productive of Prelacy again Which in the Lords strength We and many Thousands do intend never to submit to tho for our Recusancy we should suffer the greatest persecution from Men. We are for the Restauration and Re-establishment of this Churches Ancient Covenanted Reformation in its Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of God Confession of Faith Catechisms Larger and Shorter National and Solemn Covenants and Acts of General Assemblies in all its Legall Immunities Securities and Sanctions as before the Year 1650. These Different Inclinations cannot be a Rule of Government and order but of Ataxie and Confusion Nor can they be determined by a Lesbian rule unconstant and uncertain But somewhat to which all must vail and and submit and which must claim the last Appeal Tho we might with as great Confidence as others Venture the success of our Plea for Presbyterie upon the decision of a Poll and Plurality of Votes providing which could not be denied none be admitted to Vote but such as are well affected to the Government of King William and Queen Marry Yet we cannot subject the determination of that Plea to any other Rule than he Institution of CHRIST considering that either the Lord IESVS who is anointed only King and Head of his Church and is faithful in all his House must not have appointed any Government or order thereof at all which would exceedingly Reflect upon His Wisdom and Faithfullness and the Perfection of his Law or this Government which he hath appointed must not be Arbitrary and Ambulatory indifferently determinable by the will and inclinations of Men no more than others of His Institutions can be We plead for no Government and for nothing in this of Presbyterie but what we have the Lawes of CHRIST in his Word the Ancient Lawes of the Nation the Constitutions of the Church never yet repealed by any subsequent Authority Ecclesiastick and the Covenant Eengagements of all ranks in the Land of Indespensible obligation for Nor do we plead for any exercise or extent of this order further then is necessary for the purging of the Church of every Antichristian or Erastian Corruption and Invention Defection or Schism Error or Scandal in Officers or Members impartially And for the Planting of the Church with Godly able and Faithful Ministers for the Instruction conviction conversion Edification and Consolation of the Members thereof But now not only is this Government not established but even that of Prelacy is not effectually nor can be abolished while the many iniquous Laws against Presbytery and pressing submission to Prelacy are not rescinded And while our National and Solemn League Cevenants for Preserving and Promoting Reformation are so far forgotten and trampled upon that the Acts Antiquating and Discharging them to be owned are not only not Abrogated but so far yet observed that it is hardly allowed they should be publickly mentioned While also the Ecclesiastical Supremacy a feather likewise of Antichrists wing and a Blasphemous and Sacrilegious Encroachment upon Christs Prerogatives and His Kingdoms Priviledges is not revocked nor declared void whereby it stands declared by wicked Laws to be the inherent Right of the Magistrate to Order Dispose Alter or Innovate the external Government of the Church and to plant or transplant Ministers and give them Instructions to Regulate them in the Exercise of their Function which if not Abolished will not only optn a Door to the Introdnction of Prelacy or Popery again But if the Protestant Religion be never so well Established this will in process of time unhinge all possible Settlements thereof There is nothing more the Interest of the Church than to seek that this Mountain in the way of its Reformation be removed and all Acts confirming the same repealed and Indulgences following therefrom be declared to be Usurpations Another Pillar of Prelacy the constant support of it and stop to Reformation does yet continue while the burdensome Bondage of Patronages is not removed whereby the Church is Robbed of the Liberty of choosing her own Guides intrusted with her greatest concerns the Great-men have open access Implicity to impose and Prey upon and Pester the Church with Corrupt Teachers But if all these things were Rectified it is impossible the Church can ever be settled or purged or planted as long as the Episcopal Curats intruded by the Prelats Collation and Patrons Presentation contrare to the Institutions of Christ and the Constitutions of this Reformed Church without the Call and contrare to the Inclinations of the People in many places but every where the Bane of the Nation the Scandal of the Church and the cause of all our Confusions are continued in the Churches How can the Church be settled when those that unsettled it continue in the same Capacity to oppose all Righteous Settlements of Reformation How can the Church be purged when the greatest Corrupters and the most corrupted Members remain in Power Either they must be looked upon and Subject themselves as Members of the Presbyterian Church and then Discipline cannot but strike against them in such a measure of Severity as may be some way proportioned to the greatness of their Scandal their Obstinacy Impenitency and Continuance in it