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CHAPTER XII.
EXTENT OF THE REVIVAL OF 1740-1748--AUSPICIOUS OPENING--OPPOSED BY ITS
ENEMIES: AND INJURED BY ITS FRIENDS--"THOUGHTS ON THE REVIVAL IN NEW
ENGLAND"--ATTESTATIONS OF NUMEROUS MINISTERS--CAUSES OF ITS
DECLINE--INFLUENCE OF MR. WHITEFIELD, MR. TENNENT, AND
OTHERS--INFLUENCE OF MR. EDWARDS'S PUBLICATIONS IN SCOTLAND--GREAT
REVIVAL OF RELIGION THERE--HIS CORRESPONDENTS IN THAT COUNTRY--LETTER
TO MR. M'CULLOCH--ANSWER TO DO--LETTER FROM MR. ROBE.
The reader can scarcely need to be informed, that the revival of
religion, of which we have been speaking, was not confined to
Northampton. It began there, and at Boston, and many other places, in
1740, and in that, and the three following years, prevailed, to a
greater or less degree, in more than one hundred and fifty
congregations in New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania;
as well as in a considerable number more, in Maryland and Virginia, in
1744. At its commencement, it appears to have been, to an unusual
degree, a silent, powerful, and glorious work of the Spirit of
God--the simple effect of truth applied to the conscience, and
accompanied by his converting grace. So auspicious indeed was the
opening of this memorable work of God, and so rapid its progress, that
the promised reign of Christ on the earth was believed, by many, to be
actually begun. Had it continued of this unmixed character, so
extensive was its prevalence, and so powerful its operation, it would
seem that in no great length of time, it would have pervaded the
western world. As is usual in such cases, it was opposed by the
enemies of vital religion, and with a violence proportioned to its
prevalence and power. But its worst enemies were found among its most
zealous friends: and Mr. Edwards appear to have been early aware, that
the measures too generally resorted to, by many of them, to extend its
influence over the whole country, as well as throughout every town and
village where it was actually begun, were only adapted to introduce
confusion and disorder, as far as they prevailed. To check these
commencing evils, if possible, and to bear his own testimony to the
work as a genuine work of the Holy Spirit, he prepared and published
his "Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England, in 1740." In
this treatise, after presenting evidence most clear and convincing
that the attention to religion, of which he speaks, was a glorious
work of God, and showing the obligations which all were under, to
acknowledge and promote it, as well as the danger of the contrary
conduct; he points out various particulars in which its friends had
been injuriously blamed, then exhibits the errors and mistakes into
which they had actually fallen, and concludes by showing positively,
what ought to be done to promote it. This work, which was published in
1742, excited a very deep interest in the American churches, and was
immediately republished in Scotland. The author, from his uncommon
acquaintance with the Scriptures, the soundness of his theological
views, his intuitive discernment of the operations of the mind, his
knowledge of the human heart both before and after its renovation by
the Spirit of God, his familiarity with revivals of religion, his
freedom from enthusiasm, and his utter aversion to extravagance and
disorder, was admirably qualified to execute it in the happiest
manner: and, from the time of its first publication, it has been, to a
very wide extent, the common text-book of evangelical divines, on the
subject of which it treats. If the reader will examine the various
accounts of revivals of religion, he will find that no one of them,
anterior to this, furnishes an explanation of the subject, in
accordance with the acknowledged principles of mental philosophy.
In 1743, about one hundred and sixty ministers published their
attestations to this work, as in their own view a genuine work of the
Spirit of God, and as having been extraordinary and remarkable; on
account of the numbers who discovered a deep anxiety for their
salvation; on account of its rapid progress from place to place; and
on account of the power with which it was carried on. Yet, while they
bear witness to the great numbers who appeared to have become real
Christians, to the extensive reformation of morals which it
occasioned, and to a greater prevalence of religion than they had
before witnessed; many of them also regret the extravagances and
irregularities, which in some places had been permitted to accompany
it. Among these, they particularly point out--a disposition to make
secret impulses on the mind a rule of duty laymen invading the
ministerial office, and under a pretence of exhorting, setting up
preaching--ministers invading each other's provinces--indiscreet young
men rushing into particular places, and preaching on all
occasions--unscriptural separations of churches, and of ministers from
their churches--a rash judging of the religious state of others--and a
controversial, uncharitable, and censorious spirit.
There can be no doubt, that both parts of this statement are true.
