Book: An Humble, Earnest, and Affectionate Address to the Clergy.

By:   William Law, A.M.

William Law (1686-1761) English devotional writer.  “He was a fearless nonjuror, and, in consequence of his refusal to take the oaths of allegiance and abjuration on the accession of George I, forfeited his fellowship, and all prospects of advancements in the Church… Law was one of the most eminent English writers on practical divinity in the eighteenth century.  He was a genuine Mystic, although he lived in a worldly and rationalistic age… At one time, Law was a kind of oracle with Wesley, and his influence upon early Methodism was of an almost formative character.  In his later years he became an enthusiastic student of Jakob Boehme, but his strong churchly feeling and his sound English sense kept him from the wild errors and extravagances into which some of Boehme’s disciples fell.”–New Schaff-Hertzog Enc. Relg. Knowl., 6:431-32.

The Address tot he Clergy was first published posthumously the year of Law’s death, 1761.  Wesley republished extracts from it in 1768.  “Law seems from the first to have recognized varying ‘degrees of goodness,’ and in his latest writings stressed the supreme ‘necessity of a continual inspiration of the Spirit of God, both to begin the first, and continue every step of a divine life in man’.  The early part of the Address to the Clergy is an exposition of this theme, reiterated again and again.”–Eric Baker:  Herald of the Evangelical Revival, p. 81.  Law in his Address to the Clergy, “regards religion and scholarship as necessarily opposed, and, in expounding this displays a stubborn obtuseness which is surprising in such a master of reasoning.  Dr. Flew suggests that Law’s distrust of all human learning and human intellect may be due to his theory that the Fall was the result of a false curiosity.  We may agree and also add that the fact that Jacob Boehme, to whom Law owed the main influence which transformed his life, was unlearned in the technical sense, would tend to confirm Law in his antipathy.”–ibid., p. 92.

WESLEY MENTOR, PLEADS AGAINST MAN’S OWN LIGHT

(John Wesley thought so much of this book, he had it reprinted for his disciples)

The Time of Man’s playing with Parts, Wit, and Abilities, and of fancying himself to be something great and considerable in the intellectual World, may be much shorter, but can be no longer, than he can eat, and drink with the Animals of this World.—–When the Time cometh, that fine Buildings, rich Settlements, acquired Honours, and Rabbi, Rabbi, must take their Leave of him, all the stately Structures, which Genius, Learning, and Flights of Imagination, have painted inwardly on his Brain and outwardly on Paper, must bear full Witness to Solomon’s Vanity of Vanities.

Let then the high accomplished Scholar reflect, that he comes by his Wit, and Parts, and acute Abilities, just as the Serpent came by his Subtilty; let him reflect, that he might as well dream of acquiring angelic Purity to his animal Nature, by multiplying new invented Delights for his earthly Passions, and Tempers, as of raising his Soul into divine Knowledge, through the well exercised Powers of his natural Reason, and Imagination.

The finest intellectual Power, and that which has the best Help in it, towards bringing Man again into the Region of divine Light, is that poor, despised Thing, called Simplicity.  This is that, which stops the Workings of the fallen Life of Nature, and leaves room for God to work again in  the Soul, according to the good Pleasure of his holy Will.  It stands in such a waiting Posture before God, and in such Readiness for the divine Birth, as the Plants of the Earth wait for the inflowing Riches of the Light, and Air.  But the Self-assuming Workings of Man’s natural Powers, shut him up in  himself, closely barred up against the inflowing Riches of the Light and Spirit of God.

Yet so it is, in this fallen State of the Gospel Church, that with these proud Endowments of fallen Nature, the classic Scholar, full fraught with Pagan Light and Skill, comes forth to play the Critic and Orator with the Simplicity of salvation Mysteries; Mysteries which mean nothing else but the inward Work of God in the Soul of Man, nor any other Work there, but he raising up a dead Adam, into a living Christ of God.

However, to make way for Parts, Criticism, and Language-learning, to have the full Management of salvation Doctrines, the well-read Scholar gives out, that the ancient Way of knowing the Things of God, taught, and practised by Fishermen-Apostles, is obsolete.  They indeed wanted to have divine Knowledge from the immediate, continual Operation of the Holy Spirit; but this State was only for a Time, till Genius, and Learning entered into the Pale of the Church.—-Behold, if ever, the Abomination of Desolation standing in the holy Place!—-For as soon as this Doctrine is set up, that Man’s natural Parts, and acquired Learning, have full Right and Power to fit in the divinity Chair, and to guide Men into that Truth, which was once the only Office and Power of the Holy Spirit; as soon as this is done, and so far as it is received, it may with the greatest Truth be said, that the Kingdom of God is entirely shut up; and only a Kingdom of Scribes, Pharisees, and Hypocrites can come instead of it.  For by this Doctrine the whole Nature and Power of gospel Religion, is much more denied, than by setting up the infallibility of the Pope; for though his Claim to infallibility is false, yet he claims it from, and under the Holy Spirit; but the Protestant Scholar has his divinity Knowledge, his Power in the Kingdom of truth, from himself, his own Logic, and learned Reason.—–Christ has no where instituted an infallible Pope; and it is full as certain, that he has no where spoke one single Word, or given the least Power to Logic, Learning, or the natural Powers of Man, in his Kingdom; he has never said to the, whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth, shall be bound in Heaven; never said to them, go ye and teach all Nations, no more than he hath ever said to Wolves, go ye, and feed by Sheep.—-Christ indeed said of Himself, according to the Flesh, it is expedient for you, that I go away; but where has he said of himself according to the Spirit, it is also expedient for you, that I go away, that your own natural Abilities, and learned Reason, may have the Guidance of you into all truth.  This is no where said, unless Logic can prove it from these Words, without me ye can do nothing, and Lo I am with you to the end of the World.

The first, and main Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles was, to tell the Jews, that the Kingdom of God was at Hand, or was come to them.  Proof enough surely, that their Church was not that Kingdom of God, though by God’s Appointment and under Laws of his own commanding.  But why not, when it was thus set up by God?  It was because it had human and worldly things in it, consisted of carnal Ordinances, and had only Types, and Figures, and Shadows of a Kingdom of God, that was to come.—Of this Kingdom, Christ saith, my Kingdom is not of this World; and as a Proof of it, he adds, if it was of this World, then would my servants fight for me; which was saying, that it was so different in Kind, and so superior in Nature to this World, that no Sort of worldly Power could either help, or hinder it.  But of this World, into which the Kingdom of God was come, the Holy One of God faith, in the World, ye shall Tribulation, but be of good Comfort, I have overcome the World.  Now, how was it, that Christ’s Victory, was their Victory?  It was, because he was in them, and they in him, because I live ye shall live also; in that Day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you.

This was the Kingdom of God come to them, the same Kingdom of God, in which Adam was born and began his first glorious Life; when the Image and Likeness of the Holy Spirit, had an outward Glory like that, which broke through the Body of Christ, when on Mount Tabor his Face did shine as the Sun, and his Raiment was white as the Light.—-To the Children of this Kingdom, saith its almighty King, when they bring you before Magistrates and Powers, take no Thought how, or what ye shall answer, or what ye shall say unto them, for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in that same Hour, what ye ought to say.  For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father, that speaketh in you.

No higher, or other Thing is here said, than in these other Words, Take no Thought, what ye shall eat, or Drink, or where with all ye shall be cloathed, but seek first the Kingdom of God, and his Righteousness, and all these Things shall be added unto you.  This is the Truth of the Kingdom of God, come unto Men, and this is the Birth-right Privilege of all that are living Members of it, to be delivered from their own natural Spirit, which they had from Adam, from the Spirit and Wisdom of this World and through the whole Course of their Lives, only to say, and do, and be that, which the Spirit of their Father worketh in them.

But now, is not this Kingdom gone away from us, are we not left comfortless, if instead of this Spirit of our Father, speaking, doing, and working every Thing in us, and for us, we are left again to our own natural Powers, to run to every Lo here, and Lo there, to find a Share in that Kingdom of God, which once was, and never can be any Thing else, but God, the Wisdom and Power of God manifested in our Flesh?  Had it not been as well, nay better for us, to have been still under Types and Figures, sacrificing Bulls and Goats by divine Appointment, than to be brought under a Religion, that must be Spirit and Life, and then left to the jarring Interests, of the Wisdom of the Greek, and the Carnality of the Jew, how to be living Members of it?  For where the Spirit of God is not the continul, immediate Governor of spiritual Things, nothing better can come of it.  For the Truth and full Proof of this, no more need be appealed to, than all the Libraries, and Churches of Christendom for many Ages to this Day.

What is the Difference between Man’s own Righteousness, and Man’s own Light in Religion?  They are strictly the same Thing, do one and the same Work, namely, keep up, and strengthen every Evil, Vanity, and Corruption of fallen Nature.  Nothing saves a Man from his own Righteousness, but that which saves, and delivers him from his own Light.—-The Jew, that was most of all set against the Gospel, and unable to receive it, was he that trusted in his own Righteousness; this was the rich Man, to whom it was as hard to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, as for a Camel to go through the Eye of Needle.—-But the Christian, that trusts in his own Light, is the very Jew that trusted in his own Righteousness; and all that he gets by the Gospel, is only that, which the Pharisee got by the Law, namely, to be farther from entering into the Kingdom of God, than Publicans and Harlots.—-How comes it, that a Beast, a scarlet Whore, a horned Dragon, and other the most horrible Descriptions of diabolical Power, have been by the Spirit of God, made Descriptions of the Christian Church?  How comes it, that the Spirit describes the gospel Church, as driven into a Wilderness;—-the two faithful Witnesses, Moses and Jesus, as prophesying so many Ages in Sack-cloth, and slain in the Streets of spiritual Sodom, and Egypt?  It is, because Man’s own natural Light, Man’s own conceited Righteousness, his serpentine Subtilty, his Self-love, his sensual Spirit, and worldly Power, have seized the Mysteries of Salvation, that came down from Heaven, and built them up into a Kingdom of envious Strife, and Contention, for learned Glory, spiritual Merchandise, and worldly Power.—-This is the Beast, the Whore, and Dragon, that has and will govern in every private Christian, and public Church, till dead to all that is Self, they turn to God; not to a God, that they have only heard of with their Ears, and their Fathers have told them, but to a God of Life, Light and Power, found living and working within them, as the essential Life, Light, and Power of their own Lives.—-For God is only our God, by a Birth of his own divine Nature within us.  This and nothing but this, is our whole Relation to, our only Fellowship with him, our whole Knowledge of him, our whole Power of having any Part in the Mysteries of Gospel-salvation.  Nothing can seek the Kingdom of God, or hunger and thirst after his Righteousness; nothing can cry Abba Father, nothing can pray, they Kingdom come, nothing can say of Christ, my Lord, and my God, but that which is born of God, and is the divine Nature itself, in us.  Nothing but God in Man, can be a Godly Life in Man.—-Hence is that of the Apostle, the Letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth Life.  But you will say, can this be true of the spiritual divine Letter of the Gospel?  Can it kill, or give death?  Yes, it killeth, when it is rested in; when it is taken for divine Power, and supposed to have Goodness in itself; for then it killeth the Spirit of God in Man, quencheth his holy fire within us, and is set up instead of it.—-It giveth Death, when it is built into Systems of Strife and Contention about Words, Notions and Opinions, and maketh the Kingdom of God to consist, not in Power, but in Words.  When it is thus used, then of Necessity it Killeth, because it keepeth from that, which alone is Life, and can give Life.—-This then is the Whole of the Matter; all the literal Truths, and Variety of Doctrines and Expressions of the written Word, have but one Nature, one End, and one Errand, they all say nothing else to Man, but that one Thing, which Christ said, in these Words, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you; just the same, as when said, Jesus Christ, who is of God, made unto us, Wisdom, Righteousness, and Sanctification; this is the only Refreshment from Christ.  Again, but ye are washed, but ye are cleansed in the Name of our Lord Jesus; just the same as when it is said, except ye abide in me, and I in you, ye have no Life in you.  Again, by Grace ye are saved, by Faith ye are saved, faith neither more nor less, than He that eateth my Flesh, and drinketh my Blood, hath eternal Life; the same as when Christ saith, Yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me; the same as Christ in us, the Hope of Glory; if Christ be not in you, ye are Reprobates.—-Therefore to come to Christ, to have our heavy laden, fallen Nature refreshed by him, to be born Spirit of his Spirit, to have his heavenly Flesh, and heavenly Blood, made living in us, before we put off the bestial Body and Blood of Death, which we have from Adam, is the one only Thing taught and meant by all that is so variously said in the Scriptures of the Merits and Benefits of Christ to us.—-It is the SPIRIT, the BODY, the BLOOD of Christ within us, that is our whole Peace with God, our whole Adoption, our whole Redemption, our whole Justification, our whole Glorification; and this is the one Thing said, and meant by that new Birth, of which Christ saith, except a Man be born again from above, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.

