A. Ranken

“ It is a popular boast that the kingdom was never conquered. It is conveniently forgotten that Cromwell accomplished that feat. As a retributive punishment, we may believe, for its disloyalty to God and the king, the battle of Dunbar saw the country at the usurper's feet. Cromwell suppressed Presbytry in Scotland as he had done Episcopacy in England, with the strong hand, and at the sword's point. ”

“ The Diocese of Aberdeen, and its two famous universities, produced such divines as Bellenden its bishop, and Forbes, Barron, Ross, Scroggie, and Lesly, who are known in history as the "Aberdeen Doctors," the stout maintainers of orthodoxy and loyalty; divines who were only beaten and silenced, not in debate, but by the conclusive and persuasive arguments of chains and imprisonment, or by the self-banishment to which some of them were forced to save their lives. ”

“ All throughout those troubles, the northern Dioceses, and among them the Diocese of Aberdeen, were so many green spots in the desert. The arts of insurgency had been so successful in other districts as to create a specious but false appearance of national sympathy with, and adherence to, the Covenant, and of disaffection to the Church and the Throne. Throughout the larger half of Scotland, and especially in Aberdeenshire, all that was sober-minded, well ordered, and loyal, was in the ascendant. The two northern Universities spoke out, true as ever to Church and King. ”

“ The Bishops, in continuing the succession, were obliged to act with the greatest secresy and caution. To use the language of a historian who describes it, "the prelates celebrated with a mournful privacy the august solemnities of the Church. The rites were shorn of the old cathedral splendour. The 'Veni Creator' must be murmured like a voice out of the dust. But yet they had with them the eternal Pontiff, and the unfailing powers of His kingdom. ”

“ In a letter to the Earl of Aberdeen, written in June 1683, Dundee reveals to us his principle of action in one brief sentence. "I am," says he, "as sorry to see a man die, even a rebel Whig, as any of themselves; but when one dies justly for his own faults, and may thereby save a hundred others from falling into the like, I have no scruple." ”

“ The judge on the bench, when he puts on the black cap of doom, and pronounces the sentence which is carried out on the scaffold, is not usually denounced by law-abiding people as a "blood-thirsty ruffian." Nor are the Peers who sentenced Lords Kilmarnock, Balmerino, and Lovat to the block for their share in the Rising of the '45, historically known by the same odious title. The truth is, rebellion is a desperate and dangerous game to play at, and requires success to justify it. ”

“ When the democratical upheaval is strong enough, if ever, to destroy it, it will probably perish along with the monarchy, as it did before in the Great Rebellion. Meanwhile the crusade against the northern Establishment is gathering its forces. It denounces what it calls "the unholy alliance of religion with the State;" forgetting, it would appear, that God did once establish His Church upon earth, and allied it with the State, and made it conterminous with the kingdom of His chosen people. ”

“ Most Churchmen, I hope and believe, accept the principles of religious Establishments, where the kings are the nursing fathers of the Church, and their queens the nursing mothers. When the parties to the compact are each careful to perform their respective duties, and not to infringe, the one upon the province of the other, then the Truth is defended; Religion flourishes, is repected as the law of the land, and is dignified in the sight of all beholders ”

“ Henry the Ninth was the last Stuart who claimed the allegiance of his subjects; and the stoutest maintainer of the doctrine of Divine Right has never contended that allegiance is due, if no allegiance is claimed. The moment Henry of York died, George the Third became "our lawful King;" but, on Divine Right principles, not a moment sooner. On Revolution principles, of course, any lucky adventurer might become "our lawful king" any day. ”

“ The Revolution speedily became an accomplished fact; and together with it the downfall of the Church of Scotland as an Establishment. The two Archbishops, the whole of their twelve suffragans, and the larger half of the thousand parochial Clergy, refused to transfer their allegiance from James to the Dutchman. Had they seen their way to accept him, it is an historical fact, capable of the clearest proof, although quietly suppressed by the popular historians of Scottish affairs, that William would have upheld the Church, if the Bishops and Clergy had supported him. ”

“ But our platform lecturers quietly suppress all mention of those sufferings; as also do our school histories; in which, however I am bound to mention, the Cameronian Covenanters are glorified as saints and martyrs; and Episcopacy, its ritual, and worship are disparaged and villfied; and our children, who, in the absence of Church schools in country districts, are compulsorily sent to the Board Schools, are systematically indoctrinated, under the guise of "use and wont," in falsehoods and frauds such as these miscalled histories. ”

“ The violent abolition and suppression of Episcopacy in both kingdoms, which was in fact the suppression of the Church as the Body of Christ in the land, was followed by the deposition and murder of the king. By an eternal and unerring law, the sins of schism, rebellion, and bloodshed are closely linked together. The Scottish Covenanters who sold their king to the English regicides for a sum of money ready down—the antitype of the bargain of the traitor Judas—were not permitted to profit long by the blood-money. Cromwell and his Ironsides speedily overran Scotland. ”

“ But their avowed aim was to force their religion upon all at the point of the sword. And their suppression by the sword was an act of positive necessity, unless anarchy and a reign of terror were to ensue. As I have said, it is so much the fashion in these days to represent those rebellious fanatics as poor, oppressed, hunted sufferers for conscience, if not for truth's sake, that it needs a certain amount of boldness to represent them in their true colours. ”

“ Dundee kept up the same pious custom in the army; and though somewhat warm upon occasions in his temper, yet at a time when profane swearing was common among the upper classes of society, Dundee was never heard to swear. It is a remarkable confirmation of this fact, that a Presbyterian historian of the period, who records the oaths of the Cavaliers, the Lairds of Westraw, Lagg, and others, with peculiar gusto, as if rolling them under his tongue, never ventures to put a profane oath into the mouth of Claverhouse. ”

