By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale.
XI.—The Revolution Settlement.
The dogma of the Divine Right of Kings proved the ruin of the House of Stuart, and caused them to be hurled off the British Throne when they least expected it, but before that event took place the holding of it cost our ancestors much shedding of blood. For twenty-eight years the persecution raged, and Christ’s martyred saints, by their constancy, proved to the world what the grace of God will do in men and women, and even those who were no more than children, when the cause of true religion is being oppressed. James II., no less a profligate than his brother Charles, misruled the country, and showed unmistakably that his purpose was to undo the work of the Reformation and make Britain a Roman Catholic country. As far as Scotland was concerned it dreaded nothing so much as a return to the Church of Rome, and yet, during the last months of James’ reign the peril crept closer and closer to her. As Dr. Alexander Smellie put it: “James induced many of the nobles to send their children abroad, that they might be educated in Jesuit colleges. At home, under the care of zealous priests, schools were established, where the boys and girls of the poor were taught without fees. Popish ecclesiastics, brought from the Continent, walked about the Edinburgh streets in their monkish dress. Protestant books and pamphlets were suppressed as “insulting to the king’s religion.” The highest honours in the country were conferred on men who had abjured the creed and Church of their youth, in order that they might insinuate themselves into the graces of their bigoted sovereign.” Men of the Covenant, 7th ed. p. 496.
From the day that James assumed the reins of government he showed the greatest disrespect to the Constitution of the country. On the day of his Coronation he refused to take the oath to maintain the Protestant religion and his whole life was one series of political blunders, deeds of cruelty, hatred of true religion, and blind zeal for the Papacy, which were sure, in a freedom-loving nation, illuminated by the light of the Gospel, to have repercussions. Tumults in Edinburgh, designed to stop the celebration of the Mass, the refusal of seven English Bishops to read the king’s proclamations, their acquittal when tried, and the delight with which multitudes received the verdict, were evidences of the writing on the wall, intimating that the rule of the bigoted and infatuated Popish tyrant was at an end. To crown all, the birth of a son to King James was announced, and whatever truth or falsehood might be in the reports that he was a child smuggled into the Palace by the Jesuits, the people did not relish the idea of one to govern them who was to be brought up as a Roman Catholic Prince. It was a time for action. An address was sent to William, Prince of Orange, a staunch Protestant and son-in-law of the King, pleading with him to cross the seas from Holland in order to deliver the land. The appeal was not in vain, and William landed at Torbay in November, 1688. King James, whose reign was one of continuous persecution against the Church of Christ, unredeemed by one act of clemency, now found himself deserted by those who, but for his own misrule, would have proved his staunchest supporters. He imagined his life in danger and finding his cause deserted, he took refuge in flight to France, after throwing the Great Seal of the Kingdom into the Thames. His supporters in Scotland did what they could to uphold his standard, but the Cause was the Lord’s and the time to favour Zion in Scotland had come, even the time which He had set.
King James’ antagonism to Presbyterianism was more pronounced than was the case with respect to Prelacy, and that for the simple reason that Presbyterianism was that unconquerable barrier which stood between him and the goal at which he was aiming, that is, the reducing of the kingdom to a state of abject slavery to his despotism. At the same time there was something higher in Presbyterianism than mere opposition to the despotic rule of the Stuarts, and that was, the great principle that “the Lord Jesus Christ is the sole Head and King of the Church, and hath therein appointed a government distinct from that of civil magistrate.” In the light of this great principle of the Scottish Presbyterian Church the position is well stated by Dr. Hetherington when he says: “The attempt to establish an absolute despotism, involved, of necessity, the destruction of this principle; and the oath of supremacy was the weapon by which it was directly and fiercely assailed. The cruel policy of the assailants needs little explanation. It was an easy matter for them to enact an unjust and irreligious law, such as that which virtually declared that the sovereignty of the Church should be taken from Christ, and given to the king, and then to shout, “Obey the law obey the law!” proclaiming men rebels and traitors, and persecuting them to the death, because they could not yield obedience to a law which required the violation of their allegiance to the Divine Redeemer, but chose to obey God rather than man in matters of religion. It requires but little Christian principle, metaphysical acumen, or knowledge of the general principles of jurisprudence, to perceive that no law can possibly be binding upon man which is manifestly contrary to the law of God. So reasoned and so felt our covenanted fathers; and in defence of that sacred and eternal principle they “endured a great fight of afflictions,” through which they were triumphantly borne by the mighty power of God, unfolding and realising the truth that the struggle, though of subordinate importance, was still of inestimable value, that noblest charter of civil liberty which man has ever framed, the British Constitution.” History of the Church of Scotland, 6th ed. p. 174. In his Declaration sent to Scotland, William, after enumerating all the evils done to the State and to the Church during the late reign, goes on to say: “And therefore we persuade ourselves that our endeavours to give the best assistance we can for the relief of so distressed a Kingdom shall not only be accompanied with a cheerful and universal concurrence of the whole nation, that even those who have been instruments for the enslaving of it will now show their dislike of what they have done by their timeous and seasonable diligence for its rescue. And that if any shall not give us that assistance which their conscience to God and their respect to their country oblige them to, they shall be justly charged with all the evils that may be the effects of such a want of their duty. And as we ourselves desire to trust to the Almighty God alone for the success of our arms, so we expect all good men that they will apply themselves most earnestly to Him for His blessing upon our endeavours, so that they may tend to the glory of His great name, to the establishment of the Reformed Churches, and to the peace and happiness of that kingdom.”
