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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43666	Ravillac redivivus, being a narrative of the late tryal of Mr. James Mitchel, a conventicle-preacher, who was executed the 18th of January last, for an attempt which he made on the sacred person of the Archbishop of St. Andrews to which is annexed, an account of the tryal of that most wicked pharisee Major Thomas Weir, who was executed for adultery, incest and bestiality : in which are many observable passages, especially relating to the present affairs of church and state / in a letter from a Scottish to an English gentleman.	Mitchel, James, d. 1678, defendant.; Hickes, George, 1642-1715.; Weir, Thomas, 1600?-1670, defendant.	1678 (1678)	Wing H1860; ESTC R10945	57,651	80

with many more and that in such an Extraordinary dreadful and terrible manner for my engaging to Prelacy and a Lordly Government over the Church of Christ contrary to which there lie so many ties and obligations on this Land that with the Grace of God I would not adventure to abide the terror of the Lord for all the stipends and preferments in Europe And truly the worst I wish to you or any Prelate in Britain or Ireland or their adherents is that they may have as sound a yokeing with their Consciences as I have had if they be not incorrigible Enemies of Christ Next upon serious search of the word of God and of Antiquity I am the more confirm'd in my Resolution Blondellus Salmatius Gerson Bucer yea the whole current of Primitive Fathers especially Smectymnuus have vindicated Presbytery against the whole World I want not many more solid Reasons to add only I suppose I could never be satisfied in them and therefore I forbear To conclude I do here before God and the whole World profess my disowning of Lordly Prelacy as it is now Established in our Land which I was once most fully engag'd into and my firm and resolute adherence to the Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government of the Church of Scotland as it was professed in this Nation from the year of our Lord 205. and downward for the space of 230 years and then since the year 1580. till the year 1610. and then from the year 1638. till the year 1661. and from thence downwards by many Godly in these three Lands till this very day is and more particularly to the point that Government of Christs Church by an equality and parity of Pastors and Ministers all of them with one shoulder carrying on the work of the Lord and exercising the Keyes of Order and Jurisdiction Doctrine and Discipline in Communi according to due Order and feeding the flock of God not as being Lords of Gods Heritage but ensamples to the flock yea I do here with all the Lords faithful Servants and Witnesses in these three Lands both in the present and some former Generations and with all the Lords Witnessing and Suffering Servants and people that have heen or now are in this Land or present Generation confess and bear my Witness and Testimony the cause of God and work of Reformation so much as was attained thereof how afflicted and born down now soever and to the confessions of Faith of the Church of Scotland and of the three Kingdoms and to the rational and trinational Covenant and that I do rather choose to suffer affliction with the poor suffering people of God then to enjoy the pleasures of Sin for a season esteeming the reproaches for Christ greater riches than all the pleasures and preferments in the World I desire you with your Brethren to consider those Scriptures and take them home to you Isa 66. 5. Zachary 11. 5. John 16. 2 3. John 9. 1 10. Remember your worthy Bedfellow that is this day I hope in glory shall bear Witness against you Farewell for ever Lordly Prelacy for I had never a joyful hour since I engaged therein and welcome welcome my dear Lord Jesus Christ I embrace thee with the arms of my Soul and thy Cross I profess this confess thee bearing my Testimony to thee and thy persecuted Truth and by thy blood and the word of thy Testimony and not loving my life unto the death I hope to overcome Cambre-Ile August 6. 1677. Sic subscribit Alex. Symer Minister of the Gospel at Cambre Unless you are vers'd in our Historian Buchanan you will wonder why this Learned Antiquarian should assert That the Government of our Church was Presbyterian from the first Plantation of the Gospel in 205. or rather 203. till the arrival of Palladius in the middle of the Fifth Century You must know therefore that all the Authority our Presbyterians have for this assertion is from Buchanan that furious Enemy of Bishops who in the Fifth Book of his History writes that the Church in the aforesaid time was not governed by Bishops but by the Monks or Culdees which were it true as it is false would prove that the Government of the Church in that interval was not Presbyteterian but perfectly Laical