nor any who encouraged and strengthened their hands, and pleaded for them, and trafficked for union with them. 7th, That they are for a standing gospel ministry, rightly chosen, and rightly ordained, and that none shall take upon them the preaching of the word, &c., unless called and ordained thereunto.

And whereas separation might be imputed to them, they repel both the malice, and the ignorance of that calumny.-For if there be a separation, it must be where the change is; and that was not to be found in them, who were not separating from the communion of the true church; nor setting up a new ministry, but cleaving to the same ministers and ordinances that formerly they followed, when others have fled to new ways, and a new authority, which is like the old piece in the new garment. 8th, That they shall defend themselves in their civil, natural and divine rights and liberties. -And if any assault them, they shall look on it as a declaring a war, and take all advantages that one enemy does of another-But trouble and injure none, but those that injure them.

NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII.

1 During the first fifty years of this time, the Scottish Kirk was practically supreme. What it then did to "retard human progress," as Mr. Buckle would say, is best summed up in the words of its enemy, King James VI., spoken when he first went down into England, and presided at the Hampton Court Conference, held in January, 1604. See pp. 434-36.

9 History of Civilization in England, vol. ii., ch. ii.-v.

What may be termed, in its broadest sense, the utilitarian tendency of modern religious thought, may be noted in some of the popular writings of Alfred Russell Wallace, S. Laing, A. J. Balfour, Benjamin Kidd, Matthew Arnold, John Fiske, etc.

4 Vol. ii., ch. ii. (vol. ii., pp. 152, 153, American edition).

See also Gardiner's History of England, 1603-1642, vol. i., pp. 22-26; vol. viii., PP. 373-375.

6

History of England, book vi., ch. ii.

* History of England, vol. vi., ch. xxxvii., pp. 220, 221.

8 The Scotch have been greatly, and, to a certain extent, justly blamed, because, instead of being satisfied with securing the liberty of their own church, they insisted on the overthrow of that of England. It should be remembered, however, that intolerance was the epidemic of the age. The Episcopalians enforced the prayer-book, the Presbyterians the covenant, the Independents the engagement. The last being more of a political character than either of the others, was, so far, the least objectionable. It was, however, both in design and in fact, what Neal calls it, "a severe test for the Presbyterians." Besides, the rigid doctrine of the exclusive divine right of Presbyterianism, and an intolerant opposition to Prelacy, did not prevail among the Scotch until they were driven, by persecution, into extreme opinions. When they found Episcopacy, in their own bitter experience, associated with despotism and superstition, and, in their firm belief, with irreligion and Popery, it is not wonderful that they regarded it as a bitter root which could bear nothing good. Their best apology is that which they themselves urged at the time. They considered it essential to the liberty of their church and country that the power of the bishops should be destroyed in England. The persecutions which they had already endured, and their just apprehensions of still greater evils, sprang from the principles and conduct of the English prelates. How well founded this opinion was, the atrocities consequent on the restoration of Charles II. and the re-establishment of Episcopacy, abundantly proved. -Hodge, History of the Presbyterian Church, vol. i., pp. 46, 47.

'See Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii., ch. v.

10 The Assembly which met in the beginning of 1696 passed an act against the atheistical opinions of the Deists, which received a melancholy comment in an occurrence which took place during the same year. A student of eighteen, named Thomas Aikenhead, had unfortunately imbibed sceptical opinions, and had been imprudent enough to spout them to some of his companions. Trinity in unity, he said, was a contradiction. Moses had learned magic in Egypt, and this was the secret of his miracles. Ezra was the author of the Pentateuch; Theanthropas was as great an absurdity as Hirco-Cervus. These sceptical commonplaces reached the ears of the authorities, and the youth was indicted under an old statute which made it a capital crime to curse the Supreme Being. He was convicted and sentenced to be hanged. It was in vain that the poor lad with death before his eyes, recanted his errors and begged for his life. Even a reprieve for a few days was denied him, and the clergy of the city gave their voice for his death. He died with a Bible in his hand in token of his change of mind.-Cunningham, Church History of Scotland, vol. ii., pp. 197, 198.

