It was against the minds of sundry to make a declaration to England at all; but this behoved to be. I was feared for Mr James Guthrie his hand, and so I found I had reason. His draught was wanting of that which I thought was the chief thing it became us to say to them, if so we said any thing, a sharp complaint against the sectarian army, and the parliament’s negligence to perform their part of the covenant, which had brought on us all our present troubles: also it had some dangerous expressions, which I thought imported the rock I desired to evite, calling our state, “a faction; yea, the mixed multitude that came out of Egypt;” but the dissenters from the engagement, “the nation, and the Israel of God.” With very much ado I got these helped, some in the committee, and others in the face of the assembly.
I found the bent sail of the spirits of some so much on the engagement, that all things else were like to be neglected; therefore I pressed, that the doctrinals, as most proper for us, which the last general assembly had recommended to all the presbyteries, might be taken into consideration. I got in the Catechism, but no more. We passed this, both the Larger and the Shorter, as a part of uniformity; but we thought the Shorter too long, and too high for our common people and children, and so put it in Mr David Dickson’s hands, to draw it shorter and clearer. Of this he was careful, and presented us with a draught before the end of the assembly, which truly was very good and exact; but yet so high and long, that it was recommitted to Mr John Livingston, who purposed to remit it to the ministry of Edinburgh.
We had three things more of great concernment to have passed, and might easily have concluded them all, had not our time been worse spent, the Directory of government, the Theorems against Erastians, and the Psalms. The first, a very excellent and profitable piece, the fourth part of our uniformity, was shuffled by through the pertinacious opposition of Mr David Calderwood, and two or three with him. Four or five things we all agreed unto, except in that writ from our consent; but that which grieved Mr David was the matter of church-sessions, which he maintains to have no divine right in particular, but to be only as a committee from the presbytery, to execute those acts of jurisdiction which the presbytery thinks fit to commit thereto. Lest, in the end of the assembly, when many were gone, we should come to so grave a debate, or rather, lest at a time of our so great strife with the state, we should fall a jarring among ourselves, it was thought best to refer the whole writ to the next assembly. Upon the same grounds, the Theorems were also remitted. The Psalms were often revised, and sent to presbyteries. Had it not been for some who had more regard than needed to Mr Zachary Boyd’s Psalter, I think they had passed through in the end of the assembly; but these also, with almost all the references from the former assemblies, were remitted to the next.
One session, was spent in encouraging Mr David Calderwood to perfect his Church-history, and to consider Mr Andrew Ker for his good and great service to them. Both got a testimony of our favour, 800 lb. yearly for Mr David Calderwood, and 1000 lb. to Mr Andrew Ker, with a gratuity of 5,000 merks for bygones, were appointed by the assembly to be paid to them out of the church’s £500 Sterling pension; but we cannot, for any request, get one penny paid by the Treasurer, and have little hopes to get any more in haste.
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We were troubled with the opening of the mouths of deposed ministers. Poor Mr Patrick Hamilton, in the very nick when the assembly was to grant all his desires, was rejected by his own unhappiness. He had let fall out of his pocket a poem too invective against the church’s proceedings. This, by mere accident, had come into the hands of Mr Mungo Law, who gave it to Mr James Guthrie, who read it in the face of the assembly, to Mr Patrick’s confusion. Also when the assembly was to have at last, after three or four year’s refusal, shown favour to your old colleague Mr James Row, Mr Patrick Gillespie, and his own cousins, did so far mar him, upon tacit surmises, as, I suspect of small importance, that it is like he shall never be permitted to preach; yet honest John Gillon got permission to preach, and for this I confess I was forward; for the man, though he want letters, is very pious and well-gifted, and strong against all sectaries. The preparative is not dangerous, for I believe few in an age will fall to be in his case; and if many should, I would grant them the like favour, though some misinterpret it.
The assembly spent divers sessions, for small purpose, upon transportations. These I love daily worse. The most are evidently packed businesses, little for the credit either for the transporters or transported. Mr John Livingston, refused to Glasgow, and designed for Ireland by the late assembly, though earnestly suited by my Lord of Airds, and much stuck to by my Lord Cassils, who, for his respect, had made a constant stipend for his church, most out of his own rent, though his parishioners had not been cited, yet was, at my Lord Lothian’s suit, transported to Ancrum, where the benefice was great, and the way to Edinburgh short. D. Colvill, called by Edinburgh to the divinity profession, so willing to come as it became a wise and modest man, his colleagues willing to dismiss him; yet the private respects of a very few, made him to be fixed to his station, which I regretted. Mr George Hutcheson, orderly appointed by his presbytery to go to Ayr, yet he liking better to go to Burntisland or Edinburgh, than to join with Mr William Adair, and Mr William absenting himself when the action came in, was appointed to abide in his place.
I think the misorder of transportations will not be got helped, till some honest men peremptorily refuse to obey, which, I think, at last, some will do; especially since the falling of so many places is referred to the commission of the kirk, with a power almost arbitrary, to neglect all the rules before appointed by general assemblies for transportations. We were fashed with Patrick Lesly of Aberdeen. His intemperate zeal for the levy had made him overhale. Mr Andrew Cant gave in a foul libel against him. He gave in another against the ministers. It cost a committee very much diligence to get this matter accommodated; for it was manifest that Mr Andrew Cant could hardly live in Aberdeen, if this man were enraged; so for the ministers cause he was much spared, and that matter packed up as it might be. Some men are born, if not to raise, yet continually to live in a fire. We had some debate in our committee about conventicles. Some of them we had heard of in Edinburgh, in the characters of sectaries. Mr Robert Knox got them in to my great contentment; for I found some too sparing of them; and yet I fear how far in their own time they may extend their duty of mutual edification. The whole two weeks following were spent on these things. The most were fashed for the moderator’s want of dispatch, and too much sticking wilfully to his own sense.
Mr Robert Blair in the most, Mr Robert Ramsay in all, was of my mind. Mr Robert Douglas misliked some men’s carriage. The assembly of divines wrote to us a general letter. To this, Mr R. Blair’s answer was good and uncontroverted. The subscribing of the bond was much against all our minds; but an act was drawn up against it in my absence, which I much misliked; for it carried censure against the pressers of it. This directly aimed at our statesmen, the contrivers of it; but in the face of the assembly, I got it to be exponed only ad futura. Some of my neighbours before the assembly were so far in love with this subscription, that I was forced to write to them arguments against it, as you may see herewith. Though in some parts of the country the subscription go on, yet in the chief and most parts it is not required of any.——
—— Our assembly drove on to the end of the fifth week. Many, dwelling far off and superexpended, slid away. I suspected the moderator drew long of purpose, waiting for a letter from the parliament of England, which came not. We hear now the House of Commons past a declaration to us; but the Lords consented not to it. I did not love to have any correspondence with them now, but others loved it too well. Another motion in our committee I loved not, a letter to be written to the king. It was fathered on Mr James Hamilton; and the drawing of it put on him, though no commissioner. I knew there would be a heavier load laid by us on his Majesty than was expedient to be meddled with; also that we should not express such a sense of his unjust sufferings as the world would expect; and so I was earnest to let all alone; but the moderator carried it: and though the draught of that letter came never to our committee, but at the first was taken in to the Assembly, and some hours spent in the moderator’s publick correcting of it, yet the thing behoved to pass, and the wording of it to go to the commission. Many good overtures against the sins of the times did likewise pass. One of them I was feared for. It was, first, that all ministers conversing with malignants should be censured by presbyteries. This would have snared many; for the notion of the malignants now by the engagement, is extended to very many. I got it some way qualified, but not as it will be found needful.