seeing it was long after that time that Monks were admitted among the Clergy and permitted to meddle with Church affairs But you may find a larger confutation of this groundless assertion of Buchanan in Archbishop Spotswoods History in the seven first Pages of the First Book But to continue my Narrative of Mr. Mitchel I proceed to acquaint you with other memorable things that happen'd between his Condemnation and Execution which was on Friday the 18. of January last in the Grass-market about Three of the Clock in the Afternoon Some time before the execution the Reverend Mr. Annand Dean of Edinburgh not discourag'd with the unthankful returns one of his Brethren had receiv'd from the Malefactor before out of his tender compassion to his Soul wrote him a very affectionate and pious Letter wherein he endeavour'd to shew him from the Gospel how contrary his Principles and Practices were to the Doctrine of Christianity and exhorted him to Repentance for that Un-christian attempt by which he design'd to take away the Life of one Sacred Person and grievously wounded another c. to all which he return'd this Answer SIR I Received yours and since my time is very short and so very pretious I can only thank you for your Civility and Affection whether real or pretended and I tell you I truly close with all the precepts of the Gospel to Love and Peace and therefore pray I both for Mr. Sharp and you But knowing both Mr. Sharp's Wickedness and my own sincerity and the Lord 's Holy Soveraignty to use his Creatures as he pleases I can only refer the manifestation of my Fact to the day of God's Righteous and Universal Judgement praying heartily that God may have mercy on you and open your eyes to see both the wickedness of all your ways and of your Godless insulting over an unjustly condemn'd dying Man and grant unto you repentance and remission of your sins I am in this your well-wisher James Mitchel The Dean in his Letter urged an excellent argument to convince him that the impulse which was upon him so many years to assassin the Primate could not come from God like the Impulse of Phineas and the Zealots because he fail'd in the attempt which never any person did or could do that was moved by God to do an Heroick Act. But you see the blind Pseudo-Zealot takes no notice of this Argument in his Answer wherein to shew what an implacable enemy he was to the Office as well as the Person of the Archbishop he mentions his Grace not by his Character but by his Name Having been told in the Prison that he would not be permitted to speak to the People before his Execution he transcribed

several Copies of his intended Speech whereof one was found in his Pocket and taken from him before he was carried out to Execution It is long and the former part containing nothing but Libellous reflections on the Privy Council the Justiciary Lords and the King's Advocate I shall content my self to send you a transcript of the latter I Acknowledge my particular and private sins have been such as have merited a worse Death unto me but I dye in the hope of the merits of Jesus Christ to be freed from those Eternal punishments due to me for sin Yet I am confident that God doth not plead with me in this place for my private and particular sins but that I am brought here that the Work of God might be made manifest and for the Tryal of Faith John 9. 3. 1 Pet. 1. 7. and that I may be a witness for his despised Truth and interest in this Land who am called to seal the same with my Blood And I wish heartily that this my poor Life may put an end to the persecution of the true Members of Christ in this Kingdom so much actuate by these perfidious Prelates and in opposition to whom and in testimony of the Cause of Christ I at this time willingly lay down my Life and bless my God that he hath thought me so much worthy to do the same for his Glory and Interest Finally concerning a Christian Duty in a singular extraordinary case and my particular Judgement concerning both Church and State it is evidently declar'd and manifested more fully elsewhere So farewel all Earthly enjoyments and welcome Father Son and Holy Spirit into whose hands I commend my spirit As to that particular Christian duty in an extraordinary case and his Judgement concerning Church and State manifested elsewhere he means a larger blasphemous Libel which he left behind him wherein he endeavours to justifie his fact It is very long but yet I beseech you to read it over and if you have not read Naphthali nor Jus Populi vindicatum which is a Reply to the Answer which the Bishop of Orkney whom this miscreant wounded made to Naphthali I am confident you must be surpriz'd with horrour and astonishmment to see such Un-christian Doctrines come from a Christian Pen. Yet the Primitive Churches never receiv'd the Apostolick Epistles with greater veneration than the Members of our Field-Congregations