seemed to be what his party expected, they complained to the magistrates."[1]
The case was taken up by some of Greenshields's friends, or rather the friends of the Church in London, who, in the Preface to the published account, express a hope, that it may issue in putting the Scottish Episcopalians in possession of those blessings, which were enjoyed by all the rest of the nation. In that account it was stated that they only wished for liberty to worship God in that way which their consciences dictated.[2]
From this account, and also from De Foe, we learn, that the General Assembly interposed. Some of the people of Edinburgh petitioned the Commission of the Assembly on the subject, in which they stated, that the English service "was very grievous and offensive" to them, and would prove "of dangerous consequence to the Church if not speedily remedied." Like the Presbyterians of a former age, the Petitioners pretend, that the Clergy, who preached in the Meeting Houses, were not only "unsound in their judgments; but scandalous and immoral in their lives and practices." The Commission of Assembly soon passed an Act, in which it was alleged, that the Union was infringed by the use of "set forms, rites, and ceremonies:" and that such
- ↑ De Foe's History of the Union of Great Britain. Fol. Edinburgh, 1709. Preface, pp. xix. xx.
- ↑ The True State of the Case of the Reverend Mr. Greenshields, now Prisoner in the Tolbooth in Edinburgh, for reading the Common Prayer in an Episcopal congregation there: though qualified by taking the Oaths, and praying for the Queen and the Princess Sophia, with copies of several Original Papers relating to his accusation, defence, imprisonment and appeal to the Lords of the Session, and since to the House of Lords. London, 8vo. 1710.
