DURING the Commonwealth period, although the Presbyterians were divided as Protesters and Resolutioners, there was no persecution, though it must be admitted that, if the favour of those in power leaned to any side, it was decidedly to the Protesters. The Restoration of Charles II. in 1660 to the throne of his ancestors was received with acclamations of joy, and Scotland, which was to pass through years of sorrow and suffering, was no less boisterous in her unseemly mirth than her southern sister. The Protesters, it is true, being men who had knowledge of the times, were not quite so jubilant in their mirth. But being few in numbers, and regarded as narrow-minded fanatics by their more charitable brethren—the Resolutioners, they were not considered seriously except as disturbers of the ecclesiastical peace, which was so soon to have a tremendous shaking from quite another quarter. Charles—probably under the advice of James Sharp, who had already begun to work for the downfall of the Scottish Church—had sent a letter to Mr. Robert Douglas. In this letter the King promises to “protect and preserve the government of the Church of Scotland as it is settled by law.” The Edinburgh Presbytery were so delighted with it that they caused it to be printed and sent to all the Presbyteries of the Church, and went the length of procuring a silver box for its preservation. It never dawned on the Resolutioners that the phrase “as it is settled by law” might refer to Episcopacy. Sharp now turned his attention to the Protesters, and through his influence the Resolutioners betook themselves to the unworthy work of censuring their more clear-sighted brethren. The course of defection thus entered on was to have its day of reckoning, and the Resolutioners saw, when it was too late, that they had made a serious mistake.
In 1661 the “Drunken Parliament” of Middleton, so called because of the inebriated condition of its members, passed the Act Recissory, rescinding all the Acts of Parliament which had met since 1640, as illegal and rebellious. Thus, by one stroke all that had been done in favour of religious liberty for the last twenty years or more was destroyed. Then the spirit of persecution went abroad on its cruel mission throughout the land. Argyle and Warriston were put to death. James Guthrie, “the little man,” to use Cromwell’s happy characterisation, “who would not bow,” also ended his days on the scaffold, uttering as his farewell message to Scotland: “The Covenants! The Covenants! will be Scotland’s reviving yet!”
Two months after the close of the “Drunken Parliament,” Charles addressed a letter to the Scottish Council, intimating “after mature deliberation it is our firm resolution to interpose our royal authority for restoring the Church to its right government by bishops, as it was by law before the late troubles during the reigns of our late father and grandfather of blessed memory, and as it now stands settled by law.” On the 8th May, 1662, Parliament formally restored Episcopacy. By an Act passed by the Council at Glasgow in the same year, all ministers who had been admitted to their parishes since 1649, and had not submitted to the bishops, were to be removed. As a result of this proclamation over 200 pulpits became vacant. Field Conventicles were forbidden, and the merciless bands of Claverhouse, Turner, Dalziel, Grierson of Lag were let loose on a defenceless people.
Then came the rising of the Covenants, which ended so disastrously for them at Pentland. This event was made the excuse for the cruel and repressive measures of the Government, and the Covenants became like beasts of prey hunted on the mountains. It is unnecessary here to rehearse the inhuman cruelties to which some of them were subjected. One reads with a feeling of sickening horror the torture endured by the saintly Hugh MacKail and others. During the whole of this period the treacherous Sharp was busily working and laying up for himself that hatred which was one day in its ungoverned fury to hasten him to an inglorious end.
The cruel measures having failed to subdue the Covenants, the Government had recourse to milder methods. Lauderdale took matters in hand and appointed Rothes as Lord Chancellor, and for a season the strong repressive hand was not so keenly felt. Sir James Turner and Sir William Ballantyne, two of the bitterest persecutors, were at the same time dismissed His Majesty’s service. This breathing space has become known as “The Blink.” In July, 1669, Lauderdale issued the First Indulgence, giving permission to ministers who had been ejected in 1662 to return on certain conditions. The great majority, however, refused to accept of the terms. Three years later another Indulgence was granted, and about eighty ministers accepted of the same. These Indulgences were detested by the stricter Covenants, and the ministers who accepted them were regarded as having betrayed the cause. They were known as the “King’s Curates.” Some of these ministers were undoubtedly pious men, but when it came to a matter of principle the Covenants were not blinded by the piety of those who turned back in the day of battle. Other Indulgences were offered later on, until at last there were few faithful ones standing out. On the 22nd June, 1680, a small band, including Richard Cameron and Donald Cargill, rode into Sanquhar, and at the Cross made their famous Declaration, disowning allegiance to Charles. Such an open defiance of authority could not be tolerated, and steps were immediately
taken to crush the movement. The sequel is well known—the Battle of Airsmoss, when Cameron, who lived preaching and praying, died praying and fighting. The influence of Richard Cameron on his contemporaries must have been extraordinary. He was but a young man, and his period of ministerial activity was but brief, but he has left such an impress on the ecclesiastical history of Scotland as belongs to few of even the greatest of Scotland’s Church leaders.
The Cameronians were made of that stern stuff that fits men to be martyrs. They were no time-servers. Right-hand or left-hand defections were abhorred by them, so that we find Donald Cargill and James Renwick, Isabel Alison and Marion Harvey, ending their days on the scaffold, sealing with their blood the truths they most firmly believed.
The Covenants, and especially the Cameronians, have been severely criticised for their narrow sympathies and the circumscribed view they took of things, but if the broad-minded charity that speaks so easily of sweetness and gentleness had to face the tyranny they had to face we question very much if salvation would have been wrought for Scotland. That which the Cameronians were daring enough to do at Sanquhar was done by the whole nation a few years later. Their crime, if crime it be, was simply that they were few in numbers and that they saw sooner than others that the infatuated monarch was hastening to his doom. For these crimes they have been arraigned at the bar of history, and merciless has been the verdict passed upon them by multitudes who enjoy a liberty bought by them with tears and blood. But while we thus put in a plea in their favour we are deeply conscious that their failings stand out conspicuously on the page of history. All who bore the name of Covenants were not actuated by heavenly motives. They were a mixed multitude, but among them there was a class of men actuated by the purest motives, and with a zeal that God Himself had kindled. They fought the battle because it was God’s battle, and because it was His there was to be no compromise with the powers that made light of that cause. They fought for Zion’s cause, they suffered for it, and thousands of them died for it.
(To be Continued.)
Roman Catholic Monastic and Conventual Institutions in England and Scotland.—During the last fifty or sixty years there has been an extraordinary increase of these institutions in Great Britain. In 1851 there were 17 monasteries and 53 convents; in 1907 the numbers are 311 monasteries and 783 convents. In 1851 there were no monasteries or convents in Scotland, but in 1907 there were 13 monasteries and 52 convents. When one remembers the subtle activities of these institutions it is enough to fill the mind with the deepest concern for the future of our beloved country.