Reid A Cameronian Apostle IX.

CHAPTER IX.

1704–1706.

ANCHORED.

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Macmillan negotiates with the United Societies—With Hepburn—With the Presbytery and General Assembly—His “submission” to the latter—Goes to Crawfordjohn—His “submission” to the Societies—His “approbation” of their Testimony—His call—The chief signatories—Currie, Umpherston, Smith—First sermon as pastor—His fitness for the new office.

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THE last days of 1703 witnessed Macmillan’s expulsion from the ministry. In the following year, he sent forth his True Narrative of the events and circumstances of his deposition, a copy of which will be found in the Appendix. The closing words shewed how his thoughts were moving as to the future:—“Therefore, he resolves, in the strength of the Lord, to preach the Gospel as formerly, and to take and accept invitation for that end where he may have it.”

His first negotiations, when he found himself so summarily cast adrift, were with a minister who had already passed through a similar crisis, John Hepburn of Urr, in the Presbytery of Dumfries. Hepburn had been privately ordained in London, and in 1680 had won the hearts of the people of Urr, so that they gave him a “call” to labour among them. This invitation they ratified in 1686, and again in 1689, when the Church of Scotland became more settled. In 1690, Hepburn had presented a memorial of matters requiring amendment to the General Assembly, but this document was quietly handed over to a committee, and heard of no more. Hepburn continued,

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however, to ventilate “grievances” until, at length, he was suspended in 1696.* In 1699, he was in a measure restored, being permitted to minister in Urr, but nowhere else, provided he kept conference with the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright. He had already been punished with imprisonment for alleged treasonable utterances, and afterwards “interned,” in the old persecuting mode, at Brechin. His return to Urr was hailed with joy by his faithful flock, to whom he was now martyr as well as confessor. After a brief interval of peace, the accession of Queen Anne revived the old troubles. Hepburn denounced the Oath of Allegiance just as Macmillan did, and was at length, like him, deposed for mutinous and offensive utterances alleged against him. The sentence was passed by the Commission on April 9, 1705. On April 13, the parishioners of Urr met and declared their unalterable adherence to the deposed minister. Ultimately, on his giving a pledge to confine his labours to his own parish, and seek to promote peace, he was reponed in 1707, amid great rejoicings. We may here hurriedly pursue his career to its close. He protested against the Union, the Abjuration Oath, and the restoration of Patronage in 1712. In 1715, he attracted great public attention by his action in view of the Pretender’s expedition. Accompanied by 320 of his people, whom he had trained in some degree to military tactics, he marched to Dumfries, and encamped on Corbelly Hill. His troop was headed by a standard-bearer with the flag of the Covenants, still preserved at Urr manse. A drummer also marched before it beating a point of war.

Recent researches have thrown an important light on Hepburn’s actions at this political crisis. It is now suspected, if not established, that his supporters were strongly inclined to fall in with the Pretender’s party, and Hepburn himself kept up com-

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* Mr. Hutchison (Hist., p. 148) says “deposed,” but this is an error. See Humble Pleadings, p. 202.

136 A Cameronian Apostle.

munication with both sides. The magistrates of Dumfries invited him to enter the town, but he declined on the ground that he was not free in conscience to fight in defence of the present constitution in Church and State, emphasising the “sinful Union” as a main difficulty. Apparently, however, he had given private assurances of loyalty, since his troop was supplied with provisions by the townspeople. As is well known, the Pretender’s forces never reached Dumfries, and the Hepburnians or Hebronians, as Macmillan calls them,* returned home. Hepburn continued his ministry at Urr without disturbance till his death in 1724, aged 70.

