method of this work to one who is so good a judge, and hath far more ripeness in this matter than I can pretend to. But according to my plain rough way with my friends, I just dash down what strikes me in the head when writing. In an introduction I would have the matter of our Culdees handled, which I own nobody yet hath done to any purpose, save the hints Sir James Dalrymple hath given us in his collections; and yet I am assured by one who has considered this matter, and understands that old part of our history as well as any in this country, that much more might be gathered about them. And I am assured Mr Anderson, our General Postmaster, whom I suppose you know, hath made some valuable advances with relation to them. I take them to have entertained a noble struggle, not only for religion and its purity against Rome, but even for liberty against the encroachments of our Princes. And I sometimes fancy that brave manly temper that appeared before and after the Reformation, and till the union of the crowns, among Scotsmen, was in part owing to them, and the seeds and principles they left before their utter extirpation; of which you have given so good evidences from our old constitution i[n the] valuable paper you published about 1703.

As to the period from the Reformation to the union of the crowns, I would not be much for reprinting much of what we have already in Calderwood, Knox, whom I should have begun with, Petrie, and Spotswood. The line and thread of matter of fact would be continued, and references for fuller accounts made to them. But I wish the unhappy turns that Spotswood gives to matters, and the facts which, as a complete party man, he suppresseth, were taken notice of, and his disingenuity exposed, which you will be in case to do from the MSS. of his you have.

Besides the large MSS. of Calderwood, you may have considerable helps in this period from several accounts writt in that time, and before King James' death. I have Mr James Melville's Memoirs of forty or fifty sheet. Another history, said to be Mr John Davidson's, about thirty sheet. Mr John Forbes' account of the Assembly at Aberdeen, and the trial of the Ministers at Lin

lithgow, with the reasonings at full length, about twenty sheet. Mr John Row of Carnock's History, which is pretty large, and contains many valuable hints as to lives and characters of our Ministers and others, before the union of the crowns, I have not met with elsewhere. You have Mr Scot of Coupar's Apologetical Narration, and the authentic Acts of Assembly. Balfour's Annals are at Glasgow, but it's mostly as to civil matters. I have just now got copies of a good many letters 'twixt Queen Elizabeth and King James, which Sir James Balfour doubled off the originals, with some other papers relative to that time. I have likewise a large history from the Reformation to the 1610, writt at that time, I don't know by whom, of near two hundred sheet, which is only ecclesiastical, and hath the proceeding of our Assemblies embodied with it. And Arch. Simson, Minister at Dalkeith, his "Annales Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ," writt in a noble style of Latin, about thirty sheet. It reaches from the Reformation to King James' death.

There are some hints not despicable in Mr Blair and Livingstoun's Life for the period 'twixt the 1625 to the 1637. And in the 1637, 1638, and 1639, we have great numbers of papers, narratives, and controversies about the Service Book. I have the proceedings of the Assemblies 1638 and 1639, with their reasonings at great length, twenty or thirty sheet each. From thence to the 1660, there is no want of memorials. I have the autograph Acts of Assembly, from the 1642-1646, in two folios, but wanting some leaves. The rest of them are at Edinburgh with the Registers of the Commission. I have a large account of the Assembly at Aberdeen 1640 or 1641. Bishop Guthrie's account of this period is printed, and I have Sir James Turner's Remarks upon him, which are but short. A valuable MS. is lately come to my hands, which was once in Mr Robert Douglas' possession, a History of the Church and State of Scotland, from the 1638 to 1647, upwards of one hundred sheet, in a fair hand; and two volumes in folio, entitled, "Register of Letters, Actings, and Proceedings," from 1654-1661, signed by Mr Ker, the Church Clerk. It contains nothing but copies of letters 'twixt our Scots Noblemen and Ministers and Cromwell, and the

English Managers and Ministers. It came to me only within this fortnight, and I can only say it's a rich treasure. Out of it I hope to get considerable accounts of the overturning of our religion and liberty at the Restoration. The two volumes will contain about five hundred sheet.