Book: The Christian History, containing Accounts of the Revival and Propagation

of Religion in Great-Britain & America For the Year 1743.

By: Boston, N.E.  Published by S. Kneeland and T. Green, for T. Prince, junr. 1744

A foundational and exceedingly important source of the study of the Great Awakening.  CBRA 152, “The leading contemporary authority was Thomas Prince, Jr.  Students must still consult his weekly magazine, The Christian History. . .consisting mainly of letters from ministers on the progress and condition of religion.”

Saturday January 14. 1743.  No. 46.

Extract of a Letter from the Rev. Mr. William M’Culloch in Scotland to the Rev. Mr. Prince of Boston.

Cambustang, Aug. 12. 1743.:

Rev. and dear Sir,

I thought to have written you at Large, concerning the State of religion in this Country; but I suppose this may be done by Mr. Hamilton of Baroney or some other, Only we have had two very comfortable Sacrament-Occasions here this Season; at both of which there was a vast Concourse of People.  At one on the 29th of May last, there were about fourteen Hundred Communicants; At another last Lord’s-Day, about two Thousand Communicants.

Extract of a Letter from the Rev. Mr. M’Culloch to the Rev. Mr. Edwards of Northampton.

Cambustang, 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 1736; 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, check’d by an infinitely superior Power; often brings to my Mind that Prophecy, Isai. 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 he Name of the LORD should be great among the Gentiles, from the Rising of the Sun to the West, (Mal. 1. 11.)  And our LORD JESUS, that many should come from East and West, etc. (Math. 8. 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 thro’ 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 like 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 Caldee Parapbrase 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 prejudged Friends have disown’d 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 threatning to swallow her up. But our Comfort is, that the SPIRIT of the LORD of Hosts will lift up a Standard against all the combin’d Powers of Earth and Hell and put them all 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. 12.15.  Isai. 17. 12, 13.

Mr. Smith’s Sentiments of the Orphan-House which be enclosed, are as follow:

To the Rev. Mr. William Cooper in Boston.

Rev. and dear Sir,

Having lately, to my great Satisfaction, visited the Orphan-House in Georgia, I believe it will not be disagreable to you, to have my Sentiments of it thus communicated to the World.

I can securely refer you for Particulars to the Letter, your Son William wrote you from Bethesda, Jan. 1st. 1741, 2. which was printed in the Boston Gazette, April 23rd. 1742, as a very fair and impartial Representation of Things, as they stood Then; nor have I observed any material Alterations since, save only, that their Number is somewhat diminished, by their being put to Flight when the Colony was invaded, and their discharging some hired white Servants, who too much encreas’d their Expenses.——I was wonderfully pleas’d with the Scituation and admirable Contrivance of the House, with the many Accommodations within, and Improvements without:  But it really requires some Master of Description, and much stronger Language then mine, to convey a full Idea of the Economy and religious Rules and Government of the Family.—It consists at present of 72 Persons, 42 of them Orphans and Objects of Charity.—The Gentleman who superintends the secular Affairs of it, seems excellently qualified for his Province; and spares no Pains or Fatigue in his Management or Provision; animated with a Sense of Duty, and inspired with a Principle of true Christian Charity.——The other Gentleman who officiates as Preacher, and has the religious Concerns of the House peculiarly committed to him, is, I think, a most serious and spiritual Man, much experienced in the divine Life, and studious to promote it in others; and the happy Fruits of his Care, Diligence, and fervent Prayers, are undeniably visible, especially in some late Awakenings among them.——I speak it without Prejudice, I never, to my Knowledge, in any Society whatever, have seen more of the Face of Religion.——Order, Decorum, and Regularity reign Here.  Solemn Devotion, and social Harmony, are two of its great Beauties.——These, with the pleasing Appearances of Health and Contentment, would tempt me to spend my whole Life among the, did not Providence and Duty point me out another Course.——I know, dear Sir, some among you have represented our dear Whitefield as an importunate Beggar:——In this they have unwarily done him Honour; for who can be too importunate in begging for an House of Mercy?—Such this has been to the Souls and Bodies of many already; and since I have seen it, I think it my Duty to turn Beggar too, and upon this Occasion to recommend it to Christians of every denomination, as one Object of their Care and Charity.—This I’m sure is to visit the Fatherless in their Affliction.—This makes us Eyes to the Blind, and Feet tot he Lame.——Nor do I call him a Christian, who eats his Morsel alone, and is not glad of every such Opportunity to honour the LORD with his Substance.—Not to be further tedious, I can heartily recommend this House, as a Seminary of true Piety and good Order; and am not without Hopes, that Providence is here laying the Foundation of human Literature also, and that Posterity, if not we our selves, will see an Academy arise in Georgia out of an Orphan-House. With my best Wishes for its Prosperity, I conclude Reverend Sir,

Your unworthy Brother in the Gospel.

Charlestown, So-Carolina,      Josiah Smith      June 5. 1743.

NEW-ENGLAND.

Continuation of the State of Religion at Northampton in the County of Hampshire about a hundred miles westward of Boston; By the Rev. Mr. Edwards, in a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Prince, dated Dec. 12. 1743.

Ever since the great Work of GOD that was wrought here about nine Years ago, there has been a great abiding Alteration in this Town in many Respects.  There has been vastly more Religion kept up in the Town, among all Sorts of Persons, in religious Exercises, and in common Conversation, than used to be before:  there has remain’d a more general Seriousness and decency in attending the publick Worship   there has been a very great Alteration among the Youth of the Town, with Respect to revelling, frolicking, profane and unclean Conversation, and lewd songs:  Instances of Fornication have been very rare:  there has also been a great Alteration amongst both old and young with Respect to Tavern-haunting.  I suppose the Town has been in no Measure so free of Vice in these Respects, for any long Time together, for this sixty Years, as it has been this nine Years past.  There has also been an evident Alteration with Respect to a charitable Spirit to the Poor: (tho’ I think with Regard to this, we in this Town, as the Land in general, come far short of Gospel Rules.)  And tho’ after that great Work nine Years ago there has been a very lamentable Decay of religious Affections, and the Engagedness of People’s Spirit, in Religion; yet many Societies for Prayer and social religion were all along kept up; and there were some few Instances of Awakening and deep Concern about the Things of another World, even in the most dead Time.

In the Year 1740 in the Spring, before Mr. Whitfield came to this Town, there was a visible Alteration:  There was more Seriousness, and religious Conversation, especially among young People:  Those Things that were of ill Tendency among them were more foreborn; and it was a more frequent Thing for Persons to visit their Minister upon Soul Accounts:  and in some particular Persons there appeared a great Alteration, about that Time.  And thus it continued till Mr. Whitefield came to Town, which was about the middle of October following:  he preached here four Sermons in the Meeting-House, (besides a private Lecture at my House) one on Friday, another on Saturday, and two upon the Sabbath.  The Congregation was extraordinarily melted by every Sermon; almost the whole Assembly being in Tears for a great Part of Sermon Time.  Mr. Whitefield’s Sermons were suitable to the Circumstances of the Town; containing just Reproofs of our Backslidings, and in a most moving and affecting Manner, making Use of our great Profession and great Mercies as Arguments with us to return to GOD, from whom we had departed.

In the Month of May 1741, a Sermon was preached to a Company at a private House:  Near the Conclusion of the Exercise one or two Persons that were Professors, were so greatly affected with a Sense of the greatness and Glory of divine Things, and the infinite Importance of the Things of Eternity, that they were not able to conceal it; the Affection of their Minds overcoming their Strength, and having a very visible Effect on their Bodies.  When the Exercise was over, the young People that were present removed into the other Room for religious Conference; and particularly that they might have Opportunity to inquire of those that were thus affected what Apprehensions they had; and what Things they were that thus deeply impressed their Minds:  and there soon appeared a very great Effect of their Conversation; the Affection was quickly propagated through the Room:  many of the young People and Children that were Professors appeared to be overcome with a Sense of the Greatness and Glory of divine Things, and with admiration, Love, Joy and Praise, and Compassion to others, that looked upon themselves as in a State of Nature; and many others at the same Time were overcome with Distress about their sinful and miserable State and Condition; so that the whole Room was full of nothing but Out-cries, Faintings and such like.  Others soon heard of it, in several Parts of the Town, and  came to them; and what they saw and heard there was greatly affecting to them; so that many of them were over-power’d in like Manner:  and it continued thus for some Hours; the Time being spent in Prayer, Singing, Counseling and Conferring.  There seemed to be a consequent happy Effect of that Meeting to several particular Persons, and in the State of Religion in the Town in general.  After this were Meetings from Time to Time attended with like Appearances.  But a little after it, at the Conclusion of the publick Exercise on the Sabbath, I appointed the Children that were under sixteen Years of Age to go from the Meeting-House to a neighbour House; that I there might further inforce what they had heard in publick, and might give in some Counsels proper for their Age.  The Children were there very generally and greatly affected with the Warnings and Counsels that were given them, and many exceedingly overcome; and the Room was filled with Cries:  and when they were dismissed, they, almost all of them, went home crying aloud through the Streets, to all Parts of the Town.  The like Appearances attended several such Meetings of Children that were appointed.  But their Affections appeared by what followed to be of a very different Nature:  in many they appeared to be indeed but childish Affections; and in a Day or two would leave ‘em as they were before:  others were deeply impressed; their Convictions took fast hold of them, and abode by them:  and there were some that from one Meeting to another seem’d extraordinarily affected for some Time, to but little Purpose, their Affections presently vanishing, from Time to Time; but yet afterwards were seized with abiding Convictions, and their Affections became durable.

The Months of August and September were the most remarkable of any this Year, for Appearances of Conviction and Conversation of Sinners, and great Revivings, Quickenings, and Comforts of Professors, and for extraordinary external Effects of these Things.  It was a very frequent Thing to see an House full of Out-cries, Faintings, Convulsions and such like, both with Distress, and also with Admiration and Joy.  It was not the Manner here to hold Meetings all Night, as in some Places, nor was it common to continue ‘em ‘till very late in the Night:  but it was pretty often so that there were some that were so affected, and their Bodies so overcome, that they could not go home, but were obliged to stay all Night at the House where they were.  There was no Difference that I know of here, with Regard to these extraordinary Effects, in Meetings in the Night, and in the Day Time:  the Meetings in which these Effects appeared in the Evening, being commonly begun, and their extraordinary Effects, in the Day, and continued in the Evening; and some Meetings have been very remarkable for such extraordinary Effects that were both begun and finished in the Day Time.

