the garrison of Inverlochy, where they were divided amongst the assassins. Providentially the severity of the weather prevented other troops from being sent to secure the passes, so that the two younger Macdonalds, with about a hundred and sixty males, made their escape; but many of the women perished in the cold. Two officers were sent under arrest to Glasgow, because they had refused to break their parole to Macdonald, or to take any share in this inhuman massacre1. "THIS BARBAROUS massacre," says Smollett, "performed under the sanction of king William's authority, answered the immediate purpose of the court, by striking terror into the hearts of the jacobite Highlanders, but at the same time excited the horror of all those who had not renounced every sentiment of humanity, and produced such an aversion to the government, as all the arts of the ministry could never totally surmount. A detail of the particulars was published at Paris, with many exaggerations, and the jacobites did not fail to expatiate upon every circumstance, in domestic libels and private conversation. The king, alarmed at the outcry which was raised upon this occasion, ordered an inquiry to be set on foot, and dismissed the master of Stair from his employment of secretary: he likewise pretended that he had subscribed the order amidst a heap of other papers, without knowing the purport of it; but as he did not severely punish those who had made his authority subservient to their own cruel revenge, the imputation stuck fast to his character, and the Highlanders, though terrified into silence and submission, were inspired with the most implacable resentment against his person and administration 2." THE SENTIMENTS expressed by Dr. Fitzwilliam in his letter to lady Russell were those that actuated the whole non-juring body both in England and Scotland, and therefore we cannot wonder at their acting as they did in refusing the oaths to the new dynasty. The deprived bishops made part of the episcopal college in both kingdoms, and they entered into close union and communion together. Nevertheless they acted on the church's principle of non-resistance to the powers that were in possession of the crown, and raised no rebellion; they neither appealed to the people, nor preached them into tumults and riots. THE EPISCOPAL church, when it was established in Scot 1 Burnet's Own Times, iv. 157-161-Guthrie's General History, 308-313Hume's England, ix. 145-151. land, celebrated all the fasts and festivals of the christian church throughout the world, but presbyterians observed no festivals at all, but only the fasts of their own appointment. These were generally held for factious purposes, and it is somewhat remarkable, that whenever they had any conspiracy in hand, either against the church or the state, it was always preceded by one or more of these humanly appointed fasts. The festivals of the church preserve and increase true devotion, and her fasts assist in mortifying the spirit of men; but the christian church has not left these anniversary observances to the caprice of individual ministers. By her excellent discipline she has so ordered them, that it is impossible to forget the faith into which christian men have been baptized; and this visible practice of the church preaches faith and repentance more effectually, and makes more indelible impressions on the hearts of both young and old, than the ordinary sermons and the daily service. The festivals remind the human heart, which is at all times apt to become cold and insensible, of the great mercies of redemption, and enable the heart to expand in thanksgiving and praise. Fasting fixes the attention of the heart, delivers the soul from the oppressions of the body, and restores it to its true and native sovereignty over the lusts and passions. "The public seasons of devotion," says one of the lights of that generation, "are the catechism of the people. It is true, where there is no day fixed for the uniform celebration of a mystery, it may be remembered by some; but it is not credible that all the people will remember it; but when the day is fixed, we cannot forget it; and from our infancy we are easily trained in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and in the simplicity of the christian religion, free from Jewish superstition (touch not, taste not, handle not,' with which all our sectaries are unhappily leavened), as well as from giddiness and enthusiasm." But the presbyterians inverted the very nature of the Lord's day, and the very ends for which it was appointed, by appointing their fasts to be held on that day of thanksgiving and rejoicing for the resurrection of Christ. Their fasts also were generally appointed for envy and strife, and to tear the prelates and clergy in pieces, as limbs of antichrist and priests of Baal, as they usually called them. Although they will not celebrate the anniversary festivals of the church, yet the presbyterians annually commemorate the birth-day of the worthy George Herriot, who founded an hospital in Edinburgh for the education of the sons of tradesmen, perhaps on account of his having left five pounds to the preacher for the anniversary sermon! This is a sad reproach, and from my heart I wish it were wiped away, that men, calling themselves christians, will keep an anniversary festival to commemorate the birth of a fellow-sinner, because he has paid for it, which is "the root of all evil," and obstinately refuse to celebrate the birth, passion, mighty resurrection, and glorious ascension of the blessed Redeemer of all mankind, and who is "the author and finisher of our faith!" WODROW and others, when chronicling what they called the "sufferings of the presbyterians," have not produced one single fact of tyranny or oppression against the prelates, in the course of twenty-eight years. No sooner, however, did their party acquire power and an establishment, than they com menced and continued a system of tyranny and oppression unequalled, perhaps, by any similar persecution since the days of the first christian emperor. Their cruelty consisted not only to the bodies and families of the clergy, but to their characters and reputations; and these slanderous invectives have been kept up, nourished, and propagated to this day, with