of the king's most implacable enemies, was, that he was mad; but surely this is the first "serene" and "cheerful" and composed madman that the world has seen, and one who made the most artful and seditious speech on the scaffold, and copies of which were distributed among the people to corrupt them. Wodrow calls him an excellent person;" a godly and innocent person;" and "with his dear friends and fellow martyrs, the noble marquis of Argyle and Mr. James Guthrie. . soaked the foundations of prelacy with their blood; so the walls now fast building and pretty far advanced behoved to be cemented with the blood of this excellent gentleman." "Thus," says Crookshanks, "fell the eminently pious and learned Warriston." It is not easy to conceive what the blood of these three "Scots worthies" could have to do with either the foundations or the walls of prelacy; but the constant reiteration of such malignant insinuations has rivetted a prejudice in the minds of Scotsmen against the church of their forefathers, that cannot be overcome by ordinary arguments; and till the veil be removed by the mighty Power who has permitted it to fall upon their hearts and understandings, it is almost hopeless to attempt to undeceive them. And how awful is that delusion which has fallen on men calling themselves christians, to esteem those men martyrs," whose whole lives had been spent in the blackest treachery, in treason, sacrilege, rebellion, and murder. When the noble army of Christ's holy martyrs are mustered, it is much to be feared that these three unrepentant agents of that masterpiece of the devil, and his agents the jesuits-the COVENANT, will not be entitled even to brevet rank in that sacred band.

66

ON THE ARRIVAL of the commissioner and the secretary of state, several additions were made to the privy council by Lauderdale, who introduced his brother, Charles Maitland, and John Hume, of Renton, together with the archbishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow. The remonstrators had commenced their old practices in the bishoprick of Galloway, and set a riotous mob of women to attack some clergymen, or curates, as they were contemptuously called, during the discharge of their official duties in the town of Kirkcudbright; and the privy council gave a commission to several of the resident noblemen to inquire into the matter, and punish the ringleaders. Several women were convicted of assault and battery, and sentenced to stand at the market-cross with a label, "bearing their fault to be, for contempt of his majesty's authority, and raising a tumult in the said town." These rioters are considered martyrs to the cause, and Wodrow indignantly exclaims, "That

such a splutter should be made, because a few women in two parishes had put some affronts upon the curates when forced in upon them, may seem odd enough, and could not fail to increase the dislike the people in the southern shires had against them. I scarce know what could have been done further, if the highest acts of treason had been committed."

JAMES WOOD, who had been intruded as principal of the Old College St. Andrews, and who still kept possession, although he had been deposed by act of council, was called before the privy council, and ordered to confine himself within the city of Edinburgh, and the place was declared vacant. Some other presbyterian ministers were summoned before the council for "turbulent and seditious carriage;" and the restraint that government found it absolutely necessary to put upon the turbulent and seditious covenanters is said, as usual, to have been at the instigation of the two archbishops, for the purpose of exciting vulgar prejudice against them and their order. From the influx of presbyterian ministers from the north of Ireland into the presbyterian dioceses in the south-west of Scotland, the council found it necessary to issue a proclamation on the 7th of October, ordering all persons coming from Ireland, without sufficient testimonials, either to return within fifteen days, or to be imprisoned, and treated as seditious persons. It also declared, that all persons who withdrew from their parish churches, should, after three admonitions given them by their respective ministers, be proceeded against, on their names being intimated by their ministers'. The turbulence of the presbyterian ministers now obliged the council to send the earl of Linlithgow, with a hundred and sixty men, into Kirkcudbright, and sir Robert Fleming, with two squadrons of the Life Guards, to Kilmarnock and Paisley.

DR. SYDSERF, bishop of Orkney, died at Edinburgh on the 29th of September. Keith says, he was " a learned and worthy prelate." He was the last connecting link betwixt the Spottiswoodian and the present church; and notwithstanding the pretended excommunication of the covenanters, which was never relaxed nisi in extremis, he died in the Lord, like a good christian, to rest from his labours, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. With his usual malignity, Wodrow says," he was buried there [Edinburgh] October the 4th, being a Sabbath [and he thereby means to convey the idea of a horrible profanation of the Lord's day]: his corpse lay in state in the east aisle of the east kirk, and Mr. William

1 Wodrow and Crookshank's Histories.

Annand had a sermon before their interment, wherein he described, with abundance of parade, the family, birth, piety, learning, travels, life, and sufferings for the sake of the gospel, of the deceased prelate1." In the year 1658, Baillie states, that he was much opposed to a tract of bishop Forbes's, which bishop Sydserf had published at London, on the subject of Justification; and we may suppose the bishop took the right view of that doctrine, from Baillie's invectives against his arminianism and popery, because the bishop asserted, with St. Paul, that they which have believed in God ought to be careful to maintain good works, and he repudiated the antiscriptural position that faith alone is able to save a man. And Baillie says, in another letter," Thomas Gallovidianus, for his printing Dr. Forbes's (bishop of Edinburgh) wicked dictates, is now on his way to London, sent for by the English bishops, who SCOFF at our church's excommunication." His son was editor of a small quarto periodical, called " Mercurius Caledonius," which annoyed the presbyterians very much, by the satirical remarks he made on their proceedings; and Baillie besought his friend Dr. Sharp to get it suppressed-" James, have you not so much power as to stay the railing of that very malicious diurnaller? 2"