One Circumstance wherein this Work differed from that which had been in the Town five or six Years before, was that Conversions were frequently wrought more sensibly and visibly; the Impressions stronger, and more manifest by external Effects of them; and the Progress of the SPIRIT of GOD in Conviction, from Step to Step, more apparent; and the Transition from one State to another more sensible and plain; so that it might, in many Instances, be as it were seen by By-standers.  The preceeding Season had been very remarkable on this Account beyond what had been before; but this more remarkable than that.  And in this Season these apparent or visible Conversions (if I may so call them) were more frequently in the Presence of others, at religious Meetings, where the Appearances of what was wrought on the Heart fell under publick Observation.

About the Beginning of February 1741, 2. Mr. Buel came to this Town; I being then absent from Home, and continued so ‘till about a Fortnight after.  Mr. Buel preach’d from Day to Day, almost every Day, in the Meeting-House, (I having left to him the free Liberty of my Pulpit, hearing of his designed Visit before I went from Home) and spent almost the whole Time in religious Exercises with the People, either in publick or private, the People continually thronging him.  When he first came, there came with him a Number of the zealous People from Suffield, who continued here for some Time.  There were very extraordinary Effects of Mr. Buel’s Labours; the People were exceedingly moved, crying out in great Numbers in the Meeting-House, and great Part of the Congregation commonly staying in the House of GOD for Hours after the publick Service, many of them in uncommon Circumstances.  Many also were exceedingly moved in private Meetings, where Mr. Buel was:  and almost the whole Town seemed to be in a great and continual Commotion, Day and Night; and there was indeed a very great Revival of Religion.  But it was principally among Professors; the Appearances of a Work of Conversion were in no Measure equal to what had been the Summer before.  When I came home I found the Town in very extraordinary Circumstances, such in some Respects as I never saw it in before.  Mr. Buel continued here a Fortnight or three Weeks after I returned:  there being still great Appearances attending his Labours; many in their religious Affections being raised far beyond what they ever had been before; and there were some Instances of Persons lying in a Sort of Trance, remaining for perhaps a whole twenty-four Hours motionless, and with their Senses locked up; but in the mean Time under strong Imaginations, as tho’ they went to Heaven, and had there a Vision of glorious and delightful Objects.  But when the People were raised to this Height, Satan took the Advantage, and his Interposition in many Instances soon become very apparent; and a great deal of Caution and Pains were found necessary to keep the People, many of them, from running wild.

With Respect to the late Season of Revival of Religion amongst us, for three or four Years past; it has been observable, that in the former Part of it, in the Years 1740, and 1741, the Work seem’d to be much more pure, having less of a corrupt Mixture, than in the former great Out-pouring of the Spirit in 1735, and 1736.  Persons seem’d to be sensible of their former Errors, and had learnt more of their own Hearts, and Experience had taught them more of the Tendency and Consequences of Things:  They were now better guarded, and their Affections were not only greater, but attended with greater Solemnity, and greater Humility and Self-Distrust, and greater Engagedness after holy Living and Perseverance; and there were fewer Errors in Conduct.  But in the latter Part of it, in the Year 1742, it was otherwise:  The Work continued more pure ‘till we were infected from abroad:  our People hearing, 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; were ready to think that the Work in those Places far excell’d what was amongst us; and their Eyes were dazled with the high Profession and great Shew that some made who came hither from other Places.

That those People went so far beyond 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 their far greater Attunments in Grace, and Intimacy with Heaven:  They look’d little in their own Eyes in Comparison of them, and were ready to submit themselves to ‘em, and yield themselves up to their Conduct, taking it for granted that every Thing was right that they said and did.  These Things had a strange Influence on the People, and gave many of them a deep and unhappy Tincture, that it was a hard and long Labour to deliver ‘em from, and which some of them are not fully delivered from to this Day.

The Effects and Consequences of things amongst us plainly shews the following Things, viz. That the Degree of Grace is by no Means to be judged of by the Degree of Joy, or the Degree of Zeal; and that indeed we can’t all determine by these Things, who are gracious and who are not; and that it is not he Degree of religious Affections, but the Nature of them that is chiefly to be looked at.  Some that have had very great Raptures of Joy, and have been extraordinarily fill’d, (as the vulgar Phrase is) and have had their Bodies overcome, and that very often, have manifested far less of the Temper of Christians, in their Conduct since, than some others that have been still, and have made no great outward Show.  But then again there are many others, that have had extraordinary Joys and Emotions of Mind, with frequent great Effects on their Bodies, that behave themselves stedfastly, as humble, amiable, eminent Christians.

’Tis evident that there may be great religious Affections, that may in Shew and Appearance imitate gracious Affections, and have the same Effects on their Bodies, but are far from having the same Effect in the Temper of their Minds, and Course of their Lives.  And likewise there is nothing more manifest by what appears amongst us, than that the Goodness of Persons State is not chiefly to be judged of by any exactness of Steps, and Method of Experiences, in what is supposed to be the first Conversion; but that we must judge more by the Spirit that breathes, the Effect wrought on the Temper of the Soul, in the Time of the Work, and remaining afterwards.  Tho’ there have been very few Instances among Professors amongst us, of what is ordinarily called scandalous sin, known to me; yet the Temper that some of them shew, and the Behaviour they have been of, together with some Things in the Kind and Circumstances of their Experiences, make me much afraid least there be a considerable Number that have wofully deceived themselves.  Tho’ on the other Hand, there is a great Number whose Temper and Conversation is such as justly confirms the Charity of others towards them; and not a few in show Disposition and Walk, there are amiable Appearances of eminent Grace.  And notwithstanding all the corrupt Mixtures that have been in the late Work here; there are not only many blessed Fruits of it in particular Persons, that yet remain, but some good Effects of it upon the Town in general.  A Party-Spirit has more ceased:  I suppose there has been less Appearance these three or four Years past, of that Division of the Town into two Parties, that has long been our Bane, than has been these thirty Years; and the People have apparently had much more Caution, and a greater Guard on their Spirit, and their Tongues, to avoid Contention and unchristian Heats, in Town-Meetings and on other Occasions.  And ’tis a Thing greatly to be rejoiced in, that the People very lately have come to an Agreement and final Issue, with Respect to their grand Controversy, relating to their Common Lands; which has been above any other particular Thing, a Source of mutual Prejudices, Jealousies, and Debates, for fifteen or sixteen Years past.  the People are also generally of late in some Respects considerably alter’d and meliorated in their Notions of Religion:  particularly they seem to be much more sensible of the Danger of resting in old Experiences, or what they were Subjects of at their supposed first Conversion; and to be more fully convinced of the Necessity of forgetting the Things that are behind, and pressing forward, and maintaining earnest Labour, Watchfulness and Prayerfulness as long as they live.

Northampton, Decemb. 12. 1743.

The Christian History:  Containing Accounts of the Propagation and Revival of Religion in England Scotland and America.

Saturday February 4. 1743, 4. No. 49.

Revival of Religion at Portsmouth the chief Town in the Province of New-Hampshire in New-England, about sixty four Miles North North Eastward of Boston:  In a Letter from the Rev. Mr. William Shurtleff, Pastor of the 2nd Church in Portsmouth, to the late Rev. Mr. Cooper.

Indeed the great Earthquake in the Year 1727, that puts the whole Country into such a Surprize, was a Means of awakening a great many here:  and as to some, there is Reason to think the Impressions have remain’d; but as to the bigger Part, it was not long before they evidently wore off, and before they fell into their former sleepy and secure State; and this has been generally the Case till of late.

Mr. Whitefield’s coming among us, and also Mr. Tennent’s, was I am perswaded bles’d of God; and their Preaching made instrumental of putting a great many upon shaking off their heavy Slumbers:  and how reproachfully soever any may speak of them, and their Itinerancy; I must needs look upon their Travelling this Way as a favourable Providence, and that for which we owe abundant Thanksgivings to the GOD of all Grace.

As there had been for some Time a growing Concern among us, as to Things of a religious Nature, and a remarkable Work of GOD’s Grace going on in many Parts of the Land; the Ministers of this, and some other of the neighbouring Towns agreed upon observing a monthly Fast, in our respective Congregations, to seek for the like Blessing.  When the Solemnity was attended in this Town, which was on Wednesday November 25th 1741; as soon as the Afternoon Service was ended, One cried out in a Transport of Joy, and Others discover’d a great deal of Distress.  The People did not care to disperse; insomuch that there was another Sermon in the Evening; and a great Number of them, and some of the Ministers with them stay’d ‘till it was late in the Place of public Worship.  The next Day a Sermon was again preach’d in Public, and had an unusual Efficacy upon the Hearers.  The Day after we had two, or three Exercises, and the Congregation great Part of it continued together ‘till late at Night.

This Friday was the most remarkable Day that was ever known among us.  The whole Congregation seem’d deeply affected:  And there was such a general Out-cry, in some from a distressing Sight of their Sins, and in others from a joyful Sense of the Love of CHRIST; that could not but put a great many in Mind of the Appearing of the SON of MAN, and of the different Exclamations that shall be heard from the Inhabitants of the World when they shall see Him coming in the Clouds of Heaven, in Power, and great Glory.

And here, upon my making mention of this solemn and awful Event, I am led to relate a Circumstance; which tho’ but small and inconsiderable in itself, seem’d to be over-rul’d by GOD to serve great and good Purposes; and upon this Account may be worthy of Notice.

Late in the Evening of the same Day, before the Body of the People had left the Place of publick Worship; the Chimney of an House that stood near to it happening to take Fire and blaze out to an uncommon Degree:  upon the sudden Appearance of the Light breaking in at the several Windows, there was a Cry made, that CHRIST was coming to Judgment:  Which being really believ’d by a great many, some that were not before so much affected as others, were put into the deepest Distress, and great Numbers had their Convictions hereby strengthned and confirmed.

I am not so unacquainted with the World as to be insensible with how much Derision such a Relation as this is likely to be entertained by a great many of the Humourists of the Age.  But, I think this a Thing little to be regarded:  Tho’ I wish to GOD that such Persons might be brought, for their own sakes, to think more of this great and terrible Day of the LORD; and that they would consider, if the Apprehension of its Approach be so very startling to a carnal World, how vast would be their Horror and Amazement when it shall actually arrive.  This would be of good Use to check their Disposition to ridicule, to restrain them from their vain and wicked Jestings, and from a  great many Things which if indulg’d must needs add to their Terror in that Day.  And however distasteful the relating such low Occurrences, may  be to some nice and curious Palates now, I make no doubt but Things of a like Nature will afford an infinite Satisfaction to the saints hereafter:  that it will give them a vast, and inconceivable Pleasure, when they get to Heaven, to have the Beauty of DIVINE PROVIDENCE laid open to their View; To hear and see how some Events that are seemingly insignificant, and appear perfectly casual, have been order’d out in infinite Wisdom, and made subservient to very great, and excellent Designs:  and how a bare Imagination, and mistaken Apprehension of Things has been so far set home, and made such Impressions upon a great many, as to be a Means of their saving Conversion to GOD.

But to return from this Digression, which I have been led further into, than I was aware of.