The sympathy between Hepburn and Macmillan was most natural, considering how exactly their courses of thought and action coincided from point to point. Hepburn was, of course, much the older man, and had been twenty years ordained before Macmillan. But, like him, he had entered the Revolution Church with high hopes of attaining his dream of a “free and lawfully constituted body.” He had been rudely awakened by the speedy development of the compromising spirit which guided the Assemblies of the Church. He had entered on a course of incessant protests and giving in of “grievances,” and had been met with suspension and imprisonment. Finally, although a year and a half after Macmillan, he too had been rewarded, for his troublesome conscience, with deposition. So far, his history and Macmillan’s were very much the same. From the year 1699, Hepburn also had been in correspondence with Macmillan’s Presbytery, not by attending the meetings, but by private conferences arranged by himself. He was therefore fully aware of the agitation proceeding within their bounds. In his Humble Pleadings, in fact, he refers to “many conferences be-

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* See Narrative. For above particulars regarding Hepburn, I have consulted his Humble Pleadings, 1713; Nicholson’s Hist. Gall., ii. 377–8; Wodrow’s History; and others.

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twixt us and several ministers in Galloway and Nithsdale, viz., Messrs. J. R., J. M., W. T., in the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright.”* The initials, of course, indicate the three brethren whom we have seen giving in the Grievances—John Reid, William Tod, and John Macmillan. Considering Hepburn’s evident force of character, and also his age and influence, we can hardly doubt that these Grievances were largely inspired by him.

When Macmillan, deserted by his two comrades, or at least cut off from their company, was at length deposed, Hepburn’s warm heart went out to the sufferer, and he was charged later on, when himself under libel, with saying: “The night wherein the Presbytery deposed Mr. Macmillan, they were running the devil’s errand!”† He broke through his own confinement within the parochial bounds of Urr, to go and preach in Balmaghie church at the invitation of Macmillan and his people, and was accused of taking “violent possession” of the building for the purpose.‡ It was alleged, too, that he had said, “If I saw the Lady Balmaghie, I would discharge her to let the ministers in at the door, who are sent by the Presbytery to supply there!”

All this shewed how strong a bond of sympathy existed between these two “contenders” for the Church’s freedom. Macmillan apparently hoped to form some working union with Hepburn and his followers; but he soon found that they differed irreconcilably regarding the Establishment.

Hepburn has clearly defined the middle position which he never abandoned. In his introduction to the ably-written work already quoted, Humble Pleadings for the Good Old Way, he describes the situation with perfect mastery of detail. He divides ecclesiastical parties into three, into which the Cove-

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* Humble Pleadings, p. 296.

† Ibid., p. 226, 227.

‡ Ibid., p. 210.

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nanters were split up by the Revolution Settlement. First, there was the party represented by Lining, Shields, and Boyd, who after a faint and formal protest conformed entirely to the Established Church. Secondly, and at the other extreme, stood the United Societies, as represented by their “Informatory Vindication,” who “declined” the established judicatories whether civil or sacred, as sinful and defective. “A Third Sort,” he adds, “judged it most like to Scripture pattern, to own what was good in both Church and State, and to protest and bear witness against the defections of both, by pleading in face of Judicatories for redress of grievances.”* This was the party sometimes called Hebronites or Hebronians.† To this party Macmillan may be reckoned as having belonged at first, and had his protests been simply received and ignored, as Hepburn’s latterly were, he would most likely have lived and died in the church, as Hepburn did. But we know that his very blood was of the purest covenanting strain, and his old associations drew him irresistibly toward the Societies. Having at his deposition publicly refused to own the existing Church Courts, he now found himself disqualified for closer union with Hepburn, and the fruitless negotiations came to an abrupt end.

Immediately Macmillan entered into correspondence anew with the Societies, from whose minutes we shall now gather the discussions which led to his final return to their communion.

On April 5, 1704, less than four months after his deposition, the “General Meeting” at Crawfordjohn considered a letter from Macmillan desiring to have a conference. This was at once granted, and the following Commissioners were chosen to meet him:—James Currie, William Swanston, David Jardine, Robert Douglas, Mr. Stewart, Joseph Francis, Robert Maxwell,

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* Humble Pleadings, Introduction.

