Revd Alexander Webster (1707-1784): Father of Insurance Modelling

by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 28, 2024 | The Enlightenment

At one time Webster’s Close used to exist in Edinburgh, near Castlehill, roughly where Boswell’s Court is today. It was from a house in this close that the Revd Dr Alexander Webster would sally forth to lead the charge of the High Flyers against the Moderates. Essentially the High Flyers were the evangelicals and the Moderates were the liberals of the 18^th century. Webster was so famous as a preacher in Edinburgh that it was said “it was easier to get a seat in the Kingdom of Heaven than in the Tolbooth Kirk”, where he was the minister for 47 years (1737-1784). His magnetic preaching seemed to draw in the most unlikely visitors to his packed congregation, such as Robert Burns the national poet and David Hume, the sceptical philosopher.

It was Webster who invited the human fireball, George Whitefield, to preach in Edinburgh and Scotland, and who, as a Presbyterian minister, defended the Methodists. Organising the events through his considerable networks, he would accompany Whitefield as he preached to crowds said to be 15,000 strong in St Giles’ churchyard, in the King’s Park (today’s Holyrood Park), and in the grounds of the Trinity Hospital (today’s George Heriot School). On 15 August 1742, he was there on the green at Cambuslang near Glasgow, to take it in turns to preach alongside Whitefield and ten other ministers who witnessed an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the estimated crowd of 40,000, many of whom were “bathed in tears”.

Despite his evangelistic fervour though, Webster was a known alcoholic who could drink any man under the table and still remain standing and fairly clear-headed. His craving for claret meant that he would often even take his wine into the pulpit with him, so he could have a swig. Such a habit was viewed with mixed responses by the locals, from horror to amusement. You would have thought that his brain would have been fuddled with all that wine, yet he had such a sharp mind that the government called on his skill as a statistician to lead the first official census for Scotland’s population, resulting in a return of 1,265,380 people in 1755. Adam Smith, the author of the Wealth of Nations, could admit that “of all men I have ever known, [Webster is] the most skilful in political arithmetic”. Webster also combined his mathematical aptitude with pastoral compassion, establishing, with another clergyman, Revd Dr Wallace, the first proper insurance fund for widows of the clergy in Scotland, in 1748. It was his calculations and model that set a precedent for modern insurance companies to follow.

His indefatigable lifestyle meant that he was right in the heart of Edinburgh, being one of the key figures in advising magistrates about the development of the New Town. He seemed to pop up everywhere, influencing the city and nation for its prosperity, and being one of the movers and shakers of Scotland. It is a stark reminder to us that despite his particular weakness for wine, he was a vessel mightily used through God’s grace.

“Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them” (Psalm 111:2, KJV).

Image: Revd Dr Alexander Webster (1707-1784) preaching in the Tolbooth Kirk in Edinburgh: John Kay, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Pied Piper of Scottish Tourism: Sir Walter Scott

by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 28, 2024 | The Enlightenment

The Scott monument is one of the famous landmarks in Edinburgh and Scotland. Towering over 200 feet above Prince’s Street Gardens, this iconic construction is so well known that often locals who need a meeting place when shopping on the bustling Princes St will say, ‘Meet you at the Scott monument’. Tourists are often surprised that this writer is given such prominence in our capital city. But then he was more than a writer: he is the Pied Piper of tourism to Scotland and, as with Robert Burns, he is the defender and promoter of what it means to be Scottish. When King George IV came on his stately visit to Scotland in 1822, he insisted on wearing a kilt. Sir Walter Scott was rowed out to the King’s ship, the Royal George, and when he came aboard the King exclaimed, ‘What! Sir Walter Scott! The man in Scotland I most wish to see!’

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) was a lawyer by training, but he was one of those multi-talented men of this period. His love of Scotland, history and books, inspired him to write his famous Waverley Novels, among them being Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Old Mortality and others. Poems, such as The Lady of the Lake, wooed multitudes of tourists to Scotland. Indeed, his writings became the magnet which drew so many visitors to this land to share in the romance of its mystery and rugged, beautiful landscape, which is steeped in tales of heroism and intrigue.

His passion as an antiquarian drove him on a quest to seek and find the lost Honours of Scotland, or Crown Jewels. These are the oldest Crown Jewels in Britain, dating back to James V in 1540, along with the sceptre (c.1494) and sword (c.1507). Today, they sit with the Stone of Scone on proud display in Edinburgh Castle’s Crown Room. The English Crown Jewels had been melted down and converted into coins for Cromwell’s Commonwealth, so fears were high that the same fate would befall The Honours of Scotland. In haste, the Scots took them for safe-keeping at Dunnottar Castle, but when Cromwell’s army arrived there in 1651, they were smuggled out and buried under the floor of the Old Kirk at Kinneff. Later they were transferred to a secret room in Edinburgh Castle, where Sir Walter Scott and others recovered them with great celebrations.

