With the Presbyterians, its tendency was disastrous. Payment of cess became a new and bitter source of contention among the already too much divided sufferers. As the object for which the money was to be raised, was expressly stated to be for the suppression of conventicles; or, as the most strenuous opponents of the measure justly interpreted it, for preventing the preaching of the gospel, they at once, and without circumlocution, declared it unlawful to submit in any manner to the exaction. The impositions of tyrants, enacted for promoting their wicked designs against religion and liberty, said they, are iniquitous; therefore it is improper to pay them, especially when these designs are particularly specified and openly avouched in the acts which require them. No act can be binding if imposed upon a people by persons calling themselves their representatives, when they are not truly so, but placed in their situations by those who have broken all their engagements, betrayed their country, its religion, liberty, property, and all private interests, have enslaved the nation, and, by means of these taxations, will be enabled to perpetuate that slavery. Should it be replied, ‘that Christ paid custom, lest he should offend, and taught us to render to Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s;’ it is sufficient to observe, that he never taught to give any thing to Cesar in prejudice to that which is God’s; nor would it be much less than blasphemy to say, that Christ would have paid, or permitted his followers to pay, a tax professedly imposed for levying a war against himself, banishing his gospel out of the land, and supporting the scribes and pharisees and their underlings in their wicked attempts against his disciples.
Others were of opinion that, as the money would be forcibly taken from them, it was more adviseable to submit at once, rather than by resistance to give their oppressors a legal pretence for not only seizing to the amount of the tax, but perhaps double, in the name of expenses; and as the deed was neither spontaneous, nor willingly performed, the constrained action would come under the head of suffering rather than of crime.
A third party chose a middle course, and paid it with a declaratory explanation or protest. Among these was Quintin Dick, portioner in Dalmellington, described by Wodrow as an eminent Christian, and prudent, wise, and knowing, far above most of his education and station, who thus expresses himself:—“In this hour of darkness, being much perplexed how to carry without scandal and offence, I betook myself to God for protection and direction, that I might be kept from any measure of denying Christ or staving off my trouble upon any grounds but such as might be clearly warranted by the word of God. After much liberty in pouring out my heart to God, I was brought to weigh, that, as my paying of it might be by some interpreted a scandal and a sinful acquiescence in the magistrate’s sinful command; so, on the other hand, my refusing to pay it would be the greater scandal, being found to clash against a known command of God, of giving to all their due, tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom is due; and knowing that Jesus Christ for that very same end, to evite offence, did both pay tribute himself and commanded his followers to do it, I could see no way to refuse payment of that cess, unless I had clashed with that command of paying tribute unto Cesar. So, to evite the scandal of compliance on the one hand, and disobedience to the magistrate in matters of custom on the other, I came to the determination to give in my cess to the collector of the shire of Ayr where I lived, with a protestation against the magistrate’s sinful qualification of his commands, and a full adherence unto these meetings of God’s people, called conventicles, which in the act he declared his design to bear down. I had no sooner done this, but I was trysted with many sharp censures from many hands, among which this was one, that my protestation was only to evite sufferings, and could be of no weight, being ‘protestatio contraria facto.’ But being truly persuaded that it is the magistrate’s right to impose and exact cess and custom, I could have no clearness to state my sufferings in opposition unto so express a command of God. And as to the magistrate’s sinful qualification—having so openly declared and protested against it—I conceive the censure of this to evite suffering is altogether groundless; seeing the enemy has (subscribed with my hand before witnesses) a resolute adherence to that which they say this tends to overthrow; and if he mind to persecute upon the ground of owning conventicles, he has a fair and full occasion against me under my hand.”
A few defended the refusal of payment upon the ground that the convention having been a packed assemblage, consisting of persons entirely under the influence of the crown—the chief and most powerful Peers being necessarily absent, and the commissioners of the shires and burghs returned through the sinful means of corruption and bribery, by promises held out and favours bestowed, by the managers and persons in power, for the purpose of compassing their own base ends—they could not be considered as the real representatives of the people, nor legally entitled to impose burdens upon the lieges; and therefore the people were not righteously obligated to pay.
Combined with the disputes relative to paying cess, were revived with redoubled vigour the discussions anent hearing the indulged; and “it was truly grievous to us,” laments one who was himself a silent observer of what passed, “to see a young generation, endued with great zeal towards God and his interests, so far led aside in the improvement of it, as very little to know, or seldom to be taught, meekness and patience under affliction for Christ’s sake, or charity and mutual forbearance in love! And to such a length did these heats come, that some did not stick to term the famous Mr John Welsh, because he would not run so high upon public, yea personal, acknowledgments of those steps of defection, an Achan in the camp.”
