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whose votes are more worthy of being counted than weighed. The patronage was transferred from the patrons to the heritors and elders of the different parishes, who were required to pay a sum of about £33 sterling as a compensation to the patron: but the fact is, that betwixt the years 1690 and 1711, when patronages were again restored to their former owners, only four parishes in the whole kingdom complied with the conditions. This is a sufficient and convincing proof that either lay patronage was not practically the evil which they alleged, or else that the privilege of choosing their own minister was not so highly valued by the people as it was maintained.

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CHAPTER LV.

PRIMACY OF ARCHBISHOP ROSS.

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1690.- Address to the earl Crawford. Visitation of the universities Edinburgh. The Test.—Principal Monro—charges against him—his answers -commissioners' report, and sentence.-Dr. Monro deprived.-Dr. Strachan -charges against him-deprived.-University of Glasgow.-Dr. Fall deprived.-University of St. Andrews-earl Crawford's qualification - Dr. Wymess-all the professors deprived.—University of Aberdeen-professors not deprived the citizens petition in favour of the clergy.-Principal Middleton deprived.—A Jacobite plot-proposal to king William.--Meeting previous to the assembly-the number of ministers-the transactions.-A fast on Sunday.-State of the kirk.-A new persecution begun.-Mr. CrawfordCooper-Graham-causes of individual persecution.-Procedure of the presbyteries. Mr. Heriott.-Mr. Purves.-The public disgusted with the presbyterians.-Meeting of the assembly-king's letter earl Crawford-Hugh Kennedy primary proceedings-Assembly's answer - appointments for preaching their prayers-their difficulties-discussion about baptism.-A fast-the nature of their fasts.-Sentence of deposition removed from the deposed members.-Two commissions appointed.-Assembly dissolved-the covenant not mentioned.-Modern strict presbyterians dissatisfied with this assembly.-Reflections.-Character of the clergy.-Presbyterian opinions of

the sacraments.

1690.-IN A SATIRICAL dedication, that worthy confessor, Mr. Robert Calder, compiler of the "Scottish Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed," thus addresses the earl of Crawford, who had been the oppressor of the episcopal clergy after the Revolution. "To your courage and conduct, which are equal, you have added such a success as to raise the church and state of Scotland to be the wonder and amazement of the world: such burning and unquenchable zeal, such strange unaccountable prudence, and unparalleled piety, have appeared in all your actions, that if others had but wrought together with your lordship in any measure, then, I dare say (as your lordship expressly words it, in your pious printed speech to the parliament), a greater despatch had been made of the prelatists, and many honest suffering ministers, ere now, had

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been delivered out of their pinches;' and the enemies of the kirk and covenant had evanished when your lordship condescended to appear in person at it. It is to you that the nation owes her miraculous deliverance from the idolatries of the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Gloria Patri. It is your lordship that hath rescued us from the superstitions of observing Christmas, Easter, and Whitsunday, and from all the popish fopperies of cassocks, close-sleeved gowns, and girdles. It is your lordship that has enriched their majesties' treasury with the revenues of fourteen fat bishops, and with admirable expedition have voided more than half the churches of the kingdom; and advanced such a set of preachers, as, it is certain, never flourished in any period of the church of Scotland under any of their majesties' predecessors; and now that some malignant lords have been brought into the council again, your lordship hath retired from it, bravely scorning to sit at the same board with the opposers of the Cause."

IN OBEDIENCE to the clause in the act for "purging the universities," the noblemen and gentlemen named in it as commissioners met on the 23d of July, and selected four subcommittees, one for each of the universities. The earl of Lothian and others were appointed to the University of Edinburgh-duke of Hamilton and lord Carmichael to Glasgow-the earl Crawford to St. Andrews-and the earl Marischal to Aberdeen. The pamphlet entituled "The Presbyterian Inquisition" gives the names and designations of all the members of each of the committees, but it is of little importance to repeat names long since forgotten. They were, however, assisted by some of the presbyterian ministers. Gilbert Rule, of controversial memory, who was designed to fill the Principal's chair of the metropolitan university, took the chief lead, and, assuming a high legal authority, "required and commanded," on their own authority, "the messengers, &c. to pass to the market-cross, &c., and warn and summon all the lieges to come in and make what objections they can against the masters," professors, &c. All the masters and professors were deprived, except one, Mr. Andrew Massie, who with contemptible meanness turned an accuser of his brethren, in order to keep his own place. At this, as at all the other universities, the professors and teachers were ordered to take the following Test or Assurance-"I, A. B. do, in the sincerity of my heart, 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 in the exercise of the government: and

therefore I do sincerely and faithfully promise and engage that I will with heart and hand, life and goods, maintain and de fend 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."

