the Nation to break down at once the carved work of the whole Fabrick of the Reformation as with Axes and Hammers in that insolent effrontry and indignity against Heaven in making void the National and Solemn League and Covenants which the Church and State both in their Representatives and Members did most solemnly Swear and Subscrive for themselves and Posterity which for the matter of them perpetually obliging for the manner so Religiously engaged into and for their ends so Glorious no power on Earth can dispense with disannull or disable which not only the Lord from Heaven did ratify by the Conversion of many Thousands and vouchsafing his presence gracious in Ordinances and propitious in Providences at the subscriving of them But in this Land at the Inauguration of the King Charles 2. being the condition upon which he was admitted to the Government the latter of these Covenants was Ratified and Established as the great fundamental Law of the Kingdom whereon all the Rights and Priviledges either of King or People are principally bottomed and secured and as the very Magna Charta of our Reformation Yet this not only they did break in Heaven-daring boldness but to flatter the King in making way for Prelacy Tyranny and Popery and to indulge the licentiousness of some debauched Nobles who could not endure the Yoke of Christs Government according to his Institutions there Covenanted to be preserved they enacted and declared it should have no Obligation or binding Force any farther and that none should henceforth require the renewing of it Carol. 2. Parl. 1. Sess. 1. Act. 7. And afterwards that the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant were in themselves Unlawful Oaths and therefore annulled all Acts and Constitutions Ecclesiastical or Civil approving them Parl. 1. Sess. 2. Act. 2. And not only so but in contempt of Heaven they caused burn them by the hand of the Hangman For adhering unto these Sacred Inviolable and Indispensible Engagements the sufferings of Presbyterians have in a great measure been stated since that time The next wicked project was to remove out of the way all who were eminent Instruments in promoting that work of Reformation now about to be razed and whom they feared would obstruct their Antichristian and Tyrannical designs both in the State and in the Church Accordingly the Noble Marquess of Argyle was beheaded for no other alledged cause but for his complyance with the English when they had made a Conquest of our Land Wherein also the Judges that condemned him were Socii Criminis And afterwards the Lord Wariston upon the same pretence And for the same pretended cause many other Gentlemen above 800 were Arbitrarly and Exorbitantly fined some under divers stiles twice over Such of the Ministry also as had been most faithful servent for the interests of their Master and of his Church were cruelly and most illegally removed some by Death as famous Mr. Guthrie for asserting the Kingly Prerogative of Christ in opposition to the Erastian Supremacy encroaching thereupon others by Banishment for giving faithful warning and protesting against the defection of that time thereby only contraveening a wicked Proclamation discharging them to speak against the Proceedings of the State others Indicta causa without access to give in their defences or to get so much as an extract of their sentence After they had thus prepared their way by the very first Act of the second Sess of the first Parl. anno 1662. They reestablished and redintegrated their Dagon of Episcopal Prelacy with all its inseparably concomitant retinue of Pride Perjury Simony Sacriledge and intollerable Usurpations and Corruptions And wreathed again about our Neck that Yoke which neither our Fathers who wrestled much against it nor we were nor ever shall be able to bear which as it is insupportable to and hated of all the Godly and desirable to none but dissolute debauched Persons who cannot endure Christs discipline impartially exercised and do find incouragement under the wings of Prelacy being in its original both the Mother and Daughter Root and Off-spring Cause and Effect of Popery a device which advanced the Man of Sin to his hight in the World and the only remaining support of his hopes of recovering these Kingdoms by Christs conquest rescued from his Tyranny in its nature evidently eversive of the very nature of Gospel Church Government in its ends only adapted to bring the Church into a slavish dependence on subordination to an usurped Supremacy of the Magistrate which is a change only of the Pope not of the Popedom And in its effects alwayes found to be most deplorably destructive to the purity and power of Religion and peace of its sincere profession and that which hath introduced and encouraged Impiety Error Schism and Persecution in these Lands So by all the sober and judicious that have known the Case of this Church and Kingdom it hath been acknowledged to be the source and