After the Restoration I mind nothing save Mr Kirkton's MS. History, which I have, and it was of use to me as far as he goes, which is only to Bothwell. Thus you have a hint of what is in my hands. I have forgot what I reckon the most valuable thing we have remaining, betwixt the 1638 and 1660, and that is four large folios of Mr Robert Baillie's Letters, and the most considerable public papers not in print interspersed, which I have by me from his grandchildren. He wrote almost every post when in England, and you know he was much there from the 1641-1648, and he gives the best account of the Assembly at Westminster I

ever saw.

your

Wherein I can be helpful to you from any of these, you may freely command me, and I shall most cheerfully communicate with you copies of any of them that are my own, or copy for myself, and extracts out of others of them, in any point you desire to be satisfied in; and I'll presume you will not grudge me copies of any things you have that are communicable; and as large an account as you can give me of the MSS. and papers in hands. My Lord Warriston's papers, if they be his Diary, which I am told is in his son's hands, were I as loose-footed as I have been, I could come to London to have the benefit of reading it, not so much for the historical hints, which no doubt are valuable, but especially for his religion and close living with his God, and his rare experiences in prayer. I have a good many of his letters and papers about the unhappy differences in MSS.

To be sure, by this time I have wearied you with two long scrawls. I very much long to hear from you, and well assure myself you cannot weary me. Principal Stirling tells me you are beginning the Atlas for Scotland; and if I can give you any assistance from a collection I made long since of fossils and formed stones, curious

enough in their kinds, I gathered hereabout, and some Roman coins and instruments in my hands, dug up here, they shall be communicate to you. I must break off, with my best wishes that you may be preserved in health long to be useful for your God and country; and am, dear Sir, yours most sincerely and affectionately.

Sept. 23, 1717.

LETTER XCVII.

PATRONAGES.

To the Honourable Colonel Erskine, at London.

Sept. 28, 1717.

DEAR SIR,-It is very satisfying to me to think you are to be at London this winter during the session of Parliament, wherein it's probable the business of Patronages will come in, than which they can scarce have any affair before them of greater importance to this Church. I heartily wish the affair of the Toleration were set upon its true foot, and that boundless favour, granted in a period wherein a plot was carrying on against every thing valuable among us, to a set of people as much under a foreign jurisdiction and influence as Papists themselves, were stopped; and I could undertake to evince that upon the very same grounds upon which a legal favour and toleration is refused to Papists, it ought to be refused to Scots Prelatists. And I hope our Parliament Members are all so hearty for our present happy establishment in the Royal Family, that as one man they will go in effectually to curb that party who have so shamefully abused both the toleration they got, and the gracious indemnity granted to many of them since.

And although, in my view of things, the continuance of the power of patrons, at least in a considerable part of this national Church,

will have the same evil consequences in the issue to the civil government, and was palmed upon us as a part of the same plot against our religion and liberties; yet I am apprehensive a great many either do not or will not observe this; notwithstanding, it will appear that greater numbers of the persons invested with this unaccountable power than many suspect, are not very favourable to the true interests of the Church of Scotland, which are twisted in with the Protestant succession; and I wish I had not ground to add, that some of them are none of the firmest friends to our rightful civil government under King George.

But what lies most upon my spirit in this matter is the ruining consequences the continuance of the act for patrons' power will have upon the interests of real religion among us; and it's the sense of this, as well as your repeated desires to have my thoughts upon this matter as it stands at present, which have given you the trouble of this at this juncture; and if I can be so happy as to suggest any thing that may be useful to you in conversation with Members of Parliament, this is all I have in prospect.

That I may cast my thoughts upon this head into some kind of shape, I design to consider what hath been our circumstances, as to the settlement of congregations since the Reformation, and especially since the glorious Revolution; and what we ought to be at in this matter, and humbly expect such a King as we enjoy by the Divine mercy, and such a Parliament as now he hath, will do for us in this Church. And, lastly, what we ourselves may and ought to do in the mean time till that happy season come. And under these I shall take the liberty to lay before you what offers to me upon this important subject, to be improven and ripened by yourself.

Once I designed to have looked over what hath been writ on patronages, both at their reimposition under prelacy, and by several good hands in 1703, (when the Jacobites here [were] under the headship of one who was formerly a promoter of the divisions of this Church, under mask, and a muddy divine, and mystical philosopher,) and given you the substance of the arguments pro and con.