(Continued from p. 329).
II.
THIS humour of deserting my ministry, and breaking off from under it, continued from time to time, without any notable stop, till the affairs of Closeburn* brought it about nine years after. Since that time there has been a remarkable settling among them, in that point; howbeit, even since that time I have had as much of that treatment as will not suffer me to forget where I am. This deserting of my ministry was the more heavy to me, that ordinarily I knew nothing about it from any hand, till after a while that the parties were gone off, and confirmed in their way, and that few had any consideration of me, in hiring such into their service. This last continues in some measure to this day; though the occasion is not so much now, as before: inasmuch that among the first servants my own elder son had, and that by advice or approbation of an elder or elders, was one who would have gone out of the house if I had come into it to visit the family.
Meanwhile Satan raged in stirring up to the sin of uncleanness; so that, by the spring 1709, besides several fornications, there were two adulteries in the parish discovered: and I had heavy work with both. These things often made me look, with a sorrowful heart, on the congregation, as in the case of the Church of Corinth, burnt up with the fire of division, and drenched in fleshly abominations.
My discouragements increase daily among this people, by reason of the divisive temper inflamed by the late fast, so that there are several of them whose faces I have not seen since that time. My circumstances are extremely heavy; they seem to have little desire for the gospel: the most weighty truths look as nauseous to them; though if anything relating to
the public fall in, they use to prick up their ears. Some have never come to the ordinances since I came, being led by mere laziness and profane neglect; besides those that were always dissenters from the Established Church. Those that come, many of them think nothing of staying away several Sabbaths; and when they come, they are generally very uncomfortable. My wonted exercise of conversing with exercised souls is gone; there is no converse but about the division; the practice of godliness is thereby stifled, and burnt up with the fire. The crown is fallen from my head, and I am brought very low. The approaching Sabbath, that sometimes was my delight, is now a terror to me; so that it is my business now, to get my forehead steeled against brass and iron. On Sabbath was fourteen days, I felt the sad effects of giving way to discouragement, and this put me on my guard. I have sometimes asked myself, whether, if I had known all that has befallen me here, I would have accepted the call, or not? and I cannot say I durst have refused. Two things are supporting to me: 1. My clearness as to my call from the Lord, which has not been perplexed by all that I have met with, but still remained as a ground of comfort. 2. An amazing conduct of Providence in preaching the Word, whereby I am guided in my ordinary to speak to their case. As, particularly, these two last Sabbaths it fell in my ordinary to lecture on the 7th and 8th chapters of the Revelation, where I had occasion to speak largely of schism and division, with the effects thereof. And in this very time Mr. Macmillan was preaching in the bounds. And in my ordinary sermons I find the same conduct of Providence. . . . . . . . . .
In April I was a member of the General Assembly: and the Oath of Abjuration being then imposed by law on those in office in the civil government, there were applications made to ministers, by several persons whom it reached, for their judgment in the point of the lawfulness or unlawfulness thereof: and ministers on that occasion coming in to Edinburgh to the Assembly, it was earnestly desired that the Assembly might
consider that matter, and give their resolution of that ease. But it was waived, and men were left to their own light. This was heavy to me; and thereupon I could not but observe the justice of the dispensations, whereby about four years after it was brought to ministers’ own doors. While I was yet at Simprin, I had conversed with a minister from Ireland, who had left that country upon his scrupling to take it; and whereas a neighbouring minister in the English border having missed the time of taking that oath, and therefore shifting to preach in his own congregation till another occasion of it should offer, wrote to me to preach a day for him. I had no freedom to exchange pulpits for a day with him on that occasion, and so declined it. Now it was brought into Scotland by means of the Union as several other snares have been.—Memoirs.