Alexander Henderson’s Sermons

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Preface

The services of this day are possessed of considerable historical importance. They occurred immediately after the first negotiations with the Marquis of Hamilton had been broken off; when an impression was very generally entertained that the differences between the Covenanters and the Government were irreconcilable, and that the country was on the eve of a civil war. Certain intelligence was supposed to have reached the leaders of both parties that the king would now refuse further concessions to the nation, and that he had determined finally on having recourse to arms. In a letter of Baillie to Spang of nearly the same date, he encloses a secret Information from England to that effect (which had just been received at head-quarters), and which, he says, had “put them all newly aghast, if true.” Accordingly the following discourses disclose, in a very striking and unambiguous manner, the author’s sense of public affairs, and of the critical condition in which they were then placed. There is an urgent call on his people for contributions in moncy, and other supplies, and a distinct intimation given that the services of able-bodied men might soon be required in the field. We know from other sources that a general opinion prevailed on both sides that the first appearance of the king in anything of a formidable force would be followed by the reduction and submission of the nation; and, in conformity with this impression, we learn in the course of the first sermon that neutrals, and others who had not previously declared themselves, had openly taken the side of the Court, in anticipation of the speedy triumph of the royal cause. As for the Covenanters, in the emphatic language of Baillie, “they lived by faith.” “There was nothing now to divert the king from pursueing of us with fyre and sword but the God of heaven: of this celestiall diversion we did never despaire.”—Baillie, p. 198, vol. 1.

Beloved, I have been some Sabbaths past, and that even for a very long time, absent from you, and from this my particular charge.1 I hope I need not to spend much time in making excuses for it, or for showing you the reasons wherefore it was. But this much I may say. We whc have been absent at this time from our particular charge, (speak of others with myself2), we have not been seeking our own things,—our own ease, our own gain, our own honour; but we have been seeking the things of Jesus Christ. This, indeed, might be sufficient, and there needed no further excuse, secing we have been employed thus; yet I would have you to consider of some other things, lest any scruple should remain in the ignorant mind. For ye may perhaps think that we should seek the things of Jesus Christ in our own charge, and not in any other part. Beloved, ye know, if a man be busy working his particular calling, whatever it be, yet if he see the house on fire, he will rise from that work, and will help to quench the fire, that the house be not destroyed; that so he be not altogether put from working for afterwards, and others also. And in a ship, when she is sailing, if a man be at the rudder, or rowing, or m any chief part of the ship, yet if a leak break up into the ship, because that threatens the drowning of the ship and all that are in it, then all will rise, and contribute their strength to the stopping of that leak. And in all other things it is s0; even in nature and in the world, some particular parts will forget themselves for the upholding of the whole fabrick. And therefore if we have been thus exercised, to see if it were possible for us to safe the kirk of Christ here, that it be not altogether brunt up, to keep the whole ship from being drowned, and the whole fabrick and body from being destroyed, that not only is excusable for us, but.it is even commendable and necessary for us to leave our particular charge, and to take us to that: and it is most necessary that it should be so. Indeed that is altogether inexcusable, (which ye might have seen, if ye had observed it), for pastors to leave their particular charge and flocks, and were only seeking their own gain, glory, and ease in the world. These who has been so disposed, God has a reward for them; and he is already begun to recompense them according to their deservings.3 But when it may tend to the honour of God, to the good of people’s souls, and to the weal of the kirk, then it is best for us to do that which may tend most for these ends: and in so doing, we do well and commendably.