Whenever you read the works of Scott you do not have to peruse too far before you come across Scriptures, or influences from the Bible. So much of his life revolved around this book. He began as a Presbyterian, being an elder at the picturesque village of Duddingston in Edinburgh, but then joined the Episcopalian Church. Although he was also a Freemason, it was the Christian faith which was close to his heart. As he lay dying, Sir Walter Scott called out to John Lockhart, his son-in-law, ‘Read to me out of the Book.’Lockhart, knowing Scott’s passion for his extensive library at Abbotsford House, asked, ‘Which book?’‘There is only one Book’, came the response, ‘the Bible! The Bible is the Book to live by and the Book to die by. Therefore, read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, practice it to be holy. As another has said: “Know it in the head, store it in the heart, show it in the life, sow it in the world.”’

‘The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple’ (Psalm 119:130, NKJV).

Image: Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), by Thomas Lawrence, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Debate above the Bookshop: William Creech

by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 28, 2024 | The Enlightenment

‘Alright, alright, I’m coming!’ called out William Creech as he scurried through his bookshop next to St Giles’ Cathedral in the Royal Mile. It was his famous weekly breakfast, which he held in a large room above the shop, and the line of ‘Creech’s Levées’ outside was lengthening all the time. Wrestling with the key in the lock, he opened the door to be greeted by cheering and clapping. In they came, one after another: Lord Kames, a high court judge; Lord Woodhouselee, a professor of history who proclaimed that democracy left to itself would fall into dictatorship; Adam Smith, the author of the Wealth of Nations; Professor William Cullen, the chemistry pioneer; Dr Gregory, the famous physician; Henry MacKenzie, the author of The Man of Feeling; and Revd Professor Thomas Reid, the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, who was deep in conversation with Professor Dugald Stewart, who gave the name Athens of the North to Edinburgh during the Enlightenment. Just as Creech was about to close the door, up came Robert Burns with his fellow poet Robert Fergusson, huffing and puffing as they strode up the Royal Mile.

The crowd poured into the room upstairs, eager to be served coffee and breakfast, amidst raucous laughter and mind-bending discussion and debate. It was 1773 and  the cream of Edinburgh’s intellectual élite had gathered in ‘Creech’s Land’, as it was called. For hours they would grapple together with weighty subjects, from religion and philosophy, to science, history, poetry and books, to politics and the economy. Creech’s publishing partner, Alexander Kincaid, had left the shop and firm to him when he became Lord Provost. Finding that the leading men of the city gravitated to his bookshop to discuss God, life and the universe, he diverted the discussions to a weekly meeting upstairs, so that he could run his business properly during the week. So many of the literati of the city gathered at the shop, that the locals would call it ‘The Mirror Club’, because Creech had first suggested publishing a journal called The Mirror.

William Creech (1745-1815) was a Presbyterian Christian, who followed in the footsteps of his father, Revd William Creech of Newbattle Parish Church, just outside Edinburgh. Even though his father died when he was a small child, the godly evangelical reputation of his father had a lasting impression on William Creech junior. Even as a child he used to spend hours labouring over sermons. Known and appreciated by the literati of his time, he held his own in debate, wore a cheerful countenance, and never let the philosophy of the day drive him away from his Christian convictions, daily Bible study and morning and evening prayers. He published Robert Burns’ second edition of his poems, with Burns calling him ‘my honoured friend’, and even writing a poem for him, entitled ‘Willie Awa’’ when Creech had to travel to London and was away for months, much to the consternation of his admiring friends.

Although Creech was right in the thick of the Enlightenment set, seeking to be salt and light for Christ there, he has left us the disturbing facts about the downside of this era with its majoring on impractical philosophy, and divergence from sound biblical teaching. The backsliding of Edinburgh’s population into a miry pit of sin between 1763 and 1783 was catalogued by Creech: whisky addiction had gone viral, driving the people into a toxicity of wickedness; cock-fighting and animal-baiting had become popular sports for gamblers; divorce and separation had escalated; the number of brothels had grown by twenty-fold, and street prostitutes by a hundred-fold; an epidemic of house-breaking, theft and burglary had sprouted up, and public executions had multiplied.

William Creech was laid to rest in Greyfriars’ Kirk graveyard in 1815, after being Lord Provost and a successful publisher, being grieved by many. He left us a number of writings, but below is the last part of a poem, which sums up his life:

‘While nature’s circle like a chariot wheel

Rolls beneath their elevated aims,

Makes their fair prospect fairer every hour,

Advancing virtue in a line to bliss,

Virtue which Christian motives best inspire,

And Bliss which Christian schemes alone ensure!’

‘Therefore, he reasoned… in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there’ (Acts 17:17, NKJV).