Publications and preaching against each other succeeded, and the minds of the wanderers began to be imbittered against the indulged, who they thought were sitting at ease in Zion, while they were combating upon the high places of the field. Another meeting of ministers was therefore held at Glasgow in the end of harvest, when fresh efforts were made by the aged veterans of the kirk to heal the wounds under which their common mother lay bleeding; the more distressing as inflicted by some of the most devoted of her sons. A new and practical cause of dissension arose from the circumstances of the times and the situation in which the preachers and people were placed, which struck at the root of Presbytery itself, and that was the conduct of the younger brethren. As the duties of presbyteries and synods had been interrupted, the most popular preachers and their followers acted entirely upon their own responsibility, invaded the parishes of the indulged, preached as they listed, without being subject to any inspection or control, and had thus widened the unhappy rent, and given great advantage to the common enemy. The meeting disapproved of the practice of promiscuous preaching, any where or every where, as opportunities presented, because, when they intruded on the parishes of the indulged, they destroyed both the usefulness of their brethren, whose charges they disturbed, and their own, by depriving both of the restricted liberty they enjoyed, and which it was their duty to improve.
Instead, they recommended that the whole of the “outted” ministers, and those who had been regularly licensed by them, should associate themselves together in classes, and that every fixed preacher should belong to some class to which he should be subject and responsible; and those who were unsettled, and so could not ordinarily attend their own class or pseudo-presbytery, should attend such other as providence did direct. They at the same time disapproved of the last meeting at Edinburgh, being considered as an authoritative meeting, and pronounced it to have been only “a committee for consideration, and to report overtures to the general meeting of correspondents, who they were to call upon occasion.” Nevertheless, they were still of opinion, that the first foundation of unity must be order, and that there is no other way of producing a humble contrite temper, warming the already too much estranged affections, and preventing the like or worse for the future, than that the brethren who were moderate and like-minded, and who, they blessed God, were yet the very far greater and better number, should meet together and consult upon fit means for so desirable an end. The west country ministers mentioned, likewise, that they were in consultation with their brethren in the east, who had been treating with them, and who were also breathing after unity and peace.
What broke up these friendly communings, does not distinctly appear; but a very untoward circumstance took place in the parish of Monkland, near Glasgow, which certainly did not tend to promote their object. On Sabbath, September 1st, the Rev. Mr Selkirk, afterwards minister of the gospel at Crichton, had been requested by the ministers of Glasgow to supply that parish, then vacant; but when he attempted it, he was violently opposed and kept out of the church by force, merely because he was favourable to the indulged, on purpose that one of the young preachers under the patronage of Mr Robert Hamilton, might have access to the pulpit to inveigh against them.
Were it not upon record, and recorded too by authority of the oppressors themselves, it would hardly be credited that many of the best and most inoffensive men in the country were banished and sold as slaves to the plantations, for no crime but simply because they would not regularly attend their parish churches to hear men preach, whom they believed incapable of instructing them in those duties which they saw themselves daily outraging; and choosing rather to assemble in the fields to wait upon the ministry of others whom they preferred, by whose discourses they were enlightened and edified, taught to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, and directed in those paths which lead to glory and immortality in the next. Yet nearly one hundred persons, upon such accusations, writers! farmers, merchants, men and women, were delivered over, in the month of June this year, to Edward Johnstoun, master of the Saint Michael of Scarborough, now lying at Leith, for behoof of Ralph Williamson of London, who had given security to the council to transport them to the Indies, where they were to continue in servitude for life, and there to dispose of them to the best advantage. Among these was the noted Alexander Peden, who had laboured with great success in the north of Ireland. Having lain a long time in Edinburgh jail, he petitioned the council to be permitted to return to his old station, especially as he had been served with no indictment, nor was he charged with holding either house or field-conventicles in Scotland for twelve years. The council evinced their character by their tender mercies. They answered his petition by banishing him to the plantations for life, and ordained him “to lie in prison till he be transported.” He was said to have been an instrument of much good to his fellow-passengers, and cheered their spirits with the hopes of deliverance when they reached London.[[110]]
[110]. “Mr Peden was a man of prayer, of natural sagacity, of spiritual discernment, and a great observer of the ways of Providence. He could foresee what would be the result of certain measures, and what calamities foolish and wicked men would bring upon themselves and others; and when such things came to pass as he had foretold, his too credulous friends ascribed it to the gift of prophecy. At the same time, I am not so wedded to my opinion on this subject, as not to admit that men who lived in such intimate daily communion with God as Mr Peden did, may have had presentiments of things with regard to themselves and the church, of which Christians of a lesser growth can form no conception.”—M’Gavin’s note to the Scots Worthies, p. 516.