Miscellaneous Historical Documents,
RELATIVE TO THE ECCLESIASTICAL AND POLITICAL EVENTS IN SCOTLAND—1645.
1. Excerpts from Principal Baillie’s Account of the Westminster Assembly, continued from page 414.
My Assembly Speech.
Right Honourable, Right Reverend Fathers and Brethren,—It is the joy of our heart, and the refreshing of our weariness, after a long and troublesome journey, to behold the chearful face of this most venerable assembly; whom we pray God to bless, and all these honourable companies we are come from, does heartily salute in the Lord.
Our main errand hither at this time is, as you all know, to give some account, as God shall enable our weakness, of the employment of your servants and commissioners, and our Honourable and Reverend Brethren at London, who now a whole year and divers months have, with all care, attended the assembly and parliament there, for the furthering and advancement in that uniformity in divine worship and church-government, which both nations have sworn in their Solemn League and Covenant. The success which God, according to your prayers, hath been pleased to grant to our labour, you will better see than we can report, in the papers which we have brought from the Honourable Houses of Parliament, to be communicate when your wisdom shall think it seasonable to call for them. The sum of all, as we conceive, is well expressed in the letter of our dear colleagues to this venerable meeting, which here we offer; as also in that other letter of that Reverend assembly at London to that same meeting, which here likewise we present.
We can add nothing to that which from these letters you will hear read; only with your Reverences permission and favour, we are bold to profess, that God has done great things for poor Scotland, wherein our hearts doth rejoice; and we are confident, that the hearts of the godly posterity will not only rejoice, but wonder, when they look back on the footsteps of the Lord in his glorious work. When the bishops of England had put upon the neck of our church and nation the yoke, first of their Episcopacy, then of their ceremonies, 3dly, the whole mass of a service-book, and with it the body of Popery; when both our church and state did groan under an insupportable slavery; to have been freed of these burdens; to have been restored unto the purity of our first reformation, and the ancient liberty of our kingdom; to have had bishops, ceremonies, book and state slavery reformed, we would lately have esteemed it a mercy above all our praises; but now, beholding the progress of the Lord, how he has led us by the hand, and marched before us to the homes and holds of our injurious oppressors; how there he has made bare his holy arm, and brought the wheel of his vengeance upon the whole race and order of prelates in England, and has plucked up the root, and all the branches of Episcopacy in all the King’s dominions; that an assembly and parliament in England unanimously, but which is their word, abolished not only these ceremonies which troubled us, but the whole service-book, as a very idol, so speak they also, and a vessel full of much mischief; that in place of Episcopacy a Scots presbytery should be concluded in an English assembly, and ordained in an English parliament, as it is already ordained in the House of Commons; that the practice of the church of Scotland, set down in a most wholesome, pious, and prudent directory, should come in the place of a liturgy in all the three dominions; such stories lately told, would have been counted fancies, dreams, mere impossibilities: yet this day we tell them as truths, and deeds done, for the great honour of our God, and, we are persuaded, the joy of many a godly soul. If any will not believe our report, let them trust their own eyes; for behold here the warrant of our words, written and subscribed by the hands of the clerks of the parliament of England, and the scribes of the assembly there. We will not descend into any particulars; for that were to take up more of your precious time than now you can spare; and it were needlessly to anticipate by discourse these things which presently, in particular and length, must be read unto you. Only it is our earnest desire, that the mercies whereof we are speaking, may be matter of thankfulness to all, a door of hope to fainting and feeble minds, who are oft miscarried with fear what yet may be the event; a certain ground of clear despair to all the enemies of Zion; that they may give over their vain labour, and cease to oppose the work of God, whether by their secret obstructions, or open hostility; knowing that it will be hard for them to kick against the pricks, and that there is neither wisdom nor strength against the Lord. Since the beginning of this work to this present moment, an observing and faithful eye may clearly remark the Lord still advancing like the morning sun, ever advancing towards the meridian; it is great folly to fear, that any man, that all the worms of the earth, can stop the progress of the sun in the firmament. Clouds may arise from the earth, and thick mists may darken the face of the sky; but the sun goes on in his course, and at last by his strength will dispel these vapours, and make them fall to the ground, not without the benefit of the earth. This will doubtless be the end of these clouds that now fill our air. Let them yet further break out in more stormy winds, in greater fires and claps of thunder than ever; yet at last this must be their destiny, to the ground they must fall, and fill the ditches and pits of God’s vengeance. Our sun will shine, and our air will clear again. This we must believe, and, according to our faith, we shall certainly find it. It was indeed very needful that we should be humbled; our nation lately was advanced to a high pitch of honour; we might have perished worse, if we had not perished thus. We judge truly, that all our present troubles are not so much interruptions of the work, as very fit and seasonable preparatives to make us capable of more honour than yet we have attained; to fit us to be instrumental in greater works and services than yet we have been employed in. We all hope, that the chariot of the Lord will not here stand, nor be arrested within the compass of this isle.
To Mr William Spang. London, April 25, 1645.
On Thursday we were brought to the assembly. I spoke what you have in the inclosed. Mr Gillespie spoke thereafter much to the same purpose. Because of the longing desire of all to know what we brought, and to deliver the minds of some from their fears, lest we had other things than we at first would bring forth, all was presently read; the letters of the English assembly, our commissioners letters, the directory from end to end, the directory for ordination, the votes of government so far as had passed the assembly, and some other papers. All was heard with great applause, and contentment of all. It was one of the fairest assemblies I had seen; the choicest of the ministry and elders of all Scotland well conveened; almost the whole parliament, nobles, barons, burghs, and all the considerable persons who were in town. Our message was exceeding opportune, and welcome to all. It was a great refreshing to them in a time of languishing and discouragement. A numerous committee was appointed to examine all punctually, which we were desired to attend. In five or six days we went through, and, by God’s assistance, gave all men satisfaction in every thing. The brethren from whom we expected most fashry were easily satisfied; all did lovingly condescend to the alterations I had so much opposed, whereof I was very glad: only Mr And. R. was oft exceeding impertinent with his ostentation of antiquity, and Mr D. Calderwood was oft fashious with his very rude and humorous opposition: yet we got them all at last contented; and the act, which Mr Gillespie drew very well, consented to, in the committee first, and thereafter in the assembly, with a joy unspeakable, blessed be God.
Thereafter we gave to the committee like satisfaction anent the other papers whereupon they were to have the assembly’s opinion, but no act till they had passed the houses of the English parliament. When we had thus far proceeded, I went to Glasgow, to see my family and friends, after sixteen months’ absence; where, to my great joy, I found all in health and welfare as I could wish; your mother also, and sundry friends whom I saw, blessed be God. I had left with sundry in the assembly to deal for my abode at home; but there was no remeid; both of us were ordained with diligence to go back; so all that concerned myself in private and publick went according to my mind. But for all this, my wine was incontinent mixed with much wormwood from sundry sinistrous accidents both in England and Scotland. The Independents, with Mr Marshall’s help, were very near to have carried, by canny conveyance of some propositions in the matter of church-censure, a fair and legal toleration of their way; but their legerdemain being perceived, was got crushed, to their small credit, and to the break-neck of that accommodation betwixt us and them, which was far advanced, but now, by their schismatick practices, is made desperate. * * *
We have great toil here in the church-business. We are on the point of setting up presbyteries and synods in London; but all the ports of hell are opened upon us. * * *