07b. Appendix (4-6)

APPENDIX 4 AN ORDINANCE OF THE LORDS AND COMMONS ASSEMBLED IN PARLIAMENT, CONCERNING THE CHOICE OF ELDERS." - 14TH MARCH 1646. For the reasons above stated, and with still greater reluctance, I have resolved to abstain from inserting this ordinance also. And I may add, that had the plan of the present work, and the dimensions within which it was judged necessary to confine it permitted, there are a number of very important documents, little known or regarded, which might have been inserted in the Appendix, and would have formed a very valuable addition to the means by which the general reader may acquire some adequate knowledge of the true history and character of the Westminster Assembly of Divines.

APPENDIX 5 THE SCOTTISH COMMISSIONERS. A BRIEF NOTICE OF THE SCOTTISH COMMISSIONERS TO THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY MAY BE INTERESTING TO THOSE WHO HAVE NOT READY ACCESS TO THE BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF THOSE EMINENT MEN.

1. - ALEXANDER HENDERSON. THIS very distinguished man, the leader of the Second Reformation in Scotland, was born in the year 1583, in the parish of Creich, in Fifeshire. Of his direct parentage nothing is known, except that his father was a cadet of the family of Henderson of Fordel, an ancient and honorable family in the same county. He entered the University of St. Andrews in the year 1599, and took the degree of Master of Arts in 1603; and a few years afterwards was appointed to a Professorship in the same University. He continued to retain his class of philosophy and rhetoric, which he taught with great applause, till about the year 1613, when he was presented to the parish of Leuchars, through the influence, it is said, of Archbishop Gladstanes. As he at that time favored Prelacy, which King James was imposing upon the Church of Scotland, his settlement was strenuously opposed by the people. They fastened the church door on the day of his induction, and kept it so securely, that he and the ministers who accompanied him were obliged to make their entrance by a window. He does not appear to have paid any attention to the wishes or the welfare of the people, but merely to have viewed Leuchars as a position from which to commence a course of ambition and of clerical preferment. But a change was at hand, which affected the whole of his future life and conduct. The venerable and heavenly-minded Robert Bruce had about that time been permitted to return from his banishment to the Highlands, and took advantage of his recovered liberty to preach in those parts of the country to which he obtained access. Mr. Henderson, having learned that Bruce was to preach in the neighborhood, felt a strong desire to hear a man so celebrated. He went secretly to the church - tradition names Dairsie as the place - and took a position in a dark corner, where he could remain concealed. Bruce entered the pulpit, and, after a solemn pause, gave out as his text the following words: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a THIEF AND A ROBBER." Every word, uttered with the grave emphasis of Bruce’s deep voice, went to the heart of Henderson, as it described and condemned his mode of entrance into Leuchars. He returned with the arrow in his heart, and the result was his conversion. From that time forward he was a changed man. Hitherto he had been a favorer of the Prelatic system, but without having studied it, or tried it by Scripture. He now felt it his duty to study the difference between the Prelatic and Presbyterian systems; and arrived at the clear conviction that Episcopacy was equally unauthorized by the Word of God and inconsistent with the constitution of the Church of Scotland. The progress of events soon constrained him to bear his testimony to the truth publicly. He opposed the Articles of Perth, at the Assembly held in that, town in the year 1618. From that time forward, for a considerable number of years, Henderson remained in comparative obscurity, prosecuting his pastoral duties earnestly, maintaining correspondence with the most pious ministers throughout the country, and jealously watched by the Prelatic party. A remarkable revival of vital godliness was during that period spreading extensively throughout the kingdom, preparatory, no doubt, for the coming struggle; and in that revival Henderson was deeply interested. But the very stillness of that religious revival, appearing to the Prelatic party to be something like gloomy acquiescence in their innovations, led them to anticipate a complete triumph, and they roused themselves to make a final effort.

Then came the crisis. In the year 1636, a book of ecclesiastical canons was sent down from England; and in the course of the same year a book of ordination. In the following year a liturgy appeared, and was ordered to be read in all the churches. Henderson and other ministers presented a petition to the Privy Council, praying to be relieved from constrained compliance with these injunctions. This was the commencement of a regular and lawful mode of opposition; but the rash pride of the prelates compelled the resistance to assume a more stormy aspect. The attempt to enforce the reading of the liturgy in Edinburgh, on the 23d of July 1637, caused a tumult, in which a woman’s hand dashed to the earth all the anticipations of that tyrannical party. That tumult was soon allayed, but not the deep and strong spirit of resistance which had taken possession of the energetic mind of Scotland. Grave, earnest, and thoughtful men, now resolved to combine for the restoration and defense of their religious and civil liberties, and of these Henderson became at once the acknowledged leader. The union thus begun was knit into sacred strength by the N ATIONAL C OVENANT, framed chiefly by Henderson and Johnston of Warriston, and subscribed by thousands in the Greyfriars’ Church, on the 28th day of February 1638. This solemn and sacred document was subscribed with great cordiality throughout the entire kingdom, and gave to the C OVENANTED R EFORMATION a name and a power which can never perish while spiritual freedom is dear to those whom the truth has made free indeed. The union of Scottish Presbyterians thus confirmed was too strong to be put down by force, or set at defiance. The king consented that a General Assembly should be held, in which all religious matters might be considered. This Assembly, the first which had been held since that of Perth, in 1618, met at Glasgow on the 21st of November 1638, and Henderson was unanimously chosen to be the moderator. The position was one of great difficulty, and demanded a man not only of high principle and calm courage, but of the most consummate prudence. Henderson was equal to the position and its duties, as he fully proved by his firmness and decision when the royal commissioner attempted to dissolve the Assembly; his grave dignity, when he pronounced sentence on the bishops; and his prophet-like solemnity when he summed up the proceedings at the close, and sealed them with the awful reference to the curse of Hiel the Bethelite. Henderson was at this time translated from Leuchars to Edinburgh, contrary to his declared love of retirement, on the condition that he should be allowed to retreat to some quiet rural parish when overtaken by the infirmities of age, - a quiet retreat which the public necessities of the period never permitted him to realize. From that time forward he was constrained to take a prominent part in all public duties. Papers on public affairs, which would now be called State Papers, were written by him, though issued in the name of the nobility; he was constrained to aid in conducting negotiations for peace with the king; he was made Rector of the University of Edinburgh; and when the English Parliament began to entertain the idea of seeking a reformation of church government in their own country, and of seeking an alliance with Scotland and its Church, they anxiously sought the concurrence and aid of Alexander Henderson. The correspondence with England was almost entirely conducted by him, till it issued in the English Parliament summoning the Westminster Assembly, and requiring ministers from Scotland to be present at and aid in its deliberations.

