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murder of three archbishops of St. Andrews, and the proscription of the whole episcopal order, with which Christ promised to be till time should merge into eternity." These are matters of fact. Cardinal Beaton, and his successors, Archbishops Hamilton and Sharp, were cruelly and sacrilegiously murdered by religious bigots, who proclaimed that their impious deeds were perpetrated for the glory of God, and were acceptable and well pleasing in his sight. The same religious bigotry which induced the commission of these three murders prompted the covenanted Presbyterians to attempt the murder of Archbishop Spottiswood at the Convention in Stirling; and a like attempt was made on Lindsay, bishop of Edinburgh, on the memorable occasion of the reading the Liturgy in that city. The lives of both these prelates were only preserved by the armed followers of some noblemen, who drove back the mob and rescued them; so that the guilt of sacred blood lies fearfully on that heretical sect, which now affects to call the Church of England a sister church: but at the same time to consider her sister, the episcopal church in their own kingdom, as a dissenting communion.

The traitorous and heretical assembly of Glasgow with unparalleled audacity and rebellion against God, excommunicated the whole of the Scottish bishops, collectively and individually, and declared them infamous. Their excommunication as a religious act was a mere nullity, and is only calculated to move pity and contempt for the bigots who pronounced it; but as a civil act it was of much more serious consequence. In Scotland, an excommunicate person's property was wholly escheated to the crown, and his person declared to be out of the protection of the law, and of course murder or other violence might be committed on him with impunity. Twelve bishops were thus exposed to the tender mercies of religious bigots, to whom murder was familiar, and who were on the watch to assassinate them; but they followed our Lord's recommendation, and fled into England and foreign countries for safety of their lives, where they all died. Moreover, this same excommunication and proscription remains in full force, so far at least as Presbyterian malice and impotent hate can enforce it, at the present hour. At a late miserable exhibition in Edinburgh, which met to commemorate this rebellious and heretical assembly, the blood-thirsty spirit of the seventeenth century showed itself without a blush. Let them know, 66 says M'Crie, a seceder teacher, "that if they arouse again the spirit of Scottish presbyterians, they will find it as firm and as unflinching as ever, The church"-meaning the heretical combination called the Kirk— "of Scotland, when her zeal is once more awakened for the honour of her heavenly King, will pay but small regard to their earth-born and self-anointed dignities. She has already set her foot on the neck of the Pope, and proclaimed him to the world as antichrist; she has deposed and excommunicated bishops, &c." Here is approbation of the past, and an impotent threat of re-enacting the same scenes should it please God in his wrath to subject his Church again to the tender mercies of a savage mob, instigated and excited by presbyterian ministers. At the very time when such sentiments are proclaimed the same men are calling their sect a sister church, while they are only

waiting for the opportunity to spring upon her like the tiger, as they did in the seventeenth century!

These indisputable facts, which are not denied, but rather gloried in, are merely met by a tu quoque, a miserable attempt to show that Presbyterians are not worse than some of their neighbours.

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"Such charges," says Dr. Burns, "hardly merit any notice," nevertheless, he has noticed them through fourteen pages; and, "yet one remark. If this proves any thing against Scotland, we suspect it will be found equally valid to criminate England. If Scotland murdered three archbishops of St. Andrews, England murdered three archbishops of Canterbury, viz., Becket, Cranmer, and Laud; nay, a crime with which even we cannot be charged, England has let loose her sacrilegious fury' against the bishops as well as the primates, and murdered in cold blood, and with the impious mockery of legal solemnity consigned to the flames her Latimers, her Ridleys, and her Hoopers. If the proscription of the whole episcopal order is supposed the crowning act, the unpardonable sin, England was guilty of this also during the com-' monwealth. And yet (so thinks Mr. Stephen) England is in possession of the sacred deposit' still. Let these facts, of which our author in his zeal had lost sight, cheer his drooping spirits. England has been forgiven those most sacrilegious murders,' and who knows but Scotland may be forgiven too?" p. 169.

