After he had finished reading, he prayed with the greatest fervour and humility, thus beginning his supplication—“Abba! Abba! Father, Father, accept this thy poor sinful servant, coming unto thee through the merits of Jesus Christ.” Then he took leave of his friends, and again, at the foot of the ladder, prayed in a perfect rapture, being now near the end of that sweet work he had been so much employed about, and felt so much sweetness in through life. No ministers were allowed to be with him, but his God abundantly supplied his every want. On account of his weakness, he required help to ascend the ladder. Having reached the top, he cried with a loud voice—“I beseech you all who are the people of God not to scorn at suffering for the interest of Christ, or stumble at any thing of this kind falling out in these days. Be encouraged to suffer for him, for I assure you, in the name of the Lord, he will bear your charges!” This he repeated again while the rope was putting about his neck, forcibly adding—“The Lord hath graciously comforted me.” Then asking the executioner if he was ready to do his office, and being answered that he was, he gave the signal, and was turned off, crying—“Pray! pray! praise! praise!” His death was almost without a struggle.
Sir Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston, was an early, zealous, and distinguished covenanter, and bore a conspicuous part in all the remarkable transactions of the times, from 1638 till the Restoration. The only blemish which his enemies could affix to his character was, what he himself lamented, his accepting office under the usurpers, after having previously so violently opposed this in others, when yet every prospect of restoring the Stuart family seemed hopeless, and when numbers of his countrymen and of his judges themselves had submitted to a tolerant commonwealth, that did not burden the conscience with unnecessary oaths, or require any compliances which might not, in the circumstances of the case, have been considered venial, if not justifiable. His talents for business were of the first order. His eloquence was ready, and his judgment clear. He was prompt and intrepid in action, and adhered steadily to his Presbyterian principles, notwithstanding his officiating under a liberal government of a different persuasion—conduct we now allow to be not incompatible with integrity. His piety was ardent, and, amid a life of incessant activity, he managed to spare a larger portion of time for private devotion than many of more sequestered habits. He habitually lived near to God, and died in the full assurance of hope.
Parliament having sat upwards of three months, rose on the 9th of October. Even during its sitting, the council never intermitted their oppressive acts; and, so far was this branch of the legislature from interfering to check their immoderate abuse of power, that they had shown themselves upon every occasion the willing instruments of their oppression, ready when called upon to legitimate without a murmur their foulest usurpations. On the other hand, the executive acted as the humble tools of the prelates, ready to support their most arrogant assumptions or gratify their cowardly and cruel revenge. St Andrews, the primate’s seat, first required to be thoroughly cleansed; and all who would not countenance the archbishop in his treachery, were of necessity removed as unwelcome remembrancers of his former profession. Mr James Wood, principal of the Old College, pious, learned, and assiduous in his duty, who had been an intimate friend and companion of Sharpe’s, and one of the many excellent men who had been his dupes, was, on the 23d of July, summoned before the council and required to show by what authority he came to be principal. Without being suffered to offer any remarks, when he acknowledged “that he was called by the Faculty of the College at the recommendation of the usurpers,” the place was declared vacant, and he was commanded to confine himself within the city of Edinburgh till further orders.
Yet such was the estimation in which he was held, that his enemy, though by falsehood, endeavoured to shelter his apostacy under the shadow of his name. Not long after this, when Mr Wood was on his deathbed, March 1664, and greatly weakened by disease, Sharpe called once or twice upon him; and he having said, as a dying man in the immediate view of eternity, that he was taken up about greater business than forms of church government, and that he was far more concerned about his personal interest in Christ than about any external ordinance, Sharpe took occasion to spread a report that he had said Presbyterian government was a matter of no consequence, and no man should trouble himself about it, which coming to the sufferer’s ears, he emitted a declaration before witnesses of his unshaken attachment to Presbytery as an ordinance of God, and so precious that a true Christian is obliged to lay down his life for the profession thereof, if the Lord should see meet to put him to his trial.
Along with Mr Wood, a great number of ministers from every quarter of the country, were removed from their charges, some confined to Edinburgh, others banished beyond the river Ness—all forbid to preach the gospel under the threatening of severer penalties. Heavy were the complaints of the clergy; the ministers refused to attend their synods, and the people persisted in neglecting their sermons. The council, therefore, appointed “the Lords Archbishops of St Andrews and Glasgow, the Marquis of Montrose, the Lord Secretary and Register, to wait on the Lord Commissioner, his Grace, to think on a general course what shall be done, as well anent those ministers that were admitted before 1649, and carry themselves disobediently to the laws of the kingdom, as those who were admitted since.” While the committee were deliberating, the evil increased; and, on the 30th of the same month, six of the west country ministers were before the council to answer the heavy charge of “convocating great multitudes of his majesty’s subjects for hearing their factious and seditious sermons, to the great scandal of religion and prejudice of the government of the church.” To shorten their labours, however, and probably upon a report of the archbishops and their assistants, a most harassing and contradictory act was passed, commanding all “outted” ministers, under pain of sedition, i.e. being processed criminally, to remove themselves and their families twenty miles from the bounds of their own parishes, six miles from every cathedral, and three miles from every royal burgh, thus depriving them of any means of support they might have derived from their own industry or that of their families, in the only places of trade or traffic, and scattering them among strangers, far from the bounty or assistance of their friends. But as one “outted” minister only could reside in one parish, the act, besides, involved an alternative of death or apostacy; for the whole of Scotland could not have accommodated the sufferers, and no relaxation could be obtained but from the privy council or the bishop of the diocese. The older ministers, who still continued to preach, but withdrew from the synods, were now to be treated as contemners of his majesty’s authority.
To enforce their acts, the privy council ordered the Earl of Linlithgow to send as many troops to Kirkcudbright as, with those already there, would make up the number of eightscore footmen with their officers in that district. Sir Robert Fleming was directed to march two squads of his majesty’s life-guards to the west, and to station one in Paisley and the other in Kilmarnock. The object of these military missionaries was to episcopalize the refractory south and west, by collecting the fines and compelling subjection to the bishops and their curates. Sir James Turner, who had signalized himself by his zeal in fighting for the covenant, was singled out to superintend the pious service in the south, which he performed so much to the satisfaction of his employers, that, on the 24th of November, a letter of thanks was recommended to be written him “for his care and pains taken in seeing the laws anent church government receive due obedience.” The excesses which were committed under sanction of these orders and commendations, were never attempted to be justified, though the parties afterwards mutually endeavoured to shift the blame from themselves. When it was deemed necessary to make the General the scape-goat, it was asserted that he had exceeded his instructions; but he averred, and with greater probability of truth, that he had not even acted up to their tenor.[[38]] The exactions were enormous; and, as the fines for non-attendance were generally appropriated by the soldiers, they were summarily levied, and not unfrequently to far more than the legal amount. The process against non-conformists, in places where there were Episcopalian incumbents, was short. The curates were the accusers—the officers of the army, or sometimes even private sentinels, the judges—no proof was required—and no excuse was received, except money. If a tenant or householder were unwilling or unable to pay, a party was quartered upon him, till ten times the value of the fine was taken, and he was ruined, or, as they termed it, “eaten up;”[[39]] then, after every thing else was gone, the household furniture and clothes of the poor defaulters were distrained and sold for a trifle.
[38]. “Sometimes not exceeding a sixth part, seldom a halfe.” Turner’s Memoirs, p. 114.
[39]. To understand the meaning of this phrase, it is necessary to recollect the situation of the rural tenantry in Scotland about this time. They lived almost entirely upon the produce of the lands they rented, and kept usually a small stock of oatmeal, cheese, and salted provisions, as public markets were almost wholly unknown.
The soldiery employed in this execrable work, were the lowest and most abandoned characters, who readily copied the example of their officers—measured their loyalty by their licentiousness, and considered that they served the king in proportion as they annoyed the Whigs. Religion was the object of their ridicule. In the pious hamlets where they quartered, family worship was interrupted by mockery or violence; and “The Cottar’s Saturday Night,” not only treated with derision, but punished as a violation of the laws of the land! Upon the Sabbath, the day peculiarly devoted by the covenanters to holy rest, and the quiet performance of their sacred duties—for the covenanters made conscience of the moral obligation of the Sabbath—a scene of dismay and distress hitherto unknown was commonly exhibited; and the day to which they had in other times looked forward as the glory of the week, was now dreaded as the signal of their renewed torments. Multitudes were brutally driven to church, or dragged as felons to prison; and hesitation or remonstrance provoked only additional insult or blows. Lists of the parishioners were no longer kept for assisting the minister in his labours of love, but were handed over to the troopers, with directions for them to visit the families, and to catechise them upon their principles of loyalty and their practice of obedience to their parsons. After sermon, the roll was called by the curate, when all absent without leave were delivered up as deserters to the mercy of the military. At churches where the old Presbyterian ministers were yet allowed to remain—for a few still continued to preach at their peril, or through the interest of some influential person—the outrage and confusion were indescribable. As they were generally crowded, the forsaken bishops and their underlings were enraged, and the soldiers were instigated to additional violence. Their custom was to allow a congregation peaceably to assemble, while they sat carousing in some alehouse nigh at hand, till public worship was nearly over; then they sallied forth inflamed with liquor, and, taking possession of the church-doors or churchyard-gates, obliged the people, whom they only suffered to pass out one at a time, to answer upon oath whether they belonged to the parish; if they did not, although their own parish had no minister of any kind, they were instantly fined at the pleasure of the soldiers; and if they had no money, or not so much as would satisfy them, their Bibles were seized, and they were stripped of their coats if men, or their plaids if women; so that a party returning from such an expedition, appeared like a parcel of villanous camp-followers, after an engagement, returning from a battle-field, laden with the spoils of the wounded and slain.
To such an extent had these plunderings been carried, that even the privy council found it necessary to interfere. Towards the end of the year, they issued an explanation of their former acts, and restricted the exactions of the soldiery, “allenarly to the penalty of twenty shillings Scots, from every person who staid from their parish churches on the Sabbath days.”[[40]]