As I was call’d abroad upon the Day next ensuing what I last mentioned, it was suprizing to observe the Seriousness that appear’d in the Face of almost every one I occasionally met with:  and it seem’d as if there was hardly any such Thing as entring into a House in which there was not some poor wounded and distress’d Soul; and where there was not a greater or less Degree of Concern in all belonging to it, as to their spiritual and eternal State.  It was very affecting to be call’d into one Family after another, as I was going along the Street, and entreated not to leave them till Prayer had been solemnly offer’d up to GOD on their Behalf.  A divine Power was then so plainly to be seen in what had come to pass among us, that there was hardly any that dare openly and expresly deny it.  As for those who thro’ their own prevailing Corruptions, or the Insinuations and Persuasions of others soon grew into a Dislike of it, and have since gone so far as to pronounce the whole of it a Scene of Enthusiasm, and to look upon all as a Delusion; their very Countenance and Behaviour then plainly spoke the awful Apprehensions they were under of its being from GOD.

As we had Preaching for some Time upon every Day; so we were greatly oblig’d to several of the neighbouring Minister, who readily granted us their Assistance, till prevented by Indisposition of Body, or ‘till the State of their own Flocks requir’d them at Home.

But that such as have ever read the Acts of the Apostles, that have there seen the Apostle PETER’s Hearers so many of them, prick’d at the Heart, and heard them saying in the Agony of their Souls, Men and Brethren, what shall we do?  and that have seen the Roman Governor trembling in the Manner that he did under the preaching of the Apostle PAUL his Prisoner; or that any who have read the well-attested Accounts of this Nature that are related by the credible Author of the fulfilling of the Scripture; or that have so much as seen a poor Sinner deeply Distressed under the Burden of his Guilt; should think it strange, and even a Thing incredible, for any to be put under such a Commotion of Soul under the Ministry of the Word, as not to be able to forbear making a publick Discovery of it; has sometimes fill’d me with Surprize.

And yet I am sensible that some well disposed Persons have been stumbled at Things of this Kind.  I know an Instance of this Nature, in one of our own Church; a Person of a good Capacity, and of considerable Reading and Knowledge in Divine Things, who for some Time entertain’d latent Prejudices against the late religious Commotions, more particularly on Account of Persons speaking out in Publick, and could not be perswaded but that they might easily avoid it, till Experience taught him to the contrary.  Upon the Morning of a Sabbath, a Day when the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was to be administred; just at the close of his secret Devotions, (as he afterwards told me) he had his Sins discover’d to him in such a Manner as they never were before, and an uncommon Darkness and Horror fell upon him.  In this sorrowful and distress’d State, he went to the House of GOD.  When the Celebration of the Sacrament came on, he had considerable Reasonings in his Mind concerning his Tarrying, and at length concluded to stay, but could not prevail with himself to receive.  As soon as the Administration was over, he could no longer forbear speaking in the Grief and Bitterness of his Soul, and breath’d out his Complaints to GOD in such a Manner as drew Tears from almost every Person present; and has sometimes since been constrain’d to break out into some short Expressions.  He was under a great deal of Concern for his Soul while Young, and put upon an early Reformation of his Life:  He has deservedly had the Character of being strictly just in his Dealings, and has been a constant and steddy Observer of the Duties of divine Worship, in his Closet, in his Family, and in Publick:  But has been convinc’d that he has built too much upon these Things, and never till of late had the corrupt Fountain of his own Heart Sufficiently laid open to his View.  And from what he has now seen of himself, he has declared to me, that tho’ he has sometimes been in some Measure affected with the unkind and cruel Usage of the blessed JESUS, and not been without some sort of Indignation against his Opposers, Persecutors, and Murderers; that yet if he had liv’d in their Day, and been of the same Temper of Mind that he was when this Work fist began among us, he is perswaded, he should have approv’d of them, if not made one among them.

We are not without Instances of other Professors who have been put off from their former Foundation; and Others who if their Hearts were before right with GOD, have been greatly quicken’d, and make more fervent in Spirit, serving the LORD.

But a great Part of those that have been remarkably wrought upon, are such as before had very little if any Thing of the Form and Appearance of Religion:  and among these the divine Sovereignty has been very illustriously display’d.  Some of those whom we trust are savingly brought home, are such as have wander’d far from GOD.  Some that have been very ignorant, and unthinking Persons, and some very young.  They many of them, upon their first being brought under Conviction, manifested a deep Sense of their original, as well as actual Sins; complained sadly of the Wickedness of their Hearts, and bewail’d their Sin in rejecting and making light of a SAVIOUR.  There have been some Instances of young Persons that have spoken feelingly of these Things, who have seem’d to have had but little humane Instruction, and seldom to have been where such things have been the Subjects of Discourse.

As was at first fear’d and expected, it must be confess’d that so it has happened to some that were brought under a serious Concern for their Souls, that they have fallen off from their good Beginnings, and are the same Persons that they were before:  and there are others who continuing under Convictions, seem to have proceeded no further.  But here is a considerable Number who are exhibiting all the Evidence that can be expected, of a real Conversion to GOD.

Brief Account of the Revival of Religion at Brookline about five Miles to the West South Westward of Boston, in a Letter from the Rev. Mr. James Allen, Pastor of the Church there, to the late Rev. Mr. Cooper, wrote the Day after the Assembly of Pastors in July last.

Reverend and dear Sir,

Mr. Balch has been pleased to come thus far out of his way to bring me the Glad Tidings of your united Testimony to the Work of GOD.

I am not able to express the Joy with which I received the News: and consequent upon it, I was not able to come to Town today, being very much indisposed by the Head-ach etc. but Sir, I was thoughtful of you, the Committee I mean, and now thank the LORD that my secret Supplications are so suddenly and fully answered.

I did not give in as some did a verbal Testimony yesterday to the Effusions of the DIVINE SPIRIT in a Work of Conviction and Grace among us: I thought my being present was sufficient, and then my natural Temper ever restrains me from speaking upon such Occasions before those much wiser and better than my self; but I have since wished I had, to the Glory of free and sovereign Grace, made a short Declaration in the following Manner; That there has been a very distinguishing and remarkable Work of GOD going on in the Land, I have been so much a Witness to in many Towns where I have occasionally been within these two Years; that I think I am as firm in the Belief of it as that there is a Sun in the Heavens, or of my own Existence.  For what but the GOD that formed it, can so impress the Mind with a Sense of Sin, and its destructive Consequents, as to cause the greatest Sorrow of Heart, and Streams of penitential Tears to flow from the Eyes?  What can create in the Soul earnest restless and vehement Desires after the Love, Grace, and Fellowship of CHRIST, but that GOD that first formed the Spirit of Man within him, and can turn the Heart as a River of Water?  Who but the GOD of Grace can make the Drunkard temperate, and the prodigal Son, a sober serious Man etc.?

Which Things have been common in other Places to my frequent Observation: nor are we destitute of some signal instances of free and sovereign Grace among us here.  There have been Scores of Persons under Awakenings; yea I have sometimes thought there has not been a single Person of my Congregation, but has been under more or less Concern about the important Matters of another World, and what he should do to be saved: Tho’ these Impressions I fear are worn off in many, but in others I have no reason to doubt but they have been carried on to a sound and saving Conversion.  Additions to the Church have been considerable for Numbers, of such as I hope thro’ Grace shall be saved, and chiefly of younger Persons, and one of but eleven Years of age, and another in the eleventh & last Hour of Life, being above seventy; Three of a liberal Education; two of them since hopeful young Preachers.  In some few the Terrors have been so great that they have cried out in Distress; in others the liberal Communications of divine Light and Joy have had the like Effect.

One of our young Converts died the last Fall in a very glorious and triumphant Manner; the only one that has died among us since the blessed Work began.  I was called to her about ten the Evening before she died; and finding her very low in Spirit as well as Body, I tarried all the Night, sometimes discoursing, and sometimes praying with her: but she received no Comfort.  In the Morning after Prayer, she turned her Face to the Wall, and lay still for a little Time; and then broke out, and said, Now I am ready to die!  Now I am ready to die! I immediately stept to her, and said, Child, have you found CHRIST?  Oh yes, said she, I have found him, I have found him!  I asked her, If she was now assured of the Love of CHRIST to her?  She answered, I am sure, I am sure!  Come LORD JESUS!—Oh sweet JESUS!  Oh the Anthems of Joy!—Oh sweet sweet sweet! And other Expressions of the like Nature: In which happy Frame she continued about two or three Hours, and then breathed out her Soul into the Bosom of JESUS her Beloved.  These Things are the LORD’s Doings, and loudly call for our Admiration and Praise.

Revival of Religion in the North Precinct of Bridgewater in the Province of the Massachusetts, in a Letter from the Rev. Mr. Porter, Pastor of the Church there.

To the Author of the CHRISTIAN HISTORY.

Divine Providence has cast my lot in Bridgewater, in the County of Plymouth, about thirty miles Southward from Boston: A Town settled in the Year 1652, by a Number of serious Christians, wherein there was a Church gathered and the Reverend Mr. James Keith, a Scotish Gentleman, ordained the Pastor of it in 1663; who continued with them preaching the everlasting Gospel about fifty six Years.

And as to the People of the Town, I may further observe, It was remarked of them by Strangers, as well as Persons in the Neighborhood, at their first settling and sometime after, that they were a People of the greatest Modesty and Seriousness, and most exact punctual and conscientious in discharging first and second Table Duties, of any they were acquainted with: But this high Character (with Lamentation let it be spoken) was not given them long; the Gold soon became dim, and the most fine Gold changed.  For a Number of the first Planters, (pious Men and experimental Christians) (not being suffered to continue by Reason of Death; their Posterity (not having their holy Examples, pious Instructions, and faithful Admonitions) soon began gradually to decline, and depart from the God of their Fathers.  And thus they went on for several Years; until Religion was almost sunk into a meer Form: Few had more than a Name to live: In most, GOD seemed not in all their Thoughts; besure he was not in their Mouths, using his Name reverently and to good Purpose.  Little of GOD, of CHRIST, of Heaven, of the Soul, was to be found in the Conversation of those that passed for the best of Christians.  Experimental Religion and the Power of Godliness, seemed to have taken their Flight from Bridgewater. This I had a great Advantage and Opportunity to know, by Reason of Providence calling me to keep School in all the Parts of the Town, before this remarkable Revival of Religion.

Now in these Days of Declension, neither Ordinances nor Providences, had much effect on the People.  Indeed by some sore Distempers with which GOD was pleased to visit them, in multiplying the Slain, and the Ministers in the Town improving them by adapting their Discourses to such Seasons of Mortality; some thro’ the Blessing of GOD were awakened to a Concern about the Salvation of their Souls.  But I have Reason to think that few of their Convictions issued in Conversion, or their Distress in the Joy of the LORD, or Comfort of the HOLY GHOST:  But that most of them rested in various Duties, short of a saving Closure with CHRIST.

And so in general they remained very secure, and unconcerned about the great and momentous Affair of securing the Salvation of the Soul, ‘till sometime in the Beginning of the Year 1741, after the Reverend and dear Mr. Whitefield and Reverend Mr. Tennent had been at Boston, and thro’ the Province, preaching the everlasting Gospel with such Unweariedness and Success.  Whose Names, especially the former, I shall always mention with Respect and Honour, whatever others may think or say of him, from the Benefit one of the meanest and most unworthy of CHRIST’s Ministers hopes he receiv’d by his holy and fervent Ministrations while at Boston.  Be sure I knew nothing rightly of my Sin & Danger, of my Need of a SAVIOUR, of the Way of Salvation by him: neither was established in the Doctrines of Grace; (tho’ a Preacher, and one who endeavoured to instruct others in the Way) till I heard that Man of GOD.  And if the LORD had permitted me to have took the Oversight of a Flock, as I had a Call to do, and had given my Answer; the Blind would have led the Blind, and so ’tis like both would have fallen into the Ditch.—But he did not.  Bless the LORD, O my Soul, and all that is within me bless his holy Name, for what he did for me, thro’ the Instrumentality of that Man.  And I was quickned & strengthned very much by Mr. Tennent’s excellent Sermons, and was desirous all should hear them, as I had done, and urged many to it.

