shall be called to cognosce upon them of the pernicious Errors of Popery Socinianisme and Arminianisme maintained by many of them Abominable Adulteries committed by others of them the Profanity Sensuality and Debauchery Oppression and Persecution of Godliness and good Men chargeable on the generallity of them and Perjury in breach of Covenant and Schismatical intrusion without consent of the Church owned of all of them and Ungodliness by them transfused over all the Land as could not but make them detested of all as the greatest stain to be suffered in a Reformed Church Upon the back of this by the instigation of the Prelates who scorned to be and one no not by Iulian the Apostate in surpressing Religion they proceeded to poyson all the Seminaries of Learning Ordaining in Act. 9. Sess. 2. Parl. 1. Carol. 2. That none be Masters in any University except they both take the Oath of Supremacy and submit to and own Prelacy or be so much as a Pedagogue to Children without the Prelates Licence By which course Honest and Learned Men were brought to considerable Straits and Sufferings and Ungodly and Unsound Masters had access and encouragement to corrupt the Youth with perverse and Malignant Principles to the great and observable Detriment and Decrement of Religion Learning Sobriety and Morality in the Nation The next Contrivance was to corrupt all the Fountains of Judicature And for this End it was enacted Act 5. Sess. 2. Parl. 1. Carol. 2. That all Persons in any publick Trust or Office whatsoever should subscribe the Declaration renouncing and abjuring the Covenants And that not only under the Certified penalty of Forefaulting the Priviledges of Magistrates But also of all the Priviledges of Merchandizing Trading and others belonging to a Burgess Act 3. Sess. 3. Parl 1. Carol. 2. Whereby Perjury was made the chief and indispensable Qualification and Conditio sine qua non of all that were capable of Exercising any power in Church or State contrate to known Laws yet unrepealed which make them that are guilty of Perjury incapable of being intrusted with any publick Administration in the Kingdom The Parliaments thus corrupted and instigated by the Bishops and Curates Establish wicked Laws pressing Conformity And in the very first of them made such a streach beyond all bounds of Charity Justice Reason or Humanity that they made all Addresses to God or Man remonstrating such Grievances and reflecting on such proceedings to be Criminal Declaring Petitions to be Seditious And discharging all Writing Printing Remonstrating Praying or Preaching shewing any dislike of the Kings Absolute Prerogative and Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastick or of the Government of the Church by Bishops Act 2. Sess. 2. Par. 1. Carol. 2. And Act 4 ibid. They not only prohibited any to Preach in publick or so much as in Families without the Prelates Licences but Discharged all Private Meetings in Houses for Religious Exercise of such as could not in Conscience give their Countenance to the Curats Service in Churches Then in the 3 Sess. Act. 2. They Declare that all Non conformed Ministers that shall presume to Exercise their Ministry shall be punished as Seditious Persons And Require of all in acknowledgement of and Complyance with his Majesties Government Ecclesiastical that they give their concurrence and countenance to the Curates and attend their Meetings for Worship Ordaining that whosoever shall withdraw shall incur each Nobleman Gentleman or Heretor the loss of a fourth part of their Years rent every Yeoman the loss of a fourth or under of his Moveables each Burgess the loss of his Burge-ship with the fourth of his Moveables with a reference to the Council for farther punishment and more effectual Execution Which the Council very vigorously Prosecuted in emitting most rigorous Proclamations after that Some requiring all to keep their Parioch Churches under the pain of 20. shil toties quoties Some discharging all Preaching Praying or Hearing in Families where three or some more then the Domesticks were found as unlawful Conventicles Others Certifying that all such Meetings not Authorised shall be punished by Pecunial and Corporal pains at the Arbittement of the Council Other Commanding all Masters of Families Heretors Landlords and Magistrates of Burghs ro cause their Servants Dependents Tennents Taxmen Cottars and all under their Charge to submit and conform to the Curates their Ministry For putting these Laws in Execution the King erected a High Commission Court consisting of some Prelates Noblemen Magistrates of Burghs and some Souldiers impowered by vertue of his Prerogative Royal and Supremacy to suspend deprive and Excommunicat As also to punish by Fining Confining and Incarcerating all keepers of Conventicles and all Non Conformists A Hotch-potch mongrel Monster of a Judicatory Authorized by the Prerogative against the Laws of GOD and Man meddling with Causes and Censures Ecclesiastick and Civil most Illegal and Arbitrary both for its Constitution and Procedure Whereby persons brought before them were made to answer super inquirendis contrare to express standing Law Ioc. 6. Parl. 10. Act. 13. Anno. 1585. without