as much virulence and animosity as at the period under review. All this is the effect of the Covenant, which is a constant bond of rebellion against both church and state, and it may truly be called the master-piece of the jesuits; for certainly none of their most wicked contrivances have ever caused so much public and private evil as this fundamental principle that that most satanic body have imposed upon presbytery. The rev. Robert Calder, compiler of the Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed, has ingeniously demonstrated that the Solemn League and Covenant contains the number 666. I know not whether or not St. John, in the visions of the Apocalypse, designed to intimate the existence of the jesuits and their Solemn League and Covenant, as the name of the Beast, or the number of his name, and the mark which should distinguish the buyers and sellers in the spiritual market; but sure enough the initial letters of the title and the six articles of that popish document, without the preface and conclusion, contain precisely the "num ber of a man," 666:-the first article, 131; the second, 93; the third, 88; the fourth, 99; the fifth, 83; the sixth, 172-666. Whether or not the decided opposition of the presbyterians, and their contempt for the cross, is as likely to be the mark of the Beast, as the idolatrous use, and constant abuse, of that sacred symbol of our salvation by the papists, I leave the learned in these matters to determine. 580 CHAPTER LVII. PRIMACY OF ARCHBISHOP ROSS. - 1692.-Threatened invasion.-Archbishop of Glasgow arrested, and sent to the Castle.-Affairs at Aberdeen.-1693.-Meeting of parliament.-The Assurance. The opinions of the English presbyterians.-The Assurance refused -pressed on the episcopalians—their position.-Petition for an assembly-no meeting of assembly.-An assembly summoned and adjourned.-Difficulty in collecting the bishops' rents-tithes given to the patrons.-Death of archbishop Sancroft-character.-1694.-Oaths of Assurance and Allegiance.-Commissioner applies for instructions-his instructions-revoked, and others sent. -Remarks.-The ministers not required to take the oath.-A commissioninstructions.-Objections to signing the Confession of Faith.-Ministers sent to the north.-Death of archbishop Tillotson.-Death of queen Mary.1695. Assembly adjourned. A session of parliament.-The affair of Glencoe three clergymen deprived and imprisoned—an act favourable to the clergy-some of them take the oaths.-Itinerating ministers.-Act against intruders.—Troops employed to collect the bishops' rents.—Act against baptism.-Death of the bishops of Brechin-of Caithness-and of Galloway.Agitation. Meeting of assembly-commissioner's speech.-1696.-Progress of atheism.-Scarcity and dearth of provisions.—Bishop Ramsay's death. -Publication of the Fundamental Charter of Presbytery.-Mr. Sage-his Cyprianic age-is obliged to conceal himself.—A session of parliament.—An association.-Acts. -1697.-Clergy arrested.-Plan for asserting the independence of the kirk.-Meeting of assembly.-1698.-An assembly-a commission-a session of parliament.-Increase of immorality.-Act against rabbling. — Seasonable warning. — Position of the bishops. -1699.-An assembly.-King's letter.-Colony of Darien.-An union proposed.—The principle on which the Revolution turned.-Application to the queen of Bohemia. -Consequences of the Revolution.-Disputed successions.-Royal supremacy -The presbyterian ministers.-Reading the scriptures.-Remarks. 1692. WE ARE informed by a modern writer, that " a season of half-suppressed dissatisfaction, intrigue, and jealousy, prevailed [among the presbyterians], tending greatly to alienate the mind of Scotland from William, and fostering the hopes of the jacobites, that they might, ere long, succeed in overturning the government, and bringing back the exiled king." And Burnet says-"While we were pleasing ourselves with the thoughts of a descent in France, king James was preparing for a real one in England. It was intended to be made in the end of April: he had about him 14,000 English and Irish, and marshal Belfonds was to accompany him with about 3,000 French. They were to sail from Cherbourg and La Hogue, and some other places in Normandy, and to land in Sussex, and from thence to march with all haste to London 2." From the letters of a Mr. Mackay to lord Melville, we learn that an extensive correspondence was carried on with the jacobites in Scotland, for their co-operation in this invasion. This Mackay had insinuated himself into their confidence, and had betrayed them. He states, that the archbishop of Glasgow was a principal correspondent with the exiled court, and from whom he derived his best intelligence. He speaks also of another bishop, but does not name him, as giving him information. The lord archbishop of Glasgow was arrested, and committed to the Castle of Edinburgh; a circumstance that disconcerted Mackay's plans; and he says, "there could have nothing fallen out more unluckily than the apprehending the bishop of Glasgow at this juncture, he being the person from whom I had my surest intelligence, and one whom I am sure cannot be more active than in contriving against the government, and which he can do in prison as well as out of it3." This man also mentions, that he met the archbishop on his first introduction to his grace "at his elder brother's of St. Andrew's;" and perhaps archbishop Ross is the other bishop alluded to in Mackay's former letter. THE REFUSAL of the clergy of Aberdeen to observe the fast that had been imposed on the church as a Test, and the declaration of the people of that city to defend and maintain their clergy, gave great offence to the government, and therefore they instituted an inquiry into the circumstances. In a letter to Mr. Carstares, the earl Crawford says, "the affair of Aberdeen is found very dirty, and the probation distinct. It is warrantably suspected that some of high quality, and in the government, had a deep share in the contrivance of that foul affair. There is likewise a sort of bond of association subscribed by all the disaffected in the place, not only undertaking to stand by their ministers, but protesting against any thing the commission should do. I presume his majesty will not 1 Hetherington, p. 184. |