only in what may be termed the accidental circumstance of the refusal, on the part of the Bishops and Clergy, to take the Oath of Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary.
De Foe laboured, in his day, to defend the Presbyterians in their crusades against the Episcopal Clergy: but his very admissions prove all the charges which he attempts to refute. "The first, respects the conduct of the people, when they took up arms in a tumultuous manner at the beginning of the Revolution. The next respects the judicial proceedings against the Episcopal party since." The people, he says, first attacked the Church, because the Church had been the aggressor previously: and he thinks that less violence was committed than could have been expected. But, says he, the utmost violence was no more than "an over hasty turning the said Episcopal ministers out of the Parsonage houses, which it was their opinion were unlawfully possessed." He cannot ascertain that any were killed! now surely on such principles any outrages or crimes may be justified. He even adduces the conduct of the rabble as "a great testimony of the moderation of the Presbyterians in Scotland."[1] The deprivations by the State he justifies as a matter of course: but he forgets that Presbytery was set up, merely because the Bishops and Clergy could not renounce their allegiance to King James.[2]
- ↑ Memoirs of the Church of Scotland, 8vo. London, p. 312, 313, 314. An Account of the Parliament of Scotland in 1703. 8vo. p. 77.
- ↑ No Scottish publisher could be induced to undertake the publication of Sage's Fundamental Charter of Presbytery, in consequence of the apprehension of persecution: and the work was actually printed in London in the year 1695. This circumstance
