Signed,Lindsay,G. Dunglass,
Balmerino,Ja. Sword,
Burghly,J. Forbes,
Napier,Ed. Eggar.
J. Murray,

Edinburgh, July 7, 1640.

1640.
10. Principal Baillie’s Account of the Aberdeen Assembly, in a Letter to the Rev. William Spang.[255]

Our assembly at Aberdeen was kept with great peace. We found a great averseness, in the hearts of many, from our course, albeit little in countenance. D. Sibbald, Forbes, and Scroggie, were resolved to suffer martyrdom before they subscribed anything concerning Episcopacy and Perth articles; but we resolved to speak nothing to them of these matters, but of far other purposes. We found them irresolute about the canons of Dort, as things they had never seen, or at least considered. They could say nothing against any clause of the book of canons, liturgy, ordination, high commission. D. Forbes’s treatises, full of a number of Popish tenets, and intending directly reconciliation with Rome, farther than either Montacute, or Spalato, or any I ever saw among their hands, and the hands of their young students, together with a treatise of Bishop Wedderburn’s, and an English priest, Barnesius, all for reconciliation. D. Sibbald, in many points of doctrine, we found very corrupt; for the which we deposed him, and ordained him, without quick satisfaction, to be processed. The man was there of great fame. It was laid upon poor me to be all their examiner, and moderator to their process. Dr Scroggie, an old man, not very corrupt, yet perverse in the covenant and service book. D. Forbes’s ingenuity pleased us so well, that we have given him yet time for advisement. Poor Barron, otherwise an ornament of our nation, we find has been much in in multis the Canterburian way. Great knavery and direct intercourse with his Grace we found among them, and yet all was hid from us that they could. I got my cause delayed to the next general assembly; yet Mr Robert Ramsay was ordained to transport to Glasgow, and Mr Andrew Cant to Aberdeen, sore against his mind; his patron Lothian will vehemently oppose it. Thir violent transportations will at once offend many. I am like to be more than boasted with a divinity-profession in Aberdeen. The work is so far mistaken. Better for me to be dumb or dead than so far miserable. Much of our ten days sitting spent in causes of transportations, and plantations of churches, where patrons, presbyteries, and people had their contests. All which came before us were at last peaceably settled. Many good overtures were made, which ye will see at once in print. That which troubled us most was a passage of Mr Henry Guthrie’s, which, because it may be the occasion of farther din, I will relate to you particularly, so far as I understand. Our countrymen in Ireland, being pressed there by the bishops to countenance the liturgy and all the ceremonies, did abstain from the publick worship, and in private, among themselves, their ministers being all banished, did, in that time and place of persecution, comfort themselves with prayer and reading, and other exercises of religion, whiles in the night, whiles in the day, as they had occasion. Sundry of them intending a voyage to New England, inclined towards the discipline of these churches; yea, some Brownists, insinuating themselves among them whileas their ministers were away, did move divers towards their conceits. The most of thir good people flying over to us, were heartily embraced of us all. Their private meetings were overlooked. Some of their conceits, though they were spreading, we let alone, till the Lairds of Leckie, one who had suffered much by the bishops, was marked, using his Irish form of private exercises in Stirling, and in his prayers, some expression which were prejudicial to Mr Harry Guthrie, minister of the said town, and other ministers of the land, who did not affect their ways. At once Mr Harry, with the brethren of that presbytery, and magistrates of that town, did begin with vehemency, and some violence, to suppress these private meetings; and to point out in very black letters all the singularities they knew or heard of in Leckie, or these who affected their ways. They, on the other side, failed not to render to Mr Harry and the brethren the like. The last assembly of Edinburgh were perplexed with this matter. Mr Harry made very loud complaints of their novations, both in word and writ. Sundry being conscious what in divers parts of the country was broaching, was in some fear. Divers of our chief ministers tendering very much the credit of these very pious people, were loth that anything concerning them should come in publick. We had sundry private meetings with the chief that were thought to incline that way. Mr Henderson vented himself at many occasions, passionately opposite to these conceits. We found among ourselves great harmony of judgement; yea, Leckie declaring his mind in a writ, was found to differ nothing considerable from us. Once we agreed for the framing of an act for the preveening of such questions. Both sides laid it on me to form it. All were