1638. dence of the matters proved to have been tutional her consti 1592 under the settlement of 1592 had been. In these forms CHAP. III. to the shadows of her chartered independence might still be The indepenrecognised. Nor is it unworthy of notice, as illustrating Church in the same thing, that it was not till the church herself had spiritual given her consent to the setting up of prelacy, that parliament interposed its authority in the way of withdrawing its sanction from presbyterianism, and ratifying the episcopal system of church government. Iniquitous, in a word, as were the means that were employed to bring it about, this revolution was effected professedly on the footing of its being the prerogative of the church to frame her own constitution and regulate her own affairs. right, by the very means overthrow it. taken to Before passing on from this period, it may not be unimportant to advert to a somewhat remarkable provision which was then introduced into the law of patronage. According to the law of 1592, as already noticed, the patron was allowed to retain the fruits of the benefice in his own hands, in the event of a presbytery refusing to induct a qualified minister. This was the only compulsitor which the statute 1592 authorized the civil power to employ, in the case of a dispute arising between the civil and ecclesiastical courts as to the settlement of a minister. The check, though a powerful one, was founded on a thorough discrimination between things civil and things ecclesiastical; and made no encroachment on the proper spiritual jurisdiction of the church. But this check was no longer to suffice, under the erastianism of the acts passed in 1612. As, under the prelatic system which these acts established, presentations to bene- Bishops emfices were thenceforth to be directed to the bishops, instead of the presbyteries, it was provided that, in case of the refusal by the episcopal authorities to admit the presentec, penalties if "the lords of the privy council, upon the parties' complaint of the refuse, and no sufficient reason being given for the same, shall direct letters of horning, charging the ordinary powered to admit minis ters, and made sub ject to civil they refused to CHAP. III to do his duty in the receiving and admitting of such a 1592 person as the said patron has presented." That is to say, 1638. the lords of privy council, acting as a court of law, and in that respect performing functions similar to those at present exercised by the court of session, was constituted the ultimate judge of the reasons on which a presentee should or should not be admitted to a cure of souls; and, in the event of their judgment being for the admission, while that of the bishop was against it, this enactment armed the privy council with authority to compel him, under the penalties of civil law, to induct the presentee. This provision was, no doubt, in strict harmony with the erastian principle then subsisting, of the church's subjection, in matters spiritual, to the control Limitation of of the state. And yet the power which it conferred had court's right limits. The only kind of presentee whom it enabled the to compel the bishop. patron to thrust, in the circumstances above described, into the civil a parish, as the act itself bears, was a "minister once received (i. e., already received) and admitted into the function of the ministry, being then still undeprived." Even the gross erastianism of 1612, when the royal supremacy in matters spiritual was the acknowledged law both of church and state, never contemplated anything so monstrous as to Bishop not compel ordination-to oblige the authorities of the church compelled to confer the office of the holy ministry contrary to their to ordain a minister, but only to own sense of duty, and at the mere bidding of a civil tribunal. And yet the reader will find, in the sequel of this history, Frastianism that an outrage which was not dreamt of by the despotic worse than king and the servile parliament of 1612, has been practised by the courts of law, and sanctioned by the parliament, of our own day; and that too under a state of things, in which both the act 1612 and the royal supremacy had for a century and a half ceased to exist! admit him it already ordained. of 1843 that of 1612. Although the changes now noticed had entirely subverted the constitution of the church as established by law, they terian. 1592 were unsupported by the great body of the Scottish people. CHAP. III. to Both they and the best of their ministers remained as firm 1638. as ever in their attachment to those principles and to that order of things for which the reformers had all along contended, and which the settlement of 1592 had recognized and ratified. Banished from their parishes on this account, such men as the celebrated Bruce and Dickson carried with them, into the remoter districts into which they were driven, the powerful influence which their talents and worth imparted, and thus served to spread the fire which their oppressors meant to extinguish. Under the framework of a prelatic The court prelatic, but and erastian establishment, the heart of Scotland continued the country still presbysound and stable in its devotion to presbyterianism and religious liberty. The former was the religion of the court, but the latter remained the religion of the country; and to this cause alone can be ascribed the suddenness and the completeness of that overthrow which prelacy and erastianism received. In the noble document in which Melville and his fellow protestors had addressed the parliament of 1606, the members of the legislature were solemnly warned that in lending themselves to the subversion of the church's freedom they were laying the foundation for the destruction of their own. "If any succeeding prince," said the protestors, "please to play the tyrant, and govern all, not by laws but by his will and pleasure, signified by impious articles and directions, these bishops shall never admonish him, as faithful pastors and messengers of God; but, as they are made up by man, they must and will flatter, pleasure and obey man." The warning was disregarded then, but Reaction its truth became matter of bitter experience, when the grinding and intolerable tyranny of which the king-made prelates were the ready tools, prepared them for the memo rable outbreak of universal impatience and indignation which against preiacy. CHAP. IIL overthrew in a day a system it had cost so many years of 1592 craft and cruelty to raise. The events of 1638; the formation. It is not necessary to dwell long on the events of 1638. Second Re- The period is commonly and justly known in Scottish ecclesiastical history as that of the second reformation. At the very moment when the despotism of the crown had reached its climax, and was carrying with a high hand a complete lordship over both church and state, the overstrained bow recoiled-despotism was felled by the rebound, and liberty civil and ecclesiastical were once more restored. So strong and resistless was the national feeling which broke out in 1637, and embodied itself in the famous national covenant, that the king, Charles I., regardless as he usually was of the popular will, saw the necessity of at least appearing to yield. Nothing, however, could be more base than the duplicity which, on this as on so many other occasions, marked his proccedings. He had consented to the calling of a free general assembly, and had appointed the Marquis of Hamilton to be present, as the king's representative and commissioner. It is his majesty's secret correspondenco with this nobleman, now come to light, which reveals the shameful dishonesty of this so-called martyr-monarch. The famous Writing in June 1638, and before the convoking of the sembly, and assembly had been fully agreed to, he says, "I give you of Charles I. leave to flatter them with what hopes you please, so you Glasgow As the duplicity engage not me against my grounds, and in particular that to 1638. |