n to the
Sixty was incompatible with the fundamental principle of the polity
which the Estates were about to set up. That principle was that all
presbyters were equal, and that there ought to be no order of ministers
of religion superior to the order of presbyters. What did it matter
whether the Sixty were called prelates or not, if they were to lord it
with more than prelatical authority over God's heritage? To the argument
that the proposed arrangement was, in the very peculiar circumstances
of the Church, the most convenient that could be made, the objectors
replied that such reasoning might suit the mouth of an Erastian, but
that all orthodox Presbyterians held the parity of ministers to be
ordained by Christ, and that, where Christ had spoken, Christians were
not at liberty to consider what was convenient, [772]

With much greater warmth and much stronger reason the minority attacked
the clause which sanctioned the lawless acts of the Western fanatics.
Surely, it was said, a rabbled curate might well be left to the severe
scrutiny of the sixty Inquisitors. If he was deficient in parts or
learning, if he was loose in life, if he was heterodox in doctrine,
those stern judges would not fail to detect and to depose him. They
would probably think a game at bowls, a prayer borrowed from the English
Liturgy, or a sermon in which the slightest taint of Arminianism could
be discovered, a sufficient reason for pronouncing his benefice vacant.
Was it not monstrous, after constituting a tribunal from which he could
scarcely hope for bare justice, to condemn him without allowing him to
appear even before that tribunal, to condemn him without a trial, to
condemn him without an accusation? Did ever any grave senate, since the
beginning of the world, treat a man as a criminal merely because he
had been robbed, pelted, hustled, dragged through snow and mire, and
threatened with death if he returned to the house which was his by law?
The Duke of Hamilton, glad to have so good an Opportunity of attacking
the new Lord Commissioner, spoke with great vehemence against this
odious clause. We are told that no attempt was made to answer him; and,
though those who tell us so were zealous Episcopalians, we may easily
believe their report; for what answer was it possible to return?
Melville, on whom the chief responsibility lay, sate on the throne in
profound silence through the whole of this tempestuous debate. It
is probable that his conduc