Records of the Kirk of Scotland / containing the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies from 1638 downwards, as authenticated by the clerks of assembly.

by Church of Scotland. General Assembly

It is not necessary to notice all the subordinate Acts of that Assembly, many of which were competent and laudable; but there was one by which, without imputing any sinfulness to church patronage, or proposing to abolish it, they merely sought to appropriate the exercise of it to the Assembly itself. The King, in the great abundance of his concessions, had agreed to exercise the royal church-patronage, by bestowing presentations on some one in a leet of six to be named by the Presbyteries within whose bounds vacancies should occur; and, founding on this concession, the Assembly 1642 issued instructions to all the Presbyteries, in the first instance, to transmit these leets through the Synods to the Assembly, in order that its fiat might be given in the selection of presentees. Such were the views of the covenanted Assemblies on this subject. Yet much as they desired to possess this troublesome privilege, they did not prize it so highly as to sacrifice their clerical interests in its acquisition; for when Argyle offered to renounce all his patronages into the hands of the Church, provided they would relinquish all claims to augmentations of stipends in his parishes, the proposal was rejected.

It is impossible to doubt that, in all these unexampled proceedings, the Covenanters meant to intimate to the King their intentions to make common cause with their fellow-sympathizers in England; for they knew full well—and, if we are to give them credit for sincerity, they had declared their acquiescence in the stipulation—that the King had conceded Presbytery in Scotland upon the clear understanding that his doing so should not imply any intermeddling with Episcopacy in England; and his well known principles on that score, and uniform adherence to them, left no reason to expect that he would ever consent to this, save on the compulsitor of sheer force. Their proposals to that effect, therefore, were tantamount to a declaration that they would co-operate with the English agitators in forcing their favourite form of Church Government upon him and England; and it is to be regretted that an interference with the internal affairs of England—which was so entirely beyond the legitimate sphere of the Scottish Estates, and which ultimately led to the most calamitous consequences—was pressed with such inflexible pertinacity.[296]

Amidst all these longings after “unity and uniformity in both kingdoms,” however, in which these zealous men indulged, it is important to ascertain the state of feeling among themselves, after the time that they had obtained the ratification by the King and Estates in Scotland of all their Acts of Assembly, &c. We shall not take the accounts of Guthrie, Burnet, or other hostile chroniclers, nor the statements of more modern writers, whether Whig or Tory—for we cannot quite adopt all the views either of Mr Hume or Mr Malcolm Laing, the latter of whom informs us that the “pure and unmixed flame of liberty” which burned in the hearts of the Covenanters, “was fed and, at length, gradually contaminated by the spirit of religion,” and that “the limits of moderation and prudence were overstept by intolerant zeal—the distinguished attribute of an Established Church.”[297] We prefer the homely testimony of Baillie; and to those who, in our own times, talk of the period immediately subsequent to 1638, as “the golden age” of the Kirk, we commend the following passages for study:—

In one of his letters to his cousin Spang, referring to the doings of the Parliament 1641, he says—

“Good Mr Henderson all the time was very silent, and under misconstruction with the chief of his old friends, as if he had been too sparing of his Majesty in these dangerous occasions, and that in his sermons some sentences did fall from him prejudicial to the States proceedings.”—(Vol. i., p. 334.) “There was a committee of our Estates appointed to attend the Parliament of England, not so much for the perfecting of our treaty, as to keep good correspondence in so needful a tyme. None of the former Commissioners were employed but Sir Arch. Johnston and Sir John Smith; for the most of all the rest were fallen in the countrys dislike, complying too much with the King. Certainly Dumfermline, Waughton, Sheriff of Teviotdale, Riccarton, Clerk of Dundee, tint all credit with the States.”—(P. [335].) He gives a sketch of the state of England thus:—“That country is in a most pitiful condition; no corner of it free from the evils of a civil war. Every shire, every city, many families divided in this quarrel; much blood and unusual spoil made by both where they prevail.”—(P. [355]) “Our heartburnings increase, and with them our dangers.”—“We fear the two part of our nobility, and many of our gentry.”—(P. [355].) “The affairs of this Isle go as a ship exceedingly tossed in a dangerous sea.”—(P. [364].) And, referring to ecclesiastic matters, (p. [362],) he says—“The matter of our novations is worse than before.”—“The letter I procured to some of our Presbyteries was made use of, as I wrote to you, in our Provincial at Irvine. This did much exasperate the brethren who were patrons of that way, so that immediately Mr Gabriel Maxwell, by the consent of some others, did write, in five sheets of paper, a full treatise, in a very bitter and arrogant strain, against the three nocent ceremonies—Pater Noster, Gloria Patriæ, and kneeling in the pulpit—by a great rabble of arguments, both particular and general, which go far beyond these three particulars questioned, the unlawfulness of our church practice;” and then he proceeds with details of those polemics, which he winds up (p. [363]) by saying, “I am doing all I can to set all instruments on work for the quenching of that fire.”

