By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale.
V.—Episcopacy in the role of Persecutor.
IN the previous article reference was made to Episcopacy during the reigns of Charles II. and James II. as the greatest persecutor of the Cause of Christ that ever appeared in this land. With the appointment of the apostate James Sharp, one-time Presbyterian minister of Crail, to be Archbishop of St. Andrews and Primate of Scotland, and others of a similar stamp to the various Sees of Scotland, one could not expect that men of integrity would be favourably dealt with. Some have
tried to make an exception, in this connection, of Robert Leighton, Bishop of Dunkeld, whose works show him to have been evangelical in his theological outlook. This Bishop was the son of Doctor Alexander Leighton, the author of the book, Zion’s Plea Against Prelacy, for the writing of which, among other cruelties, he was condemned on two successive days to be whipped in the pillory at Westminster, to have his ears cut off, his nose slit on both sides, and his cheek branded with the letters “S.S.”, after which he spent eight years in the prison known as the Fleet, and was then turned into the common jail. When released, by the Long Parliament, he was “worn out with poverty, weakness, and pain,” and “could hardly walk, see, or hear.” As Dr. Hay Fleming says, “It is amazing how any man could accept a bishopric after a kind and considerate parent had so suffered for conscientiously opposing Episcopacy.”
When such men were at the head of affairs in the Church no one could expect better of the clergy of inferior rank. One writer says of the curates, “They were the worst preachers I ever heard: they were ignorant to a reproach: and many of them were openly vicious. They were a disgrace to orders, and the sacred functions: and were indeed the dregs and refuse of the northern parts.” Another writer supports this statement by saying that they were “a sort of young lads, unstudied and unbred, who had all the properties of Jeroboam’s priests . . . and so profane and void of conscience themselves that they believed there were none in any other.”
We thus see that Episcopacy, which “had been imposed upon Scotland by force, manoeuvre, and bribe,” had been a grievous burden. The liberties of the Church were, in a greater measure, curbed during the period known as the “second Episcopacy” than during any former time. Dr. Hay Fleming, in reply to those who maintain that Presbytery and Episcopacy were found together within the Church, says, “In the fifty years which elapsed between 1560 and 1610, fully seventy Assemblies were held; but, under the consecrated bishops, only three were held during the twenty-eight years that followed 1610. The contrast is striking. It is hardly necessary to say that during the “second Episcopacy”—comprising such consecrated bishops as “the infamous Sharp,” “the saintly Leighton,” and their worthy successors—the General Assembly never met; but the staunchest Presbyterians were tortured in the boots and thumbkins, hanged on scaffolds, shot down in the fields, drowned in the flood.” (Critical Reviews, page 481.)
Curbing the liberties of the Church was not the only evil which is to be laid to the charge of Episcopacy in Scotland. Among the martyrs of the Scottish Church of this period we find names which are still household words in pious homes in our land. Neither rank, age, nor sex, were spared. History records the judicial murders of such faithful ministers of the Gospel as the aged Donald Cargill
and the youthful James Renwick, and among men of gentle birth, the Marquis of Argyle, who could die like a Roman but chose to die like a Christian, while among those in a humbler walk of life we read of Margaret Lachlison and Margaret Wilson, who were drowned on the Solway sands, a crime that was so odious that Episcopal protagonists have, in the face of indisputable evidence to the contrary, stoutly denied that it ever took place. For examples of cold-blooded murders by ruffians of high rank, who were the acknowledged promoters of the Episcopal government which the Stuarts endeavoured to force upon Scotland, we find the deaths of John Brown of Priesthill and the lesser-known Andrew Hislop, both of whom were put to death by Graham of Claverhouse.
