the
form of Church government which was to be substituted for episcopacy;
and, during the stormy Session held in the summer of 1689, the violence
of the Club had made legislation impossible. During many months
therefore every thing had been in confusion. One polity had been pulled
down; and no other polity had been set up. In the Western Lowlands, the
beneficed clergy had been so effectually rabbled, that scarcely one of
them had remained at his post. In Berwickshire, the three Lothians and
Stirlingshire, most of the curates had been removed by the Privy Council
for not obeying that vote of the Convention which had directed all
ministers of parishes, on pain of deprivation, to proclaim William and
Mary King and Queen of Scotland. Thus, throughout a great part of
the realm, there was no public worship except what was performed by
Presbyterian divines, who sometimes officiated in tents, and sometimes,
without any legal right, took possession of the churches. But there were
large districts, especially on the north of the Tay, where the people
had no strong feeling against episcopacy; and there were many priests
who were not disposed to lose their manses, and stipends for the sake of
King James. Hundreds of the old curates, therefore, having been neither
hunted by the populace nor deposed by the Council, still performed their
spiritual functions. Every minister was, during this time of transition,
free to conduct the service and to administer the sacraments as he
thought fit. There was no controlling authority. The legislature had
taken away the jurisdiction of Bishops, and had not established the
jurisdiction of Synods, [767]

To put an end to this anarchy was one of the first duties of the
Parliament. Melville had, with the powerful assistance of Carstairs,
obtained, in spite of the remonstrances of English Tories, authority to
assent to such ecclesiastical arrangements as might satisfy the Scottish
nation. One of the first laws which the Lord Commissioner touched with
the sceptre repealed the Act of Supremacy. He next gave the royal assent
to a law enacting that those Presbyterian divines who had been pastors
of parishes in the days of the Covenant, and had, after the Restoration,
been ejected for refusing to acknowledge episcopal authority, should be
restored. The number of those Pastors had originally been about three
hundred and fifty: but not more than sixty were still living, [768]

The Estates then proceeded to fi