Although this most extensive work of grace opened on New England, in
1740 and 1741, in a manner eminently auspicious; yet in the two
following years, it assumed, in various places, a somewhat different
aspect, and was unhappily marked with irregularity and disorder. This
was doubtless owing, in some degree, to the fact, that many ministers
of wisdom and sound discretion, not adverting sufficiently to the
extent and importance of the apostolic exhortation, "Let all things be
done decently and in order," either encouraged, or did not effectually
suppress, outcries, falling down and swooning, in the time of public
and social worship, the speaking and praying of women in the church
and in mixed assemblies, the meeting of children by themselves for
religious worship, and singing and praying aloud in the streets; but
far more to the unrestrained zeal of a considerable number of
misguided men--some of them preachers of the gospel, and others lay
exhorters--who, intending to take Mr. Whitefield as their model,
travelled from place to place, preaching and exhorting wherever they
could collect an audience; pronounced definitively and unhesitatingly
with respect to the piety of individuals, both ministers and private
Christians; and whenever they judged a minister, or a majority of his
church, destitute of piety--which they usually did, not on account of
their false principles or their irreligious life, but for their want
of an ardour and zeal equal to their own--advised, in the one case,
the whole church to withdraw from the minister; and in the other, a
minority to separate themselves from the majority, and to form a
distinct church and congregation. This indiscreet advice had, at
times, too much influence, and occasioned in some places the sundering
of churches and congregations, in others the removal of ministers, and
in others the separation of individuals from the communion of their
brethren. It thus introduced contentions and quarrels into churches
and families, alienated ministers from each other, and from their
people, and produced, in the places where these consequences were most
discernible, a wide-spread and riveted prejudice against revivals of
religion. It is deserving perhaps of inquiry, Whether the subsequent
slumber of the American church, for nearly seventy years, may not be
ascribed, in an important degree, to the fatal re-action of these
unhappy measures.
There can be no doubt that on Mr. Whitefield (although by his
multiplied and successful labours he was the means of incalculable
good to the churches of America, as well as to those of England and
Scotland) these evils are, to a considerable degree, to be charged, as
having first led the way in this career of irregularity and disorder.
He did not go as far as some of his followers; but he opened a wide
door, and went great lengths, in these forbidden paths; and his
imitators, having less discretion and experience, ventured, under the
cover of his example, even beyond the limits which he himself was
afraid to pass. His published journals show, that he was accustomed to
decide too authoritatively, whether others, particularly ministers,
were converted; as well as to insist that churches ought to remove
those, whom they regarded as unconverted ministers; and that
individual Christians or minorities of churches, where a majority
refused to do this, were bound to separate themselves. Mr. Edwards,
wholly disapproving of this conduct, conversed with Mr. Whitefield
freely, in the presence of others, about his practice of pronouncing
ministers, and other members of the christian church, unconverted; and
declares that he supposed him to be of the opinion, that unconverted
ministers ought not to be continued in the ministry; and that he
supposed that he endeavoured to propagate this opinion, and a practice
agreeable thereto. The same may be said, in substance, of Mr. G.
Tennent, Mr. Finley, and Mr. Davenport, all of whom became early
convinced of their error, and with christian sincerity openly
acknowledged it. At the same time, while these things were to be
regretted in themselves, and still more so in their unhappy
consequences, the evidence is clear that, in far the greater number of
places, these irregularities and disorders, if in any degree
prevalent, were never predominant; and that the attention to religion
in these places, while it continued, was most obviously a great and
powerful work of the Spirit of God. The testimony of the ministers of
those places, on these points, is explicit. It is given with great
caution, and with the utmost candour; it acknowledges frankly the
evils then experienced; and it details the actual moral change wrought
in individuals and in society at large, in such a manner, that no one,
who believes in regeneration as the work of the Holy Spirit, can doubt
that this change was effected by the finger of God.
Though the attention to religion, at this period, was more powerful
and more universal at Northampton, than in almost any other
congregation, there was yet scarcely one in which so few of these
evils were experienced. The reason was, that their spiritual guide had
already formed, in his own mind, settled principles respecting a
genuine revival of religion--as to its cause, its nature, and in the
most important points, as to the manner in which it was to be treated.
He regarded it as caused--not by appeals to the feelings or the
passions, but--by the truth of God brought home to the mind, in a
subordinate sense by the preaching of the gospel, but in a far higher
sense by the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit. He considered such
an event, so far as man is concerned, as the simple effect of a
practical attention to truth, on the conscience and the heart. He felt
it to be his great, and in a sense his only, duty, therefore, to urge
divine truth on the feelings and consciences of his hearers, with all
possible solemnity and power. How he in fact urged it, his published
sermons will show.
