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A95018
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A true coppie of the declaration published at Sanqhair upon the tenth day of August 1692
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1693
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Wing T2642; ESTC R229925
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11,845
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14
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known Integrity Approven fidelity Constant Affection and zeal to the Cause of God Such against whom there is no Just Cause of exception nor jealousie which our Covenants and the Laws of the Croun require to be in Judges Superiour or Inferiour whom we are allowed to set over us and joyn with according to Exod. 18.21 2. Sam. 23.3 4. Nehem. 7.2 7. Being not of one perfect Religion with our selves neither in Covenant nor admitted Covenant-wayes without the sealing and swearing of which our fathers or rather we our selves refused to receive Charles the second to the Croun It being the very foundation wherupon any right they have to Govern is founded And without the Approbation and Subscription whereof the people can never have from him Sufficient security either for Religion or their Just Liberties And if the Prelats in England with their Associates were so peremptory as not to admitt him to the exercise of the Government untill they had him engadged to mentain and defend that Abjured Hierarchie How Astonishing is it that Presbyterians should not have waited till the Lord had raised up Instruments rightly Qualifyed and from whom sufficient Security for the Covenanted Reformation of the True Religion in these Lands might be had and not to have made hast in building up Zions breaches with the stones of that burnt mountain of BABYLON Their unfaithfullness to their souls In not representing to them the Hazard they were and would be in if they entred themselves heirs to the sins of that Throne against which the Lord hath such a Long and Eminent Controversie In seeking to establish his oun Interest upon the Ruines of the Interest of Jesus Christ which is nothing else but to oppose the Kingdom of the son of God by whom Kings do reigne If he should cleave unto these men as his Trusty Counsellors Who as they never had the Glory of God nor the good of his People before their eyes So now in all their Wayes and Counsels are seeking nothing but their oun Interest to the Hazard and Destruction of Religion and the Desolation of the Kingdoms If he should settle a peace with Gods Avowed and Declared Enemies the murtherers of his poor innocent People by ouning them as his good and Loyal Subjects upon condition of their peacable submission to his Government And if he should Employ Help Concurr or Joyn with Anti-christian Forces either at Home or Abroad All which he hath done and this day is doing which cannot be otherwise Judged but a giving of his Royall Power and strength unto the Beast and an accession to all that blood of the Lords people wherwith those sons of Babel have made the Lands under their Respective Tyrannies to Suim Their unfaithfullness in not Laying plainly and seasonably to his Consideration what the mouth of the LORD of HOSTS hath spoken of all the Accounts of People Nations Kings and Rulers against the Kingdom of His Son that they Imagine a Vain thing and that he that sitteth in Heaven will have them in derision and vex them in his sore displeasure What marks of desperate Malignancie Enmity and hatred to the Cause and people of God hath appeared these Years bypast in these men that now bear the SUAY in his Councels and Armies How the Anger of the Lord hath been kindled even against his dearest Saints when they have joyned themselves to such men as he hateth and is Cursed And how severelie he hath threatned and punished such Kings as have Associate with Idolaters Leaned to their helps And next Their Unfaithfullnesse to the poor guilty Land in not forseeing the Evil and fore shewing the Danger of setting up Magistrates without asking Counsell at the mouth of the Lord Although a Duty Incumbent on faithfull Watchmen to set the Trumpet to their mouths in such Cases and give Faithfull and Distinct Warning lest Israel cast off the thing that is good and the Enemie pursue him for setting up Kings and not by God and Princes without his knowledge Nor yet declaring the sin and Danger of Associating in War with known Enemies of Truth and Godlinesse such as are employed in the present Expedition Wherby a door is opened for the Introduction Toleration and Encouragment of Papists Malignants and Sectaries And the state of the Quarrell in stead of being rightly proposed according to the Ancient PLEA against both right and left hand opposites it is therby betrayed