History of Civilization in England, Vol. 3 of 3. Henry Buckley
was there. A sudden noise, nay, even the sight of an inanimate object, such as a stone, was capable of reviving the association of ideas, and of bringing back to the memory the language uttered from the pulpit.501
Nor is it strange that this should be the case. All over Scotland, the sermons were, with hardly an exception, formed after the same plan, and directed to the same end. To excite fear, was the paramount object.502 The clergy boasted, that it was their special mission to thunder out the wrath and curses of the Lord.503 In their eyes, the Deity was not a beneficent being, but a cruel and remorseless tyrant. They declared that all mankind, a very small portion only excepted, were doomed to eternal misery. And when they came to describe what that misery was, their dark imaginations revelled and gloated at the prospect. In the pictures which they drew, they reproduced and heightened the barbarous imagery of a barbarous age. They delighted in telling their hearers, that they would be roasted in great fires, and hung up by their tongues.504 They were to be lashed with scorpions, and see their companions writhing and howling around them.505 They were to be thrown into boiling oil and scalding lead.506 A river of fire and brimstone, broader than the earth, was prepared for them;507 in that, they were to be immersed; their bones, their lungs, and their liver, were to boil, but never be consumed.508 At the same time, worms were to prey upon them; and while these were gnawing at their bodies, they were to be surrounded by devils, mocking and making pastime of their pains.509 Such were the first stages of suffering, and they were only the first. For the torture, besides being unceasing, was to become gradually worse. So refined was the cruelty, that one hell was succeeded by another; and, lest the sufferer should grow callous, he was, after a time, moved on, that he might undergo fresh agonies in fresh places, provision being made that the torment should not pall on the sense, but should be varied in its character, as well as eternal in its duration.510
All this was the work of the God of the Scotch clergy.511 It was not only his work, it was his joy and his pride. For, according to them, hell was created before man came into the world; the Almighty, they did not scruple to say, having spent his previous leisure in preparing and completing this place of torture, so that, when the human race appeared, it might be ready for their reception.512 Ample, however, as the arrangements were, they were insufficient; and hell, not being big enough to contain the countless victims incessantly poured into it, had, in these latter days, been enlarged.513 There was now sufficient room. But in that vast expanse there was no void, for the whole of it reverberated with the shrieks and yells of undying agony.514 They rent the air with horrid sound, and, amid their pauses, other scenes occurred, if possible, still more excruciating. Loud reproaches filled the ear: children reproaching their parents, and servants reproaching their masters. Then, indeed, terror was rife, and abounded on every side. For, while the child cursed his father, the father, consumed by remorse, felt his own guilt; and both children and fathers made hell echo with their piercing screams, writhing in convulsive agony at the torments which they suffered, and knowing that other torments more grievous still were reserved for them.515
Even now such language freezes the blood, when we consider what must have passed through the minds of those who could bring themselves to utter it. The enunciation of such ideas unfolds the character of the men, and lays bare their inmost spirit. We shudder, when we think of the dark and corrupted fancy, the vindictive musings, the wild, lawless, and uncertain thoughts which must have been harboured by those who could combine and arrange the different parts of this hideous scheme. No hesitation, no compunction, no feelings of mercy, ever seem to have entered their breasts. It is evident, that their notions were well matured; it is equally evident, that they delighted in them. They were marked by a unity of conception, and were enforced with a freshness and vigour of language, which shows that their heart was in their work. But before this could have happened, they must have been dead to every emotion of pity and tenderness. Yet, they were the teachers of a great nation, and were, in every respect, the most influential persons in that nation. The people, credulous and grossly ignorant, listened and believed. We, at this distance of time, and living in another realm of thought, can form but a faint conception of the effect which these horrible conceits produced upon them. They were convinced that, in this world, they were incessantly pursued by the devil, and that he, and other evil spirits, were constantly hovering around them, in bodily and visible shape, tempting them, and luring them on to destruction. In the next world, the most frightful and unheard-of punishments awaited them; while both this world and the next were governed by an avenging Deity, whose wrath it was impossible to propitiate. No wonder that, with these ideas before them, their reason should often give way, and that a religious mania should set in, under whose influence they, in black despair, put an end to their lives.516
Little comfort, indeed, could men then gain from their religion. Not only the devil, as the author of all evil, but even He whom we recognise as the author of all good, was, in the eyes of the Scotch clergy, a cruel and vindictive being, moved with anger like themselves. They looked into their own hearts, and there they found the picture of their God. According to them, He was a God of terror, instead of a God of love.517 To Him they imputed the worst passions of their own peevish and irritable nature. They ascribed to Him, revenge, cunning, and a constant disposition to inflict pain. While they declared that nearly all mankind were sinners beyond the chance of redemption, and were, indeed, predestined to eternal ruin, they did not scruple to accuse the Deity of resorting to artifice against these unhappy victims; lying in wait for them, that He might catch them unawares.518 The Scotch clergy taught their hearers, that the Almighty was so sanguinary, and so prone to anger, that He raged even against walls and houses and senseless creatures, wreaking His fury more than ever, and scattering desolation on every side.519 Sooner than miss His fell and malignant purpose, He would, they said, let loose avenging angels, to fall upon men and upon their families.520 Independently of this resource, He had various ways whereby He could at once content Himself and plague His creatures, as was particularly shown in the devices which He employed to bring famine on a people.521 When a country was starving, it was because God, in