*

Knox's Liturgy, of which Mr. Burton gives an interesting account, describing it as less ritualistic in character than the English Common Prayer.' The book, no doubt, had some enemies. There were congregations, even at that date, which rejected it in common with all forms of prayer. On the other hand, there were congregations who preferred the English Prayer-book, and were permitted to use it undisturbed. It is when we contrast such liberality in the national temper with the fanaticism into which oppression and persecution drove the Scotch, that we are able truly to appreciate what evil may be wrought by misgovernment. On the whole, we may safely conclude that the Book of Common Order was popular throughout Scotland. It was used at morning-service in the very church where, in the afternoon of the same day, the introduction of Laud's liturgy roused the wrath of Jenny Geddes. What the Scotch objected to was the substitution for their own service-book of a new one and a worse one. Nay, Laud's liturgy differed, for the worse, not only from the Book of Common Order, but even from the English Prayer-book. And in this they suspected-nor can we pronounce their suspicions unreasonable-an insidious design. That design was, they thought, to establish Popery in England; and the present outrage was a cunning experiment on the vile body of Scotland, to discover how much the people would endure. The Scotch Commissioners so put their case in the articles against Laud: By this their doing they did not aim to make us conform to England, but to make Scotland first (whose 'weakness in resisting they had before experienced in nova'tions of government and of some points of worship), and therefore England, conform to Rome, and even in those matters wherein England had separated from Rome ever 'since the time of the Reformation. More than all, perhaps, the people rose up against the mode in which this Prayer-book was forced upon them. It was the culminating point of a system of innovation long and deliberately carried on; it brought before the people, in one tangible result, the meaning and purpose of the misgovernment which for so many years they had endured. As far back as 1636 Charles had issued at his own hand, and enforced on the clergy by his sole authority, a body of canons for the governance of the Church. These canons contained, it must be confessed, little that was really objectionable, though they did enjoin certain forms which savoured of prelacy; but the flagrant illegality of the mode in which they were imposed incensed the nation far more than

* Vol. v. pp. 63–70.

their substance.* Even the stanchest Episcopalians murmured; indeed, so high-handed was the usurpation of authority, that it offended the priestly pretensions of the bishops hardly less than it exasperated the declared opponents of the royal prerogative. A strange zeal for special points of doctrine and form moved certain of the Stuart race. James II. lost three kingdoms 'for a mass;' Charles I. raised the rebellion which cost him his kingdom and his head for a liturgy. It seems probable that, in matters secular, he might, so far as Scotland was concerned, have indulged his tyrannical nature with impunity. Constitutional resistance was, as we have said, impossible; and the people would not readily have taken up arms for any lighter cause than purity of worship. So far as we can now judge they were animated by no dislike to the person of the Sovereign-even when they delivered him up to his English subjects, in a manner more illustrative of the national prudence than of the national chivalry. Beyond doubt they were not urged by hostility to the throne. They at once proclaimed Charles II. as his father's successor; and opposed themselves, in support of the monarchy, to the whole power of Cromwell. But the one thing they could not away with, which they were resolved to resist at all hazards and to the last, was aught that savoured of Popery. And this was what they believed to be thrust upon them.

At the same time, the people could not fail to remark, as a symptom of the same policy, a subtle and persistent system of encroachment on the privileges, such as they were, of the Scotch Parliament. It is difficult, indeed, to say whether hatred of the kirk or love of despotic power was the leading motive with the Stuart kings. Charles was, after a fashion, a keen Episcopalian; and James had a very natural dislike for the austere and rude zealots who had so often rebuked him and set him at naught. But no motive could long hold sway in the infirm mind of James; and Charles, on an emergency, had no scruple in giving his royal sanction to an Act declaring Episcopacy contrary to the Word of God. We suspect that, on the whole, much as the Stuarts loved Episcopacy, they hated freedom more; but their policy was of a piece. The liberties of Scot

One of these canons, whatever may have been thought of it then, would be highly approved by many Presbyterian congregations at the present day. 'Albeit the whole time of our life be but short to be bestowed in the service of God, yet seeing He tempereth that work to our weakness, it is ordained that preachers in their sermons and prayers eschew tediousness, and by a succinct doing leave in the people an 'appetite for further instruction, and a new desire for devotion.'

land were at that time involved in the independence of the Church, and so could be, and were, attacked together.

The grievances of which the Scotch complained may be gathered from the explicit statement which they made of their demands on the eve of hostilities. These were:-the abolition of the Court of High Commission; the withdrawal and disavowal of the Book of Canons, the Book of Ordination, and Laud's Service-book; a free Parliament; and a free General Assembly.

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Charles took part in this contest with his usual weakness and duplicity. He issued a solemn declaration assuring all men' that he would not press the Canons and Service-book but in a fair and legal way; and at the very same time he wrote to Hamilton, the Lord High Commissioner, declaring that I will rather die than yield to those impertinent and damnable ' demands.' He threw away his only chance of beating the Scotch when they first invaded England; thinking to ward off the danger by entering into negotiations which, on his part, were a mere pretence. Mr. Burton seems even to credit the story-widely believed at the time-that the Irish rebellion was secretly stirred up by the court, and that Charles, when in Scotland in 1661, actually sent the Irish rebels a Commission with the Great Seal of Scotland, authorising them to make war upon all English Protestants' within the island. When we remember that, through ill-luck or treachery, all this miserable faithlessness was known to his opponents, we cannot but wonder at their long-suffering. It were beyond the scope of this article to dwell upon the part played by Scotland during the civil war her triumphs and her humiliation. The secular affairs of Scotland during this time--and, indeed, ever since the accession of James to the English throne--really form part of the history of England, and have been so regarded by English historians. Mr. Burton, feeling this, has treated them with brevity; his reviewer may be permitted to pass them over in silence. It seems better to complete our sketch of the development of Scottish ecclesiasticism; worthy of attention both from its peculiar features, and because of the influence which it long exercised, and, to a considerable extent, still exercises, over the people.

