"God has, in a great measure, departed from high and low, rich and poor; departed from magistrates, ministers, and people. Little of God is to be seen in ordinances, or in the judicatories of His Church. Oh what barrenness under a dispensed gospel! Oh what abounding profanity! what cursing and swearing! what tyranny and oppression, particularly in ecclesiastical liberties and privileges! How are intruders enrolled among the number of the ambassadors of Christ! How are the privileges of the Lord's people sacrificed, in order to compliment the man with the gold ring and the gay clothing! The land is groaning under a weight of sin; and the sin of the land is crying for vengeance from the hand of God. In many corners of Scotland, an empty jingle of human oratory, and dry harangues of heathenish morality, are substituted in the room of the gospel of Christ; a natural kind of religion preached up, and the supernatural mysteries of the gospel generally exploded, as unfashionable among many of our young ministers! We have ministers now-a-days, who, instead of teaching men to deny themselves, do teach them, from press and pulpit, that self-love is the foundation of moral virtue, and that carnal reason is the first principle of religion. Although Arian, Socinian, Arminian, and other detestable and abominable, errors are rampant, where is there a suitable banner of a testimony united against them? Higher censures have been inflicted upon men for preaching the truths of God, than upon others for denying the supreme Deity of the Son of God. As for formality of worship, look through the most of our worshipping assemblies in Scotland, and we shall find the carcase of worship, instead of the soul of it, presented unto the living God. Nothing but dead ministers, and dead people, dead preaching, hearing, praying, and praising. The generality of ministers and people sit down with a form of godliness, while the life and power of it are quite gone."
Three more extracts must suffice. The following is selected from a pamphlet of sixty-three pages, published in 1733, with the title, "The present State of the Church of Scotland, with the Duty of the Members thereof enquired into, in a Sermon, at the opening of the Synod of Perth and Stirling, October 9, 1733. By Mr. Henry Lindsay, Minister of the Gospel at Rothkennar."
"Of late years, Atheism, Infidelity, and Profanity have abounded in
these lands. Many have cast off all fear of God. Our youth of better
fashion, and others who pretend to be wise above their neighbours, have
most shamefully degenerated into the grossest errors. The preaching of
Christ, in His person, offices, and salvation, is become, by too many
among us, as a subject out of date; while our itching ears crave something
that is new, and we are rather pleased to have our imaginations and
fancies tickled by polite phrases and eloquent expressions, than to have
our hearts affected with a sense of sin."
In 1733, Ebenezer Erskine published a sermon, entitled, "The Grones of Believers under their Burdens," in which he says:—
"Oh how rampant are atheism and profanity! Impiety, like an impetuous torrent, carries all before it. It is become fashionable among some to be impious and profane. Religion is faced down by bold and petulant wits. Our divisions also are lamentable. Court and country, church and state, are divided; ministers divided from their people, and people from their ministers; and both ministers and people divided among themselves; and every party and faction putting the blame upon each other. The defections and backslidings of the Church are innumerable. Public days of fasting and humiliation are rare. How very few are they whose hearts are bleeding for the abounding wickedness of the day! Many professors of religion take to themselves a scandalous latitude in cursing, swearing, lying, drinking, and cheating."
In 1744, the Erskines and their party published a pamphlet of 122 pages, with the title, "Act of the Associate Presbytery, concerning the Doctrine of Grace." The following is an extract from it:—
"A flood of errors has broken in upon the land, whereby the Lord's name is dreadfully dishonoured; the doctrine of justification by grace is wofully corrupted; the proper imputation of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, for our justification before God, is denied; the foundations of our holy religion are overturned; thousands of precious souls are destroyed; and wide steps made towards popery and paganism. There is a dreadful prevalency of Deism; the seed of Arianism is sown; and there is also a general growth of Arminianism. Profaneness and wickedness overspread the whole land. All ranks of persons have corrupted their ways. The Holy Scriptures are burlesqued. Popish errors and delusions are spreading. The idolatrous mass is openly frequented. The name of God is profaned by ordinary swearing and by perjury. The land is also defiled with murders, drunkenness, prodigality, vanity in apparel, foolish jesting, rioting, wantonness, yea, with open adulteries and uncleanness of all sorts. Profane and sinful customs are countenanced and encouraged, both at court, and in some eminent places of the nation—such as the diversions of the stage, masquerades, balls, and other similar seminaries of lewdness and lasciviousness. Likewise fraud and injustice are to be found amongst us; together with oppressions, lying, envy, malice, evil-speaking, backbiting, falsehood, and covetousness."
This description of the state of things in Scotland is far from nattering; but it is substantially correct. Scotland, as well as England, needed a reformation; and it is not surprising that, when Whitefield heard of the Erskines, he should sympathise with them. He was the first of the Methodists who opened a correspondence with the outcast ministers. Ralph Erskine writes:—
"April 17, 1739. I received a letter this month from Mr. Whitefield, dated Bristol, March 10, 1739, shewing the great outpouring of the Spirit in England and Wales, and his utility in bringing home many souls to Christ; as also his hearing of our success in Scotland, and desiring to have a line from me. I did not suddenly answer, till I heard more about him, which I did, both in public prints and by letters from London, having written for an account of him."[453]
Erskine was satisfied with what he heard. In his diary, he repeatedly mentions praying for Whitefield and his brethren. Friendly letters were exchanged; and a correspondence continued during the next two years.