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fluential ministers, begging them to observe moderation. The great patron of Presbyterianism, the Earl of Crawford, was busy among his friends, telling them how much depended upon their conduct, and that a reverse of fortune was not impossible if their violence was unbearable. They were urged to do little more than meet, take possession as it were of the fabric of the Church, and then dissolve, leaving legislation to calmer times.1

The 16th of November came, and the General Assembly met, after an interval of forty years.2 Gabriel Cunningham, who had presided at a meeting of ministers and elders to arrange matters for the gathering of the Assembly after so long an interval, occupied the chair, till a new Moderator was chosen. Lord Carmichael appeared as his Majesty's Commissioner, and presented a letter in which the king, with brief but significant emphasis, said, "We expect that your management shall be such as we shall have no reason to repent of what we have done. A calm and peaceable procedure will be no less pleasing to us than it becometh you. We never could be of the mind that violence was suited to the advancing of true religion; nor do we intend that our authority shall ever be a tool to the irregular passions of any party. Moderation is what religion enjoins, neighbouring Churches expect from, and we recommend to you.3

The first important deed of the Assembly was receiving into the Church the three Cameronian ministers-for there were only three-Thomas Lining, Alexander Shields, and William Boyd. They laid before the Assembly a longer paper and a shorter one: the Assembly received them upon the statement and submission made in the latter, and refused to allow the former to be read, "in regard that though there be several good things in it, yet the same doth also contain several peremptory and gross mistakes, unreasonable and impracticable proposals, and uncharitable and injurious reflections, tending rather to kindle contentions than to compose divisions." 4

1 See Leven and Melville Papers.

This Assembly consisted of about a hundred and eighty members, lay and clerical. There were no representatives from the north.

3 See Acts of General Assembly, published by Church Law Society,

P. 222.

Acts of Assembly, pp. 224, 225. This paper was afterwards published as a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of the Methods and Motives of the late Union and Submission to the Assembly, 1690;" and a very

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Such is the history of this transaction as it is to be gathered from the records of the Assembly, but under it there is another history more secret and more marvellous. From the time the Prince of Orange landed in the country, and Presbytery was likely to be established, the ministers of the Society people had shown a disposition to forget the differences which had separated them from their Presbyterian brethren, and concur with them in building up the Revolution Church. But the people had become sterner and stricter than their ministers, as is frequently the case, and declared they could not join hands with such men till they acknowledged their defections, and, in public synod, condemned them. Hamilton of Preston, who had fled to Holland after the rout of Bothwell, was now come back his fanaticism was not abated by his banishment; he was revered by the Societies as a prophet and a king, and he counted it his duty to relieve his burdened conscience by protesting against the acknowledgment of the Prince of Orange, without his having taken the Covenants; against the Earl of Angus's regiment, as a sinful association with malignants; and against joining with ministers from whom they had withdrawn, till first they acknowledged their sins.

Meetings were held, reasons were given for and against, and bitterness and wrath reigned in these assemblies of the saints. When we hear all, we shall not marvel that the ministers were anxious to escape from the spirit they had evoked. They had no voice in their own Societies. They were kept merely to preach and administer the sacraments to such as the Societies deemed worthy-a chosen few. A class of men had arisen who overrode the ministers, and ruled all things. When a general meeting was held, the ministers were put to the door; when a decision was come to, they were called in to hear it. In fact, to such a subordinate place had the ministerial gift been degraded, that all the Societies in Scotland had generally but one minister; after the death of Cameron, Cargill alone remained; after the death of Cargill, Renwick was raised up; after the death of Renwick, Lining was ordained; and in 1688 at least, Shields and Boyd were only preachers. It is impossible to read the annals of these times without being struck by the strong likeness between these Covenanting

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full abstract is given in the Epistle to the Reader appended to Walker's "Life of Renwick. "" Mr Napier in his "Memorials of Claverhouse,' confounds it with an entirely different document. (See Edinburgh Review, July 1863, pp. 27, 28, Article by Author of this History.)

Societies and the congregations now in Caithness and Ross, where "the Men "" are dominant. Fanaticism, driven by the light of advancing civilisation from the south and west, appears to have taken refuge in the far north, where it unhappily lingers still.1

Lining, Shields, and Boyd had made up their minds to join the Church, and did it, notwithstanding that the paper in which they mentioned the backslidings of the land and its breaches of Covenant was suppressed. But their followers were not so bent upon what they regarded as a weak and wicked compliance. A document containing their views was drawn up, and a deputation hurried to Edinburgh to present it to the Assembly. In this document they declared how affecting it had been for them to behold many ministers join hands with the perjured Prelatic hirelings and intruders; that it was an augmentation of their sorrow to see many others accepting an indulgence which flowed from the supremacy of Christ bestowed upon a miserable mortal; and a sad stumbling-block to see others faintly fleeing the country or lurking in hiding-places who ought to have put the trumpet to their mouth, and given forth a certain sound. They declared that it had been humbling to them, when iniquity was established by law, to see ministers yielding obedience, taking sinful oaths themselves, and teaching others to do so too; and very burdensome to their consciences, when a Popish toleration was granted, to think that many had taken advantage of it, and rendered thanks to the Popish tyrant. These things had been done and had not been repented of. Ministers were hiding their sins, instead of mourning over them. The Covenants, moreover, had not been renewedthey had not even been mentioned; the sovereigns were not asked to purge England and Ireland of Prelacy; and the period between 1638 and 1649, being years of the right hand of the Most High, had not been revived; curates were suffered to continue in their parishes, and many who had been guilty