Image: William Creech (1745-1815), attributed to William Beechey, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Jacobite Rebellion

by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 28, 2024 | The Enlightenment

In the darkness some 800 men stood in silence. Their wait was soon rewarded when Edinburgh’s Netherbow Port gate was opened to allow a coach to pass. With bloodcurdling yells, they ran as one man through the gate and into the High Street, taking the city by surprise. What a shock it must have been for the inhabitants as they peered out of their windows and saw hundreds of fierce Highlanders swarming on the main street below. It was 16^th September, 1745. The ’45 Rebellion had begun.

Whilst in exile in France, James Francis Edward Stuart nursed his grievances. He was a baby when his father, King James VII, had been forced to flee to the continent during the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He had attempted unsuccessfully to invade Scotland with French soldiers to take back the throne in 1708. His followers, known as Jacobites, had started uprisings in England and Scotland in 1715 to prepare the way for his second attempt at retaking the throne the following year. Again, he was thwarted, and he returned to France. Despite support from his papal allies, he was twice more frustrated in 1719 and 1722. Losing his papal support he languished in France, dejected and depressed.

His son, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, was insistent that God had given his father divine right to rule. For Charles Edward Stuart, exile was a time in which to plan a rebellion, to place his father back on the throne, and to remove the ‘usurper’, King George II. With great secrecy the Young Pretender hatched his plan and he prevailed at its first hurdle in 1745, for without even a shot being fired he had taken Scotland’s capital. The remainder of his army had hidden themselves near the western approach to the city, so they were let in to join their comrades.

At midday the next day the army and locals gathered near St Giles’ to hear the proclamation that Prince Charles had come as the regent for his father, the ‘rightful king’. His manifesto was read out by officials, stating that his father’s throne would be restored, but that he would act with clemency, granting a general pardon to his opponents, and would allow people to practice their faith and parliamentary rights with freedom. Despite the misgivings and understandable suspicions of many, great celebrations surrounded the personal entry of Prince Charles later. When he stood in the King’s Park dressed as a Highlander, he was greeted with admiration; his entry into Holyrood House, the palace of the Scottish royalty, was a symbolic victory.

It is one thing to start a rebellion, but an entirely different matter to complete it. The backlash came swiftly from the British army, but again Prince Charles prevailed when his Highlander forces used the tactic of surprise attack at Prestonpans outside Edinburgh, slaughtering Sir John Cope’s men. Alarm ran through Britain. Since 1707, leaders in Edinburgh had worked hard to forge the Union Treaty, which meant that for the first time England and Scotland would be ruled by Parliament from Westminster. Although Scotland’s disastrous financial crisis in the Darien scheme in Panama (1698-1700), had speeded up the process of unification, the Union itself had also been built on the 1689 agreements, which also limited the crown and banned Roman Catholics from taking positions of power. Suddenly the Union and all it stood for was threatened. Again, the words ‘papacy’ and ‘tyranny’ were on the lips of many. When Prince Charles’ army met the British at Culloden near Inverness in 1746, all of his hopes were shattered to pieces in utter defeat. He returned to France, a broken man, never to rise again. Essentially the vision of a restored monarchy linked to Rome died at Culloden.

‘I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts’ (Psalm 119:45, NKJV).

Image: Bonnie Prince Charlie (1720-1788), Circle of Louis Tocqué, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The School of Common Sense and Revd Thomas Reid

by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 28, 2024 | The Enlightenment

If you go down the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, you will come across the statue of David Hume opposite St Giles’ Cathedral. Hume’s toe is bright and shiny from all those thousands of agnostic and atheist devotees who annually rub it to respect him, or for good luck. He became the leading antagonist against the belief in God during the Edinburgh Enlightenment. For him, miracles could be explained away through rationalism, and even God’s Ten Commandments could be rewritten. The statue depicts him treading underfoot the first tablet of the four commandments towards God; the second tablet, with the six commandments of how we treat each other, has been left blank, inviting us to write our own laws. With such an onslaught against the Christian faith in Scotland, who would rise up and challenge him, and meet him on his own ground?

Thomas Reid (1710-1796) was a Church of Scotland minister at Newmachar, ten miles from Aberdeen, when he read Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature (1739). Although he admired Hume, he was horrified at his philosophy. What unsettled Reid most about the book was the way in which Hume promoted the idea that our perception of the world is all wrong, and even that our moral conscience is uncertain and based on mere convention. For Reid, the evidence of God was all around us in creation, and within us in the form of our consciences. ‘Settled truth can be attained by observation,’ he said. He left the ministry to enter the academic world, to teach at King’s College in Aberdeen in 1751. It was here that Reid established a stronghold of what became known as the Scottish School of Common Sense, arguing that all human beings are born with the capacity to operate through common sense in a real world of objective reality, which we experience through our five senses. He saw that his purpose was to dispel the confusing mist of philosophical ideas that were contrary to human nature.

