Note 19 — BOOK II.

At the time when the English ruled, the church of Scotland was divided and subdivided into a variety of sections. The remonstrators themselves divided; some of them, among whom were, Messrs P. Gillespie, Samuel Rutherford, James Durham, William Guthrie of Fenwick, Robert Traill, and other eminently pious men, complied with the ruling powers on the Christian principle of obedience to the powers that be, and the absolute necessity of the case; but they were still more obnoxious to the resolutioners, because they so far agreed with the sectaries, in only considering as members of the church persons who gave proof of practical godliness, and opposed the principle of promiscuous communion and general membership. Against this schism, Principal Baillie was very violent. “This formed schism,” says he, in a letter to Mr W. Spang, “is very bitter to us, but remediless, except on intolerable conditions, which our wise orthodox divines will advise us to accept:—We must embrace, without contradiction, and let grow, the principles of the remonstrants, which all reformed divines, and all states in the world, abhor. We must permit a few heady men to waste our church with our consent or connivance. We must let them frame our people to the sectarian model—a few more forward ones among themselves, by privy meetings, to be the godly party; and the congregation, the rest, to be the rascally malignant multitude; so that the body of our people are to be cast out of all churches; and the few who are countenanced, are fitted, as sundry of them already have done, to embrace the errors of the time for their destruction.” Letters, vol. ii. p. 375. The other section of the remonstrants refused to acknowledge in any manner the power of the usurper, lamented the toleration of sectaries, and maintained, with the resolutioners, the legitimate principles of a national church—that all who attended were to be considered members of that church, unless excommunicated for openly immoral conduct or disobedience to the order and discipline of the church. At the head of this section were, Mr James Guthrie, Warriston, and many others, who bore testimony by their blood to the sincerity of their profession. It is worthy of remark, that the first class were chiefly the older, the second the younger, race of the Presbyterians.