Note 516 — Chapter IV

William Vetch, ‘preaching in the town of Jedburg to a great congregation, said, “There are two thousand of you here to day, but I am sure fourscore of you will not be saved;” upon which, three of his ignorant hearers being in despair, despatch'd themselves soon after.’ Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, p. 23. See also the life, or rather panegyric, of Vetch in Howie's Biographia Scoticana, where this circumstance is not denied, but, on the contrary, stated to be no ‘disparagement to him,’ p. 606. The frame of mind which the teachings of the clergy encouraged, and which provoked self-murder, is vividly depicted by Samuel Rutherford, the most popular of all the Scotch divines of the seventeenth century. ‘Oh! hee lieth down, and hell beddeth with him; hee sleepeth, and hell and hee dreame together; hee riseth, and hell goeth to the fields with him; hee goes to his garden, there is hell.’ … ‘The man goes to his table, O! hee dare not eat, hee hath no right to the creature; to eat is sin and hell; so hell is in every dish. To live is sinne, hee would faine chuse strangling; every act of breathing is sin and hell. Hee goes to church, there is a dog as great as a mountaine before his eye: Here be terrors.’ Rutherford's Christ Dying, 1647, 4to, pp. 41, 42. Now, listen to the confessions of two of the tortured victims of the doctrines enunciated by the clergy; victims who, after undergoing ineffable agony, were more than once, according to their own account, tempted to put an end to their lives. ‘The cloud lasted for two years and some months.’ … ‘The arrows of the Almighty did drink up my spirits; night and day his hand lay heavy upon me, so that even my bodily moisture was turned into the drought of summer. When I said sometimes that my couch would ease my complaint, I was filled with tossings to the dawning of the day.’ … ‘Amidst all my downcastings, I had the roaring lion to grapple with, who likes well to fish in muddy waters. He strongly suggested to me that I should not eat, because I had no right to food; or if I ventured to do it, the enemy assured me, that the wrath of God would go down with my morsel; and that I had forfeited a right to the divine favour, and, therefore, had nothing to do with any of God's creatures.’ … ‘However, so violent were the temptations of the strong enemy, that I frequently forgot to eat my bread, and durst not attempt it; and when, through the persuasion of my wife, I at any time did it, the enemy through the day did buffet me in a violent way, assuring me that the wrath of God had gone over with what I had taken.’ … ‘The enemy after all did so pursue me, that he violently suggested to my soul, that, some time or other, God would suddenly destroy me as with a thunderclap: which so filled my soul with fear and pain, that, every now and then, I looked about me, to receive the divine blow, still expecting it was a coming; yea, many a night I durst not sleep, lest I had awakened in everlasting flames.’ Stevenson's Rare Cordial, pp. 11–13. Another poor creature, after hearing one of Smiton's sermons, in 1740, says, ‘Now, I saw myself to be a condemned criminal; but I knew not the day of my execution. I thought that there was nothing between me and hell, but the brittle thread of natural life.’ … ‘And in this dreadful confusion, I durst not sleep, lest I had awakened in everlasting flames.’ … ‘And Satan violently assaulted me to take away my own life, seeing there was no mercy for me.’ … ‘Soon after this, I was again violently assaulted by the tempter to take away my own life; he presented to me a knife therewith to do it; no person being in the house but myself. The enemy pursued me so close, that I could not endure so much as to see the knife in my sight, but laid it away.’ … ‘One evening, as I was upon the street, Satan violently assaulted me to go into the sea and drown myself; it would be the easiest death. Such a fear of Satan then fell upon me, as made my joints to shake, so that it was much for me to walk home; and when I came to the door, I found nobody within; I was afraid to go into the house, lest Satan should get power over me.’ Memoirs of the Life and Experiences of Marion Laird of Greenock, pp. 13, 14, 19, 45, 223, 224.