John Howie

“ And to the members chosen, he said, "Right honourable, worshipful, and reverend, go on in your zeal and constancy: true zeal doth not cool, but the longer it burns, the more fervent it will grow: if it shall please God that by your means the light of the gospel shall be continued, and that you have the honour of being instrumental of a blessed reformation, it shall be useful and comfortable to yourselves and your posterity. But let your zeal be always tempered with moderation; for zeal is a good servant but a bad master; like a ship that hath a full sail but no rudder. ”

“ To a minister he said, "Mr. James, it is not holiness enough to be a minister, for you ministers have your own faults, and those more heinous than others. I pray you, be more painful in your calling, and take good heed of the flock of God, know that every soul that perisheth by your negligence, shall be counted to your soul, murdered before God. Take heed in these dangerous days how you lead the people of God, and take heed to your ministry."
To Mr. George Gillespie, then his chaplain, "You have carried yourself discreetly to me, so that I cannot blame you. I hope you shall prove an honest man ”

“ In his name, I charge you, that you will use these blessings better in time to come, than you have done in time past: in all your actions seek first the glory of God, the furtherance of his gospel, the maintenance of his church and ministry, and then be careful of the king, to procure his good and the welfare of the kingdom. If you act thus, God will be with you; if otherwise, he shall deprive you of all these benefits, and your end shall be shameful and ignominious." This threatening, Morton, to his melancholy experience, confessed was literally accomplished. ”

“ Dear friends, I die a Presbyterian Protestant; I own the word of God as the rule of faith and manners; I own the Confession of Faith, larger and shorter Catechisms, Sum of saving knowledge, Directory for public and family Worship, Covenants national and solemn League, Acts of general assemblies, and all the faithful contendings that have been for the covenanted reformation. I leave my testimony approving the preaching in the fields, and the defending the same by arms. ”

“ The minister, finding him claiming kindness to Christ, and hearing him often cry, O Son of God, where art thou, when wilt thou come to me! Oh! for a love-look! said, Is it possible, my lord, that you can love and long for Christ, and he not love and long for you? Can love and kindness stand only on your side? Is your poor love more than infinite love, seeing he hath said Isa. ”

“ Thomas Smeaton, one of his contemporaries, say, "I know not if ever God placed a more godly and great spirit in a body so little and frail. I am certain, that there can scarcely be found another, in whom more gifts of the Holy Ghost for the comfort of the church of Scotland, did shine. No one spared himself less, no one more diligent in the charge committed to him, and yet no one was more the object of the hatred of wicked men, and more vexed with the reproach of evil speakers; but this was so far from abating, that it rather strengthened his courage and resolution in the ways of God." ”

“ Binning was not quite 19 years of age when he commenced regent and professor of philosophy, and, though he had not time to prepare a system of any part of his profession, as he had instantly to begin his class, yet such was the quickness and fertility of his invention, the tenaciousness of his memory and the solidity of his judgment, that his dictates to his scholars had a depth of learning and perspicuity of expression, and was among the first in Scotland, that began to reform philosophy from the barbarous terms and unintelligible jargon of the school-men. ”

“ At another time, being asked his judgment anent the ceremonies then used in the church; he answered, "I think and am persuaded in my conscience they are superstitious, idolatrous and antichristian, and come from hell. I repute it a mercy that my eyes shall not see the desolation that shall come upon this poor church. It is plain popery that is coming among you. God help you, God forgive the nobility, for they are either very cold in defending the true religion, or ready to welcome popery, whereas they should resist; and woe be to a dead time-serving and profane ministry." ”

“ I bless the Lord, I pardon all men, and desire to be pardoned of the Lord myself. Let the will of the Lord be done, that is all I desire.——I was real and cordial in my desires to bring the king home, and in my endeavours for him when he was home, and had no correspondence with the adversaries army, nor any of them when his majesty was in Scotland, nor had I any hand in his late majesty's murder. I shall not speak much to these things for which I am condemned, lest I seem to condemn others.—It is well known it is only for compliance, which was the epidemical fault of the nation ”

“ I know what is ordinarily your religion, ye go to kirk, and when ye hear the devil or hell named in the preaching, ye sigh and make a noise, and it is forgot by you before you come home, and then ye are holy enough. But I can tell you, the kingdom of heaven is not got so easily. Use the means yourself, and win to some sense of God, and pray as you can, morning and evening. If you be ignorant of the way to salvation, God forgive you, for I have discharged myself in that point towards you, and appointed a man to teach you, your blood be upon yourselves. ”

“ And what honour did many of them count it, to suffer for his name! How unwilling are we to part with any thing for him, much less to suffer such hardships for his sake! Of that we are ashamed, which they counted their ornament; accounting that our glory which they looked on as a disgrace! How easy was it for them to choose the greatest suffering rather than the least sin! How hard is it for us to refuse the greatest sin before the least suffering! ”

“ After this, he had several calls for transportation to other parishes, of more importance than ever Fenwick was; which places were, Renfrew, Linlithgow, Stirling, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. But the air and recreation of a country life were useful to him, in maintaining a healthful constitution; and, above all, the love his flock had to him caused him put on an invincible obstinacy, against all designs of separation from them; a relation, when it is animated with this principle of the spiritual life, and founded on so noble a bottom, enters deepest into the soul ”

