Annals of the persecution in Scotland — Background and Themes

Dunselaw, June 18, 1639.

When the civil war broke out, the English parliament convened an Assembly of Divines at Westminster, to which the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland sent four of their chief ministers, not less distinguished for their talents, than revered for their piety—Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherfurd, George Gillespie, and Robert Baillie, accompanied by Lord Maitland, afterwards Duke of Lauderdale, “a man of excellent parts had they been blessed and improven; but as then his reputation was entire.” The Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Directory for Worship, which were here agreed upon, were received and sanctioned in their session 1648, and ratified by the Scottish parliament. For defending these, the persecutions narrated in the following pages were endured.

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ANNALS OF THE PERSECUTION.

A.D. 1604.-A.D. 1660.

Presbytery, the favourite form of religion in Scotland with the people, opposed by James VI.—At first opposed afterwards sanctioned by Charles I.—Solemn League and Covenant—Confession of Faith—Defeat of the Duke of Hamilton and death of Charles—State of the Church—Charles II. crowned—Divisions among the Presbyterians—Resolutioners—Remonstrators—Protectorate of Cromwell—State of religion during that period—Restoration—Sharpe sent to London—Religious parties in Scotland—Sharpe’s double dealing—Sudden change of manners—Rejoicings—Fears of the Remonstrators—Difference with the Resolutioners—First measures of the King—Promotes the enemies and persecutes the friends of the Covenant—Proceedings of the Committee of Estates, urged on by Sharpe—King’s letter to the Edinburgh ministers—Exultation of the Resolutioners—Persecute their brethren—Committee of Estates order Lex Rex, &c. to be burned—Proclamation against the Remonstrants—Interference with regard to elections—Proclamation for a meeting of Parliament.

Ever since the days of the Reformation, Scotland has been distinguished by the attachment of her inhabitants to simplicity in the forms of their religious worship, and a dislike to pomp or lordly power in their ministers. Presbytery, of which these are the prominent features, has in consequence always been the favoured mode of ecclesiastical polity with the people; unfortunately her monarchs, previous to the Revolution of 1688, were as decidedly averse to it; and their tyrannical attempts to substitute a hated hierarchy in its place, involved the country, for three generations, in contention and bloodshed, persecution and distress, till the struggle issued in the final expulsion of the Stuarts from the throne.

James VI., after having given the Presbyterian church the royal sanction, and paid it the highest encomiums as the “purest kirk upon earth,” and having repeatedly promised and vowed “to support it against all deadly,” spent the greater part of his life in endeavours to overturn it. He succeeded in forcing upon an unwilling people a kind of mongrel prelacy, and left to his son the hazardous task of finishing his designed uniformity in religious worship between the two kingdoms.

Charles proceeded with more violence; and, by attempting to obtrude a detested liturgy, he destroyed the fabric it had cost his father so much king-craft to rear, and led to the remarkable renewing of the NATIONAL COVENANT, which, early in the year 1638, was subscribed with enthusiastic fervour by all ranks throughout the land. A free General Assembly, convened at Glasgow in that year, November 21, accomplished what has usually been termed the second glorious Reformation, by restoring Presbytery to its primitive simplicity, and sweeping away all the innovations against which they had so long struggled. The proceedings of this assembly were afterwards solemnly confirmed by the estates; and Scotland for a short period enjoyed a hollow peace, while the king was contesting with his English parliament. Afraid, however, if the king overcame in the contest, that they would hold their own liberties by a very feeble tenure, they entered into a solemn league and covenant with the parliament for the mutual preservation of their religion and liberty, for promoting uniformity in worship and doctrine between the two nations, and for exterminating popery, prelacy, and schism: their weight decided the fate of the war.

When the English hierarchy had fallen, and the king’s power was reduced, an assembly of the most learned divines that perhaps ever met in Britain, was called by authority of the English parliament. Assisted by commissioners from Scotland, they drew up the admirable Confession of Faith, with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, still the standards of our national church; but they differed on the Directory for Worship, against which some of the most learned of the Independents dissented—a prelude to more serious differences.