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interests to their political attachments and their profound respect for the inviolability of an oath. Their conduct in this case has been condemned as ignorant and illiberal, and as being guided in the most momentous question that could come before them, by a regard to groundless or contemptible scruples. But, before this charge be admitted, the circumstances in which they were placed ought to be taken into consideration. Scotland at that time had very little intercourse with the seat of Government, still less sympathy with the feelings which animated the great body of the English people, and was consequently entirely ignorant of the great political change which was about to affect the royal family. The Revolution was over, and William firmly seated on the throne, before the people at Edinburgh seem to have been aware, that King James had laid down the sceptre. The Scottish Bishops, therefore, were taken quite by surprise. They had suffered comparatively nothing from the tyranny of the infatuated monarch, were ignorant perhaps of the unconstitutional measures which he was pursuing in the South, and were, above all, totally unprepared for the almost unanimous defection of the Church of England. The following letter, too, written by James after William had been ten days in the kingdom, assured the Scottish Prelates that their brethren in England were faithful to him; and although, before they could receive it, the crown had passed to another head, they would find themselves still more confirmed in their principles, and still less disposed towards innovation.

"To our right trusty and right well-beloved counsellors, the Lords Archbishops, and our right trusty and well-beloved the Bishops of our ancient Kingdom of Scotland.

"James R.

"Right, trusty, and right well-beloved counsellors, and right trusty and well-beloved, Wee greet you well. Wee have received your most dutifull letter of the third day of November, in which Wee are glad to see that yee are far from being of the number of those spiritual lords, whom the Prince of Orange pretends to have been invited by, as Wee have likewise had repeated assurances from all the Bishops of England of their innocency in that, and duty to us. Wee have now thought fit by this to tell you how sensible Wee are of your zeale for our service, and for the dutiful expressions of your loyalty to us in a time when all arts are used to seduce our subjects from their duty to us. Wee doe likewise take notice of your diligence in your duty by your inculcating to those under your charge those principles which have always been owned, taught, and published by that Protestant loyal Church you are members of. Wee doe assure you of our royal protection to you, your Religion, Church, and Clergy, and that we will be careful of your concerns whenever there may be a suitable occasion offered to us, you and every one of you being most perfectly in our royal protection and favour. And so Wee bid you farewell. Given at our Court at Whitehall, the 15th day of November, 1688, and of our reign the fourth year. "By his Majesty's command,

" MELFORT."

Besides the circumstances now detailed, it ought to be remembered that the mere oath of allegiance itself was at that period very different from the one which is now exacted. The present oath is, “I do solemnly promise and swear that I will be faithful, and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King George." But before the Revolution it ran thus: 66 I do promise to be true and faithful to the King and his heirs, and truth and faith to bear, of life and limb, and terrene honour; and not to know or hear of any ill or damage intended him, without defending him therefrom." The oath therefore which all subjects in office had sworn to King James, bound them to be faithful, not to him only, but also to his heirs; and though the Scottish Convention had voted that King James, by his mal-administration and abuse of power, had forfeited all title to the crown, the bishops might, without absurdity or narrow mindedness, consider themselves as still bound by their oaths to be faithful to his infant son, who could have done nothing to forfeit his titles.

Some such reasoning as this withheld many Presbyterians, as well as the great majority of the Episcopal Clergy, from transferring their allegiance from King James to King William; and that even the Bishops in this part of the kingdom had not originally any intention of receiving the Prince of Orange as their Sovereign, is manifest from a variety of documents still in existence.

It is well known what change was produced among the spiritual peers, by the political events which followed upon the abdication of James. It is worthy of notice, however, that the high Churchmen, as they were usually denominated, who had been the first to oppose the unconstitutional exercise of the royal prerogative,. were also the first to set the example of a constant and invincible loyalty. Bishop Kenn, one of the most distinguished of the deprived Prelates, says in a letter to Burnet, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, "Though I do easily in many things betray great infirmity, I thank God I cannot accuse myself of any insincerity; so that deprivation will not reach my conscience, and I am in no pain at all for myself. I perceive that after we have been sufficiently ridiculed, the last mortal stab designed to give us is, to expose us to the world as men of no conscience; and if God is pleased to permit it, his most holy will be done though what that particular passion of corrupt nature is which lies at the bottom, and which we gratify in losing all we have, will be hard to determine. God grant such reproaches as these may not retort on the authors. I heartily join with your Lordship in your desires for the peace of this Church; and I shall conceive great hopes that God will have compassion upon her, if I see that she compassionates and supports her sister of Scotland. I beseech God to make you an instrument to promote that peace and that charity; I myself can only contribute to both, by my depri vation and by my prayers, against schism, and against sacrilege."

