Sermons, prayers, and pulpit addresses

Alexander Henderson

Pokorny Book Publishers

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Table of Contents

On day of humiliation observed on the occasion of swearing the covenant, end of March or beginning of April

1. Fragment of Preface

2. Remarks on Deuteronomy 28

3. Sermon, Psalm 110:3

At the weekly exercise, probably toward the end of summer

4. Exercise, Galatians 5:7-9

At St. Andrews, October 21, 1638, when the communion was given there by M. A. H.

5. Preface

6. Sermon, Philippians 4:6-7

7. Conclusion after the Communion

8. Preface

9. Prayer

10. Preface

11. Prayer

12. Hebrews 11:28

At St. Andrews

On day of humiliation observed on the occasion of swearing the covenant, end of March or beginning of April

CHAPTER 1

Fragment of Preface

The following Sermon, with the two addresses that precede it, were delivered, as appears from internal evidence, at St. Andrews, on a day of special humiliation observed there, prior to the swearing of the National Covenant, probably towards the end of March, or the beginning of April, 1638. The Covenant had already been sworn and subscribed at Edinburgh on the 28th of February of the same year. Copies of it were thereafter taken to all parts of the country, and solemnly sworn after due humiliation and fasting. St. Andrews was one of the three only burghs in Scotland, of which Aberdeen and Crail were the other two, from which Commissioners were not present at the first swearing of the Covenant in Edinburgh; and Henderson, as being the fittest person for such a mission, was sent to that city and important seat of learning, to endeavour to gain it over to the Covenanted cause. We have here the Sermon and addresses he delivered on the occasion, by means of which, in part at least, the object of his mission was successfully achieved. The services of the day seem to have consisted (1) of what was called a “Preface”, only a fragment of which remains, the first page or two of the MS. being lost; (2) of the reading of Scripture, the portion read being Deuteronomy 28; (3) of a kind of running comment on the chapter read, with application to the particular business in hand; and (4) of a Sermon on Psalm 110:3

... of humiliation, it will not be easy for you to win [to it] now. And except that ye humble yourselves now when ye have health, wealth, and peace, the Lord sall cause you to humble yourselves under heavy and sore straits, when ye cannot get yourselves helped. There is no way for you to prevent the wrath of God, that has been masking (q. brewing) in a cloud above you this long time, but only by humbling of yourselves before God, and under his mighty hand. And because ye are out of use of humiliation, and it is long since ye had such a fast as this, and ye cannot tell how to perform it;¹ let us address ourselves to the Lord, and beseech him that he would teach us how we sall proceed in this work, in every point thereof; that so we go away with some sense of peace and reconciliation in our souls, through Jesus Christ. And because it is he who can humble thir haughty and proud hearts of ours, therefore let us address ourselves to him, to seek and to beg of him that he would humble them; that so this day’s exercise may prove acceptable to him, and comfortable to our own souls.

Public fasts, which before had been very frequent in the church, were almost unknown during the domination of Episcopacy, being discountenanced and disallowed by the rulers both in Church and State, See Row, passim.

CHAPTER 2

Remarks on Deuteronomy 28

Here was read after prayer, Deuteronomy 28

It fears me that a great part of you knows not what you are doing now, or what you are about. It fears me that the Lord desert you, and leave you to yourselves, at this time: and it will be but idle pains for me to speak to you, if the Lord [leave you] to wrestle with your own ill hearts. Ay, we will have [all of] us just cause to fear that the Lord stake us with blindness of mind and hardness of heart, and dead and senseless souls. To have a blind mind and a hard heart, and a dead and senseless soul, in a day of a solemn humiliation, that is the most fearful judgment that can be. I think the very naked reading of thir same words should have moved you more than I can see any appearance amongst you. I perceived by many of your countenances and gestures that ye did not so much as to take heed what was reading; many of you would have heard ane idle tale better and would have bended your ears to it.

1. Ye may perceive here that all good things whilk are comforts and all evil things whilk are troubles, they come from the Lord. There is nothing that is comfortable to us but it is a blessing of God; and there is nothing that is hurtful to us but it is a curse of God; at least it tastes of a curse. Atheists, they cannot see that God is the sender of blessings and cursings, but ascribes them to natural reasons—to ane ill year and ane good year. Ane ill year that is dear, they say that it comes from the ill and unseasonable weather that has been before; or if a year be cheap, that has come from the good and seasonable weather that has been before;¹ but they look not to that wherefra it is that those storms and that good weather comes. They may well look to the air, but that is the highest of it; they look not to the highest link that is in God’s hand: they see not God’s providence to be the highest link of that chain, and he has it into his own hand. Ilk ane acknowledges a providence of God, but ilk ane is not affected with that providence in everything. 2. Ye may perceive here, that all the ills that comes upon man, they come upon him for sin. Without we had sinned, we needed not to have feared any of these curses; but when we sin, we are liable to them all. “Because they hearkened not to the commandments of God; because they walked not in his ways; because they keeped not his statutes and judgments and testimonies”, therefore did all those evils come upon them. 3. Do ye think, when ye hear of all these several curses, that they can come to pass, or that they could come to pass and be execute upon the people of God? Ay, indeed; for as terrible-like as ye think them, and as incredible-like, there was not one of them all but they came to pass, even that whilk would seem to be most strange. This same they did, for as cruel-like as ye think it; women did eat their own children. And therefore think not but God is a just God; and as he can perform his promises to his own, and will do it, so will he also perform these curses upon his enemies. And he will perform more than is here upon them—even all that is not written in this book; even all the plagues and judgments of God, both written and unwritten, sall come upon the hard-hearted sinner. They sall all rest upon him who says, I sall have peace, though I walk in the imaginations of my own heart. I would have all of you to take notice of that general that is contained in the 26th verse of the former chapter, “Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them.” Now, beloved, I wish that every one of you but understood the meaning of this same; and so know that without repentance and faith, this is ane iron chain tying you to the vengeance and curse of God. And the chain has sundry links in it. 1. It speaks of the curse of God. What is that? All miseries that can be in this life; then death at the end of it; and then ane everlasting separation of soul and body from that living and life-giving presence of God. This is not like the railing of men, who rail against you, nor is it like the punishment of any prince upon earth; for who can curse if God bless, or who can bless if he curse? He has death, hell, etc., all of them are in his power: therefore, we should not fear him who can kill the body, but fear him who can cast both soul and body into hell-fire. Now, believes thou that this is the curse and the malediction of God, and yet trembles not at it? then it is a token that thou art near unto it. 2. He speaks here of “every one”, from him that sitteth upon the throne to him that sitteth behind the mill;² from him that heweth the wood to him that draweth the water,—every one, from the highest to the lowest. The highest is not exemed from this curse because of his greatness and majesty, nor is the meanest overseen because of his baseness. Whoever thou be, magistrate or subject, lord or laird, high or laigh, if thou endeavour not to obey the law of God, then the curse and malediction of God sall be upon thee. 3. He says—“That continues not in all that is written, in this law, for to do them.” That is, albeit it were possible for thee to keep some of these things that are commanded here, yet if thou keep not all of them, then thou art guilty of the breach of them all; and so the malediction of God is due to thee. And so, thou must either confess thy sins, and cry for mercy through Christ (and if thou beg it thou sall get it), or otherwise, the curse of God sall seize upon thee. 4. He says—“That continues not.” Even as the apostle, writing to the Galatians, says of this same—that is, although we should keep the whole commandments, being children, in our young years, and when we are come to men’s age, and yet transgress them when we are come to old age, then we are guilty of the breach of them, because we have not continued in the keeping of them: and so, without repentance, we cannot escape the wrath and malediction of God. Yea, cursed is every one. Then the sinner, till he repent him of his sin, he is cursed already: if he live in that estate he is born into, he is void of grace, repentance, and faith; and if he go on so, then he must perish in sin, and so he cannot escape the curse of God. And so evermore till we repent, the curse of God is on us, albeit we be not sensible of it. Cain, he was accursed of God—God’s malediction was on him; yet he forgets it, and takes him to building of cities: and yet, for all that, the curse of God seized upon him. Even so a man may be busied about his lawful negotiations, and yet the curse of God may be attending him all that time, and light upon him at last. Beloved, there is a time wherein, as it is Psalm 78, the Lord shews himself to be patient towards sinners, that he will not pour out his curse upon them; but think not, for all that, that it will be always so; but there is a time also when he will stir up all his indignation. And learn to understand this, and carry it evermore about with you into your hearts, that the malediction and curse of God is upon all who continues not in everything that is written in this book, to do them: there is no exception made at all, but only upon repentance for sin, and by faith in Christ. And, therefore, examine yourselves, and try your sins: we take few days or few hours to examine our sins, but we take many days to commit sin; therefore examine and see that ye flatter not yourselves, but see what ye have done. See if ye have set up ane idol into your heart, whether it be the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, or the pride of life; see if that monster be lurking into any nuik (nook) of your heart. Or see if ye have any idol without you, that has got in God’s place and room from you, so that ye cannot say, except ye be partial to yourselves, but ye have been more careful to please men than to please God; and so ye have made a god of them, albeit your conscience told you that ye did wrong in so doing. And ye of this same city, ye are guilty of this. Now, examine whether or not that whilk ye have done has been for satisfying of your own ambition, for fear of the world, and for preserving of your worldly porticns, more than any other thing; these has made you to do many things that ye have done. Consider, also, if ye have not been formal in the service and worship of God. I am not now to flatter you, and yet I am not to withhold that from you whilk is your due. Ever since I kent you, in this city, and while I was amongst you,³ I ever kent you to be diligent observers of the Lord’s Day. But I would have you to consider, if ye have rested only upon the outward part of God’s worship, or if ye have laboured also to join the inward part with it, and have been labouring, in the use of the means, to get a grip (hold) of Christ; that as ye go beyond many others in the external part, so ye do also in the internal, and has been sorrowful when ye have not found power with the means ye had. I know many of you who has said, when ye came out from the preaching (and I have found it while I was amongst you⁴), that your souls has been nothing bettered by it. And see if ye prepared yourselves, before yve went to the kirk, and begged a blessing from God to the work ye were to go about. And, indeed, ye cannot deny but ye have given over great place to the devices of men in the service of God; and almost ye are the last in revoking them again. Consider, also, how many oaths are to be heard in your streets. But, especially, consider the guiltiness of the breach of that oath that was made among you, not many years since, when ye did swear to this confession of faith.⁵ And [for ?] the profanation of the Sabbath. I grant ye had bad example to that, but that will not excuse you.⁶ Ye may say to us, “We had no wyte (blame) of it, but others had the wyte,” and so make that an excuse to us; but it will not excuse you before God. And what religion has been among you in private, and in your families? Any catechising of your families? How many families is there among you who has convened every day, morning and evening, to incall upon God together? It may be ye have come to the kirk, to God’s worship there, and some of you gone secretly to your cabinets; but that is not enough, unless ye use religious family exercises. And, indeed, there is matter of humiliation for this; for if every one of you had taken pains upon your families, as ye should, there had not been so foul a defection as there is.

And then for the commandments of the second table, by experience I may speak of some of them. There are some of you so far on in drunkenness and excess that it is not counted a sin amongst you, nor is it counted shameful to be drunk; for that whilk we count not to be a sin, we will not be ashamed of it: and indeed, sin is then come to a great height, when men becomes impudent and shameless in it.⁷ I will not say that every one of you has been thus ways set, but I know there are many among you who are not ashamed to be seen drunken upon the streets, nor are not ashamed to see others drunk, that they are even like beasts; not because beasts are subject to this intemperancy, but because it makes them beastly who are so: and, indeed, it is not so ill to be a beast as to be beastly. This mischievous sin it brings a man into all ill, and enables him for all ill. I must tell you, I think it expedient that this be mended among you, or otherwise ye cannot look for a blessing from God. And therefore ye who are magistrates would have a care to see order tane with it through the town; and ye who are masters of families would take care of yourselves and your families. And then for your dealing towards other men, and every one of you towards another, ye know I am but a stranger to you in these things. But I would have you not to think it enough to be Christians in your dealing, according to the Act of Parliament, but according to the word of God. Christ gives a very good rule for this in your dealing towards others; Whatsoever ye would that others did unto you, the same do ye unto them. Make this your rule and square in all your dealings towards others, and see wherein ye have transgressed that. But our hearts do deceive us, and ilk ane has a fault with their calling. There is no calling but it has a fault, through our corruption that is in us; and commonly the fault sticks as fast to us as the calling does: and therefore ye who would approve yourselves to God, strive to know the points and faults in your calling. And albeit ye be free of sins in your calling, yet strive against the sins of the time; for these sall bring wrath upon you, if ye follow them. It is not possible for any to overtake all their own faults; and many thinks that they are but strangers to themselves who speak this, and yet it is true. O but we be far from that soberness, righteousness, and holiness that the Lord requires of us, and that we are bound to aim at. And therefore, since that this is a time of solemn humiliation, remember that we humble ourselves indeed before God. Remember that God searches and sees what is in us; and let us search and see it also. And let us take no rest till we find out that whilk is our idol, and it be known to us to be a sin; and having found out the malefactor, bring him out and present him before Christ, the Judge of the world. And therefore let us beware of hypocrisy in this, but deal honestly; that so the Lord may send down a blessing upon this exercise, to his glory and our comfort. And therefore I remit, etc.

For some years previous to 1638 there had been a succession of bad harvests, from which the country had suffered severely. “The 34 [1634] year of God was a very sore year to our labourers; but the 35 [1635] year was the worst that in this last age was seen.” Baillie’s Letters, Ban. ed. I. p. 5. We shall find the preacher often recurring to the subject.

This and the following proverbial expression are not taken from the passage commented on, but from other parts of Scripture, viz., Exodus 11:5, Deuteronomy 29:11

Henderson was matriculated in St Salvator’s College, St Andrews, Dec. 19, 1599. Aiton, p. 88. He remained in St Andrews asa Regent till his settlement at Leuchars in 1614, and he continued, Leuchars being so near at hand, to speak of that city as his ordinary residence. See Report of the Assembly at Glasgow.

“I have found it while I was amongst you.” Is this to be understood as a confession of the preacher, that while living at St Andrews he had no sense of divine things? If so, it tends to confirm Dr M’Crie’s opinion, that the change in his sentiments, effected by the sermon of Mr Robert Bruce, went much deeper than a conversion to Presbyterianism.—Sketches of Scottish Church History, by Dr M’Crie, p. 225.

“The whole brethren of the Presbytery of St Andrews subscribed the Confession of Faith upon the Second of August 1604, as the Act following declareth.” Calderwood, p. 484. When Andrew Melville and his brethren were summoned to London in 1606, they carried with them a copy of this Act, because it bore, among the rest, the signature of M. George Gladstanes.—See James Melville’s “Declining Age” etc.

The Scottish Episcopal clergy of that day for the most part held and maintained the High Church opinions concerning the Fourth Commandment; and nothing had tended more to lower their character in public esteem than the lax manner in which they kept the Lord’s day. Spottiswood himself did not scruple to travel during the hours of divine service.

“Tuesday, the 27th, we came to St Andrews. We found there in the people much profanity and ignorance, swearing, drunkenness, and the faults of the worst burghs.” Baillie’s Narrative of the Assembly, 1642. According to the same authority, the leading minister of the place, Archdean Gladstanes, was a habitual and scandalous drunkard.

CHAPTER 3

Sermon, Psalm 110:3

“Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauty of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.” The reader will remember that the sermon preached by Henderson at the Glasgow Assembly in the end of this year, on the occasion of the excommunication of the bishops, was from the 1st verse of this Psalm.

It is, beloved in the Lord, very expedient, and sometimes most necessar, that we turn away our eyes from kings and their greatness, from kirkmen and men of state, and that we turn them towards another object, and look only to Jesus Christ, who is the great king, priest, and prophet of his kirk. The godly in former times, who were kings, priests, and prophets themselves, used to do this, and that before Christ; and mickle more is it required of us now in thir days, seeing we live in troublesome times; for there is a comfort that comes to the children of God that way. The first part of this psalm it expresses to us the threefold office of Christ, and the second part of it expresses the valiant acts our Lord Jesus does by these his three offices, but especially by his princely office; whilk indeed is his worst studied office by many men in the world. We would, many of us, willingly take him for our prophet to teach us, and for our priest to intercede for us, and be a sacrifice for our sins, but when it comes to his princely office, to direct us what we should do, then we would be at that whilk seems best in our own eyes.

His princely office is described unto us here three ways. 1. In relation to God himself; “The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand.” 2. In respect of his enemies; “The Lord sall send the rod of thy strength out of Sion: rule thou in the midst of thy enemies.” Were his enemies never so many, and never so despiteful against him, yet he sall rule in the midst of them. And indeed this is a very admirable part of his kingly office, that even in the midst of his enemies he sall have a kingdom for himself, in despite of them, and all that they can do or say against it. 3. The third, wherein the glory of his kingly office consists, is in thir words that I have read to you: and that is in relation to, and in respect of the subjects of the kingdom of Christ. And they are described here to be a people belonging to Jesus Christ; to be a people on whom God manifests his power; and they are a most willing people, a people who counts holiness to be their chiefest beauty. And they are so marvellously multiplied, that it is a wonder to consider of it: there is no moe drops of dew will fall, nor they will not fall any faster in a morning than the Lord will multiply them, when he is pleased to do so. And although the Lord sometimes multiply them in a secret manner, yet still the multitude stands to be true.

That the purposes may be the better tane up by you who will take heed to them, consider of these parts in the words. 1. The persons of whom the Psalmist speaks here. “Thy people”. 2. The properties of these people in this day: They sall be a willing people; a holy people; a people who sall be miraculously multiplied. And so their properties is willingness, holiness, and multiplication.

Many proofs has been of the truth of this prophecy since the beginning—that the Lord’s people sall be willing in the day of his power, in the beauties of holiness; from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth. There were many evident proofs of the truth of this since the beginning of the plantation of the gospel into the world. And surely we know not a more evident and notable proof of it than this same that is presently into this land, nor think I that there be any who can show the parallel of it.¹ The Lord has made them willingly to offer up themselves, and all that they have, for him. And they are a people of holiness; albeit it is true, indeed, many has been brought to it from this quarter and that quarter of the land, since the beginning, to be more holy than they used to be. And if the multiplication of them be not wonderful, I cannot tell what ye will tell me of that is more wonderful; so that indeed it is a miracle to all who hear of it. In the time while Christ was upon the earth there were two sorts of miracles to be seen;—first, Christ made the dumb to speak, the blind to see, the lame to walk, etc.: this indeed was a great miracle. The second sort of miracles was of him who did see these things wrought by Christ, and yet for all that, did not believe in him who did work them. Even so there are two sorts of wonders in this same time wherein we live;—first, how the Lord has multiplied his people, and made them to be so many, whereas, at the first, we thought them to be but very few; secondly, we cannot but wonder at these who observes not God’s hand into it; and indeed we cannot but wonder that any can be so blind that they observe not the very hand and finger of God in the work. Ay, we who have been witnesses to it, for the most part, we cannot but wonder at the work of God in it. It has not been man’s wit has done the work, and multiply so, but only God has done it; and we cannot tell how; but only we see that there are numbers continually multiplied.

I. “Thy people.” Here is a note of property, and a note of distinction. First, it is a note of property. They are God’s people—God has absolute right over a people, and there is none who has any right over them but he alone. It’s true all people are under him, but he calls not all his people after this manner. All things are for God, and subordinate to him; the absolute power to rule and to command these people is in God’s hand, and he will not give that power to any other over them: and he has good reason so to do. 1. Because he was thinking upon his people from all eternity; and there was none who did that but only he. 2. He made us and fashioned us in time; and neither any authority or magistrate did that² 3. Who is it that provides means for their sustenance daily, and makes these means effectual, but only the Lord? A man cannot make one pyle (blade) of grass, or one ear of corn, to grow for thy entertainment, but only the Lord: and when thou hast gotten these things, it is the blessing of God that makes them effectual. For when ye say the grace to your meat, say ye it to man? No, ye say it only to God. So that every way ye are God’s people. And then, whilk is more, and therefore we are bound to be his people, no man can redeem the life of his brother, nor give a price sufficient for his life, let be (let alone) for his soul, and yet the Lord, he has redeemed us from hell, and from the grave; and therefore we belong to him. Then is it not the Lord who enters in covenant with thee, and says, I will remember thy sins no more? Then albeit all the world should remember thy ill deeds, yet if the Lord remember them not, then thou art blessed. It is he who says, I will write my laws in your hearts, to lead you here: it is he who puts us in the estate of grace while we are here, and so puts us in hope of glory after this life. It is he who sall be our judge at that great day. And so ye are the Lord’s people, by way of property.

And this was it that made the apostles so bold, when it was alleged that they had done that whilk was not right: they make the enemies themselves judges, and says, “Whether it be right in your sight to obey God rather than man, judge ye.” As if they had said, it’s true indeed we are mickle obliged to man, but we are more obliged to God than to all men; for what is it that man can do to us, either good or ill, but God can do that als (also) and more? And upon this ground, in the next chapter, they draw this conclusion,—It behoveth us rather to obey God than man. And so, first, they reason with the adversars themselves upon it; and seeing that they could not deny it, upon that they draw up their conclusion. I mark this for this end, that whenever ye are enjoined to do anything by any man, that then ye would not forget this dignity and power that God has over you, and that ye are the people of Jesus Christ; and therefore no man ought to enjoin anything to be done by you, but that for the whilk he has a warrant from God. There is a great controversy now about disobedience to superiors, and the contempt of those who are in authority; but there is not a word of that, whether God be obeyed or not, or if he be disobeyed by any. Fy, that people should sell themselves over to the slavery of man, when the Lord has only sovereign power over them! I would not have you to think that a whole country of people are appointed only to uphold the grandeur of five or six men. No, they are ordained to be magistrates for your good.³ And sall we think that a ministry shines into a land for the upholding of the grandeur of some few persons?⁴ No, all these things are ordained for the good of God’s people; and seeing that it is so, sall ye then make yourselves like to asses and slaves, to be subject to all that men pleases to impose upon you? No, no; try anything that they impose upon you, before ye obey it, if it is warranted by God or not; because God is the only superior over you.

2. Secondly. “Thy people.” This also is a note of distinction; for every people are God’s people, but there is a distinction among them. All people, it’s true, are God’s people by right of creation: why therefore says he, thy people, and not all people? Because all people belongs not to Christ. God has authority over all indeed, but in a special manner he enters in covenant with some. All people who are subject to him in his providence are not his peculiar people, his royal nation, his holy priesthood, his chosen generation, but only these of them who belongs to Christ; those are properly termed to be his people. And we should remember of this, that those who are the people of God, they have notable privileges; they have all things that any people should have, and whatever we should be, they have that. Where any are the people of God, there there is blessedness indeed, for they have his truth for their security, they have his love for their comfort, his power for their defence, etc. The Lord God, he takes his people into his bosom, and with every soul he does so, and says, “I the Lord thy God enters in covenant with thee, and renews the covenant that before I made with thee.” And then he lays a necessity upon thee, by his providence, that thou must enter in covenant with him; and then he says to thee, “I will not remember thy sins any more; I know they are heinous, great, and many, but because thou desires that they should not be remembered, therefore I will not remember them. And because when ye have renewed your covenant with me, ye will be aye in a fear to break it again, therefore I will write my law in your hearts. And so whatever I promise to you, I will perform it freely when ye are in covenant with me; and whatever ye promise to me, being in covenant with me, I sall perform it for you also, at least I sall give you strength to perform it.” And therefore to the end that ye may be perfectly blessed, enter in a covenant with God; and without ye be in covenant with him, ye shall be in nothing but perpetual misery. I would have all of you to think this to be your only health, wealth, and peace, and your only glory in the world, to be in covenant with God: and so that ye are the people of God, I would not have you to count men to be rich and glorious men by their estates in the world—that he can spend so many chalders of victual yearly, or so many thousand merks. O, a silly beggarly glory is this! Naked thou came into the world, and naked thou must go out of it again. But see how mickle thou has of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, how far thou art forward in the work of repentance, faith, etc., and such good actions. Learn to set your affections on things that are above, and testify it by your actions.

