Yesterday marked the 349th anniversary of the death (in Rotterdam) of the Covenanter John Livingstone, who was minister in Stranraer from 1638-48. While he was here, ‘his ministry produced a great impression, and his communions were attended by crowds from Ireland’ (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). His diary is in Stranraer Museum.
Kirk of Shotts today
Livingstone is most well known, however, for a sermon he preached at the Kirk of Shotts Revival in June 1630. Livingstone records: ‘'The day in all my life wherein I found most of the presence of God in preaching was on a Monday after the communion in the churchyard of Shotts, June 21, 1630’. He then begins his account of what happened by telling us: ‘The night before I had been in company with some Christians who spent the night in prayer and conference’. One local minister later said that about 500 people were converted that day, and most of them proved to be genuine. This minister attributed what happened to the prayers of the people, saying ‘the night before being spent in prayer, the Monday’s work might be discerned as a convincing return of prayer.’
A flagstone in Edinburgh’s lawnmarket commemorating Lady Culross, unveiled in 2014
Stephen mentioned the above details in a recent sermon entitled ‘Praying for Revitalisation’. What is less well-known, however, is Livingstone’s account of the most memorable prayer preceding the communion. The prayer was by Lady Culross (Elizabeth Melville), the first woman in Scotland to have her writing published.
Livingstone’s record of what happened is preserved for us in Scottish Puritans (Banner of Truth, 2008), pp 346-7. It’s also on the Reformation Scotland website. Livingstone writes:
“At the communion in Shotts, in June 1630, when the night after the Sabbath was spent in prayer by a great many Christians in a large room, where her bed was; and in the morning all going apart for their private devotion, she went into the bed, and drew the curtains, that she might set herself to prayer. William Rigg of Athernie [sometimes spelt Ridge of Adderny] coming into the room, and hearing her have great motion upon her, although she spoke not out, he desired her to speak out, saying that there was none in the room but him and her woman, as at that time there was no other. She did so, and the door being opened, the room filled full. She continued in prayer, with wonderful assistance, for large three hours’ time.”
Lady Culross also penned the well-known encouragement to Rigg when he was imprisoned in Blackness Castle, that “the darkness of Blackness was not the blackness of darkness”. (p. 342).
Related Posts: John Livingstone Commemorated (2019)