But notwithstanding of his being in the highest esteem among the prevailing party, the constancy shewn by the sufferers for the cause of truth, and the cruelty used toward them, made such deep impressions on his mind, as could never afterward be rooted out or effaced. As a native consequence of the toleration granted by the duke of York, the mass was openly set up in the castle of Inverness, against which Mr. MacBean preached publicly, and warned the people of the imminent danger the nation was then in. At which the priest was so incensed, that he sent Mr. MacBean a letter, challenging him to a public dispute. This letter he received in a crowd on the weekly market, where he usually walked with some constables to prevent common swearing. He went to a shop, and there wrote such an answer to the priest, as determined him to send him no more challenges. The report of this having spread, some of king James's officers (being there) entered into a resolution to go to church next Lord's day, and to take him out of the pulpit in case he uttered ought against that way. Of this he was informed late on Saturday, and by some friends was importuned to abstain from saying any thing that might exasperate them. But he preached next day on Col. i. 18. and proved, that Christ was the sole King and Head of his church, in opposition to the usurpation of both popery and Erastianism; whereupon the officers got all up to execute their design, which the good man did not observe till he turned himself about (for they sat in a loft on the left side of the pulpit). Then he said with an authority that put them out of countenance, For these things I am become the song of drunkards. On which they all sat down, for it was when drinking, that they had formed that wicked design. From the popish controversy, he was led to a more serious inquiry into the merits of what was then the real controversy; and after serious wrestling with God, and earnest prayer for light and direction from him, in which he spent several nights in his garden, he at length determined fully to declare for the truth, whatever might be the consequence: And accordingly in June 1687, he declined to sit in the presbytery, but continued to preach. In August, the presbytery were informed not only that he absented wilfully, but that he disowned the government of the church by arch-bishops, bishops, &c. and appointed a committee to converse with him. Who, having done so, at a subsequent diet, reported that Mr. MacBean declared plainly to them that he had no freedom to meet with them in their judicatories any more; that it was over the belly of convictions that he had entered into the ministry under bishops; and that these convictions were returning with greater force upon his conscience, so that he could not overcome them; that he was convinced presbytery was the only government God owned in these nations; that he was fully determined to make all the satisfaction he could to the presbyterians; to preach for them and in their favours; and that though he should be dispensed with by bishop and presbytery from keeping their meetings, he could not promise that, in his preaching, he would not give ground of misconstruction to those that owned prelacy. At the same time his colleague Mr. Gilbert Marshal farther reported, That Mr. MacBean, both in his public lectures and sermons, did so reflect upon the government of the church, as was like to make a schism at Inverness; and therefore he had caused cite him to that meeting, to answer for his reproachful doctrine that could not be endured. Mr. MacBean did not appear before them, nevertheless the magistrates prevailed with the presbytery to desist from proceeding against him at that time. But shortly thereafter the presbytery referred him to the synod of Murray, who appointed a committee to join with the presbytery of Inverness to deal with him.
In the mean time Mr. MacBean went to church without his cannonical habit, publicly renounced prelacy, declared himself a presbyterian, and as he found not freedom in the exercise of his charge in that place, he demitted it. He preached his farewel sermon on Job xxxiv. 31, 32. The scriptures he advanced and insisted on, as warrants for his conduct, were Isaiah viii. 11,-14. Jerem. xv. 18,-21. 2 Cor. vi. 16, 18. and to prove that Christ was sole Head of the church, Eph. v. 23. Col. i. 18. 1 Pet. ii. 7. Next Lord's day he went to Ross, and there, in Mr. MacGiligen's meeting-house, preached the truths he formerly opposed; and some times thereafter he preached at Inverness, till he was, by order of the council, called to Edinburgh before them.
On this surprizing change and alteration, a great opposition among the prevailing party soon appeared against him; which was the less to be wondered at, as he embraced every opportunity of declaring for the cause of truth, which they were most violent against; and therefore the presbytery of Inverness sent one of their number to inform the bishop of Murray, then at Glasgow, of the whole affair. But the bishop dying at that time, the arch-bishop of St. Andrews took the affair into his cognizance, and procured an order from the council to bring him to Edinburgh. In consequence of which he was carried south in Jan. 1688. in very tempestuous weather, and was called before the council, where he made a bold and noble stand in defence of the truths he had so solemnly professed. One of the questions asked at him, was, If he thought the king's power was limited? To which he answered, He knew no power, but the Almighty's, unlimited. And though the council could not find then wherewith to attack him, anent the state, yet, to please the bishops, he must be imprisoned: And upon the 27th of Feb. thereafter, the arch-bishop of St. Andrews conveened him before him and the bishop of Murray, and five doctors and ministers in Edinburgh, where (in the virtue of his metropolitan capacity) he deposed him from the exercise of any part of his pastoral office, and deprived him of all benefits that might accrue to him thereby, since the time of his wilful desertion; with certification, if he should transgress therein, the sentence of excommunication should pass against him. He was thereupon remanded back to prison; and though the town of Inverness wrote, earnestly soliciting him to make some compliance, that they might be favoured with his return, yet he valiantly withstood their intreaties, and by his answer dated July 1688. He dissuaded them from insisting on his return, as what he assured them would never happen, and condemns himself in the strongest manner for his adherence to prelacy, declaring against it in the most express way, as anti-scriptural as well as tyrannical. His confinement and the fatigue of his journey, having given such a shock to his constitution, as his life was in danger, Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun, and Dun. Forbes of Culloden offered a bail bond for 10,000 merks to the earl of Perth, then chancellor, that they would present him when called upon, providing he was set at liberty; but he utterly refused to set him at liberty, though he was in a very languishing condition in the tolbooth; where he remained till Perth run away, and that the Edinburgh mob set the prisoners at liberty. After this he continued in the suburbs of Edinburgh, till in the month of Feb. 1689. he joyfully finished his course in the Lord, being in the 33d year of his age. Some days before, news came that the parliament of England had settled the crown on king William, who put an end to those bloody times, and that tyrannical government.
