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A59415
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An account of the late establishment of Presbyterian-government by the Parliament of Scotland anno 1690 together with the methods by which it was settled, and the consequences of it : as also several publick acts, speeches, pleadings, and other matters of importance relating to the Church in that kingdom : to which is added a summary of the visitation of the universities there in a fifth letter from a gentleman at Edinburgh, to his friend at London.
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Sage, John, 1652-1711.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing S284; ESTC R13590
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68,884
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110
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to their Nature to Preach little Stories to the People and since most of the Churches of the Southern Shires of Scotland were vacant they might plant themselves in the most plentiful Livings and so leave the Aberdonians for a while in Possession of the Northern University whether for the Reasons lately mentioned or because perhaps the present Professors of Aberdeen are of a more yielding Temper than their inflexible Predecessors Dr. Baron and Dr. Forbes c. they continue still in their Places They are all of them very deserving Men and it is good for that part of the Nation that they have been more gently treated than their Neighbours I have given you this short touch of the Visiting our Universities and Colleges but no doubt you have the Acquaintance of some in all of them to whom you may write as freely as to me and from whom you may expect greater satisfaction than I am able to give you And now I hope you will allow me to draw to a Conclusion for this time And Pardon all the failings in Language and Method I am c. A Proclamation against the owning of the late King Iames and appointing publick Prayers for VVilliam and Mary King and Queen of Scotland April 13. 1689. THE Estates of the Kingdom of Scotland having Proclamed and Declared William and Mary King and Queen of England France and Ireland to be King and Queen of Scotland They have thought fit by publick Proclamation to Certifie the Leidges that none presume to own or acknowledge the late King James the Seventh for their King nor obey nor accept or assist any Commissions or Orders that may be emitted by him or any way to Correspond with him and that none presume upon their highest Peril by Word Writing in Sermons or any other manner of way to impugn or disown the Royal Authority of William and Mary King and Queen of Scotland But that all the Leidges tender their dutiful Obedience to Their Majesties And that none presume to misconstrue the proceeding of the Estates or to create Iealousies or Misapprehensions of the Actings of the Government but that all the Ministers of the Gospel within the Kingdom publickly Pray for King William and Queen Mary as King and Queen of this Realm And the Estates do require the Ministers within the City of Edenburgh under the pain of being deprived and losing their Benefices to read this Proclamation publickly from their Pulpits upon Sunday next being the 14th Instant at the end of their Forenoons Sermons and all the Ministers on this side of the River of Tay to read the same upon Sunday thereafter the 21st Instant and those benorth Tay upon the 28th Instant under the pain foresaid Discharging hereby the Proclamation of the Council dated the 16th of September 1686. to be Read hereafter in Churches And the Estates do Prohibit and Discharge any Injury to be offered by any Person whatsomever to any Ministers of the Gospel either in Churches or Meeting-houses who are presently in the Possession and Exercise of their Ministry therein they behaving themselves as becomes under the present Government and Ordains this Proclamation to be Publisht at the Mercat-Cross of Edenburgh with all ordinary Solemnity that none may pretend Ignorance And that the same may be Printed The SPEECH of WILLIAM Earl of CRAWFURD President to the Parliament of Scotland the 22d of April 1690. My Lords and Gentlemen I May say with Nehemiah to the Nobles Rulers and rest of this Honourable Assembly The Work before us is great Let us not be separated upon the Wall one far from another and our God will do for us Our Religion Church-Government Publick Safety Laws and Liberties are all at stake and the Enemy is watching for our halting in our endeavours for every one of them Yet if God countenance us so that Duty be made plain and we be helped to follow it we are under the Protection of a Prince who is a great Iudge where our true Interest lies and I am convinced will frankly deal to us whatever upon a just Claim we shall apply for His Majesties Printed Instructions for last Session are plain evidences of His tender Regard of His People and contain greater Condescensions than we have seen or read of in the Reigns of any of our Kings for many Ages But I trust this new Dyet will compleat that Tranquillity which we so impatiently wish and wait for And that we shall be engaged to say of his Majesty as the Queen of Sheba did of Solomon Blessed be the Lord thy God which delighted in thee to set thee on the Throne because the Lord loved us therefore made he thee King to do Judgment and Justice It were a suitable Return to his Majesty for the great things He hath done for us to repose an intire Trust in Him and evidence a true Zeal for His Service which in this Critical time as it would be most satisfying and engaging to so generous a Prince So it would be of notable advantage to His and our Affairs Were it not a seasonable part to guard against Prejudices towards one another and when all is at Stake to part with trivial Differences our Enemies only reaping advantage by them and to employ our selves to the outmost for the Settlement of our Church the Defence of the Kingdom and the Enacting of other good Laws now under our Consideration That we may comfortably and fully partake of the wonderful Deliverance God hath wrought for us If in our last Session we had begun at the House of God other things might have framed better in our hands hath not the Church suffered sadly by our Differences And have not our delays made the Work more difficult The Opposition at home and Clamour abroad had certainly been less and many honest suffering Ministers ere now had been relieved of their Pinches if a greater Dispatch had been made But what if any remaining Obstacle should prove a real Disappointment in the Establishing of our Church would not the blame be lodged at our own Door Some are at the same Language that was spoken in Haggai ' s days The time is not come that the Lord's House should be built To such I shall give the Prophets Answer Is it time for you to dwell in your Cieled Houses and this House lie wast We have occasion with Ezra to bless the Lord God of our Fathers that the stop is not at the King's Door but that he hath put such a thing as this in his Heart to Beautifie his House with that Model which shall be suited to the Inclinations of the People which I trust will be squared to the Pattern that was shewed in the Mount and not meerly regulated by humane Policy We are threatned by a Foreign Enemy our Country is infested at home and the Kingdom sadly exposed to many great Inconveniencies What should become of us if His Majesty withdrew His special Protection and we were left to the rage of our Enemies
