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VIII.

1681.

The act of succession had passed, on the promise of the two brothers to grant every security for the protestant faith which the parliament should require; but the performance of this public and solemn assurance does no credit to the sincerity of James. When demanded so loudly that it could no longer be withheld, the security of the protesTest tant religion was insidiously converted into a test of passive obedience, for the security of the throne. A declaration from persons in office, of their adherence to the protestant religion, was at first proposed. The court party subjoined a recognition of the supremacy, a disavowal of the covenant, and an obligation never to assemble in order to deliberate on civil or ecclesiastical affairs, without the king's permission; never to rise in arms without his authority, nor otherwise to endeavour an alteration of government in church or state. The oath was to be received under the penalty of confiscation, and to be sworn according to its literal acceptation, by all persons in civil, military, or ecclesiastical offices; the king's legitimate brothers or sons excepted: and as the test was meant to incapacitate the presbyterians, it was extended to the whole body of electors, and members elected. to serve in parliament 35.

Opposed with violence.

Such a violent invasion of their privileges excited fierce debates. The presbyterians would have dispensed with the security of religion, to 35 Fountainhall's Memoirs, MS. Burnet, ii. $29.

VIII.

avoid a test which the duke urged as a political BOOK engine, and which the bishops regarded as a salutary expedient for the preservation of their order, 1681. against the danger to be apprehended from a presbyterian parliament. Lord Belhaven observed that, however secure from the effects of innova tions which themselves might attempt, they had no provision to preserve their religion against a popish or fanatical successor; but the words were no sooner uttered than he was sent to the castle. Argyle, with more moderation, deplored the frequency of religious oaths, but opposed the exemption of the royal family, as a permission, if not an encouragement, for men to depart from the national church. If an exemption were to be made, he proposed that it should be expressly confined to the duke; but when the latter rose to resist the motion, Argyle declared in conclusion, that the exception was pernicious to the protestant faith; and notwithstanding a previous intimation which he had given, that he would oppose whatsoever was adverse to religion, his words were observed to produce a deep and indelible impression upon James. But the opposition to the test was ineffectual, nor was a delay admitted for a single night. As it was difficult to ascertain, or to define with accuracy, what was the precise standard of the protestant religion, Dalrymple, the president, suggested as the rule of faith, the earliest confession of the first reformers, framed to expose

VIII.

dictions.

BOOK the errors of popery, and to justify their resistance to the queen regent; and ratified by the first par 1681. liament of James VI. when Mary was compelled to resign her crown. It was artfully proposed as irreconcileable to the test, and had been disused so long to make way for the Westminster confession, that the contents of it were unknown to the illiterate prelates; and were adopted without being understood or even read. The test was accordingly framed, and approved by a majority of seven Its contra- Votes. It appeared when examined, to be a mass of the most absurd contradictions. Along inconsistent oath was prescribed, to adhere, according to this obsolete confession, to the protestant faith, yet by the recognition of supremacy, to conform to whatsoever religion the king might appoint; to maintain the former presbyterian discipline, yet to attempt no alteration in the present episcopal form of the church; to abjure the doctrines, and to renounce the right of resistance, but at the same time, as a religious duty incumbent by the confession upon good subjects, to repress the ty ranny and to resist the oppression of kings. No sincere presbyterian could subscribe the oath. None of the episcopal persuasion could assent conscientiously to the confession of faith. A papist could accept of neither. But when both were conjoined, and when every explication different from the literal sense was disavowed, it was impos sible, without perjury, either to receive the test or

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to reconcile the contradictory terms in which it BOOK was framed 35.

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VIII.

1681.

tions of the

The parliament concluded with little credit to the reputation of James. Whatever were his Explana moral or his private qualities, it was observed that test. he inherited all the obstinacy, and the same species of political insincerity, which his father possessed; but, in the management of parliament, discovered little capacity for the nice conduct of public affairs 37. To evade the promise of an additional security for the protestant faith, he deceived and endeavoured to entangle the presbyterians in an ensnaring test, From his own violence, he was over-reached by Dalrymple, and the oath intended to exclude the presbyterians, was rendered adverse and equally irreconcileable to every religious persuasion and sect. A test contradicted throughout by the confession of faith, was expected to be abandoned; but the court party was inured to political oaths. The duke was determined not to forego the political advantages of a test from which he was relieved himself; a strange example of the nature of persecution, and of his character, in exacting from the presbyterians an acknow. ledgment of the ecclesiastical supremacy of the crown, which his own religion disavowed, and did

36 Burnet, 331. Fountainhall's Mem. MS. Dec. i. 149. Wodrow, ii. 195. Argyle's Case, p. 3. written by Sir James Stewart.

37 Fountainhall's Dec. i. 157.

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BOOK not permit him to subscribe. But the established clergy were the first to dissent. To appease their 1681. scruples, an explanation prepared by Paterson, bishop of Edinburgh, was approved by the privy. council; that it was not meant to assent to every proposition, but to the fundamental articles only, of the confession of faith; and that the apostolical right of episcopacy was neither disowned, nor an alteration of its legal establishment intended by the test. But the oath was to be received in its literal acceptation. Eighty clergymen, more conscientious and pious, resigned their livings, rather than subscribe either to the literal sense or expla nation of the test. The presbyterians mostly de clined the oath. The earl of Queensberry sub. scribed it in council, with a courtly explanation, that the obligation not to attempt an alteration in church or state, implied no opposition to any alte ration introduced by the king 39,

Argyle's explana

tion:

The earl of Argyle, when required by the duke to subscribe the test, was admonished privately, by the bishop of Edinburgh, not to ruin an ancient family, nor to augment the resentment which his opposition had kindled. In the late parliament an attempt had been made, with the duke's concur, rence, to divest him of his family jurisdictions and estate. A special commission was proposed, instead of the ordinary judicatures, in order to examine, or rather to resume the gift of his father's forfei 38 Wodrow, ii. 198. Argyle's Case,

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