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those who nad embarked in the immediate train of the chevalier.*

The union might now be said to be in a considerable degree consolidated, and Scotland, it was evident, had sunk into comparatively political insignificance. She was now, indeed, suffering many, if not all the inconveniences that had been predicted would most certainly flow from that measure, while as yet she was reaping none of the promised benefits. Trade was not only at a low ebb, but, in many instances, annihilated. Agriculture languished, and the great body of the people were pining in extreme wretchedness. The nobility, still devoid of patriotism or public spirit, steeped in poverty, and devoured with pride, were, one part of them, in characteristic meanness, courting, for the sake of places and pensions, the smiles of the English ministry, and another, who reckoned themselves patriots of the highest order, still more basely cringing to the French king, through the medium of the chevalier de St. George, and the few papists, with which, under the mock name of a court, he was surrounded, and with whom there was still carried on a most active correspondence.+ One part of her constitution, however, the ecclesiastic, she had reserved entire, and by an article, imbodied in the treaty of union, it was declared unalterable. From the nature of this constitution, the parity of its ministers, the popularity of its forms, and the hold which it had upon the affections of the people, it could not fail to elicit consequences deeply affecting the interests of society.

A long train of adverse events too, had previously placed the Scotish church in circumstances of peculiar difficulty. For a period of twenty-eight years, she had not only been in the fiery furnace of relentless persecution, but had been, at the same time, assailed by all the arts of courtly duplicity and Jesuitical cunning. Ensnaring indulgences, craftily framed for the purpose of dividing and entrapping her members, and undermining her principles, had been in a variety of forms pressed upon her, in consequence of which, many had fallen from their

* Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 301.

+ Hooke's Secret Negotiations, pp. 190-203. Stuart Papers, &c. &c.

steadfastness, the lamentable consequences of which were severely felt. Nor at the time her constitution was settled by the Revolution parliament, did she succeed in fully recovering her lost liberties. A powerful, violent, Jacobitical faction," aided by all the influence of the church of England, exerted itself to the utmost, to thwart every movement that was made in her favour, while her advocates, selfish, timid, and timeserving, shrunk from the contest, and, by a tame compromise, attempted to blunt the edge of that opposition, which, for the want of stern integrity, they feared openly to encounter. The settlement, of course, embraced all the indulged without exception. Many of the curates, and even some who had had an active hand in the infamous prosecutions of the preceding period, were, without either public repentance or public censure, allowed to sit down as her accredited teachers, and leaders in her public judicatories.†

In consequence of the above state of matters, a considerable body of the people, refused to join in her communion, and a great many more, though they did join in communion with her, did it only, with what they termed the faithful party, who were sensible of the situation in which they were placed, and labouring to have the most glaring parts of her adininistration corrected. The former of these, had been united in corre

* Through the 'diligence of this faction, the London press teemed with sophistical and scurrilous pamphlets for several years, which were circulated all over Scotland with great industry, and are yet frequently to be met with, such as, "Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence," "The Case of the Afflicted Clergy in Scotland," Account of the late Establishment of Presbyterian Government in Scotland," &c. &c., mostly penned by Dr. John Sage, and A Vindication of the Government in Scotland, during the reign of Charles II. by Sir George Mackenzie, late Lord Advocate. See Dr. M'Crie's Lives of Veitch and Bryson. Collection of Pamphlets, in the library of the late Lord Hyndford, &c. &c.

+ Plain Reasons for Presbyterians dissenting from the Revolution Church. A Solemn Warning by the Associate Synod, &c. &c. See also a Letter from King William to the Commission of the General Assembly, dated February 13th, 1690, wherein, by his royal authority, he enjoins the receiving into ministerial communion, such as had served under the late Episcopacy, provided their characters are as by him described; and till this is done, forbids them to proceed in any other business.

