Page:Sketches of the History of the Church of Scotland.djvu/27

 John of the Battles;' of him who died the death which the God of Battles, the Lord of Hosts, reserves for His best and most favoured sons; alike on sea and on mountain; on the blue wave of Trafalgar, or on the purple heather of Killiecrankie."

Dundee was dead; the king was in exile; the Dutch conqueror was on the throne, and the Revolution was an accomplished fact. The Bishops and half the Clergy said non possumus; and the Church of Scotland was in the wilderness. There are many Churchmen of the present day, both lay and clerical, who dispute the policy of sacrificing the Church's status as an Establishment for what they are pleased to call a bit of political sentiment. The answer to the accusation is, I apprehend, that from the non-juring stand-point the contention was, not for a sentiment, but for a distinct religious principle; that what is contemptuously termed a sentiment was to the non-jurors a solemn duty. The oath of allegiance then, it should be remembered, was not the same which the Revolution Settlement subsequently considerably modified, and which is now taken by the Queen's subjects. The Scottish Bishops and Clergy, and the faithful who adhered to them, had sworn allegiance to James the Seventh and his heirs; and they were not men of flexible consciences, like the Vicar of Bray, prepared to play fast and loose with their oath. The oath of the period, moreover, compelled them to swear that the infant Prince of Wales was a suppositious child. Only factious men believed, or pretended to believe, that falsehood then; no one believes it now.

Besides, we of the nineteenth century have the advantage of knowing the history of the political and religious change. Our non-juring ancestors did not and could not know that the King and his heirs, by the decree of Providence, were to be shut out from their inheritance for ever. They looked and they prayed for a second Restoration, which they fondly hoped might take place any day. Nor did the hope seem to them the chimera that it does to us. Probably the great majority even of those who outwardly complied with the Revolution Settlement, and were among the most outspoken in its support, like Marlborough and others, were Jacobites at heart, and only waited for an opportunity of openly declaring themselves. It is now capable of distinct proof, from documentary evidence subsequently brought to light, that many of William's courtiers and chief advisers were in secret correspondence with the Court of St, Germains, and that the Court of St. James's was honeycombed with Jacobitism. The hopes of the early non-jurors were of the brightest; it was only after the successive failure of the three enterprises of Killiecrankie, Sheriffmuir, and Culloden, that hope deferred gradually made the hearts of the Jacobites sick. Nevertheless, although with daily diminishing numbers, they hoped on. In their defence, it must also be remembered,