done, and the Act of Anne could no longer be maintained, it was discarded in 1874.

1

The Patronage Act carried dismay into the Presbyterian ranks. All agreed in reprobating it as a most mischievous piece of legislation. The courtly Carstares had done what he could to oppose it; and now that it was passed, he joined with the Covenanting Wodrow in lamenting it. Sagacious men believed that it was preliminary to the reintroduction of Episcopacy. As the bill went up to the Lords, it was not even provided that the presentee should be a Presbyterian; and it was only by the efforts of the Duke of Argyll that a clause to that effect was inserted. Many of the patrons of Scotland were then, as they are still, Episcopalians, and it was dreaded that they might use their rights of presentation to advance the interests of their party. The very worst was anticipated ; and the fears of the ministers were increased by the taunting and triumphant tone of the Jacobites. It is certain that it was chiefly through Jacobite influence that it was brought into the legislature and passed.2

3

The General Assembly met on the 1st of May. At that time it was known in Edinburgh that the Patronage Bill had passed the House of Lords, and had been remitted to the Commons. The royal letter presented by her Majesty's Commissioner, the Duke of Athole, contained a reference to the proceedings of the parliament:-"Lest any late occurrences may have possessed some of you with fears and jealousies, we take this solemn occasion to assure you it is our firm purpose to maintain the Church of Scotland as established by law." The Assembly, in their answer, were honest enough to say, "The late occurrences which your Majesty is pleased to take notice of have, we must acknowledge, possessed us with fears and jealousies." They went farther. They approved of the petitions which the commission had presented to her Majesty while the Toleration and Patronage Bills were in dependence, ordered them to be engrossed in their records, and in the usual address to the queen said, "We, being met in the General Assembly of this Church, do in all humble duty beg leave to put your Majesty farther in mind of the things which were laid before your Majesty by the commission of the last General Assembly, as grievous and prejudicial to this Church; and, indeed, the late occurrences that have happened do so nearly 1 See M'Cormick's Life of Carstares. 2 Lockhart, Papers.

3 Wodrow's Correspondence, vol. i. p. 275.

affect our well-settled and secured Church establishment, that we cannot possibly be silent."1

There was another act passed in this session of parliament which vexed the Presbyterians. The "First Book of Discipline" had denounced the observance of holidays as superstitious, and that they were so was devoutly believed by the whole Presbyterian population. It was one of the marks by which they were distinguished from the Episcopalians. The observation of Christmas and Easter was one of the Articles of Perth against which the Presbyterians rebelled. During the heyday of the Covenant there were frequent fasts, but no festivals. During the dominancy of Episcopacy there was a return to holidays. When William and Mary came to the throne and re-established the Presbyterian Church, the 'first Scottish parliament gratified the feeling of the country by discharging the "Yule Vacancies," and compelling the Lords of Session to continue in the administration of justice without interruption from the 1st of November to the last day of February. But the tide was again turned, Jacobite counsels were followed, Anglican influences were omnipotent, and an act was passed restoring the Christmas Recess. We can now look back upon this measure with religious indifference, and even Presbyterian Lords of Session, so often as Christmas comes round, may feel silently grateful to the act which allows them to eat their Christmas dinner with a digestion unimpaired by the pressure of judicial duties; but it was not so regarded at the time, and, looking to the circumstances in which it was passed, we must pronounce it a wanton insult to the religious prejudices of the nation.

But the Episcopalians had still another measure in store. On the 31st of May, on the motion of Mr Murray, son of Lord Stormont, the House of Commons agreed to address the queen

-"That she would be pleased to apply the rents of the late bishops' lands in North Britain that remained in the crown for the support of such of the Episcopal clergy there as should take the oaths to her Majesty." On the 16th of June, the queen acquainted her faithful Commons that she had acceded to their request. It is certain that many of the Episcopal clergy had been precipitated into abject poverty; collections among the charitable had already been made for them, both in England and Ireland; and if this measure was designed to be merely temporary-to relieve poverty, and not to propagate

1 Acts of Assembly, p. 477.

dissent-every merciful man will pronounce it to be good.1 But when all the measures of this session were taken together -the Toleration Act, the Patronage Act, the Christmas Recess Act, the resolution of the crown to endow the Episcopal clergy out of the bishops' teinds--no marvel that the Presbyterians were dismayed, and began to fear that their days were numbered. Their alarm was increased by whispers that still more ominous measures were in preparation. The General Assembly, it was said, was to be interdicted from meeting, or allowed to meet only to be dissolved.2 The presbyteries were to be compelled to induct all licentiates who received presentations without further form or trial. But time wore on, and the

danger and the dread passed away together.

Reference has already been made to the Abjuration Oath, which, according to the provisions of the Toleration Act, was to be imposed alike upon the Presbyterian and Episcopal clergy. The person who took this oath abjured the Pretender, and promised to support the succession to the crown, as settled by certain specified acts of the English parliament. When these acts were examined they were found to require that the sovereign should be of the communion of the Church of England. This was a stumbling-block to many of the Presbyterians, who argued that if they took the oath they not only assented to this limitation of the crown, but gave their sanction to a form of Church government which they regarded as sinful, and which some of them considered themselves bound by Covenant obligations to extirpate.3

The Assembly of 1712 agreed upon an address to the queen, in which, after strongly declaring their attachment to 1 Carstares had projected a plan for sustaining the ejected curates out of the bishops' teinds. It would appear that this Royal Bounty was never Some years afterwards a measure was brought into parliament for the more effectual attainment of the same object, but it was abandoned.

carried out.