spring of all our Sorrows and Grievances under which we have groaned these 28 Years This abjured Prelacy as it was introduced by manifest Perjury and Persidy so it was at first erected and hitherto advanced and supported on such a Foundation as might bear out and justify the Contrivers and Promoters of it as well in all attemprs to set up Popery it self the Act establishing it Declaring the disposal of the Government of the Church doth properly belong to his Majesty as an inherent Right of the Crown by vertue of his Royal Prerogative and Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastick An usurpation upon the Kingdom of Christ equivalent to any that ever the Papacy it self durst aspire unto over the Government of the Church The first effect whereof was by another Act 1 Sess. 2 Parl. Carol. 2. the restoring the old exploded bondage of Parronages another old Relict of Popish Slavery depriving the Church of the freedom of Calling and Choosing their own Pastors And dispossessing all the Ministers who entered since the Year 1640. of their Churches and Benefices possessed without the presentations of Patrons After which by the instigation of the Prelates the Council passed an Act October 1662 whereby above 300 Ministers were violently put out of their Charges and their Congregations laid desolate without all Legal Procedure without either Accusation or Citation Conviction or Sentence or a hearing allowed to them And therefore for simple Nonconformity and refusing subjection to and taking Collations from the Prelates the rest of the Ministers in great numbers were with cruelty more beseeming Turks thrust from their Labours and banished with a nice and strange confinement 20. Miles from their own Parish Church Six Miles from a Cathedral and three Miles from a Burgh In whose room succeded a swarm of Ignorant and Scandalous Apostates the Prelates and their Mercenary Substitutes the Curats against whom such Charges might alwayes have been adduced and to this day such Accusations are in readiness to be produced to any competent ludicatories that
their wicked Laws were condemned for their simple declared Opinion of it Which the Council and Court of Justiciarie particularly Sir George Mackenzie Advocate did extort from them by terrible menacings of Death and Torture For being interrogate Whether the rysing at Bothwel-bridge was Rebellion and a sin against GOD Many for saying it was not yea for not saying it was and waving the Question as reckoning themselves not oblieged to Answer were cruelly condemned and executed tho they declared and were known to be as free as the Child unborn of these Actions they were examined upon In Fine After our Patience had been long outwearied with insupportable Slavery and under such intollerable Oppressions in our Consciences Persons and Estates so universaly extended that in the present circumstances we had more reason to hope that past miseries present Pressures and future Dangers of greater Encroachments then foreseen by all men that did not willingly shut their Eyes should have incited and invited all that had any regard to the great Interests of Religion and Liberty to concur in an Essay to emancipate themselves and posterity from that Yoke of grassant growing Tyrannie Than to fear the condemnation of any under these Oppressions or the clamour and out cry of those that were at ease against the Informality Illegalily Unseasonableness or Unfealableness of such Revolt We were Enduced and Enforced at length when we could do no more to preserve what remained of these Interests or save our Consciences innocent from all participation of the sin of the destroyer of them To declare for our parts a Revolt from and disown Alleagiance to King Charles the Second as being no longer to be accounted our Supreme Magistrate but ipso jure devested of that Office and Trust Reposed and Devolved on him by express Compact and Covenant When he broke all these conditions whereupon his Authority and our Alleagiance were founded in his utter violating and making void the Covenant and Coronation Oath whereby our Subjection to him limited to those provisions was explicitely disingaged and remitted when he did unhinge and insringe all the Legal Establishments of our Religion and subverted all our Religious Liberties by usurping a Blasphemous Sacrilegious Supremacy over Ecclesiastical Ordinances instituted by Christ And when now he had overturned all Fundamental constitutions of the State as well as the Church subverting the Peoples Rights Liberties Laws and all securities of our Life and Enjoyments whatsoever by claiming and taking an Absolute Tyrannical Civil Prerogative paramount to all Law inconsistent either with the Freedom or Safety of the People Whereby no shadow of Government was left but Arbitrary Absoluteness making the Kings Letter the Supreme Law of Scotland while Innocent and Honest People for Conscience were grievously oppressed and Perjuries Adulteries Idolatries