: benefit of all that is ancient and genuine and it is natural enough that minds that cannot think for themselves should betake themselves to the teaching of a church, which, by the confession of these ill-appointed opponents, is in possession of an authority which Puritanism does not presume to arrogate. A Church like ours, which defers to catholic interpretation, has some ground to rest on; but the authority of Calvin or Zuinglius cannot be higher than the authority of the fathers of Trent; it is still the authority and the teaching of men. The Romanist, however, it matters not how falsely, arrogates an authority for the latter which the puritan cannot pretend for his doctors; and thus the ultra Protestant, unable to fall back upon any thing but human and recent interpretation, has little chance against an opponent who parades before him, in behalf of opinions equally human, the pretensions of oracular sanction. Puritanism is opposed to Popery, only as prodigality is opposed to avarice, or as cowardice to temerity: "Virtus est medium vitiorum, et utrinque reductum:" Catholicity lies between both, and at a just distance from both extremes. The sound and sober catholic alone can meet the papist victoriously it is to the decline of catholic principles in the Church that the advance of Popery may, in great measure, be ascribed; it is to their revival and prevalence that we must, under Providence, trust for the invigoration and stability of our Zion against the advancing enemy. Popery is well aware of her obligations to Puritanism. While opposing with the most deadly malignity the reformed Church, whether in England or elsewhere, we shall always find her taking by the hand every variation of puritanical dissent, wherever she can use it to further her project against catholicity. No government anterior to that which now unhappily administers the affairs of Britain, ever showed so much partiality to dissenters as that of James II. For them, ostensibly, for Popery, really, was issued the famous "declaration," which the dissenters, one and all, proclaimed and lauded to the skies, and which the bishops of the English Church repudiated, to their immortal honour, and to the maintenance of true religious liberty till the present times. The "solemn league and covenant," the very charter of Puritanism, was the concoction of the cabinet of Richelieu. And, to do the puritanical party justice, they have not been slow to requite their popish patrons. The best friends of the tyrant James were the dissenters: and the best upholders of Maynooth and of the abominations of Dens are the conscientious opponents of church rates. Popery is our more powerful enemy: Puritanism, our proximate. It is with puritanism that we have first to deal: the main body of the enemy, it is true, is composed of troops from Rome : but the advanced force is supplied by Geneva. To return then from our digression, if such, in truth, it be, we repeat that whatever calls the attention of the Church to the character and dangers of puritanism is a seasonable and valuable service. The life of Archbishop Sharp was good ground of such an argument. Although the history of his times is well known, the peculiar share which he bore in public and private affairs has only been hitherto written in gall, and so much discoloured that his life has been virtually a hiatus in biography. Mr. Stephen has now supplied the defect. We shall take a glance at the subject of his memoir, and then proceed to offer a few observations on the execution. James Sharp was the son of William Sharp, sheriff's clerk of Banffshire, by Isabel, daughter of Mr. Lessly of Keninvy, in that county. He was born in, the castle of Banff, May 4th, 1618. His early piety and learning induced his mother to predict that he would be a bishop; a prediction of which she lived to see the accomplishment. He was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, where he took the degree of M.A. It is said that he was expelled from the university for refusing to take "the solemn league and covenant." It is certain that he was afterwards under the tuition of Drs. Forbes and Baron, both strenuous opponents of that atrocious compact; and at twenty years of age he was obliged to leave Scotland on account of his hostility to it. He took up his residence at Oxford, where he formed the acquaintance of Sanderson, Hammond, and Jeremy Taylor; but being seized with a violent ague, which nearly proved fatal, he returned, by advice of his medical attendant, to Scotland; where he was now in no greater peril than in England; the puritan persecution raging on all sides. Through the patronage of the Earl of Rothes, he was appointed to the chair of philosophy in the University of St. Andrew's. Here, at the suggestion of his friend the Earl of Crawford, he took Presbyterian orders, and accepted the benefice of Crail. It is certain that, at this time, as before and after, Sharp was an episcopalian; so that the charge of having deserted Presbyterian principles is clearly untenable but he is not so lightly to be excused for having so far deserted his episcopalian principles as to accept presbyterian orders. It is true that, at this time, the Scotch bishops were dead, and the English in exile; and, therefore, Sharp might consider this a case of irremediable necessity. This is