Few of the People in Bridgewater heard Mr. Whitefield: but the most did Mr. Tennent; for as this Man of GOD, who had Skill and Will to win Souls, was upon his Return home, and passing thro’ a neighbouring Town in March 1740, I, some of the Reverend Ministers in Bridgewater, with my self, went to see him; in order to invite him to visit Bridgewater; that we and our dear Charges might partake of his Gifts and Graces, and that he might have some Seals of his Ministry with us, as well as in other Places.  And after some Intreaties (for he was determined another Way, viz. to Freetown and Tiverton) we gained a Promise from him, that (GOD willing) he would visit us next Day.  Accordingly he came, and preached three Sermons in the Reverend Mr. Perkins’s Meeting-House in the Western Precinct; two in the Day, one in the Evening.  And tho’ the Warning was short, the People in general not knowing it, till that Morning, and the season very difficult, by Reason of the Snow; yet there was a large and crowded Assembly.  They came from all Parts of the Town, (for you must note that tho’ in good Mr. Keith’s Day, there was but one Society, now there are four; to which the Rev. Mr. Daniel Perkins, John Angier, John Shaw, and my self, stand severally in pastoral Relation)—and many I believe went away blessing GOD for the Opportunity; tho’ some mocked.  It appears that some close Hypocrites were detected, some secure awakened, and many of our young People convinced of the Sin of spending away Days & Nights in Singing and Dancing, and other youthful Sins, which they were much addicted to before, and greatly delighted in.

After this, Religion was more talked of in our Town; particularly the great Doctrines of our holy Religion were often the Subject of Conversation; not for Strife and Contention, but Information and Edification.

The People now thro’ the Town were very inquisitive to know how Things were; having heard of the revival of Religion in some Places.  They appeared of a very teachable Disposition:  they were swift to hear the Word; an uncommon Thirst after it appeared in them.  Our Lectures (which were almost every Week in one Part of the Town, or another) were more generally attended than before, and with much greater Seriousness and Solemnity; which encouraged us the Ministers in the Town, to set up Evening Lectures, to be attended in all Parts of the Town; which (excepting one) are upheld to this Time; beside all our Lectures in private Houses, which have not been a few; and occasional Lectures from Strangers who came to visit us:  which I believe GOD has blessed to the good of many Souls.  Spiritual Clouds seem’d to be gathering apace; a Shower of divine and heavenly Blessings seemed nigh being rained down on Bridgewater, and the whole Town becoming a Mountain of Holiness.  O the delightful Prospect we now had!—

But I shall say no more with Respect to the other Societies in Conjunction with our own, or of the promising Appearances in them, and what GOD has done for them.  But leaving this for their Reverend Pastors to do; I come to declare more particularly what great Things the LORD has done for the little Society called the North Precinct, consisting of near sixty Families, over which I was ordained the 15th of October 1740.

The Christian History:

Containing Accounts of the Propagation and Revival of Religion in England Scotland and America.

Saturday January 18, 1743.  Nor. 48.

The Rev. Mr. Edward’s late additional Account of the State of Religion at Northampton continued.

In the Month of March I led the People into a solemn publick Renewal of their Covenant with GOD. To that End I made a Draught of a Covenant; and first proposed it to some of the principal Men in the Church; then proposed it to the People in their several religious Societies, in various Parts of the Town;  and then proposed it to the whole Congregation in publick; and then deposited a Copy of it in the Hands of each of our four Deacons, that all that desired it might resort to them, and have Opportunity to view and consider it. Then the People in general that were above fourteen Years of Age first subscribed the Covenant with their Hands, and then on a Day of Fasting and Prayer, all together presented themselves before the Lord in his House, and stood up, and solemnly manifested their Consent to it, as their Vow to GOD.

A Copy of a Covenant enter’d into and subscribed, by the People of GOD at Northampton, and own’d before GOD in his House, as their Vow to the LORD, and make a solemn Act of publick Worship, by the Congregation in general, that were above fourteen Years of age, on a Day of Fasting and Prayer for the Continuance and Increase of the gracious Presence of GOD in that Place, March 16. 1741, 2.

Acknowledging GOD’s great Goodness to us, a sinful unworthy People, in the blessed Manifestation, and Fruits of his gracious Presence in this Town, both formerly and lately, and particularly in the very late spiritual Revival; and adoring the glorious Majesty, Power, and Grace of GOD, manifested in the present wonderful Outpouring of his SPIRIT, in many Parts of this Land, and in this Place; and lamenting our past Backslidings and ungrateful Departings from GOD; and humbly begging of GOD, that he would not mark our Iniquities, but for CHRIST’s Sake, come over the Mountains of our Sins, and visit us with his Salvation, and continue the Tokens of his Presence with us, and yet more gloriously pour out his blessed SPIRIT upon us, and make us all Partakers of the divine Blessings, he is, at this Day, bestowing here, and in many Parts of this Land; We do this Day present our Selves before the LORD, to renounce our evil ways, and put away our Abominations from before God’s Eyes, and with one Accord, to Renew our Engagements to seek and serve GOD:  And particularly do now solemnly promise and vow to the LORD as follows,——

In all our Conversation, Concerns, and Dealings with our Neighbour, we will have a strict Regard to Rules of Honestly, Justice, and Uprightness; that we don’t over-reach or defraud our Neighbour, in any Matter, and either wilfully, or thro’ Want of Care, injure him in any of his honest Possessions or Rights; and in all our Communication, will have a tender Respect, not only to our own Interest, but also to the Interest of our Neighbour; and as we should expect, or think reasonable, that they should do to us, if we were in their Case, and they in ours.

And particularly we will endeavour to render to every one his Due; & will take Heed to our selves, that we don’t wrong our Neighbour, and give them a just Cause of Offence, by wilfully, or negligently forbearing to pay our honest Debts.

And wherein any of us, upon strict Examination of our past Behaviour, may be conscious to our selves, that we have by any Means, wrong’d any of our Neighbours in their outward Estate; we will not rest, ‘till we have made that Restitution, or given that Satisfaction, which the Rules of moral Equity require:  or it we are, on a strict and impartial Search, conscious to our selves, that we have in any other Respect, considerably injured our Neighbour; we will truly endeavour to do that, which we, in our Consciences, suppose Christian Rules require, in Order to a Reparation of the Injury, and removing the Offence given thereby.

And furthermore we promise, that we will not allow our selves in Backbiting; and that we will take great Heed to our selves to avoid all Violations of those Christian Rules, Tit. 3.2. Speak Evil of no Man.  Jam. 4.11. Speak not Evil one of another, brethren.  And 2 Cor. 12.20. Lest there be Strifes, Backbitings, Whisperings.  And that we will not only, not slander our Neighbour, but also will not, to feed a Spirit of Bitterness, Ill-Will, or secret Grudge against our Neighbour, insist on his real Faults, needlessly and when not called to it; or from such a Spirit, speak of his Failings and Blemishes with Ridicule, or an Air of Contempt.

And we promise that we will be very careful to avoid doing any thing to our Neighbor from a Spirit of Revenge.  and that we will take great Care that we do not, for private Interest, or our own Honour, or to maintain our selves against those of a contrary Party, or to get our Wills, or to promote any Design in Opposition to others; do those Things which we, on the most impartial Consideration we are capable of, can think in our Consciences, will tend to wound Religion, and the Interest of CHRIST’s Kingdom.

And particularly, that so far as any of us, by divine Providence, have any special Influence upon others, to lead them, in the Management of publick Affairs; we will not make our own worldly Gain, or Honour, or Interest in the Affections of others, or getting the better of any of a contrary Party, that are in any Respect our Competitors, or the bringing, or keeping them down, our governing Aim, to the Prejudice of the Interest of Religion, and the Honour of CHRIST.

And in the Management of any publick Affair, wherein there is a

Difference of Opinions, concerning any outward Possessions, Priviledges, Rights or Properties; we will not wittingly violate Justice, for private Interest; and with the greatest Strictness and watchfulness, will avoid all unchristian Bitterness, Vehemence, and Heat of Spirit; year tho’ we should think our selves injured by a contrary Party; and in the Time of the Management of such Affairs, will especially watch over our selves, our Spirits, and our Tongues, to avoid all unchristian Inveighings, Reproachings, bitter Respectings, judging and ridiculing others, either to Men’s Faces, or behind their Backs; but will greatly endeavour, so far as we are concerned, that all should be managed with Christian Humility, Gentleness, Quietness and Love.

And furthermore we promise that we will not tolerate the Exercise of Enmity and Ill-Will, or Revenge in our Hearts, against any of our Neighbours; and we will often be strictly searching and examining our Hearts with Respect to that Matter.

And if any of us find that we have an old secret Grudge against any of our Neighbours, we will not gratify it, but cross it, and endeavour, to our utmost, to root it out, crying to GOD for his Help; and that we will make it our true & faithful Endeavour, in our places, that a Party Spirit may not be kept up amongst us, but that it may utterly cease; that for the future we may all be one, united in undisturbed Peace, and unfeigned Love.

And those of us that are in Youth, do promise never to allow our selves in any youthful Diversions and Pastimes, in Meetings, or Companies of young People, that we in our Consciences, upon sober Consideration, judge not well to consist with, or would sinfully tend to hinder the devoutest, and most engaged Spirit in Religion; or indispose the Mind for that devout, and profitable Attendance on the Duties of the closet, which is most agreeable to GOD’s Will; or that we in our most impartial Judgment, can think tends to rob GOD of that Honour which he expects, by our orderly, serious Attendance on Family-Worship.

We also promise, with great Watchfulness, to perform Relative Duties, Required by Christian Rules, in the Families we belong to; as we stand related respectively, towards Parents and Children, Husbands and Wives, Brothers and Sisters, Masters or Mistresses and Servants.

And we now appear before GOD, depending on divine Grace and Assistance, solemnly to devote our whole Lives, to be laboriously spent on the Business of Religion: ever making it our greatest Business, without backsliding form such a Way of living; not hearkening to the Solicitations of our Sloth, and other corrupt Inclinations, or the Temptations of the World, that tend to draw us off from it; and particularly, that we may not abuse an Hope, or Opinion that any of us may have of our being interested in Christ, to indulge our selves in Sloth, or the more easily to yield to the Solicitations of any sinful Inclinations; but will run with Perseverance, the Race that is set before us, and work out our Salvation with Fear and Trembling.

And being sensible of our own Weakness, and the Deceitfulness of our own Hearts, and our Proneness to forget our most solemn Vows, and loose our Resolutions; we promise to be often strictly examining our selves by these Promises, especially before the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; and beg of God that he would, for Christ’s Sake, keep us from wickedly dissembling in these our solemn Vows; And that he who searches our Hearts, and ponders the Path of our Feet, would from Time to Time help us in trying our selves by this covenant, and help us to keep Covenant with him, and not leave us to our own foolish wicked and treacherous Hearts.