generally forbore the exercise of their Ministry and deserted their Flocks whether they did so from a mistaken Conceit That the Church could not be served without them and that ere long the Government would find it self obliged to give them their Will and court them to return to their Charges as many then judged I shall not now affirm but that they actually did so is so very notorious that to this very day they themselves dare not deny it And there is nothing better known than that they have more than once condemned themselves and been condemned by the most judicious of their Parry for parting so tamely with their Churches And now Sir Considering all I have said where was the necessity of either Accusation or Citation How ordinary is it in all Kingdoms and Commonwealths to prescribe such terms by Law as whosoever shall not perform shall be deprived of such and such publick encouragements without further process of Law Need I rub up your Memory for Example or have you not one fresh before your Eyes in the Kingdom of England Besides it had been absolutely improper in their case for the Parliament was not to punish them as indeed it did not but only it did declare that they had no Title as it was evident they had none I will only add one thing more upon this Head suppose nothing could have been said in vindication of their deprivation or rather dispossession but it had been truly unjust yet methinks it will very ill become the Presbyterian Party ever after the years 1688. and 1689. to open their Mouths about it considering how many Ministers who had without Controversie entered to their charges according to Law were most barbarously turn'd out of their Churches by pure force and Rabble and all this was justified and their Churches thereupon declar'd vacant by I need not tell you whom but of this more afterwards And so much at present about the dispossession of the Presbyterian Ministers Anno 1662. But I have not yet done with our Act of Parliament which restored them For Besides the good Office it did them we must try if it did any bad Offices to any other and here I think we may make short work of it For you can no sooner set your Eye upon it than you may see that where the Churches were not vacant i. e. where at the date of the Act viz. the 25 of April 1690. they were possessed by the Episcopal Clergy from which the Presbyterians had been thrust out their restitution to them is declar'd to be to the half of the Benefice and Stipend due and payable at Michaelmas Anno 1689. for the half year immediately preceding betwixt Whitsunday and Michaelmas and the present Prelatical Incumbent shall have right only to the other half payable at Whitsunday And withal to the effect the Presbyterian Ministers may meet with no stop or hinderance in entering immediately to their Charges the present Incumbents in such Churches are appointed upon intimation of this Act to desist from their Ministry in these Parishes and to remove themselves from the Mauses and Glebes thereto belonging betwixt and Whitsunday next to come that is in six weeks time or perhaps six days just as the intimation shall be made Now Not to insist on their case who had made no Compliance with the Civil Government because I know not what severities their sin may merit I would only ask you what may be thought of the case of those who had complied with the present Civil Government and had still continued in the exercise of their Ministry at their respective Churches many of them till near Whitsunday 1690. and some of them after it whether was it equitable or not thus to deprive them of a whole years Benefice for which they had served and notwithstanding they were as good Subjects as their Majesties could desire to turn them out of their Churches to which they had entered according to Law without the least ground of hope to be provided of other Churches or Livings Are they protected and encouraged according to the merit of their compliance Will this usage they have met with be a good Motive for prevailing with the scrupulous to bring them into a dutiful submission to the Government Well the good Old Cause is a wonderful thing what can it not justifie But enough of this And so I have done with the second Act of the last Session of Parliament which concerned the Church or the Clergy Only Before I proceed to the next it will not be amiss I think to hint at some of its effects I think you will not be very unwilling to believe that those known sound Gentlemen in whose favour it was made would be forward enough to have it put in execution and indeed there was no want of zeal that way but whether according to the strictest Rules of Christian simplicity and self denial in all instances you may judge by these two at the present The first shall be the famous Mr. Iames Kirtoun one of the most noted Presbyterian Preachers in the whole Kingdom This known sound Man had entered by the thing called the Popular Call to the Church of Martin in the last times of Presbytery and had been deprived with the rest in the year 1662. When K. Iames gave his toleration Anno 1687. he was preferred to a Meeting-house in Edinburgh where it seems he found better encouragement than he expected to meet with if he should return to his own Country-parish of Martin And in this Meeting-house he continued till after this Act of Parliament passed Mr. Meldrum the Episcopal Minister at Martin had complied with the Civil Government and done all Duty and so continued still in the exercise of his Ministry there till toward the end of August 1690. that is ten or twelve weeks after Whitsunday and not till then it was that good Mr. Kirkton went to visit his poor old Parish But then he went indeed with Energy sutable to his Party for no sooner arrived he there but presently he turned peremptory demanded the benefit of the Act of Parliament thrust Meldrum from the Parsonage-house and the Church preached two Sundays there and secured thereby his Title to the whole Benefice from Whitsunday 1689. and then returned to Edinburgh where as I hear he has still resided since without ever more minding his old Flock at Martin and who can blame him For every one who knows them both knows that Edinburgh is a much better place and now he has left his Meeting house and possessed himself of a Church in that City after a certain sort of providential manner but I will not trouble you with an account of it at present hoping that you may learn it shortly from another hand In the mean time Martin continues still vacant Kirkton is wiser as I have said than to put it in the ballance with Edinburgh The rest of the Presbyterian Divines think it reasonable to take the best Benefices so long