sponding societies, from about the year 1680, at, or a little before which they separated themselves entirely, under Messrs. Cargill and Cameron, from their brethren, who approved, or had taken the benefit of the Indulgence, who, in return, bestowed upon them the nickname of Cameronians, and at the same time gave to the world such distorted views of their principles and feelings, that the lapse of one hundred and fortyfive years has failed to correct. "In England, and other places where our Scots affairs are very little known," says Wodrow," the Cameronians and Presbyterians are taken for the same. Every thing these people did, without any distinction, is charged upon Presbyterians, and even what they did, is very much aggravated and misrepresented. The prelatists among ourselves help on this mistake, and are very willing to confound the two kinds of sufferers in this period, though they cannot but know, how much the two parties might have been differenced. And 'tis certain it fared much worse with the whole of the nonconformists from prelacy; for the lengths these people ran to at some junctures, and the prelates, who lay at catch for a handle to instigate the government against Presbyterians, improved what fell out this year extremely." Wodrow was partial to the indulged ministers, and had, it is evident, no very high opinion of such as stood out against them, yet he owns "there were among these people a good many of a healing temper, though many times they were over driven, and many excellent persons of eminent piety and seriousness, whose zeal brought them to be carried into the measures of some others, who had not their piety and religion; and a great many, by reason of the common danger, and a wandering lot, were obliged to be with them, who did neither approve of their extremities, nor countenance them; and vast numbers of the more common sort knew nothing of their heights, but were with them, and owned some of their principles, out of a sincere regard to the Reformation rights, and solemn covenants of this church, without being capable of knowing the consequents. In short, all of them, as far as ever I could find, were sincere Protestants, and firm in their opposition to Popery as well as Prelacy, and upon that score came under the greatest hardships, under the reign of a Papist;

therefore, I saw no reason to pass their sufferings, though in some things I cannot agree with them as to the cause upon which they stated them."*

Richard Cameron being cut off at Airsmoss, in the month of July, 1680, and Mr. Cargill falling into the hands of the government, in the year following, these society people, as they were called, continued to strengthen one another's hands, by private meetings for prayer and conference, without any public dispensation of ordinances, till the month of September, 1683, that Mr. James Renwick, who had been by them sent out to finish his education, and obtain ordination in Holland, lifted up the standard of the gospel among them, in the moss of Darmead, and upon his ministrations, at the hazard of his and their own lives, they attended, in the most sequestered wilds and fastnesses of the country, till the beginning of 1688, that he too fell into the hands of the persecutors, and was the last that suffered unto death for the cause of religion in Scotland. On the death of Mr. Renwick, they were again left without an ordained minister, but the famous Alexander Shields, who previously had adjoined himself to their number, being then a probationer, continued to preach in the fields as opportunity offered, notwithstanding the unabated rage of the persecutors, till he was relieved by Mr. Thomas Linning, who had been maintained by the societies for a considerable time at his studies abroad, and at this juncture returned with testimonials of his ordination to the work of the ministry by the classes at Embden. Mr. William Boyd, another of their students, returned at the same time, and furnished in the same manner, from Holland, and the arrival of the prince of Orange, and the consequent flight of James, having freed them from external molestation, they, in conjunction renewed the covenants, and dispensed the sacrament to a vast multitude, at Borland hill, Lesmahago, in the month of March, 1689. All the three continued their ministrations in the work of the gospel with the same people for some time; but upon the meeting of the first General Assembly of the church after the Revolution, which convened at Edinburgh, October the sixteenth, 1690,

Wodrow, folio ed. vol. ii. p. 133.

they gave in proposals for removing obstructions that lay in the way of comfortable fellowship with that church, and finally submitted to the decision of the assembly, in consequence of which, the societies were once more left without public in

structors.

In this state they continued-for the representations of Mr. Linning, closed upon them the doors of the foreign universities, whither in like cases they had been accustomed to resort-till the month of October, 1706, when the general meeting at Crawford John, after much deliberation and many lengthened discussions, carried on at various meetings during several of the preceding years, presented a call to the Rev. John Mackmillan, minister of Balmaghie, which he accepted, though he did not enter upon ministerial labour among them till the month of December following. Mr. Mackmillan had been regularly inducted into the pastoral charge of the parish of Balmaghie, so early as the year 1701, and being zealously attached to the severer principles of the Scotish church, he, in conjunction with Mr. William Tod, minister at Buitle, and Mr. John Reid, minister of Carsphairn, presented, in the month of July, 1703, a paper of grievances to the presbytery of Kircudbright, praying, that measures might be adopted for redressing them; but so far was the presbytery from being disposed to listen to the prayer of the petition, that the petitioners were dealt with, immediately to withdraw their paper, and retract their statements, which when Mr. Mackmillan declared he had no freedom to do, he was libelled, suspended, and deposed in a manner altogether unprecedented in Presbyterian churches. To this sentence of the presbytery, he could not in conscience submit, and his parishioners, convinced that he had taught nothing but what were generally at that time received as the undoubted doctrines of the

* Conclusions of the General Correspondence for 1706. MS. in the possession of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod. Account of the last words of Mr. John Mackmillan. Letter from Mr. John Mackmillan, Sandhills, 1773, printed along with Mr. Thorburn's Vindiciae Magistratus.

+ Plain Reasons for Presbyterians Dissenting from the Revolution Church, printed at Edinburgh, 1733, pp. 151, 152. Letter from Mr. Mackmillan of Sandhills, &c.

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