STRICTURES ON THE DUKE OF ARGYLL'S ESSAY ON THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF SCOTLAND: IN A LETTER TO HIS GRACE, BY DAVID AITCHISON, M. A., Oxon., ARCHDEACON OF ARGYLL AND THE ISLES. "I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church." LONDON: J. MASTERS, 78 NEW BOND STREET. MDCCCXLIX. STRICTURES, &c. MY LORD DUKE, "THE ecclesiastical history of Scotland since the Reformation," your Grace informs us, "is one which bears assuredly no inviting aspect. To those even who know it best, it is a picture of which the lines are harsh, the colours dark, and the effect disquieting." These remarks are too true to be disputed or denied. In addressing your Grace upon the subject of the Essay with which the public has been favoured, it is not my present intention to re-write the history of what is popularly called the Scottish Reformation. Much has been written upon this subject, and great additional light has been cast upon the characters of the persons engaged in that revolutionary movement. Facts are stubborn things, and the records of the State Paper Office, and other repositories of musty but valuable documents, have yielded to late historians much fresh information, to tarnish, rather than regild, the martyr crowns of some Scottish saints. Wishart, prophet and martyr, as well as heretic, is now discovered to have been an agent, with other notable worthies, in the pay of Henry VIII.; and from the evidence which Mr Tytler has produced, the grounds of suspicion are strong indeed for supposing that Wishart was particeps criminis in the murder of the Cardinal Archbishop of St Andrews. It is not necessary, however, to dwell further upon the guilt of one man, in an age so fertile in deeds of violence and blood. Dark indeed were the colours, and deep the crimson dye, which stain the pages of Scotland's annals for more than two centuries. Had your Grace confined your remarks to a detail of those deplorable events, it would have been unnecessary for me to interfere in the matter: but your Grace has been pleased to assail the Holy Apostolic Scottish Church; and this attack demands, not a defence so much as a repulse, and a cursory examination, in the meantime, of the character of those convulsions. Reformation is, I think, the lovely name which your Grace has affixed to the history of that dark age. Some of the performers in our national reformation, your Grace informs us, "sung psalms among the hills, with the sword in the one hand and the Bible in the other." The carnal weapon of destruction and the word of life form a curious contrast in the hands of ambassadors of Christ, more especially seeing that He Himself has declared, "all they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword." And this He said to St Peter, who had in the excess of his zeal used a sword in His defence. Surely, my Lord Duke, there is something very like what your Grace so often names bigotry in calling that period a reformation, and fighting men reformers. However, as I dont pretend to be any thing else but what liberal and enlightened men call a bigot, I must beg leave to question the right that such men had to the sacred name of reformers. Whatever might have been the mode of Church reform by kings of the old dispensation, acting according to an express and explicit revelation from God, that enjoined and practised in the new or Christian dispensation is of a totally different character. This, however, is undoubtedly certain, that so far as the authority of Scripture is concerned, whenever Almighty God was pleased to bring about a reformation, either in religion or in morals, He gave an extraordinary and unmistakable call to some king or prophet to enter upon the work he would have performed. Any call in the Old Testament, besides that given to the Aaronic priesthood, was of a special and temporary character. That in the New was permanent, and vested in apostles or bishops. But supposing it granted, for argument's sake, that the reforming Lords were justified by the precedent of the kings of Judah and Israel in reforming abuses in the Church; might not the Scottish Bishops be justified, by similar precedent, in punishing schismatics? Take, for example, the instance of Korah, who usurped the priesthood, and in allusion to which sin St Jude speaks of persons perishing in the gainsaying of Korah. It is not, however, my intention, in the slightest degree, to justify persecution in the cause of religion, from whatever quarter it proceeds. The cause of Christ, and the doctrines of the Gospel, ought neither to be propagated nor maintained by carnal weapons. There is much significance in the ancient proverb that, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." They who were martyrs indeed suffered in a righteous cause. They were neither heretics nor schismatics. They suffered because they held the Catholic faith, and not as rebels against them that were set over them in the Lord. If the Scottish Bishops persecuted true believers who taught the whole truth, God would have dealt with them as He pleased. He would have opened the eyes of the Bishops to the truth, and the patient suffering of the martyrs might have been a blessed means of leading them to commence a godly and orderly reformation. The presence of God with his Church, is a great truth which ought ever to be had in remembrance, not as a dormant theory, but as a living and active principle. Where this principle has full sway, there can be no rebellion, no impatience, even on account of wicked rulers. When Israel sinned, God sent evil angels among them. And as there is no power but of God-for the powers that be are ordained of God-so evil rulers are often employed as Divine instruments for the punishment of evil-doers. It is better to tarry the Lord's leisure, than rashly and without a special and Divine call to venture even to reform the Church. God smote Uzzah that he died, when with hasty zeal he put forth his hand to stay the tottering ark. The ark was the Lord's, and He was able to hold it up. Besides the sin of schism which many committed against their own souls, it is impossible to tell how much evil was inflicted on the Church of Scotland by the separation of so many of her members. Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved," were |