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
A SHORT MEMORIAL OF THE Sufferings AND Grievances PAST and PRESENT OF THE PRESBYTERIANS IN SCOTLAND Particularly of those of them called by Nick-name Cameronians Printed in the Year 1690. TO THE READER IT is not needful in the entry to give a Deduction either of the Excellent Establishments of Religion and Civil Liberties and Provisions made for security of both that our Fathers obtained and Enjoyed by the Mercy of GOD under the Patrociny of Righteous Rulers Or of the deplorable Demolishments of these Invaluable Intersts since the unhappy Re-introduction of Prelacy and Tyranny which brought Poperie to the very Birth in this Land had it not pleased the Most High GOD by the interposition of the present King as an Instrument to make it abortive But it is very useful and pleasant to remember that the Reformation of the Church of Scotland was sometimes as far Celebrated among all the Churches as now it is Depreciated incontempt and Obscurity Among other peculiar Eminencies of it above many other Churches she had this very early for the subject of her Gloriation through Grace that at once and from the Beginning both Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government were Reformed according to the Pattern of the Institutions of Christ to that degree of Purity that our very first Reformers could assert to the praise of Grace that no Corruption was left in this Church that ever flowed from the Man of Sin Which through the Blessing of GOD upon the Faithful and earnest Labours and Wrestling of His Servants in the Ministry made such progress in a short time that not only the Doctrine was perfectly purged of the Leaven of Popery Arminianisme Socinianisme c. and all other Heresies the Worship of all Idolatry and Superstition but the Discipline was impartially exercised and the Government Reformed from Diocesan Prelacy Sectarian Confusions and Erastian Supremacy of the Civil Powers and framed in the nearest Conformity to the Primitive Apostolick Pattern according to the Word of GOD and example of the best Reformed Churches in the Presbyterial Order of Congregational Classical Synodical and National Assemblies In the Preservation and Observation of which Beautiful Order making our Church Beautiful as Tirzah Comely as Jerufalem Terrible as an Army with Banners This was also her Priviledge and Praise which is the Fruit of this Government wheresoever it hath Place that she was Once and for a long time as much admired for Union as of late for Divisions since these Corruptions made a Breach upon Vs Her Name was once called Philadelphia among all the Reformed Churches and t was long since attested at that unhappy Convention at Perth which attempted the Introduction of some Popish Novations in the Year 1618. That from that backward to the Year 1558. there had been neither Schisme nor Heresie in this Church as also from thence forward the same might have been said excepting the Contentions which the Prelates and Malignants occasioned until the fatal Catastrophe No Church on Earth had more Purity Order or Vnity and was freer of Corruption Defection and Division that this Church This our Renowned Reformation in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government as it was Founded on the Law and the Testimony of the GOD of Heaven so it was Confirmed by all the Sanctions Ratifications and Securities that any Right can be capable of among Men Not only by many Laws penal and Statutory Established as Bulworks for Preserving and Defending it against all the forementioned Adversaries by many Constitutions and Acts of General Assemblies ratified by Parliaments But by many again and again Renewed National and Solemn Covenants sworn to the most High GOD by all Ranks from the King to the Beggar in all Capacities and Conditions This Testimony for this Covenanted Reformation so Confirmed and Established as it hath been Transmitted to Vs through a long continued Tract of many Wrestling and Sufferings from our worthy Ancestors and sealed by much Precious Blood and the Bonds and Bondage of many Faithful Martyrs and Confessors of Christ adhering to the same in our day so as it was then and now Stated and Sealed hath been and is thought by all the Asserters of our Reformation to have such a near and clear Connexion with the great Concern of the Crown-Prerogatives and Imperial Dignities of the Prince of the Kings of the Earth as Head of His visible Kingdom whose incommunicable Glory it is without Competitoor Co-partner either Coordinate or Subordinate to Institute his own Government prescribe His own Laws appoint his own Ordinances which He will have observed without addition dimunition or alteration until His second coming and to constitute His own Officers Cloathed only with His Authority and to be regulated only by His Instructions in their Ministerial Function without any Dependence on Subordination to or Indulgence from any Man or Angel in the exercise thereof under their Master Christ alone to whom it belongs as properly to Rule the Church his own free Kingdom according to the good pleasure of His own Will as it belongs to Him to save his Church by the Merit of his own Sufferings that our Famous Fathers and such of their Children as have been faithful in following their footsteps have judged it a Testimony worthy to Sacrifice all their Interests upon in opposing and contending against all the Invasions and Vsurpations made upon these Prerogatives of Christ and Priviledges of His Church by Poperie Prelacy and Erastian Supremacy all condemned in the Law of GOD diseharged by the Laws of the Land and Abjured in our Covenants National and Solemn League As being highly derogatorie to the Glory of Christ contradictory to His revealed will offensive to His People obstructive to the Power and destructive to the peace purity and Liberty of His precious Gospel Now for adbering to this complex Testimony what have been the Sufferings and Grievances of Presbyterians in general and ours in particular since Anno 1660 from the Popish Prelatical and Malignant Party is more fully demonstrated with the Principles and Testimonie contended for by us vindicated in Naphtali Jus populi the Hind let loose our Informatory Vindication the Testimony against the Toleration given in by that faithful zealous Minister of Christ Mr. James Renwick and here summarly Remonstrated We had once a Resolution at the first appearance of the Prince of Orange who under GOD was the Honoured Instrument of our begun enlargement from them To have Addressed his Highness with this same Memorial But that failing after this long suspence in expectation of some Redress of Grievances whereof we and many others have been in a great measure disappointed We have been induced to publish it in this Iuncture with an Appendix of our present complaints of somethings that we understand to be wrong in the Church State Army and Country at the time of the writing thereof which was in the time and upon occasion of the many Adjournments of Parliament Wherein perhaps something will occur which may
