principles they so much disliked.[1] A case occurred in the year 1709, which excited all their ancient hatred, and which may be regarded as one of the grossest instances of intolerance recorded in the annals of bigotry. Mr. Greenshields, whose father had been rabbled out of his Church at the Revolution, was ordained by one of the Scottish Prelates: and after serving a curacy in Ireland, he ventured to return to Scotland. Having opened a meeting house in Edinburgh, he commenced the use of the English Liturgy, which had not yet been adopted in the Episcopal congregations.
By the Act of Comprehension, the Episcopal Clergy were protected and exempt from the Church courts, provided they took the Oaths and the Assurance. Greenshields had complied according to law, and also prayed for her Majesty: consequently, the Presbyterian Church courts had no authority in such a case, since he was specially exempted from their jurisdiction.[2]
- ↑ The writer of the Life of Carstairs says of the Union, "The Union of the kingdoms, though attended with other happy consequences, gave a fatal blow to the importance of the Church of Scotland in the eye of Government: and the General Assembly was no longer formidable to administration, as it had been from the Revolution down to this period." Surely this was a happy result. Carstairs, 78.
- ↑ Lockhart Papers, i. 345–348, 520–528. In 1703, a riot took place at Glasgow in consequence of the English Service. Mr. Burges, who had taken the Oaths, attempted to conduct the Service according to the Liturgy, upon which the mob broke into the meeting, and, but for the interference of the magistrates, would have proceeded to acts of violence against the congregation. Somerville, 468. In two years, twenty thousand copies of the Book of Common Prayer were circulated in Scotland, notwithstanding the attempts of the Presbyterians to suppress it, as the English Mass. Somers' Tracts, xii. 490, 491.