either Libel or Accuser or admitting Legal Defences except they take the Oaths and sentenced with Stigmatizing Scourging Banishment Deportation and Slaverie to Barbados c. By orders from this Court especially from the Prelates whose country sides were in a great measure Depopulate for Non-conformity by Souldiers Sometimes besetting the Churches where honest Ministers were not yet ejected and forcing all within to pay fines Sometimes going to the Curates Churches and Amerciating all the Absents in such fines as they pleased Sometimes by force driving all to Church beating wounding and binding the Reousants Sometimes exacting exorbitant fines by Plunder to the Harassing and making Havock of whole Country sides sparing sometimes Complyers no more then Recusants And punishing Husbands for their Wives Parents for their Children Yea doubling and tripling the same exactions after payment yet compelling them sometimes to subscribe an acknowledgement that the Captain had used them civilly and discreetly Then after all Apprehending Imprisoning Scourging some Stigmatizing others and sending them to Forreign parts that would not for all this conform Hereupon being outwearied with intollerable oppressions a small party of Dissenters were partly compelled and party by a surprise of Providence engaged to run together for their own defence at Pentland Anno 1666. Where after the defeat The Prisoners that were taken upon Quarter and solemn parol to have their life spared were treacherously given up to be Condemned the very manner of their Execution being first determined and described before Arraigment and cruelly hanged their Heads being set up at Edinburgh Glasgow Air Dumsreis and at Hamiltoun Turks would have blushed to have seen the like Among the rest one eminent Minister Mr. Hugh Mckail for having but a Sword tho not present at the Fight was first cruelly tortured with the Iron boots and afterwards execute to the death At their Executions Drums were beat that they
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
seem obliquely to reflect upon the Government when we complain of the ill Administrations of many Malignants in power But as they are sad Truths which cannot be denyed and tho we may be charged with Imprudence in speaking so freely what many Thousands and those of the surest Friends the Government hath do think So however we be neither Politicians nor Flatterers we think Conscience and Loyalty both doth oblige us to speak what concerns the King and Country both to hear We do not blame the King for delaying the satisfaction that his People have long waited for further than for permitting some into Trust who have abused him with misinformations of what they waited for and with counsels to delay their satisfaction Nor are we jealous of his Majesties sincere intentions to perform what he hath promised and the Estates Demanded as necessary for settling the Church securing Laws restoring Liberties and Redressing Grievances Albeit many here complained of have laboured to suggest grounds of such Iealousie We have got already so much Advantage by the success of his Heroick Expedition And so many repeated Assurances of his Royal Resolutions to fulfill his Declaration and Promises to our satisfaction none of which we can charge him with the breach of tho many of them are not yet accomplished that we should be very unworthy to Iealouse his Integrity We consider his Majestie stated in very Difficult and Dangerous Circumstances since he interposed himself in our Gap between an angry God and a sinful Provocking People Wherein he hath to do with a potent Enemy without and many undermyning Enemies about his Hand seeking to ensnare him in sin and expose him to ruine and hath in his two Kingdoms of Britain People of different Interests and Inclination whom to Govern will require great deliberation and consequently occasion delayes But we lay the blame where it should lye on the Malignants at Court Council and Parliament who are seeking to betray him and us both If some of these be exposed and their old pranks discovered and the Grievous effects of their being so much in Power hinted at We hope the Candid Reader will think it no ill service either to King or Country ERRATA Reader before thou peruse these Sheets be pleased to help these Escapes of the PRESS omitting these of less Note Page 15. Line 34. Read encouraged P. 17. 19. R. superadded by L. 25. R. equaling P. 34. Col. 1. 