receive such discourses as this nor can any Church-man respect any ancient Ecclesiastical Writer half so much as they adore Naphthali which is written in the Defence of the Rebellion in 1666. and wherein this horrid mans attempt upon the Primate is commended for an Heroical Act and that cursed Book with Lex Rex Jus populi vindicatum and Mr. Rutherfords Letters are the Fathers and Counsels of our Fife and Western Whigs I have here subjoyned the Account of my self principles and foresaid practises as they were set down in a Letter to a Friend and another Declaration both written by me when first Conveened before the Lords Justices in the year 1674. The Coppy of my Letter Edinburgh Tolbuith February the 16th 1674. SIR ME who may justly call my self the least of all Saints and the chiefest of all Sinners hath Christ his Son our Lord called to be a Witness for his destroyed Truth and trampled on Interest by this Wicked Blasphemous and God-contemning Generation and against all their other perfidious Wickednesses Sir I say the confidence I have in your real Friendship and love to Christ his Truth People Interest and Cause hath incouraged me to write to you hoping that you will not misconstruct nor take advantage of my Infirmities and Weakness you have heard of my Indictment which I take up in these two particulars First as they term it Rebellion and Treason anent which I answered to my Lord Chancellor that it was no Rebellion but a Duty which every one was bound to have performed in joyning with that party And in the year 1656. Mr. Robert Lightonne being the Primate of the Colledge of Edinburgh before our Laureation tendered to us the national Covenant and solemn League and Covenant which upon mature Deliberation I found nothing in them but a short compend of the Moral Law only obliging us to our Duty towards God and Men in their several Stations and I finding that our then banished Kings Interest lay wholly included therein viz. Both the Oath of Coronation Allegiance c. And they being the then tessera of all Loyalty And My Lord it was well known that then many were taking the Tender and forswearing Charles Stewarts Parliament and House of Lords I then subscribed them both The doing of which My Lord Chancellor would have stood me at no less rate if all 's well known then this my present adhering and prosecuting the ends thereof doth now And when I was questioned what then I called Rebellion I answered That it is Ezra 7. 26. And whosoever will not do the Law of thy God and of the King c. But being questioned by the Commissioner before the Council there anent I answered as I said to My Lord Chancellor before in the year 1656. Mr. Robert Lightonne being then Primate of the Colledge of Edinburgh before our Laureation he tendered to us the national Covenant and solemn League and Covenant where he stopped me saying I wade you are come here to give a Testimony and then being demanded what I called Rebellion if it was not Rebellion to oppose His Majesties Forces in the face to which I answered My Lord Commissioner if it please your Grace I humbly conceive that they should have been with us meaning that it was the Duty of those Forces to have joyned with us according to the national Covenant at which answer I perceived him to storm But says he I hear that you have been over Seas with whom did you Converse there Answer with my Merchant My Lord. But saith he with whom in particular with one John Michel a Cousin of mine saith he I have heard tell of him he is a Factor in Rotterdam to which I conceded But saith he did you not Converse with Mr. Levingston and such as he To which I answered My Lord Commissioner I Conversed with our banisht Ministers to which he replyed banisht Ministers banisht Traytors he will speak Treason at the very Bar. Then he answered himself saying but they would call the shooting at the Bishop an Heroick Act To which I answered That I never told them of any such thing Question But where did you see James Wallace last Answ Towards the borders of Germany some year ago Quest But what ailed you at my Lord St. Andrews here pointing at him with his finger Answ My Lord Commissioner the grievous oppression and horrid Bloodshed of my Brethren and the eager pursuit after my own Blood as it appeareth this day to your Grace and to all His Majesties Honourable Council after which he commanded to take me away that they might see what

