THE SEVERITIES which the government found it necessary to inflict on the rebels were the effects not only of this particular insurrection, but of their general conduct and demeanor, which were turbulent and seditious. No government whatever would have overlooked such a rebellion, taken in connexion with a war carried on with a foreign enemy who protected the fugitives and rebels, and through their instrumentality attempted to throw the whole kingdom into open rebellion, and to change the entire government both in church and state, as they afterwards did. The men who suffered were taken on the field of battle, with arms in their hands, and in every country rising in arms is accounted rebellion, whatever may be the pretext. The field preachings were the rendezvouses of rebellion, and the preachers of the covenant were the instigators to all the acts of sedition and treason which occurred; and in this same rebellion they were the ringleaders; and in fact, had the people been left to themselves, they would have dispersed at Lanark, had not the ministers stept in with the assurance of a divine warrant.

THE MOST UNJUST and unmerited odium was heaped upon all the bishops, but particularly on the primate, who happened for a short time to be at the head of the government during Rothes's absence, for merely doing his duty, and doing it so well and wisely that the rising was dissipated in the course of a week, that might have been increased to such a formidable height as to occasion much more bloodshed. On the return of lord Rothes to his post at the head of the government, the primate's power ceased, and he immediately returned to his diocese; for which we have the evidence of his bitterest enemies. Although not ignorant of this circumstance, yet Naphtali accuses him and his brethren as the "authors and causes of laying on all the burthens upon the people, and grossly tolerating popery." The antichristian principles, schisms, and seditions of the presbyterians, contributed more than any thing else to strengthen the hands of the pope and his followers; because those who might have encountered that enemy to the reformed catholic church, were occupied with the fiery and impetuous zeal of the covenanters. It was therefore natural and most expedient for them to quench the fire in their own house before they went to extinguish the conflagration in their neighbour's, and which, even to this day, has never made any very formidable progress. Some of the burthens of which the covenanters complained most loudly were imposed by the rebel government, carried on by the committee of estates and the commission of the kirk, when there were

no bishops; and the restraints of lawful authority were never so oppressive and tyrannical as those imposed on those loyal subjects whom they called malignants, not only at the direct instigation but at the clamorous demand of the general assemblies and commissions of the kirk.

THE AUTHOR Of Naphtali brings forward a lying accusation against the Scottish bishops, saying "that their only griev ance and eyesore is conscience, and any measure of tenderness therein that they are favourers and encouragers of all profanity, drunkenness, adultery, blasphemy, &c." Yea, he asserts "that the bishops have heaped together, in their own persons, the dunghill of vilest vices, and transmited the same to others over all the land." The object of these invectives was to stir up the intemperate zeal of some fanatics to imbrue their hands in the blood of the fathers of the church. And again, he says, "if God had not plagued us with stupidity, and smitten us with blindness, madness, and astonishment of heart, it were impossible that rational men should submit themselves to the yoke of a few insignificant apostate upstarts, and not acquit themselves like men, plucking them [the bishops] out of the sanctuary and the great refuge of loyalty, that in the righteous and deserved punishment of these wicked men both the sin and the backsliding of the land might be sisted, and the wrath of the Lord averted1.” Now, says bishop Honyman, "we could not but be astonished to see a pretended professor of religion so possessed and drunk with a spirit of impudent lying, execrable pride, fierce and bloody cruelty, profane boldness with the majesty of God. Nor dare we be so uncharitable as to think that the party whose advocate he pretends to be will own him in these things, or that they are of the same spirit that he is of; but we rather hope that his unchristian dealing will help to open the eyes of those he pretends to plead for, to see that his way is not of GOD. But as to the bishops and their fellow labourers in the work of the Lord, and the people of God under their charge, as they are not the men who will hypocritically boast themselves, as this man and his party were wont to do, calling themselves the godly and only godly in the land; yet let the matter be brought to the test, it shall be found that their lives and conversations have been as blameless as those who are judged the best of the proud party (the integrity of their hearts they desire to present to God, being humbled for what is amiss, in hope of his pardon, being thankful for what

1 Naphtali, pp. 117, 118-301-131; cited in Survey, p. 232.

measures of grace they have received, and praying for new supplies thereof), and they have their witness in heaven how much they regard the heavenly and amiable disposition of a [really] tender conscience, when it may be seen in persons who are of a contrary opinion to them in disciplinary matters; and how loath would they be to countenance the profane, whom God abhorreth. But they think that there is great cause to tremble, and to lament the dreadfully great hypocrisy of man, and that such a person as this (who is of so tough a conscience that lying, reviling, sedition, murder, rapine, rebellion, and bloodshed, with all confusion, are easily digested by him and commended to others as cardinal virtues and godly christian practices) should dare to talk of a tender conscience.