Yet even in Northampton many things occurred, which not only were
deviations from decorum and good sense, but were directly calculated,
as far as they prevailed, to change that which, in its commencement,
was, to an uncommon degree, a silent and powerful work of Divine
grace, into a scene of confusion and disorder. This was owing chiefly
to contagion from without. "The former part of the revival of
religion, in 1740 and 1741, seemed to be much more pure, having less
of a corrupt mixture than in that of 1735 and 1736.--But in 1742, it
was otherwise: the work continued more pure till we were infected from
abroad. Our people hearing of, and some of them seeing, the work in
other places, where there was a greater visible commotion than here,
and the outward appearances were more extraordinary, their eyes were
dazzled with the high professions and great show that some made, who
came in hither from other places. That these people went so far before
them in raptures and violent emotions of the affections, and a
vehement zeal, and what they called boldness for Christ, our people
were ready to think was owing to far greater attainments in grace and
intimacy with heaven. These things had a strange influence on the
people, and gave many of them a deep and unhappy tincture, from which
it was a hard and long labour to deliver them, and from which some of
them are not fully delivered to this day."
In many parishes, where the attention to religion commenced in 1742,
it was extensively, if not chiefly, of this unhappy character. This
was particularly true in the eastern part of Connecticut, and in the
eastern and southeastern part, and some of the more central parishes,
of Massachusetts. Churches and congregations were torn asunder, many
ministers were dismissed, churches of a separatical character were
formed, the peace of society was permanently broken up, and a revival
of religion became extensively, in the view of the community, another
name for the prevalence of fanaticism, disorder, and misrule. This
unhappy and surprising change should prove an everlasting beacon to
the church of God.
I have already had occasion to remark, that the "Narrative of
Surprising Conversions" was repeatedly published, and extensively
circulated, throughout England and Scotland. The same was true of Mr.
Edwards's Five Sermons preached during the revival of religion in
1734-5, and of his discourse on "the Distinguishing Marks of a Work of
the Spirit of God." The effect of these publications, particularly of
the first, was in the latter country great and salutary. The eyes both
of ministers and Christians were extensively opened to the fact, that
an effusion of the Spirit, resembling in some good degree those
recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, might take place, and might
rationally be expected to take place, in modern times, in consequence
of the direct and powerful application of similar means. Scotland was
at that time favoured with the labours of many clergymen, greatly
respected for their piety and talents; among whom were the Rev.
William M'Culloch of Cambuslang, the Rev. John Robe of Kilsyth, the
Rev. John M'Laurin of Glasgow, the Rev. Thomas Gillespie of Carnock,
the Rev. John Willison of Dundee, and the Rev. John Erskine of
Kirkintillock, afterwards Dr. Erskine of Edinburgh. These gentlemen,
and many of their associates in the ministry, appear, at the time of
which we are speaking, to have preached, not only with great plainness
and fervency, but with the strongest confidence of immediate and great
success; and, as a natural consequence, the church of Scotland soon
witnessed a state of things, to which she had long been a stranger.
In February, 1742, a revival of religion began at Cambuslang, the
parish of Mr. M'Culloch, four miles from Glasgow, resembling in its
power and rapidity, and the number of conversions, that in
Northampton, in 1734-5; and in the course of that year, scenes of a
similar nature were witnessed in Kilsyth, Glasgow, Dundee, Carnock,
Kirkintillock, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and upwards of thirty towns and
villages, in various parts of that kingdom. Thus the darkness which
covers the earth was dispersed, for a season, from over these two
countries, and the clear light of heaven shone down upon them, with no
intervening cloud. In such circumstances, it might naturally be
expected, that the prominent clergymen in both, feeling a common
interest, and being engaged in similar labours, would soon open a
mutual correspondence.
The first of Mr. Edwards's correspondents in Scotland, was the Rev.
Mr. M'Laurin of Glasgow; but, unfortunately, I have been able to
procure none of the letters which passed between them. That gentleman,
in the early part of 1743, having informed Mr. Edwards that his
friend, Mr. M'Culloch of Cambuslang, had intended to write to him with
a view of offering a correspondence, but had failed of the expected
opportunity; Mr. Edwards addressed to the latter the following letter.
"To the Rev. William M'Culloch, Cambuslang.