ON THE 9th of October the parliament was dissolved, and the lord commissioner, with the three estates, performed "the Riding" with great magnificence, during which the archbishop of Glasgow caught a cold, that was succeeded by inflammation of the bowels, and which caused his death on the 2d November. His body laid in state in the cathedral of St. Giles, and the very reverend John Hay, parson of Peebles and dean of Glasgow, preached the funeral sermon. At the conclusion of the service the procession moved towards Holyrood House, followed by the archbishop of St. Andrews, the bishops, the lord chancellor, all the nobility and gentry then in town, with the magistrates and lords of session. The body was preceded by heralds and pursuivants, with the arms of the see and of the deceased diplayed, and trumpets sounding. He was interred by torch-light in the east side of the chapel royal. He is mentioned more than once by Baillie as having been favourable to malignants, which means, that he was loyal to the king, and opposed to the mad delusion of the times; and Mr. Fairfoul, with a Mr. Colville, he says, " joined together, made a great party, especially when our statesmen did make use of them to bear down those who had swayed our former assemblies." At

1 Wodrow's History, i. 381. 2 Baillie's Letters, iii. 390, 406, 454, 468.

the time of the Engagement in 1648, Mr. Fairfoul opposed to his power the leaders in the commission, who were peremptory to "have religion settled first, and the king not restored till he had given security by his oath to consent to an act of parliament for enjoining the covenant in all his dominions, and settling religion according to the covenant." And Baillie says, the commission had not failed to have called both Fairfoul and Colville "to account for their malapertness, had not the intervention of other and greater affairs diverted us1."

A LITTLE BEFORE the Restoration the severe government o. Cromwell in Scotland had crushed all the party feuds, and by suppressing the synods and general assemblies, prevented those cabals, disputes, and tyrannical ordinances of the ministers, which had afflicted the whole nation for the previous twenty years. During the dictatorship of Argyle, the commission of the kirk had grown into a species of temporal and ecclesiastical supremacy, altogether inconsistent with the progress of civil government or of general freedom. That wily statesman suggested the formation of the commission, and used it entirely for the purposes of his own aggrandisement, having been always one of the lay-elders included in it; but the ministers became so inflamed with the lust of power, that they frequently exceeded his control. From that body all the acts of tyranny emanated which were so recklessly inflicted on individuals or on the nation at large; and Argyle's power in the government carried them into effect either as ordinances of parliament or of the committee of estates, of which he was likewise a member. "And should I here recount the procedure of the kirk judicatories, against all who were thought disaffected, I should be looked on as one telling romances, they being beyond credit! What processes of ministers are yet upon record, which have no better foundation than their not preaching to the times? their speaking with or praying before Montrose? their not railing at the Engagement, and the like? And what cruelty was practised in the years 1649 and 1650? None of us are so young but we may remember of it. A single death of one of the greatest of the kingdom could not satisfy the blood-thirsty malice of that party, unless made formidable and disgraceful with all the shameful pageantry that could be devised. Pray do you think these things are forgotten? Or shall I go about to narrate and prove them more particularly? I confess it is a strange thing to see men who are so obnoxious, notwithstanding of that, so exalted in their own

1 Baillie's Letters. iii. 19-34.

conceits: and withal, remember that the things I have hinted at were not the particular actings of single and private persons, but the public and owned proceedings of the courts and judicatories. These are the grounds which persuade me, that with whatsoever fair colours some may varnish these things, yet the spirit that then acted in that party was NOT the SPIRIT of GOD"

CROMWELL'S was a military government, and Argyle's cowardice quailed before the sword of the conqueror. During his vigorous government men had time for reflection, and it pleased God to lead both ministers and people earnestly to desire a steady paternal government both in church and state. The restoration of monarchy in the state was followed by the renewal of episcopacy in the church, which mutually support and strengthen each other: like Saul and Jonathan, they were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided, both having been extirpated by the hand of an Amalekite during the late supremacy of republicanism in the commonwealth and in the kirk. Episcopacy being most agreeable to Scripture and primitive antiquity, has always been, and ever must be, the best friend and ally of monarchy; and which is the true reason why some people so cordially abhor it. Parity of orders can never yield a just subordination to the state, nor will the discipline of the kirk, if carried out to its legitimate issue, agree with the prerogative of a king. In the late times, the commission of the kirk exerted a most tyrannical and despotic dominion over the inferior judicatories and the people at large, in the spirit of the "lords of the gentiles," which is an usurpation forbidden by our Lord2. And the obedience that was yielded to their tyranny was compelled by the civil power; and it is remarkable, that as soon as Cromwell suppressed the assemblies, removed that pressure, and prevented the ministers from lording it over their brethren, that this obedience ceased; which shows that it was not a voluntary but a compulsory submission. A bishop may be tyrannical and oppressive to his clergy, and a synod or presbytery may be the same. But in bishops "nature's copy's not eterne;" they must die, and there's an end of their tyranny, for an oppressive bishop may be succeeded by a just and beneficent one; but a corrupt or a tyrannical synod is everlasting; for it may be said never to die. The majority in it, take care to admit none but those who are of the same disposition with themselves. So that the

1 Burnet's Vindication of the Authority, Constitution, and Laws of the Church of Scotland, pp. 249, 250. 1673. 2 St. Mark, x. 42-45.