“In the wilderness,” says the prophet Isaiah, “shall waters break out and streams in the desert.” When any great revival of religion takes place, the effect of the flowing forth of the living waters of gospel grace is to make the moral waste “rejoice and blossom as the rose”. There shall yet, according to the divine promise, be a worldwide realisation of such a transformation as this; but meanwhile such foretastes of this millennial glory as God has already given are worthy to be noted and remembered. Four such examples of the public effects of the gospel have occurred to us in the course of our reading, and we give them here without note or comment. The first is from Kirkton’s History of the Church of Scotland.
Reprinted from The Free Presbyterian Magazine, vol 1, which is available from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom, as are John Kennedy’s “Minister of Killearnan”, in his Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, and Ryle’s Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century.
Writing of the year 1660, he says: “At the king’s return every parish had a minister, every village had a school, every family almost had a Bible, yea, in most of the country, all the children of age could read the Scriptures, and were provided with Bibles either by their parents or their ministers. Every minister was a very full professor of the Reformed religion according to the [Westminster] Confession of Faith. Every minister was obliged to preach thrice a week, to lecture and catechise once, besides other private duties wherein they abounded according to their proportion of faithfulness and abilities. None of them might be scandalous in their conversation, or negligent in their office so long as a presbytery stood; and among them were many holy in conversation and eminent in gifts. Nor did a minister satisfy himself unless his ministry had the seal of a divine approbation as might witness him to be really sent of God. Indeed, in many places the Spirit seemed to be poured out with the Word, both by the multitude of sincere converts, and also by the common work of reformation, upon many who never came the length of a communion. There were people aged no less than 60, men and women, who went to school so that, even then, they might be able to read the Scriptures with their own eyes. I have lived many years in a parish where I never heard an oath, and you might have ridden many miles before you heard any; also you could not, for a great part of the country, have lodged in a family where the Lord was not worshipped by reading, singing and public prayer. Nobody complained more of our church government than the taverners, whose ordinary lamentation was that their trade was broken, people were become so sober.”
In a lecture, the emphasis was more on exposition, often of a more extended passage.
That is, manner of life.
Our next scene is from Jonathan Edwards’ account of the revival in the town of Northampton, in America, in the year 1735: “This work of God, as it was carried on and the number of true saints multiplied, soon made a glorious alteration in the town; so that in the spring and summer following in the year 1735 the town seemed to be full of the presence of God; it never was so full of love and joy, and yet so full of distress, as it was then. There were remarkable tokens of God’s presence in almost every house. It was a time of joy in families on account of salvation being brought to them – parents rejoicing over their children as new born, and husbands over their wives, and wives over their husbands. “The goings of God were then seen in the sanctuary; God’s day was a delight, and His tabernacles were amiable. The congregation was alive in God’s service, everyone earnestly intent upon the public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth; the assembly in general were from time to time in tears while the Word was preached, some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with joy and love, others with pity and concern for the souls of their neighbours. “Our public services were then greatly enlivened. God was then served in our psalmody in some measure in the beauty of holiness. In all companies on other days, on whatever occasions persons met together, Christ was to be heard of and seen in the midst of them. Our young people, when they met, were wont to spend the time in talking of the excellency and dying love of Jesus Christ, the gloriousness of the way of salvation, the wonderful, free and sovereign grace of God, His glorious work in the conversion of a soul, the truth and certainty of the great things of God’s Word, the sweetness of the views of His perfections etc. And even at weddings, which formerly were mere occasions of mirth and jollity, there was now no discourse of anything but the things of religion, and no appearance of any but spiritual mirth.”
Our third scene is from John Kennedy’s “Minister of Killearnan” [about his father]: “My father often spoke of a certain glen (in Sutherland about the year 1802) in which about 30 resided, and in each [home] there was at least one who sought the Lord, and in each of which there was the true worship of God. The houses in this blessed hamlet were close together, around the sides of an amphitheatre through which a small river had torn a course for itself. Standing on the edge of the declivity above the glen on a quiet summer evening, one could hear the songs of praise from all those houses mingling together before they reached the listener’s ear, whose heart must have been hard indeed if they failed to melt it. One, at least, did feel while listening to the psalm-singing in these blessed homes as if the place were none other than the house of God, and the very gate of heaven. But by one ruthless eviction, all the tenants of that glen were banished from their homes, and the most of them found no resting place till they reached the backwoods of Canada.”
Our last scene is from Ryle’s Christian Leaders of the Last Century: “Not long before [William] Grimshaw’s death (1763) he stood with John Newton upon a hill near Haworth surveying the romantic prospect. Grimshaw said that, at the time he first came into that part of the country, he might have gone half a day’s journey on horseback, towards the east, west, north, or south, without meeting one truly serious person, or even hearing of one. But now, through the blessing of God upon his labours he could tell of several hundreds of persons who attended his ministry and were devout communicants with him at the Lord’s table; and of nearly all the last named he could say that he was as well acquainted with their several temptations, trials and mercies, both personal and domestic, as if he had lived in their families.”