† In Galloway Scots, Hepburn is still pronounced Hebbron.

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James Fleming, Francis Graham, John Mack, Mr. Robert Smith, Mr. Charles Umpherston, James Thomson, and the Clerk,—fourteen in all. Most of these afterwards appear as signing his “call.” Those distinguished as “Mr.” were of superior position. “Mr.” Stewart was an elder. Mr. Charles Umpherston was a medical man, and afterwards wrote, among other tracts, the curious one entitled “Observations on a Wolf in a Sheepskin,” 1753.* Mr. Robert Smith was frequently preses of the General Meeting. John Mack, according to a note in the Lochgoin copy of the Minutes, “drew up” with Hepburn’s party, a few months after, so far as “to draw them up and rendezvous them; after which he did no good, but distempered,” i.e. became insane, a melancholy victim of religious enthusiasm.†

This committee doubtless had some meetings with Macmillan, who, however, did not at first deal quite openly with them. The truth is, he was literally “adrift,” as we have styled it; and he still longed to enjoy pastoral status and settlement among his own people. We have seen that he hated the name of “separatist,” and to a late period he warmly repudiated it. Hence his seeming inconsistencies at this time, which a truthful narrative must not conceal.

On 22nd February, 1704, Macmillan, accompanied by a “considerable number” of his adherents, proceeded to Kirkcudbright, and craved a hearing of the Presbytery there assembled. His object was to inquire, first, whether the ministers absent at the final meeting on December 29-30 adhered to the Presbytery’s act of deposition; and secondly, whether the sentence would now be rescinded. The Presbytery were somewhat shaken by this demonstration. Tod, who had come in along with the people, rose and gave in his dissent from the deposi-

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* In the New College Collection, Edinburgh.

† Conclusions, Oct. 4, 1704.

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tion; but no other member, out of the seven absentees from the Crossmichael meeting, saw fit to join in this disclaimer. Reid, indeed, was not himself present. The Presbytery, after deliberation in private, recalled the deputation and announced that the first question was incompetent. The deposition had been unanimous, and it was entirely out of order to inquire as to the opinions of absent members. As to the second, they once more demanded his unconditional submission, which he “waved or declined” to give. Immediately the Presbytery intimated that they had decided to refer the whole case to the General Assembly on March 16, and cited Macmillan to appear before that Court. Here, again, the Presbytery’s procedure was unusual, not in referring the case, but in taking upon them to cite one of their number to a superior court.

Macmillan disregarded this incompetent citation, and the Assembly then itself required his attendance at the Commission in June, 1704. He went to Edinburgh accordingly, and after some conference signed the following paper:—

“I, John Macmillan, hereby acknowledge my great sin in deserting the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright, as also my great sin in declining the said Presbytery, these things being contrary to my ordination engagements. And seeing I do hereby promise and engage (in the strength of God) to live more orderly and in subjection to the judicatories of the Church, and to use my utmost endeavours to maintain unity, concord, and peace therein, I earnestly desire the reverend Commission may take my case to consideration, and repone me to the exercise of my ministry at Balmaghie. In witness whereof I have subscribed these presents with my hand, at Edinburgh, this eleventh day of July, 1704 years.

“Sic subscribitur, J. MACKMILLAN.”

As the Commission met on 9th June, a whole month had been consumed in reaching this final arrangement. Part of this time, Macmillan occupied in preparing his True Narrative,

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which, like all the tractates in this controversy, was issued anonymously, and in the third person.* He did not, however, send it to the press until he had lost hope of the Commission reponing him. It was in this hope, and with this understanding, that he put his name to a paper so ill fitted to strengthen his position, and so often used against him on all hands in the immediate future.