lost and buryed Add to all these their pretended Fasts and Thanksgivings for Successe and prosperity to the Enemies of God his Church and people Whereby the Lord is mocked His Truths buryed The peoples Souls ensnared The Godly stumbled A Course of Reformation rather buryed than raised prosecuted or defended And a Malignant Quarrell embraced Yea that same Course which hath been alwayes Curst of God and upon which he hath set evident marks of his Displeasure The Publick Sin for which he is this day contending against the Land and the ACHAN which hath made Israel so oft to fall before their Enemies Now if this be no false Charge as Alace it is not And if these be not only pieces of unfaithfullnesse but manifest breaches of Covenant and very great steps of defection from the Principles and practises of the once famous Church of Scotland as indeed they are And if our hearing and Joyning with them will Inferr a Concurrence with their Course A participation of their Guilt And a rendring of us obnoxious to the Judgments to which breach of Covenant is Lyable Since it is such a Communion as in the present Circumstances is Interpreted by all to be a Tessera of Incorporation with them and a signe of Approbation of their way with which all must be Interpreted Consenters that are not Contradicters And Lykwise a laying doun of our former Testimony before the Courses Testifyed against be forsaken as none will deny Then we see not How any Honest man Zealous Christian or Faithfull Minister can Condemn us for Declaring our cheerfull Resolution in the Lords strength to stand off and not to Concurr with them in this their New and strange way by hearing them paying their Stipends observing their Fast or Thanksgiving days Compearing before their Kirk-Sessions Presbyteries Synods Generall Assemblies or the Lyke But on the Contrarie To protest and Testify against the Constitution of these Ecclesiastick Meetings In Regard they are made up of such a corrupt mixture of Members Some of them having embraced Indulgences Some having given Bonds to the Councell not to preach for an Indefinite or Longer or Shorter tyme Some having ordinarly heard and Communicated with the Curates Some having come under sinfull Bonds of Peace and Oaths of Aleigance and the lyke to the persecuting Adversaries Repugnant to the Oath of our Covenants Against the breaches of which Covenant We Testifie And against all the Injuries and Affronts that have been or are offered to the same by the Ministers in Scotland in not preaching the perpetuall Obligation of them
striving to engadge us in a sinfull Confederacie with a Malignant Cause contrary to this our Testimony since the Late Revolutions Next we Declare our Rejecting of whatever is Contradictorie or contrary unto the written Word of God or not founded therupon either Expresly or by Direct near-or necessary Consequence More particularly we Testify our Detestation and Abhorrence of Popery Quakerisme Libertinisme Antinomianisme Socinianisme Anabaptisme Independency Prelacy and Erastianisme and all Extravagancies and Errors on the right or Left hand such as the Doting Delusions of these draun into a Consortship in and about the COTE-MOORE Together with all Kinds of Idolatry Superstition and Profannesse and whatsoever is found contrary to sound Doctrine and the Power of Godlinesse and against every other thing contrary to the Testimony of this Church as they are particularly enumerated in Page 27. and 28. of our forsaid Vindication And in Like manner we Disoun as a step of Defection Declyning from and contradictory unto the Covenanted Reformation of the Kirk of Scotland and inconsistent with the Testimony of our Ancestours The Publishing of that Declaration called The Declaration of HIS HIGHNESSE WILLIAM PRINCE of ORANGE c. And espousing it as the state of the Church and Kingdom of Scotlands Quarrell while he then was and yet is surrounded in Counsell and Army with many of the old and Inveterate Enemies of Christs Cause and people both at home in these Lands and abroad except France and his Associates His unconcernednesse with the overturning the work of God in these Lands these many years till his oun Interest and the Call of the Prelats in England did prompt him to his Undertakings Their Being set up by the Suffrages of these men of blood here in Scotland notwithstanding of their being Immediately before Crouned and Anointed King and Queen in our Neighbouring Covenanted Land according to all the English Popish Ceremonies upon their engadging on their knees before the Altar c. To the utmost of their power to preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of that Realme and to the Churches committed to their Charge such Rites and Priviledges as do or shall appertain unto them or any of them As also if we consider his other Declaration