as long as they could and the hazard of their Leavening the whole Lump or they must be looked upon as Pure and Perfect Schismaticks seting up a distinct Church and seperate Communion within a well Constitute National Church and as such they ought to be Censured and Restrained How can the Church be planted when those Plants that the LORD never planted fill so much of His Vineyard and continue in so many Paroches either to sterve them with the hungry Husks of Ethick Homilies and Harangues of Moral Vertues instead of Gospel Holiness not knowing to Preach the Mystery of the Covenant of Grace or declare the Counsel of GOD to the Conversion of Sinners unto CHRIST or so poyson them with points of Popery Arminianisme Socinianisme Yet many of them do yet Peaceably possess the places they were intruded into and others dispossessed are reponed by Force contrare to the inclinations of the Paroch and notwithstanding their opposition in some places as for instance in Colintown and in Peebles where great Insolences were committed affronting the Magistrates and disturbing the Presbyterian Meeting which have been overlooked but the least Accession to any Opposition that was made hath been severely punished one Francis Beatie upon this account being for these many weeks kept in prison and his Petitions for Liberty ejected This hath discouraged many and opened their mouths to reflect That tho this Government be as much admited for Acts of Mercy to Rebells as the former was for Cruelty yet wherever any Presbyterian can be apprehended in any fault he must expect the rigour of Severity We do not justifie illegal Tumults nor do we approve that people should transgress their Line and Station in endeavours of Reformation when there is a Magistrate to be
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
unto followed Such as had not served the Enemy in destroying nor engaged by Oaths and Tests to destroy the cause now to be sought for and defended But that they should be well affected of approven Fidelity and of a sober conversation Having also declared That the cause they were called to appear for was the service of the Kings Majesty in the defence of the Nation Recoverie and preservation of the Protestant Religion and in particular the work of Reformation in Scotland in opposition to Popery Prelacy and Arbitrary Power in all its Branches and Steps until the Government of Church and State be brought to their Lustre and Integrity established in the best and purest times Upon these terms we offered to compleat two or three more Regiments if it had been accepted But before we offered to be Souldiers we had first made an offer to be Subjects And because we did not look upon our selves as Subjects to the Late King who treated us as Enemies We made therefore a voluntary Tender of our Subjection in a peculiar Petition by our selves which we purposed to have given in to the Meeting of Estates at their first sitting down We shewed it to several Honourable Members but by their Advice it was delayed until the Meeting prevented the purpose of it by Proclaiming the King and Queen The Tenor whereof here Follows TO THE MEETING of ESTATES Of the Kingdom of SCOTLAND THE NOBLEMEN BARONS and BVRGESSES Lawfully Called and Chosen now Assembled at Edinburgh for Establishing the Government Restoring and Securing the True Religion Laws and Liberties of the said Kingdom The Humble PETITION of the poor People who have Suffered Grievous Persecution for their Revolt from and disowning the Authority of James the VII Pleading for the devolving the Government upon the Prince of Orange now King of England SHEWETH THat the sad effects of the Late Arbitrary and Tyrannical Course of Government which these Nations and we in a special manner have been groaning under these years past From which to Relieve them the Most Serene and Illustrious Prince of Orange was induced by the Propitious Conduct of a very Glorious Providence to Undertake this Noble and Heroick Enterprise And for Redressing which This Honourable Convention is Called and Conveened Together with the revived hopes since His Highness Auspicious Arrival that all honnest men have begun to conceive and entertain of getting their Grievances freely Represented and Redressed The denyal whereof these several years hath been to us and many others a Grievance very grievous Have necessitate incited invited and encouraged us among others tho of the meanest Figure and lowest Interest in this great Affair Yet as persons pressed to declare and oppressed for declaring their Consciences Sentiments and Resentments of the Late abused Government to take the Boldness now to open our hearts to this Great and Honourable Meeting And with all humility as becomes to Represent to Your Honours That as we conceive we wanted not Right and Reason upon Consciencious Grounds to decline the Illegally extorted and Arbitrarly imposed acknowledgement of our Allegiance unto Iames the VII Whose Authority we could never own because of his Illegal Investiture without taking or being in Capacity to take the Oath of Coronation while addicted to Poperie contrare to the Laws of God and Man because of his Advancing the Prerogative unto an Illimited and most Despotical Absolutness which all were