Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/119

Rh without your sphere, so we do expect that church judicatories in Scotland and ministers there will keep within the compass of their station, meddling only with matters ecclesiastic, and promoting our authority and interest with our subjects against all opposers, and that they will take special notice of such who by preachings or private conventicles, or any other way transgress the limits of their calling by endeavouring to corrupt the people or sow seeds of disaffection to us or our government." The simple enthusiasm with which this document was received, by those who were accustomed to give plain meanings to ordinary words, is well known. In the synod of Fife, which met at Kirkaldy, Mr John Macgill, Mr Alexander Wedderburn, and some others, contended for introducing the covenant into their letter of thanks, "as the bond which, while it bound both king and subjects to God, did also tie them to one another." This drew from Sharp a long speech, in which he had many oblique reflections upon the covenant, which he with some truth alleged could not be mentioned to his majesty without exciting his displeasure. He further in justification of his majesty affirmed that "there was not a man in England would own that covenant save Mr Ash, an old man, whose one foot was already in the grave," and so great was his influence that he carried a plurality of the synod along with him, and the covenant of duty was set aside for the conventional one of good manners. A vote of thanks to Mr Sharp was. also carried in this synod for his faithfulness and painstaking in the affairs of the church. At the dismissal of the synod, Mr William Row coming in contact with Sharp at the door, laid hold of his cloak, and inquired how he could afiinn in the face of the synod that no man in England owned the covenant but Mr Ash, when Mr Crofton had just come forth in print in behalf of its perpetual obligation, to which Sharp made no other reply than that he knew Mr Crofton a little knuckity body, just like Mr Henry Williams. Though eminently successful in his endeavours, Sharp still kept the mantle of hypocrisy closely drawn around him, and was elected professor of theology in the college of St Andrews, where he had formerly been professor of philosophy. He was keenly opposed by the principal, Mr Samuel Rutherford, who had made an early discovery of his true character, and could never be brought to countenance him. Mr Rutherford, however, was a Protester, his Lex Rex had been condemned to the flames by the committee of estates, and he was confined to his own house by sickness, and Sharp had the satisfaction of assisting at the burning of his book at the gate of his college. He died soon after or he might have shared the fate of his book.

The committee of estates which sat down in August, 1G60, and the parliament which followed, commenced the wild work of tyranny, which so darkly characterizes the period. When prelacy was established by royal proclamation in the month of August, 1661, Mr Sharp, who had been the principal agent in this melancholy overturning, was now rewarded with the primacy of Scotland, and was called up to London, along with Fairfoul, appointed to the see of Glasgow, Hamilton to that of Galloway, and Leighton to that of Dunblane, to receive episcopal ordination. Sharp made some objections against being reordained, but yielded when he found it was to be insisted on, a circumstance which made Sheldon, bishop of London, say, he followed the Scots' fashion, which was to scruple at everything, and to swallow anything. The other three yielded at once, and they were all four on the 16th day of December, 16G1, before a great concourse of Scottish and English nobility in the chapel of Westminster, ordained preaching deacons, then presbyters, and lastly consecrated bishops. In the month of April they returned in great state to Scotland, where in the following month they proceeded to consecrate their ten brethren, the parliament having delayed to sit till they should be ready to take their seats. We