At this period begins the Second Part of the Narrative which we have thus attempted to abridge; and which is now to set forth the condition of the Scottish Episcopal Church, first as a persecuted body, and afterwards as a communion simply tolerated or allowed.

By the Act which established the Presbyterian Church in Scotland,

the Ecclesiastical Judicatories were authorized" to try and purge out all insufficient, negligent, scandalous, and erroneous ministers, by due course of process and censures;" and it was ordained that whatever minister, being summoned before them, or before visitors appointed by them, should refuse to appear, or, on appearing, should be found guilty by them, every such minister should, by their sentence, be ipso facto suspended from, or deprived of his kirk, stipend, and benefice. This gave them power to deprive, according to law, every Episcopal Clergyman who did not appear before them, and abjure Prelacy as an anti-christian usurpation; while, on the other hand, every minister was by them deemed insufficient, negligent, scandalous, or erroneous, who had entered to his living by presentation from the patron of the parish, and by ordination, or institution, from the Bishop of the diocese, within which that parish was comprehended. Moreover, all who refused to appear before the Presbytery, and solemnly declare that all these things (presentation, Episcopal ordination and induction) were contrary to the Word of God, to the constitution of the Kirk, to the Acts of Assemblies, and to the solemn engagements (the national covenant, and the solemn league and covenant) were instantly deprived by a judicial sentence.

It was not found easy to carry, these sentences every where into execution. In the counties north of the Tay, a great majority of the people, with almost all the nobility and gentry, gave a decided preference to the Episcopal form of Church government; and King William had repeatedly declared his desire, in very strong terms, that such of the Clergy as should take the oaths to his Government, and pray for him and the Queen in the form directed by law, should be allowed to retain their parishes all the days of their natural lives, without being subjected to the jurisdiction of Presbyteries. In these counties, therefore, with the declared will of the King, and the inclinations of the people against them, they could not always get the Episcopal Clergy turned out; but they took effectual care that they should have no successors, nor enjoy any share in the government of the Church.

Before any Clergyman of the old establishment could be received as a member of a Church Court under the new discipline, it was necessary, as we have said, that he should renounce Episcopacy, as an Antichristian usurpation and some who found it convenient to comply with this condition, were admitted into the Presbyterian Judicatories, where not a few of them are said to have acted a part very little to their credit. Those, again, who had taken the oaths required by law, and who prayed publicly for the King and Queen, but who would not abjure episcopacy, were indeed suffered to keep possession of their Churches and stipends, but were perpetually teazed and harassed by answering questions concerning their sufficiency and their orthodoxy; whilst the vengeance of the government, both civil and ecclesiastical, fell chiefly on those who, refusing to take the oath of allegiance to King William and Queen Mary, were henceforth distinguished by the denomination of non-jurors. In the latter class are to be included all the Bishops, and almost all the inferior Clergy, many of whom had been driven from their parishes by a lawless rabble, before Episcopacy was legally abolished. To these

must be added a great number of the most learned and respectable of the parochial Clergy, who, disdaining to conceal their sentiments, and retain their livings, in virtue of a mere connivance on the part of their adversaries, made haste to withdraw from their charges. Nor did the Presbyterians meet with any obstacle in their endeavours to extirpate the non-jurors from their communion, and even to expel them from the pale of the Christian Church. On the 22nd of July, 1690, an Act of Parliament was passed prohibiting" every deprived minister from preaching or exercising any part of his ministerial function either in vacant churches or elsewhere under any pretext whatever, until first he present himself before the Privy Council (a tribunal in Scotland, of which the proceedings had long been as tyrannical as were those of the star chamber in this part of the kingdom,) and there take, swear, and subscribe the oath of allegiance, and also engage himself under his hand to pray for King William and Queen Mary as King and Queen of this realm; certifying such ministers as shall do on the contrary, that they shall be proceeded against as persons disaffected, and enemies to their Majesty's Government, according as the Privy Council shall direct."