9. R. 21 Men and 5 Women P. 35 Col. 2. L. 11. for Douglas R. Dundass P. 36. Col. 1. L 5 for Mouat R. Mewae Col. 2. L. 20 R. Dundass and L. 26. R. Dundass P. 39. L. 36. for Orders R. Order P. 48. L. 18. R. flowing A SHORT MEMORIAL OF THE GRIEVANCES and SUFFERINGS Of the PRESBYTERIANS in SCOTLAND Since the Year 1660. Particularly of those of them called CAMERONIANS AFTER King Charles returned from his Exile the first Device which the Malignants then advanced to the highest places of Trust fell upon for overturning our Religion Laws and Liberties was to prevent and obstruct all access either to Justice or Mercy for such as they had a mind to destroy and preclude all Applications for a Redress of Grievances Hence when some faithful Ministers were drawing up a Monitory Supplication to the King congratulating his Return and minding him of his Covenant Engagements and promises to promote and preserve the work of Reformation the Committee of States then siting caused apprehend and without hearing incarcerate them for no other cause but that Supplication against which at that time there was no Law and which all Law and Reason of the World will justifie as the most innocent expedient of getting their just complaints heard and redressed and the common priviledge of all men which slavery it self cannot take away Yet as all Men and they themselves could not but see this a manifest subverting of the Subjects Liberty So in procureing a Law to approve it afterwards they made it worse and more illegal in declaring Petitions to be unlawful and seditious Carol. 2. Parl. 2. Sess. 2. Act 2. Hence no Petition or Remostrance of publick Grievances Oppressing and enslaving Church or Nation either durst be offered or could find Access or Acceptance being interdicted and also punished very severely as in the instance of the Grievances given in against Lauderdale Nor durst Prisoners tender the most innocent Supplication even for release or a more easie Confinement in any terms that seemed either to reflect on their severity or represent the illegality of their prosecutions or in the least to vindicate the cause they were suffering for which caused many afterwards to decline all petitioning and choose rather to ly under the most unsupportable bondage for fear of having it made more miserable The next succeeding Devices to undermine and overturn our Religion and Liberty were the Mischiefs framed into Law by the first Session of the first Parl Charles 2. held by the Earl of Middletoun 1661. Wherein by the very first Act thereof all the Members were involved in a Conscience Ensnaring and Enslaving Oath of Absolute and Implieite Allegiance and Supremacy without the former usual Limitations then standing unrepealed not only wronging Parliaments in their Priviledges and the Church in her Liberties but the Lord Jesus Christ in his Prerogative of Supremacy and Headship over the Church making the King a Pope and not only a Church Member as a Magistrate or Church Officer but the Supreme Architectonick Head of the Church For refusing this afterwards many Ministers and others were banished several of them made to subscribe a Bond to remove out of all his Majesties Dominions within a moneth not to return under the pain of Death And many kept in prison by the Arbittary Power of the Council beside the tenor and extent of their own wicked Act thereupon In the following Acts of that same Session of Parliament they advanced the Kings Prerogative to the highest pitch of Absoluteness and the acknowledgement of this vast and unlimited prerogative in all particulars was formed and imposed Charl 2 Parl 1. Sess. 1. Act 2 3 4 5 11. This was the foundation of all the succeeding Tyranny and source of the Nations slavery and in it self a head of sufferings to several Gentlemen and others who could not in Conscience subscribe or make that acknowledgement of such a prerogative which would manifestly have imported an approving of the first audacious and presumptuous effect and attempt of its power exerted in rescinding and annulling at one blow all the Righteous and Legal Establishments of the Covenanted Reformation and all the Acts made in favours thereof in all the Parliaments and Conventions of Estates from the year 1640. to 1650. even those that the then King Charles 1. approved owned and called They rested not here in a general or gradual unhinging of Legal Constitutions made for security of our Religion and Liberty but then took advantage of the universal silent Submission of
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
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
Colours and represented the danger of trusting them to the King who being much a Stranger to Men at his first coming over might be easily deceived in the choose of such as were to be Imployed and then it had been easier to keep out then now to put out of Places But it is never too late to seek to be Rid of these that were and are like to be Instruments of our Ruine whose Exclusion from Trust and Power to play their old Tricks is necessary for the King's Interest as well as the Kingdoms which are inseperable And since the King declared against these evil Counsellours and on their Crimes and Mal-administrations founded the Righteousness and Necessity of his Expedition neither King nor Parliament can justly offend at or refuse the Nations Demands to be eased of them nor find it convenient that the Betrayers of our Laws and Robbers of our Priviledges under the last Government be excluded from all share of Administration in this We have experience of their Conduct and Administration already wherein we found nothing but Tyranny Rapine and Violence and such Justice and Law as is discovered above and therefore can never beleive while only Interest hath made them change their way that ever they shall Administer Righteous Judgement And whatever Confidence others may have we cannot be without fears while we are under the power of our old Persecuters