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

EXAMINATIONS OF PERSONS UNDER SPIRITUAL CONCERN II
183
[411/-] b.g. A man of 21 years of age.1
I liv’d all along a moral and civil life as to my outward behaviour among
men: but as to my Duty toward God I was very negligent and careless: and
tho I had some kind of form of praying in secret, from my Childhood, yet it
was but a very heartless and lifeless form. I also for ordinary usd to go to the
Kirk, but it on Sabbaths, but it was more for to see and be seen than for any
other thing. Only I was for about two years mostly a Hearer of the Seceding
Ministers: & for that time I heard them, I thought I turn’d more hardned and
obdurd than ever: yet I then thought that I was well enough & fair enough in
the way to Heaven sine I was following them. I had never any concern about
my heart either while I followed them or before, or never felt any thing I heard
in Publick Ordinances come home with any warmness life or power to my
heart, till I came to Cambuslang in the Spring 1742; when I fell under some
concern to see so many persons in distress about their Souls; & I thought,
what a stupid crea- [412/—] Creature must I be who am so unconcerned
when so many young Persons, that cannot be guilty of near so many sins
as I, are thus mourning & crying out under a Sense of their Sins. And one
Sabbath when I was hearing a Minister (26)2 there, speaking concerning a
great many different Cases, I thought, What a Strange Creature am I that he
never touches on my Case, and immediatly after that he spoke some words
which I cannot now remember that came home with a knell to my heart.
Another Sabbath some time after that, hearing a Minister () there preach ©n
that reading these words Eph.2. At that time ye aliens & forreigners strangers
to the Covenant & promises, without God and without Christ in the world,
&c.:3 these words as he read them, by a power that came along with them,
struck my heart, and made me say within my Self, And have I been all this
time living a stranger to God, without God & without Christ in the world:
Surely then there is no help for me. I saw my Self to be such a great Sinner.
At first it was chiefly fears of Hell that startled me, but I afterwards came to
get a more affecting Sense of Sin as dishonouring to God who had been so
merciful & long suffering toward me, than as it exposed me to Hell.
[413/-] That night with much difficulty I got about 4 or 5 miles on my
Road home, and when several persons who had gathered together in the
House where I was, () and some of them persons in distress of soul, were
imployed in Prayer & Praises, I fell under such distress, that I was afraid my
1 Charles Cunningham - the shorthand text in McCulloch’s ‘Index of persons’ names who
gave the foregoing accounts to Mr. McC’ states: shoemaker in Glasgow, born in Corbels.
Taught to write, read the Bible, and got Catechism to heart.
2 William McCulloch (1691-1771) - minister, Cambuslang.
5 Ephana.