11 Hodge, History of the Presbyterian Church in America, pp. 47-50.

12 The enormities of this detestable government are far too numerous, even in species, to be enumerated in this slight sketch; and of course, most instances of cruelty have not been recorded. The privy council was accustomed to extort confessions by torture-that grim divan of bishops, lawyers, and peers, sucking the groans of each undaunted enthusiast, in hopes that some imperfect avowal might lead to the sacrifice of other victims, or at least warrant the execution of the present. It was very possible that Episcopacy might

be of apostolical institution; but for this institution houses had been burned and fields laid waste, and the gospel been preached in the wilderness, and its ministers had been shot in their prayers, and husbands had been murdered before their wives, and virgins had been defiled, and many had died by the executioner, and by massacre, and imprisonment, and in exile and slavery, and women had been tied to stakes on the sea-shore till the tide rose to overflow them, and some had been tortured and mutilated; it was a religion of the boots and the thumbscrew, which a good man must be very cool-blooded indeed if he did not hate and reject from the hands which offered it. For, after all, it is much more certain that the Supreme Being abhors cruelty and persecution, than that he has set up bishops to have a superiority over Presbyters.-Hallam, Constitutional History, vol. iii., pp. 435, 442. The wonderful subserviency and degradation of the Scottish parliament during this period must strike all readers with astonishment. This fact is partially explained, and the disgrace in some measure palliated by the peculiarity of its constitution. The controlling power was virtually in the hands of the bishops, who were the creatures, and of course, the servants of the crown. The lords of the articles were originally a committee chosen by the parliament for the preparation of business. But Charles I, without any authority from parliament, had the matter so arranged, that "the bishops chose eight peers, the peers eight bishops; and these appointed sixteen commissioners of shires and boroughs. Thus the whole power was devolved upon the bishops, the slaves and sycophants of the crown. The parliament itself met only on two days, the first and last of their pretended session, the one time to choose the lords of the articles, the other to ratify what they proposed.”—Hallam, vol. iii., p. 428. This arrangement was renewed after the restoration of Charles II.

13" So soon as it was known in Scotland that William of Orange had landed at Torbay ; that he was slowly advancing toward London; that the English nobility were flocking to him; that the royal army was deserting to him, that the bewildered James had attempted to flee the country, the people began to show how ready they were to concur with the prince in shaking off the burdens under which they had groaned.

"Meanwhile there were wild rumors afloat of an army of Irish Papists that had landed, or was about to land, on the coast of Galloway. Some said it was already at Kirkcudbright and had burned it. . . In such times rumors are rife. People began to dread a massacre. The Council had dissolved. The military had been marched into England.

There was a dissolution of all authority. The peasantry of the western counties began to collect in large crowds, armed with such weapons as they could procure, and to take the law into their own hands. Their wrath vented itself on the unhappy curates. They resolved to purge the temple of them without waiting for the decision of the legislature. They began their work upon Christmas, which seems to have been thought an appropriate day. In some cases the curates saved themselves from insult by timely flight. In other cases they were laid hold of by the rabble, carried about in mock procession, had their gowns torn over their heads, their Prayer-Books burned before their eyes, and then were told to be off, and never to show themselves in the parish again. When done with the minister, the mob frequently entered the manse, tumbled the furniture out at the windows, marched the inmates to the door, took possession of the keys; and on next Sunday a preacher who had till lately been skulking among the hills, was found in the pulpit thundering against persecuting prelatists. These rabblings went on for two or three months; every now and then an instance was occurring till almost every parish in the south and west was cleaned of its Episcopal incumbent. Upwards of two hundred clergymen were thus rabbled out of their manses, their parishes, and their livings (Somers's Tracts, coll. iii., vol. iv., p. 133. "Case of the Episcopal Clergy in Scotland Truly Represented.” "Case of the Afflicted Clergy," etc., Burnet's History, vol. ii., p. 444).

'The wives and families of these men shared in their misfortunes. Many must have been rendered homeless; some reduced to absolute beggary. . . . Still no life was lost. The only martyrdom these men underwent was a little rough usage from an ignorant rabble, and the loss of their livings. And it must be remembered that in the districts of the country where these things happened the curates occupied their pulpits in opposition to the will of the people, and enjoyed stipends of which others had been tyrannically deprived. They had no root in the soil; they were aliens in their own parishes. What is more, they were suspected of having abetted the persecution of those who preferred their old Presbyterian ministers to them. They had their roll of absentees from church to hand to the military officers commanding in the district.

"For twenty-five long years, the Presbyterians had been cruelly oppressed; and yet when times of revolution came, they did not rise and murder their oppressors. Even the rabblings were conducted chiefly by the Cameronians and the lowest of the people, and many of the Presbyterians strongly condemned them."-Cunningham, Church History of Scotland, vol. ii., PP. 151-153.