II. “In the day of thy power.” This is the time when the people of God sall be willing, even in the day of his power; that is, in the day of the power of Jesus Christ. The day of his own resurrection from the dead was one day of his power: he says, “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again;” “Destroy this temple, and I will build it up again in three days;” he meant of the temple of his body: and indeed there was none who could raise his dead body out of the grave, but only himself. A second day of his power sall be the day of the resurrection of our bodies out of the dust. But there is another day that is meant of here than any of these, and that is the day of our first resurrection out of the grave of sin, by the preaching of the gospel. And there is good reason for it, why this should be called a day of his power. First, because it is the power of Jesus Christ that brings the purity of the gospel into a land; and we may indeed say that it was only his power that brought the gospel into this land. It had not authority then to countenance it, for all those that were in authority were against it; and counsel and policy, and all the clergy, and the multitude, all of them, were against it; and yet, for all that, the Lord brought in the purity of the gospel into this land, and established it here against all these. Secondly, when the purity of the gospel is into a land, it is only the power of God that makes it effectual for turning of souls unto himself, and raising them out of the grave of sin, wherein they are so fast buried. So when the Lord first sends the gospel, we are lying into the grave of sin; and the devil, and the world, and all these enemies they are watching the grave, to see that we rise not out of it; and when we are beginning to rise they are busy to hold us down. And think not that we can rise, and lift up ourselves from so base to so high ane estate, without the power of God. No, no. Third. When the gospel is into a land, it is only the power of Jesus Christ that makes it to continue, for if the Lord make not the gospel to continue into a land, it will not stay there. And there is no less power required either to bring the gospel into a land, or to make it effectual, or to make it to continue, than was required to raise the dead body of Christ out of the grave, or will be required to raise ours.

I would have you to consider here, that all times are not alike, but there is a time of the Lord’s power; that all days are not alike, but there is a day of the Lord’s power; a time when the saints of God sall be weak, a time when they sall be strong; a time when some sall rise up to persecute the saints, a time when others sall rise up to help them; a time when the Lord withholds his power, and a time when he kythes (shews it); a time when the people draws back from the Lord, and a time when they turn to him again. There has been a day of defection in this land⁵ this time past, and now there is a time of the Lord’s power in bringing back this defection again: and indeed this very instant time that now is is ane hour of that day of the Lord’s power, and I will shew you two or three reasons for it. 1. The Lord did arise and manifested his power when the enemies were become insolent, and when they had determined that they would set up such a [mode] of worship as they thought meet, and noways according to the pattern shown upon the mount. And indeed the Lord, he uses ordinarily to do this, that even when the enemies of his people are become insolent, and they have determined that they will do such a thing instantly, then he takes them in their own snare. 2. To show that it is the Lord’s power only that works a work, he uses to begin at very small beginnings; and so the Lord did in this same work;—he began at first with some few, and these not honourable, and yet now he has made it to cover the whole land through all the quarters thereof.⁶ 3. This is also a note of the power of God, that he has touched the hearts of people, that there was never such a howling and a weeping heard amongst them this long time as there is now; and yet it is not a weeping for sorrow, but a weeping for joy. How oft has there been preachings in the most part of the congregations of this land this long time past, and yet people have never found the power of it in working upon their hearts; and yet within this short space, when the Lord has renewed his covenant with them, and they with him, he has displayed his banner, and made his power known in working upon the hearts of people. 4. In this the power of God is manifestly to be seen in this work, that the Lord has made all the devices and plots of the adversars, that they have devised to further their own ends, to work contrair to these ends, and to work for the good of his own work. And, indeed, we may say that it has not been so mickle the courage and wisdom of these, that has been for this cause, that has brought it so far on, but the very plots and devices of the adversars that they have devised for their own good. This [also] is ane evident token of the Lord’s power.⁷

And [now] since the Lord did arise when the enemies were become insolent, since he began at so small beginnings and has brought it so far, since the Lord has wrought so on the hearts of people now, and since he has made all the plots of the enemies to work against themselves, and for his people, let us give this glory to God, and reverence him, and say that it is only by his power that the work is done, and that he has been pleased to manifest himself into the work. Beloved, we may comfort ourselves in this, if all this has been done by the power of God, then we need not to fear the power of men; men can do nothing against God. The Lord may indeed put his kirk to a trial, but he will not suffer her to be overthrown by any. And indeed, any who hears and knows what the enemies are doing here may see that they are not fighting against men, but against God, and that they are kicking against the pricks.

III. Now, for the properties of thir people. The first of them is willing. The Lord’s people are a people of willingness in the day of his power: and indeed thir three go very well together, the people of God, the power of God, and a willing people. When the power of God works upon his people then he makes them to be a willing people. And indeed, it is no small matter to see a people willing in a good cause, for by nature we are unwilling, and naturally we are not set to affect anything that is right, except it be through hypocrisy. Our hearts they are contrary to God; they are proud, disobedient, rebellious, and he who sees and knows his own heart sees all this to be in it; and he knows that it is the Lord who cries upon him, in the day of his own power, and frames his heart in a new mould, and makes it to be so nimble and cheerful in any good work,—that albeit they had been before running with all their speed to the devil, yet he makes them to stand still in the way and look about them, and consider what they have been doing, and then to turn about again. Albeit thou were like to Paul, persecuting the Church, yet he can then make a preacher of thee, and so affright thee that thou sall not know where thou art, but say, “Here am I, Lord:” and albeit thou were als unwilling to go as the prophet or Moses, yet he will make thee to say, " Here am I, Lord, send me,” and be as Elisha, when Elias cuist (cast) his mantle about him, then he could not stay any longer. And when Christ comes to Peter, and calls upon them, they cannot stay any longer, but incontinent they leave all and follows him. I will not now begin to make any large discourse of the invincible power of God; I say no more of it now but only this for your use, If ye kent this power of God, it would make you ready and willing to give a confession to him this day, and even to confess him before men, and to forsake all and follow him. Ye who are ignorant of the power of God, take heed to this,—it is the Lord who commanded light to come out of darkness, who must make you to see Christ; he who takes his rod in his hand to beat down the hard and humble the haughty heart, he must do this also. O if ye felt this power of God, ye would think nothing to forsake all and to follow him. He has suffered more for us nor we can suffer for him; and if we suffered anything for him, he would not suffer any of us yet to be a loser at his hand: but we cannot put him to a trial.

Now for this willingness of these people, it is well expressed here. They are called a people of willingness. And yet he thinks not this satisfactory, to call them a willing people, but he calls them a people of willingnesses, a noble, generous, high-minded people. And all this is to shew that when the people of God is wakened up in the day of his power, there is none who is able to express their willingness. They are so willing that if they had a thousand minds they would employ them all for him, and if they had a thousand faces, they would not let one of them look down, but they would hold them all up for the Lord; if every hair in their head were a man, they would employ them all in his service. Their willingness, indeed, it cannot be expressed. They cry to the Lord, because they think they cannot run fast enough, “Draw me and I sall run after thee:” they are flying together, as the dowes does to the holes of the rocks before a tempest come. In the Canticles Christ says, “My soul made me as the chariots of my noble people;” and, indeed, to see a people running through the land, to meet together to keep communion with the Lord, this is the best chariot that can be. And this willingness has been so great at some times in the children of God that they have fallen in a paroxysm, or like the fit of a fever, with it: as it is Acts 17. Paul’s spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the City of Athens given to so much base idolatry as to worship the “Unknown God”. And Lot, also, he had such a fit as this; he vexed his righteous soul with the iniquities of Sodom, that is, he tortured his soul with their sins, he never saw them committing sin but it was a grief to him. And, indeed, the children of God this while past have been grieved and vexed to behold the sins that has been committed into this same land. I insist upon this the rather because I would wish from my heart that ye would be thus willing, and that ye would be als forward for the glory and honour of God as ever any was. And then, indeed, it should do good to others also, when they should hear tell that the people of St. Andrews were such a willing people. And, indeed, ye have just reason to be willing now.

1. Because it is God’s cause ye have in hand, and it is no new cause to us. It is almost sixty years old; it is no less since this same Confession of Faith was first subscribed and sworn to.⁸ And it has been still in use yearly to be subscribed and sworn to in some parts, among some in this land, to this day.⁹ And I think it would have been so in all the parts of the land if men had dreamed of what was coming upon us. Whatever is added to it at this time, it is nothing but ane interpretation of the former part; and if men will be willing to see the right, they may see that there is nothing in the latter part but that whilk may be deduced from the first.¹⁰ And in the [keeping?] of a Covenant we are not bound to keep only these same words that were before, but we must renew it; and in the renewing thereof we must apply it to the present time when it is renewed, as we have done, renewed it against the present ills. For it is not necessar for us to abjure Turcism or Paganism, because we are not in fear to be troubled with that; but the thing that we are in danger of is Papistry, and therefore we must abjure that.

2. A second reason to make you willing is, because this matters concerns you in all things,—in your bodies, in your estates, in your lives, your liberties, in your souls. I may say, if in the Lord’s providence this course had not been taken, ye would have found the thraldom whereinto that course, wherein ye were anes (once) going, would have brought you to or now, even ye who are most averse from it.

3. A third reason to make you willing is, ye have the precedency and testimony of the nobility in the land to it, and of all sorts of persons, noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, ministers, and commons; and wherefore, then, should not ye be willing to follow their example? And then, I may say, ye have the prayers of all the reformed kirks in Europe for you, who have ever heard of the perturbations that has been, and yet are, into this land. And, moreover, beloved, whom have ye against you in this course? All the atheists, all the papists, and all the profane rogues in the country; they draw to that side, and it is only they who hate this cause. And should not all these make you willing to [swear?] to it, and to hazard for it? And I may say, if ye be but willing to hazard all that ye have, that may be the heaviest distress that ever ye sall be put to. And if so be that ye had been willing at first, the Lord would have touched the king’s heart, and made him willing also; but because he is informed by some that the most part are not willing, that is a great part of the cause why he is not willing.

The second property of God’s people is holiness. “In the beauties of holiness;” a speech that is borrowed from the priest’s garments under the law. Sometimes they were broidered with gold, sometimes they were all white, especially in the day of expiation. Not that ministers under the New Testament should have such garments as these, for these were representations to them, both of their inward holiness and of their outward holiness, by (beyond) others; but now all believers are priests as well as ministers are, and therefore such garments as these are not necessar. Indeed, if such garments as these had been necessar, then Christ and his apostles had done great wrong to themselves, who never used the like; and they had done great wrong to the kirk also in not appointing such garments to be worn by ministers.¹¹ There be garments of glory in heaven, and garments of grace in the earth; that party-coloured garment spoken of in the Colossians,¹² and this holiness whilk is spoken of here. Concerning whilk we will mark two things:—First, as people are a people of willingness in a good cause, so they must also be a people of holiness, or otherwise their willingness is only but for some worldly respects: therefore, I would have you with willingness to put on holiness. And, indeed, if we saw what holiness were, we needed not to be persuaded to put it on, we would do it willingly. For it has these parts in it—1. A purgation from former filthiness. 2. A separation from the world. If thou will be holy, then thou must be separate from the world; thou must strive to keep thyself from these whose garments are spotted with the flesh. 3. Holiness requires devotion or dedication to the Lord. Where there is purgation from filthiness, separation from the world, and dedication to the Lord, there there is holiness and nowhere else.

Now, is there any of you but ye are obleist (obliged) to be holy? Ye say that ye are the people of the Lord. It so be, then ye must have your inward man purged of sin, and ye must stand at the stave’s end against the corruptions of the time, and ye must devote yourselves only to serve and honour God. And your Covenant, that ye are to swear to this day,¹³ oblishes you to this; and it requires nothing of you but that whilk ye are bound to perform. And, therefore, seeing this is required of you, purge yourselves within, flee the corruptions of the time, eschew the society of those whom ye see to be corrupt, and devote yourselves only to the Lord. Yet this is not that we would obleish you to perform everything punctually that the Lord requires of you; there is none who can do that, but promise to the Lord to do so, tell him that ye have a desire to do so, and join a resolution and a purpose, and say to him, Lord, I sall prease (earnestly endeavour) to do als far as I can. And, indeed, there is no more in our covenant but this, that we sall endeavour to keep ourselves within the bounds of our Christian liberty; and, albeit, none of you would swear to this, ye are bound to it by your baptism. And, therefore, think not that we are precisians, (or these who has set down this covenant), seeing all of you are bound to do it.¹⁴

Secondly, “The beauties of holiness.” Consider here that as holiness is necessar for the saints of God, so all God’s courtiers they are full of beauty. God himself is full of beauty, and we have no power, beauty, nor holiness but in his power, beauty, and holiness. Holiness, it is the beauty of the Son of God, Jesus Christ; and to him it is said in Esay, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty:”¹⁵ and the Holy Ghost has this style to be called Holy. And the angels in heaven, they are clothed with holiness; and the saints who are in heaven, this is the long white robes wherewith they are clothed. And they who are begun to be sanctified here, they strive to be more and more clad with holiness. Beloved, I would have you to count this to be your beauty, even holiness; for if ye have not this beauty, then all your other beauty will degenerate in a bastard beauty.

Now follows the marvellous multiplication of thir people. “From the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth.” The words are somewhat obscure even to the learned ear, but look to the 133rd Psalm, and there ye will see a place to help to clear them. Always (however) observe here, “from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth,” that as in a May morning, when there is no extremity of heat, the dew falls so thick that all the fields are covered with it, and it falls in such a secret manner that none sees it fall, so the Lord, in the day of his power, he sall multiply his people, and he sall multiply them in a secret manner; so that it is marvellous to the world, that once there should seem to be so few or none of them, and then incontinent he should make them to be through all estates.¹⁶

We have first to learn here, that the Kirk of God, she has a morning; and in the morning the dew falls, and not in the night, nor in the heat of the day. Soit is not in the night of defection, nor in the heat of the day of persecution, when the Lord’s people are multiplied, but it is in the morning of the day. Beloved, I wish ye may be a discerning people, to know the Lord’s seasons. Sall we be as those, of whom our Saviour complains, who can discern the face of the sky, but cannot discern the day of the Lord’s merciful and gracious visitation towards them? Men indeed may be very learned and know things very well, and yet in the meantime be but ignorant of this; for there are sundry gifts bestowed upon men, and ilk ane has not this gift, to discern the Lord’s merciful visitation. And therefore happy are ye, albeit ye be not great in other gifts, if so be that ye know this; for the Lord, he has some gifts of his own bestowing allanerly (only), whilk he will bestow upon the meanest, and yet he will deny them to the proudest; even as the tops of the mountains, they will be dry and have no dew, while as the valleys will be wet with it. So those who exalts themselves high, and boasts themselves of their other gifts, of their knowledge, learning, experience, etc., the Lord will, for all that, ofttimes leave them void of saving and sanctifying grace.¹⁷

“From the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth.” That is, as the dew is multiplied upon the earth, so sall thy people be. This is ane ordinar phrase in Scripture. Hushai says to Absalom, “Convene the people from Dan to Beersheba, and then we sall light upon David as the dew lighteth upon the ground; and then there sall not be left of him and of all the men that are with him so much as one.”¹⁸ And this phrase is well set down, Isa. 54, “Rejoice, O barren, and thou that didst not bear, break forth into singing and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child; for more are the children of the desolate than the married wife.” And therefore he uses this form of speech, v. 2, “Enlarge thy tents, and let them stretch the curtains of thy habitations; lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes.” And all these things are requisite to be done when the people of God are multiplied thus.

Let us observe here, if the word of God continue in this land, in the purity thereof, and the sacraments be rightly administrate, the people of God will then multiply exceedingly here. The chiefest city in this land, they are forced to marvel where the people has been in former times that are in it now, so that they cannot get kirks to contain them. And they think, if the gospel continue in the purity thereof, all the kirks that they are building, with the rest, sall have enough ado to contain them.¹⁹ And it is a marvel to consider how the Lord has multiplied his people, at this time. This is not that we are to glory in multitudes, but to let you see the great work of God, who has multiplied his people thus. And as it was at the beginning of the plantation of the Christian religion, there was three thousand converted at one preaching of the apostle, I will not say that there has been three thousand converted at a preaching here, but I may say this, that at one preaching there has been some thousands wakened up, who had not been so for a long time before. And will it not be a hard matter, seeing that it is so, that Saint Andrews sall be as Gideon’s fleece; that all the kingdom about it sall be wet with the dew of heaven, and it sall only be dry? Even so, will it not be a shame, that all others sall be stirred up, and ye not a whit stirred up in this day more than if there were not such a thing. And therefore, beloved, I would have you to join yourselves with the rest of the people of God in this cause.

“Thy youth.” That is, thy young men. Those that are renewed by grace they are called young, albeit they were never so old, because their age is not reckoned by their first, but by their second birth. Ay, moreover, still the older that the children of God grow in years, and the weaker in the world, they grow younger and stronger in grace. Secondly, they are called young, because of the strength that they have to resist temptations. Before they be renewed by grace and born again that way, they are like bairns, that every temptation prevails with them; but then they are as young men, who are able to resist temptations to sin, so that sin gets not liberty to exercise dominion over them. Thirdly, they are called young, because they will contend with all their power and might for the faith. I would have all of you to be young in these respects, and labour to get ane evidence of your new birth by these, that ye are growing in grace, [gaining?] still more strength to resist temptations, and by contending earnestly for the faith; even be bold in this, especially in contending for the truth. Strive for the truth, for if ye anes lose it, ye will not get it so easily again. And this same is the covenant of truth whilk ye are to swear to; for as our Covenant is renewed, so also it is exponed (explained) according as the exigencies of the time requires, and it is applied to the present purpose.

Beloved, I told you already that ye have no cause of fear, for I avow and attest here before God, that what ye do is not against authority, but for authority, let some men who are wickedly disposed say what they will; but what ye do is for authority. And I told you of the obligations whereby authority are bound to this. And for the words of it, because they are conceived in a terrible manner, ye need not to stand [in] awe for this; and it were good that ye should read them over again, and think upon this wrath of God whilk we pray for to come upon us, if we do intend anything against authority.

Objection. We have oblished ourselves, by our subscription already; what then needs us to obleish ourselves over again by our oath? Ans. It’s true, I grant, many of you has subscribed it already, and so ye are bound; but now ye are to swear also, that so through abundance of bands to God ye may know yourselves to be the more bound to him. David says, I have purposed, I have promised, I have sworn, and I sall perform thy righteous statutes.²⁰ There be also here sundry Acts of Parliament, that are all of them made within this same kingdom for the maintenance of the true religion; and for thir, they speak for themselves. And I would have these who say we do anything against law and against our superiours, to see and try if there be anything against them, but [and not] all directly for them.

Beloved, I hope that it will not be necessar for us to spend mickle time with you in removing of scruples. Good things I know has over many objections against them from the devil, the world, and our own ill hearts. And I know some of them who are accounted the learnedest in the land, have assayed their wits and used their pens to object against this.²¹ But truly these who are judicious, they have confessed that they have been greatly confirmed by that whilk they have objected; and the reason of it was, because they who were the most learned assayed themselves to see what they could say, and yet when all was done, they had nothing to say that was worth the hearing.

For the first part of this Confession of faith, there is not a word changed in it; and if so be that men had keeped that part of it free of sinistrous glosses, and had applied it according to the meaning of those who were the penners thereof, there needed not to have such a thing ado as there is now; but because they have put sinistrous glosses upon it now and misapplied it, therefore it behoved to be explained and applied to the present time.

The first thing that ye swear to is, That with your whole hearts ye agree and resolve, all the days of your life, constantly to adhere unto and defend the true religion. There is no scruple here. 2. That ye suspend and forbear the practice of all novations already introduced in the matters of the worship of God, or approbation of the corruptions of the public government of the kirk, or civil places and power of kirkmen, till they be tried and allowed in free assemblies and in parliaments. Now, I know there be some who make scruples here. How can we, say they, bind ourselves to forbear the practice of that whilk Acts of Assembly allows, and Acts of Parliament commands? Ans. We do not herein condemn the Act as altogether unlawful, whatever our judgment be of it, but this is all that we do.²² Because such ills has followed upon these novations, therefore we think it meet now to forbear the practice of them till they be tried by Assembly and Parliament.

And this is not a breach of the Act, when all is done. Because the Act is not set down in the manner of a command, but only as a counsel; for so the Act of the pretended Assembly bears. The words is, “The Assemblie thinks good,” etc., “because all memory of superstition is now past, therefore we may kneel at the communion.” Then, if there be any danger of superstition, by the very words of the Act we may gather this, that we should not kneel: and so they who practise²³ now keep the letter of the Act, but they who forbear keep the meaning thereof more nearly than the practisers. 3. We promise and swear against the Service-book, Book of Canons, and High Commission, with all other innovations and ills contained in our Supplications, Complaints, and Protestations. Now for the Service-book, I find every one almost to be so inclined willingly to quite (be done with) it. But let me attest your own consciences, if it had gone on for a while, and been read among you, as it was begun to be, if it had not been als hard for you to have quat it as to quite the Articles of Perth; and therefore, do not deceive yourselves, to let such things be practised any more. It is a pitiful thing, that those who are wise otherways should deceive themselves in the matters of God’s service and worship, and suffer others to deceive them also. 4. Ye promise and swear, to the uttermost of your power to stand to the defence of the king’s majesty, in the defence and preservation of true religion: as also, every one of you to the mutual defence of another in the same cause. Now there be a number who says, that in this we come under rebellion against the king, and we join in a combination against him, when we join ourselves thus, every one for the defence of another. I say nomore of it but this. It is not disputed here, ye see, whether it be lawful for subjects to take up arms against their prince or not, whether in offence or defence; but that we will maintain the true religion, and resist all contrary corruptions, according to our vocation. And every one of us oblishes ourselves for the defence of another, only in maintaining the cause of true religion, according to the laws and liberties of this kingdom. And indeed, this is very reasonable to be done, albeit not asked of; for when your neighbour’s house is burning, ye will not run to the king to speir (ask) if ye should help him or not, before it come to your own; but ye will incontinent put to your hand, both to help him, and to save your own house. Ye may not say, neither, that because we may not oppose against authority, that we may not oppose against Papists or against Prelates; for that were to make ourselves slaves to men. And the very law of nature binds every one of us to help another, in a lawful manner, for a good cause. 5. Ye swear, because ye cannot look for a blessing from God upon your proceedings, except that with your confession and subscription ye join such a life as becomes Christians who has renewed their covenant with God,—herefore ye promise to endeavour at least, for yourselves and all that are under you, to keep yourselves within the bounds of your Christian liberty, and to be good ensamples to others in all godliness, soberness, and righteousness, and of every duty ye owe both to God and man. And there is none who needs to skarre (be frightened) at this; for we are not hereby to tie any to the obedience of the law, but to the obedience of the gospel: and I am sure all are bound at least to prease to (strive after) this. And therefore I would have you to labour to it; and when ye find that ye cannot get it done, then run to Christ, and beseech him to teach you to do it, and to give you strength, according to his promise made in his new covenant; and so ye sall give glory to God and get good to your own souls. And, indeed, all of you are obleist to amend your lives, and to live otherwise than ye have done. And last of all, there is the Attestation.

Now, I hope all these things be so clear to you, that there is not any scruple in any of your minds. And therefore, that this work may be done aright, and may be accompanied by the power of God, I would have all of you to bow your knees before that great and dreadful Lord, and beseech him that he would send down the Holy Ghost, and the power of his Spirit, to accompany the work, that so ye may do it with all your hearts, to his glory and honour, and to your comfort in Jesus Christ.

The preacher alludes here, of course, to the remarkable unanimity with which the people of Scotland gave themselves to the covenanted cause.

The preacher has in his eye here the claim to lordship over the Church put forth by the bishops, and of supremacy over the Church put forth by the king, at this time.