“ He answered, "I own all authority that hath its prescriptions and limitations from the word of God, but cannot own this usurper as lawful king, seeing both by the word of God, such an one is incapable to bear rule, and likewise by the ancient laws of the kingdom, which admit none to the crown of Scotland, until he swear to defend the Protestant religion; which a man of his profession could not do."—They urged, Could he deny him to be king? ”

“ Englishmen shall be made spectacles to all nations for a broken covenant, when the living God swears, As I live, even the covenant that he hath despised, and the oath that he hath broken will I recompense upon his own head. ”

“ But blessed be God, that he hath brought to my mind that scripture, What hast thou that thou hast not received, and not I, but the grace of God which is in me, with which he hath gone away ashamed, and shall no more return, and now I am sure my battle is at an end, and that I shall shortly, without pain of body or trouble of spirit, change this mortal and miserable life, for that happy and immortal life that shall never have an end. ”

“ Thus fell a renowned Gordon, one whose character at present I am in no capacity to describe: only, I may venture to say, that he was a gentleman of good parts and endowments; a man devoted unto religion and godliness; and a prime supporter of the Presbyterian interest in that part of the country wherein he lived.—The Gordons have all along made no small figure in our Scottish history;—but here was a patriot, a good Christian, a confessor and (I may add) a martyr of Jesus Christ. ”

“ Then he spake as to himself, "Fear not, little flock, it is the Father's will to give you the kingdom. Then he said, What are these who are of this little flock? Even sinners. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance;" but what kind of sinners? Only those who are sensible of sin and wrath, and see themselves to be lost, therefore, says Christ, "I came to seek and to save them who are lost." There are two words here, seeking and saving; and who are these? Even those who are lost bankrupts, who have nothing to pay. These are they whom Christ seeks, and who are of his flock. ”

“ Now, Sire, if your majesty shall refuse your assent to the propositions, you will lose all your friends in the house and in the city, and all England will join against you, as one man; they will depose you and set up another government; they will charge us to deliver your majesty to them, and remove our arms out of England, and upon your refusal, we will be obliged to settle religion and peace without you, which will ruin your majesty and your posterity. ”

“ To Lord Herries his brother-in-law he said, "Mock not at my council, my lord. In case you follow the course you are in, you shall never see the face of Jesus Christ, you are deceived with the merchandise of the whore that makes the world drunk out of the cup of her fornication; your soul is built upon a sandy foundation. When you come to my state, you will find no comfort in your religion. You know not what wrestling I have had before I came to this state of comfort. The kingdom of heaven is not gotten with a skip or leap, but with much, seeking and thrusting, &c." ”

“ Blessed be God, who hath shewed mercy to me such a wretch, and has revealed his Son in me, and made me a minister of the everlasting gospel, and that he hath deigned, in the midst of much contradictions from Satan and the world, to seal my ministry upon the hearts of not a few of his people, and especially in the station wherein I was last, I mean the congregation and presbytery of Stirling. Jesus Christ is my light and my life, my righteousness, my strength and my salvation, and all my desire. ”

“ As for that instrument Spotswood, we are sure the the Lord will never bless that man, but a malediction lies upon him, and shall accompany all his doings; and it may be, Sir, your eyes shall see as great confusion covering him, ere he go to his grave, as ever did his predecessors. Now surely, Sir, I am far from bitterness, but here I denounce the wrath of an everlasting God against him, which assuredly shall fall, except it be prevented. Sir, Dagon shall not stand before the ark of the Lord, and these names of blasphemy that he wears of arch and lord bishop, will have a fearful end. ”

“ Some time before his death, he was admitted minister of the Scots congregation at Rotterdam; where he, with great prudence and diligence, exercised that function; it being always his study and care to gain many souls to Christ. For as he was faithful in declaring the whole counsel of God to his people, in warning them against the evils of the time, so he was likewise a great textuary, close in handling any truth he discoursed upon, and in the application most home, warm and searching, shewing himself a most skilful casuist. His sermons were not so plain, but the learned might admire them ”

“ I leave my testimony against popery, prelacy, Erastianism, &c. against all profanity, and every thing contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness, particularly against all usurpations and encroachments made upon Christ's right, the Prince of the kings of the earth, who alone must bear the glory of ruling in his own kingdom the church, and in particular against this absolute power, usurped by this usurper, that belongs to no mortal, but is the incommunicable prerogative of Jehovah, and against his toleration, flowing from this absolute power. ”

“ I presume, that any person, who has diligently perused the history of the lives of our noble Scots worthies, will by this time be able to form some idea in their own minds of the religious, virtuous and faithful lives, joyful and comfortable deaths of a certain number of Christ's noble witnesses, confessors and martyrs, who through much tribulation emerged forth of all their difficulties in much faith and patience, and are now inheriting the promise in that land and celestial Jerusalem above, where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary be at rest. ”

“ I have been a sinful man, and have had mine own failings, but my Lord hath pardoned and accepted my labours. I adhere to the cause and covenant, and resolve never to depart from the protestation [90] against the controverted assemblies. I am the man I was. I am still for keeping the government of the kirk of Scotland intire, and would not for a thousand worlds have had the least hand in the burning of the causes of God's wrath. Oh! for grace to wrestle with God for their salvation. ”

“ We have changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the image of a corruptible man, in whom many have placed almost all their salvation. God is also wroth with a generation of carnal corrupt time-serving ministers. I know and do bear testimony, that in the church of Scotland there is a true and faithful ministry, and I pray you to honour these; for their works sake. I do bear my witness to the national covenant of Scotland, and solemn league and covenant betwixt the three kingdoms. ”