THE INFERIOR men were soon disposed of, but Dr. Monro, the principal and the elect of Argyle, was the chief butt of their malice. Ten articles were exhibited against him; but they were neither signed nor authenticated by any accuser; hence the proceedings were designated an inquisition. He was accused, first, of having renounced the protestant religion, whilst abroad in France, and of having deborded to popery. 3. Thathe set up the English liturgy within the gates of the college. 4. It is well known by all that Dr. Monro is highly disaffected to the government in church and state, as appears by a missive letter written by him to the late [i. e. the present] archbishop of St. Andrews, dated the 5th of January, 1689, which appears by his having left the charge of the ministry; his not having prayed for king William and queen Mary; and his having rejoiced on the day that the news of lord Dundee's victory was received; and how much he dislikes the present government of the church, may appear by his bitter persecuting of all of that persuasion to the utmost of his power. 5. At the last public laureation, he sat and publicly heard the Confession of Faith ridiculed by Dr. Pitcairne, yea, the existence of God impugned, without any answer or vindication. 6. He caused to be taken down all the pictures of the protestant reformers, that, as he alleged, "the sight of them might not offend the [popish] chancellor at his visitation." 7. He presented some eucharistic verses to the chancellor on the birth of the prince of Wales. 8 and 9. That he is an ordinary curser and swearer, and a neglecter of family worship2.

THE INQUISITION was postponed for some days, and Dr. Monro in the interim prepared written answers to these false allegations, which had no foundation in truth. 1. He peremptorily denied the first charge as a spiteful and malicious calumny, and appealed to his whole life whether or not he had ever shewn the slightest indication of that heresy against which he had been bound down by the most solemn oaths

Perhaps meant for eulogistic.

Presbyterian Inquisition, as it was lately practised against the Professors of the College of Edinburgh. 1690, 4to.

and tests at his ordination. He shewed that had he been so inclined he had the fairest opportunity in the late reign, when such an apostacy would have led to profit and honour. "Was it," says he, "any of the sermons I preached against popery in the High Church, and in the Abbey of Holyrood House, when our zealous [presbyterian] reformers were very quiet, to all which some hundreds of the best quality of the nation were witnesses? But as I have been in France, I must therefore behove to be a papist, and this is enough for this libeller. I am sure none of the papists ever thought me so." 3. He admitted the alleged sin of having read the liturgy in the college; but against which, however, there was no law then in existence. By this, among other circumstances that have occurred, we see the growing attachment to a liturgic worship, which had made considerable progress both amongst the clergy and the people. He added, they must be odd kind of papists who read the service of the church of England on the 5th of November. He then goes on to refute the libellers' assertion that a liturgy was never allowed in Scotland since the Reformation. "But the plain matter of fact is this," he said: "when I left off preaching in the High Church, I advised with some of my brethren, and the result was, that we should read the Book of Common Prayer, and preach within our families, per vices, since most of them were acquainted with the liturgy of the church of England; neither did we think, when quakers and all other sects were tolerated, that we should be blamed for reading those prayers within our private families, which we prefer to all other forms now used in the christian church. Nor had we any design to proselytize the people... but the matter succeeded beyond what we proposed or looked for. We preached to the people upon the Sundays. They came by hundreds more than we had room for, and very many became acquainted with the liturgy, and perceived, by their own experience, that there was neither popery nor superstition in it. I look upon the church of England as the true pillar and centre of the Reformation, and if her enemies should lay her in the dust, which God forbid, there is no other bulwark in Britain to stop or retard the progress of either popery or enthusiasm. And I wonder [presbyterian] men should retain so much bitterness against the church of England, valued and admired by all foreign churches, and whose liturgy, as it is the most serious and comprehensive, so it is the most agreeable to the primitive forms. But if there was no law for it, there was none against it; there was no

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