His former colleagues, for instance, at once industriously circulated the charge, that he had “disowned what he formerly owned, and reckoned it a great sin.” This, he himself declares, “is a downright and manifest untruth.”† “It is known,” he adds, “what litigation there was about that word sin.” He declares that all he meant was to admit, for the sake of a peaceable settlement, that he did wrong to absent himself from meetings, and to repudiate the Presbytery as a court. As to the expression, “any other thing in my way that hath given offence,” he asserts that, when handing in his paper, he explained openly that he considered that the expression might cover both “some things bad and some things good.” The view which he evidently took was, that he was simply apologising, but not in any way retracting. On the whole, this seems a fair enough meaning to be put on the document, although such phrases as “great sin” twice repeated, and “these sins,” are and were unhappily capable of a more serious application.

Macmillan’s chief excuse, however, lay in the manifest fact that the apology or “submission” was meant to be a quid pro

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* Cameron, in his Examination, p. 7, says:—“Though the Narrative . . . speaks of him as a third person, yet the judicious who know him will judge him to be the author thereof.” As proofs, he appeals to internal evidence, and also, to the testimony of “Two Brethren,” to whom Macmillan read over a paper exactly similar at Kirkcudbright. Further, Cameron points out that, as announced at the close of the Narrative, Macmillan resumed preaching immediately after it appeared.

† Narrative, Appendix.

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quo. He understood that it was the price exacted for his re-instatement as minister of Balmaghie. And he argues, quite reasonably from a business point of view, that as the Commission did not re-instate him, he was consequently released from the whole terms of the compact. “Quum aufertur ratio formalis juramenti, juramentum cessat ratione eventus.”* As soon as the condition of an engagement is taken away, that engagement itself lapses by circumstances. “If you will repone me, I promise submission”: such is the gist of the paper. He was not reponed, and how then could he submit? In this light, it may be held that the “submission” was obtained under false pretences. And this, in fact, was Macmillan’s own feeling.

The publication of the True Narrative, and his immediate resumption of preaching, did not mend his chance of indulgent treatment at the next Commission, December, 1704, to which he addressed a “Protest and Appeal by John Macmillan, unjustly deposed.” This was an anticipation of the fuller “Protestation, Declinature, and Appeal,” sent to the Assembly in 1708, of which a copy will be found in the Appendix. It demanded a hearing of the entire case, “a capite ad calcem.” It retracted his pledges given in June and July. And it renewed his former appeal to the first “free, faithful, and right constitute” General Assembly, protesting also against his being further disturbed in the “free and peaceable exercise of his ministry.”†

Two doors had thus been closed in his face. Hepburn he could not join with, and the Church of his ordination would not take him back. There remained only the associates of his boyhood and college days, the people of the “Societies.” He now applied himself resolutely to the task of securing re-admission to their fold.

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* Narrative.

† Thorburn’s Vindiciæ Magistratus, p. 228, 229.

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On January 31, 1705, he repaired to the General Meeting at Crawfordjohn, and was admitted to conference. As might have been expected, the recent “submission” was found to be “very grievous and lamentable.” This the assembled “correspondents” plainly told him, and he at once expressed his “resentment,” or repentance, for the injudicious step, but declared his willingness now to join with the Societies, and read a statement of his views.

A further and longer conference took place at Holstane, February 13, 1706. It was not till August 14, however, that the negotiations began to draw near an end. At the meeting that day at Crawfordjohn, Macmillan said, “I desire to know the meeting’s satisfaction with what is already past.” The answer was—“The meeting, as one man, is satisfied with what is past betwixt him and them.”* Macmillan, in fact, had been subjected to a searching examination and a kind of training, during the space of nearly two years. His statements and pledges were most ample, and shewed a complete conformity to the Societies’ standards. But, in order to make his new position perfectly clear, he agreed to sign first a “submission,” and then a solemn “approbation.” These, we copy here from the Society’s minute-book:—

“Mr. John Macmillan’s Submission.