required to obey without Reserve And because of his Arbitrary abusing it to the undermining and overturning our Religion Laws and Liberties and intended Introduction of Poperie and Slaverie at the opened gap of the Prelatical Hierarchy Erastian Supremacy and the Late vastly extended Toleration And because we could not own it our Sufferings have been very great known to this and other Nations and we are confident will not now be condemned by any that have espoused the Cause and have been honoured to concur in the Enterprise of Rescuing these Nations from the Unsupportable Yoke of the Late Popish Domination upon the same or equivalent grounds on which we durst not own it So we prostrate ourselves yet sorrowing under the smart of our still bleeding wounds at your Honours Feet who have a Call a Capacity and we hope a good mind to cure them And offer this our Petition enforced by all the formerly felt presently seen and for the future feared Effects and Efforts of this Throne of Iniquity and the mischief thereby framed into Law and practised or projected against all Law by the Cry of the Blood of our murdered Brethren by the slavery of the banished free born Subjects of this Realm by all the miseries that many forefeited disinhereted harassed and wasted honest Families have been redacted to their Estates and Lives being at the mercy of incensed Souldiers for adhering unto the Ancient Covenanted Establishments of Religion and Liberty And by all the Arguments of Justice Necessity and Mercy that ever could conciliate Commiseration among Men of Wisdom Piety and Vertue humbly Beseeching Requesting and Craving of your H Now when GOD hath given you this opportunity to Act for His Glory the good of the Church and Nation your own Honour and the Happiness of Posterity Now when this Kingdom the Neighbouring and all other Nations of Europe have their Eyes upon you expecting you will acquit your selves like the Representatives of a free Nation in redeeming it from Slaverie otherwise ineluctable following the Noble footsteps of your Renowned Ancestors and the present Precedent and Pattern of this Honourable Convention and Parliament now sitting in England That you will proceed without any farther Procrastinations alwayes especially now Dangerous when Papists and other Malignant Enemies are openly attempting to raise a Rebellion against the State to declare the late Iniquous Government dissolved the Crown Vacant and Iames VII whom we never have and resolve with many Thousands never again to owne to have really Forfeited and rightly to be deprived of all Right and Title he could ever pretend thereunto And to provide that it may never be in the Power of any succeeding Governour for the time to come to aspire unto or arrive at such a Capacity of Tyrannizing Moreover since Anarchy and Tyranny are equally to be detested and the Nation cannot subsist without a Righteous Governour and none can have a nearer Right nor fitter Qualifications than his Illustrious Highness whom the Most High hath signally Owned and Honoured to be our deliveror from Popery end Slavery We Cry and Crave that King William now of England may be Chosen and Proclaimed King of Scotland and that the Regal Authority be devolved upon him with such necessary Provisions Limitations and Conditions of Compact as may give Iust and Legal Securities of the Peace and Purity of our Religion Stability of our Laws priviledges of Parliaments and Subjects Liberties Civil and Ecclesiastick and make our Subjection both a clear Duty and a comfortable Happiness And because Kings are but Men mortal mutable and
fallible particularly We crave that he be bound in his Royal Oath not only to Govern according to the Will and Command of GOD and Ancient Laudible and Righteous Laws in the Ministration of Justice punishment of Iniquities Redressing of just Grievances and preservation of true Liberties But above all that he and his Sucessors profess persevere in Protect and maintain the true Protestant Religion abolish Poperie and all false Religion Heresie Idolatrie and Superstition revive the Penal Lawes against the same re-establish and Redintegrate the Ancient Covenanted Work of Reformation of this Church in Doctrine worship discipline and Government according to the Word of GOD Confession of Faith Covenants National and Solemn League upon its old foundations as Established from the Year 1638. and downward to 1650 And that he restore and Confirme by his Princely Sanction the due Priviledges of the Church granted to her by JESUS CHRIST her only Head and Supreme and never assume to himself an Erastian Supremacy over the Church in Causes Ecclessiastick or Unbounded Prerogative in Civils above Law but as the Keeper of both Tables of the Law of God in a way Competent to Civil Authority interpose his Power for the Ejecting out of the Church the Prelats the main Instruments of the Church and Nations Miseries And from all Administration of the Power and Trust in the State such Malignant Enemies as have promoted the Ruine thereof Upon these or the like Termes We tender our Allegiance to King William and hope to give more pregnant Proof of our Loyalty to his Majesty in Adverse as well as Prosperous Providences than they have done or can do who profess