In 1689 the Presbyterian ministers sent an Address to the Prince of Orange, the spirit of which might have been enough to convince him that the Presbyterian Church had the sole claim upon his support, and in the following year an Act was passed ratifying the Confession of Faith, and declaring that Prelacy was “a great and insupportable grievance, and contrary to the inclination of the generality of the people ever since the Reformation, they having been reformed from Popery by Presbyters,” that the Presbyterian government is “the government of Christ’s Church within this nation, agreeable to the Word of God, and most conducive to the advancement of true piety and godliness, and the establishment of peace and tranquility within this realm.” The Act then “ratifies and establishes the Confession of Faith, now read in their presence, and voted and approved by them as the public and avowed Confession of this Church;” “as also they do establish, ratify, and confirm the Presbyterian Church government and discipline, ratified and established by the Act of 1592, reviving, renewing, and confirming the foresaid Act in the whole heads thereof, except that part of it relating to patronages which is hereafter to be taken into consideration. Patronage, however, was abolished in a month’s time after the passing of the aforesaid Act, thus completing all that the Church of Scotland was to get out of the Revolution Settlement.
The first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland after the Revolution met in St. Giles Church, Edinburgh, on 16th October, 1690, and was composed of one hundred and sixteen ministers and forty-seven ruling elders. Among them were men “who carried gun and sword at Rullion Green and Bothwell Bridge; men who bore branded on their bodies the marks of the rack and the thumbscrew, and who could tell of the horrors of Dunottar and the Bass; men on whose heads the Government of Charles and James had set a price, and who had been laid under the ban of intercommuning, so that it was a capital offence to let them have a morsel of food or to hide them from their pursuers. There was a pathos in the meeting of these warriors of the faith, whose hair was grey and whose cheeks were furrowed.” To that description we may add the words of the Holy Spirit: “Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of the weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens . . . Of whom the world was not worthy: they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth” (Hebrews xi. 33, 34, 38).
