“Scotland hath been even by emulous foreigners called Philadelphia; and now she seemed to be in her flower. Every minister was to be tried five times a-year, both for his personal and ministerial behaviour; every congregation was to be visited by the presbytery, that they might see how the vine flowrished and the pomegranate budded. And there was no case nor question in the meanest family in Scotland but it might become the object of the deliberation of the General Assembly; for the congregational session’s book was tried by the presbytery, the presbytery’s by the synod, and the synod’s by the General Assembly. Likeways, as the bands of the Scottish church were strong, so her beauty was bright; no error so much as named; the people were not only sound in the faith, but innocently ignorant of unsound doctrine; no scandalous person could live; no scandal could be concealed in all Scotland, so strict a correspondence there was between ministers and congregations. The General Assembly seemed to be the priest with Urim and Thumim; and there were not ane hundreth persons in all Scotland to oppose their conclusions: all submitted, all learned, all prayed; most part were really godly, or at least counterfeited themselves Jews. Than was Scotland a heap of wheat set about with lillies, uniform, or a palace of silver beautifully proportioned; and this seems to me to have been Scotland’s high noon. The only complaint of profane people was, that the government was so strict they hade not liberty enough to sin.
“But this season lasted not long.” The Presbyterians, who were averse to the ruling party in England, as sectarians in religion and republicans in politics, immediately proclaimed Charles II.; and commissioners were sent to the Hague, where he was subsisting on the bounty of his sister, to invite him upon conditions to assume the government. During the negotiations, while the terms were discussing, he authorized Montrose, already too well known for his cruelties, to attempt his unconditional restoration by force; and it was not till he heard of his failure, that he consented to take the oaths and become the covenanted king of Scotland.
His arrival, however, instead of uniting, occasioned deep and irreconcilable dissensions among the Scots—between those who distrusted, and those who affected to believe, his professions; yet as the church continued to maintain the ascendancy, they were kept within bounds till after the fatal battle of Dunbar. But when it became necessary to supply the loss occasioned by that disaster, they became apparent. The king required that all those who had hitherto been excluded as malignants, who had favoured the engagement, and were understood to be friendly to his unlimited power, should be restored to offices of trust both in the army and state: this was resisted by the strictest and most devout of the Presbyterians, who, considering them as enemies to the church, dreaded their admission into the king’s councils, while he himself was suspected. The virtues of the king, and his inimitable improvement in adversity, were deemed sufficient answer, and resolutions favourable to their claims having been obtained by surprise from the major part of the commission, a schism took place by the minority protesting against the concession.
From this date the Presbyterians separated into two parties, who distracted the country for several years by their violent contentions; those who arrogated to themselves the praise of liberality and loyalty—their superior regard for the decrees of the church and the letter of the covenant—ranging under the name of resolutioners; while those esteemed the most holy, indefatigable, and laborious ministers, who preferred the spirit to the form of their religious constitution, were numbered among the protesters. They were likewise called remonstrators, from having followed up their protest by a remonstrance. Meanwhile Charles was crowned at Scone with great solemnity, the Marquis of Argyle, who was attached to the resolutioners, putting the crown upon his head; but the divisions continued till Cromwell obtained the supreme power, who granted free toleration to all sects, and liberty to the Presbyterians in every thing, except permitting the General Assembly to meet, which some of the more pious considered no bad service.
This period, down to the Restoration, has ever been considered as that in the Scottish church most remarkably distinguished for the prevalence of real personal religion; and it was evident that God was preparing a people in this land for a day of hot and fiery trial. “I verily believe,” says Kirkton, “there were more souls converted to Christ in that short period of time than in any season since the Reformation, though of treeple its duration. Nor was there ever greater purity and plenty of the means of grace than was in their time. Ministers were painful, people were diligent; and if a man hade seen one of their solemn communions, where many congregations mett in great multitudes—some dozens of ministers used to preach, and the people continued as it were in a sort of trance (so serious were they in spiritual exercises) for three dayes at least—he would have thought it a solemnity unknown to the rest of the world. Besides, the ministers, after some years, began to look at the questions about which they had divided, as inconsiderable: also it was found error made no great progress, the genius of the people being neither very curious nor easily changed.”