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The murder of these distinguished individuals is not denied; but their case is very different from the Scottish primates, who were assassinated in cold blood by unauthorized presbyterian miscreants. Becket's murder was the effect of an irritable remark of his sovereign, for which he made atonement in the spirit of the age and of his church, but it was never nationally acknowledged as a just and lawful deed. Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Hooper, suffered martyrdom under the lawful authority of the time being, who in persecuting these saints thought they were doing a meritorious act. But the church and people of England have ever lamented their death. The former has enrolled their names in the noble army of her martyrs; and they live in the hearts and affections of the latter, and are associated with their dearest principles of civil and religious liberty. The case of the martyr Laud-clarum et venerabile nomen-is altogether different from the former; he was the victim of presbyterian venom, his death was the fruit of presbyterian heresy and rebellion, of presbyterian cant and hypocrisy, and of presbyterian blood-guiltiness. The presbyterians sent Commissioners to accuse that great and good man with "novations in religion," as they hypocritically called the Liturgy; with all which," said they, "we challenge the prelate of Canterbury, as the prime cause on earth." "A charge, says Heylin, was laid against him in the House of Peers, by the Scots Commissioners, for doing ill offices, and being an incendiary between the nations. Such was the charge exhibited by the Scots Commissioners; in which was nothing criminal enough to deserve imprisonment, much less to threaten him with death." Accordingly, with this presbyterian sti"and so, mulus, the puritan House of Commons impeached him; says Clarendon, "without troubling themselves farther, they (the puritans) gave orders for his beheading, which he underwent with all Christian courage and magnanimity, to the admiration of beholders and the confusion of his enemies." At Rome, the news of his murder

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1 Heylin's Life of Laud, pp. 346, 347.

produced joy and rejoicing: a certain abbott said, "they had great cause to rejoice, that the greatest enemy of the Church of Rome in England was cut off, and the greatest champion of the church of England silenced." "Thus," says Heylin, " fell Laud, and the church fell with him.":

The blood of these holy men lies upon the heads of the actors in their dreadful tragedies; but not upon the nation as such, which by no public act has ever sanctioned or approved of their deaths. On the contrary, the Church commemorates them as martyrs, with the elect whom God has knit together in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of his Son. Whatever England was guilty of "during the Commonwealth," was the work of Scottish Presbyterians, and their offspring the Independents, but of which her church and churchmen are entirely innocent, having in no sense participated in them. But, says Burns, insultingly, " England has been forgiven those most sacrilegious murders.' We do not take murder and bloodshed so coolly in the Church as they do in the Kirk, where they manage these things more according to the system of the first whig and first murderer. In the case of the royal martyr, as well as his co-martyr Laud and others, the Church prays annually," We thy sinful creatures here assembled before Thee, do, in the behalf of all the people of this land, humbly confess, that they were the crying sins of this nation which brought down this heavy judgment upon us. But, O gracious God, when thou makest inquisition for blood lay not the guilt of this innocent blood (the shedding whereof nothing but the blood of thy Son can expiate) lay it not to the charge of the people of this land; nor let it be required of us or our posterity." Can the Kirk produce such unequivocal evidence of her abhorrence of shedding the blood of saints and martyrs? when she can, then perhaps Dr. Burns' impious sneer, "who knows but Scotland may be forgiven too," may prove true. But we much fear it; although there be many more righteous men in Scotland than would have saved the cities of the plain, who disown and lament the blood-guiltiness of the presbyterians, and who pray daily that the offences of their forefathers may not be remembered; yet the great bulk of the people glory in the guilt of the innocent blood of these prelates. They would not do so were they better instructed, but sundry presbyterian writers, such as Wodrow and his editor, have taken so much pains to indoctrinate the people with the approbation of the murder of these prelates, that it forms a principle of their religion. The sneering question of a presbyterian critic," and who knows but Scotland may be forgiven too?" is an insult to heaven, and is very far from being the language of penitence: it seems rather that of exultation, as if they had done God good service, and as if no repentance were necessary. Wodrow relates all the circumstances of Archbishop Sharp's murder" with the most fraternal sympathy and apologetic tenderness, like a genuine disciple of John Knox;" and Dr. Burns, his editor, adds in an approving note:

1 Heylin's Life of Laud, p. 504.

"It is true he (Wodrow) does not deal in the harsh invective of the high cavalier party on such an occasion, and he would be far from maintaining that the prelate did not, in point of fact, deserve to die. But, he does not defend the manner of the deed, and much less the dangerous principles which led to it. He takes just that view of it which every moderate and fair man, on a proper knowledge of the dreadful state of the country at the time, and the agency of Sharp in the persecutions, will be inclined to take." 1

