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

In these circumstances, the Scottish Commissioners did their duty manfully: on the 5th of November, they sent a letter to the Speaker of the Commons, complaining of the violence done to the King’s person by the army, and of his being still detained in captivity; and intimated “that no alteration of affairs shall ever separate them from the duty and allegiance they owe unto his Majesty, nor from their constant resolution to live in loyalty under his government;” requiring the English Parliament to concur with them in a personal treaty with his Majesty.[371] At that time, it appears, the Scottish clergy, of all parties, were unwearied in their invectives against the English Parliament and army; and a spirit of hostility was thus fostered and awakened against them.[372] Such was the state of matters when the King escaped from Hampton Court; and, on the 15th of November, letters were received by both Houses from Hammond, the governor, announcing his Majesty’s arrival at the Isle of Wight. Of the proceedings which took place on the part of the Scottish Commissioners, from the time of their first communications with his Majesty in October, till the completion of the engagement in December following, we deem it unnecessary to give the details and documents fully, as these are recorded by Burnet, and may be consulted.[373] The Scotch Commissioners, however, were zealous, and, so far as we can see, honest in their counsels to the King to put his veto on the four bills. The consequence of the King’s refusal to pass these bills in the end of December was, that he was committed a close prisoner in Carisbrook Castle, by orders of the English Parliament. From that time forward his Majesty was hedged about by the creatures of the levelling faction; his letters intercepted even from the Queen and his daughter; and an English Parliament did not scruple to violate all the sanctities of domestic affection, and to subject these documents to the scrutiny of committees of their appointment.

We must now revert to the proceedings in Scotland arising out of the state of affairs in England, which we have now briefly explained; and although there were many circumstances of a cheering nature, calculated to redeem the national character from the obloquy into which it had fallen in consequence of its participation in the rebellious proceedings of the English usurpers, yet was there a great preponderance of perilous anarchy; and it was at this particular period that a collision arose betwixt the Kirk and the State, which, within a very short space, rent the strength of the kingdom in pieces, and subjected it to the deepest humiliation.

On the 8th of February, 1648, the Grand Committee of the Estates convened at Edinburgh, and adjourned to the 10th on account of the absence of the Scots Commissioners. On the 9th, the Commission of Assembly also met; and, on the 10th, the Committee of the Estates re-assembled, when Loudoun, and the other Scots Commissioners, made reports of their proceedings in England during their recent mission. The discussions which thence arose, and the courses which followed, are of so important a character as to require particular detail, in order to illustrate fully the sad state of distraction and disorganization into which the kingdom had fallen.

The first session of the second triennial Parliament was holden at Edinburgh on the 2d of March, 1648, and, on the 17th, it appointed a committee for preventing dangers—Berwick and Carlisle being garrisoned with malignants. The same day, answers were made to the communication from the Commission of Assembly, in which the Estates pledged themselves “that the grounds and causes of undertaking of war be cleared to be so just as that all who are well affected may be satisfied in the lawfulness and necessity of the ingadgment;”[374] that religion and the maintenance of the Covenant should be the principal end of all the undertakings of this kingdom; and they desired a Committee of the Church to meet a Committee of Estates on the 24th, to draw up such a state of the question of war, as might unite the nation in a unanimous undertaking of such duties as were requisite for the reformation and defence of religion.

After intervening conferences, the Estates, on the 11th of April, passed an act anent the Resolutions of Parliament, concerning the breaches of the Covenant and treaties betwixt the kingdoms of England and Scotland, and demands for reparation thereof.[375] They waived mention of the non-payment of arrears due on the “brotherly assistance,” and the allowance for the Scottish army in Ireland, (amounting to £312,000 sterling;) and also waived adverting to the disavowal, by the English, of the treaty of 28th November, 1643: and enumerating all the breaches of treaty on the part of the English Parliament, the act concludes with three propositions:—1st, That effectual steps be taken for enforcing the adoption of the Covenant by all the subjects of the Crown of England, conformably to the treaty 1643, which declared all recusants to be public enemies, and liable to punishment—that uniformity and Presbyterianism be settled, and the Directory for worship and Westminster Confession be adopted, and all heresies and the Service Book be suppressed and extirpated: 2dly, That the King should go with all honour, freedom, and safety, to some of his houses in or near London; and that the Parliaments of both kingdoms might communicate with him for establishing religion and peace;—and, 3dly, That the army of sectaries, under the command of Fairfax, be disbanded, and none be employed but such as should take the Covenant, and be well affected to religion and government.

Next day an act was passed for putting the kingdom in a posture of defence, and constituting committees of war in the several counties; and on the 19th, the Estates adopted a Manifesto or Declaration to the nation concerning their Resolutions for Religion, King, and Kingdoms,[376] in which an elaborate exposition is given of all the causes of complaint against the English Parliament. It sets forth that every article of the League and Covenant had been violated and, in the recent negotiations with the King, entirely set aside—that heresy and schism were tolerated—that the King’s person had been violently seized and kept a close prisoner—and it embodied a reiteration of the propositions above stated, to be made to the English Parliament. Disavowing any intention of invading England, or breaking up the amicable relations betwixt the kingdoms, the manifesto stated that the object of their engagement should be the settling of truth and peace under his Majesty’s government, and that they would not join with any who should not sign the Solemn League and Covenant; and it concluded by a call on all who had zeal for religion, love to monarchical government, or sense of the sufferings and imprisonment of the King, to support the cause thus proclaimed to the nation.