During the discussions of the Westminster Assembly, Henderson continued to retain his high influence with all parties, and to exercise it wisely, as the history of its proceedings amply proves. When the king went to the Scottish army, and withdrew with it to Newcastle, Henderson was sent thither, as a last attempt to induce his majesty to consent to the terms proposed by the Parliament. But as the Parliament had abolished Episcopacy, which Charles had determined to support, he drew Henderson into a discussion by exchange of letters on the Episcopalian controversy, and the binding force of the coronation oath. This epistolary controversy extended to five letters on the part of the king, and three on that of Henderson. At length Henderson, worn out in constitution with his numerous, weighty, and incessant labors, and sick at heart with the obstinate infatuation of the despotic and deceitful monarch, abandoned his hopeless enterprise to save a king, whom no reasoning could convince, and no treaties could bind, resolved to return to Scotland, that he might at last die in peace. He arrived in Edinburgh on the 11th of August, and died on the 19th of the same month, in a state of calm serenity, holy hope, and deep gratitude to God for having called him to believe and preach the glorious gospel. A brief outline of the mental character and abilities of Alexander Henderson has been already given in the preceding pages of this work, and need not be here repeated. Yet, if our space had permitted, we should have liked to have directed attention to those remarkable papers on public affairs which were written by him. They display statesmanship of the very highest order, surpassed in splendor of diction by those of Milton, but not surpassed even by Milton in comprehensiveness of thought, loftiness of principle, and dignity of expression, while they are perfectly free from the proud scorn and fierce denunciations in which the stern republican indulged. They are every way worthy of a truly Christian statesman, - a character which the world has rarely seen, and for want of which the suffering nations are convulsed and miserable.

Episcopalian writers have assigned the victory to the king, in the controversial correspondence between him and Henderson. For such a preference nothing but the most blinding prejudice can account, as it would be very easy to prove, had we space to give even a brief analysis of the respective arguments. We may add, that not only in learning and reasoning are Henderson’s papers immeasurably superior to those of the king, but even in calm and graceful dignity of style, in which a sovereign might have been expected to excel, from the habitual influence of his high station. But Henderson was by nature a king of men, and his whole bearing and language were always kingly. He was one of those great men whom God gives to elevate a nation, and work a mighty work; and whose departure leaves that age dark, feeble, and deploring.

2. - SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.

THERE is some difficulty in ascertaining either the birthplace of Samuel Rutherford or the year in which he was born; but the most probable account is, that he was born about the year 1600, and that Nisbet, a village close to the river Teviot, in the parish of Crailing, Roxburghshire, was his birthplace. He appears to have received his early education at Jedburgh. In the year 1617, he became a student in the University of Edinburgh, where he took his degree of Master of Arts in 1621. In 1623 he was elected one of the Regents of the College; which office he relinquished in 1625, and devoted himself to the study of divinity. In the year 1627 he was settled pastor at Anwoth, in the stewartry of Kirkcud-bright, without having been constrained to come under any engagement to the bishop.