This Assembly of 1690 was one which was beset with many difficulties. It was made up of three parties, that is, “the aged ministers who had been ejected at the commencement of the persecution, and, having escaped its deadly perils, were now the proper representatives of the Church of the Second Reformation; the ministers who had, to a greater or lesser degree, conformed to Prelacy, accepted the indulgences, and became tainted somewhat with a tendency to laxity and indifference in doctrine, discipline, and government; and the unconquered Covenanters, who had followed Cameron, Cargil, and Renwick, spurning every weak compliance, braving every danger, and sealing cheerfully their testimony in defence of Christ’s Crown and Covenant with their blood. The ministers of the first party were not more than sixty, those of the last only three, while those of the middle party amounted to more than double the number of both the others combined. It was perfectly manifest, therefore, that no measure which the more faithful and zealous party should propose could be carried, if the middle party should resolve to oppose it; and there was no reason to hope that men who had tamely submitted to the tyranny of Charles and James, and even bowed beneath the prelatic yoke, would readily assume an attitude of bold resistance to the Erastian policy of William. Accordingly, from the very hour when it met, the Assembly was laid under an almost fatal necessity of entering into a compromise, and keeping in comparative abeyance what its wisest and best members knew to be the great and essential principles of the true Presbyterian Church.” Hetherington’s History of the Church of Scotland, p. 182. The King desired the admission of the prelatic party, and to oppose this and offend him was looked upon as very dangerous. His chief adviser in matters pertaining to the Church of Scotland was the royal chaplain, William Carstares, who afterwards became Principal of Edinburgh University, and he was insistent, in his advice to the Church, that the royal wishes should be complied with. Carstares further advised His Majesty to avoid giving the slightest ground to either of the contending parties for supposing that he entertained any regard for the one more than the other, and be very cautious in giving up one branch of the royal prerogative. His acting on this advice caused the Revolution Church to be more Erastian than the Constitution of the Church of Scotland permitted. The Act re-establishing the Church of Scotland revived the Act of 1592 instead of the more perfect Acts of the Second Reformation, and thus excluded all mention of the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant. The adopting of these documents would have effectively excluded the prelatists from the Scottish National Church, and it would have been a great gain to Scotland to have their baneful influence excluded. To quote Dr. Hetherington again: “It was absolutely impossible that such men could be true Presbyterians; and the very alacrity with which many of them subscribed the Confession of Faith, only proved the more clearly that they were void of either faith or honour. Their admission into the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was the most fatal event which ever occurred in the strange eventful history of that Church. It infused a baneful poison into her very heart, whence, ere long, flowed forth a lethal stream, corrupting and paralysing her whole frame. It sowed the noxious seed which gradually sprang up, and expanded into the deadly upas-tree of Modernism, shedding a mortal blight over the whole of her once fair and fruitful vineyard, till it withered into a lifeless wilderness.” Ibid. p. 183. It was this temporising policy that caused the Cameronian Covenanters, or Reformed Presbyterians as they latterly became known, to refuse to join the National Church. This separation was not, however, justifiable, in spite of the defects of the Revolution Settlement, as it still manifested by the ratification of the Confession of Faith and its unaltered Constitution, and the prominence given to the doctrines of that Confession, that the Church now recognised by law was the Church of the Reformation in Scotland.
The Character of William Carstares
As it is the case that Carstares had a great deal to do with bringing about the Revolution Settlement we may now notice something of his character. He was greatly praised and greatly blamed by those who reviewed his conduct at this time. In this connection we cannot do better than again give Dr. Hetherington’s assessment of his character. “Carstares was unquestionably a man of great ability, and his resolution and fidelity had borne a severe trial on a former occasion. But, though a sincere Presbyterian, he seems to have been so more from political than from religious considerations, and to have viewed a religious establishment more as an engine of state than as a Church of Christ. The great Presbyterian principle, that the Lord Jesus is the only Head and King in His Church, he does not seem to have understood or felt, at least neither in his conduct nor in any of his writings give any indication that it formed the ruling principle in his views of ecclesiastical polity. That he was a sincere friend to the Church of Scotland, is certain; but the defective nature of his own perception of its great principles not only prevented him from making any effort to obtain their free development, but even led him to obstruct and thwart what it ought to have been the business of his life to promote. It was, therefore, morally impossible that Carstares should give to the king the wisest and the best advice with regard to the establishment of the Presbyterian Church, since he did not himself understand the very essence of the Presbyterian system of church government. Some will think this a strange assertion, when employed respecting a man of such eminence as Carstares, and one to whom the Church of Scotland is in reality under deep obligations. Let them studiously compare the principles and conduct of Carstares with those of the great men who conducted the First and Second Reformations in Scotland, and they will be compelled to feel, whether they fully understand the cause or not, that in him they perceive but a cold reflected lunar light—in them the life-giving power and fervour of direct sunshine. He was a Presbyterian greatly, if not chiefly, through the force of education and habit, and by the conviction of human prudence and political sagacity; and, therefore he strove for the re-establishment of the Presbyterian Church, as most likely to confirm his sovereign’s throne, and most agreeable to the inclinations of the people; they were Presbyterians by the grace of God and the indwelling power of divine truth within their souls; and, therefore, they strove for the establishment of a Presbyterian Church, as directly founded upon the Word of God, and therefore of divine institution and authority. Yet the errors of Carstares were those chiefly of omission: to the extent to which his own defective views enabled him to reach, he had an accurate conception of the Presbyterian polity and discipline, and did his utmost to obtain its establishment, and to protect it in times of danger.” (Ibid. p. 179.)