The numbers who stood the test and suffered to the death, bear witness that the religious state of the country at the Restoration, as given by him, must be substantially true; as the numbers who apostatized make it evident that many must have dissembled. “There be in all Scotland some nine hundred paroches.”[[1]] “At the king’s return every paroch had a minister, every village had a school, every family almost had a Bible; yea, in most of the country, all the children of age could read the Scriptures, and were provided of Bibles either by the parents or their ministers. Every minister was a very full professor of the reformed religion, according to the large Confession of Faith, framed at Westminster by the divines of both nations. Every minister was obliged to preach thrice a-week, to lecture and catechise once, besides other private duties, wherein they abounded according to their proportion of faithfulness and abilities. None of them might be scandalous in their conversation or negligent in their office, so long as a presbyterie stood; and among them were many holy in conversation and eminent in gifts. The dispensation of the ministry being fallen from the noise of waters and sound of trumpets, to the melody of harpers, which is alace the last messe in the banquet. Nor did a minister satisfy himself except his ministry had the seal of a divine approbation, as might witness him to be really sent from God.”
[1]. These were divided into sixty-eight presbyteries, which were again cantoned into fourteen synods, out of all which, by a solemn legation of commissioners from every presbytery, they used to constitute a national assembly.
“Indeed, in many places the spirit seemed to be poured out with the word, both by the multitudes of sincere converts, and also by the common work of reformation upon many who never came the length of a communion; there were no fewer than sixty aged people, men and women, who went to school, that even then they might be able to read the Scriptures with their own eyes. I have lived many years in a paroch where I never heard an oath; and you might have ridde many miles before you heard any: also, you could not for a great part of the country have lodged in a family where the Lord was not worshipped by reading, singing, and public prayer. Nobody complained more of our church-government than our taverners, whose ordinary lamentation was, their trade was broke, people were become so sober.”[[2]]
[2]. Kirkton mentions that the English often offered the protesters the government of the nation, which they refused, till Cromwell, “weary with their scrupolosity, and being highly caressed by Mr (afterwards Archbishop) Sharpe, his large proffers in behalf of the resolutioners, was forced to allow them equal liberty, and so they continued in a balance till after his death.—Hist. of the Church of Scotland, pp. 48-56.—Law, in his Memorials, has a similar statement. “It is not to be forgotten, that from the year 1652 to the year 1660, there was great good done by the preaching of the gospel in the west of Scotland, more than was observed to have been for twenty or thirty years before; a great many brought into Christ Jesus by a saving work of conversion, which was occasioned through ministers preaching nothing all that tyme but the gospell, and had left off to preach up parliaments, armies, leagues, resolutions, and remonstrance, which was much in use before, from the year 1638 till that time 52, which occasioned a great number of hypocrytes in the church, who, out of hope of preferment, honour, riches, and worldly credit, tooke on the form of godliness but wanted the power of it.” P. 7.
Such was the delightful picture drawn by an eyewitness; and to render it perfect and permanent, the Presbyterians longed with desire for the restoration of their king, whose presence alone they believed would remove the only spots that in their eyes dimmed its lustre—the suspension of their General Assemblies, and the late sinful toleration. As soon as there was the least prospect of the desirable event, several ministers in Edinburgh—resolutioners—dispatched Mr James Sharpe to London, with instructions to watch over the interests of the church, particularly of their own party; and as they knew that the king had a strong antipathy against the remonstrants, who, during his stay in Scotland, had been assiduous in their upright though ungrateful endeavours for his conversion, and incurred his displeasure and that of his confidants by their uncourtly reproofs and uncompromising adherence to their principles, they were anxious to separate themselves from this the honestest portion of their brethren, and directed their agent carefully to remind his majesty of the difference between them and their more uncomplying opponents.