(these biographies of the ministers in Ireland are by John Livingstone, taken from 'Memorable Characteristics and Remarkable Passages of Divine Providence, exemplified in the lives of some of the most eminent ministers and professors in the Church of Scotland. Collected by Mr John Livingstone, late Minister of Ancrum'). With thanks to Jack Greenald for providing these.
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The Ministers in Ireland with whom I had acquaintance and converse, from the year 1630 to the year 1637, and some whereof were thereafter ministers in Scotland.
1. Mr Robert Blair, born in Irvine, was first a Regent in the Colledge of Glasgow, at which time also he began to preach in publick, and was from the beginning zealous for truth and piety. Meanwhile, Mr John Cameron was brought from France, and placed Principal of that University of Glasgow, that he might promote the cause of Episcopacy and ceremonies; and when on a time some theses were publickly disputed, Mr Cameron being preses, and Mr Blair impugning, Mr Blair drave the defendent to some difficultie, so as the preses helping the defendent, did, in the heat of the disput, bring the answer to somewhat that tended to Arminianisme, although he was not at that time suspected of that error. Mr Blair prosecuting his advantage, and Mr Cameron being ashamed not to defend what he had once though rashly asserted, the hour stryking, ended the dispute; and the next day of disput, Mr Cameron urged Mr Blair to begin, who did most earnestly refuse, and intreated that another might be called to impugn; but when the other insisted in urgeing, he recapitulated the former daye’s dispute, and offered to prosecute his argument against Mr Cameron’s last answer, which so incensed Mr Cameron, finding himself so involved in the thorns, that he fell out in some impertinence, not far from railing, whereat the Rector, Mr Robert Scott, one of the town ministers, being present, rose and affirmed that Mr Blair had not violated the rules of dispute. Here Mr Cameron cryed out, ‘There is a faction’. This he said because Mr Robert Scott was against Episcopacy. Thus when the matter was like to tend to a tumult, the meeting was dissolved: and although they were shortly after, by the mediation of some, reconciled, yet Mr Cameron, still intending to have Mr Blair thrust out of the Colledge, did, by the help of one that had been Mr Blair’s scholar, search all his dictates, and found that in some of them, on Aristotle’s politicks, he had maintained elective monarchie preferable to successive monarchy, the which he sent to the king, and, in the meantime, prevailed so with the Bishop of Glasgow and some others, that Mr Blair was forced to leave the Colledge; although King James, hearing of his dictats, made no great account of the matter. This was about the year 1623.
After this, Mr Blair was invited by the Lord Clannybuy, and had a call, and was settled minister at Bangor, in the county of Doun, and was indeed a chief instrument in that great work of God that broke out thereafter in the Six-Myle-Water, and some other parts of the countie of Antrum and Doun, and elsewhere in the North of Ireland; and this not only by his own ministry, wherein he was both diligent and faithfull, but especially by stirring up other ministers, as Mr Robert Cunninghame, minister at Holywood, with whom he kept a most intimate familiarity, and all the rest of the ministers herafter named. One tyme, occasionally hearing Mr James Glendinning, then minister at Oldstone, who at that time followed the Bishops and their way, but he finding him to have a rare gift, drew him aside, and dealt with him to follow another way of preaching, and to deal with the people’s consciences to waken them, which so prevailed with the man, that he fell upon a thundering way of preaching, and exceedingly terrified his hearers; and although thereafter he fell into some ravery, and in some distemper left the place, yet this proved a preparation to that people, that when thereafter the Lord sent among them Mr Josias Welsh, they were fitter to receive the Covenant of free grace in the Gospell; and this proved the beginning of that remarkable work in the Six-Myle-Water.