pleased with the draught, only one not liking my conclusion of precise discharging of all novations till in a general assembly they were allowed, persuaded to leave off making of an act, lest our adversaries should triumph in our so hasty disputations, if not divisions; and did assure, by quiet denting, to smother all farther reasoning of such purposes: only we concluded, for satisfaction of all, that Mr Harry should preach for advancement of religious exercises in every family, and Mr Robert Blair, Mr John Maclellan, Mr John Livingston, against night meetings, and other abuses which were complained of. Mr Blair, in his sermon, did not so much cry down these meetings as was expected, wherefore Mr Guthrie refused to preach at all. Some citizens of Edinburgh declared themselves not well satisfied with Mr Henderson’s zeal against their practice. One Livingston, a trafficker with the English who were affected to our reformation, but withal to the discipline of New England, in his letters to his friends abroad, did write very despitefully of Mr Henderson. This being intercepted, did grieve, not only the man himself, but us all, of all ranks, who had found him the powerful instrument of God, fitted expressly much above all other, to be a blessing to our church, in this most dangerous season. For preveening of all farther inconvenience, it was thought meet to press, in all the kingdom, religious exercises in families, according to a draught which Mr Henderson, with the unanimous consent of all, gave out in print. This family worship was expected a sufficient remedy against the feared evils of other private meetings. But when it was not found so, these that would have kept on foot amongst us some of the Irish novations, foreseeing their severe condemnation by the ensuing general assembly, thought good to flee from that discreditable stroke, and drew together in Edinburgh, in time of the parliament, to a privy conference. On the one side, Mr Henderson and Mr Eleazar Borthwick; on the other, Mr Blair and Mr Dickson; these four agreed on a paper of caveats, limiting these private meetings; which being opened to the rest of the brethren there conveened, did please all. The report of this gladed all the land, hoping that these disputations had been at a point. I heard no more of them till the synod, at the beginning whereof, as the custom is, a list being given up for preaching in the town, Mr Guthrie was one. He finding himself, as he avowed, indisposed in body, and unable without more books and leisure than there he could have, and unwilling, since the provost of the town required he should be heard, having, as he heard, a mind to get him transported to that town, refused peremptorily to preach at all, and that with some words of headiness more than it became to us, in the face of an assembly; those who bare him at small good will, finding him in this snare, whether to punish him for bygone businesses, or to dash him for attempting in that assembly any farther matter about Leckie’s meetings, which they suspected was his main errand to that place, urged straitly the publick censure of his presumption. When he was removed, all those who had relation to the Irish business, lighted so sharply upon him, that many did think their censure was not so much for his present behaviour, as for some bygone quarrels. He took the moderator’s reproof submissively enough; but whether on that irritation, or preceding resolution, he set himself with all earnestness to have these matters concluded in the assembly, which some of us were afraid so much as publickly to name. Privately he had solicited the whole northern ministers and elders, putting them in a great vehemency against all these things he complained of. It was one of my overtures for ordering the house at the beginning of the assembly, that no motion should come in publick, till first it was considered in private by the committee appointed for things of that nature whereof it was, unless the committee refused to receive it. Whereby Mr Harry his first motion in publick, though he had alledged it had been proponed by him to the committee of overtures and not received, was remitted again to the committee. By this means he was holden off some days; but by no means could be gotten diverted from proponing these questions, which we were afraid should trouble us all. Account was taken of all the commissioners of the kingdom, in the face of the assembly, of settling of family exercise in ilk house of their presbytery; it was avowed to be everywhere pretty well advanced; but this was not water for the fire in hand. It was the advice of the committee, to propone Mr Henderson’s paper before Mr Harry was heard. This advice, in my mind, was wholesome; for likely all would have applauded to that paper, and no more needed for the settling of these questions; but some, whether because they were loth, though privily they assented to that paper, that yet it should go on in a publick act, or being varied with a clean contrair spait, were wilful to