Rutherford continued to discharge the duties of the ministry in this small and remote parish, with great zeal, unwearied diligence, and remarkable success, during a period of nine years. But that period was not without its troubles. First, he lost his two children, and then his wife died, after a severe illness of above a year, by which his gentle and affectionate heart was very deeply afflicted. He was himself laid aside from his public labors for thirteen weeks by a fever, which reduced him to extreme debility for a time. After his recovery, he continued to prosecute his labors with increased earnestness and activity, and became very dear, not only to, all the people of his own charge, but to the entire district around. Many anecdotes are preserved by tradition of the influence which he acquired, and the way in which he used it for the reformation of evil customs, and the promotion of vital godliness. There is a traditionary account, also, of a private visit paid to him by Archbishop Ussher, at first as an unknown stranger, till a discovery took place; and the archbishop at Rutherford’s request, preached in the pulpit of the Presbyterian minister, and stayed another day to enjoy his heavenly conversation. But the quiet and holy life which Rutherford had hitherto led was not permitted to continue. The death of Bishop Lamb having made the see of Galloway vacant, Sydserff, bishop of Brechin, was translated to Galloway, and immediately began a course of oppressive domination over his new diocese. Rutherford had published an elaborate work against Arminianism, written in Latin; and Sydserff, who held Arminian tenets, directed his persecuting power against the author. Rutherford was summoned to appear before the bishop’s High Commission Court, and deprived of his office, in 1636. The Court of High Commission in Edinburgh ratified the sentence of deposition, and banished him to Aberdeen, in which Prelacy reigned supreme. The Aberdeen doctors at first engaged him in controversial disputations; but three of these discussions were enough for them, and they prudently ceased from a controversy in which they were overmatched. In a short time, the influence of Rutherford began to be felt in Aberdeen, among the people; and the baffled doctors petitioned the court that he might be sent farther north, or banished from the kingdom. The king had actually granted a warrant to that effect, when the power of Prelacy was overthrown by the commotion of 1637; in consequence of which, Rutherford ventured to return to Anwoth, which he reached in February 1638. He was sent by his presbytery to attend the Assembly of Glasgow, and by that Assembly was appointed to be one of the professors of divinity at the University of St. Andrews, to his own grief and that of his beloved and attached flock at Anwoth. In the year 1643, he was sent to London, as one of the commissioners from the Church of Scotland, to the Westminster Assembly. While he attended that Assembly, he greatly distinguished himself by his skill in debate, his eloquence in preaching, and his great learning and ability as an author. Few works of that age surpass, or even equal, those which were produced by Rutherford, during that intensely laborious period of his life. The first of these was entitled "The Due Right of Presbytery." Next appeared "Lex Rex," a profound work on constitutional law, which has not yet found its superior. Soon afterwards he published a work on "The Divine Right of Church Government," in opposition to the Erastians. Three very excellent works on practical theology were produced in the same toilful and prolific period, "The Trial and Triumph of Faith," "Christ’s Dying and Drawing Sinners," and "Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist." In 1649 he published a "Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience," chiefly directed against the claims of the English Sectarians for an unlimited license to utter every opinion, and engage in every practice which any man might choose, without regard to the peace or welfare of the community, - a degree of licentiousness which Cromwell was at last constrained to put down by the strong hand of armed power, when it threatened danger to even his iron sway. Not long after his return from London, he was elevated to the Principalship of the New College in St. Andrews; and while discharging his professorial duties with all his former zeal, resumed also his practice of preaching, in which he so much delighted, as often as opportunity and time permitted. When the contests between the Resolutioners and the Protesters arose, Rutherford joined the Protesters, and advocated their views with great and even impassioned eagerness. This led to alienation between him and friends with whom he had been formerly accustomed to hold intimate and cordial intercourse, and greatly distressed all the remainder of his life, while it exposed him to the fierce hostility of those traitors and tyrants who were plotting for the restoration of Prelacy. Sharp, in particular, treated him with the utmost contumely, procuring an order from the Committee of Estates to burn his "Lex Rex" at the market cross in Edinburgh, and presiding at the repetition of the same mean act beneath Rutherford’s own windows in St. Andrews. Rutherford was at the time sinking under toil, grief, and bodily sickness, yet his persecutors procured a sentence against him, depriving him of his situation in the college, confiscating his salary, confining him to his own house, and citing him to appear before the ensuing Parliament, on a charge of high treason. On hearing of this summons, he calmly remarked, that he had got another summons before a superior Judge and judicatory, and sent back the following message: "I behoove to answer my first summons; and ere your day arrive, I shall be where few kings and great folks come."

He then prepared a dying testimony in behalf of the covenanted Reformation; and having thus finished his work on earth, looked rapturously forward to the hour of his release. During his few remaining days he enjoyed remarkable happiness and elevation of spirit in the near prospect of death, or rather of departure to be with Christ. His language to those friends who came to see him, was full of holy joy. His last words were, "Glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel’s land;" and having uttered these words, he expired, on the morning of the 20th of March 1661, in the sixty-first year of his age. The threatening sound of the coming storm, so soon to burst in a tempest of persecuting fury on Scotland, had been but faintly heard by him, when the hand of his Savior snatched him from its violence, and took him to his home in heaven.

3. - ROBERT BAILLIE.

ROBERT BAILLIE was born in Glasgow on the 30th of April 1602. His father, a merchant in that city, was a younger son of Robert Baillie of Jerviston, near Hamilton, and thus connected with several families of distinction in the west of Scotland. He was educated at the public school, at that time taught by Robert Blair, who afterwards became eminent as a divine. He entered the University of Glasgow in 1617, and took his degree of Master of Arts in 1620, with considerable distinction. Being fond of learning, and desirous to acquire as much of it as possible before entering on the duties of the ministry, to which he had devoted himself, Baillie continued to attend the college, under Boyd of Trothrig, and Cameron, who had previously been professor of divinity at Saumur. Cameron was accustomed to inculcate the slavish tenet, "That all resistance to the supreme magistrate in any case was unlawful;" and the effect of this was never entirely banished from the mind of Baillie. He became one of the regents in the college in the year 1625, about which time he received orders from Law, archbishop of Glasgow. In the year 1631 he was appointed minister of Kilwinning, through the influence of the Eglinton family, and was soon afterwards married. Up till this period, and for some years longer, Baillie had been disposed to conform to many of the Prelatic ceremonies recently introduced; but was strongly opposed to all Arminian and Popish doctrines. But the despotic proceedings of the king and the Prelatic party, in their attempt to impose their canons and liturgy on the Church and people of Scotland, roused the somewhat compromising and timid spirit of Baillie, and impelled him to study, more carefully than he had previously done, the real nature and tendency of such arbitrary men and measures. With some hesitation he joined those who petitioned against the violent imposition of these books; and at length joined in the subscription of the National Covenant. From that time forward his conduct became more decided than before, though he continued to cherish some scruples in regard to the total abolition of diocesan Episcopacy, as he showed by his modified vote in the Glasgow Assembly, when that point was decided. When the king attempted to subdue the Covenanters by force, and they raised an army in defense of their civil and religious liberties, Baillie accompanied a regiment of men raised in Ayrshire, as their chaplain, when the free Scottish nation met the king in arms at Dunse Law.