“I, Mr. John Macmillan, minister in Balmaghie, having displeased the Godly Remnant and greatly offended them, and that in my leaving them when then joined with them, and also since, in tampering with the ministers after I had declined them, which I desire to lament: do oblige myself, for Truth’s vindication, and the Godly Remnant’s satisfaction, to stand to the determination of any faithful, constituted Church Judicatory of Christ within this land, when it shall happen to be, which they and I can own, submit to, and concur with, according to the

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* Conclusions, Aug. 14, 1706.

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comely order of this Church in her best times, in whatever hath been sinful in my walk, way, or carriage, ever since I left them to this very day. As witness my hand at Crawfordjohn, the 14th day of August, 1706.

sic subscr.

J. M‘MILLAN.”

Next day, he signed the second paper referred to:—

“Mr. John Macmillan’s Approbation of our Testimony.

“I, Mr. John Macmillan, minister in Balmaghie, heartily approve of, consent to, and comply with all the Testimonies that have been carried on with respect to the Covenanted Reformation, and that both in the bypast and present times, by the honest, godly, and faithful Remnant against both Church and State; as they were and are agreeable to the Word of God and Covenanted work of Reformation. As witness my hand at Crawfordjohn, the 15th day of August, 1706.

sic subscr.

J. M‘MILLAN.”

The final stage was not reached till October 9, 1706, when the following “call” was drawn up and signed:—

“The Call.

“We, undersubscribers of the United Societies and General Correspondences of the Suffering Remnant of the true Presbyterian Church of Christ in Scotland, England, and Ireland, having of a long time been deprived of the public administration of the Gospel ordinances in purity, by reason of the manifold defections and backslidings of the ministers in these lands:

“And now, it hath pleased the Lord, after sundry emergents of Providence, due deliberation, and conferences, with you, Mr. John Macmillan, minister of the Gospel at Balmaghie, that you be of one judgment with us as to the present Testimony of the day for carrying on the Covenanted work of Reformation:

“Do hereby, in our name, and in the name of all our United Societies and Correspondences, give you our hearty and unanimous call to come forth and dispense the Gospel ordinances faithfully and freely to us;

“And we promise to hear and subject ourselves unto you as our faithful leader and pastor, to whom we may safely commit

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the charge of our souls, and to do every other thing that precept, or former practice to a minister in the like case, can oblige persons in our circumstances, while you continue to go on the exercise thereof.

“And take this our Call to your serious deliberation, and return us an answer according to our urgent necessity, and we shall desire to pray for a blessing to you and us both with it.

“As witness our hands at Crawfordjohn, October 10th, 1706.

(Signed) John Currie, elder.

Will. Stewart, elder.

David Jardin.

James Mundell.

John Bell.

John Glover.

Thomas Brown.

Jo. Robson.

John Bryce.

Will. Hannah.

John Knox.

Joseph Francis.

Hugh Dickie.

James Currie.

Chas. Umpherston

.James Brigton.

Duncan Forbes.

Jo. M‘Vay.

Will Swanston.

Jo. Hislop.

Jo. Greive.

Jas. Donaldson.

James Cargill.

Francis Graham.

Robert Barrie.

Robert Maxwell.

John Muir.

Jo. Stanley.

Jo. Paterson.

Thomas Milns.

Robert Smith, preses.

Robt. Hamilton, clerk.”

Thirty-two names in all appear above. From Mr. J. H. Thomson’s notes regarding them, some interesting particulars may be gleaned.*

John Currie, whose name heads the list, had been “cast out of house and hold in Tinwald, Dumfries-shire, for not complying with prelacy.” He drew up a curious personal “covenant” with God, which is reprinted in the Reformed Presbyterian Magazine for 1869. It was taken at “Carse of the Water of Ae, Sept. 15, 1681.”

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* Ref. Presb. Mag., 1869.

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Charles Umpherston had been intended for the ministry, and was one of four young men chosen by the Societies in 1699 to be sent at their expense to Holland, in order to obtain license and ordination. The establishment, however, of full communion between the Dutch Reformed Church and the Church of Scotland rendered this design null, and Umpherston became a “surgeon” in Pentland. He was the most active literary agent of the Societies. His quaint tract on the Wolf in a Sheepskin has already been referred to, and is the sole existing authority on Macmillan’s last days. We shall have occasion ere long to reproduce its very touching record of these closing moments. Umpherston died in 1758, aged 80.

