Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/90

226 ness, but recommended him so effectually to his uncle, Dr Rose, then archbishop of Glasgow, that he was by that prelate admitted into priest's orders, and presented to one of the city churches. At the period of his advancement in the church he was about thirty-four years of age: his knowledge of the Scriptures was very great; and he had studied ecclesiastical history, with the writings of all the early fathers of the church: he was thorough master of school divinity, and had entered deeply into the modern controversies, especially those between the Romish and the Protestant churches, and also into the disputes among the rival churches of the Reformation. He was in consequence very highly esteemed by his brethren, and was soon after appointed clerk of the diocesan synod of Glasgow, an office of great responsibility.

During the establishment of episcopacy in Scotland, from the Restoration of Charles II. till the year 1690, the authority of the bishops in the government of the church was exceedingly limited; they possessed indeed the sole power of ordination, but their government was shared by presbyteries and diocesan synods in which they presided as perpetual moderators, having only the insignificant prerogative of a negative voice over the deliberation of these assemblies. The bishop delivered also a charge to the presbyters at the opening of these meetings, which, with the acts of the synodal or presbyterial meetings, was registered by the clerk, who was always one of the most eminent of the diocesan clergy. In all this period there were neither liturgy, nor forms, nor ceremonies, nor surplices, nor black gowns, nor any mark whatever by which a stranger, on entering a parish church, could discover that any difference in worship or external appearance existed between the established episcopal church and the tolerated presbyterian chapel; and we believe it is an established fact, that so much were the minds of the moderate presbyterians reconciled to episcopacy, that almost all the indulged ministers, with their congregations, took the communion at the parish churches with the episcopal clergy, towards the latter end of the reign of Charles II.

Mr Sage continued to officiate as clerk of the diocese, and as a parish minister in Glasgow, till the Revolution in 1688. In executing the duties of his pastoral office, he gained the esteem and affection not only of his own parishioners, but even of the presbyterians; so much so, that when the common people took the reformation of the church into their own hands, and, with no gentle means, turned the episcopal clergy of the western shires out of their churches and livings, he was treated in a manner which was considered as comparatively lenient and humane, being warned privately "to shake off the dust from his feet and withdraw from Glasgow, and never venture to appear there again." Many of his brethren were trimmers both in ecclesiastical as well as political attain; they had been presbyterians and republicans in the days of the Covenant, and when, from the signs of the times in the short reign of the infatuated and ill-advised James, a change in the establishment seemed to be approaching, these over-zealous converts to episcopacy suddenly became all gentleness and condescension to the presbyterians, whom they now courted and caressed. Sage's conduct was the reverse of this; he was heartily and from conviction an episcopalian and a royalist; and in all his discourses in public and private he laboured to instil those principles into tho minds of others. To the persecution of others for difference of opinion he was always steadily opposed, not from any indifference to all opinions, but from a spirit of perfect charity, for he never tamely betrayed through fear what he knew it was his duty to maintain, notwithstanding his indulgence to the prejudices of others.

Thus expelled from Glasgow, he sought shelter in Edinburgh, carrying with him the synodical books, which, it would appear, he had delivered to bishop