Series 6 > McCulloch examinations of the Cambuslang revival (1742) > Volume 6

122
EXAMINATIONS OF PERSONS UNDER SPIRITUAL CONCERN II
[265/-] a.z.1
It pleased God to preserve in a great measure outwardly blameless before
the world all my Life hitherto, sometimes living at home with my Father &
sometimes at service. My Parents brought me up, as they did all their other
Children, in a religious manner. I all along from my Infancy kept up a form of
praying in secret, and now and then read my Bible, and attended on Publick
Ordinances, but rested in these things.
When I was about 17 years of age, I fell under strong Convictions Awakenings,
a little before the Sacrament was to be administred in the Parish, and was much
excited by the motions of the Holy Spirit striving with me, to a Concern to
prepare for the Lords Supper, particularly by that Word that awakned me
one night while I was sleeping. Awake thou Sleeper, and call upon God, and
go forward: at that I immediatly sate up in my bed, but comply’d no further
but sate2 lay down again. But this Awakening had not abiding effects, but
after that Sacrament Occasion [],31 just return’d to my old Course again.
In hearing a Minister (26)4 in December 1741 preach on that Text, We
then as Workers together with him beseech you also that ye receive not the
Grace of God in vain: for he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, & in
the day [266/—] of Salvation have I succoured thee: behold now is the accepted
time, now is the day of Salvation;51 fell under deep Convictions of my Sin
& misery: & was made Sensible that my Original Sin alone, tho I had had no
actual Sin, was enough injustice to damn me for ever. []6
A Weekly Lecture being set up in the Parish on Thursdays, about the first
of February 1742,1 had such a thirst after the Word, and such an earnest desire
to get leave to hear it, particularly on Thursday Febr. 11th, that I sate up a
good part of the night before, spinning at my Wheel, to make up the time
at my Work, that I was to spend next day at the Weekly Lecture, that so my
Master and Mistress might have no ground to complain that I neglected my
Work with them by my going to such Occasions: tho’ this was not what they
required of me, but on the contrary bade me oftner than once, go to my bed.
On Sabbath the 14th of Febry hearing a Minister (26) preach on that Text
Joh. 3.3,5, on which he had been insisting for a long time before, —Except
1 Catherine Jackson - daughter of James Jackson, elder at Cambuslang. Sister of narrative
respondants Janet Jackson (1:15-25 and 11:273-81) and Elizabeth Jackson (1:67-72).
2 Textual overwrite, ‘Lay’ superimposed upon ‘sate’.
3 Insertion [‘was over’]: McCulloch.
4 William McCulloch (1691—1771) - minister, Cambuslang.
5 2 Co 6:1-2.
6 Insertion [‘and from that time my Convictions of actual Sins went on from day to day’]:
McCulloch.