[574] ‘Infants, even in their mother's belly, have in themselves sufficient guilt to deserve such judgments;’ i.e. when women with child are ‘ript up.’ Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. i. p. 255.
[575] ‘And in our speech, our Scripture and old Scots names are gone out of request; instead of Father and Mother, Mamma and Papa, training children to speak nonsense, and what they do not understand. These few instances, amongst many that might be given, are additional causes of God's wrath.’ The Life and Death of Mr. Alexander Peden, late Minister of the Gospel at New Glenluce, in Galloway, in Walker's Biographia Presbyteriana, vol. i. p. 140.
[576] ‘Yea, if the Lord did not restraine her, shee would open her mouth and swallow the wicked, as she did Corah, Dathan, and Abiram.’ Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 257. Compare Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. i. p. 507.
[577] ‘There is nothing so monstrous, so deformed in the world, as man.’ Binning's Sermons, vol. i. p. 234. ‘There is not in all the creation such a miserable creature as man.’ Ibid. vol. iii. p. 321. ‘Nothing so miserable.’ Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 37.
[578] ‘December 17th, 1635. Mention made of a correction house, which the Session ordeans persons to be taken to, both men and women, and appoints them to be whipt every day during the Session's will.’ Wodrow's Collections upon the Lives of Ministers, vol. ii. part ii. p. 67.
[579] On the 22nd October 1648, the Kirk Session of Dunfermline ordered that a certain Janet Robertson ‘shall be cartit and scourged through the town, and markit with an hot iron.’ Chalmers' History of Dunfermline, p. 437.
[580] ‘As they punish by pecuniary fines, so corporally too, by imprisoning the persons of the delinquents, using them disgracefully, carting them through cities, making them stand in logges, as they call them, pillaries (which in the country churches are fixed to the two sides of the main door of the Parish Church), cutting the halfe of their hair, shaving their beards, &c., and it is more than ordinary, by their “original” and “proper power,” to banish them out of the bounds and limits of the parish, or presbytery, as they list to order it.’ Presbytery Displayd, p. 4.
[581] The Scotch clergy of the seventeenth century were not much given to joking; but on one of these occasions a preacher is said to have hazarded a pun. A woman, named Ann Cantly, being made to do penance, ‘Here’ (said the minister), ‘Here is one upon the stool of repentance, they call her Cantly; she saith herself, she is an honest woman, but I trow scantly.’ Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, p. 125. From what I have read of Scotch theology, I can bear testimony to the accuracy of this book, so far as its general character is concerned. Indeed, the author, through fear of being entirely discredited, has often rather understated his case.
[582] As Durham says, in his Exposition of the Song of Solomon, p. 451, ‘It is no burden to an honest believer to acknowledge Christ's ministers, to obey their doctrine, and submit to their censures.’
[583] A man, named Alexander Laurie, was brought before the Kirk Session of Perth, ‘and being inquired by the minister if, in his last being out of this country, he had been in Spain, answered that he was in Portugal, but was never present at mass, neither gave reverence to any procession, and that he was never demanded by any concerning his religion. The said Alexander being removed and censured, it was thought good by the (Kirk) Session that he should be admonished not to travel in these parts again, except that they were otherwise reformed in religion.’ Extracts from the Kirk-Session Register of Perth, in The Spottiswoode Miscellany, vol. ii. p. 274. Still earlier, that is, in 1592, the clergy attempted to interfere even with commerce, ‘allegeing that the marchands could not mak vayage in Spayne without danger of their sawlis, and tharefore willit thayme in the nayme of God to absteyne.’ The Historie of King James the Sext, p. 254.