Northampton, May 12, 1743.
rev. and dear sir,
Mr. M'Laurin of Glasgow, in a letter he has lately sent me, informs me
of your proposing to write a letter to me, and of your being prevented
by the failing of the expected opportunity. I thank you Rev. Sir, that
you had such a thing in your heart. We were informed last year, by the
printed and well attested narrative, of the glorious work of God in
your parish; which we have since understood has spread into many other
towns and parishes in that part of Scotland; especially are we
informed of this by Mr. Robe's Narrative, and I perceive by some
papers of the Weekly History, sent me by Mr. M'Laurin of Glasgow, that
the work has continued to make glorious progress at Cambuslang, even
till it has prevailed to a wonderful degree indeed. God has highly
favoured and honoured you, dear Sir, which may justly render your name
precious to all that love our Lord Jesus Christ. We live in a day
wherein God is doing marvellous things: in that respect, we are
distinguished from former generations. God has wrought great things in
New England, which, though exceedingly glorious, have all along been
attended with some threatening clouds; which, from the beginning,
caused me to apprehend some great stop or check to be put to the work,
before it should be begun and carried on in its genuine purity and
beauty, to subdue all before it, and to prevail with an irresistible
and continual progress and triumph; and it is come to pass according
to my apprehensions. But yet I cannot think otherwise, than that what
has now been doing, is the forerunner of something vastly greater,
more pure, and more extensive. I can't think that God has come down
from heaven, and done such great things before our eyes, and gone so
much beside and beyond his usual way of working, and wrought so
wonderfully, and that he has gone away with a design to leave things
thus. Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? And will
God, when he has wrought so wonderfully, and made the earth to bring
forth in one day, bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth? And
shall he cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? Isaiah lxvi. 8, 9..
I live upon the brink of the grave, in great infirmity of body, and
nothing is more uncertain, than whether I shall live to see it: but, I
believe God will revive his work again before long, and that it will
not wholly cease till it has subdued the whole earth. But God is now
going and returning to his place, till we acknowledge our offence,
and, I hope, to humble his church in New England, and purify it, and
so fit it for yet greater comfort, that he designs in due time to
bestow upon it. God may deal with his church, as he deals with a
particular saint; commonly, after his first comfort, the clouds
return, and there is a season of remarkable darkness, and hiding of
God's face, and buffetings of Satan; but all to fit for greater mercy;
and as it was with Christ himself, who, presently after the heavens
were opened above his head, and the Spirit was poured out upon him,
and God wonderfully testified his love to him, was driven into the
wilderness to be tempted of the devil forty days. I hope God will show
us our errors, and teach us wisdom by his present withdrawings. Now in
the day of adversity, we have time and cause to consider, and begin
now to have opportunity to see, the consequences of our conduct. I
wish that God's ministers and people, every where, would take warning
by our errors, and the calamities that are the issue of them. I have
mentioned several things, in my letters to Mr. M'Laurin and Mr. Robe;
another I might have mentioned, that most evidently proves of ill
consequence, that is, we have run from one extreme to another, with
respect to talking of experiences; that whereas formerly there was too
great a reservedness in this matter, of late many have gone to an
unbounded openness, frequency, and constancy, in talking of their
experiences, declaring almost every thing that passes between God and
their own souls, every where and before every body. Among other ill
consequences of such a practice, this is one, that religion runs all
into that channel; and religion is placed very much in it, so that the
strength of it seems to be spent in it; that other duties, that are of
vastly greater importance, have been looked upon as light in
comparison of this, so that other parts of religion have been really
much injured thereby: as when we see a tree excessively full of
leaves, we find so much less fruit; and when a cloud arises with an
excessive degree of wind, we have the less rain. How much, dear Sir,
does God's church at such a day need the constant gracious care and
guidance of our good Shepherd; and especially, we that are ministers.
I should be glad, dear Sir, of a remembrance in your prayers, and also
of your help, by informations and instructions, by what you find in
your experience in Scotland. I believe it to be the duty of one part
of the church of God thus to help another.
I am, dear Sir, your affectionate
Brother and servant in Jesus Christ,
jonathan edwards."
The following is the answer of Mr. M'Culloch to the preceding letter.
