anent the church, as he has twice declared he purposes, you would see effectually that I be none of them; for neither am I able, in this my sixtieth year, and frequent infirmities, for any such journey whether by sea or land; nor does my mind serve me to give advice for the least change in our church, as you well know; but with all my strength I behoved to dissuade it, which would but offend his majesty; whom I will be loather in the least to offend than any mortal creature, for the particular respect I have and ever have had, since my first acquaintance in the Hague..... (Signed) R. BAILLIE." FROM THIS LETTER it is evident that the Scottish nation were not taken by surprise when they heard of the restoration of the ancient government of their church; for Baillie declines to be presented to the king lest he should offend him by opposing a measure on which he knew that his majesty was resolved, and the object of whose resolution was evident to all who had their eyes open. "It is evident," says the editor of Kirkton's History of the Church of Scotland, "that Sharp has been more blamed than he deserved for promoting episcopacy in Scotland. The measure would have been carried though without his aid, and in spite of his opposition. And the heavy charge of having deceived his constituents at the Restoration, when sent up from Scotland to court, still remains unproved. The presbyterians always affirmed him guilty of this treachery [but never have proved it]; but his own party asserted that while employed by the presbyterians, he acted fairly, and bore no commission from them when he gave way to the stream of episcopacy. Moreover, Wodrow is accused of great injustice in garbling Sharp's letters to Douglas; and Burnet is known to have been so great an enemy to the archbishop that his conduct is not to be estimated from the statements of that most spiteful and disengenuous author1." A presbyterian writer says, "We have the narrative of his [Sharp's] behaviour and negociation in the words of his capital enemy, Mr. Robert Douglas, as they are printed by Mr. Wodrow. Neither of those authors, however, have been able to fix upon Sharp any other charge than barely that of accepting the archbishopric. When we compare Sharp's own account with those of Wodrow, he seems, while he was charged with his commission from his brethren, to have acted not only honestly but zealously in his trust, even after he scarcely could have a reasonable prospect of success; and I cannot see how 1 Page 82. the transition from presbytery to episcopacy can merit the abuse that has been poured forth against Sharp's morals, especially by bishop Burnet. The presbyterian party was certainly very low at this time in Scotland; and I am inclined to think that Sharp was consulted about the persons who were to be made bishops1.” IN THE ABSENCE of any real cause of complaint against Dr. Sharp, a charge of duplicity has been brought against the king, at his instigation as it has been gratuitously assumed, from the alleged ambiguity of the king's letter to Douglas. If we recur to past history, it will be evident to the most undiscerning that Charles could only mean the episcopal church, which had been overturned by a faction without the least colour of law, that assembled at Glasgow in 1638, and in the face of a powerful protest by the bishops, and their subsequent protest dated at Newcastle 2. The madness of the assembly of 1640 was only yielded to by Charles I. from the necessity and force that was upon him, and from the advice tendered to him from the earl of Traquair, that "bishops being by all the laws of Scotland one of the three estates of parliament, no act that passed without them could have force in law, much less the act that abolished them, especially when they were not appearing, nor consenting, but protesting against it3." In the Glasgow assembly, the inferior clergy who were then present were guilty of the most horrible perjury, having taken solemn oaths of obedience to their bishops, which they completely disregarded, and from which, in imitation of the Roman apostolic power, Henderson, their moderator, absolved them. bishops were not only excluded from that assembly, but they were driven out of their native country, and threatened with death if they returned to it. In the face of their protests, and the proclamation of the king, crying down the assembly and declaring the members traitors, the subsequent establishment of presbytery cannot be accounted a legal settlement; besides, the greatest proportion of the clergy and of the people were episcopalians in their affections. The episcopal clergy in the northern parts shewed great repugnance to attend the assemblies, and repeated complaints were made of their defection. Those of Aberdeenshire had taken the first opportunity after the Restoration to make their desires known to the government, and it would have been unreasonable in Charles to have shut his ears to the earnest wishes of the faithful and loyal 1 Guthrie's General History, x. 100. 2 Ante, vol. i. ch. xiv. p. 595-611.-Vol. ii. ch. xvi. p. 21, 22. The portion of his people, who had suffered so much for their attachment to himself and to his father, and to have gratified the desires of those who had been rebels and traitors to both. The episcopal church, therefore, was that which "was settled by law;" presbyterianism was merely a reckless faction, which, for the time, overpowered the law, crushed the constitution under their theocratical democracy, and had sold and murdered the late king. A free and lawful parliament declared all the public transactions, both of the assemblies and of the conventions or parliaments, to have been altogether against the laws of the kingdom, and their whole acts to be null and void. Although it was not so declared, yet, in point of fact, when the pressure of the rebel usurpation was removed, by the restoration of the king to the lawful exercise of the government, but particularly by the act rescissory, the episcopal church returned to its former place in the constitution, and all that was necessary to be done was an act of the legislature to secure it from the fanaticism of the remonstrators. But it remains for presbyterians to shew which of the two factions into which their body was then divided would have been established, had the king been disposed to have kept them in the maimed estate in which Cromwell had left them; for he disestablished them, and deprived them of all government in presbyteries, synods, or