On the 11th of May, the Estates granted commission to a committee, during the recess of Parliament, with ample powers, and addressed a letter to the several presbyteries within the kingdom, exhorting the clergy to stir up the people, by their preaching and prayers, to yield a willing obedience to the orders of Parliament in the furtherance of its objects. The Parliament then adjourned till the 1st of June.[377]

During the progress of these proceedings, there were many altercations betwixt the Committees of Parliament and Assembly; and a virulent opposition arose, which completely severed and crippled the power of Scotland at so important a crisis. The principles of this kirk party are thus briefly given by Dr Cook,[378] as vouched by Guthrie, Baillie, and Burnet:—“The Ministers, led by Gillespie, who shewed the most inveterate enmity to Charles, required that all classes should take an oath for preserving the ends of the Covenant. This oath, which was zealously defended by Argyle, comprehended the following particulars, sufficiently shewing the virulence of party spirit which prevailed—That, except the King did first subscribe and swear to both Covenants, it was not lawful for any to endeavour his restitution—that there should be no communication with malignants in any of the three kingdoms—that a negative voice should not be given to the King—that these articles should be incorporated with the Coronation oath—and that all who refused to swear to them should be incapable of any office, civil or ecclesiastical, and should forfeit their estates. Against this the Parliamentary Commissioners firmly remonstrated; and an attempt was made by the more moderate ministers to soften some of the articles, combining them with parts of a declaration which the Committee had prepared; but all prospect of union was destroyed by the determination of the Church party to oppose a resolution by the Estates for taking possession of Berwick and Carlisle, with a view to facilitate future warlike operations.”

Such a course of opposition, and based upon such principles, needs no commentary: it was resolved on, with the concurrence of Argyle, and some English Commissioners then in Scotland. During the recess of Parliament, in addition to their wonted modes of agitation from the pulpits, petitions came up from synods requiring Parliament to do nothing important without the concurrence of the General Assembly; and the Commission more openly obtruded its interference during the time that the muster of levies was in progress—drew up an answer to the Declaration of Parliament which was circulated through the Presbyteries, denouncing the resolution which had been adopted by Parliament, ordaining the Ministers to read the counter manifesto from their pulpits, and threatening all with excommunication and the divine wrath who should enrol under the standard of the King and Scottish Parliament. A more monstrous instance of usurpation is nowhere to be found in the past history of the Reformed Church; and even Baillie, one of those who was a party to these extravagant pretensions to political power, is constrained to deplore the consequences which flowed from it. “The danger of this rigidity,” he remarks, “is like to be fatal to the King—to the whole isle—both churches and states. We mourn for it to God. Though it proceed from two or three men at most, yet it seems remediless. If we be kept from a present civil war, it is God, and not the wisdom of our most wise and best men, which will save us. I am more and more in the mind that it were for the good of the world that churchmen did meddle with ecclesiastick affairs only; that, were they ever so able otherwise, they are unhappy statesmen.”[379] But still these misguided men persevered. The Commission presented new remonstrances when the Parliament re-assembled, in the beginning of June; and issued an order to all ministers to preach against the Engagement, under the pain of deposition—an order which disgusted many of the clergy, and divided the Church and the country into two parties, known in our history by the names of Resolutioners and Protesters—the former being in favour of the Engagement for the restoration of the King and Constitution, even clogged with the Covenant; the latter insisting on the supremacy of the Kirk and Covenant, over King, Parliament, and People.

This state of matters could not be tolerated by any civil government and legislature pretending to have even the remotest semblance of authority; and accordingly, on the 10th of June, 1648, two Acts were passed—the one “ordaining all ministers to exhort their people to obedience to the laws of the kingdom, and assuring these ministers of their stipend during their lifetime;” the other ordaining the haill members of Parliament, and all other subjects and inhabitants of the kingdom, “to subscribe that act for defence of the lawfulness of this Parliament, and obedience to the acts thereof!”[380] The former of these narrates that, “having, for the satisfaction of all his Majesty’s good subjects, emitted a declaration containing the grounds of their present resolutions, and expecting an humble obedience and hearty concurrence of all his Majesty’s good subjects, especially of the ministry, to this their pious and loyall undertaking; yet they finde that, contrary to diverse standing laws and Acts of Parliament, some of them are so far from giving obedience thereunto, that they, both in their sermons, inveigh against it, and in their private discourse and otherwise, labour, so far as is in their power, to stir up the people to an open opposition against the authority and proceedings of Parliament. Neither do they meet with this obstruction by particular ministers, but also even in these who are now entrusted in the Commission of the General Assembly, as will appear by their Act of the 5th of June instant, whereby they do recommend to the Presbyteries that, if any ministers be found who do not declare themselves against the present ingagement, nor joyne with their brethren in the common resolutions against it, nor give publick information to the people of the unlawfulnesse thereof, they may be referred to the next General Assembly, and if any of them have already declared themselves for it, that they be presently censured; whereby the estates findes that, to the great scandal of reformed religion and Presbyteriall Government, they do not only lay a heavie yoke on the consciences of their brethren, who, in conscience of their dutie, finde themselves obliged to give obedience to the lawes of the Kingdom, but also usurp a power upon themselves to be judges of the lawes and of the proceedings of Parliament, who, by the fundamental laws of the Kingdom, have in them the only legislative power,” &c. And on these grounds they ordain the ministers to stir up the people to reverence and obey the laws and ordinances of Parliament. The other, and relative Act, enjoins subscription to it; obliging all the King’s lieges to support Parliament and its constitutions.