Baillie’s strong literary tendency led him to employ his ready and prolific pen in writing against the innovations of the Prelatic faction; and the extensive and exact learning displayed in his writings induced the men of greater action to employ him in literary labors. He was in consequence summoned to Newcastle in 1640, and sent to London soon afterwards as one of the commissioners for conducting the treaty with the king. After his return to Scotland he was, contrary to his inclination, appointed one of the professors of divinity in the University of Glasgow. To this office he was admitted in July 1642. This important position, however, he was not long allowed to occupy undisturbed. He was appointed by the Assembly of 1643 as one of the Scottish commissioners to attend the Westminster Assembly of Divines, and arrived at London on the 18th of November the same year. He continued at the post of duty and labor till December 1646, with the exception of one short journey to Scotland, to report to the Scottish Assembly what progress had been made by the Westminster divines. During the period of his residence in London, the restless pen of Baillie was incessantly engaged, both in the production of elaborate controversial treatises and in the writing of those numerous "Letters and Journals" which give such full, minute, and graphic accounts of the Westminster Assembly. On resuming his duties in the university, Baillie employed all his influence for the important object of carrying into effect various overtures passed by previous Assemblies "for the advancement of learning and good order in grammar schools and colleges." But this most laudable attempt was frustrated by the recurrence of fresh troubles in the Church and kingdom. When the king fell into the hands of the English army and Parliament, a secret treaty, termed "the Engagement," was framed between the Royalists of the two kingdoms, for the purpose of attempting to rescue the infatuated monarch from the danger into which his open despotism and known disregard for the faith of treaties had led him. This unhappy attempt introduced the most deplorable disunion into Scotland, both in Church and State. In a short time the Church was split into two parties, known by the names of Resolutioners and Protesters; of which it may be fairly said, that the Resolutioners were too ready to adopt the base course of compromise and expediency in which mere politicians delight, while the Protesters not only maintained a stern and uncomplying attitude, but allowed themselves to use the language of keen asperity, and showed somewhat of a vindictive spirit. Alexander Henderson was dead before these disastrous contentions began. Gillespie, too, was no more; and the men of less commanding talents and inferior judgment were unable to sway the public mind, as had been done during the great period of the Covenant. Baillie joined the Resolutioners, as was to be expected from his early training and his constitutional timidity. He continued to hold his position and discharge his duties as professor, - often with great grief and vexation, in consequence of the increasing confusion in Church and State. Soon after the restoration of Charles II Baillie was elevated to the Principalship of the University; but did not long enjoy his well-earned honors, and not for one moment in peace. His remaining days were embittered by the perfidious and treacherous conduct of nearly all those whom he had most trusted, - of the king, of Lauderdale, and chiefly of Mr. James Sharp, better known as Archbishop Sharp, - a man whose memory is more deeply stained with the base and cruel crimes of treachery and persecution than almost any other that ever disgraced the country which gave him birth. But the time of Robert Baillie’s relief from all earthly troubles was at hand. He lived to see the re-imposition of Episcopacy in Scotland, and the entry of Archbishop Fairfoull into Glasgow in April 1662, and died, weary and heart-broken, toward the end of August in the same year, in the sixty-first year of his age, in time to be spared from witnessing the storm of bloody persecution then breaking out, by which Scotland was devastated for twenty-eight dark and terrible years of crime and suffering.

4. - GEORGE GILLESPIE.

FEW men have gained so much renown within so short a period as George Gillespie, - few have been more beloved when living, more bewailed when dead. He was the son of the Rev. John Gillespie, minister at Kirkcaldy, and was born on the 21st of January 1613. In the year 1629 he commenced his academic studies at the University of St. Andrews, where he is said to have early distinguished himself. But when he had completed his course and was ready to enter the ministry, he was constrained to pause for a period. Being convinced that Prelatic church government is of human invention, he would not submit to receive ordination from a bishop, and could not, at that juncture, obtain admission to the ministry without it. But Lord Kenmure took him into his household as domestic chaplain, where he resided till the death of that pious nobleman in 1634. Soon afterwards he occupied a similar position in the family of the Earl of Cassilis, and at the same time acted as tutor to Lord Kennedy, the Earl’s eldest son. He had thus both leisure and inducement to prosecute his studies; which subsequent events prove him to have done with equal assiduity and success.

When, in 1637, the king and the Prelatic party had formed the desperate resolution of forcibly imposing the Book of Canons and the Liturgy upon the Church and people of Scotland, George Gillespie, in the early part of the summer of that year, published his work entitled, "A Dispute against the English Popish Ceremonies." Nothing could have been more suited to the emergency. It encountered systematically, and point by point, all the arguments of the Prelatic party, with such an extensive array of learning, and such acuteness and power of reasoning, as to excite universal astonishment. At that time Gillespie was only in his twenty-fifth year, and both friends and foes marveled at the appearance of a work so elaborate from the pen of such a youth. The only answer attempted by the Prelatic party was their procuring an order from the Privy Council that the book should be called in and burned. It is not, however, by such a process that a true and able book can be destroyed. Gillespie’s work still exists, and may yet be of service. The power of the bishops departed; and, as George Gillespie had become known and admired, he was not allowed to remain much longer in a private position. Having received a call from the church and parish of Wemyss, he was ordained to the pastoral charge thereof by the Presbytery of Kirkcaldy, on the 26th of April 1638; and was the first who was admitted by a presbytery, at that period, without the authority of the bishops. From that time forward Gillespie, notwithstanding his youth, occupied a prominent position. He was a member of the famous Glasgow Assembly of 1638; and he was also sent as one of the commissioners to London in 1640. He was translated to Edinburgh in 1642, and continued to be one of the ministers of that city during the remainder of his life.