The clear and unembarrassed expression of such rational opinions on the subject of civil rule, considering the time and place in which they were uttered, would appear more extraordinary to us, if we did not recollect from whose teaching they were derived. “The ministers of Scotland,” says Dr M’Crie in his Life of Melville, “were the first to avow them, at the expense of being denounced and punished as traitors; and in this respect complete justice has not been done to their memory.” The first principle of government, here stated in such unqualified terms, is more fully expounded in the author’s “Instructions for Defensive Arms”, and is there used as the main ground of his argument.

i.e., Prelates and other dignitaries.

From 1596 to the present year 1638, there had been a sad falling away from the attainments of the First Reformation. Popery was in the fair way to be re-established in the land.

“Nevertheless, before the end of April, every parish throughout Scotland, where the minister was friendly to the reformation then sought, (and the number was inconsiderable who at that time durst profess otherwise,) having observed a fast to humble themselves for the former defection and breach of the covenant, did renew the same with great solemnity, scarce a person opposing themselves, but every one, women as well as men, concurring, and publicly avouching the Lord to be their God, with their right hand lifted up,” etc.—Stevenson’s History of the Church of Scotland, p 209. Ed. 1844.

In an important paper of Baillie of date 1640, entitled “Grounds of God’s aim and call to this voyage, etc.,” an abstract of which has been given by Stevenson, the author makes use of these same words, and in a succinct and lucid manner, shows at length how the various measures adopted by the government, at the suggestion of the prelates, had all led directly to the advancement and confirmation of the reforming cause.—“Our prelates have thus become our reformers, and their own overthrowers.”

The Covenant was first subscribed by the King and his household on the 28th of January 1580-81.

So far as the Editor has yet ascertained, this is the only record of the notable fact here stated.

Henderson himself was the author of the concluding part of the Covenant as renewed in 1638, beginning with the words,—“In obedience to the Commandment of God.”

Both King James and his son Charles had busied themselves in a most absurd and preposterous manner about the ordinary dress of the clergy in Scotland. Charles was the first who enjoined the use of the surplice and other priestly vestments in the performance of divine worship. The surplice, or whites, was used at his coronation in Edinburgh for the first time since the Reformation.

Colossians 3:12

This determines the fact that this sermon was preached on the occasion of the Swearing of the Covenant at St Andrews.

The words in parenthesis, and similar self-corrections preserved in this volume, show very strikingly the sensitive modesty of the speaker. This was a distinguishing feature of his character, well known to his contemporaries.

Isaiah 6:3

This beautiful illustration was once and again employed by Henderson in the course of this memorable year. See particularly, his Replies to the Aberdeen Doctors, where it occurs.

A marked allusion to their professors and clergy, who, with the single exception of Principal Howie, had actively countenanced the recent defections both in doctrine and practice.

2 Samuel 17:12

The Tron Church in Edinburgh, which is the city spoken of, was then a-building. The loose stones and rubbish about the new building were used by the rabble in the riots of 1637. And the erection of the Parliament House had left space for another place of worship under the roof of St. Giles’.

Psalm 119:100

“Dr John Forbes, Laird of Corse, professor of divinitie in the Old Toune Colledge, wrot a pamphlet, wherein he accused all the supplicants and subscryvers of ye covenant as blinde guides, of heresie, schism, sedition, temertie, refractoriness, perjury, and rebellion.“— Supplement to Row.

“The opinion of Henderson and Dickson was clear and decided that the Articles of Perth were unconstitutional and abjured; but they deferred their own convictions to those of others, such as Baillie, and consented to leave the matter, for the present, an open question in the Covenant. Their view was afterwards confirmed by the Assembly.”

i.e. kneeling

At the weekly exercise, probably toward the end of summer

CHAPTER 4

Exercise, Galatians 5:7-9

The Exercise was a kind of critical discourse, on a passage of Scripture, generally delivered before the Presbytery, on a week-day.

This discourse has no date prefixed to it, neither is there anything in the discourse itself, from which the exact or even the proximate date of its delivery can be discovered. The probability is that it was delivered during the summer of 1638; at any rate, it was between the date of the last discourse, end of March or beginning of April,—and that of the next, 21st October. One sentence in the next discourse may be taken to refer to the time when this was preached:—“And then, does not this day, and the last day that I was in this place, and many days since, testify that ye are returning to walk after the Lord?” If so, then a good while—“many days,” intervened between this discourse and the next, which, as has just been said, bears date 21st Oct.; so that we are safe in saying it was probably during the summer it was delivered. Like the last, it was preached at St Andrews. At that time, according to Baillie, that city was abandoned by its ordinary ministers, who were violent supporters of Prelacy, and who, since the swearing of the covenant, had entirely deserted their charges. Baillie’s words are—“That towne hes now no ordinare ministers, but are supplied by the Presbytery.”¹ This explains why Henderson should have been there so frequently about this time.

This apostle, beloved, in the former cap., was shewin the grounds of Christian liberty, whereby the children of God are free from the yoke of sin, and also from the yoke of the law. And, then, in the beginning of this cap., he was earnest with thir people that they would stand to that liberty whereunto they were called, and wherewith Christ had made them free, and exhorted them that they would not be entangled in the yoke of bondage again. And then, ye know, after that, he sets down that this exhortation of his, it is both necessar for them, and it is also pertinent. First, it was a necessar exhortation, because the danger was great, if so be that they should rander themselves slaves again to the law, and to be circumcised; for then Christ should profit them nothing, but by so doing they made themselves debtors to the whole law. Secondly, he shews them also that this was a pertinent exhortation for them, because thir people was near the danger. 1. The danger was great, and so the exhortation was necessar. Therefore, they should stand to their liberty, and not be entangled in the yoke of bondage again; because if they were entangled in it again, Christ should profit them nothing; they should be in danger of the curse of the law, and also be in danger of the loss of the favour of God; and then they were fallen from grace. And, therefore, the apostle himself, he resolves not to wait for the righteousness whilk is by circumcision, but for the righteousness whilk is by faith, providing that it be a true and lively faith, not wrought by fantasy but by the Spirit of God. “Because,” says he, “in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision profiteth anything, butfaith whilk worketh by love.” 2. Now, having shewn how necessar this doctrine is, next he shews how pertinent it is also, and so how necessar it is for them. For this people they were in this case; they had anes begun well in the way of Christianity; they had continued for a long time in it; but false teachers had come in among them, and stopped them from running into that course. And not only had they stopped them, but they had also driven them back. So that if they will consider what they are doing now, they will find that they are not obeying the truth whilk they had received of the apostle, nor believing it as they once did.

Now, whereas they might object, and say, we did nothing but what we were persuaded to do, he tells them, “This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you;” that is, it came not of God, for he gave them another persuasion than this. And if they say, What? this is but in a point of cere~mony, and so this is but a needless noise to make so mickle din for nothing; he tells them that although the thing itself seem to be but little to them, yet the danger thereof may be a very great danger. For it may be the ruin of their whole religion, and the ruin of themselves also. “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.”

For the more clear taking up of the words, ye sall mark thir things in them. 1. There is a representation of their present and of their preceding estate, “ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?” 2. There is ane answer to two exceptions whilk they might have made. First Obj—We did nothing but what we were persuaded to do. A.—“This persuasion is not of him that calleth you.” Second Obj.—What, it is but a small matter; and so what needs there to be such din about it? A.—Take heed to yourselves in this also. “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”

Or, if ye will mark the words more nearly, ye will find that when he has by a comparison set before them their former and their present estate, he uses three reasons or arguments to bring them back to that estate again whence they were fallen. The first is from the present course of their defection, wherein they were going, “Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?” The second is from the author of this defection, wherein they were going, “This persuasion is not of him that calleth you.” That is, it is not from God; and if it be not from God, then consider from whom it is. The third reason is from the danger wherein it brought them, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”

And so he would reduce them to a better estate by bringing them to consider what they were anes; what they are presently; what they were who persuaded them to it; and what are the dangerous consequences of the estate they are in.

Let us observe here, that it is commendable in the apostle Paul that their estate goes so near his heart as ye see it does. He observes well and narrowly how they profit in grace by the preaching of the gospel, what errors enters in among them, and how great beginnings of ill is begun among them. For there was a necessity laid upon him that he who had the charge of souls, he behoved to do this. He says, “Woe is me if I preach not the gospel.” He was separated by Christ for this end, and he separates himself also for it; and thought it enough for him to be about it, and troubled not himself with any civil or worldly business. And, deed, this is the duty of those who are ministers and are ordained to preach the gospel, not to attend any civil charge in the world, although they might have never so great gain or never so great glory thereby; because they are separated for another charge than anything of the civil estate.² And, indeed, beside their calling of God to this estate, and beside the commandment of Jesus Christ, and the practice of the apostles, very sense and reason might teach us this mickle, that no man should trouble himself both with civil and spiritual affairs; for I am sure there is no back so strong but the charge of souls may stake (suffice) him very well to put upon it. And I am sure that the spiritual charge is so large, that even without the civil charge also no arm is able to fathom it; so that we may say of it with the apostle, Who is sufficient for these-things?

The apostle, in describing the estate of thir people, he might have expressed it in other terms than are here, but he uses the comparison from a race: and it appears that he has taken the comparison from the games of Olympus, whilk were mickle talked of in those times, and from whilk both divine and human writers used to borrow similitudes and comparisons, to express both the laborious and the renowned way of virtue. And ye will find that the apostle, in all his Epistles, he delights mickle in this same allegory or borrowed form of speech, of running a race; to make all Christians who had anes begun in the way of religion run still on in this race.

Now, for this Christian race of ours, the breaking aff of the race is at the beginning of our calling; the feet whereupon we are to run is faith, working by love; the course whereinto we must run is, forgetting those things that are behind, and bending fast towards the mark of the high prize of our calling in God—so we must not look what we have done, but look what we have to do; the mark or score we are to run to, is the end of our life—so we must never cease in running of this race, so long as we are here; and the prize wherefor we run in this race, it is said to be above with Christ, at the right hand of the Father. And that is a greater prize than we can comprehend, even a great and exceeding great weight of glory for the souls of them who runs well. And when Christ sall come and descend into the clouds, and the voice of the archangel sall be heard, then they who runs well sall be called to come to the heavenly Jerusalem whilk is above, there to reign with Christ. Yea, Christ he is with them at the very beginning of the race, for he is the author of their faith; and he is with them all the way when they are running; and he is with them at the end of the way, to possess them in the inheritance. And, whilk should not be omitted here, there are many adversaries in the way, to hinder us from running out that course, that we go not forward in it; some with their horrors and terrors threatening us, and casting in stumbling-blocks in our way, whereupon we may fall; and some again casting in their golden apples, to entangle us, and to make us forget what we are doing. And there is none of them all that the apostle takes more notice of than of these, Colossians 2:18, “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, mtruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puft up in a fleshly manner.” That is, when men take upon them to be Lord and Jesus, in bringing things into the kirk whilk he hath not allowed, as thir sort of false teachers did. They said, no doubt, they could not be saved except they embraced such ceremonies as these. But cap. 3, he says, “Let the peace of God rule into your hearts;” that is, anes strive to get ane assurance of the thing ye do, that it ss right, and then go forward in the way, having this peace in your hearts.

And when the apostle says this to them, “Ye did run well,” indeed he gives them a very great commendation, for in running well there are these things required. First, if we run well, we must still set our eye on the right mark or prize, even that whilk the Lord has promised to us; for in hope of that happiness whilk is to be gotten at the end of the course we must go en. For if so be that we be still seeking the world, profess what we will, we run not well. And therefore in running this race we must not set our hearts on the world, nor must we let the dust of it dim our sights, that we see not what is before us; but let us strive every day while we are running to get a new sight of the prize; and if we can get no more, yet to seek that whilk Moses gat, even to ascend to the top of a mountain, that we may see the promised land afar aff. The Papists, they calumniate us very far when they say we have no respect to the recompense of reward, nor looks not to that; for indeed we look unto it, and have a respect unto it: and it were a very great fault in us if we did it not. Only there be two things we deny, whilk they would be at. 1. That it is not the principal and chief thing that we should look unto, to make us run well in this way: but the chief thing that we should look unto is the glory and honour of God, and the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. A loyal servant, when he is running a match, looks most to his master’s honour and credit; and then he is sure of the reward and prize, if he win it, because he has a good master. 2. We look on the reward not as merited by our deservings, or that it can be merited, but only as freely promised of free grace. We know, if we run well, there is a reward promised to us, but not merited by us.

Secondly, for running well we must run in the right way. The way wherein we should run is plainly set down in the word of God; Christ he is called the way, the truth, and the life. There is a way whilk leads to the kingdom of God; Christ is that way; and he is the truth that teaches us truly how we should walk into that way. And beside that, if we be dead of ourselves, that we cannot walk into that way, then Christ is life, and there is a life-giving power in him to communicate life to us, whereby to walk into it: and if we be weak, he furnishes us with strength. Our use of this is, whoever they be who draws us anyways from Christ, they draw us out of the right way, and lead us so much wrong.

Thirdly, for our running well: when we have set our eye upon the mark, and are running in the right way, then there are helps requisite for us in this way. It is a rough, troublesome, longsome, wearisome way; wherefore we must be provided for it before we enter in the way. And there is one help that is very necessar for to help us in this way, set down among those pieces of the spiritual armour. Ephesians 6.—to have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace: therefore we must not go barefooted to this race, because it is a rough and thorny way wherein we are to run. And that we may get shoes on our feet, we must have the knowledge of the gospel; and we must labour also to find this peace of God in the gospel; that so all those stumbling-blocks whilk can be cast into our way may not move us to go back, but all of them may work for our best. Song of Solomon 7:1, Christ says of the kirk, “How beautiful are thy feet with shoes!” and Ezekiel 16:10 the kirk when she is in exile is said to be barefooted, but being set at liberty, she gets shoes on her feet; and being shod with thir shoes, they are like Israelites’ apparel in the wilderness, they wax not old.

Fourthly, if we will run well into this way, we must lay aside every weight that presses down; every profit and pleasure that may hinder us from running fast must be laid aside. Even that natural and sinning sin of original corruption whilk is in us, als far as may be, it must be laid aside, because it is a weight that presses down; and we must gird up the loins of our minds from all such things as may hinder us: otherwise we cannot run well.

Fifthly, when we have anes begun in this way we must not go back, nor may we remember what is behind, nor what we have done, but always remember what is before us, and so what we have to do; have our eye ay toward the mark. And if we will run so, we sall not be disappointed.

And lastly, there is another thing required of them who run in this race. Hebrews 12:1, “We must run with patience the race that is set before us.”

And indeed, all these things are necessary for them who will run this race aright. And so in saying, “Ye did run well,” he says this far to them in effect, they did set their eye upon the right mark; that they did run in the right way to that mark, and so had a great mind to come to it; that they had used helps to help them forward into the way; that they had laid aside every weight that might hinder them to run; that they had resolved not to go back; and that they did run with patience. And so in saying, “Ye did run well,” he gives them a very large commendation; and certainly they are worth it all who runs well, and runs to the end of this race, and then gets the prize that is promised; as the apostle says, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course with joy: henceforth is laid up for me a crown of glory.”

But he adds to this, “Who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?” He had anes planted and confirmed the gospel among them, but there were others who had come in and hindered it. By saying who did hinder you, he brings them to consider two things—1. That they were hindered from going on into that way wherein he had taught them to walk. 2. That there were some who hindered them.

First. They were hindered from going on into the way. Ay indeed, they were more than hindered; for not only were there some who did stop the way, that they should not go on into it, but did also drive them back again. So that not only are they not running well, but they are driven back again by many steps and degrees: so that here is a great change. Anes they did run well, and so they were m a good course, and going forward into it; but now they are driven back, and so they are in a course of defection. Beloved, there are two changes befals people when they are running fast. 1. When some are running on to all excess of riot and headlongs to their own destruction, then God comes and stops them in that way, and brings them back; yea, he drives them out of that way, whilk was the broad way leading them to destruction, and enters them into the strait and narrow way that leads to life everlasting. This indeed is a happy change, and it is the beginning of a glorious change from misery to everlasting happiness. 2. Again, there is another change, whilk is both a shameful, a sinful, and a miserable change; and that is, when a person or a people are running on well-faurdly (becomingly) in the way to heaven, and then there are some who rises up and hinders them from running on into that way, yea forces them to come back from that degree whereto they have been advanced. And wherever [this change is], it is joined also with many other great ills. 1. It is joined with scandal. Ye did anes run well, and when ye turn back again, ye meet with others who were following you in the way, and readily (naturally) when they see you coming back they are driven back with you. 2. It is joined also with shame. If this be a great infamy for a man to begin to build a tower, and not to build it out, and to intend a war and go on a piece, and then turn back without doing anything, this must be a greater, to be like a reed shaken with every wind; to be like Demas, anes to profess Christ, and then to fall from him again and to follow this present world; or to be like Isidorus,³ to have one religion in one king’s time, and another in another king’s time. 3. It is joined with difficuity of reclaiming. For when the evil spirit has been anes putten out, and gets leave to re-enter, he comes with seven spirits worse than himself; so that the last estate of that man is worse than the first; and so he runs seven times . faster back than ever he did. 4. Not only had it been better for him never to have known the way of life, than to have returned with the sow to the puddle, and the dog to the vomit, but there is also a certain ruin appointed for such a man, whilk he cannot escape.

This indeed is a very ill change, and there are many ills joined with it; and yet those who were called God’s people were very subject to this. It is not thought so great a matter albeit the things of the world should slip from men, or that their bodily health should be impaired; but this is a greater wonder, when people are anes entered into a good way, that they should desire to go back. It is strange what the martyr Stephen says of the people of Israel, when they were now come out of Egypt, even while they were in the wilderness, “In their hearts they returned to Egypt again.”⁴ This is not that their bodies desired to go to it, for they thought themselves well freed of that slavery; and that day that they keeped the feast of the golden calf, they rejoiced that they were come out of Egypt, but in their hearts they returned to Egypt. That is, they were acquainted with the idolatry that was there, and when Moses was absent from them, in their hearts thought upon it and loved it, and finding occasion then, they practised that idolatry. And then (Numb. 14:4) they come to that, they would have been at the choosing of a captain to go before them to Egypt: and indeed this was very great ingratitude for them to return in their hearts so soon to Egypt. And the Lord he had spied out a land for them, as it is, Ezek. 20:6., even the glory of all the lands in the earth a land that flowed with milk and honey; and yet, Numb. 16:13, they put that commendation upon Egypt, that it flowed with milk and honey. And, Joshua 24:16, the people at that time promised readily to serve the Lord aud to serve him only; but albeit they did run well then, yet afterwards they were stopped into the way and fordriven (driven aside); for Elias says to them, 1 Kings 18:21, “Why halt ye thus between two? If the Lord be God, then serve him, and if Baal be God, then serve him.” It is strange they answered readily, when Joshua asked at them to serve God, and to serve him only; but now they are in a doubt who is the Lord, and so answers him not a word. And this was not only to be seen of old among the people of Israel, under the law, but even also among us, in the days of the gospel: for there are evermore some whose hearts are going back to Egypt, and when their hearts have been there a while, then by their mouths and their pens they testify to the world thebad inclination they have to Egypt and to idolatry.⁵

Secondly, he would have them to observe here, who were those who hindered them. Satan, no doubt, he had a hand into this hinderance, and I think the apostle will not altogether excuse themselves to be clean of it; but he lays the wyte (blame) principally upon false teachers, who did hinder them into their way, when they were begun to run well. Certainly there is no work so dones (exceeding) wicked, that has never so sore and so peremptory a curse pronounced by God against it, but there will evermore some wicked spirit be found to attempt and to assay it. It is strange Joshua pronounced a curse against him who should rise up to build Jericho, Joshua 6:26, very peremptorily, “Cursed be he that riseth up to build this city Jericho; he sall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born, and in his youngest son sall he set up the gates of it.” And yet, for all that, in the days of Ahab there was found a son of Belial, ane Hiel, who attempted to build it: and als particularly as the threatening was pronounced, als particularly was it performed; for he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub.⁶

Next, he would have them to consider that there was a great odds betwixt him and others who had entered them in the right way, and these who had drawn them aff that way again; betwixt them who had brought them to a right course and these who hindered them, when they were right. And so, indeed, there is a great difference between them; and if ye will compare them together in this same epistle, ye will find a threefold difference. 1. The apostle he had his calling of God to this office; but for thir false teachers, it is said of them that they came in privately unto it, and thrust themselves into the ministry; and so had not their calling of God. 2. The apostle, being called of God, used no unlawful means to persuade people to obey the truth, but only the preaching of the gospel and the demonstration of the Spirit of God.⁷ But for those who were false teachers, they bewitched the people to believe lies, and as people use to say, they did cast glaumerie upon their eyes,⁸ and so beguiled them thus under a fair colour, to make them believe their lies. And when this could not do their turn, to make people follow them, they compelled them, as it is chapter 5, so that they used both craft and cruelty to garre people follow their ill ways. 3. The apostle he was ready to suffer for the truth whilk he taught; but thir false teachers, they would not suffer, they were not for suffering; and therefore they compelled all they could to follow them. And so, if we will look to their entry to their office, to their discharging thereof when they are entered, and to their sealing of that whilk they preach, we will see the diflerence to be clear.

Now, for their running well, whilk they were wont to do, but now they do it not, the apostle, to bring them to repentance for this, he uses three arguments here. The first is tane from the nature of their present course, compared with their obedience of the truth. Now, obedience to the truth is to run well; and here he says not only they did not run well, but they did not obey the truth. There are human and also divine truths. The gospel it is called the word of truth, as the apostle, writing to the Colossians,⁹ very deservedly calls it. 1. Because it is the best, the most eminent, and the most excellent of all truths; for albeit we have the knowledge of all other truths, if we have not the knowledge of this truth, we may live in sin all our days and perish in the end: and albeit we have not great and accurate ingynes (understandings) for taking up of other truths, yet if we have the knowledge of this truth alone, it is able to bring us to salvation. 2. It is called the word of truth, because Jesus Christ is the special subject that is contained in it, who is called the truth; and therefore if we learn not to know Christ in the gospel, we learn not the gospel. 3. It is called the word of truth, because there are so many means used to persuade us that it is true; and it has also the testimony of the great Ambassador of the ‘covenant to seal it, the testimony of the apostles, and of many faithful martyrs who has suffered for it. And indeed, we have need of all these to assure us of this truth, because there is a sibness (blood relation) in us to all other truths, but we are framet¹⁰ to believe this truth: and so, many times we make God a liar. It’s true we give him not a lie directly, but in this we give him a lie, when we consider not what he speaks to us out of his word of truth, and obeys it not. More particularly, the apostle aims at one truth here, whilk is Justification by faith, and not by the works of the law; for this is the law of the gospel.¹¹ And therefore, of necessity, these who maintains justification by works, and that there is inherent righteousness in man, that must be a lie: and the apostle, in all his epistles, he proves this, that we are justified by faith only, and not by the works of the law: but thir false teachers made them to believe, that they could not be justified without the works of the law. But this will never make us to run well, albeit we have the gospel, if we be not surely grounded in this principal point thereof. The philosopher speaks of this, and he takes his ground only from natural reason; but the Scripture says, Obedience is better than sacrifice; for when a man offers sacrifice, he only gives the thing whilk he has, but when a man gives obedience to any point of God’s truth, he offers himself for the truth, and gives that whilk he has not of himself. And so it is more sure to be justified by faith, than by the works of the law.

