JOHN BROWN OF HADDINGTON still Waters Revival Books - All Rights Reserved - www.PuritanDownloads.com JOHN BROWN OF HADDINGTON ROBERT MACKENZIE still Waters Revival Books - All Rights Reserved - www.PuritanDownloads.com Contents ך Preface 1. Parentage and Childhood U 2. The School of Life 20 3. The Acquisition of Languages 29 4. Unjust Suspicions 36 5. The Pedlar 55 6. The Soldier 61 7. The Schoohnaster 67 8. The Divinity Student 75 9. Called to Haddington 81 10. The Pastorate at Haddington 87 11. The Pastorate at Haddington {continued) 93 12. The Preacher and the Student 104 13. The Beginnings of Authorship HI 14. The Dictionary of the Bible 120 15. The Professor 131 16. The Professor and his Students 147 17. The Home at Haddington 155 18. The Church Historian 168 19. The Self-interpreting Bible 177 20. The Lives of the Saints 192 [5] still Waters Revival Books - All Rights Reserved - www.PuritanDownloads.com 21. Letters and Tracts for the Times 202 Preface 22. Incidents of the Home, and Minor Works 214 The eighteenth century witnessed struggles in Church and 23. The Churchman 228 State that were of immense import. The shattering commo¬ tions of the seventeenth century, with its civil wars and san¬ 24. The Latter Years 238 guinary persecutions, were past. Men were weary of such 25. Farewell Words, and Table Talk 260 methods of unifying a nation. Liberty had at last come to its own. But power strangely fascinates, and lures back the con¬ 26. The Close 274 trol it once possessed. George III was bent on securing the Appendix 284 old supremacy of the crown which the Revolution had largely shorn away; and many were prepared to abet him. Happily his Bibliography 312 schemes were frustrated, and a constitutional monarchy con¬ Index 316 firmed. In the Church there were Uke movements to assert its' authority and clothe its leaders with unlimited powers. Their tendency was to strangle the spiritual Ufe of the people. But the attempts were vigorously opposed, and liberty claimed for full expression of conviction and aspiration. The Wesleys in England refused to submit to the repressive policy of the established Church, and looked out on 'the world as their parish.' The Erskines in Scotland decUned to be silenced by the stem decrees of the Kirk, backed though they were by military force. The former went forth on their own way, and organized new methods of life and pohty; the latter seceded, but followed the same lines of worship and church government. They were ever longing for the day when the Church of their fathers would reform itself, and get rid of ministerial election by patronage, of a toleration of evils that were sapping its strength, and of an ill-concealed antipathy to evangelical doc¬ trine. But both movements materially helped to keep the fires of the Gospel aglow in the land. The Church the Erskines founded rapidly grew in numbers and influence: and the causes for which it stood have mainly been won. No better representative of its spirit and genius in the second generation could be found than John Brown of Haddington. [6] [7] still Waters Revival Books - All Rights Reserved - www.PuritanDownloads.com His early struggles read like a romance. Happüy his unique Edinburgh, descendants, for helpful assistance: to the Rev. J. gifts were quickly recognized in the new communion. While no Thomson, M.A., Abemethy, for the privilege of consulting the I University ranked him among its students, or recognized his Abemethy Church Records, and for other information: to the I services to religious literature, except a rising one in the new Rev. William T. Cakns, M.A., Edinburgh, for readmg the Republic across the seas toward the end of his days, he trod manuscript of this work, and for the correction of details: to the path of a scholar, and in the later years placed the fruits of the Right Rev. Dr. Moule, Bishop of Durham, and Principal his leammg before the world. While Pastor and Professor, he Tait, D.D., of Ridley Hall, Cambridge, for information regard¬ single-handed produced a Dictionary of the Bible that held ing Simeon and Brown: to Principal Ritchie, D.D., Notting¬ its own for a hundred years: and a Commentary on the Scrip• ham, and Professor Johnson of Cheshunt College, Cambridge, tures, which he happily entitled À Self-interpreting Bible, on for matter bearing on the Countess of Huntingdon and which Charles Simeon nourished his soul with great deHght, Trevecca College: and to the Rev. Dr. Lee, St. Louis, U.S.A., and which is still a living book in America. in respect to Brown's works in America. His life and labours have scarcely had their due presentation I am under special obligation for many hints and helps to the public. His brief autobiographical sketch, which his which I have received from my friend, the Rev. J. R. Fleming, j sons issued, had parts eliminated. Short biographical accounts B.D., London, and my brother Sir William W. Mackenzie, K.c, I appeared in the foreground of some of his works which were K.B.E.,: and to the Rev. Walter Brown, M.A., Edinburgh, for reissued during last century. His youngest son, William, in kindly reading the proofs. 