George Gillespie was one of the commissioners sent by the Scottish General Assembly to take part in the deliberations of the Westminster Assembly. He arrived at London, along with Alexander Henderson, on the 15th of September 1643, and almost immediately became one of the most prominent members of that august assembly, although the youngest man and minister of the whole, being only in the thirtieth year of his age and the fifth of his ministry. "That is an excellent youth," says Baillie; "my heart blesses God in his behalf. There is no man whose parts in a public dispute I do so admire. He has studied so accurately all the points that are yet come to our Assembly; he has got so ready, so assured, so solid a way of public debating; that however there be in the Assembly divers very excellent men, yet, in my poor judgment, there is not one who speaks more rationally, and to the point, than that brave youth has done ever." Great, unquestionably, must have been the learning and the ability of the man who met and defeated, each on his own peculiar ground, such antagonists as Goodwin and Nye, on the Independent controversy; and Coleman, Lightfoot, and "the learned Selden," on the side of Erastianism; as the accounts of contemporaries prove Gillespie to have done. In addition to his constant attendance in the Assembly, and his arduous exertions in the course of its debates, Gillespie employed his acute and powerful mind in written controversy with the ablest advocates of Erastianism. In two or three vigorous pamphlets he completely silenced Coleman, whose reputation for Hebrew learning had procured him the name of Rabbi Coleman. But he had also planned, and was all the while prosecuting, a much larger work. That work appeared about the close of the year 1646, under the title of "Aaron’s Rod Blossoming; or, the Divine Ordinance of Church Government Vindicated." This remarkably able and elaborate work was conclusive on the subject of the Erastian controversy. Not one of the learned and able Erastians of that age even made the attempt to answer it, although they did not relinquish their sullen grasp of unscriptural power. It has not been answered yet; and although it may not be suited to the forms of modern thought and expression, yet if its reasoning were recast in a modern mold it would still be found triumphantly conclusive. Nor was it in the field of controversy alone that Gillespie employed his pre-eminent mental qualifications. He took an equally active and influential part in the framing of the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms, which embodied the doctrinal decisions of the Assembly; and some memorable anecdotes have been preserved relating to his special eminence in connection with these more strictly theological productions. When the public labors of the Westminster Assembly drew near a close, the Scottish commissioners returned to their native country. Gillespie, along with Baillie, appeared at the General Assembly which met in August 1647, and laid before it the result of their protracted labors. The Confession of Faith was ratified by that Assembly, and so became the doctrinal standard of the Church of Scotland, subordinate only to the Bible, on which all of its doctrines were avowedly founded. The same Assembly caused to be printed a series of propositions, or "Theses against Erastianism," as Baillie terms them, amounting to one hundred and eleven, drawn up by Gillespie. The perusal of these propositions would enable any person of unprejudiced and intelligent mind to master and refute the whole Erastian theory, and could not fail, at the same time, to call forth sentiments of admiration towards the clear and strong mind by which they were framed.

George Gillespie was appointed moderator of the General Assembly of 1648, although worn out with the great and incessant toils in which he had been engaged, and suffering under a severe illness which already displayed the symptoms of consumption. His influence was sufficient to preserve the Assembly from consenting to give any countenance to the weak and wicked intrigues already begun by worldly politicians; but the renewed anxiety and labor incurred by these exertions completely exhausted his remaining strength. He left Edinburgh, and retired to Kirkcaldy, his birthplace, in the faint hope of obtaining, by change of scene and air, some renovation to his health. But continuing to sink, and being no longer able to attend Church courts, he addressed a letter to the Commission of Assembly in September, stating his opinions concerning the duties and the dangers of the time. Feeling death at hand, he partly wrote and partly dictated what may be termed his dying "Testimony against association with malignant enemies of the truth and godliness." At length, on the 17th of December 1648, his toils and sorrows ceased, and he fell asleep in Jesus. So passed away from this world one of those bright and powerful spirits which are sent in troublous times to carry forward God’s work among mankind, and recalled to heaven when that work is done.

5. - WARRISTON.

ARCHIBALD JOHNSTON of Warriston, was one of the elders appointed by the General Assembly to act as commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. Previous to this he had distinguished himself in the struggle between the Church of Scotland and its Prelatic oppressors. He was rapidly becoming eminent as an advocate at the Scottish bar, when the outraged Church roused itself to resist the imposition of the Canons and Liturgy. Immediately he joined the assertors of religious liberty, and took an active part in all their public procedure; in which his great legal knowledge, acuteness of intellect, soundness of judgment, and promptitude in action, proved signally beneficial to the cause of truth and righteousness. When the General Assembly met at Glasgow in 1638, Mr. Johnston was unanimously chosen to be clerk of the Assembly; for which office he was peculiarly qualified, being as well acquainted with ecclesiastical as with civil law. A very remarkable congeniality of mental endowments and moral qualities, soon rendered Johnston and Henderson almost inseparable companions and fellow-counselors. The great National Covenant was framed by their conjoint powers of knowledge and thought; they were the leading men of the commissioners appointed to treat for peace with the king; by them the Solemn League and Covenant between England and Scotland was written; and their labors were again conjoined when they were sent together to the Westminster Assembly.

Two years before that period, the king having come to Scotland with a view of conciliating or deceiving the Covenanters, showed great favor to Mr. Johnston, raised him to the order of knighthood, and made him one of the judges in the Court of Session, by the title of Lord Warriston. But these preferments and honors did not induce him to swerve a hair’s breadth from his fidelity to the Covenanted Church of Scotland, which was dearer to him than rank and wealth, and the smiles of a monarch. In the Westminster Assembly Warriston attended very constantly, and frequently engaged in the discussions and debates of that grave and learned body, fully maintaining his high reputation. Even the English Parliament requested him to sit among them and aid in their deliberations, although he was not, and could not become, a member of that high court.

After the decapitation of Charles I by the English Parliament, against the strong and earnest protestations of both State and Church in Scotland, the outraged and indignant feeling of the community enabled the Scottish Royalists to gain the ascendancy in public affairs, and they determined to place his son on the throne of Scotland, and framed an engagement with the English Royalists to aid them in the attempt to recover that of England also. Warriston did his utmost to prevent the nation from entering upon a course which could only lead to ruin; and when he could not prevail, he joined the Protesters, and aided their counsels. Cromwell easily triumphed over the divided power of Scotland; but Warriston, though he strove to avert a war with England, refused to hold office under the Protector, whom he regarded as a usurper of regal power. Some years afterwards he was induced to accept the office of clerk-register under the administration of Cromwell. On the restoration of Charles II the Marquis of Argyle was thrown into prison, and orders were issued for the seizure of others, including Warriston, but he escaped and fled to the continent. While there, he was attacked by a severe illness, and reduced almost to death by that and the unskillfulness - some say the treachery - of a physician. From the prostration of all bodily and even mental power, caused by this illness and treatment, he never wholly recovered. The cold, revengeful eye of Charles was still upon him; and in 1663 he was seized in France, brought to Scotland, tried, condemned, and executed, when so enfeebled by age and disease that he could scarcely either stand or speak. Yet with the calm tranquillity and spiritual elevation of a martyr, he gave the relics of his wasted life to the cause in which he had strenuously expended his strength.