and all Impieries were not only Indemnified and past without punishment but encouraged as Badges of Loyalty For which causes we openly proclaimed our Revolt from the Government as it was then Administrate And in the same Declaration we reckoned our selves oblieged to protest against the Reception of the Duke of York in Scotland And against his succeeding to the Crown who was then declared incapable of Succession of the Government by a Vote of the two Honourable Houses of the Parliament of England For For owning and not daring to disown which Revolt it is impossible to enumerate our Kinds and Degrees of Sufferings for this we had our Ministers and Brethren Murdered both in the Fields and Scaffolds and Prisons and Seas Besides those that were slain at Airds-moss where Bruce of Earleshall attacked us and slew Mr. Richard Cameron a Faithful and Zealous Minister with many of our Brethren After this it was generally imposed on Prisoners even such as could not be charged with any Accession to the forementioned Declaration to give an account of their Thoughts and Consciences about the Lawfulness of the Kings Authority which if they could not own or declined to declare their Thoughts as judging it the common Interest of Mankind to plead for the Freedom of Thoughts from all humane Jurisdiction or if any answered with such innocent Qualifications as that they owned all Lawful Authority In the Lord or According to the Word of God then they were punished as Traitors executed to the Death and some at their first apprehending Tormented with Fire-matches then laid in Irons afterwards Tortured with the Boots or Thumbkins and after all executed in a most Barbarous manner without suffering them to speak their dying Words for beating of Drums Thus a great number of innocent People have been destroyed without respect to Age or Sexe some meer Boyes have been for this hanged some stouping for Age some Women also hanged and some Drowned because they could not satisfy the Council Justitiary Court and the Souldiers with their thoughts about the Goverment In the Year 1681. the Duke of York as Commissioner from his Brother held a Parliament Auspicated with the Blood of Mr. Donald Cargil a Godly and Faithful Minister which was shed at the Cross of EDINBURGH the day before the sitting down of the Parliament wherein he not only presided against all our Righteous Laws that Make a Papist incapable of such a Trust and against their own Laws without taking the Oaths of Administration but procured an Act to be made recognizing his Succession to the Crown notwithstanding all standing unrepealed Laws against papists wherein also many Acts were contrived that have been great causes of the desolation and depopulation of the Country that ensued As Act 4. dowbling the Fines imposed by former Laws for Fieid Conventicles And ordering Heretors and Masters to put away their Tennants Cottars or Servants at any time of the Year without any warning or process of removing notwithstanding of any Tacks or Terms to run And to retain their goods c. Act 18. Declaring that all Jurisdiction doth so reside in his Majestie that his Majesty may by himself or any Commissionated by him take Cognizance and Decision of any cases or causes he pleases Hereby a foundation was laid for overturning all Civil and Criminal Justice and for erecting the Tyranny of the Popish Inquisition whensoever matters were ripe for it and for commissionating Souldiers to take away the lives of Innocents without all Process of Law as was frequently exemplified afterward And Act 6. and 25. Framing and Imposing on all in Trust a detestable and self contradictory Test which turned out of all places of Trust any that retained any measure of common Honesty For explaining which the late Earl of Argyle was arfaigned and condemned and escaping prison forced to flee to forraign Lands As many others both Gentlemen and Commons were constrained to leave the Land where for multiplied illegal and ensnaring impositions they could neither live like Men nor like Christians but as Asses couching under all burdens These and the like Acts with many others Arbitrarly superadded Proclamations which have been multiplied every year
Curats and Indulged Ministers which were afterwards by Act 11. Sess. 3. Parl. 2. laid upon all who shall keep their Children Unbaptized for Thirty dayes together Act 9. Imposing intolerable Fines on all that shall three Sabbath dayes together withdraw themselves from their own Paroch Churches Act 9. Sess 3. Declaring all Ordinations of Ministers since the Year 1661. which have not been by Bishops to be Null and Invalid and that they are no Ministers that are otherwise Ordained encroaching hereby on the most Intrinsick and formally Ecclesiastick Powers of the Officers of Christs Kingdom These wicked Acts were followed with cruel Executions whereby many were made to endure such Havock as harder could not be found in the Reign of Caligula or Nero both in