"Cambuslang, Aug. 13, 1743.
rev. and dear sir,
The happy period in which we live, and the times of refreshing from
the presence of the Lord, wherewith you first were visited, in
Northampton, in the year 1734; and then, more generally, in New
England, in 1740, and 1741; and then we, in several places in
Scotland, in 1742, and 1743; and the strong opposition made to this
work, with you and with us, checked by an infinitely superior power;
often brings to my mind that prophecy, Isa. lix.19. "So shall they
fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising
of the sun. When the enemy shall come in as a flood, the Spirit of the
Lord shall lift up a standard against him." I cannot help thinking
that this prophecy eminently points at our times; and begins to be
fulfilled in the multitudes of souls that are bringing in to fear the
Lord, to worship God in Christ, in whom his name is, and to see his
glory in his sanctuary. And it is, to me, pretty remarkable, that the
prophet here foretells they should do so, in the period he points at,
not from east to west, but from west to east; mentioning the west
before the east, contrary to the usual way of speaking in other
prophecies, as where Malachi foretells, that the name of the Lord
should be great among the Gentiles, from the rising of the sun to the
west, (Mal. i. 11.) and our Lord Jesus, that many should come from the
east and west, &c. (Matt. viii. 11.) And in this order it was, that
the light of the gospel came to dawn on the several nations, in the
propagation of it through the world. But the prophet here, under the
conduct of the Holy Spirit, who chooses all his words in infinite
wisdom, puts the west before the east; intending, as I conceive,
thereby to signify, that the glorious revival of religion, and the
wide and diffusive spread of vital Christianity, in the latter times
of the gospel, should begin in the more westerly parts, and proceed to
these more easterly. And while it should be doing so, or shortly
after, great opposition should arise, the enemy should come in as a
flood: Satan should, with great violence, assault particular believing
souls; and stir up men to malign and reproach the work of God; and,
it's likely also, raise a terrible persecution against the church. But
while the enemy might seem, for a time, to be thus carrying all before
him, the Spirit of the Lord should lift up a standard against him;
give a banner to them that fear him, and animate them to display it
for the truth, and make his word mightily to prevail, and bear down
all opposing power. For on what side soever the Almighty and Eternal
Spirit of Jehovah lifts up a standard, there the victory is certain;
and we may be sure he will lift it up in defence of his own work. The
Chaldee paraphrase makes the words in the latter part of this verse,
to allude to the river Euphrates, when it breaks over all its banks,
and overflows the adjacent plains: thus when persecutors shall come
in, as the inundation of the river Euphrates, they shall be broke in
pieces by the word of the Lord.
The whole of this verse seems to me to have an aspect to the present
and past times, for some years. The Sun of righteousness has been
making his course from west to east, and shedding his benign and
quickening influences, on poor forlorn and benighted souls, in places
vastly distant from one another. But clouds have arisen and
intercepted his reviving beams. The enemy of salvation has broke in as
an overflowing flood, almost overwhelmed poor souls, newly come into
the spiritual world, after they had got some glimpse of the glory of
Christ, with a deluge of temptations; floods of ungodly men, stirred
up by Satan, and their natural enmity at religion, have affrighted
them; mistaken and prejudiced friends have disowned them. Many such
things have already befallen the subjects of this glorious work of God
of late years. But I apprehend more general and formidable trials are
yet to come: and that the enemy's coming in as a flood, may relate to
a flood of errors or persecutions of fierce enemies, rushing in upon
the church and threatening to swallow her up. But our comfort is, that
the Spirit of the Lord of hosts will lift up a standard, against all
the combined powers of earth and hell, and put them to flight; and
Christ having begun to conquer, so remarkably, will go on from
conquering to conquer, till the whole earth be filled with his glory.
Rev. xii. 15. Isa. xvii. 12, 13.
I mention these things, dear Sir, not for your information, for I know
that I can add nothing to you; but to show my agreement with you, in
what you express as your sentiments, that what has now been a doing is
the forerunner of something vastly greater, more pure, and more
extensive, and that God will revive his work again, ere long, and that
it will not wholly cease, till it has subdued the whole earth: and,
without pretending to prophecy, to hint a little at the ground of my
expectations. Only I'm afraid (which is a thing you do not hint at)
that before these glorious times, some dreadful stroke or trial may
yet be abiding us. May the Lord prepare us for it. But as to this, I
cannot and dare not peremptorily determine. All things I give up to
farther light, without pretending to fix the times and seasons for
God's great and wonderful works, which he has reserved in his own
power, and the certain knowledge of which he has locked up in his own
breast."
The same conveyance brought Mr. Edwards the following letter, from the
Rev. Mr. Robe, of Kilsyth.