This obedience to the truth, it leads us to three necessar duties. 1. To hear the truth, and so to get the knowledge of it. 2. We must have a persuasion thereof, that it is true, and so faith to believe it. 3. When we know it and believe it, then we must go on in the practice of it. Thir three cannot be well separated; for any to know and to practise a thing, and not to be persuaded of it by faith, that is a sin: to believe a thing that we know not, nor practises not, that is a brutish thing. And, therefore, this is a sure way for every Christian, first, to know a thing; secondly, to be persuaded of the truth of it; thirdly, topractise it. It’s true, indeed, the judgment of weighty matters belongs chiefly to these who are most inspired by the Spirit of God; but the judgment of discerning things belongs to every particular Christian. This is not, neither, to make every man a judge of weighty and public matters; but every man ought to be judge of things for himself, and ought to be persuaded of them before he practise them.¹²

We see here that we should obey this truth: there is ane absolute obedience required to this truth. There is no absolute obedience required to no other truth, but only to this. All other truths are inferiour to this, and they are limited to the truth of God’s word. And, therefore, whenever the truth of God, to whom all sovereignty, majesty, and power belongs, and the commandment of men comes in competition together, we must then say, as the apostle said, we ought rather to obey God than man. And when this is done, it must not be called disobedience to superiours; but it is obedience to them, because it is obedience to God, who is above them.¹³ And, if we be put to suffering for this, then we suffer for Christ and his truth: and, therefore, the apostle says to servants, if they suffer anything of their masters innocently and patiently, they suffer it for Christ. So that, if men’s commandments be contrair to God, we must in that case submit ourselves patiently to God, and suffer or (ere) we obey them.

II. The second argument the apostle uses is from ane objection they might allege. ~The objection is this. We do nothing but what we are persuaded to do. But he answers—That persuasion is not a true persuasion. It seems, indeed, that they had a persuasion for that whilk they did; but it was not well grounded, it was not from God. There is a threefold persuasion spoken of in Scripture. 1. There is a infallible and certain persuasion, and that is called a persuasion of faith, whereof the apostle speaks, Romans 8:38, “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor powers, sall be able to separate me from the love of God, whilk is in Christ Jesus.” And this persuasion has with it a full assurance of understanding, whereby we know things to be; a full assurance of faith, to believe them; and a full assurance, to wait for the things promised; and a full assurance of certainty to get them. And the more that a man have of this persuasion, he is the more holy and the more humble in himself. 2. There is a persuasion of charity, as the apostle says, " We are persuaded better things of you.”¹⁴ Here there is no infallible persuasion, but only according to the Word of God, and a charitable construction of men’s outward actions. 3. There is a persuasion of fantasy, whilk is the persuasion spoken of here. And therefore, the apostle he expresses it not by such a word in the first language as he does the other two, but by a baser word: by a word that signifies, men who are led by their own wilfulness, and with a fantasy of things; men who lives only upon opinions, and not upon solid truths. This, beloved, has been a common thing ever from the beginning; men presuming that they have been persuaded of a thing, when their persuasion has not been from God: and the apostle, in this epistle, tells us that it is so with many. And the Papists they have this persuasion; they say they are persuaded they do right, and yet their persuasion is not of God but a fantasy, because it is not from the truth of God. And the people of Israel, when they worshipped the golden calfin the wilderness, they thought they worshipped Jehovah, and Aaron proclaimed it a day for Jehovah; and yet the martyr Stephen he calls it idolatry. And Micah, when he made his gods, and gat a Levite in his house to be his priest, he thought he could not go wrong then; and yet he was far wrong. And our Saviour says to his apostles, “The time sall come, when they who kill you sall think that they do God good service;” and yet, judge ye if the killing of the apostles was either good service or could be acceptable to God. And think ye not, but these who did burn the martyrs thought that they were persuaded that they did right? And yet it was but a fantasy, it was not from God. Certainly this is a thing that should be taken heed unto, that we believe not false persuasions; especially when they would persuade us to error and to idolatry.

“Is not of him that calleth you.” Before, he said to them, “Who did hinder you?” and now he says, “This persuasion is not of him that calleth you.”

We may see here that where any gives obedience to the truth, that obedience it is only from God; but where obedience is not given to the truth, that comes not of God, who calleth them to obey the truth. And he uses this as a sufficient for all the rest of their defections. They obeyed not the truth; and this was because that whilk they did was not of God’s direction. For, if it can be said that there is no warrant from the truth of God for that whilk we do, it is enough to convict us that it is wrong. If any errour were never so gross, and had never so many arguments against it, yet this is sufficient to confute the errour thereof, that it is not commanded in the Word of God. As it is said to Nadab and Abihu, they offered up strange fire to the Lord whilk he commanded them not; and to the children of Israel the Lord says—“Ye caused your children to pass through the fire to Moloch,” and joins not, “Whilk I forbad you to do,” but “whilk I commanded you not.” So that whatever we do in God’s worship, it 1s either written in God’s word, or else we have no persuasion for it: or if we think we have a persuasion, yet it is nothing else but a presumption, if it be not written in God’s Word.¹⁵

He uses a word here of the present time, “Is not of him that calleth you.” But it may include both the bygane and also the present time: and so, for them to look to their first calling, and he who then called them and is also yet calling them; and if they will look to those who are now persuading them, they will find the difference to be great between them. As if he said, he that anes called you, in his great patience and mercy, and spared you then, he is renewing his call toward you again (as, indeed, he was at this same time calling them by this letter); and, therefore, it were best for you to return from your backsliding, and come home again to him, albeit ye have slidden back. Beloved, the Lord’s calling of us, and continuing the means of our salvation with us, is not a good ground to say that there is no backsliding in such a part; but that is only a ground of the Lord’s patience, who continues these with us when we are sliding back from him. And, indeed, it is very ill constructed by them who makes that a ground that he will not correct the people with whom he continues these tokens of his presence, whilk are only the tokens of his patience: and if that be continued, then he will strike in anger.

III. Now, only a word of the third branch of the text, whilk is taken from the danger that might ensue upon these things. “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” This is a proverbial speech of leaven. The nature of leaven is well enough known: Pliny has made a large description of this leaven, but we will not stay upon this now; for it is ane ordinar thing among all writers. Only this, ye will find it often mentioned in Scripture; and I would have you to take heed to this, how many sorts of evil leaven there are, and how far the world are given to be soured with them.

There is the leaven of errour and heresy; and our Saviour says to his disciples, Matthew 16:6, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” Luke 12:1, he says, “Beware of the leaven of hypocrisy.” There is also the leaven of the Sadducees;¹⁶ and the apostle, writing to the Corinthians,¹⁷ speaks of the leaven of malice and envy. And there is also a leaven of policy, and that is in holding out the true religion fra being embraced, for some politic ends: as the Jews, they would not receive Christ, nor believe in him, for fear that then the Romans should come upon them, and take their kingdom from them.¹⁸ And, certainly, there is no man who will consider rightly but he may see all thir leavens to be in the world even now; and so may wonder how the Lord should be so patient, and not bring sudden and sore destruction upon the world. And, indeed, it would not fail to come upon the world, were it not for the seasoning of God’s children that is among them; for als far as the world are soured by this ill leaven, als far are God’s children made savoury by the sweet leaven of Jesus Christ in the gospel.

Now he speaks here of a little leaven in matters of religion. This is our great fault, we evermore either excuse things that we do, and thinks them nothing; or otherwise we extenuate them and thinks them less than they are. They say in a manner, What needs all this din in so little a matter? this is not fundamental, and so what is the matter of the practice thereof? It’s true, indeed, there are some things in religion not fundamental, but ofttimes this is ill applied also; for at the first we will think that to be but a little matter, whilk in end will turn to a pest and great infection: even as the apostle says here, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” They thought that to be but a small matter, whilk the apostle calls a great matter.

We must not only take heed not to change anything that is fundamental, but we must also take heed that we obey nothing, whilk is not warranted by God himself in the matters of his worship: and so we should labour for knowledge in them. For ignorance in these things brings not only condemnation upon us, but it brings also obstinacy; for if we knew God’s will perfectly in these, we would not do the least jot by (besides) that. And indeed, if the servants of God who lived of old were living now, they would be thought very precise. When Moses was permitted by Pharaoh to take the whole people with him, and all that they had, and only to leave the cattle behind them, his answer was, That he would not leave one hoof behind him; he would leave nothing there that might make the people’s hearts turn back to Egypt again. And Mordecai, when the sentence of death was given out against himselt and all the Jews, he would not do so much as to bow his knee to Haman, albeit that might save all their lives: and yet that was not a fundamental thing. And Daniel, when the decree was given out that none should ask anything but only from Darius for so long, yet because he was used to pray with his windows open, he would not do so mickle as to close his windows, when he prayed to God, to save himself, And the apostle would not dispense with wicked men, no, not for ane hour; and he commands us not only to abstain from ill, but he commands us to abstain from all appearance of evil.

“A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” This comes to pass three ways.

1. Because of the connexion that is between errour; for anes receive and embrace that whilk is thought but a little errour, it will soon make way for moe. Even as the Articles of our Creeds, they are so linked together as if it were a chain, so that if ye break but one link of the chain, all the rest will soon fall sundry; or like pearls put upon a thread, louse but the knot of the thread and let the end go louse, and incontinent they will all fall aff. So, indeed, it is with errours. If we receive but one, and open the port to it, there is a multitude at the back thereof; so that if the first be not gainstood, it holds the way open for all the rest, and they come in. As is evident in the point of freewill; anes admit free-will in the kirk, and then follows, that there is no election of the free grace of God; that there is no certainty of our election; it admits universality of election, a resistance by us of the strongest working of the grace of God, no perseverance in whatever estate we be here. And sicklike (in like manner), in the point of justification by inherent righteousness; anes admit that, and it presupposes preparation to be in us for justification, a perfection of good works, meriting by good works, denying of the certainty of faith, and so denying the work of God. And this is evident to be true also in the matters of the government of the kirk.

2. “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” Because when errour is anes begun, it swells ay and grows greater. Whereas at the first it will be but like unto a pickle of seed, in a short time it will become like a tall cedar. For what were all this thick wood of errours at first, that are in the Romish Kirk now, but only like small seeds? but now they are grown to such a height that they cannot be gotten tane order with.

3. “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” This comes by the infection of errour. When errour anes begins, it eats up as a cancer; it is like Saint Anthone’s fire, it begins first in a little thing; but at last it overspreads all. A little spark of fire, if it be not quenched, is not only able to burn a whole lodging, but to burn a whole city. Even so is a little errour able to infect many; and so this is true whilk the apostle says, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” That is, if ye receive and keep this whilk now ye count but small, then your whole religion will be infected next, and all will be corrupt. And, indeed, this is a great mischief that a kirk whilk was anes glorious should become as Egypt; that the Israel of God should become like Sodom; that the people of God should become like no people; that thus they should procure his spiritual presence to depart from them, when they anes depart from him; that he should plague them thus, first with spiritual judgments, and then pour out temporal judgments upon them also. And, therefore, it is good for us to learn to discern between that whilk is sound indeed in the matters of religion, and that whilk is corrupt, that we may know what is leaven indeed, and eschew that. Now we will not know leaven by a look: but taste it, and then ye will know it: and for that end, we should labour to have our right taste. And when we have found out anything by our taste to be sour in the matters of God’s house, then keep out that, as we would keep out a botch, or as we would keep Saint Anthone’s fire aff us; and when any sour thing is entered, let us strive to cast it out, so soon as we perceive it to be sour. Even as the Israelites were commanded, before they did eat the passover, to purge all leaven out of their houses during these days they were eating, so should we labour all our days, so far as we can, to purge and to hold out this leaven. For at the beginning, if it could be kent then (as indeed sometimes the Lord will show it to his own at the very first), then it might be easily holden out; but when all are departed from God, and all are infected with it, it is harder to get it out: yet so soon as the Lord let us see it, let us delay no longer, but purge out what old leaven is in, and keep out what is not yet entered, and would be in.

This is for the interpretation of this text; I leave the application thereof to yourselves: for the text it is the tree, the interpretation is the fruit that grows upon the tree, the application thereof is the hand whereby the fruit is plucked aff the tree. And, therefore, I leave it to ilk ane of you, who has heard me, to put up your hand and pull down the branch, pluck off the fruit that is meetest for you, and eat of it. And especially remember of the text, “Ye did run well; who did hinder you, etc.” The Lord save us from a distraction of this sort, for Jesus Christ’s sake. To whom, etc.

Letter to Spang, 1st Nov. 1638.

This is directed evidently, for one thing, against what were called “the civil places and power of kirkmen,” which had been found a great source of mischief to the church.

The author in all likelihood refers to Isidorus of Russia, Archbishop of Kiow, who betrayed the cause of the Greek Church, soon after the Council of Florence in 1438, and having been created a cardinal, died at Rome in 1463. See Mosheim, Reid’s edition, p. 538, n.

Acts 7:39

In allusion, no doubt, to those who, having made defection from the Reformation cause, and gone back so far toward Popery, employed both their tongues and their pens in favour of error, and in opposition to the truth.

1 Kings 16:34. The reader will here be reminded of Henderson’s famous saying, with which he concluded the Glasgow Assembly of this same year—“We have now cast down the walls of Jericho: let him that rebuildeth them beware of the curse of Hiel the Bethelite.” Allusion to the same subject will occur again: indeed there is a whole sermon on the Fall of Jericho; all which goes to show how much the preacher’s mind was running on this subject during this year.

If Henderson and his brethren had used anything approaching to unlawful means “in pressing or threatening of the meanest,” when they offered the Covenant to the people of St Andrews in the beginning of this year, he would hardly have ventured on such a challenge now—still less to institute a comparison of his conduact in this respect with that of their false teachers.

Glaumerie. In MS. by mistake Grammarie. A charm cast on the eye altering the form and appearance of outward objects.

Colossians 1:5

Framet. i.e., There is no kinship between us and the truths of revelation; and therefore we are averse from them, while we take kindly to all others.

The author doubtless has his eye on the Arminian opinions then openly taught and defended by the Episcopalian doctors.

The question of private judgment in matters of faith and practice was then, as it is yet, a chief point in dispute between Presbyterians and Prelauists. It will be found entering materially into the debate of Henderson and the King, in 1646.

The Covenanters were charged with rebellion, and it was urged as an objection against their movements, that they were “against authority”. We have here Henderson’s answer to that charge, expressed, according to Henderson’s wont, in words few, simple, and weighty.

Hebrews 6:9

Similar to this is the language of the Shorter Catechism, in the compilation of which Henderson had a chief hand. “The second commandment forbiddeth the worshipping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in his word”. This was a main point of controversy between the Presbyterians and the Prelatic party, the latter of whom claimed a right to institute, in God’s worship, what pleased themselves, without regard to any positive authority from the Word of God.

Matthew 16:6

1 Corinthians 5:8

John 11:48

At St. Andrews, October 21, 1638, when the communion was given there by M. A. H.

CHAPTER 5

Preface

An explanation of the “M” in the initials will be found in a foot-note by the present Dr M’Crie to his Introduction to the Life of Alexander Henderson by his father, the late Dr M’Crie. “This mode of designating the hero of the covenant,” says the note in question, alluding to the designation in the text ‘Mr Alexander Henderson’, “which is kept up throughout the following memoir, now sounds as oddly as Mr John Milton, or Mr William Shakespeare. In Henderson’s time, however, it was considered no mean distinction for any one to be entitled to ‘write Master to his name’, and the practice of applying the academical title to great men continued till the commencement of the present century. Henderson spelt his own name differently at different times. I have in my possession,” adds Dr M’Crie, “an attestation sent by him to the Town Council of Edinburgh, ‘subscryved in name of our Session at Leuchars, August 20, 1626, M. Alexr. Henrysone.‘”

The following Sermon, which is preceded by a Preface, is the third and last that was preached at St Andrews. The place, date, occasion, and the initials of the preacher, are all given in the title prefixed. The Editor has in his possession an important extract from the Records of the Kirk Session of St Andrews, bearing the same date as the Sermon, and having reference to the same communion in connection with which the Sermon was preached. This extract was kindly furnished by the Registrar-General in Edinburgh, under whose care the Records are, and is as follows:—“Sonday, 21 Octob. 1638. Quhilk day the holie co’munion was celebrate wt great solemnitie in the old fashion sitting. My old lady Marquess of Hamiltoun, My Lord Lyndesay, and sundrie uthers baronis Ladyes and gentlemen being pnt. (present) yrat. The bellis Rang at thrie horis to the mornyng Service. The Ministeris thereof wer Mr George Hamiltoun haid the prepara’un sermon, Mr Andrew Auchinlek the mornyng and Mr Alex. Hendersone the foirnoone service, and Mr David Forret the sermone of thanksgeving. The Magistreatis and cheiff off the Session attending the service the brodis basonis and Elementis.” In this extract are a number of things worthy of notice. Allusion is made to certain strangers being present—among others, the Dowager Marchioness of Hamilton and Lord Lindsay. The former was the mother of the Marquis of Hamilton, who figured this year so largely as King’s Commissioner. She was Anne, daughter of the seventh Earl of Glencairn, and manifested on this occasion the zeal for the Reformation cause which distinguished the ancestry from which she sprang, by going so far out of her way as to St Andrews to be present at the celebration of this memorable communion. The other person mentioned is Lord Lindsay. He was one of the leaders of the covenanters, and sat as elder for Cupar at the Assemblies 1638 and 1639. To the presence of strangers Henderson makes special allusion. “It is true,” he says in the “Preface” which follows, “there are moe here than your owne paroch.” The Minute informs us who some of these strangers were, and it is interesting to know the names of some who listened to the preacher on this occasion. It is more than probable that these strangers, some of them at least, besides being attracted to St Andrews by this communion, came thither in pursuance of another object at the same time. The covenant, known by the name of the “King’s Covenant”, which was simply a reproduction of the covenant of 1580 and 1581, was, by royal proclamation dated 9th Sept. 1638, commanded to be subscribed and sworn by all his Majesty’s subjects. The manifest design of this proclamation and covenant was to divide the covenanters, and it had been so far successful as to deceive even the Lord Advocate himself, Sir Thomas Hope, the legal adviser, and warm and sincere friend of the covenanters. This aim and drift of the king’s policy was distinctly seen by others more awake, and by Henderson in particular; and a protestation drawn up by Henderson, which is one of his ablest papers,¹ was read at the same time as the royal proclamation, at the Market-cross of Edinburgh, and with the design of meeting and nullifying the proclamation. The clear and powerful reasoning of this paper had the effect of completely frustrating the measures of the court, much to the chagrin and mortification of the king, who called it a “damnable protestation”. The proclamation having been read in Edinburgh, the commissioners who were charged with urging the “King’s Covenant” went into all parts of the kingdom, seeking to gain the adhesion of the people to it. “The covenanters”, Stevenson says,² “being aware of this divisive measure, sent out their deputies with a protestation, and with these they did also send an advertisement or advice to their confidents in all the parts of the country, desiring that with all possible diligence they should warn every presbytery and congregation within their bounds to abstain from subscribing the new confession, (i.e., the king’s covenant,) which they call a politic plot to divide them, and drown their covenant in oblivion; and that, wherever the proclamation for subscribing the king’s covenant should be published, they, accompanied with as many of their brethren-covenanters as could possibly be convened, should at the same time read the protestation against it.” Now, there can be little doubt that St Andrews would be one of the very first places, after Edinburgh, in which the proclamation would be read; and it is every way probable that Lord Lindsay and the other strangers of whom Henderson speaks, had come to St Andrews at this time for the purpose of reading the protestation in opposition to the proclamation, as was done at Aberdeen by the Master of Forbes and Lord Fraser, when the proclamation was read there by the Marquis of Huntly. This is rendered all the more probable by the fact that Henderson towards the close of the following sermon enters at length on a vindication of the course pursued by himself and others in rejecting the king’s covenant, and resolving to abide by their own. The reader will be struck with the clear and concise statement given by Henderson of the facts and merits of the case, and in particular with the one sentence in which what may be regarded as the very pith and essence of the protestation is embodied. “Yet can we not”, says the protestation, “after so necessary and so solemn a specification, return to the generall.” “It is a pitiful thing,” says Henderson in the following sermon, “that when we have given our oath and set our subscription to particulars, that we sall take ourselves to generalls again. This were a ruing that we had condemned the Service-book and the Book of Canons as smelling of Popery.”

The Minute also informs us who the preachers were on this occasion, besides Henderson. On the preparation-day (Saturday) the preacher was Mr George Hamilton. He was minister of Newburn, a small parish in Fife, and one of those who the year before went with Henderson to Edinburgh to supplicate the Privy Council in reference to the Service-book. On Sabbath morning Mr Andrew Auchinleck preached. He was minister of Largo, in Fife, a popular preacher, and a great favourite with the people of St Andrews. He was afterwards called to St Andrews, and his call was the occasion of great dispeace; so much so, that Samuel Rutherford, who was involved, was almost compelled to leave St Andrews in consequence. This Auchinleck eventually conformed to Episcopacy. The third was Mr David Forret, who preached the thanksgiving sermon in the evening. He was formerly one of the masters of the Old College, St Andrews, and afterwards minister at Kilconquhar, Fife. He was commissioner from St Andrew’s College to the Assembly 1638. In the preface and sermon which follow, allusion is made to all three services conducted by these ministers;—“whereof ye were hearing yesterday;” “as ye heard the day already;” “I will not go now to anticipate the doctrine of thanksgiving which is to be declared to you afternoon.”

It only remains to notice, in the close of this already too long note, the word "Sonday”, which occurs in the extract-minute of Session. The use of this word, and not Sabbath, shows that whoever wrote the minute must not quite have abandoned his Prelatical habits, the name Sunday being one in common use among the upholders of Prelacy, whilst that of Sabbath was as distinctive of the Reforming party.

There be many gracious and comfortable promises, whilk the Lord our God has made in his word unto his own people; but yet, nevertheless, we would think upon them advisedly, and look to them circumspectly; for he is nothing else but a vain and a presumptuous man, who applies any word whilk God has spoken to himself, whilk does not belong to him. For als many rich and plentiful promises as are contained in the Word of God, there is not one of them, nor the least syllable of them, that belongs to those who are proud in their own conceit, and are of yon Pharisaical disposition whereof ye were hearing yesterday: but all of them, and every one of them, does belong to these who are meek and humble. And therefore, as ye would wish to find that sweet and evangelical comfort whilk God presents to us in his word, see that ye fail not in this, to look in upon your own souls, and see if there be humility there,—if ye have confessed your sins to God, and so be reconciled to him: for without we have humility, there is no confession of sin; and without we confess our sins, there is no reconcilement nor pacification to be had for them. And without we have this main work of humility, all our holiness that we can have otherwise, it is but hypocrisy; for that great and main work of the salvation of our souls, it begins at this main work of humiliation: and so without we have humiliation in some measure, the work of our salvation is not so much as begun yet. Now, I am not at this time to enter in upon the secrets of your consciences, to ripe them up, what sins are there wherefore ye ought to be humbled. But this I am sure of, ye who have been going down to the depths of your own souls, has been trying yourselves unpartially by this law of God, and judging yourselves thereby, I put no question but ye have found out many huge monsters of sin, wherefore ye will acknowledge ye ought to be humbled before God. Nevertheless, ane thing I must say to yow of this city, and I dare not be bold to go forward in this so holy ane action, as this is that now we are about, unless I sall forewarn you of it.