The distressing circumstances under which were confined those who adhered to Presbyterianism and rejected Episcopacy are more than enough to show how inhuman the promoters of Episcopacy were. With reference to a certain occasion on which prisoners were transferred from Edinburgh to Dunottar Castle, King-Hewison says, “It was determined to transfer the most obstinate prisoners from Edinburgh to inhospitable Dunottar Castle. A more miserable procession never walked out of or in to the Capital than this straggling band of above 134 men and 50 women—young, old, lame, sick, paralytic, dying—who were escorted by the foot-guards down to Leith, on 18th May. With other prisoners in Leith they numbered 224. In small boats they were ferried across to Burntisland. There they were examined by Gosford and Major John Wedderburne, and the oaths were pressed upon them. Wedderburne’s notes are instructive: ‘John Broun ane old decrept creature; Thomas Peticrew . . . old age . . . being paralitick; Nicolas McNight a dyeing woman; Michael Smyth a lame and decryped man; John Mmson (Williamson?) man and furious; Jean Stodhart, big of child and in hazard of dying if forced to travell.’ Forty prisoners were sent back to Edinburgh, some having resiled from their principles and taken the oath. Roped like cattle, the miserables were marched northward, arriving at Dunottar on Sabbath, 24th May. Seventeen escaped by the way. Among the number immured were three preachers—John Fraser, minister of Alness, who left an account of his experiences, William MacMillan, and John Doning.” (The Covenanter, Vol. II., page 465.) Their prison in Dunottar is thus described: “The upper vault, probably a granary, with one small window looking on the German Ocean, and one hole, measures 54 feet 9 inches long by 15 feet 6 inches broad and 12 feet high. It communicates by a shoot with a small, wet, vaulted chamber beneath it. measuring 15 feet long, 8 broad, and 9 high, lighted and ventilated through the orifice of a small drain on the floor level, where the prisoners in turn lay down to suck in air. These are called The Whig’s Vaults. (Ibid. page 465-466.)
The extent of their privations may be gathered from the following description of their condition, quoted by Woodrow from a petition sent to the Council for the relief of some of the prisoners: “They are in a most lamentable condition, there being a hundred and ten of them in one vault, where there is little or no daylight at all, and, contrary to all modesty, men and women promiscuously together, and forty-two more in another room, in the same condition, and no person allowed to come near them with meat or drink, but such meat and drink as scarce as any rational creature can live upon, and yet at extraordinary rates, being twenty pennies each pint of ale, which is not worth a plack the pint, and the peck of sandy, dusty meal is afforded to them at eighteen shillings per peck, and not so much as a drink of water allowed to be carried to them, whereby they are not only in a starving condition, but must inevitably incur a plague, or other fearful diseases, without the council provide a speedy remedy.” (History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, Vol. IV., page 325).
The Bass Rock was another State prison at this time, and conditions there were not any better than the other places where the Covenanters were confined. Rev. James Fraser of Brea gives the following description of this place of imprisonment. “The Bass is a very high rock in the sea, two miles distant from the nearest point of land; covered it is with grass on the uppermost parts, where is a garden, where herbs grow, with some cherry trees that bear fruit. Below the garden there is a chapel for divine service; but, in regard no minister was allowed for it, the ammunition of the garrison was kept therein. Landing here is very difficult and dangerous; for if any storm blow you cannot enter, because of the swelling waves which beat with a wonderful manner, that the broken waves, reverberating on the rock with a mighty force, come up over the walls of the garrison on the court before the prisoners’ chambers, which is twenty cubits high: and with a full sea must you land; or, if it be ebb, you must either be cranned up, or climb with hands and feet up some steps artificially cut in the rock, and must have help, besides, of those who are on the top, who will pull you up by the hand; nor is there any place of landing but one upon the whole rock.”
“Such was the place selected by government as a state-prison; and here many venerable and worthy men languished in forgotten misery, enduring more in this horrible exile than in the protracted severities of twenty years’ persecution. Some of them were broken down with the infirmities of age, or the fatigues of a life spent in long toils and perpetual wanderings. Others, whose constitutions had remained unbroken by labour and want sunk under topical diseases peculiar to their situation, or induced by the complicated rigours of their captivity. Most of them appear to have been afflicted with a malady brought on by unwholesome diet, or the cold, damp sea-breezes to which they were often exposed both by day and night. . . . The apartments of the
prisoners appear to have been constructed with little regard to the health or accommodation of the unfortunate inmates. They were necessarily cold, from their elevated exposure, and must have been exceedingly pernicious to valetudinary constitutions from their defective ventilation. These domestic inconveniences were but ill-calculated to alleviate the hardships to which they were occasionally subjected from the accidents of wind and tide.” (Memoirs of Rev. John Blackadder, page 266-267.)
