was equivalent to recalling the king; but although he made no reply to this advice, yet he afterwards owned that it encouraged him to prosecute the design which he contemplated and so happly effected. He began his march on the 18th of November, but in consequence of Lambert's army occupying Newcastle, he halted at Coldstream, and despatched a messenger to Crail for Mr. Sharp, to whom he communicated his intention of restoring the king, and explained to him the peculiar difficulties with which he was surrounded, from the superior force and better position of Lambert, and from the doubtful fidelity of his own officers. His own chaplain, Dr. Price, urged him to declare for the king, and to effect his restoration, to which he replied ambiguously, "that he very well knew what he [Dr. Price] would have, nor should he be wanting therein, so soon as he could find himself in a capacity for effecting it; of which he had now somewhat more hopes than formerly. And then kindly taking Dr. Price by the hand, very solemnly and devoutly told him,' By God's grace I will do it1.' Mr. Sharp then drew up a declaration, which Monk adopted and signed, in which he explained his reasons for marching to establish the freedom of parliament, but without alluding to the king or his interests. It was read the next day at the head of his own army, and confirmed them in their wavering duty to their commander; it was afterwards printed and dispersed, when it soon reached Lambert's head-quarters, and caused his men to desert in great numbers and to join Monk's army. Baillie says, "Wherever he came he was received as an angel; bells and bonfires welcomed him. All declared their earnest desires for a free parliament, and gave him great encouragement to procure it he was civil to all, but reserved himself to see further. Mr. Douglas and Mr. Sharp had been free with him in Scotland; on his letter, Mr. Sharp followed him and overtook him. So soon as he reached London, he was to him the most wise, faithful, and happy councillor he had; and if it had not been for God's assistance to Mr. Sharp, Monk was divers times on the point of being circumvented, or of himself to have yielded to destructive counsels 2." Monk reached London on the 4th of February, and restored the secluded members, and compelled the Rump to declare a period to their sitting, and to make room for a free parliament, which was summoned for the 25th of April, and which was a prelude to the Restoration. Mr. Sharp returned to Crail, after having drawn up Monk's manifesto. Messrs. Dickson and Douglas wrote a joint letter

1 Dr. Skinner's Life of Monk, 176. VOL. II.

Baillie's Letters, iii. 440.

3 с

to the general, expressing their entire confidence in him, and suggesting to him the propriety of having a confidential person near him, with whom to advise respecting Scottish affairs. For this purpose they recommended Mr. Sharp, and requested that he would send a passport to enable him to join him. Monk replied that he had already anticipated their wishes, and had sent a passport for Mr. Sharp, whom he wished to join him as soon as possible, when he promised to shew them how friendly he was towards their church. This letter was dated at Ferrybridge, the 16th of January; and upon the 6th of February, six of the resolutioner ministers met at Edinburgh, and drew up a set of instructions for Sharp before he set out on his journey, by which it would appear that toleration for the religious opinions of others made no part of the system which they were desirous of constructing for themselves1.

There appears nothing whatever in Mr. Sharp's subsequent conduct, or correspondence, to shew that he violated any of these instructions, except it be in the matter of toleration. Mr. Douglass, and all who were of his opinions, were allowed that full toleration which they so earnestly represented as sinful and offensive, when granted to others. Mr. Sharp did not recommend intolerance, even when he had a favourable opportunity against his political enemies, the remonstrators. When the king asked his advice at Breda, how to act towards that party, Mr.

11. You are to use your utmost endeavours that the kirk of Scotland may, without interruption or encroachment, enjoy the freedom and privileges of her established judicatures, ratified by the laws of the land.

2. Whereas, by the lax toleration which is established, a door is opened to a very many gross errors and loose practices in this church; you shall therefore use all lawful and prudent means to represent the sinfulness and offensiveness thereof, that it may be timeously remedied.

3. You are to represent the prejudice this church doth suffer by the interverting of the vaking stipends, which by law were dedicated to pious uses; and seriously endeavour, that hereafter vaking stipends may be intromitted with by presbyteries, and such as shall be warranted by them, and no others, to be disposed of and applied to pious uses by presbyteries, according to the 20th act of the parliament, 1644.

4. You are to endeavour, that ministers lawfully called, and admitted by presbyteries to the ministry, may have the benefit of the 39th act of the parliament, entituled, act anent abolishing patronages, for obtaining summarily, upon the act of their admission, decreet, and letters conform, and other executorials, to the effect they may get the right and possession of their stipends, and other benefits, without any other address or trouble.

5. If you find that there will be any commission appointed in this nation for settling and augmenting of ministers' stipends, then you are to use your utmost endeavours to have faithful men, well affected to the interests of Christ in this church, employed therein.

