Some of these residing in Edinburgh, the council determined that they should either be silent or proceed to the parishes allotted as their places of confinement. By an order of the 7th March, all “outted” ministers were enjoined to remove to a distance of five miles from the city, unless they gave bond to keep no conventicles; and on the 12th, those of the indulged who had not entered upon their parishes, were called before them, and peremptorily commanded to show their obedience before the 1st of June. Kirkton thanked them for allowing him so much time to consider, and said “he should desire to advise with the Lord and his conscience;” and was dismissed till then, together with Mr Matthew M’Kail, Robert Lockhart, James Donaldson, and some others.
These injunctions were shortly after followed by another fierce proclamation against conventicles, requiring all heritors and others to give prompt information respecting such meetings to the council under pain of being fined at least in a fourth part of their rents. Still the activity of the respectable part of the population not meeting the wishes of the council, the higher ranks, Hamilton, Eglinton, and Cassilis, were ordered to undertake the hated office of hunting out conventicles and report to Edinburgh. The reason alleged was, that the king being at war with the Dutch, the latter designed to raise troubles in Scotland, and the conventicles behoved to be dispersed as holding communication with the enemy. The council now also commenced sending ministers to that horrible prison, the Bass; and Mr Robert Gillespie, for conducting the worship of God in a house at Falkland, was the first who had that honour, because he would not consent to inform upon those who were present, and whose fines might have been more profitable than his imprisonment. He was followed in the month of June by Alexander Peden, an eminent servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose character has suffered little less from the credulity of his admirers, than from the ridicule of his enemies. He appears to have sprung from persons in humble life, and, previously to being licensed, had been schoolmaster, precentor, and session-clerk to Mr John Guthrie, at Tarbolton.[[75]] He was three years minister at New Glenluce, in Galloway, whence he was ejected soon after the Restoration, and was among the first of the field-preachers. In the beginning of 1666, he was denounced by proclamation, and next year declared a rebel and forfeited both in life and fortune. He continued from that time wandering and exercising his ministry to great numbers, and with much success, alternately in Scotland and Ireland, till June this year, when he was seized by Major Cockburn in the house of Hugh Ferguson of Knockdow, in Carrick, and sent together with his landlord to Edinburgh. On the 26th he was examined before the council and committed to the Bass. Mr Ferguson was fined a thousand merks for affording him a night’s lodgings. And so highly did the managers estimate the capture, that they ordered fifty pounds sterling to be paid to the Major—twenty-five to be distributed among the soldiers, to stimulate to new service.
[75]. Wodrow says Fenwick, evidently a mistake, for William Guthrie, author of the well known excellent treatise, the “Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ,” was minister at Fenwick.
All proving ineffectual, Lauderdale sent down a letter, May 31, in his arrogant style of rude bantering jocularity, telling the council that if any of the indulged were still unwilling to accept of that favour upon the terms upon which it was granted, that they should not at all press them to it; but instead of that, require sufficient assurance of their forbearing conventicles, going regularly to church, and behaving orderly in the places where they resided, adding, “because some of them are displeased, forsooth! with the late indulgence, you shall secure them from the fear of any more of that kind! and let them know that if after all the lenity used toward them, they still continue refractory and untractable, the whole of the royal power shall be employed for securing the peace of the church and kingdom from their seditious practices.”
Money and blood are the fundamental principles of all false religions; and love of the world is not a more absolute criterion by which to judge of an individual’s Christianity, than a sure and certain rule by which to judge whether a church be a church of Christ or no. Attachment to the temporalities of an ecclesiastical establishment is as clear and distinct a feature of antichrist, wherever it is found, as any given in the word of God, by whatever name that establishment be called, whether a Protestant Episcopacy or the Hierarchy of Rome. These were prominent features of the prelacy of Scotland. I subjoin an example of their extortion. The whole succeeding years will bear evidence to their lust of blood. In Renfrew alone the following sums were awarded against eleven gentlemen, and only not levied to their full extent because a compromise could be readily procured by the ecclesiastical robbers, while it might have been doubtful whether, if the whole had been sued for, they might not have been forced to share the produce with the legal ruffians:—Sir George Maxwell of Newark, for three years’ absence from church, 31,200 pounds Scots; for weekly conventicles, 62,400; and for disorderly baptisms, 1200, making a total of 94,800 pounds Scots, or £7800. 1s. 6d. sterling—the Laird of Douchal, afterwards Porterfield, 84,400, Scots, or £7032 sterling—Sir George Maxwell, Netherpollock, in 93,600, Scots, or £7500 sterling—Cunningham of Carncurran, 15,833. 6s. 8d., Scots—John Maxwell of Dargarvel, 18,900, Scots—Walkinshaw of Walkinshaw, 12,600, Scots—and five others in different sums, making a total of 368,031. 3s. 4d., Scots.
