liturgy in their meeting-houses, some of them had read it in parish churches. A mob of Episcopalians had seized upon the Old Church of Aberdeen, and had set up their worship in it. But with all their love for the liturgy, it was told they either altogether omitted the prescribed prayers for her Majesty, or so altered them that their words would apply equally well to the Pretender.1 Wodrow's Correspondence corroborates these statements. The Papists and the Episcopalians were equally busy. The former celebrated their worship with a publicity upon which they had not ventured since the flight of James VII., and the latter were reading their liturgy everywhere. More than this, they were scandalising the Presbyterians by putting on their canonicals at burials, and reading the Service for the Dead at the grave. Some of them even held kirk-sessions and exercised church discipline, absolving those whom the Presbyterians would have condemned.

Before another Assembly met Queen Anne was no more. She died on the 1st of August, the last of the long line of Stewarts who have occupied the throne. She was a princess of mean abilities, and seldom thought or acted for herself; but her private character was irreproachable; and she was surrounded by statesmen and soldiers, whose great talents have given a lustre to her reign. The consummate eloquence of Oxford and Bolingbroke guided her counsels; the martial genius of Marlborough led her armies to victory; and the great names of Swift, Addison, and Pope, make many say that English literature reached its acme in the days of Queen Anne. The Union of the two kingdoms, however, will ever be remembered as the chief glory of her reign.

The queen herself had engaged in plots to secure the succession to her brother, the son of the unfortunate James, but upon her death George Louis, Elector of Hanover, was peaceably proclaimed king, and arriving in the country soon afterwards, assumed the government by the style and title of George I. The Tories were now dismissed from office; Bolingbroke and Ormond, under the dread of impeachment, fled, and every place of emolument and trust was placed in the hands of the Whigs.

The accession of George I. gave unmingled satisfaction to the Presbyterian population of Scotland. It was a pledge of the continuance of their ecclesiastical polity. The monarch

1 Acts of Assembly, p. 491.

did everything to assure them of his favour. In the midst of a brilliant gathering of English and Scotch nobles he took the oath required by the Act of Security. When the Assembly met in May 1715, he thanked them for the proofs they had given of their loyalty and affection, and assured them that he would inviolably maintain their Presbyterian Church in all its rights and privileges. The Assembly, full of gratitude, returned an answer characterised by piety and wisdom.1

That address is signed by William Carstares. He had presided in this Assembly with his usual dignity; but he was never to sit in an earthly Assembly more. In the month of August he was struck by apoplexy, and though he partly recovered from it, his faculties were impaired, and he lingered on in a lethargic state till the 28th of December, when he expired. In him the Church of Scotland lost her wisest counsellor and her greatest benefactor. She owed her very existence to him. He was both a great and a good man. Though long the inmate of a court, he never forgot for a moment his sacred office; and the pressure of public business, in which he was continually involved, never deadened him to religious feeling or family affection. His charity was unbounded, and was made doubly beautiful by the kindly and unostentatious way in which it was administered. He was interred in the Greyfriars Churchyard. When his body was being lowered into the grave, two mourners were observed to go aside from the company and burst into tears. It was found they were two Episcopal clergymen, whose families, for a considerable time, had been supported by his alms.2

While Carstares was dying the flame of rebellion was spreading through the country. The premature death of Anne had spoiled the plots of the Jacobites, but they felt that now if ever was the time to make an effort to restore the ancient dynasty. The Earl of Mar, who had been Secretary of State for Scotland during the previous reign, received a commission from the Pretender to be his commander-in-chief in the north, and set up the royal standard among the hills of Braemar. The Marquises of Huntly and Tullibardine, the Earls of Marischal and Southesk, hastened to join him. The Highland clans, faithful to their old allegiance, were speedily

2

Acts of Assembly, pp. 496-98.

See his Life by M'Cormick. Also Dr Story's Life of William Car

stares.

in motion, and in a few weeks more entered Perth nine thousand strong. On the 13th of November the battle of Sheriffmuir was fought, which, though not decisive, checked the advance of the rebel army.

On Christmas Day the Pretender landed at Peterhead, attended by a few friends. The Episcopal clergy in the north had begun to mention him in their prayers. Some of them now hastened to present him with an humble address, owning him as their only king. A day of thanksgiving for his safe landing was fixed, and set forms of prayer prescribed;1 but the prince himself scrupulously avoided being present at the Protestant service.

Toward the end of January, the Duke of A.D. 1716. Argyll found himself strong enough to advance upon Perth. Upon his approach the Pretender retired to Montrose; and, seeing that his fortunes were desperate, he took shipping and sailed for France. The main body of his army fled to the North; and on reaching Badenoch it broke up, and every man shifted for himself. So ended the Rebellion of 1715.

