men'; that was the principle by which they were actuated. They sought independence from men that they might keep themselves entirely for Christ. This was what they meant by their enforcement of 'the headship of Christ,' and they contended for Christ's crown because they felt that they had been purchased on Christ's cross. We do not claim for them the highest scholarship, the profoundest thought, the most polished style, or the finest eloquence; but we do claim for them that they preached Christ most effectively and that they drew for themselves, and exhorted all their hearers to draw, their motives for their daily conduct from the cross of their Redeemer; and to all their detractors they might have said with Paul, 'From henceforth let no man trouble us, for we bear in our bodies the marks of our Lord Jesus.' " 54 James Renwick (1662-1688). James Renwick was born in 1662 in Moniaive, Dumfriesshire. He was educated at Edinburgh University and studied theology at Groningen. In 1681 he cast his lot with the Cameronians, and in 1683 he was ordained and became a field preacher, expounding the Scriptures to the groups of people who gathered in secret in remote places and risked their lives for their convictions. He joined with the men who adopted the Sanquhar Declaration, rejecting the attempted authority of the English king over the Scottish Kirk; and in 1687 he refused to take advantage of the Act of Indulgence, by which some of the severe restrictions of the time might be modified to those willing to make concessions to this Act. Although warned by his friends, he continued his field preaching, even though this had been declared illegal and the field preachers threatened with the death penalty. Declaring that he would preach Christ Crucified to his faithful hearers regardless of the outcome, he 53 W. M. Taylor, The Scottish Pulpit, p. 140. 54 Ibid., pp. 145--146. POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS 615 met his congregations in the distant valleys and glens until 1688, when he was arrested, tried in Edinburgh, and hanged. Many others showed equal courage, but their stories would be but duplicates of those of Cameron, Peden, Cargill and Renwick. Whole congregations were scattered, ships were loaded with banished people and, in one case at least, lost at sea. Families were broken up, and much blood was shed before the despotic reign of King Charles II was ended. Peace came slowly to Scotland, but in 1843 Thomas Chalmers, Candlish, Cunningham, Guthrie, and their followers had State interference to face once more, but fortunately without bloodshed. We have endeavored to give a brief account of the famous preachers from the death of John Knox in 1572 to the downfall of the Cameronians, slightly more than a century later. The latter part of the seventeenth century and the early part of the eighteenth, was a period of great spiritual apathy in Scotland as well as in England, Wales, Germany, America, and elsewhere. In Scotland the Moderate Party formed the counterpart of the German Rationalists and the English Deists. Should the account that has been given of the post-Reformation preachers prove of sufficient interest, a continuation of the story of Scottish preaching may appear in a later article. SUGGESTED READING For those who would study this subject in greater detail the following books will prove helpful: John Knox, The Historie of the Reformation Within the Realm of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1790) David Calderwood, Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, 8 vols. (Edinburgh,1842--48) W. M. Taylor, John Knox, a Biography (New York, 1885) W. M. Hetherington, History of the Church of Scotland (New York, 1844) Thos. McCrie, Life of John Knox, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1812) John Cunningham, Church History of Scotland, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1859) Thos. McCrie II, Sketches of Scottish Church History, 2 vols. (London, 1841) R. Wodrow, History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, 4 vols. (1721-22) D. H. Fleming, Martyrs and Confessors of St. Andrews (Cupar-Fife, 1887) R. H. Story, The Church of Scotland,S vols. (London, 1890) J. C. McFeeters, Sketches of the Covenanters (Philadelphia, 1913) W. G. Blaikie, The Evangelical Succession (Edinburgh,1883) A.. T. Innes, The Evangelical Succession (Edinburgh,1883) 616 POST-REFORMATION SCOTTISH PREACHERS Thos. McCrie, Lives of the Scottish Reformers (Xenia, Ohio, 1846) R. Wodrow, Lives of the Reformers and Most Eminent Ministers of the Church of Scotland, 2 vols. (Glasgow, 1834, 1845) D. H. Fleming, The Scottish Reformation (Edinburgh, 1903) A. F. Mitchell, Biographical Studies in Scottish Church History (Milwaukee, 1914) H. Macpherson, Scotland's Battles for Spiritual Independence (London, 1905) F. Stephen, History of the Church of Scotland from the Reformation to the Present Time, 4 vols. (London, 1848) J. R. Fleming, A History of the Church in Scotland, 2 vols. (Thus far, Edinburgh, 1927 ff.) G. Grub, The Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1861) C. G. McCrie, The Church of Scotland, Her Divisions and Reunions (Edinburgh, 1901) Robt. Keith, History of the Affairs of Church and State in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1844) C. G. McCrie, Studies in Scottish Ecclesiastical Biography (1885) Jas. Walker, The Theology and Theologians of Scotland (Edinburgh,1872) S. Rutherfurd, The Trial and Triumph of Faith (Edinburgh, 1645) Mackenzie's Biographical Dictionary Dictionary of National Biography Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia W. G. Blaikie, The Preachers of Scotland (Edinburgh,1888) N. L. Walker, Scottish Church History (Edinburgh, 1882) W. M. Taylor, The Scottish Pulpit (New York, 1887) E. C. Dargan, A History of Preaching, 2 vols. (New York, 1905, 1912) T. H. Pattison, The History of Christian Preaching (Philadelphia, 1909) J. A. Broadus, Lectures on the History of Preaching (New York, 1876) J. Ker, Lectures on the History of Preaching (Edinburgh, 1888) H. C. Fish, History and Repository of Pulpit Eloquence, 2 vols. (New York,1856) H. C. Fish, Pulpit Eloquence of the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1857) E. P. Hood, The Throne of Eloquence (London, 1885) J. C. Ryle, Christian Leaders of the Last Century (London, 1868) Also the published lives of the various famous preachers, New York, N. Y.