[167]. The methods of solicitation to obtain consent to this act were very strange and extraordinary. The laying aside of men from their places, who could have no interest but serving their consciences—commanding Mar, Ross, Kilsyth, Sir John Dalziel, &c. to their charges, but they offered to give up their commissions—the imprisoning my two servants, I being a member of parliament—the importunities used by Sir William Paterson and others in concussing members of parliament—their dealing with members not clear to stay away or go home, and then prolonging the meeting to weary out the poorer sort, who had exhausted both their money and credit—and lastly, the letters were one post all broken up and searched, to see if any correspondence or intelligence could be discovered between Scotland and England.—Fountainhall’s Decis. vol. i. p. 419.—The burrows, because they were obstinate against the court party, could justly expect no favour. They never were so unanimous in any parliament as in this, but formerly depending on noblemen: and therefore some called this an independent parliament.—Ib. p. 418.
Defeated in parliament, contrary to all expectation, James determined to carry through his favourite project by the power of his prerogative. First, he re-modelled his privy council, turning out the most stubborn opponents, as the Earls of Mar, Lothian, and Dumfries, with other decided Protestants, and introducing the Duke of Gordon, the Earls of Traquair and Seaforth, and other papists in their room, dispensing, by his own absolute authority, with their taking the test. To them he most undisguisedly communicated his royal intentions in the plainest language of tyrannical assumption:—“It was not any doubt We had of our power in putting a stop to the unreasonable severities of the acts of parliament against those of the Roman Catholic religion, that made us bring in Our designs to our parliament, but to give our loyal subjects a new opportunity of showing their duty to Us, in which we promised ourselves their hearty and dutiful concurrence, as what was founded on that solid justice we are resolved to distribute to all, and consequently to our Catholic subjects. And to the end the Catholic worship may, with the more decency and security, be exercised in Edinburgh, we have thought fit to establish our chapel within our palace of Holyrood-house, and to appoint a number of chaplains and others whom we require you to have in your special protection and care. You are likewise to take care that there be no preachers nor others suffered to insinuate to the people any fears or jealousies, as if we intended to make any violent alteration; and if any shall be so bold, you are to punish them accordingly; for it is far from our thoughts to use any violence in matters of conscience, consistent with our authority and the peace of our ancient kingdom.”
Still Mr Renwick was the Mordecai in the gate. He kept the fields, and continued to pursue his course steadfastly, notwithstanding the calumnies to which he was exposed, and the opposition he met with from several of the other persecuted ministers, and the dissensions among some who attended his ministry. About the end of the year, as he was preaching through Galloway, a protestation was presented to him by William M’Hutchison, in the name of all the professors between the rivers Dee and Cree, lamenting the woful effects of their divisions, and the adherence of so many to him without the consent and approbation of the remnant of godly and faithful ministers, and referring and submitting themselves in all these to an assembly of faithful ministers and elders. He retorted, “The divisions had arisen from those Presbyterian ministers who changed their commission and exercised their ministry under this abjured antichristian prelacy: from others, who took a new holding of their ministry from an arrogated headship over the church, by accepting indulgences, warrants, and restrictions from the usurper of their Master’s crown: from others, who have been unfaithful in not applying their doctrine against the prevailing sins of our day: from others, who have satisfied themselves to lie by from the exercise of their ministry, and desisted from the work of the Lord, and that when his vineyard stood most in need: and, he adds, from others, who have carried on or countenanced hotch-potch confederacies with malignants, and sectaries, and temporizing compilers.”[[168]] But he was strengthened and comforted by the accession of two efficient coadjutors in his work—Mr David Houston from Ireland, and Alexander Shiels, who had escaped from the Bass, where he had been a considerable time confined. On the 9th of December, a proclamation was issued, offering a reward of £100 sterling to any who should bring him in dead or alive. In the end of the month, David Steil, in the parish of Lesmahago, was surprised in the fields by Lieutenant Crichton; and after he had surrendered upon promise of safety, was barbarously shot.
[168]. This last accusation seems rather strained, as at this time there were no sectaries visible in Scotland, except Quakers or Gibbites, with neither of whom did the indulged confederate. In England and upon the borders, it is true, the good persecuted ministers united together, without much regard to church government, which the state of the times did not permit being very strictly observed among the sufferers, who appear to have practically adopted the general principle of the people judging of the character and qualifications of the ministers they heard, and of the consistent conduct of those with whom they held communion.—vide Memoirs of Veitch and Brysson.
[1687.] James’s precipitation in forcing popery upon his people appeared so impolitic, that even a jesuit missionary thought he made too great haste; but he told him he would either convert England or die a martyr; and, when one of his popish lords gently remonstrated with him, replied—“I am growing old, and must take large steps, else, if I should happen to die, I might perhaps leave you in a worse condition than I found you.” Yet with a strange inconsistency, he allowed both his daughters to be educated in the Protestant faith; and when he was asked why he was so little concerned about their conversion, replied—“God will take care of that!” But he had introduced shoals of seminary priests and jesuits for the instruction of his other subjects; and, while he interdicted the Presbyterian ministers from preaching or publishing any thing against his religion, under pain of treason, he employed these emissaries of Rome in every quarter; and having appointed Watson, a papist, his printer, assiduously caused publications in favour of popery to be widely disseminated. His most powerful argument, however, was, bestowing the chief places upon papists, especially converts, which induced many of the nobility and gentry to apostatize; and, like all apostates, they became the bitterest persecutors of the faith they had forsaken.