1856, produced a fuller memoir than the rest. A Centenary Memorial by a grandson, in 1887, added to our knowledge: ROBERT MACKENZIE while one must not omit the cameo sketch by Dr. John Brown, CLAREMONT MANSE, the author of the immortal Rab and his Friends, in his famous ALLOA. Letter to John Cairns, D.D. 1918. In producing this work. I have consulted all the original material available, and perused the minutes of the Presbytery and Synod of Brown's period, for over twenty years of which he acted as clerk in both courts. I have been specially indebted to Miss Rachel Brown, Bridge of Allan, a descendant of the fourth son in the fourth generation, for the original copy of the Short Memoir of my Life, which for the first time is given in full, for the manuscripts of works and pamphlets published and unpublished, and for other kmdly help. I would also record with gratitude my obhgation to Professor A. Crum Brown, M.D., Edmburgh University, for various manuscripts, and sug¬ gestions: to John Brown, Esq., Edinburgh, for photos of the St. Andrews Greek Testament, which is in his possession, and other material: to Miss Agnes Smith, and Miss Spring Brown, [8] r9] still Waters Revival Books - All Rights Reserved - www.PuritanDownloads.com CHAPTER 1 Parentage and Childhood John Brown was bom in the year 1722, in the hamlet of Carpow, near Abemethy, by the river Tay in Perthshire. It was a unique period in Scottish history. Within a narrow range of years, most of the men saw the hght who became the leaders in the intellectual awakening of Scotland. In 1718, Hugh Blair was bom, whose eloquent sermons were the delight of Samuel Johnson and George III, and who was the first to occupy the chair of Rhetoric in Edinburgh University. In 1721, came WilUam Robertson, who rose to be Principal of the same University, and who was to rival Gibbon and Hume as the historian of his day; and in that year also, Tobias Smollett, whose imaginative powers were to give fiction a new promin¬ ence in literature. In the same year as John Brown, John Home first saw the light, whose tragedy of Douglas was to cause such a stir among the ecclesiastics of Scotland, and in 1723, Adam Smith first drew breath, who by his Wealth of Nations was to reveal the value of economic factors in the building up of empires. In 1711, David Hume was on the scene, who was to unite in himself the philosopher and the historian, and to give such éclat to the intellectual renown of his country. But in those days, when in the home of Carpow all that was heard was the puUng cries of the child, the country was heav¬ ing with a rehgious crisis. The political disturbance of 1715, when 'The Old Pretender' made a futile attempt to regain the throne of his fathers, had died away. But in the ecclesiastical world, a controversy was raging that was to break up the outer [11] still Waters Revival Books - All Rights Reserved - www.PuritanDownloads.com unity of the Scottish Church. The 'Marrow' doctrine was per¬ picturesque and ancient townlet has to tell, that weaves itself meating the Church, not yet thoroughly welded together after at times into the destinies of the nation, so much so that its the tossed and troubled period of the kiMng times, only thirty latest historian avers that its parish history broadens out into years away. The *Marrow of Moderne Divmity.' as set forth an 'Historical Study' that must include the nation, with its in a book that Thomas Boston found casuaUy in the house of own distinctive tale. one of his flock in Simprin, and which had been brought to It was in such a centre of historic associations and at such Scotland in the knapsack of a soldier returning from the civil a time of ecclesiastical stir that John Brown began his aus¬ wars, was welcomed ardently by some in the Church, and picious day. His father bore the name of John Brown, and his fiercely rejected by others. In the year 1722. twelve good men mother that of Catherine Millie. But the veil falls upon their were rebuked in the General Assembly of the Church of Scot¬ ancestry, and upon themselves.