to the pains and to the profit which none of the mixed multitude of Murmurers were admitted to because of their unbelief Numb 21. 17. And O Father of Mercy while I am tossed upon the turbulent Seas of manifold troubles grant that thy presence may be with me and that thy Everlasting arms may be underneath me to support me for sure I am Moses thy Servant had good reason to be importunate in this suit Exod. 32. 2. compared with 14. and 15. v. Chap. 34. 9. Seeing no less could furnish him with fresh supplyes in the work he was about O let thy presence be with me and then my Soul shall dig and sing and sing and dig through times of trouble into Eternal Rest where I shall be admitted to behold the Rock Christ out of whom floweth the pure Fountain and River of Life and Happiness which I may drink and not be damnified through the assaults of Satan or the invasions of sin or of a wicked world any more now according to thy promise Mat. 10. 19. Out of thy Fatherly Mercy grant present help supply and direction in this time of trouble seeing it is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps Jer. 10. 23. and though it be a hard thing rightly to distinguish betwixt Sin and Duty yet thy Law thy Word and thy Truth which are quick and powerful dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit and is a director of the thoughts and thy Law giveth light Psal 119. 105. Psal 32. 8. For thy Testimonies O Lord are sure making wise the simple Psal 19. 7. For thou alone canst make all thy Dispensations prove profitable in order to the purging away of Sin even when they seem to be destructive Esa 27. 9. especially when thou intends them not for destruction but for tryal Deut. 8. 2 16. and for further Humiliation for thou O Lord hast led me for many years through a barren and wearisome Wilderness to the end that thou mayst work thy work of Mortification in me although if it had seemed good unto thee thou couldst have brought me into the Land of Promise and Rest a nearer way Exod. 13. 17. For thou by hardships many a time hides Pride from men and sealest up their instruction that thou may'st deliver his Soul from the Pit and that his life may see the light Job 33. 17. And although thou O Lord shouldst send me the back tract and tenor of my Life to seek my Souls comforts and incouragements from thence yet I have no cause to complain of hard dealing from thy hand seeing it is thy ordinary way with some of thy people Psal 42. 6. O God my Soul is cast down within me therefore will I remember thee from the Land of Jordan and from the Hill Hermon c. Yea the last time he brought me to the Banqueting-house and made love his Banner over me amongst the cold High-land Hills beside Kipper Nov. 1673. he remembred his former kindnesses towards me but withal he spoke it in mine Ear that there was a tempestuous storm to meet me in the Face which I behooved to go through with the strength of that Provision 1 Kings 19. 7. And now O my Soul seeing it is his ordinary way and method with thee to send a shower and a sunblink and again a sunblink and shower therefore keep thou silent to God and murmure not fret not be not disquieted be still and be content seeing all my Persecutors can do either by fraud or force can neither alter the Nature or kind of my sufferings on add so much as a degree thereto neither lengthen out the time of them for a moment Matthew 10. 29. Exodus 12. 41. All Pharoahs Power could not keep Israel one Night longer in Egypt therefore it is my duty to study with Paul Philippians 4. 11 12. Whatsoever State I am in therewith to be content and say Should the Earth be forsaken and the Rock be removed out of its place for me Job 18. 4. should God alter the course of his Providence for me in which there is such an efficacy as to carry all things to the proper and appointed end what an irresistable power and that I may be found in him not as having my own Righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith Phil. 3. 9. 10. and to resign up unto God my will and affections to be disposed as he pleaseth and to say with fear humility and reverence O Father not my Will but thine be done and whether I live or dye I may be the Lords that through his Mercy and Grace I may attain to his approbation viz. Well done good and faithful Servant who hath hitherto sent his Angel and shut the Lyons Mouth that they have not hurt me Dan. 6. 22. and who hath so shut the eyes of my Persecutors with a Sodomitish blindness that hitherto they could not find out the way how to break in upon me and I hope he will in due time bring me out of the fiery Furnace and shall not through his Grace suffer the smell thereof to be found upon me and if not yet I never held it to be my duty to worship this rotten and stinking Idol of Jealousie which these Nations have set up who have killed both the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and have persecuted us Thes 1. 15. For thou O Lord hast not abhorred nor despised my afflictions when I was afflicted neither hast thou hid thy Face from me but when I cryed unto thee thou heardest me Ps 22. 24. Now O Lord God thou hast made the Heaven and the Earth by thy great Power and stretched out Arm Jer. 32. 17. Bring thou me at length to a happy arrival within the Gates of the New Jerusalem where no unclean thing can come that my praise may be of thee in the great Congregation And although as Job saith 10. 