As his view grew in popularity, he was promoted to become the Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow in 1764, a position of great honour which had been filled by his predecessor, Adam Smith, who wrote The Wealth of Nations, and before him, by Revd Francis Hutcheson. It was here that Reid wrote his work, An Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the Principles of Common Sense. ‘The evidence of sense, the evidence of memory, and the evidence of the necessary relations of things, are all distinct,’ he wrote, ‘To reason against any of these kinds of evidence is absurd… They are first principles, and as such fall not within the province of reason, but of commonsense.’

It was this work that not only formed a stronghold in Scotland against Hume’s attack, but crossed the pond to America and was received with great enthusiasm by the thinkers and debaters over there. Professor Arthur Herman, who wrote The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots’ Invention of the Modern World, calls Reid’s Common Sense argument ‘a science of human freedom’, and says it ‘Democratised the intellect, by insisting that the ordinary man could be as certain of his judgements as the philosopher was.’ Reid’s phrase ‘self-evident’ truths began to take root in the mind of Thomas Jefferson and the movers behind the Declaration of Independence. The evangelical scholars, Revd Dr John Witherspoon and Benjamin Rush, were active in promoting the Common Sense School in America, and it spread rapidly in the universities. It is believed that Reid’s idea was included in the famous line in the Declaration of Independence of 1776, which says: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’ Here we find two professors of Moral Philosophy from the University of Glasgow: Revd Thomas Reid, and Revd Francis Hutcheson, influencing this cornerstone of American thinking in the phrases, ‘self-evident’ and ‘unalienable Rights’ and ‘pursuit of Happiness’.

‘Therefore he reasoned… in the market place daily with those who happened to be there’ (Acts 17:17, NKJV).

Image: Revd Professor Thomas Reid, http://www.abcgallery.com/R/raeburn/raeburn4.html, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The ‘Happiness’ Gospel: Revd Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746)

by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 28, 2024 | The Enlightenment

In the American Declaration of Independence, we find the following memorable line, penned by Thomas Jefferson: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’ It is a cry for equality and freedom based on the Christian-democratic ideal, but where do the phrases, ‘unalienable Rights’, and ‘the pursuit of Happiness’ come from? For this, we have to look back to Scotland and to the city of Glasgow.

Hutcheson, an Ulster-Scot, taught Natural Religion, Morals, Jurisprudence and Government throughout the week at the University of Glasgow (1729-1746), but as a Presbyterian minister, preached from the Bible every Sunday, on ‘the excellence of the Christian religion’. It was to Revd Francis Hutcheson that the phrases ‘unalienable Rights’, and ‘the pursuit of Happiness’, have been attributed. It was in his Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), that we find his phrase ‘unalienable rights’ in conjunction with the right to resist tyranny, a concept which became embedded in Harvard and other colleges of that time, and was taught by the Scot, Revd Dr John Witherspoon at Princeton, as part of his Moral Philosophy course. The phrase, ‘the pursuit of Happiness’, is the central message of Hutcheson, which inspired the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jaques Burlamaqui and Thomas Jefferson. Hutcheson wrote in his Inquiry (1725): ‘That Action is best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest numbers.’ But what did he mean by ‘Happiness’?

To a modern mind it would seem that Hutcheson was promoting a hedonistic lifestyle, but his teaching is the opposite of this shallow understanding. As a Christian he reacted to the cold philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, on the one hand, who taught that we are creatures so drowned in selfishness that nothing good exists in us; and on the other hand, an extreme form of Calvinism, which taught that we are so thoroughly debased that there is no good in us whatsoever. For Hobbes, the way to control this evil was through the State; whereas for the ultra-Calvinists it was through the Ten Commandments.

In response to what could often be a dour, rigid religiosity amongst some of his fellow clergy, Hutcheson emphasised beauty, happiness, liberty, moral virtue, tolerance and love. Long before the French were crying out for liberty, equality, and fraternity, he was calling for these Christian values in Scotland. Drawing from both the classical philosophers and the Christian faith, he diffused his message of moral happiness through his speaking and writing, particularly through his System of Moral Philosophy. He wrote in one of his Dublin essays that ‘All men of reflection from the age of Socrates have sufficiently proved that the truest, most constant, and lively pleasure, the happiest enjoyment of life, consists in kind affections to our fellow creatures.’

Some of the High Flyers, or evangelicals, scorned him at times as being one of the liberal ‘New Lights’, but thoughtful people realised that he was bringing to our culture something that was needed. The stereotypical Calvinist of the time would look at himself as a wretched sinner, a poor worm; Hutcheson emphasised that because we are made in the image of God, we should have a positive attitude and celebrate this by loving our neighbour as ourselves, or, as Christ said, ‘It is more blessed to give than receive.’ For the depressed disciples of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who considered mankind to be drenched and inundated with selfishness, and incapable of any good, there was some cheer in the air.