6. - LAUDERDALE.

JOHN MAITLAND, afterwards Earl and Duke of Lauderdale, was descended from the Maitlands of Lethington, a family which was first raised to distinction by the great abilities of that very acute and unscrupulous statesman, the secretary of Queen Mary, and political antagonist of John Knox. Lethington, the family seat, was the birthplace of John Maitland, in the year 1616. In his youth he manifested considerable ability, and became distinguished for his classical acquirements. His first public appearance was at the period of the conflict between the Prelatic party and the Covenanters, when he keenly espoused the cause of Covenanted Reformation. He was at that time known as Lord Maitland, his father, the Earl of Lauderdale, being still alive. His rank and talents caused him to be regarded as a valuable acquisition, and his apparent zeal made him to be trusted and employed by the Scottish Church and Parliament. After having been engaged in various important negotiations, in some of which his violent temper and language injured the cause which he advocated so harshly, he was nominated one of the commissioners to the Westminster Assembly; but his attendance was neither very regular nor of much importance, and before its deliberations closed, the death of his father caused his return to Scotland. Not long after this period the Earl of Lauderdale became a decided Royalist, was one of the framers of the Engagement, or secret treaty with the king, and after the decapitation of that unhappy monarch, attached himself to the fortunes of his son. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Worcester, and remained in confinement till the overthrow of the Commonwealth by Monk. He then hastened to the Hague, where the young king was residing, and was received with open arms, and trusted with almost unlimited power in regard to Scottish affairs. His influence was exerted for a time through the medium of the Earl of Middleton and the Privy Council at Edinburgh; and its first manifestation was the overthrow of the Presbyterian Church, the establishment of Prelacy, and the commencement of remorseless persecution. But Middleton, proving unmanageable, was set aside in 1662; Rothes, who succeeded him, was also set aside in 1667; and from that time Lauderdale resided in Scotland, and conducted the persecution himself with grim and horrible delight.

Nothing more savagely ferocious, - more base, brutal, and bloody, - than the conduct of Lauderdale was ever recorded, to stain the annals of history and disgrace human nature. On this point we have neither space nor inclination to dwell, but must leave him to the unutterable infamy which will for ever blacken his name and memory. But a time of retribution came at last. In 1672 the king degraded the title of a duke by bestowing it on Lauderdale, and the English peerage by elevating him into its rank. But his treachery had made him universally distrusted, and his arrogance had become intolerable. In the beginning of 1682 he was deprived of all his offices and pensions, and cast aside as a worn-out political tool. He did not long survive his disgrace, but died in the summer of the same year, leaving behind him no son to inherit either his titles or his shame; and without one friend to lament his fall.

APPENDIX 6 PHILLIP NYE AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

REFERENCE has been so frequently made to the conduct of Philip Nye, in the Westminster Assembly, and his suspected intercourse with Cromwell, that it seems necessary to investigate these topics somewhat more fully than could be done in the limits of a footnote. Mr. Nye was one of those Puritan divines who fled to Holland to escape from the severe and tyrannical proceedings of Laud. During his residence in Holland, at Arnheim, he adopted the views of the Independents. About the beginning of the Long Parliament he returned to England, and obtained a charge at Kimbolton, in Huntingdonshire, through the influence of Lord Kimbolton, also called Lord Mandeville, and afterwards Earl of Manchester. That nobleman was an intimate friend of Oliver Cromwell, and by his means Nye and Cromwell became also friends. When the Parliament summoned the Assembly of Divines to meet at Westminster, Philip Nye was one of those so summoned; and the rectory of Acton near London was conferred upon him, as conveniently securing his constant attendance. No man was more urgent in recommending the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant than Nye; and for a time it seemed as though he would have been one of the most earnest in procuring the desired uniformity in religion between the two kingdoms. But there is reason to believe that Nye and Cromwell had, at a very early period, resolved that the Independent, or Congregational system, should be the only one to which they would consent. This became apparent early in 1644, by the publication of the "Apologetical Narrative," written by Nye. The state of public affairs must be carefully marked, in order to perceive the bearing of events upon each other. For some time after the commencement of the war the king appeared likely to be successful. Neither Essex nor Waller displayed any military skill. There appeared more energy in the Earl of Manchester; but that energy may be fairly attributed to Cromwell, who was now his lieutenant-general, and had already begun to raise and train that body of troops who were afterwards known as Cromwell’s "Ironsides," and who were never beaten. The Parliament had urged the approach of the Scottish army. They had rapidly advanced towards York, and being joined by Fairfax, Manchester, and Cromwell, laid siege to that city. Prince Rupert hastened to its relief; and the battle of Marston was fought on the 2d July 1644, in which the Royalists were totally defeated. But in the autumn of the same year, the two armies of Waller and Essex were lost in the west counties, and the success of the war continued doubtful. In October, Manchester and Cromwell encountered and worsted the king at Newbury; but Manchester refused to prosecute their success, and an open rupture ensued between him and Cromwell. In the latter part of November, Cromwell complained in his place in Parliament of this dilatory and ineffectual prosecution of the war, and moved that members of Parliament should cease to remain also commanders in the army. This proposal, called the Self-denying Ordinance, passed in the Commons on the 19th December 1644, but was not accepted by the Lords. The treaty of Uxbridge engaged the attention of all parties during the month of January and the early part of February 1645. But this treaty was broken off on the 20th or 21st of February, and the Self-denying Ordinance was soon afterwards re-introduced, and finally passed on the 3d of April 1645. By this ordinance Cromwell also, as a member of Parliament, should have laid down his command; but he could not be spared from the army. On the 9th of April he was again at the head of his men, actively and successfully engaged cutting off convoys and hemming in the king, with a degree of energy which promised a speedy termination of the war. On the 14th of June the battle of Naseby was fought, where Cromwell, at the head of his "new-modeled" army, routed the king, and destroyed all his prospects of success.