But above all it is most offensive to God and all Good men that Murderers of innocent People without and against all Law particularly several of these above Named should not only be Connived at and past without punishment but Encouraged and Intertained in Favour and Trust some of them Discovered and Apprehended as Traitors to the present Government are notwithstanding over looked and suffered to escape Justice and Liberate upon Bale as Major or Lieu. Col. Balfour and Lieu. Nisbet others of them are Members of Parliament as the Commissioners for the Shire of Nithsdale and Stewartry of Anandale Sir Ia. Iohnstoun of Westerhal and Iohnstoun of Corehead who is notourly known to have of late several times in Caballs with Iacobines drunk the late King's Health Blood is a crying Sin defiling the Land which cannot be cleansed but by the Blood of them that shed it We thirst for the Blood of none nor crave the sheding of any but of these who are so guilty of Blood that they are Condemned to the punishment of Murderers by the Law of God and all Nations having shed the Blood of War in Peace without all shaddow of Law But as for those that Murdered our Bretheren without all Process Accusation Trial Conviction Assise or Sentence as is observed in his Majesties Declaration for Scotland We should not be free of the Guilt of their Impunity if we did not seek Justice against them Yet we wonder the less at this that such Criminalls as were Authorized under the former Government by Arbitrary orders tho without Law to perpetrate their Crimes are not Punished when open avowed Traitors Speakers of Treason and Rebells against the Present Government taken in ovett Acts of Lese-Majestie discovered in Plots and Projects and Apprehended in Armes against his Majestie are Indemnified Connived at let out of Prisons and Tolerated and thereby Encouraged and Tempted to go on in their Conspiracies and return to the same Crimes when ever they find Opportunity for they will not ascribe this to his Majesties Clemency but to the weakness of the Government that dare not draw its Sword of Justice In the former Government there was nothing but Severity against those that in the least Discented from it In this there is nothing but Mercy to Rebels both these are Extremes In the Third place we cannot but have sad Reflections upon the bad success of the War Which we think is not so much to be imputed to the bad Conduct of those to whom it is intrusted as to the Wickedness and Malignancy of the Army laying them and the Land open to the danger of the wrath of GOD while the Abominations of Swearing Cursing Profaning the Sabbath Whoredom Drunkenness and all debaucheries which are severely interdicted by Military Lawes if they were put in execution and are so abounding among Officers and Souldiers that the honest hearted among them whom only Conscience did prompt to engage in the service are exceedingly discouraged all the fearers of GOD affrighted to whom the abounding of and continuance in these sins is a greater terror than all the Numbers of Enemies This is the more to be adverted that all that acknowledge GOD are astonished with His signall and stupendous stroks so observably wasting many Thousands of the English Army in Ireland within these few Moneths past for these same Abominations But not only are our Armies filled with the Profane end Profligate Skum of Mankind But to the great Reproach of the Cause wherein Religion is so nearly concerned to the dishonour of GOD and offence of all the Godly many Malignant Enemies to Reformation avowed Adversaries and Persecuters of Truth and Godliness are encouraged imployed and intrusted for the defence of the Interest which within this short time they professedly opposed and by many Dreadful Oaths were engaged to Suppress For the old Dragoons the Late Kings Lieveguard and others after by Executing their old Masters cruell and Arbitrary Orders they had enriched themselves with the spoylls of the oppressed Country and imbrewed their hands in the Blood of innocent and Righteous People when they saw the Prince of Orange like to prevail forsook their King and crouded into his Highness Armies Not for love to his Cause which with the greatest keenness they contended against as long as they could But to prevent the just Vengance of his Victorious Armes then threatened Hence they are yet intertained among the Forces and there tho they have not occasion to exert their fury as formerly Yet they cease not to express their Malice against us in boasting that they hope yet to Persecute us as much as ever And bragging they are and shall be for Prelacy as long as they Live not fearing to impugn the Act of Parliament against it It is certainly a Land-sin to be witnessed against as well as a Grievance that such Enemies of Truth and Godliness should be admitted unto or continued in Power and Trust in the Army or imployed and intertained therein It is dangerous that the Royal Standart should be a Sanctuary to them whom Divine Justice will pursue And absurd that the Army should be polluted and in danger to be infected with the Contagion of such an unhappy conjunction and unholy Association It were more profitable and promising like that the Tears and Cries of the many Widows and Orphans whom their bloody Sword have beraved of their Husbands and Parents might prevail with the Justice of the Government to find them out and give them their reward It were no loss but a great advantage to the King and Countrey both that the Army were