And this is it; all of you had great need to humble yourselves before God for your departing from the purity of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Ye parted over soon from it; and ye were over easily drawn away to follow these corruptions that men had brought in upon that pure religion whilk was anes, by the mercy of God, professed into this land: and ye made but over little din for the taking the purity of religion from yow. If so be that the privileges of your burgh had been in pursuing, to be taken from you; ay, if so be that it had been the best in all the land who had been in pursuit thereof, ye would have made another manner of din for that, than ye did when the purity of God’s worship and the means of your own salvation were taken from yow; and, especially, this holy sacrament, by the whilk now ye look for a blessing from the Lord, it was most pitifully polluted. And when ye yourselves had parted away from the purity of God’s worship, and the means of your own salvation, it pleased the Lord notwithstanding to continue them in their purity in some congregations in the land, and near by about yourselves;³ yet, notwithstanding, there were but over few of you who did resort to these places where the means were in their purity, and according to God’s word; and did but over soon acquiesce and rest upon these means that ye had. 1 will not say that ye departed willingly from the purity of the means, but that ye did it against your heart; but this far I must say, that ye departed over soon from the commandment of God, and were over easily drawn after men’s inventions. Ay, there were some of you who went so far on in this course of defection that they began to mock and to taunt these who sought after the purity of the means where they were to be found: and this was such a high degree of persecution as ye could be guilty of. Ay, moreover, it came to that, that there were some amongst you who began to defend their course of defection whereinto they had gone on; yea, they began to glory in it; yea, they began at last to prefer it to the purity of the means that were in other parts of the land. This, I will assure you, it is a fearful guiltiness; and if so be that ye repent not yourselves thereof, humble yourselves before God for it, and turn away from it with your whole heart, and desire earnestly that the guiltiness thereof may be done away by the blood of Jesus Christ, we cannot look but whenever ye sall be assaulted again by some strong tentation, ye sall fall back into the same course of defection: and so your second estate, ay, I may say, your third estate, sall be worse than your former estate was. And, therefore, beloved, to the end that the promises of the sacrament may belong properly to you, repent of this your defection; repent for your neglect of the purity of the means in other parts; repent for your acquiescing upon that whilk ye had, for your mocking of those who sought after the purity of the means, and for your defending of your defection, and preferring it to the purity of religion. And withal, resolve with yourselves that for the world ye will not return to that course again, and so turn yourselves from the Lord: for if ye depart from the smallest point of God’s truth, ye depart from Christ. And if so be that ye will set yourselves to confess this and your other sins before the Lord, and humble yourselves before the Lord for them, and resolve, by God’s grace, to forsake all of them, but in special this course of defection, in all time to come, then I dare be bold to speak a word or two of comfort to you, in the name of the Lord. And ye have it, Hosea 11:5.

First, he says, “I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger against you.” Indeed, he says not that they sall be altogether free of his anger, so that they sall feel none of it; but they sall taste some of it; as a father does, in correcting his child whom he loves, for his amendment and further good afterward. So will the Lord correct them, and let them feel some of his anger; but he will not execute the fierceness of his anger against them. What is this, “That he will not execute the fierceness of his anger?” That is, he will not execute or pour out such ane anger and wrath upon them as is spoken of in the former verse—such as he poured out on Sodom and Gomorrah. “I will not make thee as Admah, neither will I set thee as Zeboim.” These were two of these five cities, on the whilk that fiery shower fell from heaven and destroyed them, and all that was in them. As if he would say, I might execute my fiery wrath against you, and ye could not say but your sins deserved at my hand that it should be so. Beloved, it may be ye would think that we went too far on, if we should say that Saint Andrews deserved that the fiery wrath of God should be poured out upon it, for the sins that it is guilty of; yet, whenever your sins is rightly seen by you, and ye are humbled aright for them before God, then ye will see that your sins are greater than their sins were, because your light is greater and a more clear light than theirs was. And yet ye have departed from that light, and have gone on into a course of defection contrair to that light; and so why deserves not your judgment to be als great as theirs? And yet, nevertheless, albeit he might have done so to his people—poured out such a shower upon them as that was, to destroy them utterly; and yet he did it not. And what were the causes of that? This was one—“My heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.” As if he said, your heart is turned a little in you, and your repentance is begun to kindle of late within you, and ye have some spunk (spark) of love within you to me; and it has proceeded first from myself: and, therefore, because it is so, there is a flame of love in Christ’s breast, and this is hotter nor the fierce fire of his wrath, and overcomes it; and therefore is it, that he does not execute the fierceness of his wrath. A second reason is—“I am God, and not man.” When man is greatly offended, he is unreconcileable,—he cannot be gotten reconciled again; but for God, he is not so, but he is willing to be reconciled. It’s true, indeed, he is unreconcileable to his incorrigible enemies; but for his own people, he is reconcileable to them; and, therefore, does he not execute the fierceness of his wrath against them. A third reason wherefore he does not execute the fierceness of his wrath against them is, “I am the holy one in the midst of thee; and, therefore, I will not enter into the city, to destroy thee.” For if I should enter into the city to destroy thee, that were to destroy myself; for thou has entered in a covenant with me, and I have entered in a covenant again with thee; and, therefore, I will not destroy thee. If we have anes sworn and subscribed a covenant truly with the Lord, he cannot destroy us.⁴ There was no mean so powerful to hold aff the judgment and wrath of God that we deserved, and to procure mercy to us at his hands, as to enter in a covenant with him; for when we enter in a covenant with God, and he with us, then it binds God to dwell in the midst of us: and when he dwells among the midst of us, how can he destroy us? for to destroy us were to destroy himself. Now, is not that a sweet and comfortable promise, backed with strong reasons?

The second promise is, “They sall walk after the Lord; he sall roar like a lion.” And this roaring is not after a prey, to devour it, but like a lion roaring to cause her young anes to come to her. So the Lord sall make the gospel to shine to his people, and they sall walk after him. And then the old anes sall roar, and the young anes sall gather to them, as the young lions does when the old roars upon them: “Yea they sall tremble as dowes, and the children sall tremble from the west.” And this promise, it is more fully set down Isaiah 60:8, “Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the dowes to their windows?” Even as thick as the clouds flock together before rain, and as the dowes flock to the rocks before a storm, so sall the children of God flock to him in the bright days of the gospel.

The third promise is, “I will place them into their houses.” That is, I will set myself down in the midst of my house, in the ordinances of my worship and service, and my people sall come there to worship me, and to speak to me; and when they come to seek me, I will be found of them, and will speak to them; when they speak to me in their prayers, I will hear them also. And when I am thus set down jnto mine own kirk and house, then they sall be placed peaceably and quietly into their own houses. This is a very heaven upon earth.

Beloved, I may say ye have had the proof of the truth of the first promise, that the Lord has not execute the fierceness of his wrath against yow. He might have execute the fierceness of his wrath against yow, and made you as Sodom; and none of you could have said that he did you any wrong when he had done so; yet he has not done so, but spared you: and all this is because of his merciful and pitiful nature, because he is God and not man, and so is reconcileable, and because he is the Holy One in the midst of yow, and did anes enter in covenant with yow. And then does not this day and the last day that I was in this place,⁵ and many days since, testify that ye are returning to walk after the Lord? It is true there are moe here than your own Paroch, yet are ye not flocking together as clouds before ane shower, or as dowes to the windows? and is it not the Lord who has put this in your heart to seek for this same occasion? Then has the Lord performed the first and the second promise to you, and sall he not perform the third also, if so be that ye will continue seeking him, as the people of God, that the Lord sall sit down in his own house, according to his ordinances? And when ye come there, ye sall hear him speaking to you in his word, and he sall hear you speaking to him again in your prayers; and sall answer you in his time, and sall place you into your houses, that ye may pray to him peaceably there. And when ye cannot prevail there, then come to the house of God, and join with the people of God; and then, no doubt, ye sall prevail And when ye would be instructed, would have grace increased, sin mortified, etc., then come to the house of God, and his word sall tell you clearly concerning all these. If there be a heaven upon earth this must be it, to see God set down into the midst of his own house, and when his people comes there, he speaks to them, and he hears them when they speak to him, and shews them that he does so by his answering of them. And therefore if so be that ye would have these promises to belong to you, labour to be humbled before God, and cry for contrite and broken hearts for your sins; that so ye may know that these promises belongs to you; that the fierce wrath of the Lord may not seize upon you; and that ye may have liberty together in the house of God; and when ye come to his house ye may meet with himself there, and his son Jesus Christ. And let us now, in his name, draw near to the throne of grace; and beseech the Lord that he would hear us in these things, and in every other thing needful for us. And let us also crave a blessing from him, and the assistance of his Spirit to his word that is to be spoken to us at this time, and to all the rest of his ordinances.

This Protestation will be found in full in Stevenson’s Hist. of the Church of Scotland, p. 256-264.

Stevenson’s History of the Church of Scotland, p. 265.

Henderson himself and several other ministers in the immediate neighbourhood of St Andrews, who refused the oaths enjoined by the Bishops, and to practise any of the ceremonies, were overlooked, and permitted to discharge their ministry. This lenity may be traced, perhaps, to the cautious forbearance of Spottiswood—a policy which, in all human probability, would have been successful, if he had been suffered to carry it out.

It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that St Andrews, though somewhat behind other places, embraced the covenant some six or seven months before this.

This was probably when the foregoing discourse, on Galatians 5:7, was preached; but as the language is very general, nothmg can be learned from it as to the date of that discourse, further than that a considerable time, “many days”, had elapsed since it was preached, and it was now the 21st of October.

CHAPTER 6

Sermon, Philippians 4:6-7

It is a matter, beloved, that is very comfortable for us, to have this peace and this liberty to assemble ourselves thus publicly in the house of God all of us together, for serving of the Lord our God, and for advancing the salvation of our own souls. And when the Lord gives unto us such a fair hour of the day of his gracious visitation in such a tempestuous time as this is, we had need to take notice of it, and to learn to make the right use of it. Even as ye know people use to do when there is a unseasonable harvest time, whenever they can have a fair hour in it, they cut down their corns and gathers them together. And yet, albeit that this sort of peace be a very comfortable thing, to have such a peace at such a time, yet it is exceeding far more comfortable for us to have our souls filled with that peace, whilk is spoken of in this text, whilk now we have read to yow. And this peace, when we would have it, we must still come to Christ, and get it through him: and that peace, whilk is gotten through Christ, is that peace whilk passes understanding. And if we had it, we should be guarded and keeped by it, in our hearts and in our minds, against all these fears and discouragements wherewith our souls are compassed about, as by so many enemies; and we must of necessity be overcome by them, unless we be guarded by such a strong guard as this peace of God is. Surely, beloved, this is the very thing that of all things we stand in greatest need of at such a time as this;¹ and it is the thing that can keep us best in all troubles; and it is attained by these means that now we are about of the word and of the sacraments. This is the thing that the Lord does promise unto us, and we are to expect it from God through Jesus Christ, when we use the means, according to his direction and warrant set down to us in his word. And a special help and a mean whereby we may get this peace of God that passes understanding is, to be solist (solicitous) nor careful about nothing, what the success thereof sall be; but in every thing, by prayer and supplications, let our requests be made known to God. Let us not trouble ourselves with anything, but only have a care of doing our duty; whether it be for the preparation of anything that ought to be prepared, or if it be for the communication of anything to us, whether it be in matters of the world, or in such matters as this is that now we are about, what the event and success of them sall be, let us leave that to the Lord. And if so be that we perform that duty whilk is required of us, and leave the success to the Lord, then this peace of God, it sall always serve for this end to be a strong guard unto us.

Now for the exhortation itself, it consists in three things. 1. What it is that we are forbidden to do,—“Be careful for nothing.” 2. What it is that we are commanded to do,—“In everything by supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” 3. There is something that is promised here, whilk is the most rare and excellent jewel, and the richest treasure that ever was yet heard of, and does fardest pass our capacity and understanding,—“The peace of God.” For the world we may compass with our wits and our understandings; but we cannot do so with this peace of God, for it passes all understanding. And if so be that we get this peace of God, it sall be a strong guard to us against all our enemies, both outwardly and inwardly. And all this we have through Jesus Christ. And so we have contained in the words, What it is that we should not do; what it is that we should do; and what sall be the event of all that we do, if we do it after the right manner. We have many enemies to rancounter in our way, and therefore we must be careful in everything; but we must not be careful about the event, but only to let our requests be made known to God by supplications with thanksgiving: and doing so, we need not to trouble ourselves about the event, but be secure concerning that, having this peace of God through Jesus Christ. But let us now go on in order with the words as they lie in the text.

I. “Careful.” The word that is here translated careful, as it is in the original language, it is sometimes taken in a good part, as it is ver. 20, chap. 2 of this same epistle. The holy apostle says there, “For I have no man like minded, who will naturally care for your estate;” whilk is the same very word that is used in this place. And indeed, it is no marvel notwithstanding the nature thereof be taken in good part. Because there is no man who has a care to do his duty, but his mind always does agitate the matter; and there is two sides there, and the one of them does always dispute against the other; and then, when they have disputed the matter, whatsoever they think both to be best, they conclude upon that, that they will do it: and when it is so, there cannot but be a disputing between the one part and the other; and where there is a disputing, there cannot but be a division, and so a care to choose that whilk is best, and to do it. And yet, nevertheless, the word more ordinarily is taken in ane ill part, to signify ane unlawful care. And for this cause the late translators of the Bible, they have done very wisely in translating this word both these ways; that when the word is taken in a good sense, they translate it after the word care, and when the word is taken in ane ill sense, they translate it carefulness. Because when it is so, to be careful carkingly, it fills the heart full of care, and it rests not in doing the duty; but these who has it, they are troubled and has a carefulness to know what sall be the events of that whilk they do.

Now if ye will consider of them, there is a very great difference between the one and the other. For the duty of care, it is commanded of God to care for everything, and it is also commendable so to do; but for this carefulness, it is expressly forbidden of God, and it is a thing that is altogether unlawful. This lawful care, it is only a providence and a foresight to prevent some things, and to get some things done, so far as we can, looking always to God’s providence to overrule; but this carefulness, it is a diffidence and distrust of God’s providence towards us. Again, this lawful care, it fills the head with thoughts to choose that whilk is best and likeliest, and to do our duty in it; but for carefulness, it falls in upon the heart and oppresses it, and makes it to sink and to soupe (pine) in grief and sorrow; for it can never see the end of anything, what it sall be. This lawful care, it contents itself with doing the duty in anything,—it rests there; but for this unlawful carefulness, it does not so,—it cannot content itself with doing the duty, but it would evermore be at farder; it troubles itself about the success and event what that sall be. Now ye may see the odds between the one and the other is very great, for the one is commanded of God and is lawful; 1t is only a providence and foresight of things, that makes them who has it to think upon doing their duty, and it rests there; but for that carking carefulness, it is altogether unlawful and forbidden of God; it is a distrusting of God’s providence; and it cannot rest in the head, but it falls in upon the heart and troubles and vexes it even like to those furies, or like the burning of the fire of hell. And it cannot content itself to rest upon the doing of a duty about anything, but it would always be at that, to know what sall be the success and event of everything.

Beloved, this is a thing that is natural to men, not to keep a mid course in things, but either to be in this extremity that they care none at all, or otherwise, if they take them to care, then their hearts are filled with unlawful carefulness. While we are in peace and prosperity, and all things that way are well with us, then we have no care at all; and then when any affliction or trouble comes upon us, then our hearts are so full of carefulness that we wat (wot) not what course to take that we may be freed of it.

Beloved, I may say that these many years past ye have lien in security, and ye have made a covenant with hell, with death, and with the grave; but I think ye have not considered the work of the Lord, as ye should have done, in it; for if so be that ye had looked to it aright, ye might have seen the Lord punishing that covenant ye had made at that time, and punishing you for the breach of that covenant that formerly ye had made with the Lord. And indeed, (as I told you before,) ye departed but over soon and over easily from your former covenant with the Lord, and from the purity of religion. But now ye are entered in a renewed covenant with him again; and I wish from my heart that many of you who has done it have not done it for the fashion, and for company’s cause, because many of the rest of the kingdom has done it, or for some worldly respect. And now, upon the other side, I wish that your carefulness grow not als great as your carelessness was before, and so ye be driven from the one side to the other, between two extremities.

Now there is a threefold care, that we of this land are careful about at this time. First, there is a national care. What sall become of this whole nation;—whether we sall have peace, or if we sall have war in it?²—whether we sall attain to our liberties both religious and civil, and if we sall get religion established in the land in the purity thereof? And indeed, if so be that we return to our former estate wherein once we were, then we sall be the most slavish people every way, that ever was heard of under the cope of heaven: we sall be in a greater slavery than the people of Israel were, when they were under the Egyptian slavery. The second care of this land it is a domestic care; noblemen caring what sall become of their houses and rents; barons and gentlemen thinking what sall become of their houses and their estate; and burgesses thinking what sall become of our burghs, of our houses, of our ventures,³ if so be that we sall stand out against human authority for the cause of divine authority, and in obedience to divine authority we obey not them in human authority. And we are caring for this, what if prelates sall return to this land again? Once ye of this city were in carelessness about this; ay, ye prided yourselves in this, that ye had the great Primate and Metropolitan of Scotland, and your city was called the Metropolitan city—that ye had the great Chancellor of Scotland to stay into your city.⁴ And now ye have carefulness about it; ye think what if he sall return in all his former pomp and grandeur, and come in violence against you, must ye not then all coutch (crouch) under him? And what if your pastors who has at this time deserted you,⁵ that they would not preach to yow, what if they sall return to their places again, how sall they. rail against you most despitefully! Now all these is to trouble‘yourselves about the event of things. The third sort of care is a personal care; such as ye of this congregation has, and all these who are come here at this time,⁶ to receive some comfort from the Lord. They will say, I am comed here now to the use of the means, but I wat (wot) not what I will get for my coming; I wat not whether I will profit anything or not. But I say, for all these cares, whether national, or domestic, or personal, whatever your care be, do ye these duties that the Lord commands to be done by yow, and remit the success and the event of all to God. But there are so many thoughts that meets together into our heads at once, like a number of contrair winds ready to swallow us up, or like a deluge ready to drown us; but there is no remedy for all these, albeit we were presently compassed about with ane army, but only for us to do our duty, and to remit the success and the event of all to God.

And I will shew unto you two or three reasons wherefore ye should do this.

First. Because our carefulness about the success and event of anything, it is to take God’s prerogative from him. In 1 Peter 5:7, the apostle says, “Cast all your care upon God, for he careth for you.” There we have a commandment to cast all our care upon God, and we have a promise annexed to it, that he will care for us; and so it is a suitable thing for us to do. And Psalm 37:5, David says, “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he sall bring it to pass:” that is, roll over all your ways or adoes (affairs) upon the Lord. What is that, to roll over all our ways upon the Lord? The meaning is this; I find a great burden of cares all convening together in me, whilk makes up a unlawful carefulness, and makes me to neglect the doing of my duty, and only to look to the success what it sall be. Now, I see that I cannot bear this burden, and therefore I take it, and rolls it aff myself over upon the Lord; and henceforth I will trouble myself with no more, but only do my duty, and not look to the success what it sall be. This is to put our trust in the Lord; and when we do so, then we may be sure, because he has so promised to us, that he will bring the matter to pass. It is not possible for us to bear such a burden, and to think upon the success of anything: and then it is God’s prerogative that belongs to him. And so, in troubling ourselves about the success of anything, we do two wrongs. 1. We take on a burden upon our own back, whilk we are not able to bear, and so wrong ourselves. And 2. The Lord has taken the success of everything to be his own prerogative; and, therefore, in so doing we rob God of that whilk is his due. And sall we especially, who has had such experiences of the goodness of God in former times, begin to trouble ourselves about the success of things now? Who was it that did first of all think upon us, to bring us to life, and brought us out at such a time, when the light of the gospel is clearly preached 3 and has so long and constantly provided for us; sent his Son to the world to die for us? And, especially, to look unto that, that he has begun so fair and so glorious a work among us, and has already brought it so far on, sall we now begin to cast doubts about the success thereof? No, no. Let us not do so, but let us pursue and go on to the uttermost in doing our duty, and we sall find the success in end to be sweet and comfortable. Sall we then sacrilegiously rob God of that whilk is his prerogative and due, and take the thing upon ourselves whilk we are not able to do?

A second reason wherefore we should not trouble ourselves about the success of matters is this. What will all our carefulness do? it will help us nothing at all, as ye heard the day already.⁷ “Except the Lord build the house, he that builds buildeth in vain: except the Lord watch the city, he that watches, watches in vain.” It is in vain for us to rise up early, to lie down late, and to eat the bread of sorrow all the day long, except the Lord give the blessing to our labours. And indeed, if when we are doing our duty we look only to the success, and care for it, we can have but little comfort in it. Can any of you by your carefulness, as our Master says, add one cubit to his stature, or change one hair from white to black? Now, if ye, by your care, cannot do these things which are so little, how can ye do anything in these things the doing whereof belongs only to God? And so take not the care of success and event from God, for then ye will be as orphans and fatherless children, who has nobody to care for them but themselves, and so are ill cared for, yea neglected. And seeing he has given his word, passed his promise, and panded (pledged) his truth to care for us, and yet we do not lay our burdens over upon him, it is well wared⁸ that he should lay them over upon ourselves, and break our back with them, and yet the success to be but bad when all is done. And, therefore, let not carefulness about anything oppress us, especially carefulness about the world. Neither let us, for any care or fear of this kind, depart from the smallest thing that is in our Covenant⁹ for if ye lose but ene dram weight of God’s glory and honour, ye sall not miss to lose a whole stone weight of your own with it. Remember but of Haman’s policy, that he used to establish himself and his after him, and to attain to respect and honour. He thought that the meetest way to do so was, to have all the Jews throughout the king’s provinces cut aff; and yet that same was the very mean of his utter ruin and decay. And remember also of Jeroboam’s policy, that he used to get his kingdom and his throne established for ever. He thought he would not have the people of the ten tribes going up to Jerusalem, as they were wont to do, for fear that they should be allured some way to join themselves to the old Kingdom of Judah again; and therefore he would erect two calves, one at Dan, another at Bethel, that the people of the ten tribes might worship there; and then he thought he was sure enough, when he had done so. And yet, that same was the very mean of taking the kingdom from him, and from all his posterity after him. And remember also of the policy of the Pharisees and elders of Israel in our Saviour’s days. They say, If we hearken unto him and believe in him, then the Romans, they will come upon us, and they will take our nation and our city from us; and yet their not hearing of him, and believing in him, was the cause wherefore the Lord made the Romans to come upon them to destroy them. And so men, by their policies and devices that they use contrair to the commandment of God, they are aye twining and twisting so many ropes to hang themselves, and when men begin to fight against God, he can take their own sword and sheathe it into their own side. And so, when thou thinks that thou are establishing thyself by some sinful course, he will turn it upon thyself, and disappoint thee of thy purpose. I will only give you but one example of this, and it is written, 2 Kings 10. Ahab, he was a very wicked man, and sold himself to work wickedness; and yet he resolves that he would have his kingdom and his throne established, whether God would or not. The prophet Elijah is sent unto him to tell him that the kingdom should not be established in his seed, to tell him that none of his posterity shonld reign after him; and in very familiar terms he tells it, that there should not be left of his seed so much as one that pisseth against the wall. Now this wicked man thought that it should not be so, albeit God had said it; and therefore he takes to himself many wives, and he begets many sons, even the number of threescore and ten; he commits the keeping of them to seventy princes of Israel and they were all keeped within the strong walled city of Samaria. So he thought they were sure enough then, and yet Jehu, he rises up and causes these same princes, who had them in keeping, to take all their heads aff them in one day, and bring them and lay them down before the gate of Jezreel. Men may resolve that they will make themselves and their generations to be great men, and to stand sure in the earth; yet the Lord, he can take a besom and sweep them clean away, so that there sall be no memory of them, except it be a remembrance of ignominy and shame. These who kent them or had anything to with them, they sall be ashamed of them, when they hear of them. So let us learn to be careful in nothing carkingly.

II. “But in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” Obj. Then sall we be careful for nothing, sall we take no care at all? No carking care, but only let us do our duty, what God has commanded us to do; and when we do so, it is not carefulness; but let us remit the success of all things to God, and let us present our supplication to God in prayer, adding withal thanksgiving. Here we have three things to be considered of. 1. There is the duty itself. 2. The extent of this duty. 3. The end wherefore it is done. For the duty is prayer and supplications with thanksgiving; the extent of it is in everything; the end is that by these, your requests may be made known to God.