"Kilsyth, Aug. 16, 1743.
rev. sir, and very dear brother,
We acknowledge, with praise and thanks, the Lord's keeping his work
hitherto, with us, free from those errors and disorders, which,
through the subtilty of the serpent, and corruptions even of good men,
were mixed with it in New England. As this was no more just ground of
objection against what was among you, being a real work of the Holy
Spirit, than the same things were against the work of God in Corinth,
and other places, at the first conversion of the pagans, and
afterwards at the reformation from popery; so the many adversaries to
this blessed work here, have as fully made use of all those errors,
disorders, and blemishes, against it there, as objections, as if they
had really been here. The most unseasonable accounts from America, the
most scurrilous and bitter pamphlets, and representations from
mistaking brethren, were much and zealously propagated. Only it was
overruled by Providence, that those letters and papers dropped what
was a real testimony to the goodness of the work they designed to
defame and render odious. Many thinking persons concluded, from the
gross calumnies forged and spread against the Lord's work here, within
a few miles of them, that such stories from America could not be much
depended on.
What you write about the trial of extraordinary joys and raptures, by
their concomitants and effects, is most solid; and our practice, by
all I know, hath been conformable to it. It hath been in the strongest
manner declared, that no degree of such rapturous joys evidenced them
to be from God, unless they led to God, and carried with them those
things which accompany salvation. Such conditional applications of the
promises of grace and glory as you justly recommend, hath been all
along our manner. A holy fear of caution and watchfulness, hath been
much pressed upon the subjects of this work, who appeared to believe
through grace. And what is greatly comfortable, and reason of great
praise to our God, is, that there is, as is yet known to any one in
these bounds, no certain instance of what can be called apostacy; and
not above four instances of any who have fallen into any gross sin.
As to the state and progress of this blessed work here, and in other
places, it is as followeth. Since the account given in the several
prints of my Narrative, which I understand is or will be at Boston;
the awakening of secure sinners hath and doth continue in this
congregation; but not in such multitudes as last year, neither can it
be reasonably expected. What is ground of joy and praise is, that
there scarce hath been two or three weeks, but wherein I have some
instance of persons newly awakened, besides several come to my
knowledge who have been awakened, and appear in a most hopeful state,
before they were known to me. Of which I had an instance yesterday, of
a girl awakened, as she saith, in October last. I have, at writing
this, an instance of a woman who appears to have obtained a good issue
of her awakening last year; though I supposed it had come to nothing,
through her intermitting to come to me of a long time. There is this
difference in this parish betwixt the awakening last year and now;
that some of their bodies have been affected by their fears, in a
convulsive or hysteric way; and yet the inward distress of some of
them hath been very sharp. I have seen two or three, who have fainted
under apprehension of the hiding of God's face, or of their having
received the Lord's supper unworthily. In some of the neighbouring
congregations, where this blessed work was last year, there are
instances of discernible awakenings this summer. In the large parish
of St. Ninians, to the north of this, I was witness to the awakening
of some, and conversed with others awakened, the middle of July last.
In the parish of Sintrie to the west of St. Ninians there were several
newly awakened at the giving the Lord's supper, about the end of July.
In Gargunnock, Kippen, Killern, farther north and west, the Lord's
work is yet discernible. At Muthel, which is about twenty miles north
from this, the minister wrote me about the middle of July, that this
blessed work, which hath appeared there since last summer as at
Cambuslang, yet continued; and hath spread into other parishes, and
reacheth even to the Highlands bordering upon that parish.
I am not without hopes of having good accounts of the outpouring of
the Holy Spirit in the shires of Rosse and Nairn among the
northernmost parts of Scotland. There was more than ordinary
seriousness, in some parishes, in hearing the word, and in a concern
about their souls, in the spring, when I saw some godly ministers from
those bounds. This more than ordinary seriousness in hearing, and
about communion times, is observable in several parts in Scotland,
this summer. Societies for prayer setting up where there were none,
and in other places increasing. A concern among the young are in some
of the least hopeful places in Scotland, particularly in the Meuse
near the English borders. There is a great likelihood of the Lord's
doing good by the gospel, in this discernible way, in those bounds.
Mr. M'Laurin, my dear brother, gives you an account of the progress of
this work to the west of Glasgow, and other places. There have been
very extraordinary manifestations of the love of God, in Christ Jesus,
unto this people, in the use of the holy supper, and in the
dispensation of the word about that time, this summer; which hath made
the Lord's people desire it a second time in these congregations
during the summer season. It was given here upon the first sabbath of
July, and is to be given here next Lord's day, a second time, upon
such a desire.
Your affectionate brother and servant
In our dearest Lord,
james robe."