throughly purged of those who betray the Interest in stead of serving it and whose carriage declares they are in the interest of the Enemy and were filled up with such as have another principle prompting them to serve than the prospect of Pay which will make them venture their dearest Blood in the Cause with Resolution and Confidence when those that are pursued with a guilty Conscience are afraid to look Death and Hell in the face Hereby as his Majesty would be far from all fears of the like Treasons and Treacheries in some discovered already so all Honest Men having no other Interest or End but the Glory of God the Peace and Prosperity of their Country and the Honour and Happiness of the King would be exceedingly Encouraged and Engaged to be Zealous and Resolute in the Service when they should know they have none to Associate with but such as are of Aproven Fidelity and good Affection to the Cause It is yet the more Grievous that not only so many wicked and Treacherous Men are intertained in the Army but Men of Principle and Conscience who are willing and Zealous to serve in the Warrs with the utmost Fidelity can find little Encouragement and some are put out of Trust and Employment in the Army who had given Good proof of their Zeal fidelity and courage by the Malignants procurement to the end they might be rid of the fears and Iealousies they had of their opposing their sinistrous designs Some there are we acknowledge in several Regiments and Troups that are Men of principle Conscience Courage and Honour but these labour under very many Discouragements being very much Maligned by the rest Particularly we cannot but complain of the Treatment of the E. of Angues's Regiment which was sent to Dunkeld as would seem on design by some to be betrayed and destroyed For being there posted alone in the mouth of the Highlands the whole body of Canons Army marched towards them the very day they came thither and within three days gave them a general assault where that Regiment was left in the chock denuded of the success that my Lord Cardross brought them who were recalled and denyed the assistance they sought from Col. Ramsey lying at Perth After which getting the honor of that Victory by the goodness of GOD they were more then ever envyed by the remaining malice of their old enemies who when they durst do no more to destroy them openly their Arts failed them to get them destroyed by the common enemy sought by all means to break them or to blast their Reputation Finally The Country is much languishing in their jealousies thinking their sufferings cannot be over as long as not only the instruments of their oppression their Persecuters are in so much power but the Laws and Acts of Parliament c. impowering them condemning the grounds of former sufferings are yet standing unrepealed Yea they complain their sufferings still continue while Forefaultries Fines are not redressed while many are impoverished by loss of Law suits and Decreets past against them through their Non-appearance in their own defence in times of hazard to their persons while many Widows and Orphans of those that lost their Lives in Fields and Scaffolds and of those that died in banishments are in great distress having none to provide for them and while many are yet in servitude in forraign Plantations whither they were banished sold as Slaves who are not yet partakers of this reviving we have got in our bondage Moreover As the unrestrained debaucherie and dissoluteness of Country People is very grievous occasioned by the want of Church Government and Discipline So the insolence of many Gentlemen professedly Jacobins owning the Authority of K James drinking his health and forcing others to it where they are numerous impugning the present Authority and openly speaking Treason is an intollerable Affront to the Government For the Honour of which Zeal for our GOD Loyalty to the King and Love to our Country observing the deficiency of others that could do it better we could not forbear to suggest these complaints In the hope that such as are not sensible of them may open their eyes and see their distempers and dangers And those that are sensible of them may be moved to represent them to those that are in Authority to redress and remove them But whether Men will hear or not hear we are confident there is a GOD that ruleth in Jacob to the ends of the Earth who will hear the cry of the Humble in His own time FINIS Grievance 1. Grievance 2. Grievance 3. Grievance 4. Grievance 5. Grievance 6. Grievance 7. Grievance 8. Grievance 9. Grieance 10. Grievance 11. Grievance 12. Grievance 13. Grievance 14. Grievance 15. Grievance 16. Grievance 17. Grievance 18. Grievance 19. Grievance 20. Grievance 21. Grievance 22. Grievance 22. Grievance 23. Grievance 24. Grievance 25. Grievance 26. Grievance 27. Grievance 28. Grievance 29. Grievance 30. Grievance 31. Grievance 32. Grievance 33.