His anger, had smitten the soil, had stopped the clouds from yielding their moisture, and thus made the fruits of the earth to wither.522 All the intolerable sufferings caused by a want of food, the slow deaths, the agony, the general misery, the crimes which that misery produced, the anguish of the mother as she saw her children wasting away and could give them no bread, all this was His act, and the work of His hands.523 In His anger, He would sometimes injure the crops by making the spring so backward, and the weather so cold and rainy, as to insure a deficiency in the coming harvest.524 Or else, he would deceive men, by sending them a favourable season, and, after letting them toil and sweat in the hope of an abundant supply, He would, at the last moment, suddenly step in, and destroy the corn just as it was fit to be reaped.525 For, the God of the Scotch Kirk was a God who tantalized His creatures as well as punished them; and when He was provoked, He would first allure men by encouraging their expectations, in order that their subsequent misery might be more poignant.526
Under the influence of this horrible creed, and from the unbounded sway exercised by the clergy who advocated it, the Scotch mind was thrown into
A schoolmaster, recording his religious experiences (
Only those who are extensively read in the theological literature of that time, can form an idea of this, its almost universal tendency. During about a hundred and twenty years, the Scotch pulpits resounded with the most frightful denunciations. The sins of the people, the vengeance of God, the activity of Satan, and the pains of hell, were the leading topics. In this world, calamities of every kind were announced as inevitable; they were immediately at hand; that generation, perhaps that year, should not pass away without the worst evils which could be conceived, falling on the whole country. I will merely quote the opening of a sermon which is now lying before me, and which was preached, in 1682, by no less a man than Alexander Peden. ‘There is three or four things that I have to tell you this day; and the first is this, A bloody sword, a bloody sword, a bloody sword, for thee, O Scotland, that shall reach the most part of you to the very heart. And the second is this, Many a mile shall ye travel in thee, O Scotland! and shall see nothing but waste places. The third is this, The most fertile places in thee, O Scotland! shall be waste as the mountain tops. And fourthly, The women with child in thee, O Scotland! shall be dashed in pieces. And fifthly, There hath been many conventicles in thee, O Scotland! but ere it be long, God shall have a conventicle in thee, that shall make thee Scotland tremble. Many a preaching hath God wared on thee, O Scotland! but ere it be long God's judgments shall be as frequent in Scotland as these precious meetings, wherein he sent forth his faithful servants to give faithful warning in his name of their hazard in apostatizing from God, and in breaking all his noble vows. God sent out a Welsh, a Cameron, a Cargill, and a Semple to preach to thee; but ere long God shall preach to thee by a bloody sword.’
To ‘thunder out the Lord's wrath and curse.’
The clergy were not ashamed to propagate a story of a boy who, in a trance, had been mysteriously conveyed to hell, and thence permitted to revisit the earth. His account, which is carefully preserved by the Rev. Robert Wodrow (
‘Scortched in hell-fire and hear the howling of their fellow-prisoners, and see the ugly devils, the bloody scorpions with which Satan lasheth miserable soules.’
‘Boiling oil, burning brimstone, scalding lead.’
‘A river of fire and brimstone broader than the earth.’
‘Tongue, lungs, and liver, bones and all, shall boil and fry in a torturing fire.’
‘While wormes are sporting with thy bones, the devils shall make pastime of thy paines.’
This fundamental doctrine of the Scotch divines is tersely summed up in
And, according to them, the barbarous cruelty was the natural result of His Omniscience. It is with pain, that I transcribe the following impious passage. ‘Consider, Who is the contriver of these torments. There have been some very exquisite torments contrived by the wit of men, the naming of which, if ye understood their nature, were enough to fill your hearts with horror; but
‘Men wonder what he could be doing all that time, if we may call it time which hath no beginning, and how he was employed.’ … ‘Remember that which a godly man answered some wanton curious wit, who, in scorn, demanded the same of him – “He was preparing hell for curious and proud fools,” said he.’
‘Hell hath inlarged itselfe.’
‘Eternal shriekings.’
‘When children and servants shall go, as it were, in sholes to the Pit, cursing their parents and their masters who brought them there. And parents and masters of families shall be in multitudes plunged headlong in endless destruction, because they have not only murdered their own souls, but also imbrued their hands in the blood of their children and servants. O how doleful will the reckoning be amongst them at that day! When the children and servants shall upbraid their parents and masters. “Now, now, we must to the Pit, and we have you to blame for it; your cursed example and lamentable negligence has brought us to the Pit.”’ … ‘And on the other hand, how will the shrieks of parents fill every ear? “I have damn'd myself, I have damn'd my children, I have damn'd my servants. While I fed their bodies, and clothed their backs, I have ruined their souls, and brought double damnation on myself.”’
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.’
Binning says, that ‘since the first rebellion’ (that is, the fall of Adam), ‘there is nothing to be seen but the terrible countenance of an angry God.’
‘He will, as it were, lie in wait to take all advantages of sinners to undo them.’
‘His wrath rages against walls, and houses, and senselesse creatures more now then at that time’ (
‘Albeit there were no earthly man to pursue Christ's enemies; yet avenging angels, or evil spirits shall be let forth upon them and their families to trouble them.’
‘God hath many wayes and meanes whereby to plague man, and
‘The present dearth and famine quhilk seases vpon many, quhairby God his heavie wrath is evidentlie perceaved to be kindlit against vs.’
‘Under the late dearth this people suffered greatly, the poor were numerous, and many, especially about the town of Kilsyth, were at the point of starving; yet, as I frequently observed to them, I could not see any one turning to
‘Men sweat, till, sow much, and the sun and summer, and clouds, warme dewes and raines smile upon cornes and meddowes, yet God steppeth in betweene the mouth of the husbandman and the sickle, and blasteth all.’
‘When the Lord is provoked, he can not only send an affliction, but so order it, by faire appearances of a better lot, and heightening of the sinners expectation and desire, as may make it most sad.’