17. That thou O Lord hast delivered me to the ungodly and hast turned me over into the hands of the wicked yet by this I know that thou O Lord favourest me because mine Enemies do not triumph over me when I stand in Judgement thou O Lord didst not condemn and if it pleaseth thee thou will not leave me in their hands Ps 41. 11. Ps 37. 33. But canst bring up my Life from the Pit of Corruption Jonah 2. 6. And seeing I have not preferred nor sought after mine own things but thy Honour and Glory the Good Liberty and Safety of thy Church and People although I may be now mis-constructed by many yet at length I hope thou Lord will make my Light break forth as the Morning and my Righteousness as the Noon-day and that Shame and Darkness shall cover all who are Adversaries to my Righteous cause For thou Lord art the Shield of my help and the Sword of my excellency and my Enemies shall be found Lyars Amen yea and Amen James Mitchel

true this Hypothesis will never be able to solve those Diabolical Phaenomena in the Air. Some again think that the words and expressions of his Prayer were represented by the Devil upon the Stage of his Fancy after the same manner as when a man dreams he reads such a Letter or Book But he never was affected with any Consternations Tremblings or Abreptions of mind which both in true and false Prophets were the constant effects of such strong and violent impressions as were required to exhibit such unwonted representations upon the Imagination nor after his long Prayers were ended were his natural strength or Spirits exhausted as if his Devotion had been Visionary they must have been Others therefore considering him as an Apostate from God and as a Vassal and Apostle of the Devil think it very agreeable to Divinity to assert that he was immediately but yet without much violence inspired by the Devil and helped by him both in the Conception and utterance of his Prayers This they conceive the Evil Spirit might do like an assistant form by impregnating his Fancy with Enthusiastical conceptions and thereby rendring his Imagination very turgent and ready to swell above its banks which being done by the immediate Operation of the Evil Spirit the wretched 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could not fail to burst forth in flumine Orationis or a full Torrent of Prayer and likewise be affected with such moderate Raptures as yet left him in a condition to understand what he said Furthermore to prevent all possible objections they say That if God suffered the Devil to counterfeit Prophetical Visions or the true Spirit of Prophecy under the Law then they know no reason why it should be thought inconsistent with his goodness or disagreable to his infinite wisdom to permit him under the Gospel to counterfeit Inspiration or the true Spirit of Prayer But for my own part had not the Monster himself ascribed his fluency in Devotion to the assistance of the Devil I should have wholly ascribed it to the vigour of his own Enthusiastical Imagination without any Foreign Force For not only his fluency in Prayer but the moderate Raptures and little extatic fits into which he was Transported are explicable by the natural power of unassisted Imagination as I could make it out by many examples and where a natural cause alone is sufficient to account for any effect I am always sparing to joyn with it a supernatural Cause All the while he was in Prison he lay under violent apprehension of the heavy Wrath of God which put him into that which is properly called Despair a Despair which made him hate God and desist from Duty to him and with which the Damned Souls in Hell are reasonably supposed to be constantly affected In this sence he was desperate and therefore would admit neither Church nor Conventicle-ministers to pray for him or discourse with him about the infinite mercy of God and the possibility of the forgiveness of his Sins Much less could he endure to be exhorted to repent or be brought to entertain any thoughts of Repentance telling all the World that he had sinned himself beyond all possibility of Repentance and Pardon that he was already damn'd that he was sure his Condemnation to Eternal burnings was already pronounced in Heaven and that the united Prayers of all the Saints in Heaven and Earth would be vain and insignificant if they were offered to God in his behalf So that when some charitable Ministers of the City by name the present Bishop of Galloway and present Dean of Edinburgh were resolved to Pray before him for his Repentance and Pardon against his consent he was with much difficulty withheld from interrupting of them in their devotions and the posture he put himself in when they began to pray was to lye upon his Bed in a most stupid manner with his Mouth wide open and when Prayers were ended being ask'd if he had heard them