Book:  The Workes of the Most High and Mighty Prince James I  (1616)

By:   James I

A COUNTERBLASTE TO TOBACCO    (1604 A.D.)

That the manifold abuses of this vile custome of Tobacco taking, may the better be espied, it is fit, that first you enter into consideration both of the first originall thereof, and likewise of the reasons of the first entry thereof into this Countrey. For certainely as such customes, that have their first institution either from a godly, necessary, or honourable ground, and are first brought in, by the meanes of some worthy, vertuous, and great Personage, are ever, and mostly justly, holden in great and reverent estimation and account, by all wise, virtuous, and temperate spirits: So should it by the contrary, justly bring a great disgrace into that sort of customes, which having their originall from base corruption and barbaritie, doe in like sort, make their first entry into a Countrey, by an inconsiderate and childish affectation of Noveltie, as is the trew case of the first invention of Tobacco taking, and of the first entry thereof among us. For Tobacco being a common herbe, which (though under divers names) growes almost every where, was first found out by some of the barbarous Indians, to be a Preservative or Antidote against the Pocks, a filthy disease, wherunto these barbarous people are (as all men know) very much subject, what through the uncleanely and adust constitution of their bodies, and what through the intemperate heate of their Climate: so that as from them was first brought into Christendome, that most detestable disease; so from them likewise was brought this use of Tobacco, as a stinking and unsavourie Antidote, for so corrupted and execrable a maladie, the stinking suffumigation whereof they yet use against that disease, making so one canker or venime to eate out another.

And now good Countrey-men, let us (I pray you) consider, what honour or policy can moove us to imitate the barbarous and bestly maners of the wilde, godlesse, and slavish Indians, especially in so vile and stinking a custome? Shall we that disdaine to imitate the maners of our neighbour France (having the stile of the first Christian Kingdome) and that cannot endure the spirit of the Spaniards (their King being now comparable in largenesse of Dominions, to the great Emperour of Turkie) Shall wee, I say, that have bene so long civill and wealthy in Peace, famous and invincible in Warre, fortunate in both, we that have bene ever able to aide any of our neighbours (but never deafed any of their eares with any of our supplications for assistance) shall wee, I say, without blushing abase our selves so farre, as to imitate these beastly Indians, slaves to the Spaniards, refuse to the world, and as yet aliens from the holy Covenant of God? Why doe we not as well imitate them in walking naked as they doe? in preferring glasses, feathers, and such toyes, to gold and precious stones, as they doe? yea why doe we not denie God and adore the divel, as they doe?

Now to the corrupted basenesse of the first use of this Tobacco, doeth very well agree the foolish and groundlesse first entry thereof into this Kingdome. It is not so long since the first entry of this abuse amongst us here, as this present aage cannot yet very well remember, both the first Authour, and the forme of the first introduction of it amongst us. It was neither brought in by King, great Conguerour, nor learned doctour of Phisicke.

With the report of a great discovery for a Conquest, some two or three Savage men, were brought in, together with this Savage custome. But the pitie is, the poore wilde barbarous men died, but that vile barbarous custome is yet alive, yea in fresh vigor: so as it seemes a miracle to me, how a custome springing from so vile a ground, and brought in by a father so generally hated, should be welcomed upon so slender a warrant. For if they that first put it in practise here, had remembred for what respect it was used by them from whence it came, I am sure they would have bene loath, to have taken so farre the imputation of that disease upon them as they did, by using the cure thereof: For Sanis non eft opus medico, and counterpoisons are never used, but where poison is thought to precede.

But since it is trew, that divers customes slightly grounded, and with no better warrant entred in a Common-wealth, may yet in the use of them thereafter, proove both necessary and profitable; it is therefore next to bee examined, if there be not a full Sympathie and true Proportion, betweene the base ground and foolish entrie, and the loathsome and hurtfull use of this stinking Antidote.

I am now therefore heartily to pray you to consider, first upon what false erroneous grounds you have first built the generall good liking thereof; and next, what sinnes towards God, and foolish vanities before the world you committ, in the detestable use of it.

As for these deceitful grounds, that have specially moved you to take a good and great conceit thereof, I shall content my selfe to examine here onely foure of the principals of them; two founded upon the Theoricke of a deceiveable apparance of reason, and two of them upon the mistaken practicke of generall experience.

First, it is thought by you a sure Aphorisme in the Physickes, That the braines of all men, beeing naturally cold and wet, all drie and hote things should be good for them; of which nature this stinking suffumigation is, and therefore of good use to them. Of this argument, both the proposition and assumption are false, and so the conclusion cannot but be voyd of it selfe. For as to the Proposition, That because the braines are colde and moist, therefore things that are hote and dry are best for them, it is an inept consequence: For men beeing compounded of the foure Complexions, (whole fathers are the foure Elements) although there be a mixture of them in all the parts of his body, yet must the divers parts of our Microcosme or little world within our selves, be diversly more inclined, some to one, some to another complexion, according to the diversitie of their uses, that of these discords a perfect harmonie may be made up for the maintenance of the whole body.

The application then of a thing of a contrary nature, to any of these parts, is to interrupt them of their due function, and by consequence hurtfull to the health of the whole bodie. As if a man, because the Liver is hote (as the fountaine of blood) and as it were an oven to the stomacke, would therefore apply and weare close upon his Liver and Stomacke a cake of lead; he might within a very short time (I hope) bee susteined very good cheape at an Ordinarie, beside the clearing of his conscience from that deadly sinne of gluttonie. And as if, because the Heart is full of vitall spirits, and in perpetuall motion, a man would therefore lay a heavie pound stone on his breast, for staying and holding downe that wanton palpitation, I doubt not but his breast would be more bruised with the weight therof, then the heart would be comforted with such a disagreeable and contrarious cure. And even so is it with the braines: For if a man, because the braines are cold and humide, would therefore use inwardly by smells, or outwardly by application, things of hot and dry qualitie, all the gaine that he could make thereof would onely be to put himselfe, the coldnesse and moistnesse of our braine being the onely ordinary meanes that procure our sleepe and rest. Indeed I doe not deny, but when it falls out that any of these, or any part of our bodie growes to be distempered, and to tend to an extemitie, beyond the compasse of Natures temperate mixture, that in that case cures of contrary qualities, to the intemperate inclination of that part, being wisely prepared and discreetly ministred, may be both necessary and helpfull for strengthning and assisting Nature in the expulsion of her enemies: for this is the trew definition of all profitable Phisicke.

But first these Cures ought not to be used, but where there is need of them, the contrary whereof, is daily practised in this generall use of Tobacco by all sorts and complexions of people.

And next, I denie the Minor of this argument, as I have already said, in regard that this Tobacco, is not simply of a dry and hote qualitie, but rather hath a certain venemous facultie with the heat thereof, which makes it have an Antipathy against nature, as by the hateful smel therof doth well appeare. For the nose being the proper Organ and convoy of the sense of smelling to the braines, which are the only fountaine of that sense, doth ever serve us for an infallable witnesse, whether that odour which we smell, be healthfull or hurtfull to the braine, (except when it fals out that the sense it selfe is corrupted and abused through some infirmitie, and distemper in the braine.) And that the suffumigation thereof cannot have a drying quality, it needs no further probation, then that it is a smoke, all smoke and vapour, being of it selfe humide, as drawing neere to the nature of the aire, and easie to be resolved againe into water, whereof there needs no other proofe but the Meteors, which being bred of nothing else but of the vapors and exhalations sucked up by the Sun out of the earth, the sea, and waters, yet are the same smoakie vapors turned and transformed into raines, snowes, deawes, hoare frosts, and such like waterie Meteors, as by the contrary the rainie cloudes are often transformed and evaporated in blustering windes.

The second Argument grounded on a shew of reason is, That this filthy smoake, aswell through the heat and strength thereof, as by a naturall force and quality, is able and fit to purge both the head and stomack of rhewmes and distillations, as experience teacheth, by the spitting & avoiding fleame, immediatly after the taking of it. But the fallacie of this Argument may easily appeare, by my late preceding description of the Meteors: Fore even as the smoakie vapours sucked up by the Sunne, and stayed in the lowest and cold Region of the aire, are there contracted into clouds, and turned into raines and such other watery Meteors: So this stinking smoake being sucked up by the nose, & imprisoned in the cold and moyst braines, is by their cold and wet facultie, turned and cast forth againe in waterie distillations, and so are you made free and purged of nothing, but that wherewith you wilfully burdened your selves: and therefore are you no wiser in taking Tobacco for purging you of distillations, then if for preventing the Cholicke you would take all kind of windie meats and drinkes; and for preventing of the Stone, you would take all kinde of meates and drinkes that would breed gravell in the kidneys, and then when you were forced to avoide much winde out of your stomacke, and much gravell in your Urine, that you should attribute the thanke therof to such nourishments, as bred those within you, that behooved either to be expelled by the force of Nature, or you to have burst at the broad side, as the Proverbe is.

As for the other two reasons founded upon experience, the first of which is, That the whole people would not have taken so generall a good liking thereof, if they had not by experience found it very soueraigne and good for them: For answere thereunto, how easily the mindes of people, wherewith God hath replenished this world may be drawen to the foolish affectation of any noveltie, I leave it to the discreet judgement of any man that is reasonable.

Doe we not daily see, that a man can no sooner bring over from beyond the seas any new forme of apparell, but that he cannot be thought a man of spirit, that would not presently imitate the same? And so from hand to hand it spreads, till it be practised by all, nor for any commodity that is in it but only because it is come to be the fashion. For such is the force of that naturall selfe-love in every one of us, and such is the corruption of envy bred in the brest of every one, as we cannot be content unlesse wee imitate every thing that our fellowes doe, and so proove our selves capable of every thing whereof they are capable, like Apes, counterfeiting the maners of others, to our owne destruction. For let one or two of the greatest Masters of Mathematicks in any of the two famous Universities, but constantly affirme any cleare day, that they see some strange apparition in the skies; they wil I warrant you be seconded by the greatest part of the students in that profession: So loth will they be, to be thought inferior to their fellowes, either in depth of knowledge or sharpnes of sight: And therefore the generall good liking and imbracing of this foolish custome, doth but only proceed from that affectation of noveltie, and popular errour, whereof I have already spoken.

The other argument drawn from a mistaken experience, is but the more particular probation of this generall, because it is alleged to be found trew by proofe, that by the taking of Tobacco divers and very many doe finde themselves cured of divers diseases; as on the other part, no man ever received harme thereby. In this argument there is first a great mistaking, to take non caus am pro causa, as they say in the Logickes? because peradventure when a sicke man hath had his disease taking the naturall course of declining, and consequently the Patient of recovering his health, O then the Tobacco forsooth, was the worker of that miracle. Beside that, it is a thing wel known to all Physicians, that the apprehension and conceit of the patient, hath by wakening and uniting the vitall spirits, and so strengthening nature, a great power and vertue, to cure divers diseases. For an evident proofe of mistaking in the like case, I pray you what foolish boy, what silly wench, what olde doting wife, or ignorant countrey clowne, is not a Physician for the toothach, for the cholicke, and divers such common diseases? Yea, will not every man you meet withall, teach you a sundry cure for the same, & sweare by that meane either himself, or some of his neerest kinsemen and friends was cured? And yet I hope no man is so foolish as to beleeve them. And all these toyes do only proceed from the mistaking Non caus am pro causa, as I have already said, and so if a man chance to recover one of any disease, after hee hath taken Tobacco, that must have the thanks of all. But by the contrary, if a man smoke himselfe to death with it (and many have done) O then some other disease must beare the blame for that fault. So doe old harlots thanke their harlotrie for their many yeeres, that custome being healthfull (say they) ad purgandos Renes, but never have mind how many die of the Pockes in the flower of their youth. And so doe old drunkards thinke they prolong their dayes, by their swinelike diet, but never remember how many die drowned in drinke before they be halfe olde.