1

Another confirmation of this opinion is to be found in the sentence of deposition passed by the Assembly of 1705 upon John Hepburn, who appears to have inherited the principles of the Cameronians, and fraternized with the remnant of them. "And in particular," the sentence proceeds, "finding that he asserted that communicating with persons scandalous made those that communicate with them guilty of unworthy communicating—that he neither has dispensed the Holy Sacrament of the Supper to others, nor partaken thereof himself, for more than sixteen years," &c. Such cases have been heard of in days not remote.

of gross degrees of compliance were not debarred from the sacraments by the discipline of the Church.

Happily this paper was arrested in its progress to the Assembly by the Committee of Overtures. It had been safer to have brought into the Assembly-house a box of detonating gunpowder; for three-fourths of the clerical conclave were implicated in the imaginary crimes which were so minutely detailed, and their anger would undoubtedly have burned against the plain-speaking Cameronians. The committee told the deputation that their paper could not be received, but tried to satisfy their scruples by saying that God's causes of wrath against the land would be carefully specified in the act appointing a national fast.1

The Societies were indignant at the treatment they received. They thought their peculiar principles were the salt of the Church, and now they were quietly thrown aside. They abused their ministers for having betrayed them; they abused themselves, with the same good-will with which the monks scourged their own backs, for having owned the Prince of Orange, for having owned the Convention, for having owned the Assembly. They were at a loss as to what they should do. They had now no ministers. Some of them thought they might go and hear the Presbyterian ministers, after giving in to them a written protest against their backslidings, and setting their sins before their face. Some of them kept carefully aloof from the Presbyterian Church altogether, as from an accursed thing. In time they managed to get a minister who thought like themselves. But they soon sunk into insignificance. The importance which attached to them when they were hanged for attending a field conventicle no longer belonged to them when they were allowed to meet where they pleased, preach what they pleased, and mourn over the backslidings of their brethren as long as they pleased. Still they linger on, a very small remnant, and may be regarded as the first-born of Scottish Dissenters. They hold a religious creed which is inconsistent with their political duties; but their peculiar faith is only a tradition, and is quite inoperative. Speculatively, they do not recognise the monarch, for she has not subscribed the Covenants; they do not pay 1 I have taken my account of these proceedings from a book which may be considered as authoritative-"Faithful Contendings Displayed ". almost copying the language of the documents referred to.

2 A copy of a paper of this kind, which was proposed, and perhaps in some cases used, is given in the "Faithful Contendings.'

taxes; they do not exercise the franchise; but practically, they discharge these duties as honestly and well as the most loyal subjects in the realm.

But we must return to the Assembly from which we have wandered, to follow the career of the children of the Covenant. It was thought necessary that a national fast should be held; but it was made subject of debate as to what were the sins for which they should mourn. Some ministers, more zealous than wise, insisted that in the act appointing the fast there should be a careful catalogue of sinful compliances, such as taking the Test Oath and acknowledging the Episcopate; and it is abundantly evident that, if this had been done, some wounds, instead of being healed, would have been opened up anew, and the day of fasting, instead of being consecrated to humiliation, would have been devoted to malignity, evil-speaking, and strife. Happily prudence prevailed, and the act was carefully worded, mentioning only such sins as most would readily acknowledge to be sins, and alluding to others only in a general way. Besides this, the Assembly made some regulations regarding the union of presbyteries where their complement of ministers was incomplete; regarding the celebration of marriage, the reclaiming of Papists, the public administration of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; and for a supply of Irish Bibles and catechisms to the Highland parishes. The Assembly farther annulled all the anathemas and excommunications thundered thirty or forty years ago by the Resolutioners and Protesters against each other; and finally appointed two commissions, one to visit the country to the north of the Tay, and the other the country to the south of the Tay, to purge out of the ministry all who should be found to be insufficient, supinely negligent, scandalous, or erroneous, and to see that all who were retained in the Church and admitted to its government signed the Confession of Faith, and submitted to the Presbyterian discipline.1 After sitting for nearly a month, the Assembly adjourned, and Lord Carmichael had the happiness to report to his government that all its proceedings had been characterised by moderation.2 The high principles of the Covenanting period had been allowed to sink into silence. Some wished the king to be informed in the letter which they sent him, that Presbytery was not only in accord

The Instructions given to the commissions are to be found in the Acts of Assembly, p. 232.

2 Leven and Melville Papers.

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