CHAP. VII.

SCOTTISH STRUGGLES.

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. PRELACY OF LAUD.

Second Period. 1660 to 1700.

Horse and Foot. Curates and the

1. Individualism and Catholicism. Babylonish Captivity. 23d August 1660. Middleton and his Parliament. Martyrdom of Argyle. Of Guthrie. Of Govan.-2. Act of 1662. The Four Prelates. Order to the Ministers. Journey and Banquets. Act of Glasgow. Resolution of the Ministers. The last Sunday. John Welsh. Blackadder. Peden. 3. Delay granted. The Curates. Their Arrival. Before and After. Co-operation of the Garrisons. Soldier-judges. A Military Expedition. - 4. Middleton dismissed. Drag-net Act. High Commission Court. Pentland. Execution of M'Kail. First Indulgence. Act of 1669. Second Indulgence and Blair. Retirement of Leighton. 5. Presbyterian Conventicles. Cameron. The Duke of York. Spreul. Scarcity of the Word. Excommunication by Cargill. The Duke of Rothes.-6. Testimony of Marion Harvey. Death of Cargill. The Killing Time. Declaration of 1684. The Sea and Margaret Wilson. John Brown and Claverhouse. General Persecution.-7. Designs of James II. Peden's Wanderings. Act of Toleration. The last Martyr. The Pope's Godson. Revolution of 1688. Restoration of Presbyterianism and Abolition of Patronage. Communion of Saints. New Period and New Arms.

I.

THE FIRST MARTYRS.

THERE are in Christianity two essential elements: the first is individualism; the second is universalism.

The most important of these is individualism. It is indispensable that the individual, that you and I should be Christians. I must address myself to obtain Christ and his Spirit as if there were nothing but Him and me in the world.

The second is universalism, which I should call catholicism, if that word had not obtained a very different acceptation. It is necessary that the individual having become a Christian by the operation of the Holy Spirit should enter into the communion of saints, knowing that "we are many members, "but one body."

Protestantism has more especially imposed on herself the work of individualism, while Popery, neglecting the individual point of view of Christianity appeared (though falsely) to cultivate more carefully the universal and catholic side.

If we, as Protestants, are the true individualists, we ought also to be the true catholics. And if this side of Christianity is too much neglected among us, it is the duty of the minister of the Word to bring it more powerfully before the mind. No, there is not here merely one soul, and there another redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. There is an assembly of souls; there is a church. There are not many members merely, there is one body.

In continuing to lay before you some portions of the church's history, one of my objects is, with God's assistance, to render more vivid among us the idea of Christian community. I do not think we can be edified in speaking merely of the work of Chris

tian individualism. We must never cease to remember that we are only different members placed under the same head, - - a Head which is in heaven; and the history of those who have faithfully realised this notion must surely afford us salutary edifi

cation.

The second captivity of the Scottish church is about to commence, lasting from 1660 to 1688, that is, for twenty-eight years. Twenty-eight years are usually assigned to the former, from 1610 to 1638; but thirty-eight may well be allowed for it. These two dismal periods were those of the captivity of the church under the rule of the state, by means of Laud's Prelacy; and Scotland has good reason for calling this time of mourning and suffering the Babylonish captivity.

Never, perhaps, has any church been called upon to maintain a more desperate conflict against state supremacy. The civil power was about to take up those weapons with which it hoped to subdue the church, and such weapons, we must remember, as have not been exclusively confined to the seventeenth century. Breaking into houses, violence, blows, interdiction of worship, scattering of families, imprisonment, fines, scourging, torture, banishment, drowning, the sword and the gallows, -none of these were to be spared by those Pharaohs who would crush the people of God, whether in Egypt, in Scotland, in Switzerland, or elsewhere.

Were there even no other pages of Scottish history but those to which we have now to turn,

we could understand why that country should consider the liberty of the church as the ark of the Lord, the keeping of which has been entrusted to her; and why, as soon as the state annihilates that liberty, the church exclaims in anguish, "Ichabod! the glory is departed from Israel, for "the ark of God is taken!"

On the 23d August, 1660, ten ministers and two elders were joining in prayer at a house in Edinburgh, belonging to Robert Simpson. Scotland was apprehensive of the storm about to burst upon her, and these pious men proposed presenting to King Charles II. an humble address, congratulating him on his restoration, reminding him of the covenant with the Lord which he had signed, and praying that his reign might be like those of David, Solomon, and Jehoshaphat. They intended sending round this address for the signature of their brethren; but on a sudden a party of soldiers entered, seized their papers, and conveyed them all to prison, which one of them, James Guthrie, never left but for the scaffold. "The enemy shall come "in like a flood, but the Spirit of the Lord shall "lift up a standard against him." (Isaiah, lix. 19.)

The Earl of Middleton, a soldier of fortune, a coarse and haughty man, had been placed by Charles, as Lord High Commissioner, at the head of the Scottish government. He immediately called a parliament, of which the majority was composed of Malignants, that is, "lovers of pleasure more "than lovers of God" (2 Tim. iii. 4.), and opposed

to the independence of the church. Bishop Burnet states that "those about the Earl of Middleton often "continued drinking through the whole night till "the next morning, and they came to parliament "reeling." Given up to debauchery during the night, they devoted themselves to despotism during the day.

This parliament repealed and rescinded all the acts passed since 1633, that is to say, it annihilated the liberties of the state and of the church. A new act then announced his majesty's intention of establishing the church in a manner "most "suitable to monarchical government."

When

But this was not enough. The enemies of the church are at all times like each other. King Herod saw the assemblies of the disciples prospering, not only at Jerusalem, but at Cæsarea, did he not "stretch forth his hand to vex certain "of them, and kill James the brother of John, "and proceed further to take Peter also?" Charles would do like Herod. He would strike at the Covenanters, who welcomed him at the time of his exile, and by terrible blows teach the Christian people to bow down their heads, or else to die.

At the head of the Presbyterian party was the.. Marquis of Argyle, the most illustrious of the Scottish nobles, who in 1650 had taken the principal part in the young king's coronation. Charles II. disliked him, not only because he was unalterably faithful to the cause of the Presbyterian church, but also because he had sometimes rebuked him