And what greater absurditie can there be, then to say that one cure shall serve for divers, nay, contrarious sorts of diseases? It is an undoubted ground among all Physicians, that there is almost no sort either of nourishment or medicine, that hath not some thing in it disagreeable to some part of mans bodie, because as I have alreadie said, the nature of the temperature of every part, is so different from another, that according to the olde proverbe, That which is good for the head, is evill for the necke and the shoulders: For even as a strong enemy, that invades a town or fortresse, although in his siege thereof, he do belay and compasse it round about, yet he makes his breach and entry, at some one or fewe speciall parts thereof, which hee hath tried and found to be weakest and least able to resist; so sickenes doth make her particular assault, upon such part or parts of our body, as are weakest and easiest to be overcome by that sort of disease, which then doth assaile us, although all the rest of the body by Sympathie feele it selfe to be as it were belayed, and besieged by the affliction of that speciall part, the griefe and smart thereof being by the sense of feeling dispersed through all the rest of our members. And therefore the skilfull Physician presses by such cures to purge and strengthen that part which is afflicted, as are only fit for that sort of disease, and doe best agree with the nature of that infirme part; which being abused to a disease of another nature, would prove as hurtfull for the one, as helpfull for the other. Yea, not onely with a skilfull and wary Physician be carefull to use no cure but that which is fit for that sort of disease, but he will also consider all other circumstances, & make the remedies sutable therunto; as the temperature of the clime where the Patient is, the constitution of the Planets, the time of the Moone, the season of the yeere, the aage and complexion of the Patient, and the present state of his body, in  strength or weaknes: For one cure must not ever be used for the selfesame disease, but according to the varying of any of the foresaid circumstances, that sort of remedy must be used which is fittest for the same. Where by the contrary in this case, such is the miraculous omnipotence of our strong tasted Tobacco, as it cures al sorts of diseases (which never any drugge could do before) in all persons, and al all times. It cures all maner of distillations, either in the head or stomacke (if you beleeve their Axiomes) although in very deed it doe both corrupt the braine, and by causing over quicke digestion, fill the stomacke full of crudities. It cures the gowt in the feet, and (which is miraculous) in that very instant when the smoke thereof, as light, flies up into the head, the vertue therof, as heavy, runs down to the little toe. It helps all sorts of agues. It makes a man sober that was drunk. It refreshes a weary man, and yet makes a man hungry. Being taken when they goe to bed, it makes one sleepe soundly, and yet being taken when a man is sleepie and drowsie, it will, as they say, awake his braine, and quicken his understanding. As for curing of the Pockes, it serves for that use but among the pockie Indian slaves. Here in England it is refined, and will not deigne to cure here any then cleanly and gentlemanly diseases. O onmipotent power of Tobacco! And if it could by the smoake thereof chase out devils, as the smoake of Tobias fish did (which I am sure could smell no stronglier) it would serve for a precious Relicke, both for the superstitious Priests, and the insolent Puritanes, to cast out devils withall.

Admitting then and not confessing, that the use thereof were healthful for some sorts of diseases; should it be used for all sicknesses? Should it be used by all men? Should it be used at all times? yea should it be used by able, yong, strong, healthful men? Medicine hath that virtue, that it never leaves a man in that state wherein it finds him: it makes a sicke man whole, but a whole man sicke: And as Medicine helps nature being taken at times of necessitie, so being ever and continually used, it doeth but weaken, weary, and weare nature. Whatspeake I of Medicine? Nay let a man every houre of the day, or as oft as many in this countrey use to take Tobacco, let a man I say, but take as oft the best sorts of nourishments in meate and drinke that can be devised, he shall with the continuall use thereof weaken both his head and his stomacke: all his members shall become feeble, his spirits dull, and in the end, as a drowsie lazie belly-god, he shall evanish in a Lethargie.

And from this weaknesse it proceeds, that many in this kingdome have had such a continuall use of taking this unsavorie smoake, as now they are not able to forbeare the same, no more then an old drunkard can abide to be song sober, without falling into an incurable weaknesses and evill constitution: for their continuall custome hath made to them, habitum, alteram naturam: so to those that from their birth have beene continually nourished upon poison and things venemous, wholsome meats are only poisonable.

Thus having, as I trust, sufficiently answered the most principall arguments that are used in defence of this vile custome, it rests only to informe you what sinnes and vanities you commit in the filthy abuse thereof. First, are you not guiltie of sinnefull and shamefull lust? (for lust may be as well in any of the senses as in feeling) that although you be troubled with no disease, but in perfect health, yet can you neither be merry at an Ordinary, nor lascivious in the Stewes, if you lacke Tobacco to provoke your appetite to any of those sorts of recreation, lusting after it as the children of Israel did in the wildernesse after Quailes? Secondly it is, as you use or rather abuse it, a branch of the sinne of drunkennes, which is the root of all sinnes: for as the only delight that drunkards take in wine is in the strength of the taste, and the force of the fume therof that mounts up to the braine: for no drunkards love any weake, or sweet drinke: so are not those (I meane the strong heate and the fume) the onely qualities that make Tobacco so delectable to all the lovers of it? And as no man likes strong heady drinke the first day (because memo repente fit turpissimus) but by custome is piece and piece allured, while in the ende, a drunkard will have as great a thirst to be drunke, as a sober man to quench his thirst with a draught when he hath need of it: So is not this the very case of all the great takers of Tobacco? which therefore they themselves doe attribute to a bewitching qualitie in it. Thirdly, is it not the greatest sinne of all, that you the people of all sorts of this kingdome, who are created and ordeined by God, to bestow both your persons and goods, for the maintenance both of the honour and safety of your King and Common-wealth, should disable your selves in both. In your persons having by this continuall vile custome brought your selves to this shamefull imbecilitie, that you are not able to ride or walke the journey of a Jewes Sabboth, but you must have a reekie cole brought you from the next poore house to kindle your Tobacco with? whereas he cannot be thought able for any service in the warres, that cannot endure oftentimes the want of meat, drinke, and sleepe, much more then must he endure the want of Tobacco. In the times of the many glorious and victorious battailes fought by this Nation, there was no word of Tobacco: but now if it were time of warres, and that you were to make some sudden Cavalcado upon your enemies, if any of you should seek leisure to stay behinde his fellow for taking of Tobacco, for my part I should never be sory for any evill chance that might befall him. To take a custome in any thing that cannot be left againe, is most harmeful to the people of any land. Mollicies and delicacie were the wracke and overthrow, first of the Persian, and next of the Romane Empire. And this very custome of taking Tobacco (whereof our present purpose is) is even at this day accounted so effeminate among the Indians themselves, as in the market they will offer no price for a slave to be sold, whom they find to be a great Tobacco taker.

And for the vanities committed in this filthy custome, is it not both great vanitie and uncleannesse, that at the table, a place of respect, of cleanlinesse, of modestie, men should not be ashamed, to sit tossing of Tobacco pipes and puffing of the smoke of Tobacco one to another, making the filthy smoke and stinke thereof, to exhale athwart the dishes, and infect the aire, when very often, men that abhorre it are at their repast: Surely smoke becomes a kitchen farre better then a dining chamber, and yet it makes a kitchen also oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soyling and infecting them, with an unctuous and oily kind of foote, as hath bene found in some great Tobacco takers, that after their death were opened. And not onely meat time, but no other time nor action is exempted from the publicke use of this uncivill tricke: so as if the wives of Diepe list to contest with this Nation for good maners, their worst maners would in all reason be found at least not so dishonest (as ours are) in this point. The publicke use whereof, at all times, and in all places, hath now so farre prevailed, as divers men very sound both in judgement and complexion, have beene at last forced to take it also without desire, partly because they were ashamed to seeme singular, (like the two Philosophers that were forced to ducke themselves in that raine water, and so become fooles as well as the rest of the people) and partly to be as one that was content to eate Garlick (which he did not love) that he might not be troubled with the smell of it, in the breath of his fellowes. And is it not a great vanitie, that a man cannot heartily welcome his friend now, but straight they must be in hand with Tobacco: No it is become in place of a cure, a point of good fellowship, and hee that will refuse to take a pipe of Tobacco among his fellowes, (though by his owne election hee would rather feele the savour of a Sinke) is accounted peevish and no good company, even as they doe with tipling in the colde Easterne countreys. Yea the Mistresse cannot in a more manerly kind, entertaine her servant, then by giving him out of her faire hand a pipe of Tobacco. But herein is not only a great vanity, but a great contempt of Gods good giftes, that the sweetnesse of mans breath, being a good gift of God, should be wilfully corrupted by this stinking smoke, wherin I must confesse, it hath too strong a vertue; and so that which is an ornament of nature, & can neither by any artifice be at the first acquired, nor once lost be recovered againe, shalbe filthily corrupted with an incurable stinke, which vile qualitie is directly contrary to that wrong opinion which is holden of the wholesomnesse therof, as the venime of putrifaction is contrary to the vertue Perservative.

Moreover, which is a great iniquitie, and against all humanitie, the husband shal not be ashamed, to reduce therby his delicate, wholsom, & cleane complexioned wife to that extremity, that either she must also corrupt her sweet breath therwith, or els resolve to live in a perpetual stinking torment.

Have you not reason then to be ashamed, and to forbeare this filthie noveltie, so barely grounded, so foolishly received, and so grossely mistaken in the right use thereof? In your abuse thereof sinning against God, harming your selves both in persons and goods, and raking also thereby the markes and notes of vanitie upon you; by the custome thereof making your selves to be wondered at by all forreine civill Nations, and by all strangers that come among you, to be scorned and contemned: A custome loathsome to the eye, hatefull to the nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoake of the pit that is bottomlesse.

[

JAMES I (1566-1625), King of England and VI of Scotland. The only son of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and Mary, Queen of Scots, on the abdication of his mother he became King of Scotland in 1567. He was educated mainly by George Buchanan (1506-82), who endeavoured to inculcate doctrines of constitutional monarchy. Undertaking the direction of government in 1578, he tried to build up the royal power amid strong rival factions of the Scottish nobility. In 1586 he entered an alliance with England, raising few objections to the execution of his mother. In 1589 he married Anne of Denmark (1574-1619). He generally supported the clergy against the nobility, but he resented the political influence of the Kirk. From 1598 he sought the restoration of episcopacy, in 1600 appointing three representatives of the Church in Parliament under the title of Bishops.

On the death of Elizabeth I (1603), he succeeded to the English throne by right of his mother’s descent from Henry VII, under the new style of King of Great Britain. Travelling immediately to London, he was met by the Puritans, who presented the Millenary Petition in 1603. Although personally prepared to accept the desired changes, he at first adopted a position of mediation at the Hampton Court Conference. When, however, the name of Presbyter was mentioned confusing the English Puritans with the Scottish Presbyterians, he scolded the assembly and decided to harry dissenters out of the land. Henceforth he upheld the connexion between Divine Right of Kings and Apostolic Succession. At the same time he authorized a new translation of the Bible (the Authorized Version of 1611). He favoured lenient treatment of RCs, and concluded peace with Spain in 1604. The discrepancy, however, between his promises and the policy of his government in 1605 provoked the Gunpowder Plot, which was followed by stricter laws against Recusants. He refused to ratify the canons prepared by Convocation in 1606 because they advocated non-resistance to the king in possession, whereas he believed in the sanctity of hereditary right and denied that tyranny could exist by appointment of God. In 1610 he persuaded the Assembly of the Scottish Church to agree to the introduction of episcopacy. Three bishops were consecrated in England and he prob. hoped to extend the English rite to Scotland. In 1614 and 1615 he ordered that all persons in Scotland should receive the Holy Communion on Easter Day, and in 1616 called upon the Assembly of Aberdeen to pass the Five Articles, which (after James’s visit to Scotland in 1617) were finally accepted at Perth in 1618. He issued the ‘Book of Sports’ (1618) approving lawful sport on Sundays.

