Sharp and the Restoration Policy in Scotland
The idea that at the Restoration the Government of Charles II. wantonly attacked a Church that otherwise would have remained at peace and in the enjoyment of hardly-won liberties is not in accordance with facts. The Church was divided into two warring factions—that of the Remonstrants or Protesters and that of the Resolutioners. The former were the extreme Covenant party and had as their symbol the Remonstrance of the Western army after the Battle of Dunbar, in which they refused to fight any longer in the cause of Charles II. The Resolutioners were the more moderate party, which accepted him as a Covenanted King, and they derived their name from their support of certain Resolutions passed in the Parliament and General Assembly for the admission of Royalists to office under certain conditions. The Protesters—who numbered perhaps about a third of the Presbyterian clergy—claimed, probably not without reason, to be more religious than their opponents. They were very eager to purge the Church of all those whose opinions they regarded as unsatisfactory, and to fill up vacant charges with those who uttered their shibboleths. In their opposition to the King they naturally drew somewhat closely into sympathy with the party of Cromwell, though, with the fatal skill in splitting hairs which has afflicted so many of their nation, they were able to differentiate their political principles from what they called ‘English errors.’ The Resolutioners, on the other hand, adhered steadily to the cause of Charles II., and came under the disfavour of the Government of the Commonwealth for their sympathy with the insurrection under Glencairn and Middleton which had been so troublesome to the English authorities.