BOOK I.
A.D. 1604.-A.D. 1660.
Presbytery, the favourite form of religion in Scotland with the people, opposed by James VI.—At first opposed afterwards sanctioned by Charles I.—Solemn League and Covenant—Confession of Faith—Defeat of the Duke of Hamilton and death of Charles—State of the Church—Charles II. crowned—Divisions among the Presbyterians—Resolutioners—Remonstrators—Protectorate of Cromwell—State of religion during that period—Restoration—Sharpe sent to London—Religious parties in Scotland—Sharpe’s double dealing—Sudden change of manners—Rejoicings—Fears of the Remonstrators—Difference with the Resolutioners—First measures of the King—Promotes the enemies and persecutes the friends of the Covenant—Proceedings of the Committee of Estates, urged on by Sharpe—King’s letter to the Edinburgh ministers—Exultation of the Resolutioners—Persecute their brethren—Committee of Estates order Lex Rex, &c. to be burned—Proclamation against the Remonstrants—Interference with regard to elections—Proclamation for a meeting of Parliament.
Ever since the days of the Reformation, Scotland has been distinguished by the attachment of her inhabitants to simplicity in the forms of their religious worship, and a dislike to pomp or lordly power in their ministers. Presbytery, of which these are the prominent features, has in consequence always been the favoured mode of ecclesiastical polity with the people; unfortunately her monarchs, previous to the Revolution of 1688, were as decidedly averse to it; and their tyrannical attempts to substitute a hated hierarchy in its place, involved the country, for three generations, in contention and bloodshed, persecution and distress, till the struggle issued in the final expulsion of the Stuarts from the throne.
James VI., after having given the Presbyterian church the royal sanction, and paid it the highest encomiums as the “purest kirk upon earth,” and having repeatedly promised and vowed “to support it against all deadly,” spent the greater part of his life in endeavours to overturn it. He succeeded in forcing upon an unwilling people a kind of mongrel prelacy, and left to his son the hazardous task of finishing his designed uniformity in religious worship between the two kingdoms.
Charles proceeded with more violence; and, by attempting to obtrude a detested liturgy, he destroyed the fabric it had cost his father so much king-craft to rear, and led to the remarkable renewing of the National Covenant, which, early in the year 1638, was subscribed with enthusiastic fervour by all ranks throughout the land. A free General Assembly, convened at Glasgow in that year, November 21, accomplished what has usually been termed the second glorious Reformation, by restoring Presbytery to its primitive simplicity, and sweeping away all the innovations against which they had so long struggled. The proceedings of this assembly were afterwards solemnly confirmed by the estates; and Scotland for a short period enjoyed a hollow peace, while the king was contesting with his English parliament. Afraid, however, if the king overcame in the contest, that they would hold their own liberties by a very feeble tenure, they entered into a solemn league and covenant with the parliament for the mutual preservation of their religion and liberty, for promoting uniformity in worship and doctrine between the two nations, and for exterminating popery, prelacy, and schism: their weight decided the fate of the war.
When the English hierarchy had fallen, and the king’s power was reduced, an assembly of the most learned divines that perhaps ever met in Britain, was called by authority of the English parliament. Assisted by commissioners from Scotland, they drew up the admirable Confession of Faith, with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, still the standards of our national church; but they differed on the Directory for Worship, against which some of the most learned of the Independents dissented—a prelude to more serious differences.
After Charles had been beaten out of the field, and was intriguing in a variety of ways with the army and with the English parliament, a majority in the Scottish estates, headed by the Duke of Hamilton, rashly “engaged” by a secret treaty to attempt his rescue. The church opposed war with England, as Charles would give only an equivocal pledge for supporting the establishment of Presbytery in that country; and they feared his duplicity in case he regained unrestricted power; and the minority in the estates also “protested” against it. The engagers being defeated at Preston, the protesters, whose leader was the Marquis of Argyle, came into power, and Scotland separated into two parties. Shortly after the defeat of the Scots, the king was brought to trial and executed, in spite of their remonstrances, which, now that they were divided among themselves and had no army to back them, were little regarded.
At this time the church of Scotland reached her greatest pitch of splendour. “For though,” says a contemporary historian, “alwayes since the assembly at Glasgow the work of the gospel hade prospered, judicatories being reformed, godly ministers entered, and holy constitutions and rules daily brought into the church; yet now, after Duke Hamilton’s defeat, and in the interval betwixt the two kings, religion advanced the greatest step it had made for many years: now the ministrie was notably purified, the magistracy altered, and the people strangly refined. It is true, at this time hardly the fifth part of the lords of Scotland were admitted to sit in parliament; but those that did sitt were esteemed truly godly men; so were all the rest of the commissioners in parliament elected of the most pious of every corporation. Also godly men were employed in all offices, both civil and military; and about this time the General Assembly, by sending abroad visiters into the country, made almost ane entire change upon the ministry in several places of the nation, purgeing out the scandalous and insufficient, and planting in their place a sort of godly young men, whose ministry the Lord sealed with ane eminent blessing of success, as they themselves sealed it with a seal of heavy sufferings; but so they made full proof of their ministry.