Memoirs of the Marquis of Montrose.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1856 Excerpt: ...that the word unlaicful has infinitely distressed his Majesty, as you will find by his own, and you will do well to think how to relieve it."1 Now, the King has been accused of an insidious reservation of the whole question, because he took this special objection to the terms of the covenanting abjuration of 1639, namely, the word unlawful? Yet how completely is he justified by the chronicler of the Covenant himself, who, however, eventually gave in his entire adherence to the full measure of that senseless fanaticism. But it was a hard struggle even with him, who surely was one " seeking the Lord, and waiting for salvation." Baillie's conscience was very troublesome, as appears by his letters, on the subject of " the abjuration of all kind of Episcopacy.'"--" But withal," he says, " I heartily wished that, in the act of removal of it, no clause might be put which might oblige us in conscience to count that for wicked, and unlawful in itself, which the whole reformed churches this day, and, so far as I know, all the famous and classic divines that ever put pen to paper, either of old or late, absolved of unlawfulness.'' Had the rejection of Episcopacy in Scotland been placed upon the fair and rational footing which even this apostle of the cause desiderated, the abused and persecuted monarch would never have hesitated to ratify the act. And when this violence to his conscience, and to common sense, perpetrated by the General Assembly of 1639, was consummated in the Scotch Parliament of J 639-40, must we hold that the high-minded Montrose waa a mere hireling of the King, because he refused to go further? 1 Orig. Traquair Charter-chest. 'The King was content that Episcopacy should be declared contrary to the constitutio...