1. Now first of all for the duty, ye see there are three words in it, prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving. And ye will see, 1 Timothy 2:1, there is another joined to these three, to wit, Intercession; and so there are four of them. Upon whilk place it is that the Papists buildeth their mass, and they allege that they have for their warrant of their exposition of it that way, the Fifty-ninth Epistle ot Augustine, written by him to Paulinus;¹⁰ and they say that according to that same order that he sets down there in his Epistle, and is used 1 Timothy 2, is the sacrifice of the mass done. For, first of all, they have in it obsecration, whilk we call supplication, and this done before the consecration of the elements. 2. There is prayer, and this is used in the very time of consecration, and afterwards also when the priest says, “Au-demus dicere Pater noster.” 3. There is postulations used in it, whilk we call intercessions. 4. There is thanksgiving used in it, for bestowing upon the receivers the real presence of the body and blood of Christ. And even according to this order, some men in this land has taken upon them to defend our Service-book, and the prayers that are used in it, and so what the Papists has tane to defend their mass, some of our clergymen has tane the same to defend the Service-book.¹¹ And indeed, just reason have they so to do, for there is not two things can be liker others than these two are, the one to be in English and the other to be in Latin: and, indeed, if our Service-book be rightly examined, it will be found to be nothing else but directly ane English mass.

But indeed, this of the Papists is very ill reasoned from Augustine. It is true indeed, he speaks of all these four sorts of prayers, but he speaks not a word at all of a mass in that place nor any other, nor of a sacrifice for the sins of the quick and the dead, nor of Oblation, nor of Adoration. No, no; these were only set down by him because of the ignorance of these who lived in these days; but there is not so mickle as the appearance of a word of a mass in them. And there is also a sweet meditation of Bernard, De quatuor modis orandi¹² It is true it is sweet-like indeed, but how sound it is I leave that to yourselves, to be judged by yow, for I will not stay to speak of it now. He says, we are hindered to pray two ways.¹³ One is, we are hindered to pray when our light is not great; again, we are hindered when our light is over great. When we have no light, then we are hindered to pray to God, because we see not our sins; and when we have over great light, we are also hindered to pray to God, because then we see our sins to be so many and so great that we dare not. And therefore is it that our light, it must be tempered unto us, that we have neither too great nor too small light; and when we have such ane indifferent light as that, then it is that we are rightly put to pray. And at the first, he says, we come to that whilk he calls verecundo affectu. The sinner dare not pray for himself, but he desires that another may pray for him. And for example of this, he brings in the example of that woman who had the bloody issue, who durst not come near to Christ, but only touched the hem of his garment. The second degree that we come is from that whilk he calls [puro¹⁴] affectu; and he bringeth ane example of this from that woman who did wash Christ’s feet with her tears, and wipe them with the hair of her head: she came near to Christ, but she held herself very laigh. The third degree the sinner comes to, it is from a more ample and large affection; when the sinner dare not only pray for themselves, but they dare also pray for others; as the woman of Canaan did, who besought Christ for her daughter. The fourth degree they come to is from devoto affectu, as he calls it; and for this he brings in the example of Lazarus. When Jesus raised him from the dead, it is said that first he wept, and then before he was risen, Jesus lifteth up his eyes and says, “Father, I thank thee that thou heardest me.” As I told you, this is very sweet-like, but the solidity of it is not to be lippened to (depended on): it is like a thing that is very sweet or beautiful-like, but has no substance with it. And therefore, we must not ground our faith upon such conceits as these, albeit, for the most part, it has been counted the learning of this generation wherein we live.¹⁵ And, indeed, I think if a man might surely ground upon these, he might soon come to that, to cite anew (enow) of them. No, I think there be no ground at all for it, to say that these four be four diverse sorts of prayers; that Supplications be made for removing of ills, imminent or incumbent; that Prayer is for supplying of good things we would have; that Intercession is when we intercede for others; and that Thanksgiving is when we offer praises and thanksgiving to God for hearing us in these. But the meaning of all these is, to express the nature of prayer unto us, that we may learn, when we are once begun in it, to pray for all these: and so when we fall upon such a ground as that, it is best for us to keep ourselves by it.

The thing that we are to learn here is, that the best way for us to disburden ourselves of our carefulness about the success of anything, and to roll the matter over upon God, is to pray to God, and with prayer to join thanksgiving. “Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving;” according to that, Psalm 50:15 “Call upon me in the day of thy trouble; I will answer thee, and thou sall glorify me.” Thou knows that it is God who hears prayers, and thou prays to him; and then thou says, I have prayed to God and he has heard me, and therefore I will glorify him; for by that thou knows that he is not a dumb nor a deaf idol; for I know that he both sees and hears. And, indeed, this is a strong second to faith, when the Lord is pleased to deal so. And when it is so, that thou has prayed to God according to his word, and he hears thee, then it is not possible but thou must praise him; and therefore, in the Psalm, the name of the Lord, it is called a strong tower. Most unhappy are these men who cannot disburden their cares upon God. And when God is beginning to work anything wherefore thou ought to care, then he is calling thee to pray to him, and so to cast the burden aff ourselves upon himself; and, indeed, it would be a comfortable way for us, if so be that we could learn to do so. It is a pitiful thing to see men soped (worn out) in sorrow, and in the depths of affliction, and not to know so mickle as that there is a God to pray to, or that he is calling them thereby to pray to him. I know the natural man when he is in this case, he has no mind at all to pray; but the child of God should not do so: and therefore let us learn always to come to God, and to make him our resting-place. Let him be the breath of our nostrils, and let us always lift up our faces toward heaven to him; for he is our King, our Lord, and our Husband; and if we cast our care upon him, he will care for us; yea, he must care for us, if we rely upon him, for he is bound so to do. And surely, when we wat not what course to take, nor what to do, but we see all to be against us, then let us send up that winged messenger of prayer to heaven, and it sall not miss but it sall bring help to us. And so, when the sancts and children of God are at ane extremity that they wat not what to do, but outwardly they are enclosed by enemies on all sides, then faith comes in by the Word of God and says, I see you in ane extremity that ye know not what to do; ye can see no way how to get anything in to yow, nor how to get a messenger sent out from yow, nor have ye any who will hazard to go for yow; yet I know of a winged messenger who has a way to win upward to God, and he will help. And, indeed, albeit Saint Andrews were presently enclosed about with companies of men, so that we could see no way to send a messenger to get relief and support to us, yet we would find this winged messenger of prayer ready to go up for us and to fly to heaven’s gates, and rap and knock there; and it would win in through the Mediator Jesus to the Lord of hosts and armies, of whom ye heard the day. And if we could use this messenger aright, he could soon send down help and supply for us.

Now, for this prayer, it is also joined with thanksgiving; and there is a necessity in three respects that thanksgiving be joiried with prayer. First, when we are praying to God, we must thank him for what favours we have received already from him; and there is none but they know that they are bound to thank him for these. Secondly, we must also thank him for favours presently received, for of necessity there must be a conjunction of these two; for that is certain, he who sets himself to pray in the Spirit, before he have done with prayer, he will find matter of thanksgiving to God for some favour at that time received. Ye may see the example of this to be clear in David, throughout many of his psalms; he begins them with many heavy and sad complaints, but ye will see again that he endeth many of them with joy, praises, and thanksgiving to God; and this was not for anything that he had formerly received from God, but for something received by him at that same meantime. And we should also thank him, at least promise thanksgiving to him, for the benefits that we are to receive. Lord, if we be not foolish, who will not promise to be thankful to the Lord for his favours, when we crave them of him? We have no other rhetoric to move the Lord to grant anything to us, but only to promise to him to be thankful for it, when we have gotten it. And so thanksgiving and prayer are joined together in all these three respects. And surely whoever they be who comes to pray to God, and thanketh him not for his bygane favours, it isa token that we are altogether unfit and unprepared for prayer, when we givenot thanks to God, neither for favours bestowed upon ourselves nor upon others. Secondly, when we pray to God, and it is not joined with thanksgiving for present favours, it is a token that our prayers are only but lip-labour. And when we pray to God, and does not promise to be thankful to him for afterwards, then it is a token that our prayers are nothing else but hypocrisy; for if we could do otherwise, it is a token that we would not come to God for it. And, therefore, if so be that thou be praying to God for a good success, either to thy own particular adoes, or for the matter of thy salvation, or for success to this sacrament, or are praying for a blessing to this church and kingdom, let it still be joined with thanksgiving. And ye of this city, ye have reason to do this, both to pray and to be thankful to God, to humble yourselves, and to pray to God to pardon you your sins in falling from his truth, and to praise him for that he has begun to make his light to shine among yow again, and be thankful to him that he has granted yow any sorrow of heart for your sins, and given you matter of joy, in returning the purity of his worship in any measure among yow. Evermore, when ye pray for anything to the Lord, resolve evermore this far at least, if so be he give it, I will be thankful for it, especially if it be for a matter of grace, either for thyself or for the kirk.

2. Now, ye be remembered there were other two words I promised to speak of to yow. The extent of this duty of prayer, in everything. Before, ye heard he said, “be careful for nothing.” Now, he says, “In everything let your requests be made known to God.” The one of these is contrary to the other; the one speaks of nothing, the other of everything: and so ye see that the one is of als large ane extent as the other. Christ will have the smallest thing to be cared for by us, but only with this caveat, he will have us to know that it is he principally who cares for it to us; and he will have us to show our care by praying to him for it. If it be a great matter that thou stands in need of, then recommend the matter to God, and resolve that thou will wait upon him for the success thereof: I will only do my duty that the Lord requires of me to do, yea, I will not leave aff doing my duty till it be done, and resolve to do so in the smallest matters also. Luther had never wun to such a reformation as he wan to, if he had not laid that ground; and he uttered speeches to that same purpose. Some thought them to have been uttered rashly and unadvisedly, but he spake them in confidence and boldly; he said at one time, “The Pope sall sooner be converted, and turn from his ways, than I sall quite this.” And if it be in small matters that thou has ado (as I think the strongest and the greatest wit that is npon earth will find the smallest matter to trouble him mightily, if he care for the success thereof himself); and when thou art troubled about the success thereof, think that it is a direct calling upon thee to recommend the matter to him by prayer; then go to thy cabinet and recommend the matter to him there, or go to the house of God, and lay it out with the people of God there. Do thou thy duty in it, and recommend the success thereof to God; and thus thou sall find the peace of God possessing thy soul. O if we kent this, what a communion there is between God and the Christian soul! They cry to him, “Abba, father, my father;” the bairn will not cry ofter to the father or mother, when it would have anything from them, or when anything aileth them, nor we should see a continual necessity laid upon us of elevation of our souls to God in prayer. But, especially, beloved, we would be exceeding earnest with him in this great matter of the kirk of Christ in this land; we would be continually making our requests known to God concerning it. And, therefore, we are exhorted by the prophets to give the Lord rest neither day nor night till he establish Jerusalem and make it the praise of the earth again. And so, howsoever your prayers have been in time bygane, whether ye have been slack in them, or if ye have been fervent in them, yet now be fervent and constant in prayer day and night, and give the Lord no rest till his Sion be established, and made the beauty of this land. And, Isaiah 51:17, “Awake, awake, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury:” and then, after that, he goes on promising mercy to them, if they will call for it. And, Isaiah 63:16, they say, “Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not; doubtless, O Lord, thou art our father:” so that, albeit all should forget us, yet we may have recourse to God and seek help from him. And, Jeremiah 14:7, the prophet says, “O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it for thy name’s sake:” and so he goes sweetly in confessing their faults, and in praying to God. So that if we be acquainted with the Word of God, we may learn by it that we may have our recourse to him by prayer in everything; but especially in the matters of the kirk, we ought to be most earnest with him in prayer for that.

3. Now the end wherefore this should be done is, “That your requests may be made known to God.” Qu.—Does not the Lord know what are our requests before we present them to him in prayer? A.—Yes, he knows them as well before as he knows them after, for this is the difference between these supplications that we put up to God, and these that we put up to men; for when we present a supplication for anything to men, we present it for that end, to make our request known to them, because they know it not before, or at least they know it not perfectly; and we do it to move them to grant our requests: but it is not so with God, for neither can we inform him any better concerning our estate than he is already, nor can we move him to grant us anything, whilk before he did not intend to give us. But the Scripture speaks so of God, because the Lord has ordained us to use this mean of supplicating and praying to him, even as if we were to inform him of our case, or to move him to grant anything to us; and we should be als careful and als solist (solicitous) in prayer, as if it were so. That whilk we have to learn from this is, that that promise and decree whilk God has given out that he will do us good, it should not hinder us to pray to him, but it should rather further us to it. Isaac had a promise of God, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Now, seeing that Isaac had this promise, he might be sure that he should have seed; and yet when Rebekah was barren, that same promise made him pray to God to perform his promise he had made, and grant him seed. David had a promise of God that his house should be established, and he kent that it should be so; and yet that same promise made him to pray to God that he would establish his house. And Elijah, he kent well enough that the time of the drouth was past; and therefore he prays to the Lord that he would send down rain upon the earth. And Daniel, he kent also that the time of the captivity of the children of Israel in Babylon was worn out, when the 70 years were expired; and upon this he prays to the Lord to deliver them. Ay, the children of God knows this to be true by experience, that their prayers are as prognostications, telling them beforehand that such a thing sall be; as when there is appearance of ane good year to come, then the people of God are stirred up to pray for it; and this is a token to them that it is to come. And so when I see appearance of a good work, and this stirs me up to pray, this is it whilk moves the Lord to hold his hand still at the work. Obj. If the Lord have resolved to do anything, whether I pray to him or not he will work the work. A. It is true so he will, yet it becometh us, when we see the Lord working for us, to go out and meet him; and if he have ordained any good thing to be done to thee, readily (likely) he will stir thee up to cry to him for it. And so when either a whole kirk or a particular person are disposed to pray to God for a blessing, that is a foretelling of such a blessing to come upon them. And it is the surest token of a blessing to come upon the work of Reformation in hand into this land, if all the people of the land were stirred up to pray to God, as they have professed to be desirers of a Reformation.

III. Now, the last point in the text is, the benefit that is promised to them who does so; and it is “The peace of God.” Whilk peace of God is so great a matter that it passes the mind, judgment, and understanding of all men to take it up. And where this peace is, it guardeth the heart and the mind from all invasions of enemies. And the way how we come unto this peace is “through Jesus Christ.”

First, then, it is peace that is promised. Peace; yes, peace. Peace is a thing that is sweet and amiable. When there is a natural peace among all the humours in the body, and one of them strives not against another, then there is health in the body. And when there is domestic peace in a family, between master and servants, husband and wife, parents and children, it is a sweet thing; when there is no disturbance at all among them, that family will thrive. And when there is civil peace in a kingdom, and it is not divided in itself, that is most comfortable; and it is the way for the uphold of a kingdom: but where there is division in a kingdom, it is the ready way to bring the destruction thereof. And peace in the kirk, it is als comfortable a thing again as any of these is; howbeit indeed this peace of the kirk, it is ofttimes mistaken, as it has been among us. For there were none who cried faster for the peace of our kirk than those who were the very disturbers of our peace, and was the cause of all our division in this kirk.¹⁶ And what was the peace they cried for? Nothing else but a peaceable possession of their lordly dignities, and of their prelacies, and making themselves great in the world, to get a house established for themselves, and for their seed after them.¹⁷ And so, for all in the kirk to go always in one way, and so to have peace in it, that is not the best of it: division is better to be in a kirk, nor for all to go on in a course of defection. It had been better there had been a division in the primitive kirk, than that all should have agreed peaceably together to the setting up of Antichrist, as they did, except it was only some very few persons, who kythed (showed) themselves against it. And it is not so ill that there should be a rent and division in a land, as that all of them should go posting to perdition together, and so bring the curse of God upon them and their posterity. Whilk curse would undoubtedly have come upon this land, if we had all of us peaceably received the Service-book and Book of Canons, and practised them through the land.

Secondly, “The peace of God.” Why is it called the peace of God? Because this peace, it is with God; and this peace of God is the most excellent thing that can be, for there be none who can trouble them, with whom the Lord is at peace: and if he be against any, so that he be not at peace with them, whether it be nation, or congregation, or particular person, how can they stand before him? 2. It is called the peace of God, because it is he who is the author of this peace; it is he who gives it to these who has it. We may say that we sall have peace, but except the Lord grant it unto us, we sall not get it; and therefore we may not trust in man, nor in the arm of flesh, to get peace by them; but we must only trust in God for it.

Thirdly, “It passes understanding.” This peace it passes the understanding of all natural men. The natural man, he knows nothing at all of this peace; speak of this peace to him, and of faith who is the mother of this peace, and of joy who is the companion of it, they are strange and uncow (uncouth) language to him. He cannot conceive of that, nor think of it what it means. Yea, this peace, it passes the understanding of the regenerate man and of the child of God, even after his new birth; he apprehends something of this peace, and it brings him to this to think what it is, but yet he cannot tell what it is, for all that. Even as a man when he is coming to the sea, and he will know by that whilk he sees that it is the sea, but he cannot see the whole sea from the one side or from the one end to the other; and in this it does resemble God himself, for it may be seen that he is great, glorious, wise, powerful, etc, but there is none can tell how much he has of every one of these. Even as it was [with?] the Queen of Sheba, when she came to see Solomon; when she had anes gotten a sight of him, it is said she had no more heart in her, her heart departed from her; she saw so great glory, so great wisdom, and all things that were in him so far beyond that whilk was reported to her of him, or whilk she thought to have seen. Even so, when the child of God gets any measure of this peace, he cannot imagine what he has gotten of it,it is so far beyond his expectation: there is none who understands what this peace of God is, no these who has it; and so they cannot express it, but they know well enough when they have this peace. Even as it is in the health of the body, speir (ask) at any man what it is, he cannot tell you what it is, or how great a benefit it is: but he knows well enough when he wants it, and he knows best then what is the worth of it: even so is it with the peace of God in the soul.

And then where this peace of God is, “It guardeth the heart and the mind.” It guardeth that part of a man, whilk does understand everything, and it does also guard that part of a man, whilk does affect and desire everything. There are a number of ills that are continually assaulting us; but whoever are possessed with this peace of God, it puts away all these enemies, and makes us to overcome them. And all this is attained unto “through Jesus Christ.” And there is also a peace whilk cometh through the assurance of the remission of our sins; and this we get also through Jesus Christ. And there is a peace also when all the powers of our soul agree together to serve God; and this we have also through Jesus Christ. And therefore we must first of all be partakers of Christ, and then we sall assuredly be partakers of this peace.

And I would have you thinking that there is somewhat of this peace to be had even here in this life; and therefore seek after it, and be never content with yourselves, neither be at rest whill (until) ye get it, and that in some good measure. And albeit ye find not this peace begun this day into your souls, yet seek still after it through Christ, and ye sall find it to come in, and to take possession into your souls. Ye heard, the day (to-day), of the shining of God’s face: so there is a lifting up of God’s countenance upon his own children, and ye should labour to understand what is the meaning of these things. If ye have eyes to see, ye will know when the sun shines, and when it shines not, and ye will see a difference between the one time and the other: even so there is a difference between the estate of the soul, when the face of God shines upon it, and the estate thereof when the face of God shines not upon it. And Psalm 25:14,it is said, “The secret of the Lord is revealed to them that fear him;” so the Lord revealeth secret things to his own, whilk the world knows not; and it is only through Christ that he reveals to them the secret of their election, or any other secret. And Psalm 34:8, David says, “Taste and see how gracious the Lord is:” there, ye see, the children of God get a taste of his goodness throucrh Christ. And in the Canticles the spouse says to Christ, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth;” and in another place, “Let him embrace me with his right arm,” etc. Think ye that these, and such other things, are spoken of, and are not to be found? No, but all of them are sensible to the Christian soul; and they are not problems, but realities. But, whatever thou findeth of these, see that it be through the testimony of God’s Spirit, bearing witness to thy spirit, and that it cometh through Christ: and then thou sall get that hidden manna; it sall always spring up to thee, like a wholesome well to refresh thee, and not as a rotten pool to poison thee: thou sall get that white stone with that new name written in it, whilk none knows but these who has it.

And therefore, since that this is the very thing that our Lord is, holding out unto us in this sacrament, and is offering Christ unto us, through whom we have them all, let us go unto it now to get all these. Especially let us go to it, that we may get this peace of conscience, whilk passes understanding, that so our hearts and minds may be guarded thereby, through Jesus Christ, To whom, etc.

This discourse, whilst adapted to a sacramental occasion, was also evidently intended by the preacher to prepare his hearers for the crisis in civil and ecclesiastical affairs which be saw approaching.

This was just the question that was trembling in the balance at that very moment. The sagacious mind of Henderson would even seem to have anticipated nothing less than war, judging from certain things in subsequent sermons in this volume, and war was the actual issue.

Ventures.—The interruption of trade with England and the continent was what the government chiefly counted on for breaking the resolution of the country; and this had already become the source of considerable alarm in the burghs. “A few ships, well disposed, will easily bar their trade.“—Hamilton to the King, Nov. 27, 1638.

Spottiswood, Archbishop of St Andrews, succeeded Lord Kinnoul as Chancellor of Scotland in Jan. 1635. He was the first Protestant Churchman who filled that high office, and his appointment to it gave great and lasting offence to the nobility. He left the kingdom, never to return, in August of this year. He writes to Marquis Hamilton about this time, “As we cannot look for any peace here, we will take the nearest way to secure ourselves.“—Baillie I., Appendix, Ban. ed.

“That towne [St Andrews] hes now no ordinare ministers, but are supplied by the Presbytery.“—Baillie, Letter to Spang, 15t Nov. 1638.

Another incidental allusion to the presence of strangers, noticed in the extract-minute prefixed to this discourse.

An allusion to the discourse preached in the morning by, as the prefixed minute informs us, “Mr Andrew Auchinlek,” the Sermon and the minute thus mutually confirming one another.

Well wared. Well deserved

It was part of the policy of those in power to get the Covenanters to resile from their late solemn engagement, and fall back upon the original and more general Covenant of 1580. This Henderson and his brethren strenuously and successfully resisted.

“Illa plane difficilime discernuntur ubi ad Timotheum scribes ait, Obsecro itaque primum omnium fieri obsecrationes, orationes, interpretationes, gratiarum actiones.“—Aug. Epist. LIX. Vol. I. Paris, 1614.

Probably Dr John Forbes of Corse, whose treatises, says Baillie, i. p. 248, tended directly to a reconciliation with Rome. Dr Baron had also written a pamphlet in defence of the Service-book. See Row’s Appendix.

The reference is here wrongly given. It should be, “De affectionibus orantium.” Bernard has a sermon, “De quatuor modis orandi,” but in it there is no allusion to the subject in hand.

Duobus autem modis impeditur oratio peccatoris: vell nulla, vel nimia luce.—Sermo CVII., De Affectionibus Orantium. Works by Mabillon, I. 1228 b. Paris, 1680.

The word within brackets the reporter had failed to catch. We have been able to supply it from the original. The whole passage stands thus: “Primo, ergo ejus oratio debet fieri verecundo affectu... Secundo, oratio sit puro affectu... Tertia oratio effunditur amplo affectu. Quarta oratio emittitur devoto affectu.” Ibid.

A deserved hit at the practice of the Prelatists of that age, which is the practice of too many still, of referring continually to “the Fathers” and other ancient writers, in proof of their opinions.

The peace and good order of the Church were always in the mouth of the king and his counsellors as the plea or pretence for the introduction and maintenance of Episcopacy.

“l could speak of other apostat ministers also, who for a long time were opposits to the Bishops’ courses, yet in end, some through ambition, some through avarice, some through both, or being oppressed with poverty and debt, thinking by that mean to get relief to their estates and ruined houses, embraced bishoprics; such as Patrick Forbes, Laird of Corse,” etc.—Row, p. 260.

CHAPTER 7

Conclusion after the Communion

We have to regret, beloved, that when our hearts should be present, and should be lifted up, to the praise and honour of God, and to the comfort of our own souls, that then we should find them to be blind, senseless, and unbelieving, in the receiving of spiritual things: when we look unto them, ofttimes we find them astray aff these things; and when they are present, we cannot get them lifted up as they ought to be. And yet nevertheless of all this, we must not leave aff the work, because we find it to be so; ay, if we have but ane honest purpose, let us be going on in doing as we can. I will not go now to anticipate the doctrine of Thanksgiving which is to be declared to you after noon.¹ Only a word of that whilk lies next unto my text, whilk I was handling to you.

