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

170
EXAMINATIONS OF PERSONS UNDER SPIRITUAL CONCERN II
an acceptable year of the Lord, a Spiritual Jubile to many souls: to which
I heartily agreed, & found my heart enlarg’d in joyful blessing of God that
he had made it a year of jubilee to my Soul & to the souls of many others.
In May 1743 being at Camb. on a Lords day, & hearing a Minr (26) preach
from these words, We were children of wrath as well as others,22 & insisting at
large on our Original guilt & corruption; I was greatly affected with the Sense
of it in my Self. I had got some Conviction and sense of heart-corruptions
about a year before, when first awakened, & many times after that; and some
few days before I heard this Sermon, I had sad Experience of the power of it,
feeling my heart rise against one who was disputing with me & contradicting
what I said; I thought I had got anger & such Corruptions much mortified &
subdued, but finding them stir with such vigour, I was much cast down, &
went & mourn’d to Secret [ ]23 them before the Lord: And coming & hearing
this Sermon, I was greatly afflicted & humbled for these corruptions of my
heart & sin of my nature, beyond whatever I had been formerly before. And
hearing another Sermon (26) shortly after that, on the Text before the [385/9]
Sacrament in May 1743, on that Text, By one mans disobedience many were
made sinners,24 I got still a further humbling sight & sense of my Sinning
in Adam when he sinned, & being made thereby liable to wrath, & yet more
by the pollution & corruption of my nature derived from him: & I wanted
still have further humbling discoveries of this kind made to me. I came to
the Lords Table there, with that in my view, as a great part of my Errand,
that I might get my strong corruptions subdu’d & weak grace strengthned,
& hope the Lord gave me my request in some measure; for I do not find my
corruptions quite so strong as they were. Hearing a Minr (13)25 preach on
that text on []26 Sabbath Evening there, Joh. 16. Several Expressions he had
were brought home to my heart with sweetness & in a suitableness to my
Condition then, & what had been my Exercise for some time before, such
as. That there were two armies in a Believer fighting against one another,
an army of Grace, & an army of Corruptions: that as Jonathan climbd up
between two sharp rocks; so the believer had to climb to heaven, between
the two sharp rocks of presumption & despair: that one thing that made the
believer long to be away to Christ in heaven was that then he would be free
of the Canaanites of Corruptions that now dwell in his heart: and this was
what made me also long to be there. [386/10] On the Munday I found some
Expressions in that Ministers Sermons come very pressingly on my heart,
particularly when he said* Exhorted young people to open their hearts to
Christ, & added, That if they would not do so, Christ would one day tell
22 Eph 2:3.
23 Insertion [‘and bewaild’]: McCulloch.
24 Rojup.
25 John Willison (1680-1750) — minister. South Church, Dundee.
26 Insertion [‘the Communion’]: McCulloch.