Many of the Covenanters entered these places of confinement after many years of privations in their hiding-places in the moors and among the moss-hags of their native land and, after being captured, had their limbs maimed through undergoing the torture of the boot and the thumbscrews, and other fiendish instruments for extracting confessions, worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. The extent of the persecution under Episcopacy may be gauged from the following inscription on the Martyrs’ Monument in Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh:—
“From May 27, 1661, that the most noble Marquis of Argyle was beheaded, to the 17th February, 1688, that Mr. James Renwick suffered, were one way or other murdered and destroyed for the same cause about eighteen thousand, of whom were executed at Edinburgh about an hundred of noblemen, gentlemen, ministers, and others, noble martyrs for Jesus Christ. The most of them lie here.”
This monument, marking the graves of so many of God’s martyred saints, is to be found in the portion of the Churchyard known at one time as “the thieves’ hole.” They rest from their labours and their ransomed souls are singing the praises of redeeming love in that place where their glorified bodies shall yet be, while their persecutors have now no power over them. Indeed, the Lord made a public example of the chief authors of these persecutions before they left this world. In this connection the fate of these persecutors is well stated by Hugh Miller in his article on the Geology of the Bass.
“Yonder is the Bass, rising like an immense tower out of the sea. Times have changed since the excellent of the earth were condemned by the unjust and the dissolute to wear out life on that solitary rock. My eyes fill as I gaze on it. The persecutors have gone to their place: the last vial has long since been poured out on the heads of the infatuated race who, in their short-sighted policy, would fain have rendered men faithful to their Princes by making them unfaithful to their God. But the noble constancy of the persecuted, the high fortitude of the martyr, still live; there is a halo encircling the brow of that rugged rock; and from many a solitary grace, and many a lonely battlefield, there comes voices and thunderings like those which issued of old from within the cloud, that tell us how this world, with all its little interests, must pass away, but that for those who fight the good fight, and keep the faith, there abideth a rest that is eternal.”
The late Donald Mackinnon, Tarbert, Harris.
Donald Mackinnon was born in Cluer, Harris, in the year 1871. He spent his boyhood days with his grandparents in the Island of Bernera, Harris. When his parents left Cluer to live at Tarbert they took their young son Donald with them. While he was still a young man he set up his own home at Old Pier Road, Tarbert, and married Christina Maclennan. In 1928 his wife passed away leaving him with four motherless children.
We do not know the means used by the Lord in calling him from the kingdom of darkness into a state of grace but that Donald was a regenerated man was very evident. Frequently in his public prayers he quoted the truth, John iii. 3: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He used good illustrations applying them skilfully to the life of the believer. Being acquainted with seafaring life in his younger days he made excellent use of his experience in that respect. For instance, “If the ship was carrying too much canvas in stormy weather she was in grave danger of capsizing, so that it was safe in heavy gusts to keep the sails close to deck,” meaning that the believer must be watchful and humble amidst the many dangers of this life. In his public exercises he occasionally differentiated between the true believer and the hypocrite and in doing so he used very apt illustrations. He would refer to parade in the Army, where he served for some time, saying, “When we used to be in Army uniforms on parade, occasionally we would have a new recruit with us in civilian clothes and indeed he looked comical.” Applying this to the state of believers clothed in the righteousness of Christ and the hypocrite yet in his own filthy rags of self-righteousness. Shortly before he passed away he said in his prayer in the weekly prayer-meeting, “When we were in the Army all day on parade we used to be very tired, but we were looking forward to hear from the Instructor the order ‘Ground arms.'” He made no application but he knew what he was saying. It is obvious that he meant that the believer was often tired in the wilderness of this world and that he looked forward in hope to the Lord’s time when his Christian warfare would be at an end, then to be forever with the Lord.
Our deceased friend was very patriotic. During the Second World War he sent two live lobsters to Mr. Churchill. The Prime Minister replied thanking him.
His brother John, who passed away a number of years ago, was an eminent Christian of ready wit. At one time in the early history of the Free Presbyterian Church when one of her ministers left to join the Free Church, a gentleman from the U.F. Church met John and remarked to him (probably not for John’s comfort), “I hear, John, that one of your best ministers has left your church.” “I hear that one of them has left us,” replied John. “When are you going to have a ‘spring-cleaning’ yourselves?”
