The most atrocious measure, however, of this assembly, was their “act against conventicles,” by which it was statute and commanded that the “outted” ministers, who were not licensed by the council, and no other persons not authorized nor tolerated by the bishop of the diocese, should presume to preach, expound Scripture, or pray in any meeting, except in their own houses, and to those of their own family, “under pain of imprisonment till they should find security to the amount of five thousand merks never again to trespass in a similar manner, or to remove out of the kingdom and never to return without his majesty’s license; every person present was to be fined—an heritor, a fourth part of his yearly rent—a tenant, twenty-five pounds Scots—a cottar, twelve pounds—and each servant, a fourth part of his yearly fee; and if accompanied by wives or children, half the sum for each. The master or mistress of the house to pay double. Besides which, the magistrates of any burgh where a conventicle was kept, were rendered liable to a fine at the pleasure of the privy council, they having recourse upon the persons present, who were thus subjected to be twice mulcted for the same crime; and in addition, punished with imprisonment as long as the council should see fit.”
Field-conventicles, denominated “rendezvouses of rebellion,” but explained to be meetings for hearing the Scriptures expounded, or for prayer, were punishable—the minister by death and confiscation—the attenders by double penalties to those of house conventicles; and every meeting was declared to be a field conventicle, although held in a house, if there were any persons standing without at the door or at the windows. The execution of this act was intrusted to the sheriffs, stewards, lords of regalities, and their deputies, who were to account to the privy council for the fines of the heritors; but all others, to stimulate their activity, they were allowed to retain. Persons having their children baptized by any minister except their own parish priest, were rendered liable to additional fines, to be levied in the same manner, and, to complete the tyranny with the most cruel insult, by enforcing a principle which Lauderdale well knew the Presbyterians acknowledged—the king’s right to regulate the externals of religion.[[70]]
[70]. In religion, as in every thing else, what may be right in the abstract, may be essentially wrong in its practical application. The power of the magistrate to enforce attendance upon divine worship may he very plausibly defended as a principle, but, supposing that the whole Episcopalians in Scotland had been as godly men, and as excellent preachers as Archbishop Leighton, to have obliged these conscientious sufferers to have attended their ministrations, would have been no less persecution than forcing them to attend the worthless curates who neither understood nor preached the gospel.
His majesty conceiving himself bound in conscience and duty to interpose his authority, that the public exercises of God’s worship be countenanced by all his good subjects, and that such as upon any pretext do disorderly withdraw, be by the censures of the law made sensible of their miscarriage, and by the authority of the law drawn to a dutiful obedience of it—with advice and consent of his estates in parliament, ordained and commanded all his good subjects of the reformed religion, to attend and frequent the ordinary meetings for divine worship in their own parish churches; and whoever should absent themselves three Lord’s days, without a reasonable excuse for every time, were to be fined—an heritor an eighth of his yearly rent—a tenant six pounds Scots—a cottar or servant forty shillings. So sensible, however, did the framers of the act appear to be, that such care for the religious improvement of the people, instead of being likely to produce reformation, was more likely to produce rebellion, that they ordained if any person, after being fined, should persist in still absenting himself from the means of instruction which the government had so kindly provided, he should be required to sign a bond to the following purport:—“I, ——, oblige myself that I shall not upon any pretext or colour whatsoever, rise in arms against the king’s majesty, or any having his authority or commission; nor shall assist nor countenance any who shall rise in arms.” And if any person refused, he was to be imprisoned or banished, and his single escheat or life-rent escheat was to fall to his majesty.
Acts so immeasurably rigorous, which passed without one dissenting voice except that of the young Earl of Cassils, so vile was that crouching assembly, grieved the soul of the amiable Leighton—whose first coldness towards the Presbyterian profession had arisen from what he conceived to be a persecuting spirit in the manner they forced the covenants to be sworn—and he declared he would never consent to propagate Christianity itself by such means, far less a form of church government.[[71]] Tweeddale told him they were never intended to be put in execution, but were merely hung out, in terrorem, to induce the Presbyterians to comply with the advances of government, and meet them on a plan of equitable moderation. Duped by these false and hollow professions, he strenuously set himself to endeavour accomplishing so desirable an end; and, as a first step, immediately on his entry into the archiepiscopal office, he made an effort to rid his district of the incapable and scandalous underlings who degraded their function and rendered it contemptible in the eyes of the people. He appointed a committee to inquire into the complaints made against the curates, of whose proceedings we have no authentic record. From the testimony, however, of the Presbyterian writers, it appears that several had been removed; that others who feared a similar sentence, compounded with their parishes for a little money, and voluntarily went back to the north and east, whence they had come; and that the archbishop, at least in one instance, had personally interposed, where his committee were inclined to be partial, and dismissed the noted curate of Maybole, against whom the crimes of swearing, fighting, and drunkenness, were proved. But I apprehend his exertions in this had been cramped by the interference of the civil power; for “the council, upon being informed that the synod of Glasgow had appointed a committee of their number to hear and take trial of such complaints as should be given in to them against scandalous ministers; and considering it expedient that they should have all encouragement, appointed Sir John Cochran of Ochiltree, Sir Thomas Wallace, Sir John Cunninghame, Sir John Harper, and the provosts of Glasgow and Ayr, to meet with them and assist them.” The nature of all such assistance is sufficiently plain; and if less was accomplished than expected, the cause of the failure may be easily accounted for without any fault on the part of the bishop.
