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DURHAM, JAMES, "that
singular wise and faithful servant of Jesus Christ," was by birth a
gentleman. He was descended from the family of Grange-Durham, in the
shire of Angus, and was proprietor of the estate of Easter Powrie, now
called Wedderburn. From his age at the time of his death, he appears to
have been born in 1622. We have but few memorials of his early life.
Leaving college before taking any degree, he retired to his paternal
estate, where he lived for some years as a country gentleman. At an
early period he married a daughter of the laird of Duntarvie; and soon
afterwards, while on a visit to one of her relations, became deeply
impressed with religious feelings. [The following account of his
conversion is given in Wodrow’s Analecta (MS. Adv. Lib.): "He was young
when he married, and was not for a while concerned about religion. He
came with his lady to visit his mother-in-law, the lady Duntarvie, who
lived in the parish of the Queensferry. There fell at that time a
communion to be in the Queensferry, and soe the lady Duntarvie desired
her son-in-law, Mr Durham, to go and hear sermon upon the Saturday, and
for some time he would by no means go, till both is lady and his
mother-in-law, with much importunity, at last prevailed with him to go.
He went that day, and heard very attentively; he seemed to be moved that
day by the preacher being very serious in his discourse, so that there
was something wrought in Mr Durham that day; but it was like an embryo.
When he came home, he said to his mother-in-law, ‘Mother, ye had much
ado to get me to the church this day: but I will goe to-morrow without
your importuning me.’ He went away on the Sabbath morning, and heard the
minister of the place, worthy Mr Ephraim Melvine, preach the action
sermon upon 1 Pet. 2.7, and Mr Durham had these expressions about his
sermon: ‘He commended him, he commended him, again and again, till he
made my heart and soul commend him;’ and soe he immediately closed with
Christ, and covenanted, and went down immediately to the table, and took
the seal of the covenant; and after that he became a most serious man."]
On his return home, he devoted himself almost wholly to study, in which
he made great proficiency, and we are told, "became not only an
experimental Christian, but a learned man." He did not, however,
contemplate becoming a clergyman, till the time of the civil wars, in
which he served as a captain. On one occasion, before joining battle
with the English, he called his company together to prayer. Mr David
Dickson riding past, heard some one praying, drew near him, and was much
struck with what he heard. After the service was finished, he charged
him, that as soon as the action was over, he should devote himself to
the ministry, "for to that he judged the Lord had called him." During
the engagement, Mr Durham met with two remarkable deliverances, and
accordingly, considered himself bound to obey the stranger’s charge, "as
a testimony of his grateful and thankful sense of the Lord’s goodness
and mercy to him."
With this resolution, he
came to the college of Glasgow, where he appears to have taken his
degree, [See Letter of Principal Baillie in M’Ure’s History of Glasgow,
ed. 1830, p. 364.] and to have studied divinity under his celebrated
friend David Dickson. The year 1647, in which he received his license,
was one of severe pestilence. The masters and students of the university
removed to Irvine, where Mr Durham underwent his trials, and received a
recommendation from his professor to the presbytery and magistrates of
Glasgow. Though now only about twenty-five years of age, study and
seriousness of disposition had already given him the appearance of an
old man. The session of Glasgow appointed one of their members to
request him to preach in their city, and after a short period, "being
abundantly satisfied with Mr Durham’s doctrine, and the gifts bestowed
upon him by the Lord, for serving him in the ministry, did unanimously
call him to the ministry of the Blackfriars’ church, then vacant."
Thither he removed in November, the same year. In 1649, Mr Durham had a
pressing call from the town of Edinburgh, but the general assembly, to
whom it was ultimately referred, refused to allow his translation. In
his ministerial labours he seems to have exercised great patience and
diligence, nor was he wanting in that plainness and sincerity towards
the rich and powerful, which is so necessary to secure esteem. When the
republican army was at Glasgow, in 1651, Cromwell came unexpectedly on a
Sunday afternoon to the outer high church, where Mr Durham preached
graciously and well to the time, as could have been desired," according
to principal Baillie; in plainer language, "he preached against the
invasion to his face." [Wodrow’s Life of Dickson, MS. p. xix. In the
Analecta of this historian (MS. Adv. Liv. v. 186, occurs the following
curious particulars: " – tells me, he had this account from old
Aikenhead, who had it from the gentlewoman. That Cromwell came in to
Glasgow, with some of his officers, upon a Sabbath day, and came
straight into the high church, where Mr Durham was preaching. The first
seat that offered him was P(rovost) Porterfield’s, where Miss
Porterfield sat, and she, seeing him an English officer, she was almost
not civil. However, he got in and sat with Miss Porterfield. After
sermon was over, he asked the minister’s name. She sullenly enough told
him, and desired to know wherefore he asked. He said, ‘because he
perceived him to be a very great man, and in his opinion might be
chaplain to any prince in Europe, though he had never seen him nor heard
of him before. She enquired about him and found it was O. Cromwell."]