It was not that Hutcheson lived in a naïve bubble, for he was fully aware of human sin and wickedness, but he was seeking to highlight the idea that if we find security and happiness in God, through Christ, then this is shown by acts of kindness, which in turn multiplies moral happiness in the world.

‘Jesus said to him, ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets”’ (Matthew 22:37-40, NKJV).

Image: Revd Francis Hutcheson, by Allan Ramsay, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Co-Pioneer of American Independence: Revd Dr John Witherspoon

by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 28, 2024 | The Enlightenment

If you look at Trumbull’s famous painting of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, you can see the Committee of Five at the front, presenting their draft version. If, however, you study the men seated on the right side, you will find the only active pastor there: Revd Dr John Witherspoon (1723-1794) from Scotland. Brought up in Yester, and receiving his schooling in Haddington, Witherspoon went on to study divinity at the University of Edinburgh, and received his honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews.

Following a pastorate in Paisley between 1758 and 1768, he was implored by his evangelical Christian friend Benjamin Rush, to take up residency in America, as president of a Presbyterian college, later known as Princeton University. At this evangelical college he exercised enormous influence on America, with 37 of his students becoming judges; 10 becoming cabinet officers; 12 becoming members of the Continental Congress; 28 becoming Senators; and 49 becoming US Congressman. Witherspoon’s bloodline included John Welsh, one of the leading Covenanters in the Scottish struggles of the 17^th century, and he was fervent in his belief that America should be free from the control of Great Britain. Witherspoon became one of the key movers for American independence among the people. The Presbyterians had suffered heavily under the tyrannical rule of monarchs during the Covenanting times, and when many Presbyterians and Puritans fled to the colonies, they took with them their Christian faith and their longings for a Christian-based democratic government. They saw the possibility of a fresh start in America, free from religious and political tyranny.

Under Witherspoon, Princeton became a fertile meeting place of two streams: evangelical fervour and Enlightenment modernising ideas, both of which had flowed together through him and his friends in Edinburgh. Here Witherspoon could combine his evangelical zeal with the Scottish philosophers, Revd Thomas Reid’s Common Sense Philosophy, and with Revd Francis Hutcheson’s Polite Society, which sought the happiness of mankind. Indeed, Witherspoon went about using his own Edinburgh University education as a template for Princeton.

With passion and clarity, he called for a new day in America. ‘I am satisfied,’ he said, ‘that the confederacy of the colonies has not been the effect of pride, resentment, or sedition, but of a deep and general conviction that our civil and religious liberties, and consequently in a great measure the temporal and eternal happiness of us and our posterity, depended on the issue.’ Arthur Herman, a professor of history in America, has put it aptly: ‘Horace Walpole, son of the former prime minister, rose in Parliament to speak. “There is no use crying about it,” he said. “Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson, and that is the end of it.” Everyone knew what he meant.’ When the Continental Congress met to sign the 1776 Declaration of Independence, about a third of the fifty-six signatories were of Ulster-Scots and Scottish Presbyterian heritage. This same influence could also be found in the producing of the American Bill of Rights in 1789, harking back to the English Bill of Rights and Scottish Claim of Rights, which had emerged out of the Covenanters’ struggle for freedom of conscience.

Both in Scotland and in America, Witherspoon was an outspoken evangelical preacher who called people back to repentance and faith in Christ. He wrote in his satire of the Moderate, or liberal pastor:

‘1. All his subjects must be confined to social duties – as opposed to religious doctrines.

‘2. There must be no reference to an afterlife.

‘3. His authorities must be drawn from pagan writers, and none, or as few as possible, from Holy Scripture.

‘4. He must be very unacceptable to the common people.’

On the other hand, his good friend from Edinburgh, Revd Dr John Erskine, made sure that a constant supply of solid biblical Christian books was shipped to Princeton and many other American universities, for the purpose of nurturing generations of gospel preachers there.

‘… having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life… those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works’ (Titus 3:7-8, NKJV).

Image: The Declaration of Independence, by John Trumbull (1818), Wikipedia Commons

Alexander Webster and the High Flyers

by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 28, 2024 | The Enlightenment

At one time Webster’s Close used to exist in Edinburgh, near Castlehill, roughly where Boswell’s Court is today. It was from a house in this close that the Revd Dr Alexander Webster (1707-1784) would sally forth to lead the charge of the High Flyers against the Moderates. Essentially the High Flyers were the evangelicals and the Moderates were the liberals of the 18^th century. Webster was so famous as a preacher in Edinburgh that it was said ‘it was easier to get a seat in the Kingdom of Heaven than in the Tolbooth Kirk’, where he was the minister for 47 years (1737-1784). His magnetic preaching seemed to draw in the most unlikely visitors to his packed congregation, such as Robert Burns and David Hume.