Mr. Stephen's excuse for him; but in this and many other points we trace a disposition to diminish the failings of his hero which would better become a panegyrist than a biographer. The clergy of Scotland were at this time divided into two parties: the Protestors, or Remonstrants, and the Resolutioners. The former of these were the partisans of the covenant, presbyterians in ecclesiastical politics, and republicans in civil. The latter consisted of the episco pally-ordained-clergy, who, deprived of their bishops, submitted to the presbyterian regimen only because they could not control circumstances, and continued to exercise their ministry. To this party Sharp gave in his adherence, although himself ordained under the new church government. His talents and acquirements rendered him conspicuous, and he appeared on some occasions as the representative of his party, and at others as that of the clergy in general, in negociations with Cromwell and Charles II. In this capacity he was mainly instrumental in the re-establishment of Episcopacy at the Restoration. We are not prepared to go quite the length of Mr. Stephen in justifying the character of the policy adopted by Sharp or by his sovereign for the consummation of that object: there was, doubtless, a want of that openness which is the best ornament of any cause, and the absence of which is the only circumstance which can inflict injury on a good one. At the same time the peculiar circumstances of the case are to be taken into consideration. The Covenanters had, undoubtedly forfeited all claim to be treated as honest men; and though we cannot approve, in the abstract, the circuitous means by which they were deposed from their usurped authority, they, certainly, had no right to complain of their treatment. They were dealt with according to a far more merciful standard than that which themselves had erected. Their dominion was wholly founded in violence, intolerance, persecution, and blood; while their ejectment was, at least, peaceable and bloodless. We must allow for, though we cannot justify, the passions of men roused by a series of the most atrocious invasions of religious and civil liberty which the world ever beheld; and for the feelings of a son whose father had been murdered with every circumstance of indignity for no other reason than his constancy to his religion and his God. Above all, we must recollect the fact, so opposite to what is in general taken for granted, that the people of Scotland were, at that time, actually favourable to episcopacy, and the presbyterian regimen had been forced on them by the iron hand of oppression. The unanimity of Parliament speaks loudly that the popular feeling was in favour of the restoration of the Church. The malicious perversions of some authors have so impregnated the greater part of our historians with prejudice. that the truth will scarcely be believed. But Nicol, who lived at the time, and spoke the sentiments of the majority, shows that the people were rejoiced at the restoration of their ancient Church. "Now," says he, "let the reader stay a little, and consider the change of the time, and the Lord's wonderful works, and dispensation therein, and to call to mind the days of old; that is, that in November, 1638, and in October, 1639, the covenant was solemnly sworn and ratified in several general assemblies and parliaments. Likewise the league and covenant was sworn and subscribed in October, 1643, and ratified and approved by sundry acts of parliament, wherein the hail archbishops and bishops of Scotland, by the acts of the assembly were deposed, and eight of them excommunicated, as alleged troublers of the peace of the kirk and kingdom, in bringing in the Service Book, Book of Canons, establishing a tyrannical power over the kirk; for establishing the Articles of Perth, for observation of festival days, for kneeling at the communion, for administration of the communion in private places, for change of the government of the kirk; for their sitting in council, session and exchequer; for their riding, sitting and voicing in parliament; for sitting on the bench as justices of the peace; for their keeping and authorising corrupt assemblies at Linlithgow, Glasgow, Aberdeen, St. Andrews and Perth; for restraining of free general assemblies; and for sundry more causes, specified and expressed in the acts of general assemblies and acts of parliament: for which they were extirpated, deposed, and eight of them excommunicated, and lying under the sentence of excommunication ever since; but now received and taken in as governors of the kirk, wherein a great change and alteration may be seen in a few years."-P. 183. "But now," he continues, "since it has pleased his Majesty, with advice of the honourable lords of his highness's privy council, to restore bishops to the government of the Church in Scotland, as is now declared by the former proclamation, our prayers and supplications shall be to the great Lord of heaven, to bless his majesty with many happy days, to be a nurse-father to his Church, and to make choice of pious and modest men for that government; and that the Lord would endue them (the bishops) with the spirit of their callings and high functions of the ministry whereunto they are called to the glory of his holy name, and profit of this poor kirk and kingdom."