Mr Renwick and his hearers continued to be the objects of unmitigated hatred, in proportion as they continued to hold fast their integrity and preach the gospel. Two persons returning from hearing him, James Cunningham, merchant, and John Buchanan, cooper in Glasgow, were seized, sent prisoners to Edinburgh, and banished to Barbadoes;[[169]] and, on the 17th of February, the council received a letter from the king, in which he expressed his highest indignation against these enemies of Christianity, as well as government and human society, the field-conventiclers, whom he recommended to the council to root out with all the severity of the laws, and the most vigorous prosecution of the forces, it being equally his and his people’s concern to be rid of them. At the same time, he sent a royal proclamation, allowing, “by Our sovereign authority, prerogative, royal and absolute power,” moderate Presbyterians and quakers to meet in their private houses, but to hear such ministers only as have accepted or are willing to accept the toleration without explanation; and in like manner, by the same absolute power, he suspended all laws and acts of parliament, and other proceedings, against Roman Catholics, so that they should in all time coming, not only be as free as Protestants to exercise their religion, but to enjoy all offices, benefices, &c., which he should think proper to bestow, upon their taking an oath acknowledging him as rightful king and supreme governor of Scotland, England, France, and Ireland, and over all persons therein, and that they would never resist his power or authority; at the same time, he declared he would never suffer violence to be offered to any man’s conscience, nor use force or invincible necessity against any man on account of his persuasion. This, which was termed the first indulgence, did not pass the council unanimously. The Duke of Hamilton, and the Earls of Panmure and Dundonald, refused to sanction it; for which the Duke was reprimanded and the two Earls dismissed the board; and as a practical exposition of its real meaning, sixteen men and five women were shortly after, in the month of April, banished to America, because they would not own the present authority to be according to the word of God, nor engage never to hear Mr Renwick preach.
[169]. Perhaps it does not belong exactly to religious persecution, but as it is a curious trait of the times, I quote the following:—“Reid the mountebank pursues Scot of Harden and his lady for stealing away from him a little girl, called the tumblin-lassie, that danced upon his stage; and he claimed damages and produced a contract, whereby he bought her from her mother for £30 Scots. But we have no slaves in Scotland, and mothers cannot sell their bairns; and physicians attested the employment of tumblin would kill her; and her joints were now grown stiff, and she declined to return; though she was at least a prentice, and so could not run away from her master: yet some cited Moses’ law, that if a servant shelter himself with thee against his master’s cruelty, thou shalt surely not deliver him up. The lords renitente cancellario, in opposition to the Chancellor, assoilzied Harden.”—Fountainhall’s Decis. vol. i. p. 440. A few days after, his lordship adds, “Reid the mountebank is received into the popish church, and one of his blackamores was persuaded to accept of baptism from the popish priests, and to turn christian papist, which was a great trophy. He was called James, after the king, the chancellor, and the Apostle James.”—Ibid. p. 441.
None of these indulgences satisfied fully the Presbyterian ministers, while they were decidedly testified against by the denounced wanderers. Another was therefore issued, July 5th, to palliate the former, giving them leave to meet and serve God after their own way, be it in private houses, chapels, or places purposely built or set apart for that use; while it again denounced the full vigour of the law and of the army against such as should be guilty of field-conventicles; “for which, after this our royal grace and favour—which surpasses the hopes and equals the very wishes of the most zealously concerned—there is not the least shadow of excuse left!”
On the 20th, the Presbyterian ministers from various parts of the country met at Edinburgh, and agreed to accept the benefit of the new toleration; but an address of thanks to the king, “for granting them the liberty of the public and peaceable exercise of their ministerial functions without any hazard,” was not carried without considerable opposition. Upon this, many of the exiles returned from Holland, and among them Mr Patrick Warner, to whom the Prince of Orange, at parting, gave the following significant advice:—“I understand you are called home upon the liberty granted there; but I can assure you that liberty is not granted from any favour or kindness to you or your party, but from favour to papists and to divide you among yourselves; yet I think you may be so wise as to take the good of it and prevent the evil designed, and, instead of dividing, come to a better harmony among yourselves, when you have liberty to see one another and meet freely together.”
The wanderers, as they were excepted, so they disregarded the toleration. Persecution had made them cling closer to their principles. They refused to accept as a favour what they believed themselves entitled to claim as a right—the liberty of worshipping God according to their conscience—and they published their reasons:—They could not have any transactions with a person whose principles bound him to keep no faith with heretics, and whose dissimulation they had already detected. They considered accepting toleration from him as bargaining with an apostate, excommunicated, bigoted papist, and as such under the Mediator’s malediction, “yea, heir to his own grandfather’s [James VI.] imprecations, who wished the curse of God to fall upon such of his posterity as should at any time turn papists. They renounced him as a magistrate, because he had not taken the oath constitutionally required; and to accept this toleration flowing from his absolute power, would be acknowledging a power inconsistent with the law of God and the liberties of mankind; for, though nothing can be more desirable than when true liberty is established by the government, nothing can be more vile than when true religion is tolerated under the notion of a crime, and its exercise only allowed under certain restrictions.” As to the address of thanks by the ministers, they considered it “a train of fulsome flatteries, dishonourable to God, the reproach of his cause, the betraying of the church, the detriment of the nation, and the exposing of themselves to contempt.”