When the Apostle has taught thir people to be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer, with thanksgiving, to make their requeists known to God, and telleth them that upon that they sall have the peace of God to possess their hearts and minds; yet he has some more to say after that, and he says, "furthermore.”² And this may teach us this far, let the Christian have said what he will, yet there is aye more to say; for it is never enough said, that is not enough learned. And what says the apostle then: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,” etc, “think on these things: and those things which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, do.” So that, if ye will ask what is the duty that is now required of you, I answer that it is required of you fo do all, whatsoever is the will of God. And all these things be rendered to us in two sorts: First, as appertaining to God, that is, in truth in our speeches, and to be just in our actions. Secondly, we must also strive to carry ourselves honestly, in love, and in good respect, among men. And this was the Apostle’s own practice, for he says, Acts 24:16, “In this I am exercised always to keep a good conscience toward God, and toward men.” And, indeed, this is the best exercise that ever man gave himself to: and this was the Apostle’s exercise; it was his study. Never any of your clergymeng³ studied any point they were to teach better, either in Philosophy or Divinity, than he did this point, how to honour God, and how to keep a good conscience toward men.

Beloved, it were a good thing for you that ye would study to walk with God, and to have this sentence always written into your hearts, “All my ways are before thee, O Lord;” and to learn to watch always over your ways, and be always and often trying yourselves. For when we watch all our best, some enemies will enter; and the best heart that is, and these that watches most circumspectly, they will find that many enemies enters in upon them, and that they are greatly defiled; and therefore we must set to to purge and cleanse ourselves often. If we could set ourselves to watch, to try, and to purge always, it were good for us; and one of these we ought to be always exercised in. And if we were exercised in this, then whenever death should come and arreist us, or Christ should call us to judgment, we would make them welcome, as being prepared for them; and there is no way to be so, but for us to endeavour to walk as in the sight of God.

And, beloved, I must exhort you that ye take heed to yourselves what ye do, and that there be no defection, or falling away, among you from what ye have done. For, then, what will others who behold you say but this, When Sainct Andrews, where the clergy of the kingdom is, goes on into such a course, why may not we follow it? And, therefore, as ye have been a bad example to others in former times, in drawing back from the truth, strive now if ve can be foremost in bringing them to the profession of the truth again; and be, as it is written, Jeremiah 50:8, like the he-goats going before the flocks, to draw others on to it, and not to be hinderers of them. And withal, there is one particular that I would have you to take heed unto, and that is, that ye deal not wickedly against the Covenant of God; that when ye have anes entered in a covenant with God, that ye depart not from it again. The prophet Daniel, he chooses this same very word.⁴

There has been great business about our Covenant, and we cannot get men satisfied concerning it. First of all, they would had it destroyed, and no subscribed copies thereof to be keeped.⁵ Then when they could not get that done, they would had some special clauses put out of it.⁶ Then when that could not prevail, they would had us making a declaration close against the meaning thereof.⁷ And then, last of all, the enemies brought in another Covenant among us, as their last and deepest policy, to see whom they can draw away thereby from it.⁸ And therefore, however others deal with this Covenant of God, I would exhort you to take heed that ye deal not wickedly with it, It is a pitiful thing, albeit there were no other difference but this, that when we have given our oath and set our subscription to particulars, that then we sall take ourselves to generals again. This were a rueing that we had condemned the Service-book and the Book of Canons, as smelling of Popery. And therefore, albeit that ye should be tempted to the subscribing of this new Covenant by the commandment of authority, see that ye do it not, but stand by your Covenant that ye have already subscribed and sworn, and⁹ ...

Mr David Forret preached “the Sermone of thanksgeving.”

Furthermore, Το λοιπὸν

The name clergyman is always applied by Henderson, with significant emphasis, to the adherents of Episcopacy.

Daniel 11:32, “And such as do wickedly against the Covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries,” etc

See the Author’s “Reasons against the rendering of our sworn Covenent and subscribed Confession of faith,” which, says Baillie, i, p. 34, put the Commissioner from all hope of obtaining any such proposition.

i.e. The clauses for mutual defence, which were the main ground of offence and alarm to the King and his government.

“The Commissioner also would have them agree to a declaration of this clause of his forming; but this all did refuse,” Baillie i. 87.

The “King’s Covenant,” or Covenant of 1580.

A page or two are here wanting, being the last of the St. Andrews Sermons, which seem at one time, as stated in the Preface, to have formed a separate Collection.

CHAPTER 8

Preface

At this point begin the Discourses preached at Leuchars, in Henderson’s own Church, and to his own flock. The first is a Sermon on Hebrews 11:28, one of a series on the same chapter, which follow in this volume. It was preached on April 8, 1638, the Sabbath before the Communion. To this Communion a special interest attaches, as being the first that was observed in Henderson’s congregation since the renewing of the Covenant. In® the services connected with it, it is but natural to expect that pretty frequent allusion should be made to that important event, and this we find to be the case, not merely on the day of the Communion itself, but on this, the Sabbath which preceded it. In the Preface which follows, we find these words,—“We have lately renewed the Confession of our Faith, and that in a solemn manner; before the eyes of many witnesses we have entered in a Covenant with God;” and in the Sermon which succeeds it, we find the preacher saying, “We have in a very special manner shortly been renewing our Covenant with God, and now,” he adds, “we are to receive and put to the seal to the Covenant.” The Sermon is preceded by two Prefaces and two Prayers, and is followed by a third Prayer considerably longer than either of the two first. This was the forenoon’s work. The afternoon’s work consisted of a Sermon on Hebrews 11:29, the verse following that preached on in the forenoon, preceded by a Preface and a Prayer, and followed by another Prayer. This was the whole work, forenoon and afternoon, of what commonly we call “the preparation Sabbath.” Next follow the services ot the Communion Sabbath itself, and after these, those of the Sabbath after the Communion; the whole forming a collection the interest and value of which can hardly be over-estimated.

In this especially is our case deplorable and lamentable, and indeed worthy to be lamented, that God has not given unto us understanding minds and stirred up hearts clearly to perceive what our case and constitution is. Certaiunly, if the Lord vouchsafe not upon us, at this time especially, understanding minds and hearts, we were never in such a deplorable case as we sall be now. We have lately renewed the Confession of our faith, and that in a solemn manner; before the eyes of many witnesses we have entered in a Covenant with God. And surely if now we take not heed unto ourselves, and labour not to understand what it is to renew our Covenant with God, and endeavour not by all means possible to observe that, in every point whilk we have sworn to; but if we do again bring upon ourselves the guiltiness of the breach of this Covenant, and so of open and fearful perjury before the world, then did we never all our time dishonour God so far, nor did we ever bring upon ourselves so fearful a destruction.

We would remember of the words whilk Moses speaks to the people, Numbers 30:2, “If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear ane oath to bind his soul with a band, he sall not break his word, he sall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.” We have all of us vowed a vow unto the Lord, and we have bound ourselves by ane oath, to adhere to the purity and sincerity of Religion, and to live a life answerable to our profession, in all godliness, soberness, and righteousness. And we have bound ourselves by a band [bond] to stand for the defence and preservation of true Religion, according to our vocation. And, beloved, I may say many obligations enforces many duties; and many obligations being broken will not miss to bring on many judgments upon the breakers, and manifold wrath.

And therefore, our great care now should be not to violate our oath, but to keep it, and to the end that we may keep it the better, to lay that before our eyes whilk we have bound ourselves to. And in the hour of tentation, when we are assaulted with sin, and it is environing us, then let us remember that we are in covenant with God, and have bound ourselves to him, and beseech him for this end, that he would bestow his Spirit upon us, according to his promise to bring all things to our remembrance. If so be that we prease (earnestly endeavour) only to do this, in the sincerity and uprightness of our hearts, albeit it be but in great weakness, and we find manifold infirmities, yet to him that has sall be given, and grace sall be bestowed upon him here, whilk sall bring him to glory hereafter; and he, beginning anes to work as he is able, he sall do his part for him, and sall perform to him all the promises whilk he has made to his awin people. And therefore, so many of us as knows thir things, in any weak measure, let us fall down before the Lord our God, and acknowledge our unability to keep our Covenant that we have made with him, and beseech him to bestow grace and strength upon us to walk according to our new obligation, to his honour and glory, to the good example of others, and to the weal of our awin souls.

CHAPTER 9

Prayer

“Among that man’s [Henderson’s] other good parts that was one, a faculty of grave, good, and zealous prayer according to the matter in hand.“—Baillie i. 128.

It is our fault and our infirmity, we confess in thy sight, O Lord our God, that we consider not thy ways and thy working; and therefore it is that we think not seriously upon that duty and obligation whilk we owe to thee, the Lord.

Thy ways, O Lord, many of them has been and still are unsearchable, for who is there that has known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counseller—no created wisdom is able to fathom this depth of thy working, for it is a boundless and bottomless deep. But, Lord, thou has some gomgs and ways in the world, and especially in thy awin house, among thy awin children, which may be traced and gone into by us, which whosoever sees sall see thee, the Lord, to be wonderful in goodness, mercy, patience, yea, Ia justice, wrath, etc., even in wrath against thy wicked enemies, and in mercy to thy awin people. Lord, it has pleased thee to come near unto us, and that very near, and we wonder at it, and we cannot wonder enough, what it is that has moved thee to do so, except it be to magnify the greatness of thy mercy, in shewing of thyself merciful to such a miserable and sinful nation as we are. For where the greatest darkness is, there light is best kythed (shewn), and so the wonder is the greater that thou does good to such a unworthy people as we are; and we will take it so from thee, O Lord, to the end that thy mercy may be the more highly magnified and extolled. And therefore, whatsoever is done to us, it is to be ascribed to thy free grace and favour in Christ; for if thou had dealt with us in wrath, we had been consumed long or now: And if we had been consumed, either by thy awin immediate hand, or by some judgment, as famine, pest, or sword, as a messenger sent from thee, we behoved all of us to have subscribed that the Lord was most just and righteous in so doing, and confess that we had deserved it all at his hands, for despising of that rich offer of Christ, whilk has been made to us in the gospel, even the richest offer whilk was ever yet made to any people under heaven; and so the contemning of it deserves the greatest judgments. And therefore, from the very inward of our hearts we bless and praise thee, the Lord, for this thy goodness that thou has manifested to us; and yet, for all that, we may be yet snared, if so be that we take not heed to ourselves what we do, for thou has said thou wilt not hold him guiltless that takes thy name in vain. And if so be that we add this taking of thy name in vain, in our covenanting and swearing to thee, to our former sins, certainly we sall then be holden the guiltiest of all people under heaven, and mickle guiltier than we were before; because if we break now, we will be breakers of a very solemn covenant. And therefore, O Lord, give us grace to consider what our duty is now, and to repent and mourn to thee for sin; that so it may be a guard to us, both from all fear of our enemies, and also to hold thy wrath aff us. And because it is faith that assures us of thy mercy, and faith is not in every soul; only those has it, on whom thou bestows it; Lord, we beseech thee to banish this Atheism out of our hearts, and extirpate and pluck up by the roots this infidelity that is so fast planted into us, and plant that holy plant of faith into us; that so we may know that Christ and his righteousness belongs to us; and through him our prayers may ascend to thee, and thy blessings may descend upon us.

And because we have tied ourselves of late to thee, yet in no more than thy word requireth of us, to beautify our profession by a more religious and holy life and conversation, in doing every duty we owe both to God and man, Lord, forgive us that we have not considered of this part of our Covenant with thee; for who is there who has laid their sins to heart more this week than before, or said, What have I done? or who is there who has taken any new purposes of amendment? We may well say in general, we repent for sin; but what particular sins have we mourned for? We may say in general that we sall amend our ways; but what sin have we forsaken more than we did before, or what duties have we begun to do? Lord, it was thou who first made us to enter in covenant with thee, and thou must also put thy fear in our hearts, and cause us to love thee with the whole heart; and it is thou who must both make us willing and able to keep it. And as we have gone far on in our profession, so sanctify thou our hearts to serve thee according to it; and give us grace that hereafter our whole life may be spent and bestowed not for ourselves, nor for the world, but for thy honour and glory, for the good of others, and for the comfort of our awin souls. And for this end, Lord, pour out upon us the Spirit of prayer and supplications, both when we are about to pray to thee in private, in public, in our families, or in public in- the congregation with thy people; that so we, praying to thee as it becomes us, thou may turn away thy judgments from us, and show us thy mercy and loving-kindness: that as it pleased thee to enter in a covenant with us, and to make us to enter in a covenant with thee, when we were sliding back from thee and were almost gonme, so thou may be pleased also to turn away thy judgments from us, and to turn them upon a people who knows not thee. Lord, we apprehend this far, that if so be thou had had a purpose to destroy us, thou Would have suffered us still to go on in our blacksliding, and so made us a hissing, a reproach, and a mocking-stock to all the world about us; but because thou has been pleased to deal thus graciously with us, we take it for a beginning of great mercy, and we look that it sall be so. And no doubt but sall be, if we will endeavour to go on in the obedience of thy commandments, and to walk in thy ways; and so thou will at last bring us to that rest, purchased to us by the merits of thy Son, To whom, etc.

CHAPTER 10

Preface

Unprofitable and fruitless are our assemblies when the Lord deserts us, and leaves us to ourselves, and to fight with our awin ill hearts, when we are about so great and so good a work as this,—to honour the name of the Lord our God, and to help forward, in some degree and measure, the estate of our awin souls.

But if so be that the Lord be pleased to descend, and to enter into our hearts by his Spirit, through Jesus Christ, then we will be able to do a great and a glorious work. And therefore, great need had we to be earnest with the Lord, that he would assist us at thir times, and timeously to do it, that so our days be not spent before this work of our salvation be begun. And therefore, let us now, from the sense and feeling of our wants and need, and from confidence in his goodness and mercy, humble ourselves before the Lord our God, and beg his spirit, and entreat him to be present with us at this time.

CHAPTER 11

Prayer

We were next settling [in the Westminster Assembly] on the manner of the prayer, If it were geod to have two prayers, as we use, before sermon, or but one, as they use.—Baillie ii. 123.

Lord, this natural sense of ours does not see thee, for thou art God invisible; nor can our natural reason conceive of thee as we ought, for thou art boundless; nor can our wisdom do anything in thy service, for it is but foolishness and enmity to thee. And therefore we had great need of somewhat above nature when we are about thy service, even that grace of faith whilk thou bestows upon thy awin children, whereby they may know thee in the mirror of the Gospel. Lord, we confess that this is our need, but we are not able to supply our awin need. We are empty and full of need, and necessity is ours and belongs to us; but the praise of all-sufficiency belongs only to thee, for thou art God almighty, all-sufficient, infinite in wisdom, goodness, etc, and boundless everyway,¹ and thou gives plentifully to those who has renewed their covenant with thee. And this made the children of men to come to thee, and to trust under the shadow of thy wings; and thou makes those who covenants with thee, and knows in any measure what they are doing, to knowmore. Lord, out of these rich treasures of thy all-sufficiency and goodness, out of whilk thou has already bestowed mickle upon thy people, and there is not a whit less behind, we beseech thee also to bestow upon us according to our need; that so we may be rich, and yet thou nothing poorer; for through Jesus Christ we seek it. And if we know not what our need is, we beseech thee to give us the sense of it, and keep us from that, that we think not ourselves to be in a good case when we perceive not our awin need, but let us still be touched with the sense of want. Lord, if we be touched with the sense of want, and seek from thee, then we are sure that we sall find, even als sure as if we had found it already; for never was there any yet who sought to thee that was disappointed. And therefore, discover our estate to us, whatever it be, though it were never so miserable; for if our miserable estate be not discovered to us, we cannot labour to win out of it. If so be that we be yet in the state of nature, let us see that, that so we may desire to be translated into grace, and may be transplanted in Jesus Christ. And because there be many who knows neither what thou, the Lord, art doing, nor what they themselves are doing, we beseech thee, O Lord, so many as belongs to the election of grace illuminate their eyes and minds, and give them light from thee from above, to know thee and thy excellencies, and to know themselves and their own vileness. Lord, give us remorse for our sins. It is strange that we cannot submit to thee, the Lord; and it is strange that we are so oft called to it, and yet we cannot set our minds upon things permanent, and not fancy still upon things perishing. It is strange that we sall condemn them for fools, who seek after spiritual things, and we sall admire and advance them for wisdom, who goes after the ways of the world, and secks after that. Lord, we mistake very far anent the estate and condition of things; our judgments, they are perverted, and our affections are drawn away. And therefore, thou, Lord, who has power over our hearts, and takes the sceptre of thy word and commands them as it pleases thee, we beseech thee, O Lord, to see what is wrong in us, and make everything that 1s in us subject to thee, and command thou heart, speech, words, and actions, that so none of them may any ways be dishonour to thee, and we may not now sin against thee, but may enter in at the way of life. Lord, to this end let thy word be spoken and accompanied by thy awin Spirit, that so we may know that it is not the word of man, but the word of the living God; that so it may bring out fruits in us, and may change our hearts within, and then renew our lives without, that so our life may be honour to thee, exemplary to others, and comfortable to ourselves, through Jesus Christ, In whose, etc.

The similarity of this language to that of the answer to the question in the Shorter Catechism, “What is God?” would seem to imply that Henderson had more to do with the framing of that answer than is generally supposed to be the case, The answer is sometimes ascribed to another.

CHAPTER 12

Hebrews 11:28

Great and wonderful has been the power and praise of faith in all believers ever since the beginning; but especially it has been great in this cloud of witnesses made up by the apostle here in this cap. In the whilk number, Moses, that faithful servant of God, he is counted as ane, for “by faith, when he was come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect to the recompense of reward.” And that could not be done but by faith, for faith was the eye whereby he looked upon the recompense of reward; it was by faith afterwards that he was careless of the wrath of the king of Egypt; and it was faith that made him to see him, who to natural sense was invisible, and faith made him to look only to him who was invisible. And so his faith prevailing above his sense, his invisible sight above his visible, he feared not him who was visible to sense; but feared him only who was invisible to sense, and visible to the eye of faith.

Now, in the words that I have read to you, it was by faith also that he did this, that when he perceived a great destruction coming upon the Egyptians, who had for a very long time resisted the power of God, it was by faith that he was assured that God’s people should be safe from this sudden destruction. And therefore, at the commandment and direction of God, he ordained the Passover to be celebrate, and the blood of the paschal lamb to be kepped¹ in a basin, and ordained every family of the Israelites to take a brush of hyssop, and to dip it in the blood, and with that sprinkle the posts and lintels of their doors without, that so when the destroyer comes, God’s devouring angel, and is ordained to kill every first-born in ilk house of Egypt, through the whole land, yet every family of the Israelites sall be safe. And they sall be so safe that, while there is a great crying and shouting among all the Egyptians, yet there sall not be heard among the Israelites so mickle as the bark of a dog, and ye know that the least stirring that can be will waken a dog; yet it was not heard among them.

And so faith did this. The history of this is set down at large Exodus 12: and it is applied here to Moses as a work of faith.

That we may take it up as the apostle speaks of it here, we must take notice of thir four several points in the words: 1. The great and terrible destruction that was now execute against the Egyptians, who had proven so many times rebellious before; all their first-born were slain. 2. There is the safety and preservation of God’s people when this great destruction was on them. 3. The means whilk were used for their safety, whilk was the keeping of the Passover, and the sprinkling of the lintels and posts of the doors with the blood thereof. 4. The way how it came to pass, that these means, whilk seemed in themselves to be so weak and insufficient for such ends as they were appointed for, how then was it that they could serve to be a guard to the Israelites in such a great destruction? By faith, for God had told Moses that they should be safe; Moses told the people of the Lord’s promise, and they believed it, and so they were safe. The first will let us see the destruction of God’s enemies and his people’s; the second will let us see the preservation of God’s people in the midst of that destruction; the third will let us see the means that should be used for their preservation; and the fourth will let us see what it is that is requisite and necessar for us to have in our hearts, to make these means effectual.

I. For the destruction of the enemies of God and his people, when ye think upon it, think upon the destruction, and the destroyer. And when ye think upon the destruction, think upon thir two; first, that it was great and sore; secondly, that it was just and rlghteous whilk are both necessar to be considered, because, if we think only that it was great and sore, then we may think that it was not just and righteous; but it was both.

1. It was great and sore in this, because it was sudden; and ye know the suddenness of a destruction makes it to be so mickle the sorer. They were forewarned, indeed, that destruction, and sore destruction, was to come upon them, but yet they feared it not: it was told them that the vengeance of God that was to come upon them was greater than any that was yet come, but they believed it not. And the reason why they did not fear was because they had no faith; and because they had not faith, nor feared not, therefore they did not expect it. This was it that made the destruction of the old world greater than otherwise it would have been, because they were in security when it came, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, till that very day that Noah entered into the ark. Noah had been preaching to them 120 years, and telling them that this was to come upon them, but they believed him not; and therefore they feared not that this was to come upon them: but Noah, having faith, believed it was to come, and at God’s commandment builded the Ark, and was safe there, And the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, it came unexpected; for that same morning the sun shined on them, yet shortly there came down a foul shower of fire and brimstone. And it is said of the man in the gospel, “Thou fool, this night thy soul sall be taken from thee;” that is, even when thou looked least for it, then it sall be done. And the last day, it is said that it sall come as travail upon a woman with child, whilk will be very unexpected; for if a woman have ease or be light any time, it will be a little before her pains come upon her. And so this makes their destruction sore, that it was not looked for.

2. The time when it was makes it to be great also. For it was in the night, and that in the darkest time of the night, even at midnight; and the being of it in the night, and the darkest time of the night, it makes the judgment so much sorer. And therefore it is said, Genesis 14, when Abraham went out against those four kings, to recover his brother’s son Lot, he came upon them in the night. And God sends his angel into the host of Sennacherib in the night, to slay so many of them when there was none to behold it. And that fearful judgment that came upon Belshazzar, when he was carousing, came upon him in the night. And ye know it is said of our Lord and Saviour, (and not without cause), that he sall come at the last day, as a thief in the night. Surely, beloved, whatever be the circumstance of time that the Lord chooses to bring destruction upon us, he can make it to seem heavy and sore by that.

3. The third thing that makes it great and sore was, because it was common and universal. First, it was common; for there was no sort of people excepted, great nor small, Exodus 12:29; there was none escaped, from them that sitteth upon the throne, and so the king he was partaker of it also, to him that sitteth behind the mill,Exodus 11:5, whilk was the meanest office, to call (drive) about the mill. Ay, the very beasts were partakers of this destruction also. Secondly, it was also universal, for a judgment may be common, and not be universal; but it was in every family of the Egyptians, so that it was universal. Surely, beloved, common and universal judgments be sore and comfortless judgments.

4. The judgment was also great, because it was the first-born in every house that was slain. This, indeed, made the judgment to be great, for many times parents think the judgments that comes upon their children greater than if they came upon themselves; and specially they think it to be great, if it be upon their first-born. And if they had only but one child, that one behoved to be destroyed, then what hope could they have of the continuing of their posterity and their house after them? This, indeed, made the judgment to be great.

5. To show the greatness of this destruction, it is told, Exodus 12:30, that there was a great cry among them, even such a cry as was never heard in that or any other country; ilk house of all the Egyptians crying sorrow—never one safe. And the king himself is forced to cry out; he sees his son dead, therefore he is forced to cry out that his eldest son is dead: and he sees none to do it, for Moses was not there to strike him dead with his rod. And the very beasts of the Egyptians were forced to cry also.