-P. 184. In the plenitude of his zeal for the covenant, Mr. Wodrow says, that the restoration of the Church in this kingdom “was INIQUITY established by law.”↑ And Dr. McCrie, in a lugubrious strain, is obliged to admit that the re-establishment of the Church was an act agreeable to the great body of the people. "The great body of the people," says he, "through the land, gave that proof of their compliance with the late changes which the parliament had required, by attending the ministrations of prelatical incumbents or curates." We have also the respectable authority of Mr. Douglass, “that generality of this new upstart generation have no love to presbyterial government; but are wearied of that yoke, feeding themselves with the fancy of Episcopacy." And even of Wodrow himself, who further alleges that, "When the law, such as it was, had made way for the prelates, solicitations began apace for bishoprics. No great disliker of the prelacy observes, "In September and October this year many of the ministers were seeking after the Episcopal dignity."§-P. 185. In 1657, Sharp married Helen, daughter of William Moncrief of Randerston, Esq. by whom he had a son William, and two daughters, Isabel and Margaret. In 1661, Sharp was consecrated Archbishop of St. Andrews, having been previously ordained presbyter by episcopal hands. From this period to the year 1668, his biography so far merges in the ecclesiastical history of his country that we think it unnecessary to enlarge on the subject. In the latter year an event occurred which was strictly personal to him, and which but too surely heralded his unhappy fate. The popular idea of the Scottish Covenanters is greatly at variance with historical truth. They are commonly represented like the martyrs of old, "of whom the world was not worthy;" who "wandered in * John Nicol's Diary of Transactions in Scotland. Printed by the Bannatyne Club, 4to. pp. 342, 343. + Vol. I. p. 233. Testimony of the Ass. Syn. of Orig. Seceders, p. 31. § Vol. I. p. 235. deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." Poetry and painting set them before us assembled under the dome of heaven to worship the God of their fathers, each man girded with his sword for self-defence against the sanguinary royalists, who hunted them from their retreats, thirsting for their blood, for no other reason than because they ventured to follow the dictates of conscience. Undoubtedly, in the disorderly state of the country, requiring the presence of a military force, many excesses were committed, which cannot be excused or palliated; but the popular picture of the covenanters is any thing but a portrait. They were not proscribed for their religion, but for bearing arms against the government and the laws; and their picturesque assemblages sub dio heard less of the gospel of peace than of sanguinary and ferocious exhortations to dip their feet in the blood of their enemies, and utterly to destroy Amalek from the earth. They added practice to their preaching; and Mr. Stephen quotes from Wodrow, the covenanting writer, the following account of an atrocious attempt on the life of the primate, by which it may be seen what was the meaning of " zeal” and "piety" in their vocabulary, and what sort of "gospel" it was that was preached among them. James Mitchell was a preacher of the gospel, and a youth of much zeal and piety; but, perhaps, had not those opportunities for learning and conversation, which would have been useful to him. I find Mr. Traill, minister at Edinburgh, in the year 1661, recommending him to some ministers in Galloway, as a good youth, that had not much to subsist upon, and as fit for a school, or teaching gentlemen's children. He was at Pentland, and is excepted from the indemnity. From what motives I say not, he takes on a resolution to kill the Archbishop of St. Andrews; and upon 11th of July, he waits the bishop coming down in the afternoon to his coach, at the head of Blackfriar's Wynd, in Edinburgh; and with him was Mr. Honeyman, Bishop of Orkney. When the archbishop had entered the coach, and taken his seat, Mr. Mitchell stepped close to the north-side of the coach, and discharged a loaded pistol in at the door of the coach. The moment the pistol is discharged, Mr. Honeyman sets his foot in the boot of the coach, and when reaching up his hand to step in, received the shot designed for Mr. Sharp, in the wrist, and so the primate escaped at this time. Upon this, Mr. Mitchell crossed the street with much composure, till he comes to Niddry's Wyndhead, when a man offers to stop him, and he presented a pistol to him, upon which the other let him go. He stepped down the wynd, (lane,) and going up Steven Law's close, went into a house, and changed his clothes, and came straight confidently to the street, as being the place where indeed he would be least suspected. The cry arose, a man was killed; and some rogues answered, it was but a bishop, and all was calmed very soon. The two bishops made all the haste they could to the house where they had been.”* -Pp. 380, 381. Such was the doctrine and practice of the pious and persecuted covenanters. It does not belong to our present purpose to enter on the general subject at greater length. It will suffice for the present to say *Heb. xi. 38. + Wodrow's Hist. vol. ii. pp. 115, 116. |