nient house built for the minister in another place. After receiving such favours, the minister waited on the ladies, and expressed his desire to know if any thing was in his power that might testify his gratitude to them. They answered, it would oblige them, if he would invite, to assist at his communion, certain ministers, whom they named, who were eminently instrumental in promoting practical religion. The report of this spreading far and near, multitudes of persons of different ranks attended; so that for several days before the sacrament, there was inuch, time spent in social prayer.

It was not usual, it seems, in those times, to have any sermon on the Monday after dispensing the Lord's Supper. But God had given so much of his gracious presence, and afforded his people so much communion with himself, on the foregoing days of that solemnity, that they knew not how to part without thanksgiving and praise. There had been a great number of eminent Christians, and the most useful ministers, from many places, for several days before the sacrament, hearing sermons, and joining together, in larger or smaller companies, in prayer, pra.se, and spiritual conferences, while their hearts were warm with the love of God. Some expressing their desire of a sermon on Monday, Mr. Livingston was the minister pitched on, though then but about twenty-seven years of age. He was not easily persuaded to give the sermon. He spent the night before in prayer and conference; but when he was alone in the fields, about eight or nine in the morning, there came such a misgiving of heart upon him, under a sense of his own unworthiness and unfitness to speak before so many aged and worthy ministers, that he was thinking to steal away, and was actually gone to some distance; but when just about to lose sight of the kirk of Shoth, these words, "Was I ever a barren wilderness, or a land of darkness?" were brought into his heart with such an overcoming power, as to constrain him to return and preach. The text he fixed on, was Ezekiel xxxv. 26. "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh." As he was about to close, a heavy shower of rain

came

came suddenly on, which made the people hastily take to their cloaks and mantles, and he began to speak to the fol lowing purport: "If a few drops of rain from the clouds so discompose ye, how would ye be filled with horror and despair, if God should deal with you according to your de serts! and thus he will deal with all the impenitent. God might justly rain fire and brimstone upon you, as upon Sodom and Gomorrah; the Son of God, by tabernacling in our nature, and obeying and suffering in it, is the only covert from the storm of Divine wrath due to us for sin." In expressions of this sort he was led on about an hour, in a strain of exhortation and warning, with great enlarge ment of heart. At that time there was so convincing an appearance of God, and a down-pouring of the Spirit, even in an extraordinary way, that one writes, "I can speak on sure grounds; near five hundred had, at that time, discernible change wrought on them, of whom most proved lively Christians afterwards."

The following instances are remarkably well attested : On that particular Monday, three young gentlemen of Glasgow had made an appointment to go to Edinburgh, to attend the public diversions there. They alighted at Shoth to breakfast: one of them proposed, as there was a young man to preach, that they should go and hear the sermon, and return as soon as the sermon was ended; but the power of God so accompanied the word, that they could not leave the place till all was concluded. When they returned to the public house to take their horses, they called for some liquor; but not one of them dared to touch it, until they had implored the blessing of the Almighty upon it; nor could they rise from the table until they had returned thanks. Now and then, as they rode along, one would say, "Was it not a great sermon we heard?" and another of the company would answer, "I never heard the like of it before." They proceeded, however, to Edinburgh; where, instead of following their intended diversions and company, they kept their rooms most part of the time; and being soon weary of that town, they staid but two days. They did not mention to each other their concern all the way home; and after their return to Glasgow, they kept much to their rooms: at length one of them made a visit to the other, and mentioned what God had done for him at Shoth; the other frankly owned the concern he was brought

brought under at the same time; and both of them went to the third, who was in the same case. The consequence was that they all agreed directly to begin a fellowship meeting, and turned all eminent and useful Christians.

Another instance of a poor man, who was a stable keeper in Glasgow, and whom a gentlewoman had employed to carry her to Shoth. In the time of the sermon he had taken out his horse to feed at some distance, when the power of God was so much felt in the latter part of the sermon. He observed something extraordinary among the people, and also felt himself affected in a way he could not account for; he hastily rose up, and ran into the congregation, where he was made a sharer of what God was distributing among them that day.

Mr. Livingston was a great instrument in the hand of God, in that remarkable revival at the Six-mile-water in Ireland. In his own writings he says, "I have known them that have come several miles to the communion, spend the whole Saturday night in prayer, attend public ordinance on Sabbath, spend the whole night again in like manner, yet at the Monday's sermon were not weary, nor ever slept till they returned home."