Until a few weeks before the end Donald was able to attend the Public Means of Grace. In the spirit of truth he held the office of a deacon in the Free Presbyterian Congregation of North Harris for six years. The day previous to the end we asked him if he was comfortable in his soul. He replied that he was. Donald’s anchor was fixed within the Veil. We certainly miss his presence and exercises in the Public Means but he is at his eternal rest where his sun shall no more go down.
On the 11th day of January, 1956, he passed away at the ripe age of 84 years. To his family, who mourn the departure of their loving, godly father, we extend our sympathy. The remains of this faithful, spiritually-minded servant of the Lord are interred in the Luskintyre Cemetery until the glorious dawn of the Resurrection.—A.McK.
Searmonan.
LEIS AN URR. TEARLACH C. MAC AN TOISICH, D.D.
(Air a leantuinn bho t.d. 243.)
Thugamaid fa’n ear na teagasgan mòr agus feumail a tha’n cosamhlachd freagarach, agus air a dheilbh, gu bhi teagasg dhuinn.
Tha e fior dha’r taobh anns a choitchionnas—agus a thaobh cuid ni’s mothá cuid eile—gu’m bheil sinn ‘n ar craobh-fìge ann am fion-lios. Cha robh ar crannchur air a thilgeadh ann am fàsach làn ulbhardaich nam fiadh-bheathaichean, ach ann an tìr soluis a Bhiobuill agus òrduighean an t-soisgeil. Tha sinn a seilbheachadh focal Dhé, foillseachadh a thoile, a tha deanamh aithnichte dhuinn ciod e Dia, agus ciod e slighe bhàis agus na beatha, ciod e’n dleasdanas a tha E ‘g iarruidh oirnn, ciod e ar crìoch àraidh, agus ciod e’n ni a bu mhotha a bu chòir cùram a bhi againn dheth agus ar ‘n aire a tharruing dha ionnsuidh. Tha e againn ‘n ar cànan féin, le comas a rannsachadh air ar son féin, gun neach ga’r bacadh. Ge be cho beag ‘s a tha cuid againn ga ghabhail gu cridhe, tha bhi sealbhachadh Biobuill ga’r cur fodh fhiachaibh domhain agus uamhasach. B’aithne do chuid againn bho ar leanabachd na Sgriobturan Naomha. Bha cuid againn air ar beannachadh le bhi sealbhachadh, faodaidh e bhi bho ar leanabachd, ministeirealachd shoisgeulach. Bha gach aon againn air ar beannachadh le ùine Sàbaid agus cothroman Sàbaid; am feadh agus a bha cuid fodh strìthean sòlaimte an Spioraid Naomh, agus air am fiosrachadh le freasdalan a thug Dia agus siorruidheachd glè dhlùth dhuinn. Agus cha do tachair so uile air thuairmse. ‘S e bh’ann foillseachadh air maitheas agus deadh-ghean an Tighearn dhuinn. Air an son so agus aobharan eile coltach riuthasan faodaidh e bhi air a ràdh gu’m bheil sinn ‘n ar craobh-fhìge air ar suidheachadh ann an gàradh-fiona.
A nis, tha Dia ‘g amharc air son toraidh, a reir na saothrach a bha air a chleachdadh oirnn, agus a reir na meadhanan slàinte a tha sinn a sealbhachadh. An d’thug E dhuinn focal? Tha E ‘g iarruidh toradh creidimh anns an fhocal mar fhocal Dhé; creidimh a tha ga nochdadh féin a bhi firinneach le bhi deanamh an fhocail, agus gu h-àraidh le bhi gabhail a stigh do’n chridhe tiomnadh do labhairt an Athar; “Creidimh luachmhor.” An do chuir E fodh’r comhair ‘n a fhocal eòlas a pheacaidh, ar suidheachadh peacach féin, agus an dòigh anns an urrainn peacadh a bhi air a thoirt air falbh tre fhuil na h-iobairt réite a bhi air a co-chur? An d’thug E cuireadh dhuinn, tre Iosa, pilltean dha ionnsuidh chum agus gu’m blaiseadh-maid a ghràsmhorachd mar Athair? Tha E ‘g iarruidh toradh an aithreachais. Am bheil E cur fodh’r comhair a ghràdh iongantach ann am bàs a Mhic? Tha E ‘g iarruidh toradh gràidh, gu’n gràdhaicheadh-maid esan a ghràdhaich sinne an toiseach; an gràdh a dhearbhadh e féin a bhi fìor le bhi coimhead àitheantan-san. Tha E ‘g iarruidh toradh na féin-àicheadh, na h-ìorioslachd, na macantas, na h-inntinn, an eud air son glòir Dhé, agus a bhi deanamh gu maith mar a gheibh sinn cothrom. ‘S ann le leithid sin de thoradh a tha E air a ghlòrachadh; an toradh a tha sruthadh bho aonadh ri Criosd agus a bhi fantainn annsan; a tha air a thoirt a mach, tre thaiceachadh air a ghràs a th’ann an Iosa Criosd agus le sùil ri a ghlòir, ann an tomhas a tha sìor-mheudachadh, leis na craobhan fìreantachd. Agus gu bhi teagasg dhuinn gu’m bheil a shùil fhurachair air eaglais fhaisnich, agus a mhiann air son toraidh, eò maith ri ‘eud naomha; tha E air a chur fodh’r comhair mar ag iarruidh toraidh.
