[527] In 1696, there was a fire in Edinburgh; whereupon Moncrief, in his sermon next day, 'told us, "That God's voice was crying to this city, and that he was come to the very ports, and was crying over the walls to us; that we should amend our ways, lest he should come to our city, and consume us in a terrible manner." I cannot tell what this Dispensation of Providence wrought on me,' &c. _Memoirs or Spiritual Exercises of Elizabeth West, written by her own Hand_, pp. 41, 42. See also, at pp. 122, 123, the account of another conflagration, where it is said, 'there was much of God to be seen in this fire.' Compare a curious passage in _Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland_, vol. vii. pp. 455, 456.
[528] The Rev. James Fraser had a boil, and afterwards a fever. 'During this sickness he miraculously allayed the pain of my boil, and speedily, and that without means, cured it; for however I bought some things to prevent it, yet, looking on it as a punishment from God, I knew not if I could be free to take the rod out of his hand, and to counterwork him.' _Memoirs of the Rev. James Fraser of Brea, Minister of the Gospel at Culross, written by Himself_, in _Select Biographies_, vol. ii. p. 223. Durham declaims against 'Sinful shunning and shifting off suffering;' and Rutherford says, 'No man should rejoice at weakness and diseases; but I think we may have a sort of gladness at boils and sores, because, without them, Christ's fingers, as a slain Lord, should never have touched our skin.' _Durham's Law Unsealed_, p. 160; _Rutherford's Religious Letters_, p. 265. I do not know what effect these passages may produce upon the reader; but it makes my flesh creep to quote them. Compare _Stevenson's Rare, Soul-strengthening, and Comforting Cordial_, p. 35.
[529] It was not until late in the eighteenth century, that the Scotch clergy gave up this notion. At last, even they became influenced by the ridicule to which their superstition exposed them, and which produced more effect than any argument could have done. The doctrines, however, which they and their predecessors had long inculcated, had so corrupted the popular mind, that instances will, I believe, be found even in the nineteenth century, of the Scotch deeming precautions against small-pox to be criminal, or, as they called it, flying in the face of Providence. The latest evidence I can at this moment put my hand on, is in a volume published in 1797. It is stated by the Rev. John Paterson, that, in the parish of Auldearn, in the county of Nairn, 'Very few have fallen a sacrifice to the small-pox, though the people are in general averse to inoculation, from the general gloominess of their faith, which teaches them, that all diseases which afflict the human frame are instances of the Divine interposition, for the punishment of sin; any interference, therefore, on their part, they deem an usurpation of the prerogative of the Almighty.' _Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol. xix. p. 618, Edinburgh, 1797. See also vol. xiv. p. 52, Edinburgh, 1795. This is well said. No doubt, so abject, and so pernicious, a superstition among the people, was the result of 'the general gloominess of their faith.' But the Rev. John Paterson has forgotten to add, that the gloominess of which he complains, was in strict conformity with the teachings of the most able, the most energetic, and the most venerated of the Scotch clergy. Mr. Paterson renders scant justice to his countrymen, and should rather have praised the tenacity with which they adhered to the instructions they had long been accustomed to receive.