[71]. The conduct of Leighton has always appeared to me inexplicable; and, although I willingly give him credit for the best of motives, yet I have never met with any very satisfactory apology for his accepting a then bishopric. It must not, however, be forgotten, that he repeatedly tendered his resignation to the king, who personally urged him to retain it; and that he did so upon the faith of the royal promise that milder measures would be pursued, and that when he found himself deceived, he left the archiepiscopate.
Another scheme which he tried at the same time to elevate the Episcopalian character, proved even still more abortive. He employed several of the most learned and decorous of their preachers, who were also reckoned pious, Dr Gilbert Burnet, Mr James Nairn, Mr Laurence Charteris, men of superior abilities and unblameable lives, with some others of more obscure name, as missionaries to preach in the west. They were received by the people with scorn, and contemptuously styled the bishop’s evangelists; few could be persuaded to hear them, and of those who did, they do not appear to have made many converts. Burnet himself gives this candid account—“The people of the country came generally to hear us, though not in great crowds. We were indeed amazed to see a poor commonalty so capable to argue upon points of government, and on the bounds to be set to the power of princes in matters of religion. Upon all these topics they had texts of Scripture at hand, and were ready with their answers to any thing that was said to them. This measure of knowledge was spread even among the meanest of them, their cottagers and their servants.”
Neither did the grand object to which these were preliminary, succeed any better. After several conferences, the accommodation was given up. The first was held at Holyrood-house before Lauderdale, Rothes, Tweeddale, and Kincardine, in the month of August, between Messrs G. Hutchison, A. Wedderburn, John Baird, and John Gemble—indulged ministers who had been invited to Edinburgh by Lauderdale—and Bishop Leighton and Professor Gilbert Burnet. Sharpe would not be present. Lauderdale opened the business by an eulogium on the king’s condescension and clemency—his wishes for a complete unity and harmony—and recommended an agreement upon joint measures which might tend to the peace of the church. Leighton followed. He deplored the mischief their divisions had occasioned, the many souls that had been lost, and the many more that were in danger, while they were wasting their strength in contention, and exhorted every one to do what he could to heal a breach that had let in so many evils. For his own part, he said, he was persuaded that Episcopacy, as an order distinct from Presbytery, had existed in the church ever since the days of the apostles; that the world had every where received the Christian religion from bishops; and that a parity among clergymen was never thought of in the church before the middle of the last century, and was then set up rather by accident than design; still, how much soever he was persuaded of this, as they were of a different judgment, he had a proposal to make by which they might both preserve their opinions, and yet unite in carrying on the preaching of the gospel and the end of their ministry; and that was, merely to recognize the bishops as the presidents of their synods and presbyteries, with liberty to dissent from any measure they did not approve of.
The ministers made no reply; but next day, in the bishop’s chamber, Mr Hutchison, in name of the rest, answered his observations respecting Episcopacy:—Parity among the ministers of the gospel, he affirmed to be the original apostolic institution, that a perpetual presidency had made way for a lordly dominion in the church; and that however inconsiderable the thing might seem to be in itself, it both had been and would be of great and mischievous consequence. Those present however, he said, could come to no agreement without consulting their brethren, and therefore desired that the project might be submitted to them, which was accordingly done in the following form:—“Presbyteries being set up by law, as they were established before the year 1638, and the bishop passing from his negative voice, and we having liberty to protest and declare against any remainder of prelatic power, retained or that may happen at any time to be exercised by him, for a salvo for our consciences from homologation thereof—your opinion is required, as to whether we can with safety to our principles join in these presbyteries? or what else is it that we will desire to do for peace in the church and an accommodation—Episcopacy being always preserved?”
Upon these queries, the ministers in the south and west had a very numerous meeting, when, after long reasoning, it was unanimously agreed, that to sit in ecclesiastical courts called by bishops, whose only right emanated from the supremacy of the crown, was virtually acknowledging that supremacy—a thing very different from meeting in the presbyteries which were indicted, a.d. 1638, by the intrinsic power of the church, and therefore could not be complied with; and as to the salvo of a protest, it would be a protestation contrary to the fact, and so no salvo to an honest man’s conscience. For the sake of peace, they had no objection to join in public worship with a bishop, or such as were ordained by him; but as to acknowledging their office, by sitting in courts with them, they could not see how that could at all be reconciled with their principles.