of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England Scotland and Ireland emitted at the same time Wherin he Labours to put shame and contempt upon most of all the contendings of this Church and to bury many of the most materiall points of her Testimony Thereby declaring his principles and what he resolved upon in his after practise And his thereby rending and overturning that desirable Uniformity in Religion attained unto with England which these Lands cannot break without manifest Perjury being sworn thereto by the first Article of the solemne League and Covenant At Least it is a walking in their Counsels who rent the same before him and an undenyable Corroborating and Ratifying the Statutes of Omri and the works of the house of Ahab that thereby these Covenanted Lands should be made a desolation and the Inhabitants thereof a hissing Upon these and other very weighty grounds and reasons which if the Lord will we may have the occasion to make knoun afterwards We Declare the Refusal of our Concurrence with the present Course now on foot It being no way Concerted according to the ancient Plea of the Scottish Covenanters for the Covenanted Reformation of Religion in Brittain and Jreland for the Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government of the House of God against Poperie Prelacie Malignancy Sectarianisme Erastianisme and whatever is contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godlinesse But in stead thereof a joyning and concurring with the Promotters of all these in their Popish Prelatick Malignant and Sectarian designes whereby Error Profanity and Wickednesse is Encouraged and Tolerated The Lord highly dishonoured His avowed and Declared Enemies brought in to places of greatest Power and Trust in stead of bringing the wheel of Justice over them Together with the addition of most of all those who have been the chief Ring-leaders Fomenters and Favourers of Indulgences Toleration and all other Defections of this Church This quarrel we say we refuse to espouse in Lieu of that other But to signifie our displeasure therewith refuses to concurr in any thing that we know will strengthen or encouradge the same such as taking the Oath of Aleigance Randivouzing at their command Paying any Subsidies Imposed for that end or doing any thing that may tend to the weakening the hands or saddening the hearts of our brethren in their Honest zealous and faithfull contending against the same For which Let all concerned see the Seasonable and Necessary warning of the Generall Assembly of this Kirk to all the members thereof July 27. 1649. Sess 27. Gen Assem July ult 1648. Sess 21. with the Humble Supplication of the Assembly to the Committee of Estates August 2. 1648. Sess 25. Act Gener. Assem Aug. 3. 1648. Sess 26. Act 4. Parl. 2. Char. And what our Land mourned for Art 9. Step. 5. of the Causes of Gods Wrath. With many places of Scripture Acts both of Assemblies and Parliaments which are so clear that if they were made judges and durst come above-board to examine the present Course It were no great difficulty to the meanest capacitie to see as great disparity between this and what our Fathers contended for as between Defection and Reformation But Lest we should be hereby suspected of mentaining the Principle of disouning all Government Therefore as for such Magistrates as being rightly and Lawfully Constitute over us shall employ their Power for setting the Mediator on His Throne and the Croun upon His head and in defence of his Croun-Rights and Royall Prerogatives shall act as the Ministers of God in a direct Line of Subordination to him in Defence of our Covenanted Reformation and the Subjects Liberties against Popery Prelacy Erastianisme Superstition Heresy Profannesse and whatever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine and the Power of Godlinesse and thus become a Terror to evil Doers and encouragers of them that do well We Declare whensoever we can obtain and enjoy such Rulers we will Oun Embrace and Defend them to the utmost of our Power and prove encouraging subject and obedient to them in our places and Stations And here in pursuance of our former Testimony we resolve to stand wait Moreover we Testify and declare against the unparallelled unfaithfullnesse of the Ministers in Scotland as in what they have done before these Revolutions to the detriment of the Cause So especiallie-since in Contributing and Concurring they and their Accomplices in their stations and to their power with the bulk of these Old bloodie and perjured Enemies of Christ his Cause and people in their setting up HIS HIGHNESSE THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF ORANGE King and Queen over these Covenanted Lands while acting directly contrarie to the Covenants being without Covenant-Qualifications Viz. of