Ach tha craobhan neo-thorach ann am fion-lios an Tighearn; tha ann craobhan nach eil a giùlan, cha’n e beagan toraidh, ach nach eil a giùlan toraidh idir. Faodaidh nach eil ach beagan, a tha sealbhachaidh a Bhiobuill agus ministeirealachd shoisgeulaich, air nach eil, aig amaibh air choireiginn, mothachaidhean air firinn agus meudachd nithean Dhé. Agus, gu’n teagamh, tha Fear-rannsachaidh nan cridheachan a faicinn ‘n a eaglais fhaisnich gach seòrsa neo-thoraicheas, bho aingidheachd fhoilleasaich gu ruige nach mòr nach robh neach ‘n a Chriosduidh. Ach tha iomadh buidheann mhòr anns am faodar a mhuinntir neo-thorach a roinn. Tha buidheann nam peacach foilleasach; iadsan a tha ‘g aideachadh a bhi creidsinn a Bhiobuill, seadh, agus a tha gairm “Tighearna” do Chriosd, agus gidheadh, a tha gu soilleir ‘n an naimhdean da Phearsa agus da chrann-ceusaidh, beò ann a bhi gniomhachadh nan nithean sin air son am bheil fearg Dhé a teachd air cloinn na h-easumhlachd; an neo-ghlan, am misgeir, an neach mi-naomh, fear briseadh na Sàbaid, an neach nach eil ag ùrnuigh, agus na leithidean sin; a giùlan dearcain Shodoim agus bagaidean Ghomorrah. Tha buidheann nan saoghaltaich ann; iadsan, ged a tha iad saor bho pheacaidhean gràineil agus a tha moralta agus ceart ‘n an gluasad, a tha beò air son an t-saoghail so a mhàin, an cridheachan ann, an caithe-beatha ann, agus an dòchas ri sonas air a chuairteachadh leis. Tha buidheann nam foirmealach ann; mu’m faodar a ràdh gu’m bheil iad a giùlan mòran duilleach; a tha’g imeachd ann an coileanadh dleasdanas bho’n leth a muigh, a frithealadh meadhonan nan gràs, agus faodaidh e bhi a dol a dh’ionnsuidh bòrd comanaich; ach nach robh riamh air an dùsgadh gu mothachadh air luach an anama, air am feum air slàinte, agus am feum air a bhi air am breith a rìs. Tha rithisd ann a bhuidheann a tha taisbeanadh blàthan a tha anabarrach gealltanach, ach nach eil a toirt toraidh air bith a mach a chum coileantachd. Tha sinn a leughadh mu’n taobh-san a bha “sìor-fhoghlom agus gun chomas tighinn a dh’ionnsuidh eòlas na fìrinn,” do bhrigh agus nach robh iad riamh gu dùrachdach a miannachadh le’n uile chridhe. Tha iad a seasamh aig stairsnich teampull nan Criosduidhean, ach tha iad a diùltadh a dhol a steach, do bhrigh gu’m bheil spioradalachd an aoraidh ga’n gràineachadh, agus do bhrigh ann an dol a steach gu’m feum siad iad féin àicheadh.
(R’a leantuinn.)