James Currie also lived in Pentland. His name may be read on the Martyrs’ Monument in Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh. “This tomb was erected by James Currie, Mercht. in Pentland, and others.” Both he and his wife, Helen Alexander, left behind them short autobiographies, or “Passages” in their lives, which are extant in a printed form. They had been married by Renwick, and in the wife’s little narrative the following occurs, which Mr. J. H. Thomson quotes:—

“And when Mr. Renwick was execute, I went and saw him in prison. And I said to him, Ye will get the white robes; and he said, And palms in my hands. And when he was execute, I went into the Greyfriars’ Yard, and I took him in my arms till his clothes were taken off, and I helped to wind him before he was put in his coffin.”

Robert Smith, who presided on this memorable occasion, had studied at Glasgow and Groningen, where he took his degree. He transcribed many of Guthrie and Cargill’s sermons for the Lochgoin Collection. At a later date he withdrew from Macmillan’s ministry, on the ground of an alleged “sinful acknowledgment” of George I. He and James Mundell, another signatory, are in Calderwood’s Dying Testimonies.

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This call was “heartily received” by Macmillan, and taken to “consideration.” It was not, however, till about the end of 1706 that he finally acceded to the urgent request of the Societies, and fixed a time and place for his first sermon as their minister. On December 2, 1706, the people assembled at Crawfordjohn.* It was in the depth of winter, and very near the dark time of his recent deposition, that he solemnly took up this new and larger work. There was a “numerous congregation from all airths, and a pleasant day of the Gospel; and on the Monday, preaching also, with baptizing of sundry children.” It was sixteen years since any ordained minister had been qualified to labour among the “Remnant,” and there was much to do, especially in the way of baptizing children of these out-of-date Covenanters. So, on the “clamant call of the people,” Macmillan for a season forgot his troubles at Balmaghie, and went about preaching and baptizing, and “exercising also the other parts of his ministerial function”—i.e., marrying, visiting the sick, performing funeral services, and the like. There were “many signs and tokens of his Master’s presence,” and his heart must have rejoiced in the growing usefulness opened up before him. As yet, such was the awe associated with the Lord’s Supper, that no attempt was made at a celebration of it. That was to come later. But, meantime, it is refreshing to pause and contemplate the important and encouraging sphere in which Macmillan had at last found himself placed.

It might be said, fitly enough,

Per tot casus, per tot discrimina rerum,

his storm-tossed bark had at last secured a port, and his anchor was let down in ground where it held for 47 chequered years. Doubtless, many vicissitudes still awaited him. It was no easy life, no “fat slumbers,” as Gibbon phrased it, that he had

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* See Observations on a Wolf in a Sheepskin, p. 39.

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chosen. But it was a career for which nature and grace and early training had all prepared him. To be the “apostle” of the Remnant, as we have ventured to style him, or the “high-priest,” as Cunningham expresses it, was to undertake a life of apostolic wanderings and hardships. Some parts of St. Paul’s famous description might be applied in a measure to his future experience:—“. . . in journeyings often . . . in weariness and painfulness; in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often. Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.”* But his early days, among the shepherds and on the hills of Kells and Minnigaff, had made him physically able to face the work: and divine grace had endued him with the passion of helpfulness, of which his motto was the outward and visible sign—“Miseris succurrere disco,” “I am learning to succour the wretched.” And in his own sturdy, deeply earnest soul, he was already equipped with the mental and moral qualities needed for his great parish or diocese, extending over nearly half of Scotland. Also, he was back again among his own people, in whose religious ways and phrases he was entirely at home. After so many vague and even inconsistent movements, he had at length, in a significant phrase, “found himself.”

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* 2 Cor., xi. 26–28.