James attempts to negotiate a marriage treaty with Spain were frustrated by Parliament’s refusal to repeal the laws against RCs, while he was equally unsuccessful in his attempts to mediate in Bohemia. He negotiated an alliance with France in 1624, but he was unable to disclose the terms of a treaty which promised relief to Catholics. Throughout his reign he quarrelled with his Parliaments over foreign policy and never saw that parliamentary control over finance made compromise necessary. Although renowned for his erudition, he failed to win sympathy because of his pedantry and high opinion of his own ability. His published works include Essays of a Prentice in the Divine Art of Poetry (1584), Poetical Exercises (1591). Daemonology (1597). Basilikon Doron (1599), The True Law of Free Monarchies (anon. 1598; 1603), A Counter Blast to Tobacco (anon. 1604), Triplici Nodo, Triplex Cuneus; or an Apology for the Oath of Allegiance (anon. 1607), Declaratio pro Jure Regio (1615). The Peacemaker (anon. 1618) and Meditations on the Lord’s Prayer (1619) and on Mt. 27. 27-29 (1620).]

Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church

Page 724

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Paying a courtesy call on the British foreign secretary Robin Cook in 1997, the Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern noticed a painting of Oliver Cromwell in the room. He instantly walked out and refused to return until the portrait of “that murdering bastard” had been removed. You might think that the long and tragic history of Anglo-Irish relations was so full of murdering bastards on both sides that the selection of any particular one was rather arbitrary. But Micheal OSiochru puts the Aherne anecdote at the start of his book to illustrate the continuing demonisation of Cromwell by the Irish, and he strives to discover how far it is justified.

The story begins in 1641, years before Cromwell set foot in Ireland, with the rebellion of the Catholic Irish against the Protestant settler community. This started as a revolt by members of the Catholic elite against the colonial government, but it quickly became a popular uprising. As news of massacres and atrocities spread, terrified Protestant families fled their homes, making for the garrison towns. The rebels attacked these defenceless refugee-columns, and thousands of innocent civilians perished. The death toll is disputed, but inflammatory English news sheets put it at more than 200,000, arousing a nationwide outcry for revenge against what John Milton called “those Irish barbarians”. It was the start of a retaliatory war that lasted for more than a decade

By the time Cromwell landed in Dublin in August 1649, at the head of his New Model Army, Charles I had been executed, and the parliamentarians faced a new alliance of Irish Catholics and English royalists, committed to putting Charles’s son Charles Stuart on the English throne. To Cromwell, this aim made their defeat vital. The invasion of England by a Catholic-royalist army seemed a genuine possibility, and if it succeeded it would, Cromwell prophesied, make England “the most miserable place on earth”, not least for Cromwell. He needed a swift, decisive success that would break his foes’ morale.

On September 3, he arrived outside the walls of Drogheda, and summoned Aston, the royalist commander, to surrender, warning him that if he refused “you will have no cause to blame me”. Aston replied defiantly, reputedly claiming that the man who could take Drogheda could take hell. Cromwell’s siege guns began to shatter the town’s defences on September 10, and on the 11th he himself led the storming party. What followed, as OSiochru relates, gave him a reputation for inhuman savagery, at least among his enemies, that has persisted in Ireland to the present. He ordered that no quarter should be given, and the entire garrison of 2,500 officers and men was put to the sword. The glory of his victory belonged, Cromwell proclaimed, “to God alone”.

He justified his act with the argument that it would save lives by persuading other garrisons to surrender. This proved accurate to some degree. Several towns yielded without a fight. Ormond, the royalist commander in chief, reported that the entire kingdom was “terrified beyond imagination”, and desertions from the royalist to the parliamentarian army increased. But in some quarters Cromwell’s ruthlessness may have stiffened opposition. Wexford, the base for royalist naval operations, did not instantly capitulate, and its fate ranks with Drogheda’s in the popular catalogue of Cromwell’s crimes. Yet the two disasters were, OSiochru points out, quite different. At Wexford, Cromwell did not order an assault on the town, much less its destruction. He was negotiating surrender terms with the royalist commander when his troops gained access to the castle and turned its guns on the city. In the ensuing chaos, not only defenders but a great many townspeople were killed.

At Drogheda, too, some of the townspeople had been fatally caught up in the fighting, but there seems to be no evidence that Cromwell ordered his troops to target civilians. On the contrary, he issued a proclamation on landing in Ireland prohibiting his men from harming the civilian population, and he executed some soldiers for pillaging. Not all those engaged in the conflict observed such distinctions. OSiochru quotes Bishop MacMahon, the commander of the Ulster Catholic army, who warned the garrison at Dungiven that if they “shed one drop of my soldiers’ blood I will not spare to put man, woman and child to the sword”. Even Cromwell’s slaughter of the garrison at Drogheda was not a war crime by contemporary standards. In refusing quarter to enemy troops after their commander had rejected a summons to surrender he acted, OSiochru acknowledges, “entirely within the accepted conventions of warfare at the time”. When garrisons did surrender, even if, as at Ross and Kilkenny, they had resisted at first and inflicted casualties on his troops, Cromwell allowed them to march away with arms and baggage intact.

When, after nine months, he returned to England triumphant, final victory seemed all but won. “The Irish are ashamed/To see themselves in one year tamed”, crowed the poet Andrew Marvell. But, in fact, it was only after the departure of Ahern’s murderous bastard that the war entered its most murderous phase, with Irish guerrilla bands, known as “Tories”, pillaging, terrorising and launching surprise attacks on government troops. Brutal reprisals followed, and the country was swept into the cyclone of destruction that regularly accompanies guerrilla warfare – the burning of crops, the killing of livestock, plague, famine, indiscriminate massacres of noncombatants. You could ride 20 miles through Ireland, a traveller reported, and see nothing but dead men hanging on trees and gibbets. It lasted three years, and by the end, when the various guerrilla units eventually laid down their arms, a fifth of the population had died, and a residue of bitterness had accumulated that would last for centuries.

Resentment was compounded by the punitive expropriation of many Irish Catholic landowners that followed the defeat, and the forcible transportation of the remainder to the province of Connacht. This, too, has been regarded as part of Cromwell’s vicious legacy. Yet it could be argued that Charles II was equally to blame, since after his restoration, as OSiochru notes, he chose not to repeal but to consolidate the parliamentarian land settlement, depriving thousands of families of their hereditary estates.

Cromwell was both a great Englishman who saved his country from tyranny, and a religious fanatic who believed himself God’s executioner. He routinely killed Catholic priests who fell into his hands because he identified the Pope with Antichrist, “whose Kingdom the Scripture so expressly speaks should be laid in blood”. He was not, OSiochru concludes, a monster, but he did commit monstrous acts. Few will dispute that, although as moderns we are hardly in a position to feel superior. The reason Cromwell gave for the slaughter at Drogheda, that it would save lives in the long run, was the justification invoked for the killing of a quarter of a million Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If Cromwell’s deed was monstrous, it is hard to know what word to use for that.

OSiochru’s book incorporates original archival research and adds many new details to the familiar story. Unfortunately, it is dismayingly badly written, with tangled syntax and neglect of normal grammatical conventions. Readers should be forewarned of this, and assured that it is worth persevering despite the obstacles the author has placed in their way.

God’s Executioner by Micheal O Siochru
Faber £14.99 pp336

Statue rage
The struggle over Cromwell’s legacy reached a peak in the 1890s with plans to set his statue outside parliament at Westminster. The fury of the Irish Nationalist party – still mindful of the siege of Drogheda, right – forced withdrawal of a motion asking for public funds. The radical MP John Morley wrote that the climb-down was greeted ‘with anger and disgust from English Liberals; with thick-witted jibes from Unionists…and with wild cries of aboriginal joy from our Irish friends’. In the end, the statue was funded privately by the prime minister, Lord Rosebery.

It has been the singular ill fortune of Oliver Cromwell, and of his family, that his character hath been left exclusively in the hands of his enemies. The short interval between his death and the Restoration, and the unsettled state of the nation in the intermediate time, left no opportunity for a faithful and impartial history of that extraordinary man. From that time to the present, his memory hath been abused and vilified without any allowance for the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed : his name alone is to this day deemed by many a sufficient description of every thing that is ambitious, hypocritical, and tyrannical. He has been held forth as a composition of every bad quality, without one virtue to counterbalance them.

“The particular views of all those who took a part in the troubles of the times in which he acted, were frustrated by his ascendancy, and however differing in other respects, they have united in blackening his memory. Every trifling or ridiculous
story of the supposed irregularities of his youth, and of the imagined tricks and childish follies even of his very infancy, have been eagerly sought for, and, without examination, credited against him. An opinion that his character hath not met with fair treatment, and a hope to place it in the light in which it is conceived it is justly entitled to stand, have given rise to this work ; not begun with any view to its publication, but as the amusement of the Writer’s leisure hours. “

And so we present letter number one of Oliver Cromwell, The Protector . . .

1636
LETTER 1, ST. IVES

To my very loving Friend Mr. Storie, at the Sign of the Dog in the
Royal Exchange, London: Deliver these.

St. Ives, nth January 1635.

MR. STORIE,

Among the catalogue of those good works which your fellow-citizens and our countrymen have done, this will not be reckoned for the least, that they have provided for the feeding of souls. Building of hospitals provides for men’s bodies; to build material temples is judged a work of piety; but they that procure spiritual food, they that build up spiritual temples, they are the men truly charitable, truly pious. Such a work as this was your erecting the lecture in our country; in the which you placed Dr. Welles, a man for goodness and industry, and ability to do good every way, not short of any I know in England : and I am persuaded that, sithence his coming, the Lord hath by him wrought much good amongst us.

It only remains now that He who first moved you to this, put you forward to the continuance thereof: it was the Lord; and therefore to Him lift we up our hearts that He would perfect it. And surely, Mr. Storie, it were a piteous thing- to see a lecture fall, in the hands of so many able and godly men as I am persuaded the founders of this are; in these times, wherein we see they are suppressed, with too much haste and violence, by the enemies of God his truth. Far be it that so much guilt should stick to your hands, who live in a city so renowned for the clear shining light of the gospel. You know, Mr. Storie, to withdraw the pay is to let fall the lecture: for who goeth to warfare at his own cost? I beseech you therefore in the bowels of Christ Jesus put it forward, and let the good man have his pay. The souls of God his children wiU bless you for it: and so shall I; and ever rest,-

Your loving Friend in the Lord,
OLIVER CROMWELL,

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Consider the following from a letter to William Short, Oct. 31, 1819:

“But the greatest of all reformers of the depraved religion of his own country, was Jesus of Nazareth. Abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its luster from the dross of his biographers, and as separable from that as the diamond from the dunghill, we have outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man. The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent morality, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems, invented by ultra-Christian sects (The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurection and visibkle accession, his coproreal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity, original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of the hierarchy, etc.) is a most desirable object.”

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