Yet moreover, beloved, I would have you to think upon something. Many a time have I spoken this to you from this place, that the day should come upon you wherein the Lord should leave and forsake you, and when he should withdraw his presence in his own ordinances of the word and sacraments, because ye still continued in your wickedness, and ye witnessed by your conversation to all who did behold you, that ye walked not worthy of the gospel.4 And I would even have you thinking that now the time is come, when the Lord is begun to call to mind these threatenings, and is bringing these judgments in part upon you. At this time of the year ye were wont to be about preparation for your Communion, for ye know it used to be given about the beginning of August: always (however) ye need not to look for it at this time.5 God, in doing this, may be working a work of mercy for his kirk,6 and of judgment against your souls; for the Lord, he can do this;—at one time, and by one and the same thing, he can show mercy to his kirk, and pour out judgments upon his enemies. And, which is more than that, there is a common course taken now, that before the 12th of August, throughout the whole kingdom, there shall be two days of humiliation kept.7 So many of you as knows anything, ye know this to be a thing necessary, because it is a ready mean to procure the blessing of God in such a hard and dangerous time as this is. Now, ye need not to look for these neither, for I cannot be present with you. And so there are two great wants—to want the mean of your comfort, which is the sacrament, and also to want the means of your humiliation. ~ Others shall be fasting and praying, but ye shall not be so; others shall be receiving the sacrament, but it shall not be so with you. And to these I may add a third also, that ye want that blessing that is promised to people by the labours of their own pastors. Howsoever, indeed, the place is still supplied, yet there is . a special relation between a pastor and his people; and the ordinary pastor has a blessing promised upon his labours which another who is not ordinary has not promised: now ye want that also. Now, will ye consider if the Lord shall go on thus with you, it may be ye never have a day of communion, nor a day of fasting, nor a ordinary pastor to preach to you. And therefore think upon this in time, and see that it be not a part of the execution of these threatenings which so oft has filled your ears. Think upon this, what God can do to a stiff-necked people, and how he can save his own. If there come a vengeance upon a land, yet God has a mark for his own to set upon them, that they may be safe, and the destroyer destroy them not. If there be a common defection throughout the whole land he can hold his own by the hand, that they shall not be carried down by that speat (flood). And, again, when the Lord is a-proclaiming mercy, and making as it were a jubilee of deliverance to his people, yet he has a way to plague these among them who are his enemies, even particular congregations and particular persons. I will assure you the Lord has observed how ye have walked in all your ways, how ye have sinned against him; and especially he has observed them since the renewing of your covenant with him so solemnly—that there has been as great swearing and cursing amongst you, as great profanation of the Sabbath. Ay, which I am ashamed to speak of, I hear ye have, since I have been from among you, put your hand to work upon the Sabbath, which ye were not wont to do; and some of you upon the Sabbath has run from the one end of the parochin to the other to see a dancing.8 Think ye that the Lord will dwell among you when ye abuse and profane his name, and contemn his ordinances thus? Think ye that he will show mercy upon you? No, no. Assuredly, assuredly, as the Lord lives, ye shall find that come to pass, that many a time I have told you, except ye repent of your evil ways, and turn to the Lord. And, therefore, let me exhort you now even to think that this is a providence of God, in dealing thus with you for your former sins, and that the Lord knows how ye have spent your time, and what ye have been doing. And I entreat you, in the name of God, that ye will yet turn to the Lord. What, shall ye continually depart from him? I pray you do not so, or otherwise heavy shall the judgments be that shall come upon you. And, therefore, as ye would wish the blessing of God in his own ordinances of word and sacraments to be continued with you, and as ye would wish to see his face in glory, draw near to the Lord, that so the God of peace may speak peace to your souls, through Jesus Christ.

  1. Since the beginning of June Henderson had been engaged in conferences with the King’s Commissioner, and in other public business, which necessitated his absence from his own parish during that time.
  2. Dickson, Baillie, Livingston, etc.
  3. Because the power of the Bishops to promote their dependants had nearly ceased since February last, the Presbyteries having then begun to resume their jurisdiction in the settlement of parishes. See Articles of Information for the Bishops—Burnet, 41 (of date April 28), in which they complain to the Council of the disregard of their authority in several cases of recent settlement, as of Mr George Gillespie at Weems.
  4. He did so in the last preface.
  5. Henderson went this week to Aberdeen, arriving there on the 20th July, as one of a deputation sent to endeavour to bring over that reluctant city to the cause of the covenant.
  6. The visit of the deputation to Aberdeen proved of signal advantage to the Church and kingdom.
  7. The 12th of August was the day the Commissioner had set for his return from court. “In the meantime,” says Baillie, “we have, on the 22nd and 29th of July, a universal fast,” i. 93. He adds, “It is like our affair may get some fatal stroke one of these days.” The gravity of the present crisis, and the apprehensions of the Covenanters, led to the appointment of these days of fasting, which, as Stevenson observes, by a somewhat strange coincidence as it turned out, “happened especially upon such days as the king did consult with this council on Scottish affairs.” With regard to the appointment of two days, this was a common practice in the earlier history of the church. The fasts appointed by the Assemblies which met Oct. 1577, Feb. 1587, and May 1594, were each appointed to be observed on two consecutive Sabbaths, the week between being also, in some instances, devoted in part to religious exercises. The Act of Assembly, 1594, appointing the fast of that year, is in these words:—“In lyke manner it is ordaynit that a generall fast be universally observit throughout the haill realme, the two last Sondayes of Junii nixt to come, with exhortationes and prayers to be keepit betwixt the two Sondayes on the week dayes.”—See Booke of the Universall Kirk, p. 405. It is probable that the fast here spoken of was to be observed in the same manner.
  8. The parish of Leuchars is about eight miles in length, so that this Sabbath-day’s journey could not have been a short one. It is probable that the dancing took place near the coast, among the sea-faring part of the population. We are reminded of Rutherford’s experience of a similar kind at Anwoth.