1709 to Edinburgh to receive the degree of D.D., mentioning the respect with which he was listened to in the assembly, where he was usually ‘one of the last to speak and for the most part drew the rest unto his opinion,’ his courtesy to opponents, and the ‘harmony between the principal and masters of the college, they expressing a veneration for him as a common father, and he a tenderness for them as if they had all been children.’ A trifling anecdote indicates his kindly and considerate charity. A poor ejected curate of the episcopal church was persuaded to accept a suit of new clothes Carstares had made for himself, under the pious subterfuge that the tailor had mistaken his measure. But Carstares was a stout presbyterian, and could not show the same charity to the episcopal church, of whose Jacobite leanings he was no doubt honestly afraid. In the affair of Greenshields, the Irish curate who ventured to read the liturgy in Edinburgh in public, for which he was imprisoned by the magistrates, whose decision was affirmed by the Scotch court, though reversed on appeal to the House of Lords, he drafted the address from the assembly to the queen, which though more moderate than some of his brethren desired, asserted the exclusive rights of the presbyterian establishment. In 1711 he was for the third time moderator, an honour without parallel, and in his address answered the charge of persecution of the episcopalians by the quotation, ‘Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes?’ This assembly, alarmed by the conduct and character of the tory ministry and the queen's supposed favour for the Stuarts, passed an act recommending prayers ‘for the Princess Sophia and the protestant house’ along with those for the queen. It also passed another requiring a stricter formula of subscription from the clergy. The question of the restoration of patronage having been mooted, Carstares was sent on a deputation to London to protest against it; but in spite of their remonstrances an act for that purpose and another for the toleration of Scots episcopal ministers and the use of the liturgy in Scotland, to which they were equally hostile, were carried in the parliament of 1712. On his return home he counselled moderation to his brethren, whose feelings, heated by these acts, had been brought to a climax by the requirement of the abjuration oath. This oath, under cover of an engagement to support the line of heirs in the English Act of Settlement, by which the monarch must be a member of the English church, was deemed inconsistent with the presbyterian establishment. Carstares set the example of taking the oath, with a declaration that ‘nothing was intended by it inconsistent with the doctrine, worship, discipline, or government of the church established by law,’ and he induced the assembly in 1713 to pass an act charging ministers and people to abstain ‘from all diverse courses upon occasion of different sentiments and practices about the said oath.’ The government appreciated so much his conduct at this dangerous juncture that they consulted him as to who should be named commissioner, and by his advice appointed the Duke of Atholl. On the death of Queen Anne, Carstares was sent on a deputation from the assembly to congratulate George I on his accession, when Carstares made the usual complimentary speech. ‘Some allege,’ Wodrow writes, when the printed speech had come to Scotland, ‘there is too much of compliment and the courtier, and too little of the minister in that to the king.’ Since the days of Knox the ideal of the presbyterian minister's address to the sovereign was exhortation and rebuke, not courtesy or ceremony. On his return Carstares was for the last time elected moderator in the assembly of 1715, and during its sittings distinguished himself as usual by conduct worthy of the title of his office. An attack of apoplexy in August ended in his death, which he awaited ‘with great peace and serenity,’ on 28 Dec. 1715. He was buried in the Grey Friars' churchyard, next to his father's grave, and beside that of Alexander Henderson. His wife was buried in the same place in 1724. They had no children, but Carstares usually had some young relation or friend in his house who was studying at the university. He had a Scotchman's attachment to his kindred, and his letters, especially to his sister, show an affectionate heart not injured by worldly prosperity. A benevolent scheme of his for the support of the deprived nonjurors was ruined through the lukewarmness of the government, who would not grant the necessary funds. In the crowd at his funeral two ejected curates were observed lamenting the loss of their benefactor, who had supported their families out of his own purse. More a statesman than a divine, there has seldom been an ecclesiastic of any church who has taken part in politics with greater honour to himself and advantage to his country than Carstares. A portrait of Carstares by Ackman has often been engraved. Another portrait is in the university of Edinburgh.
[Carstares' State Papers, to which M'Cormick's Memoir is prefixed; Rev. R. H. Story's Life of Carstares; Sir A. Grant's Story of the University of Edinburgh.]
