I.
THE Rev. Thomas Boston, though such an eminent preacher of the Gospel and faithful minister of Christ had some very trying experiences as a minister in Ettrick. He tells the story of these trials in his Memoirs from which the following quotation is taken. That Boston was faithful to no ordinary degree is made clear in the extract* we published in the Magazine; his record is on high and among the faithful of the land he was held in the highest esteem for his faithfulness governed by a judicious carefulness. Still, in his congregation at Ettrick there was a considerable number who did not consider him as faithful as they thought he ought to be and it is to these reference is made in the following extract. The devoted pastor’s troubles continued for about ten years after coming to Ettrick and it is only when the parish was likely to lose him by being transferred to Closeburn that the people wakened up to realise what a gift they had from God in their minister. This is his account of the troubles:—”Being settled here, I soon found I was come from home, and that I was but beginning to be a minister of a parish. As for the people, the natives, generally speaking were naturally smart, and of an uncommon assurance; self-conceited, and censorious to a pitch, using an indecent freedom both, with Church and State. There were three parties in the place. One of dissenters, followers of Mr. John Macmillan,† a considerable number, who have been all along unto this day a dead weight on my ministry in the place; though not so great now, by far, as in former years. Another was an heritor in the parish, with two elders dependents of his. He himself deserted the ordinances, for about the space of the first ten years, viz., till the affair of
*”Carnal and Spiritual Wisdom” (vol. xxxviii, p. 413).
†The Rev. John Macmillan, Balmaghe, who left the Church of Scotland and joined the Society People who were afterwards known as Reformed Presbyterians.
Closeburn. One of the elders having heard a little while, went off for altogether to the dissenters [i.e. the Society People]. The other, for ought I know, never heard me after I was settled among them. The third was the congregation of my hearers, under the disadvantage of what influence these two parties could have upon them. Their appetite for the ordinances I did not find to be sharpened by the long fast they had got, for about the space of four years. Wherefore, soon perceiving the little value they had for occasions of hearing the gospel, and having called a meeting for business, on a week-day, 19th August. I preached to them, that day, the sense I had of their case, from Is. xliii, 22: “Thou hast been weary of me, O Israel.” I plainly saw, that a brother, who, at the Synod which transported me, was overheard to bid let me go, I would get preaching my fill there, was far out. On the contrary, I behoved to bid farewell to a pleasant part of my exercise of that nature before; and to have it miserably slighted and despised, where occasionally I was called to it. And for the Sabbaths’ sermons, they were but coldly enough received; but remarkable was the pricking up of ears, when anything relative to the public fell in; which was a wounding observe to me.
To the breeding and cherishing of this disposition among them, several things occurred. There being little knowledge of religion among them, till the time of confusion and persecution; so that John Andison in Gamescleugh told me of a time, when there was not a Bible in the church, but the minister’s, his father’s and another’s; they drank in the principles of Presbytery in the greatest height, with the principles of Christianity. The dissenters were in great reputation among them, and continually buzzing in their ears something to the disparagement of the Church and the ministry. Moreover, the union with England, which they were violently set against, trysted with my settling among them, and brought in an unacceptable change of the state of affairs. And, finally, they lived alone.
A profession of religion generally obtained among them, through the preaching of the persecuted ministers in and about the place. Before the Revolution, they were generally made Presbyterians, praying persons, and several of them, I believe, good Christians. Often I observed, that I had never seen in a country-kirk more Bibles than appeared in ours; nor more persons giving in to the Sabbath’s collection for the poor. And indeed they were, and are, very liberal to the poor, both their own, and strangers passing among them; but very unkind to strangers settling among them, and not very benevolent in neighbourhood among themselves. But one thing I was particularly surprised with, viz., the prevalency of the sin of profane swearing; and was amazed to find blessing and cursing proceeding out of the same mouth; praying persons, and praying in their families too, horrid swearers at times; so that by the month of November I behoved to set myself to preach, directly against that sin.
The very next day after my preaching from Acts x. 33, as above related, Mr. Macmillan came to Eskdale, and some of my hearers went to him. This was what I got to begin with. On the morrow after, I went up to S. to see J. L.’s family and others: my design was to endeavour to prevent their perverting others. When I came there, I went first into the house of one of my hearers; and there I was surprised with the news of Mr. Macmillan’s being in J. L.’s, and others with him. The old man came in to me. Is. L. came into that house, but never noticed me; but I carried courteously to her, and told her I had a mind to have come and seen them. She told me I should be welcome. When I went in, J. L. showed not common civility. I was set down among three men, strangers, none of whom I knew. They were S. H. of H., Mr. St. and Mr. Sm. The last I took for Mr. Macmillan, having never seen the man. Being set down, I was resolved to divert disputes, at least a while, with some discourse of practical godliness. Wherefore being asked, “What news?” I said, that news were hard
to be got here, the place being so far remote from towns; that it was like Jerusalem, Ps. exxv. 2; which brought us at length to the discourse of communion with God; concerning which S. H. gave his opinion, that it consisted in doing the will of God, and keeping His commandments. I told him, that all communion was mutual, and therefore it could not consist in that; and shewed, that actual communion with God, which we ordinarily call communion with God, consists in the Lord letting down the influences of His grace on the soul, and the soul’s reacting the same in the exercise of grace. O, says he, that is extraordinary; wherewith I was stunned. I told him it was that without which neither he nor I would be saved. How will you prove that? says he. So I was put to prove it to him. Thereafter he brought in the matter of the separation; told, that he understood I was an enemy to them, and preached against them. I acknowledged, that I judged their way was not of God; and therefore, when it fell in my way, I did preach against it, and understanding that he meant of a note I had at Morbattie sacrament, I desired him to tell me what he heard I had said. He shifted this; and I told it him, viz., that I exhorted those that had met with God at that occasion, to tell to them, that it was so; and that they thereupon, according to the spirit of the gospel, should say: ‘We will go with you, for we hear the Lord is with you.’ . . . . . In January 1708 the fire in the congregation was blown up into a violent flame, upon occasion of my observing a fast on the 14th of that month, appointed by the civil magistrate. Upon this many of my hearers broke off, and left me; several of whom never returned. There was such a headiness among the people, and the day was so bad, that few came to it. I had no scruple as to the observing of it; though I thought it a grievance and disadvantage that we were come under by the Union, and the taking away of the Privy Council, whereby there was no correspondence betwixt the Church and State as to fasts. But considering the temper of the people, I thought, if I should have yielded to
them in this, I would teach them to dictate ever after unto me. . . . . . The Lord’s Day immediately thereafter, it was so stormy, that I had only a few to preach to, in the house. Then I found myself like a bird shaken out of its nest, and was as an owl in the desert. Instead of the converse I, sometime a day, had with exercised Christians about their own spiritual case, I was engaged in disputes about the public, and about separation, and how to defend the lawfulness and duty of hearing me preach the gospel; and for the most part to no effect. So that many a time it was a terror to me to go out among them; and coming to particular places, I often looked very blunt, finding myself beset with contemners of me and my ministry; who often kept not within the bounds of common civility.
(To be continued).