4^4 Scb.%^%, n PUBLICATIONS OF THE SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY VOLUME XI GENERAL ASSEMBLY COMMISSION RECORDS May 1892 r THE RECORDS OF THE COMMISSIONS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLIES OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND HOLDEN IN EDINBURGH IN THE YEARS 1646 and 1647 Edited from the Original Manuscript by ALEXANDER F. MITCHELL, D.D., LL.D. AND JAMES CHRISTIE, D.D. with an Introduction by the former INTRODUCTION The six volumes of Church Records, of which this is the earliest, appear to have been borrowed, along with the original ms. of Baillie’s Letters and Journals and some other mss. be- longing to the General Assembly,1 by the late Mr. David 1 The following are, in brief, the titles of these manuscripts :— I. The Actes and Proceedings of the Commission of the Generali Assemblie holden in Edinburghe in the yeir 1646. Do. in the yeir 1647. II. Minutes of Commissions 1648-49, 1649-50, and 1651-52. III. Minutes of Commissions 1650-51, wanting the printed papers. IV. Duplicate of No. III., but containing the printed papers. V. Results of the consultations of the Ministers of Edinburgh, and some other brethren of the ministry from divers parts of the land, meet- ing together from time to time since the interruption of the Assembly 1653, for mutual advice and counsel in the public affairs of this distressed and distracted Kirk, with other Papers of public concern- ment, which the brethren recommend to Mr. Andrew Ker, Clerk of the Assembly, to cause put together and keep in some Record for the use and benefit of this Kirk, and testimony of their care and faithfulness, 1652-1658. VI. Register of the Consultations and Proceedings of the Ministers of Edin- burgh, and some other brethren of the ministry, correspondents from presbyteries, who had their meetings together at several times and diets for communication of counsels, for the upholding presbyterial government and all the interests of the Church of Christ in this land now, during the time of the interruption of Assemblies; which the brethren recommend to Mr. Andrew Ker, Clerk of the Assembly present with them at all their meetings, to cause put together in some Book and Register, for public use and their exoneration ; which meet- ings of Correspondents began in May 1654, and have continued since, and this Register, which is the second, begins in January 1659. This volume contains the correspondence between James Sharp, afterwards Archbishop of St. Andrews, and Mr. Robert Douglas. VII. Collections (partly ms., partly printed) on Ecclesiastical affairs, from 1645 to 1708. VIII., IX., X., XI., XII., XIII. Volumes of Letters on Ecclesiastical affairs, numbered 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31. XIV., XV., XVI. Original ms. of Baillie’s Letters andJournals. XVII. ms. Lectures on various Books of the Old Testament, lettered on boards A. G. vi INTRODUCTION Laing, when preparing for the press his new and valuable edition of these Letters and Journals, and to have remained in his possession up to the time of his death. In the end of the year 1878, when occupied in drafting for the General Presbyterian Council, a report on the Creeds and Formulas of subscription which had been in use in the Reformed Church of Scotland at various periods of her history, I was naturally anxious to obtain access to the Records of the Commission at the time the Westminster Confession was adopted by the Church, to ascertain if any Formula had at that era been prescribed, and I was greatly disappointed to find that these Records were not then in possession of the Assembly. I felt sure that I had met with various extracts from them in some works with which I was not unfamiliar, and on further rumina- tion and search I found that the chief of these extracts were contained in the Notices1 regarding the metrical versions of the Psalms appended to Mr. Laing’s edition of Baillie’s Letters and Journals. When, soon after I submitted my draft report to Mr. Laing, who was associated with me in that matter in the Committee of the General Presbyterian Council, I told him of my anxiety to see these volumes, and my disappointment to find that they were not now in the possession of the Church, and inquired if he could tell me what had become of them after he was done with them. He said he supposed they were some volumes which had been left with him to be rebound, and that he would bring them up from Portobello, and have them ready for my inspection the first time I returned to town. My next visit to town was to attend the funeral of my aged friend, but I learned thereafter that he had not forgotten his promise to me, and that the volumes