their own Houses in Prisons and at Sea in Deportations Hereafter thinking the ordinary Forces not cruel enough in executing these enacted Mischiefs they brought from the wild Highlands a Host of 10 or 11000 Barbarous Savages and poured them in upon the Westeren Shires all peaceable at the time none so much as moving a Finger against them on design as would seem utterly to lay them desolate with Orders to press a Bond of Conformity wherein every Subscriber was bound for himself and all under him to frequent the Paroch Church and never go to House or Field Meetings nor reset any that went to them but to informe against pursue and deliver up all outed Preachers to Judgement Many Houses and Families were then left desolate the Inhabitants being made to flee in the Winter Season many left their Cattel and in seeking to recover them lost their Lives Yet the Innocent Country was made to pay for all this Service and hire them to do more by paying the imposed Cess enacted and exacted professedly by the Act of the Convention of Estates holden by Lauderdale anno 1678. to raise and maintain more Forces and to maintain the Supremacy as now Asserted and Established and to suppress Field Meetings called Rendezvouses of Rebelion And for the same Causes and to suppress the Propagation of the Principles then suffered for continued by Act 3. Parl. 3. held by the DUKE of York Commissioner And by Act 12. Parl. 1. Iac. 7. holden by Queensberry continued and prorogued during all the Terms of his Lifetime which because of the Illegality of its imposition the nature of its Exaction being an Obedience to a wicked Law a help to the Ungodly to make Havock of the Church a hire to the Souldiers to destroy what remained of Religion and Liberty and because of its ends so expresly Declared in the Narratives of the Acts to suppress the persecuted Gospel and destroy its Followers many Presbyterians durst not justify by Obedience in paying the required Moyetie but chose rather to suffer joyfully the spoyling of their Goods and all the force and fury they could exert against them Whereby many tho' poor yet honest and honestly provided Families were laid waste and exposed to the Miseries of uncertain Wanderings At length upon occasion of Graham of Claverhouse his assaulting a meeting near Loudoun-hill carrying about with him a Minister and several Countrey men bound as Beasts and getting a repulse in the rancounter with the meeting Another Insurrection for our Lives Liberties and Religion was undertaken and discomfited at Bothwel-bridge anno 1679 and at the defeat several hundreds were killed on the Field and 10. or 1100. were taken Prisoners stript and carried to Edinburgh where after two of our Ministers were martyred for that Appearance Mr. Iohn King and Mr. Iohn Kid And after the rest of the Prisoners were kept several weeks in a Church yard without a covert either from cold or heat in the open Air a bond was tendered seeming to offer Life and Liberty on terms that clearly condemned the cause never to rise in Arms against the King on any pretence whatsoever c. Which many took and the rest of us that refused and even many that did take it were sent away in a Ship bound for America between 2 and 300 in all who were all murdered in the Ship being shut up under the hatches when it split upon a Rock in the North of Scotland excepting 50 some of which are yet alive to give this account After this the grand Design of subverting and utter everting our Reformation tho' from the beginning of this Fatal Catastrophe projected and by all the forementioned Methods prosecuted hitherto was more and more discovered and beyond all denial demonstrated that nothing less was intended then the gradual introduction of Popery and Slavery and that by all the ordinat Iesuitical Rules observed in the seduction of Churches into the Roman Tyrannie The chiefest of which have alwayes been to foment all Quarrels among Protestants and to strengthen the Party readiest to comply to make and execme rigorous Laws against the most tenacious and to load the Protestant Opinions that are more obnoxious with all odious constructions Accordingly in the first place to propagate Defection and promote Division a Proclamation was emitted anno 1679 inveighing against and resolutely interdicting all Field-meetings and granting Liberty to Preach in Houses upon terms of a cautionary Bond binding and oblieging the People for their Ministers living peaceably and in Order thereto to present him before his Majesties Privy Council when they should be called so to do And in caise of falizie in not presenting him to be lyable to the sum of 6000 merks Yet excluding all these Ministers who were suspect to have been at that insurrection of Bothwel And all those who should afterwards be admitted by Non conformed Ministers Whereby those that durst not comply were exceedingly divided and more easily destroyed For their Courts of cruel Inquisition went by Circuit through