have Mr Harry to vent himself in publick, to the uttermost of his passions, would not let the committee determine any thing in that affair. Mr Harry being permitted at last to speak in the assembly, a long discourse proclaimed what he was able to say of Leckie, and those meetings. Truly he uttered many things very odious, if true. Mr James Simpson of Bathgate shewed also many scandalous things of that sort of people. A commissioner from Galloway declared a number of uncouth passages, reflecting on Mr Samuel Rutherford, Mr John Livingstone, and Mr Maclellan. Presently all went to a heat and confused din; the whole north, especially the Earl of Seaforth, a well-spoken man, but whose honesty in our cause ever has been much suspected, passionately siding with Mr Harry; some others freting to hear pious people so shamefully, as they thought, calumniated. In the midst of this clamour, I took leave, sharply to regret that we did rush in a greater evil than any was complained of: the confused misorder of a general assembly was the spoiling of the only remedy of that and all other diseases; but no possibility of order and silence. The moderator had neither weight in his discourse, nor dexterity in guiding. We missed much Mr Henderson, or some of our respected nobles. At last the confusion ended in a committee for the preparing of overtures to remeid these evils. The committee was for the most part of men at Mr Harry’s devotion. After much jangling and repetition, with many evils, of odious, whether true or fabulous, narrations, sundry of us inclined to have that forenamed paper passed in an act. But my Lord Seaforth, and Mr Harry, by no means could hear of that motion. They told ever, that caveats brought in the bishops; that this paper, though never so full of limitations, would be at least introductive of the thing limited. Mr Rutherford all the while was dumb; only, in the midst of this jangling, he cast in a syllogism, and required them all to answer it. “What scripture does warrant, an assembly may not discharge; but privy meetings for exercises of religion, scripture warrants, James v. 16. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another; Mal. iii. 16. Then they that feared the Lord, spake often one to another, &c.: Ergo, thir things could not be done in publick meetings,” A number greedily haunsht at the argument, Mr Andrew Ramsay, Mr J. Adamson, and others; but came not near the matter, let be to answer formally. Mr Harry and Seaforth would not have Mr Samuel to trouble us with his logick syllogisms. The truth is, as I conceive, Mr Harry intended to have all meetings private simpliciter abolished; also Mr Rutherford I know, in a treatise, defended the lawfulness of those meetings in greater numbers, and for moe purposes than yet we have heard practised: also Mr Dickson had written, and practised, and countenanced some things in these meetings, that now both of them finding the inconveniences, and seeing the great opposition they got from many good men, and especially by Mr Henderson, were content to pass from, at least to be silent of. We closed that night with this overture, That five of our number should draw up every one of us our conception, by way of act, to present to-morrow to the committee, Mr David, Mr Harry, Mr David Lindsay, Mr Alexander Peter, and I. In my act I strove, so cunningly as I could, to canvass Mr Henderson’s paper shortly, with some of my own conceptions. I communicated it to the chief opposers of Mr Harry, Mr David Dickson, Mr Samuel Rutherford, William Rig, and others, and got them at last to acquiesce. When we came to the committee, all the five Acts were read: the question came betwixt mine and Harry’s. Mine was liked by all; only Mr Harry disliked it, and conceived that under every word a dangerous serpent did lie. There was no remeid: his contentment was the contentment of the body of the assembly. Since he misliked my draught, I set myself to persuade that his draught might be accepted; for truly it had nothing that was controverted. It consisted of three articles. The 2d article was, That read prayers was not unlawful. Mr Dick did enlarge, that it should be lawful to read prayers both in private and publick. The 3d article was, That it should not be permitted to any to expone scripture to people, but only ministers, and expectants approven by Presbyteries. No man did contradict the 1st article, which was, That family-worship should be declared to be of persons of one family, not of divers. Here was all the question. I did declare publickly, oft without contradiction, that the meetings whereof he complained were not family-meetings, but another kind specially differing from the other: so that his article of family-meetings would never touch any abuse of these meetings, were they never so many and foul. Yet because this was Mr Harry’s own draught, and he alledged that the people with whom he had to do, did take their conventicles only for family exercises, he required no more than the declaration of the assembly, that