our version of the Psalms was published, in the year 1649. And seeing there are many copies of the said version lying on the author's hands, it is recommended to ministers and others to buy the same for private use in the mean time."* After appointing their next meeting to be holden at Edinburgh upon the second Thursday of April, 1709, the assembly, on the twenty-seventh of April, was dissolved with the usual formalities, having conducted themselves with so much prudence as to dissipate, in some degree, the fears of the wise, and to disappoint the expectations of the disloyal, who were still watching for a subject which they might improve for inflaming the public mind, and goading on the unthinking to deeds of violence and disorder.

10th, If any be tarnished with errors, or given to vice, they should be particularly dealt with, and spoken to, either privately or before others, as may be most for edification, and all are to be exhorted that are in the family to watch and edify one another, and to carry toward any that walk disorderly, according to the rule. Matth. xviii. 15.

11th, As the minister is to exhort all in the family to peace and love among themselves and their neighbours, so if there be any difference or division either in the family, or with the neighbours, the minister should endeavour to remove the same, and to make peace, and to excite to follow it with all men, as far as possible.

12th, It may also be inquired at those who received tokens to communicate the last season for it, whether they have made use of them or not, and those who have communicate, may be inquired privately, how they have profited thereby, and excited to remember and pay their vows to the Lord.

13th, If there be any in the parish who keep not church communion with us, whatever their motives be, ministers ought to deal with God for them, and with themselves in such a way as may be most proper to gain them, and exoner our own consciences before God and his people, waiting if God peradventure will prevail with them: Who can tell but our making them sensible of our tender love and affection to their persons, especially to their souls, giving all due respect, and doing them all the good we can, yet still discountenancing their sin; may, in the end, be blessed of God for their good? Jude, 22, 23. 2 Timothy, ii. 24, 25.

Seeing there is need for all this, of much prudence, zeal for God, and love to souls, and affectionate seriousness; all this should be carried on with dependance on God, and fervent prayer to him, both before a minister set forth for such work, and with the visited, as there shall be access to, and opportunity for it.

• Notwithstanding of this, these songs were not authorized for many years after this.

THE

HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.

BOOK II.

1708-1714.

Increase and activity of Jacobite alarmists among the English Tories-Dr. Sacheveral, his trial and sentence-Revolution in the British Cabinet-Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Scotish Church-Designs against her independency-Meeting of Parliament-Party struggle-Duke of Marlborough-Duke of Argyle in SpainGeneral Hill-Ineffectual attempts to improve Scotish commerce-General Assembly -Attempts in favour of Episcopacy-Mr. Greenshields-Medal of the ChevalierRejected by the Faculty of Advocates-Jacobites apply to the king of France-Lesly's Memorial-Chevalier's letter to the Queen-Secret negotiations with France- The duke of Hamilton refused a seat in the house of lords-Twelve new peers-Jealousy between the lords Mar and Ilay-Act tolerating Episcopacy in Scotland, and imposing the oath of abjuration-Restoring lay patronages-Restoring holidays-Schism bill revived under a new name-General Assembly-Queen's letter to the Assembly-Assembly solicits a redress of grievances-Results of the oath of Abjuration-Successful exertions of the Papists and nonjuring Episcopalians—Covenants renewed at Auchensaugh by the societies of Old Dissenters-Mysterious procedure of these societiesIn vain attempt to erect a Presbytery-Exultation of the Jacobites-Perplexity of the Queen-Bolingbroke sent to Paris-Duke of Hamilton and lord Mohun-Character of the duke of Hamilton-The duke of Shrewsbury sent to France-De Aumont arrives in England-Peace concluded-Scotish Addresses-Alarm for the Protestant interest-Act of Assembly respecting the oath of Abjuration-Malt tax extended to Scotland-Attempt to dissolve the Union-Act for securing the purity of Scotish elections-Parliamentary Address respecting the residence of the Pretender-Activity of the Jacobites in the Scotish Elections-The new Parliament-PamphleteersEfforts of the Scotish Jacobites in the House of Commons--Dissensions among them - Queen offers a reward for apprehending the Pretender-Difficulties of the Scotish Church-Whig commanders dismissed from the army-Men enlisted for the Pretender -Seditious meetings in Scotland-Hanover Club-Disunion in the Cabinet-Bolingbroke and Oxford, their characters-Resignation of the latter-Death and character of the Queen.