in question had before that time been lodged in the safe at the Signet Library, and were soon afterwards restored by his executors to the Church. This was not the first time the volumes in question had gone 1 Vol. iii. pp. 525-556. They are also quoted in Reid’s History of the Presby- terian Church in Ireland, vol. ii. p. 58, etc. INTRODUCTION vii amissing. They appear to have got into private hands during the troubles which came on the Presbyterian Church after the Restoration of Charles n.; and there are various references in Wodrow’s Correspondence and Analecta,1 which seem to show that they still remained so in his time. Some years after his death a Committee was appointed by the General Assembly to inquire after missing Records and other documents of value for the history of the Church, and to endeavour by legal pro- cess or by purchase to gain possession of them. It was not till 1739 that this Committee had the privilege of reporting that they ‘ had produced before them diverse authentick Registers of the Commission of the General Assembly, in four volumes in folio, for the years one thousand six hundered and fourty six, fourty seven, fourty eight, fourty nine, fifty, fifty one, fifty two, and till May one thousand six hundered and fifty three [which have been] purchased from a gentleman, by a Committee of the late General Assembly, and the price has been paid out of the Churches publick money, and the foresaid Records may be seen by any member in the clerk’s hands1 . The Committee was ‘ re-appointed and empowered to con- tinue to search for the foresaid Registers of the General Assembly and Commissions thereof, and other manuscripts and writes which may be of use to clear up the history of this Church since the Reformation, and the purchase of the same to be paid out of the Churches publick money, and when they shall find out so much as make up authentick connected Records, to cause employ a fitt person or persons to putt the same in order, referring to the warrands thereof, with an exact index, and which Committee are to report their dilligence and opinion to the Commission of the General Assembly and receive their directions, whereof five to be a quorum.’2 1 Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 314; vol. iii. pp. 239, 285; Analecta, vol. iii. pp.2 206, 428. n Excerpt from MS. minutes of Assembly 1739, * University Library, St. Andrews. viii INTRODUCTION I have never come on any evidence that the Records of the Commissions appointed by the Assemblies of 1642,1643,1644, and 1645 are still extant, and the loss of these records is greatly to be regretted, as no doubt the Commissioners of the Church, in London, corresponded as regularly with the Commissioners in Edinburgh during these years as we find they did during 1646-47. The minutes of these earlier Commissions, along with the ms. minutes of most1 of the Assemblies from 1640 to 1653, also lost, probably formed part of that collection of Church mss. which the Earl of Cromarty, in restoring a record2 of still earlier date to the Church in 1708, said were brought together and burned by order of the Restoration Parliament. The appointment of such a Commission by the Assembly of 1642 was deemed by many a new departure, not quite in con- sonance with the sentiments and the practice of the earlier Presbyterian times. When, in 1597, such a wide or ‘general1 Commission was suggested by King James vi., Melville and the more thorough-going leaders of the Church rather looked on the suggestion with disfavour, as ‘ the needle intended to draw in the Episcopal thread,1 and the few of them who were allowed a place on that early Commission had little satisfaction in its work.3 The main object assigned for its appointment was to keep up a good understanding between the King and the 1 Two volumes, purchased from a tobacconist, were handed over to Wodrow, who pronounced the first, which gave a complete account of Assembly 1638, to be no original, but a copy; and the second, containing, with many sad mutila- tions, the minutes of the Assemblies from 1642 to 1646, to be probably an original.—Correspondence, vol. i. pp. 115-118. A volume of minutes of Assem- blies 1638-39, 40, and some Commission records, perished in the great fire in Edinburgh in 1701. 2 This valuable ms. , like that still in the Advocates’ Library, was an abbreviate of the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies from 1560 to 1596, and, unfortunately, it has again passed out of the possession of the Church. It appears to have been retained by the heirs of Lord Prestongrange, in whose custody it was, when Clerk of Assembly, and to have passed with his library of law books into the possession of Mr.