This was persecution in the worst form that it could possibly assume, and assuredly justifies the observation of the historian Smollett, that the Presbyterians of that period proceeded" with ungovernable violence to persecute the Episcopal party exercising upon them the very same tyranny, against which they had themselves so loudly exclaimed." Had this rigour been directed only against such nonjuring Episcopal Clergymen as should take upon them to officiate in a parish church, some apology might be found for the measure, severe and unchristian as it was; but to subject the non-complying ministers to the arbitrary punishments which might be inflicted by a Scottish Privy Council, should they presume to baptize a child, or exercise any other part of their duty in private, was unquestionably to subject both them and their adherents to a most cruel persecution.

But even that load of suffering and contumely was not held sufficient. Suspecting that some of the deprived Clergy, interpreting the oath of allegiance so as to mean nothing more than that they were to submit quietly to the government of the King and Queen, might possibly comply with the conditions proposed, and thereby obtain possession of the vacant Churches, the Presbyterian party at the head of affairs, in order to prevent such accommodations in the application of the statute, procured an additional Act, which was effectually to exclude from every office, clerical or civil, and visit with an universal proscription, all those who questioned the political rights of the reigning dynasty. It was enacted that every one holding a public appointment, Clergy as well as others, should subscribe the following declaration." I do in the sincerity of my heart, assert, acknowledge, and declare, that their Majesties King William and Queen Mary, are the only lawful and undoubted Sovereigns, King and Queen of Scotland, as well de jure as de facto; and therefore I do sincerely and faithfully promise and engage that I will with heart and hand, life and goods, maintain and defend their Majesties title and government against the

late King James and his adherents, and all other enemies who, either by open or secret attempts, shall disturb or disquiet their Majesties in

the exercise thereof."

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So far at that period was the title of William and Mary from being undoubted in Scotland, that many even of the established Clergy refused to take the oath. It was found necessary to grant them a dispensation, or at least to connive at their refusal : but it was tendered without qualification to the deprived Episcopal Clergy, who, rather than take it, submitted for a while to forbear the exercise of their ministry, as well in private as in public.

It would appear, however, that the non-juring Episcopalians, in the discharge of their ministerial duties, occasionally exposed themselves to the penalty of the laws. They ventured to have divine worship in their houses every Lord's Day; leaving their doors open, that whoever was inclined might unite in prayers and praise to God with them and their families. This conduct was considered as a heinous offence; and a list of the principal transgressors was sent to the Privy Council, who forthwith passed sentence against two of them. Another Act of Parliament was likewise passed in the year 1695, prohibiting and discharging every outed minister from baptizing any children, or solemnizing marriage betwixt any parties in all time coming, under pain of imprisonment, ay and until he find caution to go out of the kingdom, and never to return thereto." This was, doubtless, the severest blow that had hitherto been aimed at the non-juring Clergy; and it was directed not against their politics, but clearly and avowedly against their religion.

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During the whole reign of King William, indeed, the Episcopalians in Scotland were greatly discountenanced, and their Clergy subjected to many hardships; but still the greater part of the nobility and ancient gentry continued strongly attached to that form of Ecclesiastical polity, and afforded to their depressed brethren no small share of respectability and support. The time was now at hand, besides, when they expected and obtained more lenient and equitable treatment.

On the accession of Queen Anne in the year 1702, flattering hopes were entertained by the Episcopal Clergy that such a degree of protection at least would be extended to them as would enable their people to attend divine worship, and themselves to discharge the several duties of their office, without incurring the hazard of exile or imprisonment. Her Majesty's attachment to the constitution of the Church of England, was well known to her Scottish subjects; and the non-jurors even gave her credit for the intention of paving the way for the restoration of the lineal branch of the royal family in the person of her brother, the Chevalier de Saint George. But it should seem that more was expected as well as intended, than the condition of affairs would permit to be realized. The Queen wrote to the Privy Council in Scotland, assuring them that she would maintain the constitution both in Church and State; but exhorted the Presbyterians to live at peace with such of the Episcopal Clergy as, having qualified themselves, according to law, were still in possession of their Churches. To the non-juring Clergy she promised her protection on the condition of their living in brotherly

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