Let it be observed, that throughout the whole of this period the proceedings of the Assembly were prevented from making almost any progress by Nye and his friends. Their opposition, by means of protracted debates on every minute point, began early in 1644. On the 20th of February in that year, Nye attempted to gain the favor of the Parliament by arguing that the setting up of presbyteries would be dangerous to liberty. Failing in this attempt, which the parliamentary members themselves repelled, he prosecuted the safer method of retarding the progress of the Assembly by protracted delays. This course was rendered safe and successful by an order which Cromwell induced the Parliament to pass on the 13th of September 1644, when the battle of Marston had removed urgent danger, to refer to the committee of both kingdoms the matters in dispute between Presbyterians and Independents. This committee received all statements but decided nothing, and ceased to exist in March 1646; but, before it ceased to exist, the army had been remodeled, and, with Cromwell at its head, had reduced the king to despair, and made itself master of both Parliament and kingdom. During all this time it was believed that Nye managed to keep up a constant intercourse with Cromwell and the army. Of this the Scottish commissioners entertained no doubt; but as they still cherished the hope that a satisfactory conclusion might at last be obtained, they kept themselves within the limits of honorable and fair discussion, leaving intrigues to be defeated by the course of providence, and refuting sophistry by clear reasoning. When the king, on the 6th of May 1646, betook himself to the Scottish army, a slight change seemed to come over the Parliament. The ordinance for the erection of presbyteries, which had lain in abeyance since November 1644, was issued by the Parliament 9th June 1646, but hampered by unsuitable conditions and limitations. But when it was found that the obstinacy of the infatuated king was absolutely invincible, and that to retain him any longer in the Scottish army would at once involve a war with England, and frustrate all the proceedings of the Westminster Assembly, the Scottish commissioners felt it to be their duty to abandon all further contests in England, allow the king to return to the Parliament as he desired, and leave the English nation to settle the affairs of their own State and Church as they might determine, taking with them to Scotland the doctrinal productions of the Westminster Assembly, to be ratified and established in their own country. The Scottish Royalists, indeed, attempted to frustrate these prudent and peaceful designs, and were but too successful. Their ill-omened engagement involved Scotland in a war with England, and laid the divided kingdom prostrate beneath England’s mighty Protector. This sagacious and high-principled man did not, however, prevent the Scottish people from continuing to enjoy the religious worship of their choice, though he deprived church government of all power, and balanced party against party so as greatly to paralyze both, as he had done in England. But the career of Nye was not yet at an end. When both Parliament and Assembly had been dissolved by Cromwell, it was still found necessary to have some method of providing religious instruction for the nation. A committee of divines, called the Committee of Triers, was appointed; and in this committee Nye continued to wield great power. The two parties, the Presbyterians of the old Puritan race, and the more modern Independents, were still opposed to each other. Various attempts, by conferences and otherwise, were made to frame some agreement between them. In these attempts such men as Owen, and Baxter, and Howe took part; but all their attempts were frustrated, and chiefly by Philip Nye. This I can confidently state, on the authority of the mild, gracious, and tolerant John Howe. In a letter to Baxter, dated 25th May 1658, he says, "I cannot yet meet with an opportunity for further discourse with Mr. Nye; nor do I hope for much success in any further treaty with him, I perceive so steady a resolution to measure all endeavors of this kind by their subservience to the advantage of one party. I resolve, therefore, to make trial what his Highness will do, as speedily as I can." - (Life of Howe, by Rogers, p. 92.)

Baxter himself, writing to the Independents in their time of power, says: "It was the toleration of all sects unlimitedly that I wrote and preached against, and not (that I remember) of mere Independents. Those that did oppose the toleration of Independents, of my acquaintance, did not deny them the liberty of Independency, but opposed separation, or their gathering of other churches out of parish churches that had faithful ministers. If they would have taken parish churches on Independent principles, without separation, neither I nor my acquaintance did oppose them, no, nor their endeavor to reform such churches. The case greatly differed: For an Independent to refuse parish churches when no ceremony, no liturgy, no oath or subscription is required of him, which he scrupleth, is not like his refusing oaths, subscriptions, liturgy, ceremonies, etc. But, in a word, grant us but as much, and take us but in, as we granted to, and took in, the Independents, and we are content. Make this agreement, and all is ended; we desire no more of you. We never denied the Independents the liberty of preaching lectures, as often as they would, nor yet the liberty of taking parish churches. They commonly had presentations, and the public maintenance; and no subscription, declaration, liturgy, or ceremonies, were imposed on them. Again, I say, I ask from you no more liberty than was given the Independents by their brethren, called Presbyterians. - (Baxter’s Life, by Sylvester, p. 131.)

Such statements as these, and more might easily be adduced, prove clearly enough what the men who knew Nye thought of his character and conduct, and of the manner in which he used power when it was in his grasp. And, it may be added, that he held that grasp very tenaciously. Throughout the whole period of Cromwell’s sway Nye retained great influence. Not only was he one of the triers, but he was also one of the commissioners for ejecting ministers and schoolmasters, - a task in which he manifested no reluctance to take an active share. He aided in framing the Declaration of the Faith, Order, and Practice of the Congregational Churches in 1658; but it was rendered ineffectual by the death of Cromwell in the same year. On the restoration of Charles II, it was debated in Council for several hours, whether the deep and incessant political intrigues in which Nye had been so long engaged did not render it necessary to include him in the act of attainder. The result was, that he was ejected from his benefice; and it was declared, that if he should accept of, or exercise any office, ecclesiastical or civil, he should stand as if he had been totally exempted from the act of indemnity. To him alone, of all the Westminster divines, was such severity shown; and as his papers had been seized, the Council were in possession of information which seemed to them to justify such procedure. The act of attainder included only three men who were not of those who had acted as judges when the late king was sentenced to die. These three were, Colonel Lambert, Sir Harry Vane, and the notorious Hugh Peters. That it was seriously debated whether Philip Nye should not be included in such a class of men, the actual regicides, or their most intimate associates, sufficiently indicates how deeply involved he was believed, and even well known to be, in all the intrigues of the period, and especially in all those political measures that led to the decapitation of Charles I.