It was Webster who invited the human fireball, George Whitefield, to preach in Edinburgh and Scotland, and who defended the Methodists. Organising the events through his considerable networks, he would accompany Whitefield as he preached to crowds said to be 15,000 strong in St Giles’ churchyard, with people gathering further than today’s statue of David Hume, in the King’s Park (today’s Holyrood Park), and in the grounds of the Trinity Hospital (today’s George Heriot School). On 15 August 1742, he was there on the green at Cambuslang near Glasgow, to take it in turns to preach alongside Whitefield and ten other ministers who witnessed an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the estimated crowd of 40,000, many of whom were ‘bathed in tears’.

Despite his evangelistic fervour though, Webster was a known alcoholic who could drink any man under the table and still remain standing and fairly clear-headed. His craving for claret meant that he would often even take his wine into the pulpit with him, so he could have a swig. Such a habit was viewed with mixed responses by the locals, from horror to amusement. You would have thought that his brain would have been fuddled with all that wine, yet he had such a sharp mind that the government called on his skill as a statistician to lead the census for Scotland’s first population, resulting in a return of 1,265,380 people in 1755. Adam Smith, the author of the Wealth of Nations, could admit that ‘of all men I have ever known, [Webster is] the most skilful in political arithmetic’. Webster also combined his mathematical aptitude with pastoral compassion, establishing, with another clergyman, Revd Dr Wallace, the first proper insurance fund for widows of the clergy in Scotland, in 1748; it was his calculations and model that set a precedent for modern insurance companies to follow.

His indefatigable lifestyle meant that he was right in the heart of Edinburgh, being one of the key figures in advising magistrates about the development of the New Town. He seemed to pop up everywhere, influencing the city and nation for its prosperity, and being one of the movers and shakers of Scotland. It is a stark reminder to us that despite his particular weakness for wine, he was a vessel mightily used through God’s grace.

‘Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world’ (James 1:27, NKJV).

Image: Revd Dr Alexander Webster preaching to a packed congregation in the Tolbooth Kirk on the Royal Mile, John Kay, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

God’s Catalyst for World Mission: Revd Dr John Erskine

by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 28, 2024 | The Enlightenment

The Church of Scotland Assembly in Edinburgh in 1796 had been dragging on, and frustration and emotions were deepening as the Moderates defended their liberal position on world mission. The two leading Moderates, Revd George Hamilton of Gladsmuir, and Revd ’Jupiter’ Alexander Carlyle of Inveresk, stood their ground. ‘Men must be polished and refined in their manners before they can be properly enlightened in religious truths’, said Hamilton. ‘Where do we find the great Apostle of the Gentiles? Was it amongst barbarians, such as those to whom it was now proposed to carry the Gospel? Or was it not rather in the polished cities of Corinth, of Athens, and of Rome?’

In the heat of the battle, Revd Dr John Erskine, the leader of the Evangelical Party, rose to his feet, and pointed to a large book. ‘Moderator, rax [pass] me that Bible!’he said. Finding chapter 28 of Acts of the Apostles, he read it out before the Assembly. He reminded them that this same apostle Paul had said about himself that he was a ‘debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; both to the wise and to the unwise’,and then continued, ‘Think you that when Paul wrought his miracles at Malta, and was taken to be a god, he did not also preach Christ to the barbarians, and explain whose name it was through which such power was given unto men?’

Silence fell upon the learned gathering. It was a pivotal moment in the history of Scotland. It triggered off a response from the ministers that would eventually lead to an evangelical majority in 1824, paving the way for an extraordinary Scottish missionary movement that would affect millions of lives in many nations.

John Erskine was an extraordinary man. Having witnessed God’s power at the famous Cambuslang Revival in 1742, he cast aside his career in law and trained for the ministry. He became passionate for prayer, revival and world mission, to such an extent that other pastors would catch this enthusiasm, leading to a network of prayer groups all over Scotland called Concerts of Prayer. Thousands began to pour out their hearts in agreement for God to revive Scotland’s church and awaken the nation back to him. Soon this nationwide prayer movement began to intercede for the same work of God in the nations of the world. Erskine, full of enthusiasm, produced a small booklet called Memorial,in which he laid out the biblical principles of praying for revival and awakening. This had been inspired by Revd Robert Millar of Paisley Abbey, who wrote two volumes on world mission in 1723 called The History of the Propagation of Christianity and the Overthrow of Paganism, which was printed in Edinburgh.

Erskine sent 500 copies of Memorial to Boston in America, where one copy came into the hands of Revd Jonathan Edwards. As he read this pamphlet, Edwards, who had already seen some revival (1733-35), began to burn with greater passion for nationwide breakthrough, and produced a book with the lengthy title, An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God’s People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom on Earth, Pursuant to Scripture Promises and Prophecies concerning the Last Time (1747). The result was an explosion of prayer, revival and the conversion of many thousands of people in America.