assemblies. The events about to be detailed clearly indicate that the moderate or resolutioner presbyterians had no serious objections to episcopacy, for, with a very few exceptions, they all conformed without any opposition to that government. But this point is set at rest by Douglas himself, who states on the authority of the earl of Middleton, that the ancient church was decidedly meant in the king's letter. He says, "When the parliament met, Middleton sent for me at his coming, telling me the king had commanded him to do so. We spoke at large upon the condition of our kirk, and I told him my mind freely, if the king would not break the covenant, nor alter our government, I could assure him his majesty would get as much as his heart could wish, with the affections and love of all the people; but many inconveniences would follow if there were a change of government, for prelates never yet proved profitable to kirk or commonwealth. He assured me, and I think it was true, he had no instructions for the change of the government, and we were still borne in hand that there would be no change. In the meantime, Sharp, fearing supplications, dealt earnestly there should be none; but finding himself disappointed, he caused the commissioner to send for some of us. The commissioner, chancellor, and some others present, did allege that the king's letter did not bear any thing of presbyterian government settled, but the government SETTLED BY LAW, which was EPISCOPAL1." Since, therefore, the presbyterians were at the present time proposing to force their covenant uniformity upon the three kingdoms, and since they were but a mere faction who demanded that two large kingdoms should be placed under their rule and government, Charles cannot be blamed for yielding to the wishes of the three kingdoms, by restoring the government of the church under which the empire had enjoyed so much peace and prosperity until they were disturbed by the turbulence and ambition of the presbyterian and popish factions. In prosecution, therefore, of his patriotic design, and in which he seems to have been perfectly sincere, the king, with the advice of his council, issued the following proclamation, dated the 10th of June, in which he dutifully acknowledges the power and goodness of God: "BY HIS OUTSTRETCHED ARM, Wonderfully to bring us back in peace to the exercise of our royal government, we did apply ourselves to the restoring of our kingdoms to that liberty and happiness which they enjoyed under the government of our royal ancestors; and whereas, our parliament, by their act of the 29th March, hath declared that it is our full and firm resolution to maintain the true protestant religion, in its purity of doctrine and worship, as it was established within that our kingdom during the reigns of our royal father and grandfather, of blessed memory; and that we will be careful to promote the power of godliness, to encourage the exercises of religion, both public and private, and to suppress all profaneness and disorderly walking; and for that end will give all due countenance and protection to the ministers of the gospel, they containing themselves within the bounds and limits of their ministerial calling, and behaving themselves with that submission and obedience to our authority and commands that is suitable to the allegiance and duty of good subjects. And as to the government of the church, that we will make it our care to settle and secure the same in such a frame as shall be most agreeable to the word of God, most suitable to monarchical government, and most complying with the public peace and quiet of the kingdom: and in the meantime, that we do allow the present administration by sessions, presbyteries and synods (they keeping themselves within bounds, and behaving themselves as said is), and that notwithstanding of the act 1 Douglas's Narrative, cited by Wodrow, i. 227. passed that day, rescissory of all pretended parliaments since the year 1638. Therefore, we have thought fit by this our proclamation, not only to declare our gracious acceptance of these ample testimonies of the duty and affection of that our parliament, by which the world may take notice how unanimously loyal that kingdom is, and how hearty in our service, of which we ourselves were ever confident; but also to make known our firm resolution to maintain and preserve that our kingdom in their just liberties: and likewise to make good what our parliament have declared in our name, as to matters of religion. And considering how much our interest, and the quiet of that kingdom, is concerned in the right settlement and peace of that our church, which through the confusions of these latter times hath been much discomposed, we do purpose, after mature deliberation with such as we shall call, to employ our royal authority, for settling and securing the government, and the administration thereof, in such a way as may best conduce to the glory of God, to the good of religion, to unity, order, and to the public peace and satisfaction of our kingdom." IN A LETTER to the lord chancellor, and in another to lord Lauderdale, Baillie earnestly, but temperately, represents to them the difficulty and danger that would arise in the restoration of the bishops. He enumerates a list of places in the dioceses of Glasgow and Galloway, from which, he said, he could procure petitions in the course of a few days against that measure; and were it not for his infirmities and age, he would have gone to court, and, in imitation of Willie Hill, king James's court fool," to greet [shed tears] to him [the king], and show him how he was misinformed of the state of our country-that bishops would become so lovely creatures to us, as we were ready to receive them without so much as a supplication to the contrary." He confined the evidence which he proposed to produce against episcopacy and in favour of presbyterianism, entirely to the synods of Galloway, Dumfries, and Argyle; but left the other parts out, where episcopacy had already been petitioned for, and where it was heartily desired and unanimously recognized and accepted. But after all, his opposition had not been very strong, for he concludes his letter to Lauderdale with, "If the most gracious prince in the world be not fully informed of all these things in time, before he be engaged, fie on you all who are about him. Let the king do what he will, he will ever get the blessings of us all; but believe it, that the too just grieves of the people |