the Country pressing the Bond of Peace denying the Principle and renouncing the Priviledge of Defensive Arms And taking up Portuous Rolls of all that were suspect to have been at Bothwel insurrection whereof they reputed all to be convict who being summoned did not appear or were delated by Oath super inquirendis to have been seen or heard to be in Armes or did not go to the Kings Camp about that time Whereby not only upon the account of that Appearance were many executed to the Death by packing bloody Juries and Assises as might conduce and be for their murdering ends besides more than can be reckoned that were kept to perish in Prisons or Deportations to Banishment But many Gentlemen and others were Indyted Imprisoned and some condemned to Death others Forefaulted or Fyned above the value of their Estates for having seen or spoken with some of those called Rebels or because they did not discover or apprehend them even when they did not and could not know whether they were called or counted Rebels or not And some poor People when they could not be reached any way for this insurrection at Bothwell nor any other overt Act or Transgression against even
private Subjects Men really invested with Authority do think their Laws and Power to execute them on Offenders may well enough secure the Peoples subjection and will disdain such a suspicion of the questionablenss of their Authority as to make it a Question to the Subjects The more it was made a Question to us the more it became questioned and suspected And the more we were made to enquire into it the further we were from deprehending or recognoscing in him either the Characters or Constitution of a Magistrate to be owned We considered the many righteous Laws established by our worthy Ancestors for the preservation of the True Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom insert in the National Covenant which every Soul in the Kingdom under the Bond of that Covenant is bound to maintain according to their Capacities As Act 8 Parl. 1. King Ia 6 repeated and ratified in many Acts afterwards expresly providing and ordaining that all Kings and Princes at their Coronation and Reception of their Princely Authority shall make their faithful promise by Oath and that they shall profess and maintain the Protestant Religion and shall abolish and gainstand all false Religion contrary the same and shall rule according to Law c. Which Oath of Coronation he did not take would not take could not take while a Papist and therefore we could not look on him as our King by Law We considered likewise that in our Covenants the Allegiance that we must own to the King is expresly limited and qualified thus In the preservation and defence of the True Rellgion Liberties and Laws of the Kingdom Of which Qualification Allegiance to him a destroyer of Religion and Liberty is nor capable We remembred the Principles and Sentiments of our Fathers upon the Admission of King Charles 2. to the exercise of his Royal Power Declared in their seasonable and necessary Warning Gen Assem Iuly 27 Sess 27 1649. Wherein they tell us That a boundless and illimited Power is to be acknowledged in no King nor Magistrate that there is a mutual Stipulation and Obligation between the King and the People as both of them are tyed to GOD so each of them are tyed to one another Accordingly Kings are to take the Oath of Coronation to abolish Popery and maintain the Protestant Religion As long therefore as the King refuses to Engage and Obliege himself for security of Religion and safety of his People it is consonant to Scripture and Reason and Laws of the Kingdom that he should be refused And that in the Covenant the Duty of owning the King is subordinate to the Duty of preserving Religion and Liberty And therefore without security of these it were a manifest breach of Govenant and a preferring the Kings Interest to the Interest of Christ to bring him to the exercise of his power And consequently for us to give such a consent to it as such an owning of him as required would amount to Accordingly also the Commission of the General Assembly in their Act of the West-Kirk Declared They would not own the King nor his Interest otherwise than with a subordination to GOD and so far as he should own and prosecute the Cause of GOD and disclaim his and his Fathers opposition to the Work of GOD and the Covenant We called to mind likewise what our Renowned Reformers gave out as the case of their Revolt from the Government of Mary Qu Dowager anno 1559. her persecuting the Professors of the True Religion and oppressing the Liberties of the True Lieges her intruding of Magistrates against all Order of Election her Adultering and Subverting the Old Laws of the Realm c. Which all Men know were as applicable to King Iames 7th as to her And therefore we had their Reason to obliege us and their example to encourage us to say with them We own and promise to our Lawful Soveraign all due Obedience