Erskine seemed to be indefatigable. Besides being a catalyst for revival prayer and world mission, he was one of the key men behind the pioneering of many Scottish mission societies to enable missionaries to be sent out with the gospel both at home and abroad. Making use of Edinburgh’s famous printing networks, he became an avid disseminator of Christian books to the fledgling universities springing up in America and in other nations. It was said that when Revd Jonathan Edwards died, over 30% of the books in his personal library had been sent by Erskine from Edinburgh.

‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations’ (Matthew 28:19, NKJV).

Image: Revd Dr John Erskine (1721-1803), photo at ETS, Paul James-Griffiths

The Lionheart Preacher, John Wesley

by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 28, 2024 | The Enlightenment

The frail, elderly and diminutive figure walked surprisingly briskly along the High St, flanked by two larger men. As they trudged back from Calton Hill they were recollecting their memories over the last thirty-nine years of his preaching in Edinburgh, which, despite his widespread travelling, he had visited twenty-two times (1751-1790). His frailty and small stature betrayed what lay inside, for here was a lion of a man in preaching terms. His name was Revd John Wesley.

In the early years of his open-air gatherings on Calton Hill, Castle Hill, Arthur’s Seat, and in the School Yards, crowds of between 5,000 and 6,000 would regularly gather to hear him, even at five o’clock in the morning. He remembered the time on Calton Hill in 1764, when during a Sabbath communion, he witnessed the largest crowd he had ever seen in Scotland, and more importantly they were ‘deeply affected. Many were in tears; more seemed cut to the heart. Surely,’ he wrote in his journal, ‘this time will not be forgotten. Will it not appear in the annals of eternity?’

The first time Wesley had set his eyes on Edinburgh he, like so many before and after him, fell in love with the old city with its rugged beauty and unique history. For many he was a fresh breath of air, and when asked whether he was fearful of the dour Scots, he said he was far more in fear of being hugged to death. And yet he was appalled at the stench of Auld Reekie. ‘How long,’ he cried, ‘shall the capital city of Scotland, yea, and the chief street of it, stink worse than a common sewer? Will no lover of his country, or of a decency and common sense, find a remedy for this?’

Despite his passionate preaching and large crowds however, Wesley never really broke through in Scotland, for he did not understand the Presbyterian Church. On his death he left only just over 1,000 people in his Wesleyan Connexion, compared with the 57,000 in England and Wales.

Although he wrote in 1788 that he could find ‘a frankness and openness in the people of Edinburgh, which I find in few other parts of the kingdom’, he also found that ‘they hear, but feel no more than the seats they sit upon!’  What he soon discovered was how deeply entrenched Calvinism was in the people, and he was an Arminian. John Calvin and his followers had taught that God had predetermined people to go to heaven or hell, whereas Arminius taught that we have freewill to choose God, or reject him. Although many people turned out to hear Wesley’s preaching, his Arminian views screened most of them out from being members of his congregations, even though many were converted to Christ. This was something both his brother Charles, and fellow-evangelist and Calvinist friend George Whitefield, had warned him about. Another problem was the level of education and knowledge he found in Edinburgh, and he ruefully admitted ‘they know everything, so they learn nothing.’

He soon realised he had a battle on his hands with the Calvinists, led primarily by the very man who had done so much good in Britain and America – Dr John Erskine. After Erskine had published his Mr. Wesley’s Principles Detected in 1767, Wesley found a growing aloofness from the clergy. And yet both were godly men of love. Benjamin Rush could write of Erskine that ‘the fire of Christian love burned upon [the altar of his heart] with a perpetual blaze.’Wesley, in turn, could say about Erskine: ‘I love your person; I love your character; I love the work wherein you are engaged’.

‘Do you think we shall see John Wesley in heaven?’ a zealous Calvinist asked George Whitefield. ‘I fear not,’ replied Wesley’s friend. ‘No! – he will be so near the throne, and we at such a distance, that we shall hardly get a sight of him.’

Wesley tried hard to see unity forged between him and the Presbyterians, even finding Lady Glenorchy and Lady Maxwell to fund and support a gospel partnership. Lady Glenorchy wrote in her diary on 7^th March, 1770:

‘This day, St Mary’s Chapel was opened for preaching the Gospel. Ministers of every denomination are to be admitted, who have a sincere love to the Lord Jesus Christ and the souls of men, and who preach the doctrine of justification by faith alone.’

This experiment was a watershed moment in our history: would there be a unity between the church denominations in Edinburgh and Scotland around the gospel, or not? Wesley’s hopes were high, but were soon dashed to pieces. By 1771, after listening to some of the leading Calvinists in Edinburgh, Lady Glenorchy ‘dismissed Mr. Wesley’s preachers from [her] chapel.’

Such a failed experiment may have been a crushing blow to Wesley and others, but something was stirring. A new day was dawning in which Presbyterian Christians would work side-by-side with Christians of other church backgrounds in love and harmony for Christ’s gospel, but this would emerge during the next century. It would be like a giant arising from a long sleep, with global consequences.