"But as to his horrid speech, that the bishops have heaped together in their own persons the dunghill of the vilest vices, &c. to transfuse it through the whole land,' who will not be amazed at this fury? What guard hath the most innocent persons in the world for their reputation and good names, when the press may be so polluted and profaned by casting into it the corruptions of their souls who have sold themselves to speak and work wickedly? Did not such men as these, and all the people of God where they lived, know them before they were bishops? Were they not in their conversation approven as other ministers, and is there now such a strange metamorphosis that they have heaped to themselves the most vile vices, and transfused them into the people oft he land? Should he not remember, nemo repente fuit turpissimus? Should he not have that much wit as to know that they live among the people of God, who consider their ways, and see in them that christian behaviour that becomes their calling? And they certainly will think that this railer is talking of men in remote islands in the world, and not of the bishops whom they see walking among them; or else will think him the most desperate liar who ever put pen to paper. It were easy for us,without forged recriminations, to pay home again this libeller with particular charges against the great pretended sufferers for his cause; but neither shall persons nor crimes be named, knowing that scandals are too much increased already among the people of God. But seeing no other remedy can be had on earth, this accuser of the brethren is challenged to appear before the dreadful tribunal of God, to give an account of his ungodly and uncharitable speeches; and as for his stirring up the people against the bishops to destroy them, and to burthen themselves with their blood to the bottom of hell, they do commit the keeping of their souls and lives to

their faithful Creator, who will appoint them his salvation for walls and bulwarks, and shew them his marvellous loving kindness, as in a strong city;'-neither do they doubt but God will do them good for this Shemei-like railing and murdering words; in the meantime they will not cease to pray for repentance and forgiveness to this man, and that God will give them grace to forgive him, and not to retaliate 1."

THE SPIRIT of delusion by which the authors of Scottish history at the period under review were actuated, shewed itself in the enormity of their lies and exaggerations. One of them having asserted that four hundred remonstrators were deprived of their churches on the publication of the Glasgow act, all others have followed the hue and cry. Two falsehoods, however, are embodied in this brief sentence; first, the remonstrators were not deprived, for they deserted their charges; secondly, the number is nearly quadrupled. The greatest number of those attached to presbyterianism were confined to the two dioceses of Glasgow and Galloway,which comprehended but a a small part of the kingdom. The diocese of Glasgow contained two hundred and forty-six parishes, and that of Galloway forty-seven2; and when united, the two dioceses contained only two hundred and ninety-three parishes, and therefore as many ministers. It is very well known that all the incumbents of these parishes did not desert their churches; the great majority conformed, and some of them were the former episcopal incumbents that had not been expelled by the presbyterians, and therefore had no cause for desertion. Now I leave it to the consideration of any man of common sense, whether or not it be possible that, out of a body of men that did not amount altogether, including episcopalians, conformists, and presbyterians, to three hundred, there could be a secession of four hundred presbyterian ministers! The number of parishes in the whole kingdom was under one thousand, but the exaggerated account of the desertions amount to nearly the one-half of the whole clergy in it; although those in the two dioceses altogether-episcopalians, conformists, and deserters united-did not amount to one-third of the whole number. In fact, there were not more than a hundred ministers deserted their churches, yet, these having made a trade of religion, and itinerated through the region just named, kept the whole of the south of Scotland in a constant state of rebellion, sedition, and agitation; whilst the rest of the kingdom, which was attached to the episcopal church, enjoyed the most profound tranquil

1 Survey of Naphtali, 233-34.

Vide Keith's Catalogue, passim.

lity. These presbyterian deserters were the greatest enemies to their country which it ever saw, and were the cause of more bloodshed and animosity, more "resistance to the powers that be," of the enactments of more arbitrary and severe laws, and more restrictions on the freedom and enjoyments of their fellow subjects, by their natural spirit of restless, lawless discontent, sedition, and insubordination, than the kingdom had ever known.

GREAT AND UNMERITED odium was thrown on the church and on the government for the imposition of the oath of allegiance on the professors and matriculated students of the universities. But this measure was only a necessary precaution, and the reenactment of former laws and usages which had been unanimously abrogated during the reign of the covenant, and which was rendered necessary by the multiplicity of oaths which the covenanters had compelled the universities, and, in fact, every private christian, to take, under the most severe penalties both temporal and spiritual. "We, by our act," says the Assembly," ordain of new, under all ecclesiastical censure, that all the ministers of universities, colleges, and schools, all scholars at the passing of their degrees, &c. . subscribe the

same-i. e. the covenant1." Again, the Assembly of 1648 ordained "that all young students take the covenant at their first entry to colleges; and that hereafter all persons whatsoever take the covenant at their first receiving the sacrament of the Lord's Supper 2." It was not, however, the church, but the government, that ordained the oath of allegiance to be taken, as a necessary safeguard against the obligations of the covenant, which made every individual a judge over both the ecclesiastical and the civil governors of the realm, and laid them under a religious obligation to rebel whenever they imagined Christ's crown and kingdom were in jeopardy. In short, whatever were the restrictions or annoyances to which the people were subjected after the Restoration, they flowed solely and entirely from the tyrannical proceedings of the covenanters during the supremacy of that bond of rebellion. Oaths of allegiance are customary in all universities, and it became doubly necessary to take every precaution against the pernicious effects on the minds of the young and susceptible, of an instrument which had inflicted such calamities upon the three kingdoms-the entire prostration of the church, the sale and murder of the king, and the dissolution of the constitution in church and and state.

1 Act of Ass. Sess. 33, Aug. 30, 1639.

Ibid. Sess. 31, Aug. 7, 1648.