Such was the state of excitement in Scotland during the year 1642, while the civil war was raging in England. The Parliament of the latter having passed an ordinance for settling the militia in such hands as they should think fit, the King, on the 11th of June, issued his commissions of array; and, after hostilities had actually commenced, set up the royal standard at Nottingham, on the 22d of August, with great pomp and circumstance. We have already noticed the brotherly correspondence betwixt the Assembly of 1642 and the English Parliament; and the letter communicated a response through Maitland to the Commission of Assembly, on the 21st of September, for which it was “glad and blessed God.” Its purport was to the effect that they purposed calling an Assembly of learned and godly divines; and to insure co-operation in the war both of the pen and of swords, that reply intimated that Prelacy “is evil, and justly offensive and burdensome to the kingdome—a great impediment to reformation and the growth of religion—very prejudicial to the state and government of the kingdom—and that the same should be taken away.” But, with wary caution, they abstained from pledging themselves to the establishment of Presbytery.

The King, knowing full well that the Parliamentary leaders desired only the assistance of the Scotch to demolish the English hierarchy, wrote a letter to the Scotch Council (26th August) expressive of his anxiety to adopt all necessary reformation in the English Church, but assuring it that the Parliament had no intention to adopt Presbytery.

The Scotch Conservators, whom the Chancellor had appointed to meet, assembled on the 22d of September; and efforts were made, by Hamilton and others, to awaken a feeling of loyalty to the King, whose arms in various conflicts had been successful. An answer was sent, in which it was requested that the Queen, who was on the Continent, should return to Britain and exert her good offices as a mediatrix; and they pledged themselves that, should that mediation fail of success, they would support the throne. This declaration was signed by the most popular leaders—among others by Alexander Henderson. This favourable disposition was, however, soon counteracted; for the great body of the clergy, who had a morbid antipathy to Prelacy and a horror of Popery, (even in soldiers, whom the King had employed,) took the alarm, and the pulpits resounded with declamations on “the Kirk in danger,” which once more filled the populace with alarms. The English Parliament, whose military operations had hitherto been unpropitious in this conjuncture, sent down a Declaration to the people of Scotland, expatiating on the dangers to which religion was exposed, and entreating cordial support—(7th November;) and the King, apprehensive of the effects which might follow, sent a counter Declaration to the Council, which was convened on the 20th of December, to consider both Declarations. A struggle ensued. Argyle, who, for some time past, had been on amicable terms with Hamilton, broke off to the alarmists and joined the clerical party, insisting that both declarations should be published, or neither. This was resisted, on the ground that it was putting the English Parliament on a level with their own King, whose address it was their duty, as his Council, to communicate to his Scotch subjects; while, as regarded the Parliament’s Declaration, it was beyond their province to recognise or act upon it. From that moment, the chief men in the kingdom were openly divided into two parties in Scotland—the one for the King, and the other for the Parliament of England.

Whenever it was known that the Council had resolved to publish only the King’s Declaration, a new agitation arose, headed and excited by the clergy; and great multitudes of the alarmists resorted to Edinburgh in the beginning of January 1643. On the 6th of that month, a petition was got up, thus enforced, and presented to the Council, craving that the Parliament’s Declaration should also be published, and that the publication of the King’s should not be held to imply approval; and similar petitions were sent in from all quarters of the country. In order to counteract these movements, Traquair, and many of the most eminent nobility, and others, put in a “Cross Petition,” requesting the Council to take no steps prejudicial to the rights and privileges of the Crown, to keep in view the distinction betwixt civil and ecclesiastical power, and to avoid giving any pledges to the English Parliament, which might put the peace and religion of Scotland in jeopardy. This Cross Petition, though apparently most unexceptionable, and founded on sound constitutional principles, was not to the taste of the excited clergy, who not only refused to join in it, but exclaimed against “detestable neutrality,” and threatened all who signed it with eternal damnation. The Commission of the former Assembly, directing the popular torrent and swelling its force by their authority, transmitted a declaration against the Cross Petition to all Presbyteries, ordering it to be read from all pulpits, and enforced by the ministers. Overborne by these wide-spread clamours, the Council at length yielded, gave an evasive answer to the Cross Petition, and appointed Commissioners to mediate betwixt the King and his English Parliament—including in the number Mr Henderson and other clergymen. These Commissioners were instructed to desire from the King, uniformity of religion—that all Papists should be removed from his service—that he himself should renounce Episcopacy—and that a Parliament in Scotland should be called.