Mr. MacBean without all doubt was a man, both pious and learned, although at first brought up in the prelatical persuasion, and when near his death frequently compared himself in this particular to Moses, who from mount Pisgah saw the land of promise, but for his sinful compliance, as he always called it, would not be allowed to enter therein, having some time before his death, a firm belief of the amazing deliverance which the church and nation soon met with, and left his mortal life rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.
The Life of Mr. Thomas Hog.
Mr. Thomas Hog was born in the beginning of the year 1628, in the burgh of Tain, in the county of Ross. His parents were careful to give their son a liberal education; for which purpose he was early sent to school, and, from his commencement to the study of letters, he discovered an uncommon genius, and soon made such proficiency as rendered him respected during his youth. He was much addicted to the harmless diversions of that age, yet they did never abate his progress in his studies, nor his detestation of any thing immoral or unbecoming the character of a scholar. He was put to the university in the new town of Aberdeen, where he made great proficiency, till at last he was admitted master of arts, with the universal approbation of the regents of the college.
About this time, a very remarkable incident fell out, which confirmed Mr. Hog's aversion to drunkenness, and his belief of an over-ruling providence: For, having accompanied a merchant of Aberdeen to a ship in the mouth of the river Dee, who was going a voyage (being one of his acquaintance), upon his return, with two burgesses who had gone the same errand, through the importunity of one of them, they turned all aside to take a bottle in an inn by the way. There he tarried till he thought they had drunk sufficiently, and, finding they were not disposed to go home, he laid down his share of the reckoning, and was going away, but they, being averse to part with him, and resolute in their cups, laid hold on him to stay, but he, being full six feet high, and proportionably strong and vigorous, soon twisted himself out of their gripes, and went off; and came home to his chamber, and went to bed at his usual hour, but, though in good health, he could get no rest till the clock struck one, when he fell asleep, and rested quietly till the morning, when he arose. At which time coming forth to his class, one met him weeping, and told him, That the two men he left yesternight, after continuing a while at their cups, fell a-contending and then a-fighting, in which the one killed the other. He asked, at what time? and being told just at one, he adored that providence which had both seasonably disposed him to leave them, and made him uneasy whilst the complication of sin was thus committing.
And though Mr. Hog was adorned with these natural and acquired accomplishments which constitute a truly amiable person, heightened with the lustre of an unblameable life, yet, as he himself acknowledged, he remained a stranger to the saving operations of the Spirit of God till about the year 1638, when the arm of the Lord was gloriously revealed in the revival of the work of reformation, and the influences of his grace poured out upon many through the nation: and yet still his conversation was strictly moral, and he frequented societies, conversed and prayed with them, was in the diligent use of means, and in reference to the public state of religion and reformation, was found, bold and resolute; in his straits acknowledging the Lord, bringing these his difficulties before him, to which he thought he got some notable returns; yet upon all these he himself declared, That if he was then in a state of grace and salvation, he was not in that state afterwards, for that the whole of the following work, which, by the Spirit and Word of God, was wrought on his heart, was founded upon a strong and clear conviction of his having been at that time out of Christ, notwithstanding all the forementioned lengths.
What the manner and means of his saving conversion were, we are at a loss to describe; only we find he was under a very deep and severe law-work, and that his convictions were very close, particular and pointed, setting his sin before him; and that during this work, which was of long continuance, whole clouds of sin were charged home upon him without end or measure, so that he was brought well nigh to despair, being then chaplain to the earl of Sutherland, where the work of God flourished in several souls about that house; and amongst whom the butler was at the same time under the same law-exercise, and yet the one did not know of the other; notwithstanding the countess (who was an eminent Christian), wanted not some discerning of what was a-working with them both, and particularly with Mr. Hog; as will appear by what follows: