At first the treacherous boon was not perceived by many excellent “outted” ministers in its naked deformity. They thought that it opened for them a door to preach the gospel, of which they were anxious to avail themselves, and imagined that by explicitly avowing their sentiments when they accepted their appointments, they would exonerate their consciences and satisfy their brethren. Accordingly, when these ten were brought before the council, and received their allotments, accompanied with injunctions, Mr George Hutchison, late one of the ministers of Edinburgh, transported to Irvine, thus spoke:—“My lords, I am desired in the name of my brethren present to acknowledge in all humility and thankfulness, his majesty’s royal favour, in granting us liberty and the public exercise of our ministry, after so long a restraint, and to return thanks to your lordships for having been pleased to make us, the unworthiest of many of our brethren, so early partakers of the same. We having received our ministry from Jesus Christ, with full prescriptions from him for regulating us therein, must, in the discharge thereof, be accountable to him; and as there can be nothing more desirable or refreshing to us upon earth, than to have free liberty of the exercise of our ministry, under the protection of lawful authority—the excellent ordinance of God, and to us most dear and precious—so we purpose and resolve to behave ourselves, in the discharge of the ministry, with that wisdom and prudence which becomes faithful ministers of Jesus Christ, and to demean ourselves towards lawful authority—notwithstanding of our own judgment in church affairs—as well becomes loyal subjects, and that from a principle of conscience. And now, my lords, our prayer to God is, that the Lord may bless his majesty in his person and government, and your lordships in your public administrations; and especially, in pursuance of his majesty’s mind, testified in his letter, wherein his singular moderation eminently appears, that others of our brethren may in due time be made sharers of the liberty, that, through his majesty’s favour, we now enjoy.”
Mr Hutchison’s address neither pleased the council nor satisfied his brethren. The latter thought it did not assert with sufficient plainness the sole kingship of Christ in his church, nor bear an honest enough testimony against the usurpation of Charles and his council. The rest, who were selected for a similar favour, had therefore resolved to be more downright, but they were never allowed an opportunity. The council, who wished to hear no more upon the subject, sent their appointments to them. The whole number under the first indulgence amounted to forty-three. They were willingly received by the people, and as they abstained from controversial subjects and confined themselves to the pure doctrines of the gospel, it was remarked that they were eminently countenanced of the Lord in their labours.
As had, however, always been anticipated by the more unbending part of the ministry, this partial relaxation to a few was accompanied by harsher measures against the rest, especially those who, choosing to obey God rather than man, could not in conscience comply with the mandates of those rulers, and desist from declaring the glad tidings of salvation as He, in his providence, gave them opportunity. A fresh proclamation was issued, (August 3,) commanding all heritors to delate to the next magistrates, any who, within their bounds, should take upon them to preach and carry on worship in any unwarrantable meetings, that they might be thrown into prison—the magistrates of burghs were required to detain them till further orders—and the lieges were likewise informed, that the laws would be rigidly put in execution against all withdrawers from public worship in their respective congregations. These, however, were only preparatory to severer parliamentary enactments, which confirmed the worst suspicions of those who uniformly distrusted the equivocal toleration of their rulers, and justified their refusal to come to any compromise as a matter of sound policy, even had it not been a point of conscience. In the interim, the prelates pursued their own measures, to render abortive the provision intended for the unindulged, but quiet, part of the brethren. They procured that the act of parliament which allotted all vacant stipends, since 1664, to the support of the universities, should be examined into; nor does it appear that any one of the sufferers ever received a farthing from that fund. Mr John Park, one of the ten, late minister of Stranraer, was reponed to his own parish, but the bishop of Galloway, three days after the council’s nomination, admitted one Nasmith to the charge; and notwithstanding, or perhaps rather because the people were unanimous in favour of their late pastor, the council rather chose to submit to the insult done their authority, than disoblige the prelate, and confirmed the intruder in his office.
A project of an union between the two kingdoms was the ostensible reason for assembling the Scottish parliament after six years’ interval. The project came to nothing; but, in the meanwhile, it subserved the ambition of Lauderdale, who was appointed Commissioner. The elections went entirely in favour of his party, and he was received in Scotland with little less pomp than if he had been the sovereign, for his opponents were eager to deprecate his anger; and the Presbyterians, the dupes of their own wishes, fondly believed that he was still in heart with them, though he had been forced by circumstances to act otherwise, in which they were the more confirmed by an incident that occurred two days before the parliament sat down, which yet was only a political fracas. Burnet, archbishop of Glasgow, who was one of the stoutest assertors of the king’s absolute supremacy, when it overturned Presbyterianism and settled Episcopacy, was by no means so clear about his majesty’s right to set aside the laws when he trenched upon the functions of the bishops, and granted relief to the persecuted ministers. He, therefore, in the Episcopal synod of Glasgow, caused, or allowed, a remonstrance to be drawn up against the indulgence, representing it as an illegal stretch of power, and likely to be destructive to the church. Unfortunately for the right reverend father, he stood opposed both to Lauderdale and Sharpe, and the affair being brought before the council, his lordship was ordered to produce the paper, which was forwarded to the king; and James Ramsay, dean of Glasgow, and Arthur Ross, parson, who had drawn it up, were severely reprimanded—the paper suppressed—and “all his majesty’s lieges, of what function or quality soever, discharged from countenancing or owning the same.” Lauderdale did not, however, long allow the Presbyterians to remain in doubt as to his real sentiments. In his speech to parliament, which met on the 19th, he assured them of the king’s unalterable determination to support Episcopacy—avowed his own attachment to it—and inveighed against conventicles, whose entire suppression he urged, as his majesty having granted an indulgence, would never now consent to tolerate them.
The parliament, like their predecessors, showed every inclination to comply with whatever was required; and in their first act asserted and declared, that his majesty had the supreme authority and supremacy over all persons and in all causes ecclesiastical within the kingdom, and that the ordering and disposal of the external government and policy of the church did properly belong to the king and his successors, as an inherent right of the crown, who might emit such orders concerning the external government of the church—the persons employed in it—their meetings, and the subjects to be discussed there, as in their royal wisdom they should think fit, which, when entered in the books of council and duly published, were to be obeyed by all his majesty’s subjects, any law, act, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding. Even the bishops themselves were not greatly delighted with this act, and such of the nobility as retained any lingering respect for the religious liberties of their country, were only induced to support it by the representations of Lauderdale, that it was necessary to have some check upon the bishops, whose insolence was intolerable; but the consistent Presbyterians saw in it nothing but the assumption of an antichristian power, which no magistrate on earth had any right to possess, and it afforded to them another and a stronger objection than they previously had, to accepting any indulgence from the king. The conduct of the council in embodying the militia, and thus, under another name, establishing a standing army in Scotland, was next approved of by an ex post facto act, empowering his majesty to do what had been already done, and declaring this also an inherent right of the crown. Then followed an act for the security of the persons of the orthodox ministers.
It seems three women, or men in womens’ clothes, most probably the former, had, during the summer, on one night about nine or ten o’clock, come into the house of John Row, curate of Balmaclellan, in Galloway—who afterwards turned a papist—and taking him out of his “naked bed,” had inflicted upon his carcass a very irreverent flagellation, after which, it is said, they opened his trunk and took away what they had a mind; for this, the heritors of the parish were fined £1200 Scots. Mr Lyon, curate at Orr, was searched for, but missed; and, it was reported, his house was spoiled; for which his parishioners were assessed in the sum of six hundred merks. These sums having been levied by order of the privy council, this act was procured to legitimate all similar exactions in future, and, like almost every other enactment of this period, added a new link to the chain of despotism. The forfeitures inflicted by the Court of Justiciary were, in like manner, legalized by an act of this congregation of sycophants, whose session ended on the 23d of December.
Towards the close of the year, the first field-meeting was held in Fife. Mr John Blackadder having gone to visit his two friends, Sir James Stewart and Sir John Chiesly, who were then imprisoned in Dundee, Lady Balcanquhal invited him to preach in her house—the only species of conventicle yet known in that district; but he fearlessly caused public advertisement to be made, that all that were athirst might come without money and without price. “Let all the world,” said he, “see that you do not huddle up so profitable and honest a work, or keep it to yourselves; for my part, I am not ashamed to avow, in the face of danger or death, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” A multitude in consequence assembled, too numerous for the house to contain, and they betook themselves to the fields. Many were much affected; and some, who were present, when asked, what they thought of the work? answered with tears, that they had never seen such a day, and were eager to know when such an opportunity might occur again.
[1670.] Under whatever figure of speech it might be disguised, it was now no longer a matter of doubt what was the dispute between the Presbyterians and the Episcopalians. It was not a mere form of church government—it was not a question about obedience to lawful rulers. It was a contest between light and darkness—it was, whether the gospel of the grace of God was to be freely preached to the poor inhabitants of Scotland, or was it not? Historians, or men styling themselves historians, in overlooking this circumstance, either do not understand or wilfully avert their eyes from the fundamental cause of the persecution, from this date till Bothwell Bridge, when it again became mingled with political matters. Had there been any doubt upon the subject, the proceedings of the privy council and of parliament this year, would have sufficiently cleared it. Mr Andrew Boyd, minister of Carmunnock, was, in the month of January, committed to close confinement in Stirling Castle, for having preached to, and met, for the purpose of worshipping God, with his former parishioners. Nor would his defence be listened to, although he pled the necessity of preaching the gospel when ignorance and profanity so much abounded, and so many souls were perishing for lack of knowledge. The ministers of Newbattle, Strathaven, and Symington, were similarly treated, although they appear only to have followed the apostolic practice, and “ceased not in every house to teach and preach Jesus Christ.” Some fines were at the same time levied upon those who attended. One lady (Helderston) was fined four hundred merks for having had a conventicle in her house in Edinburgh—a merchant, for having had his child baptized, was mulcted in two hundred—and four citizens, for being present, paid each one hundred pounds—although, as a venerable minister observed before the council, there was as yet no law of Scotland forbidding the worship of God, which was the only crime laid to their charge.
While the “outted” ministers were forbid to exercise their ministry in any shape, those who were indulged soon began to experience that their liberty was by no means perfect freedom. The first link that was added to their chain, was a prohibition from explaining the Scriptures to their people in the manner they thought best fitted to convey instruction. It is evident that, in stated congregations, an exposition of connected passages of Scripture, or what is generally known in Scotland as “lecturing,”[[68]] is eminently calculated to improve and edify the church; and this had been an old method employed by the most distinguished and successful of the Presbyterian ministers. The indulged continued the practice; but for this the uneducated and worthless crew who had been thrust into their charges were totally unfit, and their pulpit exhibitions only encountered the scorn of their hearers—sometimes perhaps too rudely expressed.
Complaints were therefore made to the privy council, and their superior ability and mode of teaching were imputed as crimes to the indulged, whose favour with the people, by the same reasoning, was considered the cause of their hatred to the curates. They were in consequence forbid to lecture, and a commission was granted to the Duke of Hamilton, the Earls of Linlithgow, Dumfries, Kincardine, and Dundonald, the Lord Clerk Register, and Lieutenant-General Drummond, or any four of them, to “put to due and rigorous execution the acts of parliament and councils” respecting “pretended” religious meetings, the security of the orthodox clergy, and to examine into the conduct of the indulged ministers. The charges of outrage brought forward by the legal incumbents against their parishioners, were in some cases villanously false, and in others ridiculously exaggerated. One Jeffray, curate of Maybole, accused the Whigs of having attempted to shoot him, and produced a volume contused by a ball, which he said had saved his life, having been in his bosom when he was fired at; but, upon examination, it was found that the clothes he wore at the time were untouched, the blockhead having forgot to perforate his garments when he wounded his book. This precious evangelist was, in consequence, dismissed; but when there happened to be any ground for complaint, the case was remitted to Edinburgh, and the punishment was extravagant. Some idle boys had thrown a bit of rotten wood at the curate of Kilmacomb while he was holding forth; and when he left the pulpit in terror, they followed the fugitive, huzzaing and shouting, till he reached the manse. For this boyish insolence, which probably merited a whipping, four of the offenders were sentenced to be transported to the plantations! and the heritors of the parish were fined one hundred pounds sterling, which Mr John Irvine, the said curate, received as a solatium. The parson of Glasford’s house was robbed by common thieves, one of whom being afterwards executed for another crime, confessed the fact. The Whigs, however, were accused, and the parish paid one thousand pounds Scots for having maltreated a man they had only despised.