Dr. Burns breaks out into an ecstacy on the cool judgment, the just discrimination, the godlike mercy of the presbyterian rebels in sparing the life of Sir James Turner. The fact is, that the" fiery ministers," as Burnet calls them, Semple, Maxwell, Welsh, and Guthrie, who had been the chief instruments in exciting the rebellion which was dissipated at Rullion Green, urgently demanded the death of Turner, and the rebels at their instigation clamoured for it; but the leaders seized on the excuse of his not having exceeded his commission to save him from their fury, lest his murder might exasperate the government too much, and render reconciliation impossible. Wodrow, Burns, and others, take great credit for an act of mere prudence, and by no means of godlike mercy; and they lead their readers to infer that Turner's instructions were given by the bishops and clergy, and that he was the mere instrument of their tyranny; a falsehood too gross to need refutation, for even Burnet himself admits that the lies circulated against the clergy were hard to be believed; and that they were much wronged in the reports of their lives by presbyterian malice: and, dictu mirabile monstrum, even Kirkton admits that much of which the bishops and clergy were accused, were mere fabrications for party purposes. "If," says he, you ask what sort of men they (the bishops) were, I cannot but say, though they were very bad, yet the country made them LARGE as wicked as they were.' "1

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The same system of mystifying their partizans, by inferring that the bishops enacted and executed all the laws, and were the sole and irresponsible governors of the kingdom, is still carried on by Dr. Burns. He speaks of the ancient law of patronage as the prelatic restoration of that hateful curse to the church of Scotland, the act of patronage." This, like most presbyterian assertions, is false, both in the fact and the inference. Patronage had ever existed in Scotland, till the rebel Convention during the usurpation set it aside. The act rescissory, removed the bar to its operation, and restored patronage in 1661; and which would have been restored even though presbytery had been established. The clearing away of all the illegal acts, by the act rescissory, and the restoration of the rights of patrons, was accomplished a year before the restoration of prelacy, which did not take place till 1662. The fact being false, the inference intended to be drawn from it, that patronage owes its restoration to the bishops, is likewise false, and is either a most gross perversion of their own intellects in the assertors, or

1 Note to Wodrow's Hist. cited in Life and Times of Abp. Sharp, p. 614. 2 Cited in Life and Times, p. 280.

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else a miserable attempt to mislead and delude their readers, or both. But if patronage be a hateful curse," what must we think of Dr. Burns and others of his mind, who accepted and now hold their livings under this "hateful curse?" Why, they are just like the ancient Pharisees, they make clean the outside of the cup and platter, while the inside is full of extortion and excess-of ravening and wickedness-of lies and hypocrisy-of heresy and schism, and the approbation of blood-guiltiness. If patronage be a hateful curse, why do they not resign those comfortable livings which they hold under it? They must be totally void of all conscientious principle, otherwise they would not continue to enjoy the revenues and usurp the pulpits, into which they clambered by the ladder of patronage, and without ever asking the people whether they were pleased or displeased. Such hypocrisy is to the last degree disgusting, and shows that there are followers of Diotrephes, as well as of Korah, in a community calling themselves Christians.

To be a critic, and an angry one too, Dr. Burns is rather unlucky in ascribing a sentence, page 3, to the author of the Life and Times, which is regularly marked as a quotation from another publication. And he has also ascribed to him a sentiment which is distinguished by the usual marks of quotation, as being the words of Charles II. The words on which Burns has perpetrated some unbecoming levity are, "Charles, however, much to his honour, was fixed in his resolution (to communicate), and said his father always communicated at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsunday, and he was resolved to follow so good an example; besides he did it then to procure a blessing from God on his intended voyage.' ""1 Like a "judicious" critic, Dr. Burns has discovered in King Charles' words, that the author has alleged that the sacraments 66 are useful for procuring prosperous gales and fair weather! which must have rendered them invaluable to the farming and fishing parishioners of Crail!" Such heavy wit upon the pledges of Christ's love-the sacraments-is consistent enough from a man who being a mere layman desecrates them by their administration, and who approves of murder, and fraternally laments the fate of murderers and rebels-" poor Mitchell," "poor man!" Guided by that excellent spirit of criticism which is in the minister of the High Kirk of Paisley, he cannot distinguish a quotation when so marked, not even when the authority from whom it is taken is duly cited at the foot of the page. The author of the Life and Times has quoted from Bishop Russell, and has duly marked the sentence with turned commas. "In the conduct of the rigid covenanters there is nothing more remarkable than the disposition to slander, and the reckless intrepidity with which they scattered around them the most atrocious calumnies." These words are to be found in page 264 of the second volume of Bishop Russell's History of the Church in Scotland. Although Dr. Burns seems to be incapable of distinguishing a quotation when he meets with it, yet he has tact enough to stop precisely at that point where to proceed farther would cast a

1 Life and Times, p. 93.

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