“ That the king's desire to uphold the Church and order in his northern kingdom was not a mere piece of state policy, but a conscientious conviction, appears, among other abundant proofs, from his published controversy with Alexander Henderson, one of the "Apostles of the Covenant," and by far the most learned and respectable man among them: in which, with the learning of a theologian, and the acuteness of a debater, his Majesty defends the Episcopal regimen on the principles of Divine Right. And Scotland was not so overrun with the new opinions as to lack other defenders of Apostolical order. ”

“ The religious Establishment of Scotland is at present selected, from its supposed weakness compared with the Church of England, as the object of the combined attack of the dissenting bodies which at various times have forsaken its communion. Episcopalians, as we are called, let us say in passing, never having belonged to the Presbyterian Establishment, cannot properly be termed dissenters from it; and they never make common cause with dissenters against the present Establishment. ”

“ The answer to the accusation is, I apprehend, that from the non-juring stand-point the contention was, not for a sentiment, but for a distinct religious principle; that what is contemptuously termed a sentiment was to the non-jurors a solemn duty. The oath of allegiance then, it should be remembered, was not the same which the Revolution Settlement subsequently considerably modified, and which is now taken by the Queen's subjects. ”

“ Of late, another step in advance has been taken, and the "service" is occasionally performed at the open grave, in defiance of the "Directory," by the minister arrayed in gown, hood, and bands; and very recently another venture has been made, and the minister so vested, has actually been seen, Prayer Book in hand, boldly reading the Church's Burial Office at the interment. The change, whatever it may lead to, is most marked, and very marvellous. The last small attempt at persecution that I know about happened to myself, shortly after I became a clergyman. ”

“ The nobility and gentry could not attend the Episcopal worship, save at the risk of pains and penalties, and they would not attend the Presbyterian worship; the result in many cases being the utter neglect of any religious profession whatever, and an immoral life and conversation. So violent and persistent was the persecution, that even the most hopeful began to despair of any successors to the hunted and harried Clergy, many of whom were languishing in prison, or were in penal banishment ”

“ It is to be observed that many of the dispossessed Clergy, when left at liberty to do it, had introduced the Book of Common Prayer into their churches, many of them being the parish churches, of which public opinion was strong enough to help them to keep possession. During the whole of Anne's reign, the substitution of the Prayer Book Offices for the extemporaneous worship of the late Establishment period, went on rapidly; and to encourage it, the Queen sent a farther gift of a large impression of the Folio Prayer Book for the use of the Clergy in the public services of the Church. ”

“ On the marching north of a party of Argyle's army, the Presbyterians took advantage to threaten those Clergy with imprisonment, which put those who could do so under the necessity to abscond." As showing that the military were acting at the instigation of the Presbyterian authorities, and that the persecution was quite as much a religious as a political one, it is noticeable that in the churches of the Aberdeen Diocese, where the extempore mode of worship still continued, the Clergy were not at first interfered with. ”

“ Symptoms of rebellion, however, are of late cropping up in favour of its restoration as a day of religious observance. Places of worship, both Established and Free, are being opened in increasing numbers on Christmas Day, in some cases with ornate ritualistic services. A few years more, and the edict against High Days and Holy Days will probably be formally repealed, and Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost be observed throughout Scotland, as those Festivals are among the Lutheran communities in Germany and Scandinavia, and even in Presbyterian Holland. ”

“ The politico-religious dissenters seem aware of the hopelessness, as yet, of attacking the English Establishment, which continues firm in the affections of the great majority of the people, and whose roots are entwined with the social system of England, and the institutions of the realm. ”

“ Robert Chambers, one not likely to risk his well earned popularity lightly, is "constrained," he tells us, "as an act of common justice," to speak of Lord Dundee in these terms:—"Colonel Graham of Claverhouse, as Constable of Dundee, represented to the Privy Council that he found several persons in prison there for theft, 'which will,' said he, 'be fittter to be punished otherwise than by death.'" We all know that within the memory of the present generation theft was a capital offence; so merciful, long in advance of the temper of the age, was Graham of Claverhouse. ”

“ The Church of Scotland's mission is, of course, an undying one, unless she is to settle down, as was at one time, and not so very long ago, but too likely, into a few fashionable Chapels for the accommodation of the rich; where the poor were not expected, and were not made welcome. ”

“ In my early youth, the dark shadow of the persecuting times, although direct persecution by the State had ceased, still brooded over the elder Clergy. They shrank from observation. The Bishops never allowed, if they could help it, the mention of an Episcopal act to appear in the newspapers; afraid that outsiders should come to know that there were live Bishops in Scotland. Our Churches were all Chapels; which term was in current use both in town and country, Edinburgh not excepted, until within something less than fifty years since ”

“ The Revolutioners would not have dared to spill the King's blood, nor would public opinion have suffered it. So, in running away, he simply played into the hands of his enemies. But the flight of the King rendered the throne de facto vacant; although, as its de jure possessor, he only waited for better times to return to it. William of Orange, the Dutch usurper, invited over by the faction who traded in disloyalty, sat in his father-in-law's seat, along with Mary his wife, the King's eldest daughter; she the Goneril of her day, as her sister Anne was the Regan. ”

“ They are fast drifting from their old moorings. Increasing numbers of them are beginning to realize something of the beauty of liturgical worship. Many are deploring our unhappy divisions, which give such occasion to infidels to blaspheme, and are longing for the blessedness of a corporate re-union, which would present an Established Church of Scotland, with peer and peasant worshipping side by side ”