At this testing time the Presbyterians proved their attachment to the house of Hanover. They felt that their religion depended on the issue. Notwithstanding the dissatisfaction which still continued regarding the Union, very few of them joined the rebels. Scarcely a single minister gave them the benefit of his prayers, saving a few who did it to save their lives. Even the M'Millanites, notwithstanding their repeated testimonies against uncovenanted kings, talked of taking arms, if need were, in defence of the government, provided they were allowed to fight by themselves, and not brought into sinful association with malignants. When all was over, and the Assembly met in May amid profound peace, an address was voted to his Majesty, which, abandoning the stately stiffness

2

1 A Collection of Original Letters and Authentick Papers relating to the Rebellion in 1715. Edinburgh, 1730. The following is a specimen of the prayers. The rubric is-Instead of the first collect for morning prayer shall be used this following :"-" O Lord God of our salvation, who has been exceeding gracious to this land, and by Thy miraculous providence hast delivered Thy servant, our dread sovereign King James, from all the snares and conspiracies laid against his most precious life by unnatural and blood-thirsty men, and has preserved him in the dangers of the deep, and brought him safely into his own dominions, to the comfort of all those who, in obedience to Thy Holy Word, fear God and honour the king," &c., &c.

? Wodrow's Correspondence, vol. ii,

of such compositions, breaks out in the most florid and jubilant language of felicitation.

As many of the Episcopal clergy had openly taken part with the Pretender, they could scarcely expect to escape the punishments which await the vanquished. Those of them who occupied parish churches were summoned before their presbyteries and deposed. Those of them who worshipped in meeting-houses were brought before the magistrates. Their chapels were shut, and themselves in many cases thrown into prison. The Oaths of Allegiance and Abjuration were pressed imperatively upon all; and those who refused to take them were declared to be unqualified to exercise any of their sacred functions, and a heavy blow was thus given to Episcopacy, whose cause was now nearly as forlorn as was that of the prince it had so faithfully served.1 But we must now turn to

other subjects.

The Church of Scotland allows little latitude of belief within her pale. Her creed descends to the minutest details; and just five years before the time at which we have arrived, she had imposed upon her clergy a Formula of Subscription more rigid than that prescribed by Act of Parliament. It is not so

with other Churches. The Church of Rome has cherished in her bosom children of different forms and different featuresthe Scotists and Thomists, the Jansenists and Molinists-such men as Contarini, and such as Tetzel. The Church of England has been almost as catholic. It was once said of her that she had a Calvinistic creed, a Romish liturgy, and an Arminian clergy; and the various phases of faith which have now been judicially sanctioned are so wide as to justify the saying. Her maxim seems to be that the basis must be wide if the building would be high. Accordingly, among the divines who have eaten at her table, and been honoured with her smiles, there are some who, with Popish names, would pass for Popish priests; others who have taught an uncompromising Calvinism; others who have been the stoutest defenders of 1 Following up these measures, an act was passed in April 1719, "For making more effectual the laws appointing the oaths for the security of the government to be taken by ministers of churches and meeting-houses within Scotland." By this act, every Episcopal minister performing divine service in any meeting-house, without having taken the oaths in the terms of the Toleration Act, and praying for King George and the royal family by name, was to suffer six months' imprisonment, and to have his meeting-house shut up for the same period. The Episcopal clergy did not comply with this law, but still they and their meeting-houses were connived at by the government.

Arminius; others who have written in defence of Arianism; others who have held a purely negative creed. There is the High Churchman, the Low Churchman, and the Broad Churchman-filling the whole middle space between Romanism and Rationalism. But not so with the Church of Scotland. Down to the middle of the present century all her ministers spoke precisely the same things. The mind of each one reproduced with wonderful distinctness all the theological conclusions of the Westminster Divines. Notwithstanding the independence of the Scotch intellect, it was seldom exercised upon forms of faith. Notwithstanding the free scope of its metaphysics, the region of theology was carefully avoided. Notwithstanding the schisms which had taken place, heresy was never able to lift up her head. Every Scotsman you met with, in whatever corner of the globe it might be, was sure to be rigidly orthodox. Amid all the winds of doctrine which had blown since the Reformation, the Church had been kept steadily at her moorings by the weight of her anchorage. With the terrors of deposition before their eyes few Scotch ministers have dared to think for themselves.

But notwithstanding this marvellous uniformity of faith, the Church Courts have required, in a few instances, to deal with heresy. One of these instances occurred at this period. Rumours had got afloat that John Simson, Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow, was teaching Arminianism. This was polluting the stream at the fountain-head. The Presbytery of Glasgow, where Simson appears to have been liked, did not meddle with the matter; but Mr Webster, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, zealous for the purity of doctrine, brought the reports which were in circulation before the Assembly of 1714, and was instructed by it to table his complaint before the Presbytery of Glasgow, of which Simson was a member. He did so; and the Professor of Divinity gave in answers to his charges.1 The whole matter was again brought up before the Assembly which met in 1715, where it excited a good deal of debate; but finally a committee of thirty ministers and six elders was appointed to investigate the truth of the charges, with instructions as to how they were to proceed. They were to separate the alleged heretical propositions into three classes: those which were contrary to the Word of God and Confession; those which were controverted by orthodox divines, and not determined

1 Wodrow's Correspondence, vol. ii.