and attended to them he told them They were very troublesome and cruel to him and that he neither heard their devotion nor cared for it nor could be the better for all the Prayers that Men or Angels could offer up to Heaven upon his account It was his Interest to believe there was no God and therefore to ease the torments of his mind he attempted now and then to comfort and flatter up himself into this absurd belief For he was sometimes observ'd to speak very doubtfully about his existence in particular to say that if it were not for the terrors which he found tormenting him within he should scarce believe there was a God Being with great tenderness and compassion besought by one of the City-Ministers that he would not so resolvedly destroy himself by despairing of God's Mercy which upon Repentance had been granted to Murtherers Adulterers Sodomists Bestialists nay to those that had denyed Christ he replyed in anger Trouble me no more with your beseeching of me to Repent for I know my sentence of damnation is already seal'd in Heaven and I feel my self so hardned within that if I might obtain Pardon of God and all the Glories of Heaven for a single wish that I had not committed the sins with the sence whereof I am so tormented yet I could not prevail with my self to make that single wish And were your Soul in my Soul's stead you would find your exhortations impertinent and troublesome for I find nothing within me but blackness and darkness Brimstone and burning to the bottom of Hell I have been told by very credible Persons that the Body of this unclean Beast gave manifest tokens of its impurity as soon as it began to be heated by the Flames and certain it is that after it was burnt a report was presently sent from hence to the Brethren in the West that the Malefactor who was burnt for such execrable crimes was not Major Weir but another Person who exactly resembled him and whom the wicked Prelates and Curates had bribed to personate the Godly Major who was said to be gone with a contribution to the exiled Brethren in Holland and call himself by his name This report was believed in the West for several Months till time discover'd that the Major was no more As for Jane this incarnate Devils Sister she was very insensible of her great sins and was so far from remorse of conscience for them and despairing of the mercy of God as she did that she presum'd too much upon it placing a great deal of confidence in her constant adherence to the Covenant which she call'd in her Brother Mitchel's style the Cause and Interest of Christ She confessed indeed as he did that her sins deserv'd a worse death than she was condemn'd to dye but she never shewed her self in the least concern'd for what might ensue after death When she was upon the Ladder she bespoke the people in the following words I see a great croud of People come hither to day to

Mitchel's Principles fell upon him that bore them and broke them all in pieces and had not the Tumult been timely suppressed by some moderate Spirits abominable Barbarites had ensued for some maintain'd that if right were done Her Majesties Priests should have been slain according to Gods Law against Idolaters It would be endless to trace these Principles down from the time of the Original Presbyterians to these unhappy days you may see enough of them in the Parliament Sermons and innumerable other Pamphlets of the late times How often did the late Presbyterian Preachers Commend the House of Commons for their Zeal and ransack the old Testament for examples and precepts to perswade the giddy Vulgar that the Rebels fought the Lords Battels and that their cause was his How often did they compare the most active of them to Gideon Samson and Phineas and complement the worthies of the late long Parliament in England as Gregory the 15th Complimented the last King of France when he raised an Army for the extirpation of the Protestants in the Glorious name of the Lord of Hosts Did not that darling of the Faction Mr. Calamy in the bloody Speech which he made in 43. at the Guildhall of London to the Citizens to perswade them to contribute largely towards the bringing in of our Scottish Army justifie himself from the objection of his own tender Conscience that he being a Minister of the Gospel should stir them up to make War by taking an Apology from Numb 10. and Deut. 20. where God ordained that the Sons of Aaron the Priests should sound the Alarm with the Silver Trumpets and that the Priest should make a Speech to encourage the people going out to Battel to fight for the Lord of Hosts So that Naphthali Nehushtan and Mitchels Papers are but the last improvement of the Presbyterian Logick and Zeal which makes our Conventicle-Preachers ride about with Guards like petty Princes and their followers more like Soldiers than Christians come Armed by Thousands into the Field They are now