to meet on the fourth of May next, 1727, and the assembly was dissolved with the ordinary forms.*

While the church of Scotland was thus proceeding quietly and successfully in spreading the knowledge of divine truth, christianizing and civilizing, at the same time, a very poor and rude people, the Jacobite episcopalians, especially the clergy, who had all along arrogated to themselves the character of being the only polite, pious, and learned part of the community, were doing what they could to stem this unostentatious and salutary progress. The pure preaching of the gospel, by the legally authorized presbyterian ministers, they every-where opposed with the utmost virulency. The planting of vacant churches wherever they had any influence, was a matter of the greatest difficulty, and could not be accomplished till their whole stock of legal chicanery had been exhausted, and perhaps, the hostility of a lawless rabble encountered and defeated. Year after year, had the assembly of the church complained, expostulated, and remonstrated with the civil powers regarding this gross perversion of liberty, this perpetual drawback upon their honest endeavours to promote private happiness and public tranquillity, but in vain. Their just complaints were regarded as frivolous, their expostulations as flowing from pride and puritanical humour, and their reasonable remonstrances as irrelevant, illiberal, and intolerant. Assuring themselves that at bottom they were favourites at court, flattered by the notice of the more opulent and influential of the Jacobites, and goaded on by their own ambition, the clergy of this sect, like that of every other so situated, became at length elated to that degree, that they could no longer demean themselves as a small party that was barely tolerated, but aspired to be the dictators of the public feeling, and the conservators of the national faith. putting a stop to the growth of popery; and that God may be graciously pleased to continue the blessing of seasonable weather, joining thankfulness for the remarkable favour he hath shown us in this way. And the assembly enjoins all ministers to take care that this fast be duly observed, and for this cause to intimate this act from their pulpits upon the Lord's day preceding the day that shall be appointed by his majesty for the observation thereof, and to take occasion to excite the people to their duty with grave and serious exhortations suitable to the occasion." Acts of Assembly, 1726.

Printed Acts of Assembly, 1726.

Their ambition, however, was greater than their prudence, for they could neither agree among themselves, nor submit to the dictation of those who reckoned themselves qualified to take the lead in all that related to the affairs of the pretender. The trustees of the pretender held it as a first principle that all power, ecclesiastic as well as civil, was derived from, and was to be exercised only for promoting the interests of the crown; and they were particularly anxious at this time to have a Mr. John Gillane consecrated a bishop, that he might succeed bishop Fullarton in the see of Edinburgh, which, owing to circumstances, was supposed to be the most important place in their church. This superiority allowed to the see of Edinburgh was highly offensive to some of the bishops, especially to bishop Miller, who aspired to the vacant see of St. Andrews with all its immunities. Finding, however, this to be unattainable, he set himself diligently to cultivate the friendship of the presbyters of the diocess of Edinburgh, that he might by them be elected to that see on the demise of Fullarton, which was now almost daily expected. Having tried all means he could think of to prevent the consecration of Gillane, to no purpose, he at last drew up a remonstrance to the college of bishops against consecrating him, to which he had the address, to procure the signature of upwards of twenty of the presbyters of Edinburgh. "This remonstrance," says Lockhart, "was full of treason, falsehoods, and ill manners-it began by representing the encroachments made on the powers and rights of the church since the reformation," and it exhorted the college "to lay hold on this happy occasion" for regaining what had been lost, now that the crown was in no condition to maintain these encroachments. When this paper was shown to some of the members of the college, however, it was wholly disapproved of, and some of them declared, that if it was presented to the college, they would throw it into the fire, lest it might another day be brought in judgment against them, it being utterly "inconsistent with that loyalty which had hitherto been the glory of the Scots church."

Finding that it would be impossible for them to carry their point in the college, Miller and his associates did not think it advisable to present their remonstrance, but, being highly

enraged, they, in the most open and avowed manner, lamented the deplorable state of the church, that behoved to submit to have office bearers imposed upon her in this arbitrary manner by a king in such a situation," and what," said they, “are we to expect if he were once upon the throne?" As a last shift, too, "they publicly propagated, to deter the college from proceeding to the consecration of Gillane, lest the government should resent it, that the king had sent a conge de lire to Lockhart for his election, and one of the party, Mr. Middleton, declared that if Gillane was consecrated some heads should ""* for it." go So absurdly will men act, even against their own interest, when intoxicated with the spirit of party. In consequence of these violent and public disputes, the government became acquainted with the channels of communication between the pretender and his friends in Scotland. The first parcel after this that arrived from the chevalier was seized upon, and Lockhart, to whom it was addressed, who had laboured to promote the interest of the episcopal party with so much zeal, and often with considerable effect, ever since the revolution, was obliged to save himself by flying to the continent, where he remained for some considerable time, and, from aught that appears, never more took any active hand either in civil or ecclesiastical affairs.t