ABOUT this time the English tories, in conjunction with the papists and nonjuring episcopalians, began to exert themselves with more than ordinary vigour, to increase their numbers, and to manifest themselves to be violent Jacobites. In pursuance of their seditious designs, clubs were formed in every quarter of the kingdom, by means of which, they maintained

a close correspondence with one another, were enabled to propagate insidious surmises simultaneously over the whole kingdom, and to give fatal effect to the most wild and improbable falsehoods.*

The danger of the church had long been a fruitful topic of declamation with the demagogues of this faction, and now they asserted that the crisis had arrived, when, without the aid of all her friends and the special interposition of heaven, her fall behoved to be immediate, and her ruin irretrievable. That the real originators of this alarm knew it to be false, and wished only that it had been true, there cannot be a doubt, for they were, some of them at least, avowed enemies to the whole system of revealed religion; and that the rabble, the great and little vulgar of the English nation, cared not whether it was true or false, may be assumed as equally certain; but it served for a pretext to the ebulitions of discontent and envy, those unhappy inmates which impatience of authority has a natural tendency to generate in vulgar bosoms. It was likewise a subject upon which ignorant fury could pass itself off as exalted and generous enthusiasm, and fanatic groanings could easily be mistaken for the breathings of piety. The party found also, most opportunely, a tool eminently qualified for their purposes in Dr. Henry Sacheveral, rector of St. Saviour's in Southwark, a man endowed with a very small portion of either learning or common sense, but possessed of fiery zeal, great pomposity, considerable plausibility of manner, and entirely devoted to what he supposed the interests of his order-episcopal dignity, founded on the divine and illimitable power of kings. Hating the dissenters, and affecting horror at the whigs, whose liberal maxims of government tended to moderate the rigour of high church tyranny, he seized every opportunity of vilifying both the one and the other. This liberty he particularly assumed in a sermon before the assize at Derby, in the month of August this year, and in another preached in St. Paul's, on the fifth of November, the anniversary of the gunpowder treason, in both of

* Rae's History of the Rebellion, pp. 4, 5. Supplement to the History of the reign of queen Anne, p. 56.

which, he declaimed against the dissenters, and in favour of nonresistance, with great intemperance, declaring all who favoured the one or opposed the other false brethren, from whose hollow friendship the most fatal dangers were to be apprehended.

These hollow harangues, of which it would be difficult to determine whether imbecility or absurdity were the predominating qualities, met with the entire approbation of the tories, and were with all convenient speed issued from the press, the first, under the title of The Communion of Sin, with a seditious dedication to George Sacheveral, a relation of his own, and at the time high sheriff of Derbyshire, through whose influence he had obtained the honour of preaching it before the assize at Derby; the latter, under the title of The Perils of False Brethren, dedicated to Sir Samuel Garrard, at that time lord mayor of London. Like many other trifles favoured by circumstances, they obtained, especially the last, a prodigious circulation, upwards of forty thousand copies being called for in the space of a few days, and, inane and foolish as they were, as if they had contained the essence of theological and political wisdom, literally absorbed, for a time, the attention of the whole British nation.

Though dignified with the appellation of sermons, these compositions were neither more nor less than paltry libels upon the constitution and the existing government of the country-were probably intended as such by their author, and, as such, were understood and patronised by their myriad host of admirers, and could not, perhaps, with propriety have been entirely overlooked by the guardians of the public tranquillity-but the manner in which they were noticed was imprudent and impolitic, tending to magnify that which folly and frenzy had already invested with extraordinary dimensions, and which, left to itself, had speedily shrunk into its native insignificancy. They were unfortunately complained of in the house of commons, where they were declared to be scandalous and seditious libels, and the author ordered to be brought to the bar of the house.

When brought before the house, the doctor boldly avowed

himself author of the publications complained of, without offering either apology or recantation. He was immediately ordered into custody, and it was resolved to impeach him at the bar of the house of lords, in the name of the commons of England. This unlucky determination at once converted, in the estimation of the vulgar who were opposed to him, an ignorant, railing, fanatic--who, if noticed at all, ought to have been sent to St. Luke's, or for a few weeks to the house of correction-into an offender of the highest rank and character, whose crimes it required the concentrated wisdom of the nation to appreciate, and all its authority, put forth in the most imposing form, to punish; but, in the estimation of his own party, which included papists and semipapists, Jacobites, and tories of every description, it exalted him into a saint of the first magnitude, whose martyrdom, effected by this parade of authority without law, was to be only precursory to the downfal of the church, and the subversion of all that had hitherto been accounted regular or legal authority. Sacheveral and the church became at once convertible terms, and prayers for the deliverance of the one, in public and in private, were unblushingly offered up, as including the prosperity and the perpetuity of the other.*

Many of the leading tories had sense enough secretly to despise this puerile species of blasphemy, for they knew the man, and his morals were not more exalted than his genius,† but they prompted it by every possible mean, expecting that in the issue the profit would be all their own, and for this purpose, the long interval that necessarily elapsed before his trial could be brought on afforded them peculiar facilities.

The doctor was impeached and taken into custody on the fourteenth of December, and the christmas holidays intervening, the articles of impeachment were postponed till the ninth of January following. The commons having voted that a committee of the whole house should attend the trial, a new delay became necessary till Westminster hall should be fitted

*Sommerville's History of Great Britain during the reign of queen Anne. + That Sacheveral was held in great contempt by the tory ministers, notwithstanding the services he had done them, we learn from Swift's Journal. "He hates," says this caustic observer," the new ministers mortally, and they hate him, and pretend to despise him too."