‘And they were preaching the gospel there’ (Acts 14:7, NKJV).

Image: John Wesley on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. Permission from the Methodist Church

The Human Fireball: George Whitefield

by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 28, 2024 | The Enlightenment

In 1742 a human fireball hit Scotland. Revd George Whitefield came hurtling from his successful open-air preaching revivals in England to Cambuslang, near Glasgow. A memorial, placed there by the Friends of Cambuslang Park was erected in March 2008. It says:

‘Preaching Braes. Site of the “Cambuslang Wark” the great religious revival of 1742. In this place the Methodist evangelist, George Whitefield led congregations of many thousands in prayer and worship.’

Whitefield was a Church of England clergyman at the time. Having been converted to Christ in 1735 through reading The Life of God in the Soul of Man, by the Scottish Puritan, Henry Scougal, a professor at Aberdeen University, he found that since 1738 there was a great hunger in England for the crowds who flocked to hear him in the open air. Soon the High Flyers, or evangelicals in Scotland, were calling him to come up north, and in the summer of 1741, he came to Edinburgh for a thirteen-week preaching tour, through the invitation of the brothers Revd Ralph and Revd Ebenezer Erskine of the Secession Church. He recounts his experiences in August that year:

‘Every morning I have a constant levee of wounded souls… At seven in the morning, we have a lecture in the fields, attended not only by the common people, but persons of great rank. I have reason to think several of the latter sort are coming to Jesus… Congregations consist of many thousands. Never did I see so many Bibles, nor people look into them, when I am expounding, with such attention… I preach twice daily, and expound at private houses at night, and am employed in speaking to souls under distress a great part of the day.’ 

On 24^th September he was stunned by what was happening. He records that ‘On Thursday evening I preached to the children of the city with a congregation of near twenty-thousand in the park.’

The work amongst pupils in Edinburgh was extraordinary in the boarding schools, which were known as ‘Hospitals’. Edward Anderson was an eyewitness teacher at Heriot Hospital (now called George Heriot School), next to Greyfriars’ Kirk, and he wrote a letter to Whitefield expressing his amazement after his preaching. ‘Our Boys seem to be in love with their Bibles and to delight in Prayer,’ he said.‘I have frequently taken course through their Rooms, at ten and eleven o’clock at Night, and found great Numbers in raptures of Devotion… this is their constant practice everyday. The elder Boys teach the young ones to pray, not only by example, but also by advice and Instruction… They abhor Vice… The other Hospitals and they live now in great friendship and love, delighting to talk of the Goodness of God to lost sinners; whereas formerly they were too often falling out. Heriot’s Hospital is now no more a Den of vicious boys, but a Bethel, for there God is worshipped.’

As Whitefield preached it seemed that Scotland, as with England and the colonies of America, was in the grip of a religious revival with thousands becoming Christians. It is not surprising that he had opposition with James ‘Claudero’ Wilson calling him ‘A Zealous, pig-eyed English quack’. Whitefield’s famous revival gathering of about 30,000 at Cambuslang witnessed many deep emotional expressions including shaking, swooning, and crying out, as the people came under a ‘conviction of sin’and turned to Christ. The Moderates tended to scorn the meetings as much as the Enlightenment set, but Alison Cockburn could despairingly write to her friend David Hume, ‘The drinking dens are empty and everyone has gone after Whitefield and Wesley.’

William Smollett exclaimed ‘Imposture and fanaticism still hang upon the skirts of religion. Weak minds were seduced by the delusions of a superstition, styled Methodism… Many thousands were infected with this enthusiasm by the endeavours of a few obscure preachers, such as Whitefield and the Wesleys.’Revd Sydney Smith of the Edinburgh Review could use heavily-laden words and phrases such as ‘fanatics’, ‘lunacy’, and a ‘conspiracy against common sense and rational, orthodox Christianity.’Even those amongst the High Flyers joined in the attack, with Revd Adam Gib, an eminent pastor from Edinburgh, shooting a broadside at Whitefield with a long-titled pamphlet warning people not to attend the meetings because they were ‘Scandalous’and ‘Diabolical’. The Cameronians thought he was ‘a limb of Antichrist’. Even Revd Ralph Erskine, one of the brothers who had first invited him to Scotland a year before the Cambuslang revival, ended up denouncing him.

You would think that Whitefield, with all that abuse and betrayal, would have packed up his bags and returned to England. Instead, he kept coming – fourteen times between 1741 and 1768! He let the changed lives and results speak for themselves. Besides this, whilst the Moderates were debating their philosophies in ‘polite society’ over a bottle of French claret, he was pragmatically collecting money to have the Royal Infirmary built to care for the sick in Edinburgh, and for schools and orphanages in Britain and America.

‘Then the master said to the servant, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled”’ (Luke 14:23, NKJV).

Image: George Whitefield, by Joseph Belcher, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons