expect Control or Contradiction and laying them by from all open opposition to the introduction of Poperie and advancement of Slaverie he purposed and proposed the repealing of the Penal Statutes against Papists at the Parliament held by the Earl of Murray Against which when afterwards some of the Common sort of people and of the Souldiers spoke some what freely and for shewing their dislike of setting up the Idolatrous Mass and for speaking against Poperie and the designs of the King they were put to Death in a most Despotical and Arbitrary manner The Persecution the mean while still continuing against us and growing more dangerous and worse to bear that we had all the brunt of it to sustain while the Forces had few other to Persecute but us which they did in great fury murdering in Fields and Scaffolds such as they could catch of us At length what could not be obtained by Law at the formentioned Parliament for taking off the Penal Statutes was effectuate by Prerogative in a Proclamation Feb 12 1687. Granting by the Kings Soveraign Authority Prerogative Royal and Absolute Power which Subjects are to obey without Reserve a Toleration under certain conditions Restrictions and Limitations to all sorts of Perswasions excepting us who are left to the full vigor and utmost rigor of the Laws made against us Suspending Stoping and Disabling all Laws or Acts of Parliament customs or constitutions against any Roman Catholick Subjects giving them freedom in all respects as much as any Prtoestant Subjects whatsoever not only to Exercise their Religion but to enjoy all Offices Benefices c. which he shall think fit to bestow upon them in all time coming Hence Papists were put into places of highest Trust both Civil and Military And Popish Magistrates without any Election established in Burghs c. contrare to the known Laws of the Kingdom admitting none to be Magistrates or so much as a Procutator Notar or member of Court who professes not the Protestant Religion Act 9. Parl 1. Iames 6. Declaring all Papists infamous and unable to sit or stand in Judgment pursue bear Office or to be admitted as proves Witness or Assisors against Protestants Act 45 Parl 3 Iames 6 which is extended to all and whatsomever Office without any Exception or Restriction in all time coming Act 5 Parl 20 Iames 6 Hence also the Idolatrous Mass was set up in the most publick places of the Kingdom and Popish Seminary Priests suffered and encouraged to preach and set up Schools to seduce the People especially the Youth contrate to many express standing Laws Act 3 Parl 1 Iames 6 and Act 5 ibid Ordaining all layers or hearers of Mass to be punished with imprisonment for the first fault banishment for the second and justifying to the Death for the third fault Act 122 Iarl 12 K Iames 6 Decerning That in all time coming the saying of Mass resetting of Jesuites Seminary Priests Traffiquing Papists shall be just cause to infer the pain and crime of Treason Act 196 Parl 14 Iames 6 Ordaining in all time coming all wilfull hearers of Mass and concealers of the same be execute to the Death Ratified in the 1 Act. Parl. 19. Iac. 6. And in 5. Act. Parl 20 Iac 6. Hence Papists have erected Schools and made sold and dispersed their Heretical Books tending to seduce the People from the true Religion contrary to express Laws Act. 106. Parl 7 Iac 6 Act 24 and 25 Parl 11 I 6. This Popish Toleration was neither extended to us all the three Proclamations thereof expresly providing that Field Conventicles all Preachers and Hearers thereat be prosecuted according to the utmost Severity and Rigor of the Lawes made against them left in their full Force and Vigor with a Command to all Judges Magistrates and Officers of â—orces to pursue us with all Violence Nor could we in Conscience and Duty directly or indirectly suffer our selves to be involved by any participation therewith or acceptance thereof in the sin of it against the Laws of GOD and Man Since it appeared evidently to flow from a Blasphemous fountain of Absolute Power through a Treasonable Channel of stoping Suspending and disabling the Penal Statutes made against the Enemies of GOD and of the Kingdom and to be designed for the wicked ends of subverting the Protestant Religion and the peaceable introduction of Popish Idolatrie and Heresie And to offer not the establishment of our Religion but the Tolerating of it under the scandalous notion of a thing to be suffered for a while and with such shameful securities as robbed the Church of all her Legal Charters of Laws and Covenants establishing her Reformation leaving her nothing in lieu thereof but a blind precarious promise of One whose principles oblieged him to keen no Faith with those to whom he promised it But against all these indignities done to Christ and injuries to the Church intended and effected by this Toleration our Ministers thought themselves oblieged to bear witness and Testimony And with respect both to necessity and duty to continue to keep their Meetings in the open Fields whether the Tyranny of the times had driven them Since they durst neither seem to Homologate the Toleration by coming under the sconce of such a protection Nor durst they give such advantage to such as were insatiably thirsting after their Blood and were impowered to shed it as they were seeking and would have found if they had shut up themselves within houses that could neither hold their Friends nor be hid from their Enemies This we looked upon as a Testimony for the interest of the Protestant Religion for our Covenanted Reformation for the Laws Liberties of our Country all undermined and sought to be subverted by that Toleration In the prosecution of this Device when others were killed with Popish kindnesses we were left to feell the sweet effects of Popish Crueltie Some of our Bretheren were Murdered in Fields and Scaffolds since that pretended Toleration Many both Men and Women have been banished and Sold for Slaves in Barbados Other severe Proclamations were issued against our Ministers Intercommuning seting a pryce upon their Heads to encourage all to apprehend them Dead or alive One of them Mr. Iames Renwick a painful Minister being Feb. 1688. was Executed to the Death in Edinburgh the Drums beating all the time of his Praying and speaking upon the Scaffold And after this not only was the Country oppressed with Souldiers free quarterings and frighted with their searches and Insolences in their ryding up and down the Country challenging peaceable Travellers upon the Road about their Opinions of the Kings Authority and if this and that was Rebellion and threatning present Death to such as did not satisfie them But the City of Edinburgh vexed with universal searches and the impositions of these impertinences whereby many were taken and examined by Claver-house who required them to renounce the Covenant imprisoned the Recusants Whereby the Prisons were crouded
might not be heard a Barbarity never known in Scotland before and rarely heard of except in the Duke d' Alvas murdering the Protestants in the Netherlands But frequently used almost at all the Executions since of our Martyred Brethren in this Land Immediatly hereafter Souldiers were sent out on free Quarter to examine men by Tortures threatning to kill or rost alive all that would not delate all they knew Accessary to that rising Who accordingly by fire Matches and other tortures forced Women to discover their Husbands and other Relations although they knew not it they were there stripped them who Reset the Fugitives and thrusted them in crouds to Prisons in cold and nakedness And some they murdered without Process that would not because they could not discover those persecuted people Yea and drove away the Goods of the Country without respect to Guilt or Innocency In the mean time such as were in Armes and some that were not were Intercommuned and interdicted of all Reset Harbour Hiding Corresponding or Comfort under pain of Rebellion and of being counted guilty of the same Crimes wherewith the Intercommuned were charged And many Gentlemen Ministers and others were Forfeited of their whole Estates very illegally Yea some that were not present at that Appearance in Armes nor Legally Convict nor cited to answer according to Law were yet Forfaulted before the Act of Parl. 2. Act 11. Carol. 2. contrate to express standing Statutes And further all Dissenters and such as did not joyn in suppressing that Expedition were by order from the Council robbed of their Armes and Horses fit for service their guilty Consciences puting them in Fears and dictating their desert of greater opposition After all these Cruelties murdering the Persons and oppressing the Estates of poor Dissenters what they could not do by Law nor Force nor Futy they contrived to effectuate by Craft under the notion of Clemency but such a Clemency as was a greater Cruelty then any former Persecution The poor People that had nothing left them but a good Conscience must have that robbed from them likewise Therefore these wicked Councellers and Prelates still stirred up by the Curates having none or a seared Conscience of their own contrived to take away from People all Remainders of Conscience or to make them pliable to comply with every corruption they should introduce by imposing Conscience-debauching and ensnaring Oaths and Bands most Deceitfully and Ambiguously framed most Illegally imposed and Insolently pressed and more numerous since that time than ever was heard of in any Nation in one Age there being scarce one year since that time wherein several of these Oaths and Bonds have not been vented and imposed contradictory to one another contrary to our sworn Covenants and work of Reformation impossible to keep and unlawful to take Yet finding they could not yet suppress the persecuted Meetings for Gospel Ordinances but that the more violence was used the greater and more frequent they grew They fell upon a more crafty device to divide and destroy the Remnant to overturn what remained of the Churches Priviledges undestroyed and to settle Ministers and People into a silent and stupid Submission to all the Kings Usurpations upon the same by giving an Indulgence Anno 1669. to some outed Ministers with Restrictions and Instructions clearly homologatory of the Supremacy whence it flowed establishing the height of Erastianism prejudicial to the freedom of the Ministry injurious to the Priviledges of the Church contrary to Presbyterian Principles and contradictory to the Covenants The Grant and Acceptance whereof hath been the bane of the Church of Scotland and a Bone of Contention rending and ruining the Remnant of Ministers and People Unite before The end of it was to advance the Supremacy as upon this occasion they enlarged and explained it And because it was against Law therefore that the Kings Letter might be made the Supreme Law afterwards at least Law enough for the Council to proceed enact and execute what the King pleased in matters Ecclesiastick The Parl. 2. Act 1. Carol. 2. held by Lauderdale Asserts and Declares That by vertue of the Supremacy the ordering of the Government of the Church doth properly belong to his Majesty and Successors as an Inherent Right to the Crown and that he may enact and emitt such Constitutions Acts and Orders concerning Church Administrations Persons Meetings Matters as he in his Royal Wisdom shall think fit Which Acts Orders c. Are to be observed and obeyed by all Subjects any Law Act or Custom to the contrary notwithstanding But now as before faithful Ministers that were not thus Indulged sensible of the indispensable necessity of Preaching the Gospel and of the Peoples great necessity calling them to it from several quarters after they had undergone and endured many hazards and hardships of Villany and Violence Imprisonment and Banishment for meeting in the Houses where they were easily Intraped Interrupted and Insulted over were forced to go to the Fields and Preach in places most convenient secret and safe whither the People being tyred of their cold and dead Curates and wanting long the Ministry of their old Pastors resorted in great numbers on the greatest of hazards the Council then at the instigation of the Bishops and Curates raised Troops of Horse and Dragoons to pursue them as Traitors and Rebells for their following that Necessary and Signally blessed Duty Impowred and Encouraged to apprehend and bring Dead or Alive some Ministers with prices put upon their Heads and to incarcerate all they could find either at the Meetings or suspected to be coming to or from them Hence Prisons were filled some were sent to the Bass some Banished and many hundreds driven from their Dwellings Outlawed and Intercommuned For Legalizing such Mischiess the second Sess. of the second Parliament Anno 1670. held by Lauderdale made many wicked Laws causes of many Grievances following As Act 2. Ordaining all of every quality or sex called to depone upon Oath their knowledge of such Meetings and Persons therein to declare the same in all particulars interrogate under the pains of Fining Imprisonment or Banishment and Deportaion to the Indies as the Council shall think fit oblidging People thereby to betray their own Neighbours Act 5. Declaring all outed Ministers found Preaching or Praying in any House except in and to their own Family shall be Imprisoned till they find Caution under the pain of 5000 Marks not to do the like again and every Hearer shall be toties quoties fined each Tennant in 25 Pounds Scots each Cottar in 12 Pounds c. And that all that Preach in the Fields or in any House where any of the People are without Doors shall be punished with DEATH and any that shall seise and secure any of them dead or alive shall have 500 Marks reward Act 6. Imposing most I yrannically exorbitant and grievous Fines upon any that shall offer their Children to be Baptized by any but
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