INTRODUCTION.
The first annunciation of the gospel in Eden to fallen man, was accompanied with an assurance of persecution:—“I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” And the same was explicitly renewed under the New Testament dispensation, where it is declared with peculiar emphasis—“Yea, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” But, like “the primal curse, ’tis softened into mercy;” nay more, it is transformed into a blessing—“Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake: rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven.” That these promises have been made good, the history of the Church in all ages bears testimony; and there is no testimony stronger than that of the Church in Scotland, whether we consider the fiery trials she has gone through, or the noble records her martyrs have left to the truth and faithfulness of God.
Christianity appears to have been introduced at a very early period, and never to have been wholly extinguished by the idolatries of Rome, in the south-westerndistricts, where the Lollards of Kyle arose as harbingers of the Reformation, some time towards the end of the fourteenth century. In the year 1407, James Resby, an English presbyter, and a disciple of Wickliffe, was burned for Lollardism in Scotland, especially for interspersing these most dangerous dogmas in his sermons, “that a Pope was not in fact the vicar of Christ; nor could any Pope be so, unless he was holy;” besides forty other similar or worse conclusions, and his tenets spread widely. He was followed, 1431, by Paul Craw, “deprehendit,” says Knox, “in the Universitie of Sanct Androis, and accusit of Heresie before suche as wer called Doctors of Theologie,” and sent to expiate his errors in the flames. At his execution, they put “ane ball of bras in his mouthe to the end that he sould not gif confession of his faythe to the pepill, neyther yit that thai sould understand the defence which he hade agains thair unjust accusation and condemnation.”
The political anarchy and confusion which prevailed in Scotland at this time, and in which the priests took an active share, seem to have diverted their attention for a while from prosecuting their schemes against the new obnoxious opinions; but when Luther shook the papacy, and his doctrines gaining ground on every side, had stirred up their slumbering hatred, the renovated warfare was announced by the martyrdom of Mr Patrick Hamilton and of “the Scottish John Baptist,” as Mr George Wishart has been styled. But the prelates, who had shut their eyes to the signs of the times, grievously miscalculated. The ministry of these two eminent men had produced on the already prepared population, a disposition not only to profess the truth themselves, but also to endeavour a national reformation;and their martyrdom hastened the crisis. Instead of terrifying, it enraged the people against the superstition which could require for its support the perpetration of such deadly crime.
During the nominal reign of the unfortunate Mary, but more especially after her flight into England, the cause rapidly progressed; and the Regents, however different in character, were obliged by the circumstances of the times in which they were placed, to aid in its furtherance. The absurd constitution of Scotland, that allowed a child unfit for governing himself to assume the power of governing a nation, occasioned various changes. After the accession of James VI., till previously to his marriage, he acquiesced in the presbyterial government, which, upon his return from Denmark with his queen, he declared in presence of the General Assembly to be “the purest kirk upon earth,” and promised to defend it “against all deadly”—a promise he soon forgot, and forced upon his reluctant subjects a mongrel Episcopacy. This was followed up by his son Charles, who, after some preliminary encroachments, sent down a liturgy with an order to adopt it.
July 23, 1637, was the remarkable day on which the Bishop of Edinburgh, robed in his canonicals, attempted to introduce it in the High Church; but no sooner had he opened the service-book, than an old woman, Janet Geddes by name, threw her stool at his head, which was quickly followed by a number of others, the whole congregation meanwhile crying out—“A Pope! a Pope!” and both the bishop and dean were forced out of the church, and driven home amid a shower of stones, hardly escaping with their lives. Commotions followed, till a free General Assembly met at Glasgow, November21, 1638, where the Presbyterian form of church government was declared and acted upon as the government of the church, most agreeable to the gospel and the law of the land, which was acknowledged by the king at the treaty of Dunselaw, June 18, 1639.
When the civil war broke out, the English parliament convened an Assembly of Divines at Westminster, to which the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland sent four of their chief ministers, not less distinguished for their talents, than revered for their piety—Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherfurd, George Gillespie, and Robert Baillie, accompanied by Lord Maitland, afterwards Duke of Lauderdale, “a man of excellent parts had they been blessed and improven; but as then his reputation was entire.” The Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Directory for Worship, which were here agreed upon, were received and sanctioned in their session 1648, and ratified by the Scottish parliament. For defending these, the persecutions narrated in the following pages were endured.
ANNALS OF THE PERSECUTION.
ANNALS OF THE PERSECUTION.
ANNALS OF THE PERSECUTION.