Few sovereigns have ever enjoyed nobler opportunities of beneficent legislation than Charles II.; and especially as touching the affairs of the Churches. In England, wise and firm statesmanship might have restrained the fury of the restored cavaliers; might have redeemed the errors of Elizabeth; and, to the exclusion doubtless of many zealots and fanatics, might

have embraced, within one liberal and expansive Church, men, differing indeed in opinion, but differing in moderation and with mutual indulgence such men as Usher on the one side, and Baxter on the other. In Scotland a like work of peace and reconciliation would have been more easy. For there no powerful body of exiles had returned, thirsting for revenge, resolute against concession. On the contrary, the state of Scotch parties gave promise of a ready compromise. The wild zealots of the West, though protected, had been tamed by the administration of Cromwell. And in the days of their power they had so borne themselves as to have alienated the great bulk of the people. Many even of the stern soldiers who followed Leslie across the Tyne had cooled in their zeal for the Covenant. For, in their minds, the rebellion and the dream of three covenanted kingdoms was now associated with the great overthrow of Dunbar, and years of alien domination. To the younger generation the gloomy doctrines of a past time seemed to fly away before the new day of peace and toleration which was dawning with the restoration of their native princes. The aristocracy, secure in their possession of the church lands, had forgotten their Calvinistic zeal; the clergy were anxious for rest, and as a class thoroughly loyal. It would, then, we firmly believe, have been a work of no great difficulty to have devised a systém of Church government, partly Episcopalian, partly Presbyterian in form, the establishment of which would have been welcomed by the whole nation, with a few insignificant exceptions.

Unhappily, a very different course was pursued: all idea of compromise was laid aside. The Covenant was burned by the common hangman; the whole Presbyterian polity swept away; the General Assemblies, so dear to the people, closed; Prelacy in its strictest form established-the bishops being restored to more than their former power, if to less than their former splendour *-upwards of 300 clergymen turned out of their livings because they would not deny the orders they held, and accept Episcopal collation. To what we should ascribe this wantonness of tyranny it is not very easy to discover. Sir George Mackenzie gives a curious account of a solemn Council on Scotch affairs, in which the question of Episcopacy versus Presbytery was debated. The establishment of Episcopacy

* Kirkton describes the bishops of 1612-restrained by Church Courts as mere pigmies' compared with the bishops of the Resto

ration.

† Memoirs, pp. 52-56.

was urged by Middleton and Glencairn-the one a brutal soldier, the other an ignorant and presumptuous peer; and both inflamed with the passions and folly of men who had long been exiles. On the other hand, the inexpediency of such a violent policy was forcibly pressed by Lauderdale, Crawfurd, and Hamilton. The debate is set forth by Mackenzie with considerable dramatic power; and the argument is all one way. So far as we know, every Scotchman whose opinion had any claim to respect, concurred with Lauderdale and Hamilton. Even the traitor Sharp did not desert the cause he had undertaken to uphold without some effort on its behalf. What, then, induced the adoption of a policy, certainly wicked-that, indeed, was a trifling matter-but not less certainly dangerous and cruel, and so far repugnant to the nature of the king? Kirkton thus accounts for the determination which was arrived at:

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They (the bishops) were the best tools for tyranny in the world; for do a king what he would, their daily instruction was, kings could do no wrong, and that none might put forth a hand against the Lord's anointed and be innocent. The king knew also that he should be sure of their vote in Parliament, desire what he would, and that they would plant a sort of ministers which might instil principles of loyalty into the people till they turned them first slaves, and then beggars.'

Such views might well have influenced Charles I.; hardly, we think, his more indifferent son. He certainly disliked Presbyterianism as much as it was in his nature to dislike anything at a distance; but even the recollection of his dismal royalty in Scotland would not have reconciled him to the infliction of great suffering, and to the risk of a desperate resistance. He would have been well content had every man in Scotland turned Mahometan, if so only they gave no trouble to him. But his Ministers were men of different mould. The vindictive hatred which Clarendon bore towards the Puritans must have extended to the Presbyterians; nor can we believe that at this time the bigotry of the Duke of York was without weight in the counsels of the king. Nevertheless, the blame of what ensued must rest mainly with his Scottish advisers. Had the king been fairly made aware of the consequences of the course he was following, he would probably have paused. Unhappily such men as Lauderdale and Sharp, rather than risk a temporary loss of court favour, abjured their opinions and betrayed their trust; and stooped to the exceeding baseness of persecuting that form of worship in which they had been brought up and which in their hearts they preferred.

Principal Tulloch of St. Andrew's recently made an ingenious effort to relieve the memory of Sharp from the weight of