(Signed)

MR. DAVID DICKSON,

MR. JOHN SMITH,

MR. ANDRew Ker.

MR. ROBERT DOUGLASS, MR. GEORGE HUTCHISON,

MR. JAMES WOOD,

Sharp replied, "Though it be not fit that your majesty should give them countenance, or put power into their hands, yet, I think, we will all be suitors to your majesty, that pity and pardon may be their measure." It is, however, to be remarked, that these six ministers who met and drew up these instructions were neither a general assembly nor a synod of the church, nor had they any commission to act in the name of the whole church, or even of the presbyterians, as a body. They were not even sanctioned by any synod or presbytery, at that time or afterwards. These instructions can therefore be considered only as containing the private opinions of these six gentlemen. They wrote at the same time to general Monk, that "though it be not their way to intermeddle with civil affairs, yet the miseries of the sinking nation make them humbly request his lordship may endeavour to ease them of their grievances." Here is a contradiction to their conduct during the previous twenty years; for the presbyterians had "intermeddled" in every political transaction, though they felt it now convenient to disclaim it.

Baillie wrote to Sharp on the 16th of April, expressive of his confidence in him, and said, "If it please God to work out this wonder, His own only work, marvellous in our eyes, and more in the eyes of the posterity, to bring home our sweet prince in peace, I think in this case the greatest pull will be about episcopacy." He then suggested to him "in this great difficulty," to set a number of persons to select and write out passages from all the illustrious writers of that age, such as Taylor, Hammond, and Bramhall, for, "if shortly and plainly their present tenets, beside books and bishops, were put in the text, and the proofs in the margins in their own words, I think it might prove a notable mean, by God's blessing, either totally to withdraw the heart of the king from them, and the heart of a potent party they have, I doubt not, in England still, or, at least, to allay and cool all honest protestants. Their humour is exceedingly bitter and high even in their late writings, not only against the covenant and all presbyterians, but the reformers abroad: they are most express and bitter for all arminianism, for the far most of popery, as much as Grotius maintains." Such were the means which even the moderate presbyterians employed; and the remonstrants were "plotting new divisions," and this, too, when "the ashes of our former ruin are yet smoking, we are scarce begun to peep out from under that rubbish whither the coal of our former remediless divisions, and it alone, did lately bring us: if so soon these begin again to bestir it, we are worse than mad. No man I know fitter than you to keep those two men [the earls of Craw

ford and Lauderdale] together, in spite of the devil; see to it, as God shall be pleased to help you." The remonstrators' "study is to fill the people with fears of bishops, books, destroying of the covenant, setting up of profanity; and hereupon presses privy meetings as in a time most necessary 1."

The accession of the secluded members (73 in number), made a majority over the Rump, which consisted of only 18, and then they passed an ordinance to annul the Engagement of 1649, and to repeal the oath of abjuration of Charles Stuart; they agreed to a bill for the approbation of public ministersdeclared the Westminster Confession of Faith, the confession of the church of England-and ordered the Solemn League and Covenant to be reprinted and hung up in every church in England, and to be publicly read by the minister once every year. Before their dissolution they issued writs for a new parliament to meet on the 25th of April; the members of which were to give a written declaration" that the war against the late king was just and lawful." After this abortive attempt to leave a legacy of contention behind them, the LONG PARLIAMENT passed an act for their own dissolution, after they had sat nineteen years, four months, and thirteen days. Mr. Sharp had great influence with both Monk and the earl of Manchester, and he obtained the release of Lauderdale, Crawford, and his other countrymen, who had lain in the Tower since the fatal battle of Worcester. Dr. Wren, the aged bishop of Ely, whom Baillie terms "the worst bishop of our age after Dr. Laud 2," was also set at liberty after an imprisonment of five years. The old trator, Warriston, with rat-like sagacity, foreseeing the fall of the Rump-government, applied to Sharp, and begged that he would procure a personal pardon for him; but which Sharp very properly declined, for he was a chief instrument both in exciting and continuing all the late troubles, and this refusal was one of the causes of that hatred which Warriston's nephew, bishop Burnet, ever afterwards bore to archbishop Sharp. He recommended that a commission should be sent up to Crawford and Lauderdale to empower them to act as a Scottish committee in London during this sort of interregnum; but which was never complied with.

General Monk's proceedings belong rather to a general than to an ecclesiastical history; and therefore I shall pass over all that part of his interesting movements, and only state that Monk used great caution, and would not allow sir John Greenville, the king's agent, to approach his lodgings, but gave him the

Baillie's Letters, iii. 400-404.

2 Letters, iii. 405.-Life of Monk, 245.