family-meetings extended no farther than to persons of the same family. This, though no man could refuse, yet these that liked nothing that came from him, did question much more than they needed, and very violently urged to have, in that article, limitations which in my judgement were very needless, and did farther Mr Harry’s design more than his own words. Always Mr Harry was made content to accept of one exception, which was the practice of people’s flocking to their minister’s family-exercise; but of any moe exceptions he would not hear, and more they pressed upon an argument that did much amaze my mind, that except they got another conceit, they had a written protestation ready against that act of the synod; the thing that the devil was seeking, and would have been sweet pastime to that town of Aberdeen, and our small favourers in the north, who were greedily gazing on the event of that broil. Always at last the prayers of the land for God’s blessing to that assembly prevailed, and in a moment God made the minds of these who differed to agree, to the great joy of all when they heard it. There was but five of us then in private, Mr Harry, Mr David, as parties, Belhelvie for Mr Harry, the moderator, and I, betwixt them. Mr David at last acquiesced to my request, to let Mr Harry’s article pass as it stood; and Mr Harry, after once and again I had inculcate to him, that all his act was but a blephum if you put not in that clause you see it has against novations, was at last content to put it in; so with great difficulty, the act being agreed upon in private, and in the committee, when it came to be voted in the assembly it had no contrair voice. All of us did think that then the storm was close over and gone; yet when least we expected, it does blow up again as boisterously as ever. Some that were grieved and fretted that their purpose should have got so much way, desiring to have some order of him, did give in a writ, requiring, since so many vile abuses were in the assembly alledged to have been committed by Leckie; and others, in divers parts of the country, it were expedient that a committee were ordained for the trial and severe punishment of all these misorders; and that this committee should sit in Edinburgh, and consist of those whom the assembly had appointed commissioners for the parliament, with so many other as the assembly thought meet to join with them. This bill was read near the end of the synod by Mr James Bonner, moderator of the bills, as newly given to him, by whom he knew not. Upon the hearing of it, at once there arose such an heat and universal clamour, that it was marvellous. Mr John Maclellan was found the ingiver of it; while he began to be hissed at, Mr Andrew Cant, and Mr D. Dickson did speak for the reasonableness of it, and some few other ministers and gentlemen who had been on the council of it; but they were so overwhelmed with the multitude of criers, Away with it, Away with it, that they were forced to be silent and let it go. I much grieved to see the tumultuous disorder of our assembly; and had I been on Mr David’s council, I would have dissuaded him to my power from such a motion, which, if it had been assented to, was like to have fired our church more than any other brand that Satan at this time, in all his wit, could have invented: so, by God’s goodness, water was cast on that fire for the time: the embers yet seem to smoke; but we hope God will see to the peace of our church, which is but a brand newly taken out of the fire, or rather yet in the midst of the flame of war and great danger.

11. Laud’s Service Book, and the English Liturgy.[256]

In addition to the objections which the Scots had to various parts of the English Liturgy, they complained of the following alterations made on it in Laud’s Service Book, as savouring of Popery:—

1. In the order of the administration of the Lord’s Supper, instead of the Rubrick in the English Liturgy—“The table, at the Communion time, having a fair white linen cloth upon it, shall stand in the body of the church, or in the chancel, where morning and evening prayer are appointed to be said”—Laud’s Service Book has the following:—“The holy table having, at the communion time, a carpet, and a fair white linen cloth upon it, with other decent furniture, meet for the high mysteries there to be celebrated, shall stand at the uppermost part of the chancell or church, where the Presbyter, standing at the north side or end thereof, shall say,” &c.

2. Having thus removed the Priest, as far as possible, out of the hearing of the people, (in conformity with the Romish rites,) the Service Book, in a second Rubrick, immediately before the consecration, orders him to turn his back to the people, which he must have done according to the following direction:—“Then the Presbyter, standing up, shall say the prayer of consecration, as follloweth, but then, during the time of consecration, he shall stand at such a part of the holy table, where he may, with the more ease and decency use both his hands.”