The story is thus concluded by his biographer:—"Next day, Cromwell sent
for Mr Durham, and told him, that he always thought Mr Durham had been a
more wise and prudent man than to meddle with matters of public concern
in his sermons. To which Mr Durham answered, that it was not his
practice to bring public matters into the pulpit, but that he judged it
both wisdom and prudence in him to speak his mind upon that head, seeing
he had the opportunity of doing it in his own hearing. Cromwell
dismissed him very civilly, but desired him to forbear insisting upon
that subject in public. And at the same time, sundry ministers both in
town and country met with Cromwell and his officers, and represented in
the strongest manner the injustice of his invasion." [Life prefixed to
Treatise concerning Scandal. Cromwell seems to have received "great
plainness of speech" at the hands of the ministers of Glasgow. On a
former occasion, Zachary Boyd had railed on him to his face in the high
church; on the present, we are informed, that "on Sunday, before noon,
he came unexpectedly to the high inner church, where he quietly heard Mr
Robert Ramsay preach a very good honest sermon, pertinent for his case.
In the afternoon, he came as unexpectedly to the high outer church,
where he heard Mr John Carstairs lecture, and Mr James Durham preach
graciously, and well to the time, as could have been desired. Generally,
all who preached that day in the town, gave a fair enough testimony
against the sectaries." – Baillie ut supra.]
In the year 1650, when Mr
Dickson became professor of divinity at Edinburgh college, the
commissioners for visiting that of Glasgow, appointed by the general
assembly, unanimously called Mr Durham to the vacant chair. But before
he was admitted to this office, the assembly nominated him chaplain to
the king’s family; a situation in which, though trying, more especially
to a young man, he conducted himself with great gravity and
faithfulness. While he conciliated the affections of the courtiers, he
at the same time kept them in awe; "and whenever," says his biographer,
"he went about the duties of his place, they did all carry gravely, and
did forbear all lightness and profanity." The disposition of Charles,
however, was little suited to the simplicity and unostentatious nature
of the presbyterian worship, and although Mr Durham may have obtained
his respect, there is little reason to believe that he liked the check
which his presence imposed.
Livingston mentions that
Mr Durham offered to accompany the king when he went to Worcester,—an
offer which, as may have been anticipated, was not accepted. The session
of Glasgow, finding that he was again at liberty, wrote a letter to him
at Stirling, in which they expressed the warmest feelings towards him.
"We cannot tell," say they, "how much and how earnestly we long once
more to see your face, and to hear a word from you, from whose mouth the
Lord has often blessed the same, for our great refreshment. We do,
therefore, with all earnestness request and beseech you, that you would,
in the interim of your retirement from attendance upon that charge,
(that of king’s chaplain,) let the town and congregation, once and yet
dear to you, who dare not quit their interest in you, nor look on that
tie and relation betwixt you and them as dissolved and null, enjoy the
comfort of your sometimes very comfortable fellowship and ministry."
From the letter it would appear, that Mr Durham did not yet consider
himself released from his appointment in the king’s family; but with the
battle of Worcester terminated all the fond hopes of the royalists.
Finding the household thus broken up, there could be no objection to his
returning to his former residence. He is mentioned as present in the
session in April, and it was at this period that his interview with
Cromwell took place, but for several months afterwards he seems to have
withdrawn. In August, a vacancy in the inner high church arose from the
death of Mr Robert Ramsay, and Mr Durham was earnestly requested to
accept the charge. He accordingly entered upon it in the course of the
same year (1651), having for his colleague Mr John Carstairs, his
brother-in-law by his second marriage, and father of the afterwards
celebrated principal of the university of Edinburgh. (See article
CARSTAIRS.) In the divisions which took place between the resolutioners
and protesters, Mr Durham took neither side. When the two parties in the
synod of Glasgow met separately, each elected him their moderator, but
he refused to join them, until they should unite, and a junction
fortunately took place. The habits of severe study in which he had
indulged since his entry into the ministry, seem to have brought on a
premature decay of his constitution. After several months of
confinement, he died on the 25th of June, 1658, at the early age of
thirty-six. ["Mr Durham was a person of the outmost composure and
gravity, and it was much made him smile. In some great man’s house, Mr
William Guthry and he were together at dinner, and Mr Guthry was
exceeding merry, and made Mr Durham smile, yes laugh, at his pleasant
facetious conversation. It was the ordinary of the family to pray after
dinner, and immediately after their mirth it was put upon Mr Guthry to
pray, and, as he was wont, he fell immediately into the greatest measure
of seriousness and fervency, to the astonishment and moving of all
present. When he rose from prayer, Mr Durham came to him, and embraced
him, and said ‘O,! Will, you are a happy man. If I had been soe daft as
you have been, I could not have been serious, nor in any frame, for
forty-eight hours.’" – Wodrow’s Ana. iii. 133.]
Mr Durham’s first
marriage has been noticed in the early part of this sketch. His second
wife was the widow of the famous Zachary Boyd, and third daughter of
William Mure of Glanderston, in Renfrewshire. This lady seems to have
survived him many years, and to have been a zealous keeper of
conventicles. Several of her sufferings on this account are noticed by
Wodrow in his History.
It would be tiresome to
the reader to enter into a detail of Mr Durham’s different works, and
their various editions. He has long been, and still continues one of the
most popular writers in Scotland. [ Abridged from a Memoir of Durham
prefixed to his Treatise concerning Scandal, Glas. 1740, 12mo.]
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