14 See Appendix R (The Scottish Martyrs.)

CHAPTER IX

RELIGION IN EARLY SCOTLAND AND EARLY ENGLAND

ΤΗ

HE real differences between the religious life of Scotland and that of England are not wholly those of creed and polity, brought about by the Reformation of the sixteenth century. They would seem to go back much farther than that period, and to have given evidence of existence more than nine hundred years before. They may have originated from the radical differences between the ancient pagan mythology of the Druids and that of the Teutons. The religious genius of early Scotland was, of course, largely Celtic, and there is no reason for believing that the more or less complete but very gradual amalgamation of the early race with that of the Norse and the Angle has essentially altered the inherent racial tendency toward emotional fervor and intensity. Going from a warmer climate into the comparatively bleak and northern country of Caledonia, the early Celt doubtless became more "hard-headed," and lost much of that exuberance of emotion which to-day is so characteristic of his cousins in France and Ireland, and, perhaps, also in Wales. His peculiar traits were modified later by the commingling of his blood with that of the Northmen. But his early racial point of view was far distant from that of the pagans who brought the worship of Woden into Britain, and the assimilating influences of climate and intermarriage, even to this day, have not sufficed to break down the barrier between the two cults. Christianity was probably planted in Great Britain long before the Romans left. The first native account we have of its early history there is that of Bede, in his allusions to the conversion (176-190) of Lucius, King of the Britons, and to the establishment by Ninian of the Church of Candida Casa at Whithorn, in Galloway. This foundation is supposed to have been made about the year 397, and Ninian (who died about 432) was therefore the precursor and contemporary of St. Patrick (396– 469 ?). More than a hundred and sixty years later, Columba, the Scot, came from the island of Iona to North Britain, and converted the Picts, as Bede tells us in the following passage (Eccl. Hist., bk. iii., ch. iv.) :

In the year of our Lord 565, when Justin, the younger, the successor of Justinian, had the government of the Roman Empire, there came into Britain a famous priest and abbat, a monk by habit and life, whose name was Columba, to preach the word of God to the provinces of the northern Picts, who are separated from the southern parts by steep and rugged mountains; for the southern Picts, who dwell on this side of those mountains, had long before, as is reported, forsaken the errors of idolatry, and embraced the truth, by the preaching of Ninias, a most reverend bishop and holy man of the British nation, who had been regularly instructed at Rome, in the faith and mysteries of the truth; whose episcopal see, named after St. Martin the

bishop, and famous for a stately church, (wherein he and many other saints rest in the body,) is still in existence among the English nation. The place belongs to the province of the Bernicians, and is generally called the White House, because he there built a church of stone, which was not usual among the Britons.

Columba came into Britain in the ninth year of the reign of Bridius, who was the son of Meilochon, and the powerful king of the Pictish nation, and he converted that nation to the faith of Christ, by his preaching and example, whereupon he also received of them the aforesaid island for a monastery, for it is not very large, but contains about five families, according to the English computation. His successors hold the island to this day; he was also buried therein, having died at the age of seventy-seven, about thirty-two years after he came into Britain to preach. Before he passed over into Britain, he had built a noble monastery in Ireland, which, from the great number of oaks, is in the Scottish tongue called Dearm-ach - The Field of Oaks [now Derry]. From both which monasteries, many others had their beginning through his disciples, both in Britain and Ireland; but the monastery in the island where his body lies, is the principal of them all.

Columba's religion was the same as that of St. Patrick. It had been brought from the East at a time when the early Church retained its primitive simplicity, and before it had become corrupted through the acquisition of that temporal power which came to it upon the dissolution of the Roman Empire.1

The English were converted by St. Augustine, who came from Rome to Britain in 597. He was followed in 625 by Paulinus. The success of their missions is related by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History, bk. i., ch. xxv., and bk. ii., ch. ix.

The first conflict between the primitive Christianity of the Celts and the more secularized ecclesiasticism of Rome occurred in England about the year 604, and in all its aspects is typical of the struggle which took place in North Britain between the latter-day representatives of the two systems in the time of the Stuarts. Bede's narrative,' therefore, needs no commentary:

In the meantime, Augustine, with the assistance of King Ethelbert, drew together to a conference the bishops, or doctors, of the next province of the Britons, at a place which is to this day called Augustine's Ac, that is, Augustine's Oak, on the borders of the Wiccii and West Saxons; and began by brotherly admonitions to persuade them, that preserving Catholic unity with him, they should undertake the common labour of preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles. For they did not keep Easter Sunday at the proper time, but from the fourteenth to the twentieth moon; which computation is contained in a revolution of eighty-four years. Besides, they did several other things which were against the unity of the church. When, after a long disputation, they did not comply with the entreaties, exhortations, or rebukes of Augustine and his companions, but preferred their own traditions before all the churches in the world, which in Christ agree among themselves, the holy father, Augustine, put an end to this troublesome and tedious contention, saying, "Let us beg of God, who causes those who are of one mind to live in his Father's house, that he will vouchsafe, by his heavenly tokens, to declare to us, which tradition is to be followed; and by what means