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
productive of Prelacy again Which in the Lords strength We and many Thousands do intend never to submit to tho for our Recusancy we should suffer the greatest persecution from Men. We are for the Restauration and Re-establishment of this Churches Ancient Covenanted Reformation in its Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of God Confession of Faith Catechisms Larger and Shorter National and Solemn Covenants and Acts of General Assemblies in all its Legall Immunities Securities and Sanctions as before the Year 1650. These Different Inclinations cannot be a Rule of Government and order but of Ataxie and Confusion Nor can they be determined by a Lesbian rule unconstant and uncertain But somewhat to which all must vail and and submit and which must claim the last Appeal Tho we might with as great Confidence as others Venture the success of our Plea for Presbyterie upon the decision of a Poll and Plurality of Votes providing which could not be denied none be admitted to Vote but such as are well affected to the Government of King William and Queen Marry Yet we cannot subject the determination of that Plea to any other Rule than he Institution of CHRIST considering that either the Lord IESVS who is anointed only King and Head of his Church and is faithful in all his House must not have appointed any Government or order thereof at all which would exceedingly Reflect upon His Wisdom and Faithfullness and the Perfection of his Law or this Government which he hath appointed must not be Arbitrary and Ambulatory indifferently determinable by the will and inclinations of Men no more than others of His Institutions can be We plead for no Government and for nothing in this of Presbyterie but what we have the Lawes of CHRIST in his Word the Ancient Lawes of the Nation the Constitutions of the Church never yet repealed by any subsequent Authority Ecclesiastick and the Covenant Eengagements of all ranks in the Land of Indespensible obligation for Nor do we plead for any exercise or extent of this order further then is necessary for the purging of the Church of every Antichristian or Erastian Corruption and Invention Defection or Schism Error or Scandal in Officers or Members impartially And for the Planting of the Church with Godly able and Faithful Ministers for the Instruction conviction conversion Edification and Consolation of the Members thereof But now not only is this Government not established but even that of Prelacy is not effectually nor can be abolished while the many iniquous Laws against Presbytery and pressing submission to Prelacy are not rescinded And while our National and Solemn League Cevenants for Preserving and Promoting Reformation are so far forgotten and trampled upon that the Acts Antiquating and Discharging them to be owned are not only not Abrogated but so far yet observed that it is hardly allowed they should be publickly mentioned While also the Ecclesiastical Supremacy a feather likewise of Antichrists wing and a Blasphemous and Sacrilegious Encroachment upon Christs Prerogatives and His Kingdoms Priviledges is not revocked nor declared void whereby it stands declared by wicked Laws to be the inherent Right of the Magistrate to Order Dispose Alter or Innovate the external Government of the Church and to plant or transplant Ministers and give them Instructions to Regulate them in the Exercise of their Function which if not Abolished will not only optn a Door to the Introdnction of Prelacy or Popery again But if the Protestant Religion be never so well Established this will in process of time unhinge all possible Settlements thereof There is nothing more the Interest of the Church than to seek that this Mountain in the way of its Reformation be removed and all Acts confirming the same repealed and Indulgences following therefrom be declared to be Usurpations Another Pillar of Prelacy the constant support of it and stop to Reformation does yet continue while the burdensome Bondage of Patronages is not removed whereby the Church is Robbed of the Liberty of choosing her own Guides intrusted with her greatest concerns the Great-men have open access Implicity to impose and Prey upon and Pester the Church with Corrupt Teachers But if all these things were Rectified it is impossible the Church can ever be settled or purged or planted as long as the Episcopal Curats intruded by the Prelats Collation and Patrons Presentation contrare to the Institutions of Christ and the Constitutions of this Reformed Church without the Call and contrare to the Inclinations of the People in many places but every where the Bane of the Nation the Scandal of the Church and the cause of all our Confusions are continued in the Churches How can the Church be settled when those that unsettled it continue in the same Capacity to oppose all Righteous Settlements of Reformation How can the Church be purged when the greatest Corrupters and the most corrupted Members remain in Power Either they must be looked upon and Subject themselves as Members of the Presbyterian Church and then Discipline cannot but strike against them in such a measure of Severity as may be some way proportioned to the greatness of their Scandal their Obstinacy Impenitency and Continuance in it as long as they could and the hazard of their Leavening the whole Lump or they must be looked upon as Pure and Perfect Schismaticks seting up a distinct Church and seperate Communion within a well Constitute National Church and as such they ought to be Censured and Restrained How can the Church be planted when those Plants that the LORD never planted fill so much of His Vineyard and continue in so many Paroches either to sterve them with the hungry Husks of Ethick Homilies and Harangues of Moral Vertues instead of Gospel Holiness not knowing to Preach the Mystery of the Covenant of Grace or declare the Counsel of GOD to the Conversion of Sinners unto CHRIST or so poyson them with points of Popery Arminianisme Socinianisme Yet many of them do yet Peaceably possess the places they were intruded into and others dispossessed are reponed by Force contrare to the inclinations of the Paroch and notwithstanding their opposition in some places as for instance in Colintown and in Peebles where great Insolences were committed affronting the Magistrates and disturbing the Presbyterian Meeting which have been overlooked but the least Accession to any Opposition that was made hath been severely punished one Francis Beatie upon this account being for these many weeks kept in prison and his Petitions for Liberty ejected This hath discouraged many and opened their mouths to reflect That tho this Government be as much admited for Acts of Mercy to Rebells as the former was for Cruelty yet wherever any Presbyterian can be apprehended in any fault he must expect the rigour of Severity We do not justifie illegal Tumults nor do we approve that people should transgress their Line and Station in endeavours of Reformation when there is a Magistrate to be