2 M'Cormick's Life of Carstares, p. 83.

3 The following was the obnoxious clause in this oath :-" And I do faithfully promise, to the utmost of my power, to support, maintain, and defend the succession of the crown against him, the said James, and all other persons whatsoever, AS the same is and stands settled by an act, entitled An Act declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject, and settling the Succession of the Crown to her present Majesty and the Heirs of her body, being Protestants; and As the same, by another act, entitled, An Act for the further limitation of the Crown, and better securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subject, is, and stands settled," &c. &c. To satisfy the Presbyterians, the Lords agreed to substitute the word which for the offensive word as, but the Commons refused their sanction to the change.

the succession of the crown in the Protestant line, as entailed on the Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess-Dowager of Hanover, they stated their scruples as to taking the oath.1 But it was not in the power of the queen to dispense with an oath required by act of parliament, and all that the Assembly could intend by this address was to prevent misconceptions in regard to their principles. The law required the oath to be taken, and what was to be done? Some thought that the law must be honoured. Others declared that they would obey God rather than man; that conscience was more to be respected than law. The 28th of October was the last day on which the oath could be taken, and every one put off taking it as long as he could. "The melancholy day," writes Wodrow on the 30th, "is now over."2 Principal Carstares, he goes on to tell, accompanied by a body of his brethren, presented himself before a Justice of the Peace Court in Edinburgh, read a declaration as to the sense in which they understood the oath, then took it, and finally protested in the hands of a notary.3 Scenes of a similar kind happened in Glasgow and other parts of Scotland. But a considerable proportion of the clergy refused to take the oath under any circumstances, and the government did not resort to severity to enforce it.

The Church was now divided into two factions—the Jurants and Nonjurants. As a matter of course, they mutually upbraided one another. The Nonjurants reproached the Jurants as traitors to the good old cause. The Jurants flung in the face of the Nonjurants that they loved their own needless scruples more than the peace and prosperity of the Church. In some districts of the country the Covenanting spirit was still strong, and there the people forsook the Jurants, as sinful temporizers, and flocked in crowds to the ministry of the Nonjurants. The danger of a schism in the Church was imminent. When the Assembly met in 1713, by the tact and influence of Carstares, an act was passed for maintaining unity and peace, in which these divisions were deplored, schism was deprecated, and all were exhorted to mutual forbearance and charity.*

This act helped to soothe the agitation which had arisen, but still the Jurants and Nonjurants continued, in some cases,

1 Acts of Assembly, pp. 467-70.

2 Wodrow's Correspondence, vol. i. pp. 321, 322.

3 Lockhart, who was present, gives a somewhat disingenuous account of this matter. (Papers, vol. i.) 4 Acts of Assembly, p. 482.

to keep aloof from one another. The Nonjurants especially, priding themselves on their superior merits, avoided their brethren. When the sacramental season came round, they invited only those of their own way of thinking to assist them, and their tents were surrounded by a vast multitudé, congregated from every part of the country. Some ministers went further. One debarred from the communion-table all who had taken the sinful oath. Another declared in his sermon, that every minister who had taken it was guilty of three great sins: -he had renounced the Solemn League and Covenant; he had taken the crown off Christ's head, and set it on the queen's ; he had caused a division in the Church which was like to be followed by dismal consequences. Others read the oath from

the pulpit, and then told the people that to take it was to bury the Reformation, and put the gravestone on the League; and that the next step in the downward progress would be to embrace Prelacy and set up its ceremonies.1 A schism was in fact begun. Some of the Nonjurants refused to meet with their brethren in presbyteries and synods; and, looking upon the parishes of those who had sworn the oath as lacking a true ministry, they did not hesitate to enter them, and baptize the children which were brought to them by admiring parents.2 The more sober Nonjurants condemned and deplored these extremes, but still they were carried so far that the Assembly a second time had to utter its voice against them. Five years afterwards the oath was altered, and a subject which caused many heart-burnings, and shook the Church to its very foundations, is now altogether forgotten, or remembered only to make us marvel that so small a spark should have kindled so great a flame.

In the Assembly which met in May 1714, it was thought proper to address the queen regarding the religious state of the country. It was declared that Popery was on the increase; that in a few parishes several hundreds had lately gone over to it; and that Popish bishops and priests openly celebrated mass, gave confirmation, met for worship in chapels, and seduced the people. The Episcopalians were represented as equally insolent. Not satisfied with using the

1 Wodrow's Correspondence, vol. i. p. 340.

2 Acts of Assembly, p. 489.

3 Wodrow was a Nonjurant, and deplored such devisive courses; even Boston, who was generally somewhat violent in his ways, condemned those who went so far.