1592. 1567 their path, had had no existence. The delinquent being CHAP. III. 10 fully convicted of the offence charged against him, the assembly found that he was "worthy to be deprived, in all time coming, of the ministry, and that the sentence of excommunication should strike upon him, except he prevented it by repentance." Overawed, for the time at least, by Firmness of the firmness of the assembly, Montgomery presented him- bly. Muntself at the bar of the house; withdrew his appeal to the succumbs. civil power; and with many professions of sorrow for his offence, and solemnly engaging to renounce the archbishopric, threw himself on the clemency of the church. The the assem gomery renewed, having broken his pledge. The contest was by no means at a close. Although the The contest assembly, in their earnest desire for peace, accepted Mont- Montgomery gomery's submission, and abstained from pronouncing the sentence his conduct had merited, they knew the man too well to repose much confidence in anything he said or did. Combining, therefore, vigilance with forbearance, the presbytery of Glasgow were instructed to keep an eye on his movements, while the presbytery of Edinburgh were at the same time empowered and directed to issue the suspended sentence of excommunication on the instant of their being certified that his present engagements were broken. necessity for such precautions very soon appeared; urged on by Lennox, who was impatient to get possession of the archiepiscopal revenues, and by the court and king, who were not less intent on the maintenance of so convenient a system as the tulchan prelacy, his own weak brain too still dazzled by the lustre of the forbidden mitre, Montgomery forgot all his pledges to the assembly, and once more renewed his acceptance of the illegal office. The presbytery of Glasgow, hearing of this treacherous conduct, were proceeding to follow out the instructions of the assembly upon Calderwood, vol. iii., p. 602, Wodrow edition. the Presby- to 1592 CHAP. III. the subject when the provost of the city, attended by other 1567 Assault upon local authorities and followed by a crowd of supporters, rushed into their place of meeting. One of these intruders with unmanly violence struck the moderator on the face, and that with such force as to dash out one of his teeth: not contented with this brutal assault, they dragged him from his chair and threw him into prison. With a christian heroism which did them honour, the other members who remained, at once chose another moderator, and, undaunted by what had occurred, they executed to the letter the instructions of the assembly, and transmitted without delay an account of the whole proceedings to the presbytery of Edinburgh. The metropolitan presbytery were not less prompt and resolute in the discharge of their duty in this Sentence of perilous affair. They pronounced the sentence of excomcation munication against Montgomery, and thus left the state, if Montgomery it should be determined to thrust him into the archbishopric, pronounced. to put the venal mitre on the head, not of a minister of the excommuni against Extent to which the Erastianism church of Scotland, but of one who had become to that It is not unimportant to observe, what this memorable principle of case so clearly exemplifies, to what lengths erastianism will goes. carry those who adopt its principles. If the civil power is to be supreme in all matters and causes ecclesiastical, there is nothing within the whole province of the church safe from its interference. The church in that event, instead of being a kingdom not of this world, becomes one of the very basest of the world's kingdoms. Its allegiance is transferred from Christ to Cæsar; its own statute book, the bible, is supplanted by human laws; and, from being the free servant of God, it is degraded to the condition of the cnslaved hireling of man. It was no fault of the civil power in Scotland, at the period now in question, if the liberties of the Scottish church were not thus prostrated and destroyed. From dis 1592. declares the excommunication null 1567 regarding her fundamental principles and laws, the privy CHAP. IIL to council went on to sit in judgment even upon her spiritual Privy Council censures, and to set them aside. By public proclamation it condemned and nullified the sentence of excommunication and void. against Montgomery which the church had pronounced. This brought matters to a point; and well was it for the country that to meet a crisis so formidable, the fitting instruments had been prepared. It was in this stern school our early reformers were taught the true relations of church and state; a lesson they learned so well, and illustrated so impressively by their labours, sufferings, and testimonies, that it has come to be engraven on the hearts of their descendants, as with an iron pen and the point of a diamond. ing of the Assembly, "He and opening address of Melville. A special meeting of the general assembly was convened. Special meetThe moderator, the illustrious Andrew Melville, ascended Ger.eral the pulpit, and the trumpet gave no uncertain sound. inveighed against those who had introduced the bludie gullie of absolute power into the country, and who sought to erect a new popedom in the person of the prince. The pope, he said, was the first who united the ecclesiastical supremacy to the civil, which he had wrested from the emperor. Since the reformation he had, with the view of suppressing the gospel, delegated his absolute power to the emperor and the kings of Spain and France; and from France, where it had produced the horrors of St. Bartholomew, it was brought into this country. He mentioned the design then on foot of resigning the king's authority into the hands of the queen, which had been devised eight years ago, when he was in France; and was expressed in prints containing the figure of a queen with a child kneeling at her feet, and craving a blessing. And he named bishops Beaton and Lesley as the chief managers of that affair. This will be called, said he, * Bloody knife. CHAP. III. meddling with civil affairs; but these things tend to the 1567 wreck of religion, and therefore I rehearse them.' against the outrage on its spiritual The assembly the Church's ers with the king at Perth. *M'Crie's Life of Melville, vol. i., p. 181, James Melville's Diary. to 1592. |