provided we may have our Religion and Liberty secured without which we firmely purpose never to be subject to Mortal Man For which and many other Reasons we reckoned our selves under Obligations to decline the imposed owning of his Authority and took the opportunity in the time of the Expedition of the Earl of Argyle against him to Publish in a Declaration our Reasons why we could not acknowledge it In the mean time the late Earl of Argyle with some other Noblemen and Gentlemen Associating with the Duke of Munmouth to essay some Diversion and Opposition to the Kings designs of advancing and establing Tyrannie and Popery All the Forces Militia Troups and Companies and the whole Army of Heretors were powred in upon those Places of the Kingdom where most of us were sojourning Who besides all the blood shed upon the account of that Expedition the Blood of the Earle himself and others of both Nations engaged with him and many of his Wassalls in the Highlands cruely put to Death by the Marq. of Athol had in Commission and put in execution the Bloodiest Orders we think readily Men could ever receive or obey The greatest employment that that great Army had in hand and in heart was to wreck and exert all their fury and force upon the poor Mountain-Men as they called us Which they did by ranging and spreading themselves many miles in breadth every one within sight of another and searching for us through all the Rocks Woods Mountains and Mosses of the Country where we were hiding with such Vigore Violence and dilligence as if they had been hunting for Hares or Foxes And the greatest ambition and emulation of their Leaders and Champions Graham of Claver-house Liev. Gen. Douglas Brother to the Duke of Queensberry Col. Buchan with others of their inferiour Officers Maj. Balfour Liev. Creightoun and Liev. Livingstoun c. was who should be most skilful and succesfull in destroying us And all this for no other Cause then because we could not Answer to their satisfaction the Questions they proposed without any warrant of Law and against the Common Interest of Mankind which frees all Men from being obliged to discover their secret thoughts Namely because we could not obtain of our Consciences to declare that we would own and acknowledge that Authority which enacted and by which they acted all these mischiefs Yet to the commendation of GODS Clemency and condemnation of Mens cruelty we may say when they had shot all their bolts after they had hanged shot tortured or banished for slaves all they could catch of us they were further from their purpose than when they began our Numbers and Mettings for Gospel ordinances Administrated in Purity and power encreased more and more But at length tho' our Persecution continued the King was pleased to change his Methods with other Dissenters He multiplied many Favours to such of them as he called Moderate And by these means intending to advance the Mysterie of iniquity by stoping the mouths and binding up the hands of all from whom he might
expect Control or Contradiction and laying them by from all open opposition to the introduction of Poperie and advancement of Slaverie he purposed and proposed the repealing of the Penal Statutes against Papists at the Parliament held by the Earl of Murray Against which when afterwards some of the Common sort of people and of the Souldiers spoke some what freely and for shewing their dislike of setting up the Idolatrous Mass and for speaking against Poperie and the designs of the King they were put to Death in a most Despotical and Arbitrary manner The Persecution the mean while still continuing against us and growing more dangerous and worse to bear that we had all the brunt of it to sustain while the Forces had few other to Persecute but us which they did in great fury murdering in Fields and Scaffolds such as they could catch of us At length what could not be obtained by Law at the formentioned Parliament for taking off the Penal Statutes was effectuate by Prerogative in a Proclamation Feb 12 1687. Granting by the Kings Soveraign Authority Prerogative Royal and Absolute Power which Subjects are to obey without Reserve a Toleration under certain conditions Restrictions and Limitations to all sorts of Perswasions excepting us who are left to the full vigor and utmost rigor of the Laws made against us Suspending Stoping and Disabling all Laws or Acts of Parliament customs or constitutions against any Roman Catholick Subjects giving them freedom in all respects as much as any Prtoestant Subjects whatsoever not only to Exercise their Religion but to enjoy all Offices Benefices c. which he shall think fit to bestow upon them in all time coming Hence Papists were put into places of highest Trust both Civil and Military And Popish Magistrates without any Election established in Burghs c. contrare to the known Laws of the Kingdom admitting none to be Magistrates or so much as a Procutator Notar or member of Court who professes