In the midst of all this intrigue and bustle on the part of the episcopalians, it was impossible but that the presbyterians should feel hurt, and, though they had often made their complaint without effect, the General Assembly, which met in May, 1727, again addressed the throne in the most humble and dutiful manner, setting forth the danger to which both the civil and ecclesiastic constitution was exposed by machinations so openly and so vigorously carried on. Adverting to the high eulogium which his majesty had been pleased to pass upon their loyalty, and the confidence with which he expected the continuance of their best endeavours to prevent the growth of popery, ignorance, and immorality, they say that "it is to answer faithfully this great trust that we now crave leave most humbly to represent to your majesty that the papists, espe

*Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. pp. 322-331.

+ Ibid.

cially in the Highlands and Islands, and northern parts of this country, continue still to diffuse their corrupt and pernicious doctrines among your subjects, their bishops and priests taking upon them to say mass publicly, and exercise other parts of their superstitious worship, and even to train up great numbers of youth at schools in a most open manner, in manifest contempt and defiance of your majesty's laws, disowning them as established by unlawful authority, to which no manner of obedience is due, and instilling into the people an opinion contrary to the rules of the gospel, and destructive of society and good order, that, under no less than the pain of damnation, they are bound to oppose them, and to do every thing which may contribute to sap and undermine their foundations, and maintaining that nothing can be more meritorious than to propagate these impious maxims by all means whatsoever; for a more full account of this, we beg leave to refer to former memorials, particularly to one in November, 1725, from the commission of the General Assembly, laid before the lords justices in your majesty's absence.

"We reckon ourselves also obliged humbly to inform your majesty that the nonjuring pretended protestant bishops, and those who are put in orders by them, restlessly endeavour to sow the seeds of disaffection to the present happy establishment in your royal person and family, especially this last year, both in city and country, and in every thing that tends to this they unite in measures with professed papists. Their preachers do not only forbear to pray expressly for your majesty, but on the contrary, they pray in terms by which their hearers understand that none else can be meant but the pretender. They take every opportunity to insinuate into their minds that they are oppressed under your majesty's administration, and can have no prospect of redress but from his success. By these means, their followers entertain favourable impressions of popery, and are the more easily perverted to it, concerning which we have sent to your secretary of state a particular memorial," &c. &c.*

After the brief sketch which we have already given of the

• Printed Acts of Assembly, 1727.

procedure of the episcopal church, (for the popish church we consider it in Scotland, ever since the days of John Knox, to be beneath the dignity of history) every candid mind must admit this was moderate, and what could very easily be supported; but we do not know that the government took one single step to rectify the evil, nay, we know that lord Ilay, who was then called king of Scotland, considered it the very best policy to allow the episcopal clergy to ruin themselves,* which, though no thanks were due to him, they certainly did. Indeed, had not the good sense for which Scotishmen have for a century been famous, now come fairly into operation, christianity itself, as it has been elsewhere, had there also been made a fund of emolument to the rich, a blind of ignorance, and a source of misery to the poor. Let it never be forgotten that our Hoggs, our Erskines, and our Bostons, in whom had been preserved all the spirit of our Forbeses, our Calderwoods, our Blacks, our Bruces, and our Knoxes, were still alive, and their well tempered zeal, their knowledge, and their fervid eloquence, made up, under a kind providence, what a prudent government for its own safety would have been careful to have seen supplied.

But the dangers and the difficulties of the Scotish church were not at this time merely of an external kind. At the same time that her enemies without were exerting themselves to the utmost of their means, she had in her own bosom traitors who were secretly sapping her foundations. Mr. John Glass, minister of the parish of Tealing, and Mr. Francis Archibald, minister of Guthrie, had already begun openly to impugn her whole constitution, maintaining that there was no warrant for national churches under the New Testament, and that single congregations are not subject to any judicatory, each having the powers of calling, ordination, and government wholly within itself, every individual member having an equal share of the government. In support of this theory many old exploded errors were revived, which, falling in partly with the philosophy, and partly with the feeling of the times, and recommended by the orderly and decent de

• Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. p. 330.