LUTHER, MARTIN, the Great Reformer. We are now to treat of a most wonderful man, whom God raised up to break the chain of superstition and spiritual slavery, which the bishops of Rome and their dependents had, for many centuries, cast over the consciences of men. He was an instrument truly prepared for this great work; and yet but a mean and obscure monk; which may shew us, that He, who ruleth all things, effected himself the important design, in which the greatest prince upon earth would have undoubtedly failed. The conduct of the dignified clergy throughout Europe, had long given scandal to the world. The bishops were grossly ignorant: they seldom resided in their dioceses, except to riot at high festivals: and all the effect their residence could have, was to corrupt others, by their ill example. Nay, some of them could not so much as write, but employed some person, or chaplain who had attained that accomplishment, to subscribe their names for them. They followed the courts of princes, and aspired to the greatest offices. The abbots and monks were wholly given up to luxury and idleness; and the inferior clergy

were

were no better. In short, all ranks of churchmen were universally despised and hated; so that the world was possessed with prejudice against their doctrines, for the sake of the men whose interest it was to support them. These and other things concurred to make way for the advancement of the Reformation.

Wickliffe, Huss, Jerom of Prague, and others, had laid the seeds of the Reformation, which Luther nourished with great warmth. The scandalous extolling of indulgences gave the first occasion to all the contradiction that followed between Luther and the church of Rome; in which, if the corruptions and cruelty of the clergy had not been so visible. and scandalous, so small a matter could not have produced such a revolution; but any crisis will put ill humours into a ferment.

As Protestants, we are certainly much obliged to those great instruments of the Reformation, viz. Luther, Zuinglius, Oecolampadius, Bucer, Melancthon, Cranmer, and others. The greatest enemies of Luther cannot deny, but that he had eminent qualities; and history affords nothing more surprizing than what he had done: for a simple monk to be able to give Popery so rude a shock, that there needed but such another entirely to overthrow the Romish church, is what we cannot sufficiently admire, and marks the hand of Providence conducting the whole.

Martin Luther was born at Isleben, a town in the county of Mansfeld, in Upper Saxony, Nov. 10, 1483, on St. Martin's eve, which caused his parents to name him Martin. His father was called John Luther, or Luder, because he was a refiner of metals; for Luder, in German, has that signification: it is agreed that his business was about the mines; and that he was the chief magistrate of the city of Mansfeld. His mother's name was Margaret Lindeman, who was remarkable for her piety. When Martin Luther was fourteen years of age, he was sent to the public school of Magdeburg, where he continued one year. The circumstances of his parents were at that time so very low, and so insufficient to maintain him, that he was forced to live by begging his bread. From Magdeburg he was sent to the school at Eisenach in Thuringia, for the sake of being among his mother's relations, where he applied himself diligently to his books for four years, and began to discover all that force and strength of parts, that acuteness and pe

netration,

netration, that warm and rapid eloquence, which afterwards were attended with such amazing success. In 1501, he was entered at the university of Erfurt, where he went through a course of philosophy, and was admitted M. A. in 1503, being then twenty years old. He was soon after made professor of physic, and ethics: but he chiefly applied himself to the study of the civil law, and intended to ad vance himself to the bar, from which he was diverted by this uncommon accident. As he was walking in the fields with a friend, he was struck by a thunderbolt, which threw him to the ground, and killed his companion: whereupon Luther resolved to withdraw from the world, and enter into the order of the hermits of St. Augustine. He made his profession in the monastry of Erfurt, where he took priest's orders, and celebrated his first mass in 1507.

It is reported, that there was an old man in this monastry, with whom Luther had several conferences upon many theological subjects, particularly concerning the article of remission of sins. This article was explained by the old monk to Luther, "That it was the express commandment of God, that every man should believe his sins to be forgiven him in Christ." Luther found this interpretation was confirmed by the testimony of St. Bernard, who says, "That man is freely justified by faith." He then perceived the meaning of St. Paul, when he repeats, "We are justified by faith." He consulted the expositions of many writers upon that apostle, and saw through the vanity of those interpretations, which he had read before of the schoolmen. He compared the sayings and examples of the prophets, and apostles: he also studied the works of St. Augustine; but still consulted the sententiaries, as Gabriel and Camarencis. He likewise read the books of Occam, whose subulty he preferred before Thomas Aquinas and Scotus.

In 1508, the university of Wittenberg, in Saxony, was established under the direction of Staupitius, whose good opinion of Luther occasioned him to send for him from Erfurt to Wittenberg, where he tanght philosophy; and his lectures were attended by Mellarstad, and many other wise and learned men. He expounded the logic and philosophy of Aristotle, in the schools; and began to examine the old theology, in the churches.

In 1512, he was sent to Rome, to take up some contro

versies