not the Protestant Religion Act 9. Parl 1. Iames 6. Declaring all Papists infamous and unable to sit or stand in Judgment pursue bear Office or to be admitted as proves Witness or Assisors against Protestants Act 45 Parl 3 Iames 6 which is extended to all and whatsomever Office without any Exception or Restriction in all time coming Act 5 Parl 20 Iames 6 Hence also the Idolatrous Mass was set up in the most publick places of the Kingdom and Popish Seminary Priests suffered and encouraged to preach and set up Schools to seduce the People especially the Youth contrate to many express standing Laws Act 3 Parl 1 Iames 6 and Act 5 ibid Ordaining all layers or hearers of Mass to be punished with imprisonment for the first fault banishment for the second and justifying to the Death for the third fault Act 122 Iarl 12 K Iames 6 Decerning That in all time coming the saying of Mass resetting of Jesuites Seminary Priests Traffiquing Papists shall be just cause to infer the pain and crime of Treason Act 196 Parl 14 Iames 6 Ordaining in all time coming all wilfull hearers of Mass and concealers of the same be execute to the Death Ratified in the 1 Act. Parl. 19. Iac. 6. And in 5. Act. Parl 20 Iac 6. Hence Papists have erected Schools and made sold and dispersed their Heretical Books tending to seduce the People from the true Religion contrary to express Laws Act. 106. Parl 7 Iac 6 Act 24 and 25 Parl 11 I 6. This Popish Toleration was neither extended to us all the three Proclamations thereof expresly providing that Field Conventicles all Preachers and Hearers thereat be prosecuted according to the utmost Severity and Rigor of the Lawes made against them left in their full Force and Vigor with a Command to all Judges Magistrates and Officers of â—orces to pursue us with all Violence Nor could we in Conscience and Duty directly or indirectly suffer our selves to be involved by any participation therewith or acceptance thereof in the sin of it against the Laws of GOD and Man Since it appeared evidently to flow from a Blasphemous fountain of Absolute Power through a Treasonable Channel of stoping Suspending and disabling the Penal Statutes made against the Enemies of GOD and of the Kingdom and to be designed for the wicked ends of subverting the Protestant Religion and the peaceable introduction of Popish Idolatrie and Heresie And to offer not the establishment of our Religion but the Tolerating of it under the scandalous notion of a thing to be suffered for a while and with such shameful securities as robbed the Church of all her Legal Charters of Laws and Covenants establishing her Reformation leaving her nothing in lieu thereof but a blind precarious promise of One whose principles oblieged him to keen no Faith with those to whom he promised it But against all these indignities done to Christ and injuries to the Church intended and effected by this Toleration our Ministers thought themselves oblieged to bear witness and Testimony And with respect both to necessity and duty to continue to keep their Meetings in the open Fields whether the Tyranny of the times had driven them Since they durst neither seem to Homologate the Toleration by coming under the sconce of such a protection Nor durst they give such advantage to such as were insatiably thirsting after their Blood and were impowered to shed it as they were seeking and would have found if they had shut up themselves within houses that could neither hold their Friends nor be hid from their Enemies This we looked upon as a Testimony for the interest of the Protestant Religion for our Covenanted Reformation for the Laws Liberties of our Country all undermined and sought to be subverted by that Toleration In the prosecution of this Device when others were killed with Popish kindnesses we were left to feell the sweet effects of Popish Crueltie Some of our Bretheren were Murdered in Fields and Scaffolds since that pretended Toleration Many both Men and Women have been banished and Sold for Slaves in Barbados Other severe Proclamations were issued against our Ministers Intercommuning seting a pryce upon their Heads to encourage all to apprehend them Dead or alive One of them Mr. Iames Renwick a painful Minister being Feb. 1688. was Executed to the Death in Edinburgh the Drums beating all the time of his Praying and speaking upon the Scaffold And after this not only was the Country oppressed with Souldiers free quarterings and frighted with their searches and Insolences in their ryding up and down the Country challenging peaceable Travellers upon the Road about their Opinions of the Kings Authority and if this and that was Rebellion and threatning present Death to such as did not satisfie them But the City of Edinburgh vexed with universal searches and the impositions of these impertinences whereby many were taken and examined by Claver-house who required them to renounce the Covenant imprisoned the Recusants Whereby the Prisons were crouded