Mr Blair was a man of notable constitution, both of body and mind, - of a majestic, awfull, yet amiable countenance, - one throughly learned, of strong parts, a deep invention, and solid judgement, of a most publick spirit for God. His gift of preaching was such as seldom any could observe withdrawing of assistance in publick, which in some others is frequent. He was seldom ever brangled in his assurance of salvation. He spent many days and nights in prayer alone, and with others, and was one very intimat with God. The Lord gave him express warning by that place, Ezek. Xxiv. 16, of the death of his first wife, Beatrix Hamilton, which accordingly came to passé; and after that, the scattering of the Church in the North of Ireland. While he was attending at Court in England, for ane answer to his petition to the king, desyring that himself and some other ministers, who were by the Bishops falsely accused as Enthusiasts, might be tryed therein, and, being found innocent, might be somewhat forborn for their non-conformity, one day lying at prayer at Greenwich Park, while the Court was at hunting, the Lord assured him that he would hunt the violent man to destroy him. And while he was earnest with the Lord for some dispatch and answer to his petition, and adventured to propound a sign, that if the Lord would make the reeds growing near by, which were so moved by the wind as he was tossed in his spirit, to cease from shaking, he would take it as ane assurance of a dispatch, - within a little, there was such a calm, as none of the reeds once moved; and, accordingly, in a short time he got a dispatch to his mind. It is observable what a courtier at that time who favoured both his person and his cause, Sir Robert Ker of Ancrum, after made Earl of Ancrum, said to him, when he desired his help in his bussiness. He told him that ‘if he had killed his brother, and committed incest with his sister, he would have more hopes to help him, as matters stood, than in his business of nonconformity, seeing Bishop Laud guided all Church matters at Court’. One time, as he journeyed, his horse broke away out of his hand, and although he had the help of three or four persons, could not be gotten catched. He said he was challenged because he had not made use of faith and prayer for getting of his horse again, and he retired to a quiet place and prayed, and so soon as he came back to rest, the horse stood still till he was taken. He was once suspended, and twice deposed, by the Bishops in Ireland, after which he was the chief promoter of the intended voyage to New England; but when that was disappointed, and being in danger to be made prisoner in Ireland, he retired to Scotland, and at the change in the year 1638 was settled minister at Air, but shortly after, by the Generall Assembly, was transported to be minister at St Andrews, where he continued till the other change in the year 1660, after which he was thrust out by the Councill, and within four or five years after dyed.
2. Mr Robert Cunninghame was at first preacher for a while to the Earle of Buccleugh’s regiment in Holland, but thereafter minister at Holywood, in the North of Ireland, where he had been some considerable tyme before Mr Blair came to Bangor. He was the one man to my discerning, of all I ever saw, who resembled most the meekness of Jesus Christ in all his whole carriage, and was so far reverenced by all, even the most wicked, that he was oft troubled with that Scripture, ‘Wo to you when all men speak well of you’. Yea, Mr Blair, speaking one time to the Bishop of Doun, said, ‘You may doe to me and some others as you please, but if ever you meddle with Mr Cunninghame, your cup will be full:’ and, indeed, he was longer spared than any of the rest: and when the rest were deposed almost every week, he preached in some of their kirks, and with so pains at home and abroad he wearied and wore out his body, which was not very strong. He was sometimes in publick preaching, to his own sense, not so assisted as usually; but even then, the sweet convoy of the matter was such, that I thought these times as edifying and refreshfull as any other; but ordinarly he was born through with a full gaill, and had sometimes more sharp, pierceing threatnings than any other. One time I went with him to visit a family of two gracious persons, whose young child was overlaid the night before, and I observed that, beyond his usual manner, he did not comfort them, but rather urged that the Lord was debating with them some secret controversie. When I enquired at him, after we were come out, how he came to doe so, he answered, he knew no particular, but as he came to the house, he dealt with the Lord to direct him what to say, and he could get nothing else but what he said.
I was with him when he dyed at Irvine in the year 1637, at which time, beside many other gracious expressions, he said one time, ‘I see Christ standing over death’s head, and saying, Deall warily with my servant; loose now this pin, now that, for this tabernacle must be set up again’. When the ministers of the presbyterie came to see him, he exhorted them earnestly to be faithfull to God and to his people, and to oppose the Service Book, which at that time was urged, and the office of Bishops. He said, ‘The Bishops have taken away from me my ministrie, yea my life, for my ministry was dearer to me than my life’. A little before his death, his wife sitting on the side of the low bed whereon he lay, and her hand in his, he did by prayer recommend the whole Church, the work of God in Ireland, the parish of Holywood, his brethren in the ministry, his children; and in the end said, ‘And, last, O Lord, I recommend to thee this gentlewoman, who is no more my wife;’ and with that saying, he softly loosed his hand from hers, and gently thrust her hand a little from him, at which both she and some others presently burst out in weeping, which he by gracious expressions laboured to allay, but I have forgotten the particulars. One time when Mr Blair and I had been summoned before the Bishop to Baltephilips to be deposed, and had been the night before with Mr Cunninghame, and taken our leave of him, the next day, when we were going into the church of Baltephilips, he cometh to us, whereat we wondering, he said, ‘All this night I have gotten no rest when I thought of that place: At my first answer no man stood with me; therefore I am to stand by you’.
3. Mr George Dumbar was at first minister at Air, from whence he was once and again thrust out by the Bishops. At the second tyme, when the messenger came to his house, whether to summond him or to intimate his sentence, I know not, a young daughter of his hearing the message, turned her, and said, ‘And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened still’. All that Mr George said, he calleth his wife, and said, Margaret, ‘Prepare the creells again,’ for the former time, the children being young, they behooved to carry them away on horseback in creells. He was thereafter minister by Lochlairn in Ireland, where on a day, in his sermon in publick, regrateing with great grief that he thought none of that people had ever gotten good by his ministry, one Robert Brown rose and said before them all that he had gotten good; and indeed there appeared thereafter a blessed change wrought both on him and severall others. Being deposed by the Bishop of Doun in Ireland, he came to Scotland, and after the change in the year 1638 he was minister at Calder in Lothian, where he dyed.
4. Mr Josias Welsh, the son of the famous Mr John Welsh, was provided by the Lord to bring the covenant of grace to that people of the Six-Myle-Water in Ireland, on whom Mr James Glendinning had wrought some legall convictions, having preached some time at Oldstone. He was thereafter settled minister at Templepatrick, where he had many seals of his ministry. He was much exercised in his own spirit, and, accordingly, much of his preaching was anent exercise of conscience. Being deposed by the Bishop of Doun, he continued preaching in his own house, and stood in a door of his own house that looked toward the garden, so as some heard in the house, and a great many that sat and stood in the garden. By this means, being but of a weak constitution, and having many defluctions, and faulty lungs, he contracted cold, which occasioned his death about the year 1634. I was with him at his death, wherein he wanted not continuing exercise of his minde. One time he cryed out, ‘Oh for hypocrisie!’ whereat Mr Blair said, ‘See how Satan is offering to nibble at his heels before he enter into glory’. A very little before he dyed, I being at prayer, hard by the low bedside where he lay, and that word ‘Victory’ coming out in some of my expressions, he took hold of my hand, and desired me to forebear a little, and clapping his hands together, cryed out, ‘Victory, victory, victory for evermore!’ and then desired me to goe on. Within a little thereafter he expired.
5. Mr Andrew Stewart, minister at Dunagor, a man very straight in the cause of God, continued not long in his ministry, but contracted sickness, and dyed some years before the great scattering came upon the North of Ireland, wherein, first, all the ministers were put away for nonconformity; thereafter, many professors were vexed and forced to flee, to avoid the oath there urged for abjureing the Covenant of Scotland. And at last the sword of the Irish rebels came on. When, at his death, he was demanded what he had to say concerning Ireland, he answered, he had nothing to say but what is in Jeremy xv. 2, ‘Such as are for death to death, and such as are for the sword to the sword, and such as are for the famine to the famine, and such as are for captivitie to the captivitie’.
6. Mr John Ridge, ane Englishman, minister at Antrim. He used not to have many points in his sermon, but those he had he so enlarged and urged again and again, that it was hardly possible for any hearer to forget his preaching. He was a great urger of charitable works, and a very humble man. I heard him once say, his tongue or his pen never gave him leave to call ane honest minister brother. He said, also, he was once in a part in England where he wearied exceedingly, because he could not find in it any object of outward charity. Being deposed by the Bishop of Doun, as others were, for his nonconformity, he came over to Irvine, where he dyed.
7. Mr Henry Colwart, ane Englishman, minister at Oldstone; one who very expeditly cited much Scripture in his preaching, and oft urged privat fasting and prayer. Being deposed by the Bishops, he came to Scotland; and after the year 1638, was settled minister at Paisley, where he dyed.
8. Mr James Hamilton, a nephew of the Lord Viscount Clannybuie’s, minister at Baltewater, a learned and painfull man. His gift of preaching was doctrinall rather than exhortatory. When he was deposed by the Bishop of Doun, he sustained a dispute for a long time against the Bishop, and those with him, in the church of Belfast, being full of people, confuting the errors of the Service Book and ceremonies, for the satisfaction of many. After the year 1638, he was settled minister at Dumfries, dureing which time, having gone a visit to Ireland, was, in his return, taken at sea with Mr John Weir, minister at Dalsyrf, by some of Master M’Donald’s men, and keeped prisoner in Migricastle, where Mr John Weir dyed. He, after long and sore imprisonment, was at last let out, and after that was, by the Generall Assembly, transported to be minister at Edinburgh; but after the change, 1660, he was, by the Secret Councill, put out of Edinburgh, and in a few years thereafter he dyed.
9. Mr Edward Bryce, minister at Bredisland, (who had before been minister somewhere besyde Dumbarton,) ane aged man that came not much abroad; one who, in all his preaching, insisted most upon the life of Christ in the heart, and light of his Word and Spirit in the mind, that being his continual exercise.
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