arriv'd at the highest pitch of Enthusiasm and Bigotry and are as ready upon all occasions to do as much for the Spiritual Crown of Christ which they think inconsistent with the Mitre as the Men of the Fifth Monarchy principles are ready to do for the Temporal Kingdom of Jesus So that if God in his good Providence had not sent down the Duke of Lauderdale among us to prevent the storms that were ready to arise in all human probability this Kingdom had been involv'd in such a violent Rebellion as could not have been quell'd without extrinsecal force His Grace came hither without any prospect of trouble and the incredible numbers of Nobility and Gentry that throng'd to meet him several days Journey on English ground were enough to make him presume that all would be quiet and serene But he had not been many days among us when he was surpriz'd with the news of great insolencies and disorders caus'd by the Field-Conventicles in the West Now to make you understand what Wind blew up that secret flame and how those evil principles probably came to be put into fermentation I must lead you back to the year 1674. when some whose discontents far exceeded their causes under the old pretence of redressing grievances did design something else and thereby almost render'd the Parliament useless for the publick ends for which it was call'd The Duke of Lauderdale was then His Majesty's High Commissioner and there was not one real grievance of which he himself did not propose the removal nor any one pretended concerning which he was not willing to treat and if it were found to be really such to have it redress'd in an orderly fair and legal manner according to the fundamental constitutions of the house But this would not satisfie their discontents which enough demonstrates that something else was designed besides the removal of grievances whereupon his Grace returning to Court to give an account of affairs to his Royal Master such great confusions appeared among us as naturally follow palliated discontents Then did Welsh and other declared Traitors take the confidence to Preach openly in Fife and Tiveot-dale which before had been orderly places and there they were entertain'd and encourag'd to debauch the People from their Duty to the King and the Church And if these bold attempts and disorderly practises had not then been timely quell'd by his Grace's care and conduct it is easie to Divine to what eminent hazard our Peace and Government had been expos'd Whether our Fanaticks were then under-hand encourag'd to commit these insolencies by designing malcontents time the revealer of secrets may shew but it is beyond all peradventure that scandalous and unseasonable divisions caus'd by nothing but envy and discontent did then animate and embolden them to these turbulent practices and therefore it seems not improbable that the same discontented party envying the Duke his glorious reception and the just esteem he hath with his Prince and intending to frustrate his best counsels and endeavours for preserving this and by consequence the Kingdom of England in Peace have now conjured up the Fanatical Spirit again to act in more insolent irregularities than at any time heretofore But let the cause be what it will the Conventicles were never so numerous and frequent as they now began and sometime after continued to be in Fife Clidsdale Tiveot-dale Galloway Sterling shire and Carrict the last of which Shires had always been peaceable and orderly till now when they all conspir'd to invade the publick peace At these Field-Conventicles would meet sometimes 5. or 6. thousand sometimes eight or nine thousand at a time as many of which as were fit to bear Arms and could provide them never fail'd to come appointed into the Field For this reason our Laws and Proclamations stile these Field-meetings Rendezvouzes of Rebellion which is as modest a Name as they can deserve For most of the principle Preachers among them as Welsh and Arnott are either attainted or declared Traytors and were actors in the Rebellion of 66. and the Harangues for I will not call them Sermons which they make to the People tend to nothing but to make them rebel and possess them with hatred against the King and the Church In October last at Sanchil in Carrict Mr. Welsh attended with seven or eight seditious Preachers made a preachment to the principal division of a multitude upwards of 7000. people upon St. John 11. 34. 35. In this Preachment among much other Treasonable stuff he spoke these words The King the Nobles and the Prelates are sure the Murderers of Christ and then sitting down in his chair he said Oh People I will be silent Speak O People and tell me what good the King hath done since his home-coming yea hath he not done all the mischief a Tyrant could do At another Conventicle not long after he spoke thus or to this purpose That he was confident that God