Partial compliances did not secure the indulged from trouble, nor were they less the objects of the bishops’ hatred than their more resolute brethren. When the anniversary of the king’s birth-day returned, they were summoned to appear before the council to give an account of the manner in which they celebrated it; and the “reverend fathers in God” appeared as their most violent accusers. As upon former occasions, their answers were respecting their past practice. When required to promise obedience for the future, the majority answered they could not keep any day holy but the Sabbath, and were fined in the one half of their stipends, which does not appear, however, to have been rigorously exacted. Unfortunately, however, some excused themselves by not having seen the council’s instructions; immediately the instructions were tendered them, but Mr Alexander Blair, minister in Galston, told them that though in politeness he would not refuse receiving the paper, yet he could accept of no instructions from them for regulating his ministry, otherwise he should be their ambassador, not Christ’s. For his insolence, as they termed it, he was cast into prison, where he remained till December, when he was allowed, on account of sickness, to be carried to a private house, till death unloosed his fetters. In the month of January, he departed in much joy and in full assurance of faith.
This incident tended to increase the coolness between the people and the indulged; for they did not think the other ministers had been sufficiently explicit in their testimony; and when they returned to their parishes, “they were to their great grief,” says Kirkton, “treated with no less reproach than the nickname of Council Curates.” “Outted” ministers who had no particular parishes allowed them, were required to repair to such as the council should name; but as they could not see it consistent with any moral or Christian duty to present themselves for the purpose of being punished without a crime, Robert Fleeming, Thomas Hogg, John Lidderdale, and Alexander Hutchison, were ordered to be apprehended and brought before the council, wherever they could be found. Instead of reconciling the Presbyterians to the domination of bishops, such proceedings added to the number of recusants, and these always from the most conscientious. Mr Forrester, minister at Alva, and Mr John Burnet, indulged at Kilbride, both abandoned prelacy towards the end of this year, and both bore explicit testimony against the civil power of the magistrate in the church of God. Mr Forrester, in a letter to the prelatical presbytery of Stirling, disclaimed their jurisdiction, “because it was fountained in, derived from, or referrible to, the magistrates,” which says he, “I judge to be contrary to the word of God, the confession of reformed churches, and our own church’s government; for the two powers, civil and ecclesiastic, are distinct toto genere both as to the original, the subject matter, the manner of working, and the end designed, distinct limits being put betwixt them, both in the Old and New Testament. Under the law, a standing priesthood were to meddle with matters of the Lord distinct from matters of the king. The judgments on Saul and Uzziah, shows the Lord’s displeasure at magistrates intermeddling with spiritual matters. Under the New Testament, the Lord Jesus, the King, Head, and Lawgiver of his church, hath a visible kingdom which he exerciseth in and over the church visible by its spiritual office-bearers, given to it as a church, and therefore distinct from, and independent upon, the civil power—the keys of the kingdom of heaven being by him committed, not to the magistrates, but to the apostles’ successors in the work of the ministry.” He therefore quitted the Established Church, betook himself to the fields, and shared in the labours and obloquy of the persecuted. Mr Burnet was prevented by sickness from personally bearing witness to the same high prerogatives of Christ; but he left his reasons for refusing to submit to any temporal supremacy in writing, and died rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God. His last words were—“Glory! glory! glory!”
It deserves to be remarked, that he and several other distinguished ministers, although they had no liberty to accept of the indulgence themselves, yet they did not deem it a reason why they should withdraw their affection from those who had, or throw any obstacles in the way of those they considered messengers of the gospel; for these worthies thought preaching salvation to sinners so paramount a duty, that they would have ventured upon every thing but sin to have achieved it themselves or promoted it by others.
Charles and his advisers in attempting to introduce despotism, had as little consulted their own peace as that of his kingdom. He was harassed by his English parliament; and Lauderdale having been voted a public grievance, was glad to seek refuge in Scotland, where, in the month of December, he came down to hold a fourth session of the parliament. Suspecting no opposition, if he secured the support of the clergy, he told the estates that the most effectual course would be taken for curbing and suppressing the insolent field conventicles, and other seditious practices, which had so much abounded—that if fairness would not, force must compel the refractory to be peaceable and to obey the laws. But instead of his declarations being met with the submissive adulation they were wont, the Duke of Hamilton, supported by a strong party, presented their grievances; and when the Commissioner with his usual haughty roughness interposed to silence complaint, Sir Patrick Home of Polwart demanded to know, whether it was not a free parliament? And after a short tumultuous session, in which, amid the dissensions of the statesmen, the Presbyterians escaped for the time any severer enactment, the meeting was adjourned, and the parties sought each to justify the strife to the king. Hamilton repaired to London and laid a statement of the enormous abuses before his majesty, but only received fair promises that were never performed, and incurred a resentment that never was appeased. Lauderdale retained his situation, and rather increased in favour with the king.
[1674.] It is a melancholy and an appalling consideration for those who stand forward as reformers and patriots, that, in struggles for religion, for liberty, or for any good principle, those who sincerely strive to gain such objects are usually found in a minority at last; and when they have been the means of conferring the most essential benefits upon the country, they are generally left losers themselves. Amid the conflicts of the statesmen, and their loud complaints about the oppression and ruin of the country, no mention had been made of the primary and most palpable of all its distresses, the religious grievances of the Presbyterians:—those which in fact had been the origin of all the calamities of Scotland, and the triumph of which was to secure the cause of freedom, were utterly lost sight of in their miserable squabbling about the monopoly of salt and the smuggling of brandy.