There is one incident in Nye’s conduct, at an early stage of the Westminster Assembly’s proceedings, already recorded in the pages of this work (pp. 202, 203), relative to which some brief remarks are still necessary. Congregational writers are in the habit of boasting of his position and speech on that occasion, as the first public, open, and full assertion of the great principle of religious liberty. Nothing can be more inconsistent with historical truth. The occasion already referred to is the only one which at all resembles the boasted traditionary anecdote. But the avowed object of Nye on that occasion was not the assertion of religious liberty, but an attempt to excite the jealousy of the Parliament against the Presbyterian system, by asserting that such a system, rising court above court, with successive right of appeal from the lower to the higher, till it should reach a General Assembly, representing the whole Church in a kingdom, was inconsistent with civil liberty. This attempt was both censured by the Assembly and repelled by the most of the leading members of Parliament who were present. Its manifest and total failure mortified Nye so much that he did not again repeat it in the Assembly; but from that day his efforts were incessant to cause and prolong delay, while his secret intercourse with the army and with Cromwell was carried on with greater activity than ever. His interposed retardations and incessant intrigues were successful. Nothing was settled till Cromwell abolished Parliament, and turned the remnant of the Assembly into a Committee of Triers, in which Nye’s influence was predominant, and continued to be, till the Restoration laid Britain prostrate beneath the basest and most profligate of all her kings, to the extreme danger and well nigh the utter ruin of all liberty, both civil and religious. And yet this intriguing man, whose conduct was so largely instrumental in producing such a disastrous result, is still held up and applauded by some as the great assertor of religious liberty!

It is with great reluctance that I have directed so much attention to the conduct of Nye. But I felt myself compelled to take some notice of the claim so pertinaciously raised on his behalf, as the first true assertor of religious liberty, to the disparagement equally of Scottish Presbyterians and English Puritans, and very specially to the discredit of the Westminster Assembly. Men have a strange power of persuading themselves that they are in the right, and that their course is the only right and safe one. I have no doubt that Philip Nye fully believed that the Independent system, as he understood and practiced it, was the best for the interests of civil and religious liberty, and that he thought himself justifiable in using every method to secure its triumph; and even succeeded in persuading himself that those methods were right, although they involved a violation of the Solemn League and Covenant, which he had sworn to maintain. "He was a great politician," says Neal; and there is scarcely any thing which a great politician cannot persuade himself to believe, - scarcely any course which he cannot persuade himself to adopt, - if they seem fitted to promote his political designs. But it is not by great politicians that religious liberty has ever been promoted, nor by their deep schemes that its maintenance has been secured. Had Nye been less of a politician, there is reason to believe that neither a revived Laudean Prelacy nor a resuscitated Popery would ever again have endangered the liberties, both civil and religious, of Britain; and it will be well if, in the conflict which must still be waged against both of these hostile powers, the defenders of these priceless blessings avoid all courses that "great politicians" may recommend, and act openly, boldly, and firmly, without intrigue or compromise, in accordance only with the strong principles of the Word of God.

It may be thought by some that we have applied the term Presbyterian in several instances, when the term Independent or Congregational would have been more appropriate. We do not wish to dispute about a mere word; but a brief statement of the reason why the word Presbyterian has been used in relation to events which others ascribe to the Independent party, may here be given. Before the Long Parliament had resolved to abolish Prelacy, and summon an Assembly of Divines to deliberate on the system to be adopted in its stead, the Puritan ministers had begun to form themselves into presbyteries. Numbers more of them looked not to Scotland only, but also very specially to Holland, where the Presbyterian form was in full order, for a model into some conformity with which the English Church might be advantageously molded. When the Assembly met there were only five of its members avowedly Independents, and they never amounted to more than ten or eleven. During the deliberations of the Assembly, Nye and Goodwin almost alone maintained the strictly distinctive element of Congregationalism, - in some instances Nye alone. That distinctive and even separatist, or individualizing element, while the defending of it kept Nye at the head of all the innumerable forms of Sectarianism in the army and throughout the kingdom, and rendered him so useful to Cromwell, was never adopted and maintained in the same manner by even those men who came to be regarded as the leading Independents. Neither Owen nor Howe were ever Independents according to Nye’s system, but approached indefinitely near to the Presbyterian system, as it existed in Scotland and Holland, and could readily have joined with these Churches. We therefore include them, and all such liberal-minded men, in the general designation of Presbyterians. For the same reason we regard the noble band of Nonconformist Puritan divines who were ejected on St. Bartholomew’s Day as Presbyterian Puritans, or rather as Puritan Presbyterians; that is, we regard them as a noble band of sincere, self-denying Christian ministers, whose scriptural tenets were those which have been designated Puritan, and who were not only prepared to adopt the Presbyterian system of church government, but preferred it, as both founded upon and most agreeable to the Word of God, and as most conducive to a nation’s welfare. Ample evidence might easily be procured from the writings of an overwhelming majority of these high-principled men, to prove that we have not misrepresented their sentiments, and that we have given them the designation which most correctly describes them, and by which they ought to be known - the Nonconformist Puritan Presbyterians. To them, to the Churches of Scotland and Holland, and, above all, to the sacred truths and principles which they all drew from the Holy Scriptures, we ascribe the glory of the declaration and defense of religious liberty; and neither to the Long Parliament, to the army Sectarians, to Cromwell, to Philip Nye, nor to any or all of those who, in proclaiming a "boundless toleration," did their utmost to break down all distinctions between truth and error, and thereby to plunge the human mind into the wild whirlpool of mental, moral, and religious anarchy. I have no wish to disparage either the Dissenting Brethren of the Westminster Assembly, or the Independent ministers or systems of any period; but I feel it to be my duty to assert historical truth, and to vindicate the character of the Westminster Assembly, and of the true Presbyterian divines, Church, and system, in doctrine, government, and discipline, as most successfully embodying and defending the principles of Religious Freedom. THE END.