Implicite Subjection to Absolute Authority so long only as Providence preserves its Grandure MAY IT THEREFORE PLEASE YOUR HON. To take the Premises into Your serious Consideration and put a Favourable Construction on this our Humble and Earnest Request which sense of Duty in desire to Exoner our Conseiences and in Complyance with and at the Solicitation of the Cries of many Thousands in the Nation moved and craved We take the Confidence to present to Your HON. In the Hope that Zeal for GOD and his Church regard to Iustice and Mercy Care of Your own as well as the Countries Interest dutiful Love Loyalty and Gratitude to King William and even Pity to us will prevail with Your Wisdom to grant in with all convenient Expedition And Your Supplicants shall ever Pray c. FROM what is above hinted it may appear that We are not Enemies to Government but that as we have had Occasion We have given more Evidences of true Loyalty than any of our Traducers and of true Zeal to have this Government fixed on such a Foundation as may make it Secure and Stable and Subjection thereunto to be not only a Duty but a Comfort And with the same inviolable Zeal Affection and Fidelity since others will not We cannot forbear to Remonstrare those Grievances that are as well hateful to GOD and hurtful to the Government as Grievous to Us. First As to the Church tho' all Honest Subjects have been impatiently expecting the settlement thereof from the Kings Declaration his Promises at the Acceptance of the Crown and his Instructions to D. Hamiltoun Yet to this Day it is neither Settled nor Purged nor Planted but kept in uncertain suspense what to fear or what to hope Popery indeed is much suppressed in a way wherein much of GOD and little of Man is to be acknowledged and admired yet the Ancient Laudable Laws against Papists Seminary Priests Sayers and Hearers of Mass are not Revived Reinforced nor put in Execution while many of these Idolaters and Intycers to Idolatry are connived at past without punishment and favourably Intreated when some of us have apprehend them and delivered them into Custody Whence they are much encouraged where they Cohabite in great Numbers especially in the Sea Coast of Galloway where they may open a Door and free Ingress to the Irish whenever they have a mind to Invade whereby the Country about is contiunally Tormented with fears of their Massacres and Murdering Attempts We can never be freed from the hazard of the Return of Popery so long as Papists are so much Tolerated and are bragging of their hopes of getting a Toleraration established Suspending and Dispensing with the Penal Statutes against them which will defile the Land with Idolatry and expose us to the Judgement of GOD. We desire also to be thankful that Poperies eldest Daughter the Episcopal Hierarehy or Prelacy hath got such a knock on the head that it is abolished by Law its return so far Legally precluded that the removal thereof being one of the Stipulations Artieles of Compact with his Majesty at the Disposal and Acceptance of the Crown it cannot be restored without asignal Violation of the Regal Covenant the native Consequences whereof may beforeseen to be so dangerous that we hope the Kings Wisdom and Justice will be proof against all the Insinuations and Perswasions of the Church of England to hazard it yet it is a very burdensome Grievance that the settlement of the Church Government is so long suspended and the Nation kept in Suspense not knowing what shall be settled in stead of Prelacy abolished whereby the Land is left to settle in nothing but to rest and rott in old Crying sins and new provocations are daylie Multiplied without control Scandals and Disorders to the dishonour of GOD reproach of Religion stumbling the weak hardening the perverse and offending all are not restrained but much encouraged and different factions much fomented while Church Government and Discipline the only Preservative and restaurative Medicine for such Distempers is neither established nor any rule determined by which it shall be Established except the Inclinations of the People which are in themselves very variable and must be ruled by and not a Rule unto the Institutions of IESVS CHRIST And as they are variable so they are as Various and diverse as there are Numbers of Persons or Parties that prefer their own Humours and Interests to the Supreme Law the revealed will of Christ Some are for Erastianisme Some for a constant Moderatorship some for a Superintendency some perhaps for Independency some for a Toleration of all some are for a continuance of the Curates either without any Accommodation with them and secluding them from a share of the Government but suffering them still to Exercise their Ministry Or by an Accommodation and Coalition with them in the Government also some again are for the continuance of Patronages how ever it be We and many Thousands are against all these things as being contrary to the Word of GOD abjured frequently in our COVENANTS NATIONAL and SOLEMN LEAGVE condemned in the confession of this and all other best Reformed Churches And in the doleful experience of former times known to be inlets to many wicked inventions innovations and corruptions in the Church And in process of time