6. And, moreover, ye know that it is a kind of miserable comfort to have a mate in misery; and this made the destruction to be the more manifest and sore, that not one of the Israelites are touched, but are all safe. And their safety is in such a manner, that the text cannot satisfy itself in expression; it says, “there was not so much as a dog heard to stir among them,” albeit the least motion that can be made will waken a dog; yet it was not so here.

7. And whilk also made the judgment to be greater, that all the people in the land of Egypt entreated Moses and Aaron, and the people of Israel with them, to go their way: and so now they are forced to entreat them to do that whilk before they would not grant them, and the Israelites would have counted it a benefit, if they had done it; but now they think it a favour if they will go their way, and hires them to it.

In all thir respects, the destruction that was at this time is described to be great. And so let us learn here, that when the Lord pleases, he can bring sore and sudden destruction upon his enemies and his people’s; and at such a time as will make it to seem greatest: he can also make it common and universal, none to escape it; and to come upon that whilk they affect most: he can make a hideous cry to be raised among them: and can then, (whilk will make their judgment to seem greater,) preserve his own children. And he will force the enemies to obtrude upon his children, [that] whilk before they would not grant unto them; and beseech them to accept of it, and count it a favour and a benefit if they will do so: whereas before they would not grant that to them upon no terms, and God’‘s people would have counted that a favour, if they had then granted it to them.² And so the Lord, he has fearful and sore judgments for his enemies.

Now, we must understand that God has two sorts of enemies. 1. Professed enemies, such as Egypt was at this time. When Moses and Aaron spake of the Lord to them, Pharaoh says, “Who is the Lord, that I should fear him?” is there any Lord above me, to command me? And so he was a professed enemy to God. And Moab, also, and the Amalekites, and the Midianites; and those whom God’s people rancountered with in the deserts of Arabia. And Babel afterward is a professed enemy to God; and so is the Turk now, he is a professed enemy, for to him the very name of a Christian is abomination, Beloved, there 1s none but they will acknowledge that God has sore and great destruction for these: but God has another sort of enemies, who profess themselves to be the people of God, and yet, having a different form of religion, persecute them who are the true people of God. Such are Papists, and these who are Popishly affected, who, under the name of the true religion, persecute those who are of the true religion; and, under the name of the Catholic Kirk, persecute these who are the true Catholic kirk. As it is, Revelation 17:6, the whore of Babel will never cease till she be drucken with the blood of the saincts and of the martyrs. And, indeed, that whore never ceases, but either by hostility, or by raising up of princes, or deceiving of people’s souls, to be drucken with the blood of God’s children. And, secondly, there is another sort of enemies; and these are they who are within the bosom of the kirk, and profess to be of the same religion, but have never found the power of it in their hearts to make them believe, nor in their lives, to walk according to it. And thir are worldly wisemen who are seeking themselves, epicures, belly-gods seeking their ease, and vain, proud men seeking honour in the world:³ all thir are enemies to God. And so, when we are speaking of the enemies of God, we must not only count them to be enemies who are open enemies, but even those also who profess to be God’s people, and yet persecute these who are so; and these who are crafty men, seeking only themselves in the world, who will be saying that they are establishing religion in a land, and yet in the meantime they are seeking only to have themselves established, and their posterity, with the ruin of religion.⁴ And when God begins to plague, he will even plague such enemies as these with heavy and sore judgments. There is a familiar comparison of the judgments of such. Isaiah 30:13 he says, “It sall be as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at ane instant. And he sall break it as the breaking of the potter’s veshel that is broken in pieces; he sall not spare: so that there sall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.” That is, he sall anes break them so small as he sall not need to break them any more. There sall come terrible, sudden, and sore destruction upon all the enemies of God’s people. Surely, I may say, if we have the true fear of God in our hearts, and if so be that we be his people, as we have professed ourselves to be, and are in covenant with him, this needs not to be a terrible thing to us to hear, that God will deal thus with his enemies, but it may be comfortable to us. For this is one of the styles that he takes to himself, Exodus 34:6, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.” That is, the Lord, he will be avenged upon his enemies, and in so doing, he shows mercy to his people. And, therefore, when we see the enemies of God’s people flourishing fast in the world, and are like a green bay tree, and has access to kings, when these who are the true servants of God has no access to them, let us not be discouraged for all that, for they are only climbing high, to the end that, when their fall comes, it may be the greater and more tragical.

Secondly. As the destruction was great, so it was also just. It was just. 1. Because God had sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and they told them their message they had from the Lord, but they obeyed it not. And they had also before this wrought nine sundry miracles among them, and aye they seemed to repent in the time but when they were eased, presently they returned to their old bias, and were as insolent and wicked as ever they were.⁵ Was it not just then that God should plague them with a heavier and sorer destruction than any they had found before? And is it not just with God, when nothing will move people to turn from their ill course, neither their conscience of wrong, nor shame and disgrace before the world, and yet for all that there is never a word of repentance among them, but at the least intermission they are als wicked as ever they were, is it not just that God should prepare, yea even inflict, heavier judgments and plagues for these? They will think, what can he do more nor he has done already? Ay, he can do a thousand times more, as it is Leviticus 26:18 and that offer nor anes or twice; he can plague seven times more, and seven times more, yea, many seven times more, and make them aye to be heavier and heavier. 2. It was just even in these things wherein there might seem to be a little injustice; for the parents are spared who had committed the sin, and the little ones are destroyed who actually had done no harm. Now, this might seem to smell a little of injustice, that the little ones should be killed, who were not accessory to the transgression, and the parents spared, who had committed it. But ye may not think, now, the parents were spared in mercy, but they were spared in wrath; for the children, now, they are tane away secretly in the night and in houses, but the parents, they must be brought to open scaffold, and there they must be cut off. They must pursue the children of Israel to the Red Sea, and they must be drowned there. Certainly, we may see that a wicked man may have hopeful children, and the Lord may take them away, and spare himself; and this may seem to be unjust—to spare the nocent, and correct the innocent: but his sparing of them is not in mercy, for he may have a heavier destruction abiding them. And that their first-born were killed, although they were never so young, there is no injustice here, for there is none can deny but the parents’ fault may be punished in the children, for the children are as members of the same body, and links of that same chain. As when the natural body fails, all the rest will fail also; or when the hand steals, the back will suffer scourging for it; when the stomach is sick, the head will find the pain of it; and so the Lord, he does wrong to none in punishing of some in other persons; as they will be forced to acknowledge when the judgment is come. Finally, their judgment was just in this, that the first-born of their children were taken, because it was a kind of retribution or retaliation of that whilk they had done; for in these things wherein a man sins most, it is just that in these things they be punished. For they had used cruelty against the young anes in Israel, and therefore it is just that their children be taken away now at this time. Surely, beloved, the Lord many times is so sensibly to be seen here in punishing of some for their sins, that the greatest atheist will be forced to say, “There is a God who judges the world,” as Adonibezek says, Judges 1, “As I have done, so God hath requited me.” And so, when ye see the like of this upon any, acknowledge thdt it is the just judgment of God, in requiting them according as they have done. Were it not just with God that some were forced to flee from their places, who has put honest men out of their places? and were it not just that they were forced to flee out of the country, who has banished these out of the country, who were indeed the faithful servants of God?⁶ But it is a strange thing to perceive how blind-folded people are, that when God is doing the like of this, yet they do not perceive it to be so. The Israelites saw the finger of God in this, but for the Egyptians, they saw it not, nor in the former plagues they saw it not, but only a little: and what they saw, because they did not see it still, therefore it tended to their destruction and just condemnation; and so it was not seen for their safety. So ye see that their destruction was first, great and sore; secondly, just and righteous.

Next, there is the destroyer. Certainly, it was the Lord in his justice who was the principal destroyer of them, for as the Lord in his mercy is a saver and preserver of the godly, who put their trust under the shadow of his wings, so he is a destroyer of the wicked. It is true, indeed, there is none can tell how gracious and merciful the Lord is, but yet for all that, we may not say that he is gracious and merciful to his enemies, but only to them that fear him; for it is ane honour to him to destroy his enemies, as well as it is ane honour to shew mercy to his children. But here there is ane instrument in the destroyer. It is true, there is no expression of ane angel, or if there was ane or moe, but only it is called a destroyer; but it seems to have been ane angel. Only let us learn this, that whatsoever be the instrument or mean, that the Lord has appointed to work destruction for his enemies, yet when the Lord has exhorted us to salvation, and to turn to him and receive salvation from him, and thou has not obeyed that, then the Lord takes his place upon him, and sits down in the throne of his justice; then thou may assure thyself that he sall not want anew (enough) to employ for thy destruction. When the Lord 1s minded to make a threshing-floor of a people, he will not want flails anew to thresh them. It is true, indeed, there 1s no necessity of any instruments at all, or he needs but one, for in the plagues that came on them before, there is but cne instrument at anes, fly, frog, etc, but the Lord, he can employ mightier; he can send ane angel into the host of the Assyrians, and slay such a number in ane night. And let us also learn here, that people will think themselves so secure, how can ane enemy come upon them, for we are at peace with all about? yet the Lord he can make some of them to rise up against thee, or raise up some from among thyself, or he may make thee to be destroyed some other way, that thou sall not know who has done it. For howsoever the Jews’ fable is, that the Egyptians had horrible dreams whilk troubled them, and made them to cry out, but there is no mention made of any such thing in the text, before the shouting came, and there is nothing mentioned to be the cause of it but the destroyer. Surely if the Lord has appointed destruction for any, he can get destroyers anew to execute it, he can raise ane foreign enemy against thee, or if he do not that, he can send ane pestilence or famine, or he can send a destruction by the sword, and not be from foreign enemies, but even from these of thy awin bowels; and therefore think not that thou sall be safe, if the Lord has appointed destruction for thee, for he sall send it, and that, such as all sall be forced to wonder at, Lamentations 4:12 The kings of the earth could not believe that such a destruction should come upon Jerusalem; that Jerusalem that was so strongly builded, and was the very centre and navel of the world, that it should be made a prey to the enemies: who could think upon that? And the Palatinate also, whilk was so brave a country, who would have thought that it should have been made a prey to the enemy? and yet it is so now. So ye see the Lord, he can find out means anew, either for the destruction of his enemies, or yet for the afflicting of his awin children.

II. Now for the second point in the text, whilk is the preservation of the people of Israel at this time, the text says not only, They were not destroyed, but they were not touched, that is, als great and sore as the destruction was upon the Egyptians als great also was the preservation of God’s people; for the Lord, he has a double guard to save his awin. 1. The guard of his providence, whilk compasses them about as a wall of fire, so that no ill comes near them. 2. There is ane inward guard of a good conscience; so says the Apostle. It may be, indeed, that the Lord will suffer the enemies to break through the first guard of his providence upon his awin, yet, if they be his awin children, they are so guarded within, that there is no terrour of all their enemies. And surely it becomes us, and it is profitable for us, to mark the difference between the godly and the wicked in their calamities, and not to say, Wherefore serves all our praying, and all the religious and holy duties that we have done, seeing that the enemy is broken in upon us, or he will do it, as well as upon others who has not done so? Surely, if the Lord think it meetest, he can save thee from all thy enemies, and give thee peace outwardly, or if he do not so, he can give thee inward peace in thy conscience within. And if thy life sall be taken from thee, it sall be a convoying [conveying] of thee so mickle sooner to that rest whilk thou longed for before. Noah, he had this double guard, for he had a calm and a quiet conscience within, having walked with God all his days, and preached to that people, and in the end the ark is prepared for him, and he goes in it. And so, when all the rest are howling and weeping, he is sitting close in his cabinet, quiet and safe there; and he had a quiet and calm conscience; and so as the waters rose, he still ascended both in body and mind nearer to God. Lord, but there be a great difference between the godly and the wicked in the day of the Lord’s wrath! Lot also, while he was in Sodom, he vexed his righteous soul with the abominations thereof, while all the rest were merry and jovial: yet when the destruction came upon them, the Lord had a care of him and preserved him. Then he had a calm and a peaceable conscience within, and he was led out safe to the mountain, and saw the wicked destroyed. And, Ezekiel 9:2, there are six men there sent out, every man with a slaughter weapon in his hand, to destroy all through the land, but there was one with a writer’s inkhorn by his side, sent out to mark all these who did sigh and mourn for the abominations of the time; and the destroyers were commanded not to’ come near to these who had the mark upon them. And, as it is Revelation 14:1 the hundreth forty and four thousand, who had not received the mark of the beast, they were safe. And so we may see, when the destruction comes upon the wicked in the world, none of God’s children sall be destroyed by it; no, they sall not be touched therewith.

III. The third point in the text is, The means whilk were used for their deliverance and safety. He ordained the passover to be keeped; that is, he ordained a lamb to be slain, and the blood of it kepped and sprinkled upon the lintels and posts of the doors. It comes many times to pass, and the Lord does it wisely, that the name of the thing signified is ascribed to the sign: he ordained a lamb to be killed and eaten, and he calls that the Passover, or, as the word has it, a louping over all the Israelites’ houses. This is ane ordinar thing, to give the name of the sign to the thing signified, as “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us;”⁷ “This is the cup of the new testament in my blood, shed for the remission of the sins of many.”⁸ And the reason of this is. 1. Because of the similitude and representation whilk the sign has with the thing signified. Howsoever, indeed, that whilk is natural of it does not make it a sacrament, yet the Lord he has chosen such things as does that to the body, which the thing signified does to the soul. 2. Because it is grounded upon the words of the institution to do so: the Lord he has chosen such a thing for the sign, and therefore it is ascribed to the thing signified. 3. It is so, also, from the use that we have of them. This is all that we should look to in the signs of any sacrament, and no further. Men may call them sacramentaries,⁹ who has not a intention of bodily presence, but for these who has it, it is idolatry for them to say so. And, therefore, as we would wish to be partakers of the thing signified in the sacraments, beware to give any more to the sign than that whilk is right.

Again, we see here, he appointed the Passover to be the mean, that is, he ordained a lamb to be killed, and the blood thereof to be sprinkled upon the posts and lintels of the doors. Now what needed a lamb? Because of the representation therewith of Jesus Christ. John Baptist says, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world;”¹⁰ so Jesus Christ is represented by this lamb. And John 19:36, “A bone of him sall not be broken;” this was that the scripture might be fulfilled, for so was the passover; there was none of the bones thereof broken. And again, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us,” 1 Corinthians 5:7 So that is the matter why it was ordained, for it was not the sprinkling of every blood upon the door of the Israelites that could save them, but only of a lamb, and that of the Passover. So it is not everything, nor is it every blood that is able to save us from our sins, but only the blood, of Jesus Christ, whilk cleanses from all sin. Albeit we should slay all the enemies of God, if in the meantime we be Athiests ourselves, that is not able to expiate sin; and albeit thou should offer thy first-born for the sin of thy soul, yet that will do no good; or albeit thou should offer up thyself in sacrifice. It is only the blood of Christ that must cleanse us from all our sins, and therefore we must study to know Christ well.

Now, I will not insist here, but only a word or two, how they did eat this passover. First, they did eat it with bitter and sour herbs: So thou needs not think that Christ will be any ways savoury to thee, if thou have not a sense of the bitterness of sin. Secondly, They did eat it with unleavened bread; and so when we come to the sacrament, we must cast away the old leaven of nature, malice, and envy, and put on the new leaven of Jesus Christ, Thirdly, They did eat it with their loins girded about, ready for their journey. So when we partake of the sacrament now, we must be in readiness to follow the calling of God; whatever it be that the Lord bids us do, let us be prepared for that.

Now, for the sprinkling of the blood upon their doors, it was done thus, as I told you: they took a bunch of hyssop, and dipped it in the basin where the blood of the lamb was, and sprinkled it upon the lintels and posts of the doors. This seemed to be but a very weak mean for their preservation; it might be thought, what good could this do? or whom could this hold out? a little blood upon a door ! And when the Egyptians saw it, might they not laugh at the goked (stupid) Israelites who did so? and no question but if they had seen it they would have smiled; yet, nevertheless, they did it because it was the commandment of God: and so, indeed, it was wisdom in them, and proved also to be wisdom in end, and not to be a matter of mocking, but of preservation. So when we come together to do anything that God bids us do, we will get anew to laugh at us, as many of the Israelites did at the posts whilk Hezekiah sent to them, to come and keep the Passover. So when ye begin to take pains in the service and worship of God, and these things whilk he has commanded you, then the world will not miss to laugh at you; but be ye aye domg, and in end it sall be turned in a matter of mourning to them, and of rejoicing to you. Albeit the means be weak-like of themselves, use them, and thou sall find a blessing. We have ane example of this in Naaman the Syrian, when he was lepper (leprous), he comes to the prophet Elisha, to be cleansed by him. The prophet bids him go and wash himself in Jordan, and he sall be clean; he laughs at this, and says, What, is there not als good water at home as in Jordan? and thought he would not do that. Yet his servant bids him go and assay it, and he went and washed himself there, and so was made clean. So if we will use the means that God has appointed, in obedience to his commandment, and in faith, we need not to doubt, though they seem to be never so weak and unlikely for that end, yet the Lord will make them effectual; for the less power, or appearance of power, there be in the means, the more is the power of God kythed. And if so be that we could pass by the instrument that does anything, and look only to God as the doer of it, we would then meet with a vive (lively) and evident demonstration of the power of God; but there is evermore something that intercepts our thoughts by the way, and that ofttimes stops the Lord from working.

When the Israelites were stinged by the serpents in the wilderness, what was it that the Lord ordained to be their cure? He ordains them to set up a brazen serpent upon the end of a pole or staff, and only look to that, and they sall be whole. This might seem to be ridiculous to the natural man, and yet the Lord made it to be effectual. We laugh at these things whilk we see not natural reason for, but the Lord he does not so, for ofttimes he works by these means. Therefore use the means whilk God has appointed to be used for such ends, though they seem never so weak, for if they be done in faith and in obedience to the commandment of God, thou sall find a blessing upon them.

This blood was sprinkled on the doors; so it was not enough that the lamb’s blood was shed, but it behoved also to be sprinkled upon their doors. So it is not enough for us to say that Christ’s blood was shed for sinners, but we must have our souls sprinkled with it; that is, when we believe in Christ, and labour for a sure persuasion in our souls that his blood was shed for us, and for our sins, in particular, so as thou can say I know Christ’s blood was shed in particular for me. Therefore count reverently of Christ, believe in him, despise not the blood of Christ. And mark also, that the blood was not sprinkled round about the doors, for there was none of it upon the thresholds. And that was because he would have us to be saved by the blood of Christ, but he would not have it to be despised by us, nor to count it ane unholy thing. But we must exalt it highly, and have it in the special cabinet of our souls: let faith dwell and rest there.

Qu. But how was it that this could save them, being so weak and so unlikely to do it? Ans. By faith. Certainly, beloved, we but deceive ourselves if we think to receive any comfort or benefit by the sacraments, unless we have faith. There was faith required of these who did participate of the sacraments under the old Testament, but more is there faith required of these who participate of the sacraments under the new Testament: and therefore, come not here to this sacrament, to profane it, unless ye have believing souls. And, certainly, there was never a time wherein there was greater need of faith than now: no, there was never such a necessar time in our days. Qu. Wherefore is it so necessar? Ans. 1. Because we have in a very special manner shortly been renewing our Covenant with God, and now we are to receive and put to the seal to the covenant, and therefore great need had we to come in faith, for now God is binding himself to us to be our God, and we are binding ourselves to him to be his people; and this is the seal of that covenant. In baptism, indeed, we did make a covenant to be the servants and children of God, and to renounce all things contrair to his will, and to walk in his commandments, but now it is done by us more solemnly. And therefore, since we have renewed our covenant, and are to put to the seal to it, let us prepare ourselves for that, and labour diligently to have faith. 2. Surely, beloved, it is very necessary for us to examine at this time if we have faith, because we cannot tell how near destruction is to this land;¹¹ and so when the destroyer comes, as we would wish that there were a difference between us and the rest of the world, let us prepare ourselves at this time, that so we may say, I have been many times at the Communion, but I never found such profit as I have found now. Try what faith is, that so ye may know whether ye have it or not. First, faith, where it is, is also joined with knowledge, for if thou know not God, how is it possible that thou can believe in him? And ane ignorant faith, I may say, is no faith. Secondly, faith is also ane assenting to the truth that is revealed to thee. When any speaks to thee of Christ, or of the Holy Ghost, or of the mysteries of salvation, then thou perceives some further knowledge and trust in thee than there was before, while thou was in nature; so, when thou understands and believes, then thou may say undoubtedly that thou has true faith. For there may be many who understands, but yet for all that believes not. Thirdly, that is true faith, whilk expels fear from thee; for many will say, I understand many things in the word of God that belongs to salvation, I know the whole word of God to be true, but yet I have terrours in my mind. It’s true indeed, thou may believe and have terrours also, yet when thou believes and sees Christ able to satisfy for thy sins, then thou may come to him, and lippen to him so as nothing sall be able to separate thee from him. And when all this 13, yet rest not there, but labour to have a persuasion of the pardon and remission of thy sins, albeit, indeed, I grant it be enough for thee to know Christ, and to believe in him, and cast thy care and burden upon him. Then thou may say, 1 should be persuaded, and therefore I will labour for persuasion also. And, therefore, labour to be certified, and to have it immediately communicate to you by the Holy Spirit, that so, in a full assurance of faith, ye may be certified of the Lord’s favour towards you. Could we anes come to this, to say that we have faith thus, then might we come to the Communion, and be assured to be bettered by it. And yet when we have done this, it is not enough for us to lie in security all the rest of our time, but we must set to and work; and therefore let us make ourselves for this. Some there be who thinks that they have faith, but thinks they cannot get time, for other things, to prepare themselves, and so, when they come to their action, it is but dead and comfortless, because the heart has not been wakened and stirred up. And, therefore, labour to have faith, and use the means whilk God has appointed, and so get peace in your souls for a guard within, and God’s providence for a guard without, and thus the destroyer, when he comes, sall not touch you, but the Lamb, the Son of God, sall save you by his blood sprinkled upon you. To whom, etc.

Caught when falling

At the time this was uttered, it was known that the court would grant the Covenanters all their original demands, and it soon appeared that they would obtain everything short of the abolition of the episcopal office.

A vivid but true description of not a few of those who were prelatically inclined.

Vide supra, p. 82, note.

The allusion here is unmistakable. Henderson, even thus early, clearly saw through the policy and designs of the Court, and perceived that all their concessions were intended only to divide and cajole, and that, being dictated solely by the necessity of affairs, they would be recalled on the first opportunity. Burnet’s Memoirs of the House of Hamilton have told the world whether he judged right or not.

“By these means the bishops were cast into a sudden consternation and fit of despair. According to Bishop Guthrie, the Archbishop of St Andrews, being in Edinburgh when the Covenant was first subscribed there, said, ‘Now all that we have been doing these thirty years past is thrown down at once; and, fearing violence, he fled to London, where he died next year.’ . . . Such other of the bishops as knew themselves to be most ungracious to the people, thought fit to take the same route in a short time thereafter; and the few who remained behind were advised to hold themselves quiet, and live retired.“—Stevenson’s History of the Church of Scotland, page 212.

1 Corinthians 5:7

Matthew 26:28

Sacramentaries. The name Sacramentarian was first given in the sixteenth century to the party among the Reformers who separated from Luther on the doctrine of the Eucharist. Luther held what is called the doctrine of consubstantiation, i.e., the real presence of the body and blood of Christ along with the bread and wine. The same name, or as it here stands, Sacramentaries, was given in disparagement by the Laudean divines to those who held the reformed doctrines in regard to the real presence. David Mitchell, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and a man of strong Prelatic leanings, in a letter to Leslie, Bishop of Raphoe, of date Mar. 19, 1638, speaking of the changes in the Communion Service in the Scots Liturgy, says, “Great need there was for them, propter sacramentarios.“—Baillie ii Appendix.

John 1:29

Another of those places in which Henderson seems to have anticipated a calamitous issue to the present commotions,—an issue which was in some measure realized next year in the shape of war waged by the king against the Covenanters.