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A65265 Historicall collections of ecclesiastick affairs in Scotland and politick related to them including the murder of the Cardinal of St. Andrews and the beheading of their Queen Mary in England / by Ri. Watson. Watson, Richard, 1612-1685. 1657 (1657) Wing W1091; ESTC R27056 89,249 232

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or on this side her guilt and onely for the security of Queen Elizabeth and her Kingdom yet room was left for the Queens ingenuity to acknowledge that the former extraordinary and extrajudicial examples were not drawn cleer off from their Lees nor justifiable in every circumstance that accompanied them After this the Duke of Momorancie Ambassador from the King of France presseth a cessation of Arms in Scotland a free Parliament or at least delegates from both sides to treat at London with the like deputed by the Queen of England and French King but this could not be hearkened to and the aversion of Lord Grange with his Garrison in Edenburgh Castle from peace upon hopes of supplies out of France is made the only barr against a general accord Since the Earl of Marre's death there had been no Regent in Scotland but Christs viceroies in black took the care of both Swords and passed Assembly acts at pleasure authentick no question so long as the young King breathed in the Country who must pay the Church tribute for his life by an innocent compliance to enact what they list to which purpose they kept him and would not part with this Jewel to England nor France though both desired to have him out of the noise and danger of their Wars but this look'd like a Monarchy divinely limited by the boundaries of the Discipline which might sweeten their liberty by degrees to a silent desertion of all future Government by a King Queen Elizabeth therefore who was in a manner perpetuall Protectrice calls upon them to go about the election of a Regent The Earl Morton was the man they made choice of whereby they seem'd both to gratifie the Queen and provide a mercenarie creature to their purpose he having not long before delivered up the Earl of Northumberland who had fled to Scotland for refuge and for a piece of mony unworthily as to the point of personall honour betrayed an obliging Friend who had fed and harbour'd him in his exile The late Earl of Marre had broak the Assemblies Instructions in his Regency by offering at some restraint unto the Church which had been better doubted upon the Infant person of the King and therefore his Son might well be opposed in his hereditary priviledge to have the young King in his custody especially his own minority requiring rather to have than to become a Guardian yet conditions being made the charge was conferr'd upon him for to secure the main good order was taken by the new Regent That no Papist nor factious person under which were comprised all loyal Subjects should have accesse unto the King An Earl with onely two Servants attending him A Baron with one All others single and unarmed The Queen of Scots deplorable condition in England discouraged her principal abettors at home The Duke of Castle Herald and Huntley are drawn in to acknowledge the King and his Regent the Lord Grange Humes and Lidington maintain their loyalty so long as they can in Edenburgh Castle which after a siege laid to it by Queen Elizabeths Forces which she lent the Regent out of kindness hastened by her jealousie of the French from whom the Queens Royalists in Scotland expected succour was resigned and according to the Disciplinarian mercy the first was hanged the second scarcely pardoned at Queen Elizabeths intreaty the third having sometime been a Friend sent to Leith and yet upon-after-thought because of a subtile and active headpiece supposed very probably to be poison'd by which Christian proceedings the Presbyterian Rebells become absolute Masters rule King and Country without contradiction And now their work being done they turn their pack-horse Souldiers to grass some of whom get new entertainment in Swedeland others agree better with the imployment in France and the Low-Countries The cessation of armes in Scotland gives the restless Brethren some respite to bethink themselves how to work mischief abroad The Bishop of Rosse though a prisoner in England had his head at liberty to devise and too many hands in readiness to execute what he should command upon any visible advantage against them Their importunity being not able to prevail for injustice and cruelty enough to put him to death they accept of his exile out of England though they foresee that will not quit them of their fears Morton the Regent craves a league with England of mutual defense against all forraign Forces and would have a large pension for himself and some Scots his devoted guards against the pretended attempts to depose him but that would not be hearkened to somewhat else with lesse charge and slight proofs did accumulate gu●lt upon the Queen of Scots for contriving a dangerous Match between a Scotch Earl of the blood the Kings Vnkle and the Lady Elizabeth Candish the Countess of Shrewsburies Daughter for which her Mother and divers Ladies were imprisoned Soon after the good old Earl of Castleherault having taken no great content in changing sides and forsaking his quond●m pupill and Queen by the mod●rate way of disciplinar●an dispatch was vexed into a sickness and dyed In the year 1577 was discovered Don Iohn of Austria's designe to marry the Queen of Scots which the Brethren fores●eing would imply the liberty of her person and confusion of their cause were not wanting in d●ligence to quicken information and aggravate prejudice to the Queen of England The Don●ailing of strength and assistance to carry on this and other vast youthfull designes the next year as 't is thought took no other pestilent infection then grief which brought him to his Grave In the year following the face of Government in Scotland was alter'd Earl Mortons covetous converting that publick treasure to his temporal use which should maintaine Christs Ecclesiastick Kingdom in luster brings upon him the damnation of the Discipline in deposing him from his Regency being scarcely afforded the favour of communion with his Peers The King yet but twelve years of age was apprehensive enough of the tyranny he had been under and in capacity to accept any courteous tender as well of his liberty as of his Crown It was found convenient to trust him with the title of Governing but that he might be sure not to surfeit upon the power he had his twelve Godfathers to passe upon him for every year one Earl Morton was kept in to instruct the rest rather how to give in verdict upon His Majesties actions then Counsel to his person and had the cunning to keep himself fore-man of the Jury but unadvisedly endeavouring to improve his interest to the retroduction of detestable regency split his own with the twelve Members superintendency in pieces and to little purpose secur'd the King in the Castle of Sterling there being a Regal power pretended abroad that gave the Earl of Athol commission to leavy an Army to meet him in the Field Sir Robert Bowes the English
Ambassador composed the publick difference at present after which a better expedient was supposed to be found to prevent by poyson all further martial attempts of Athol while Earl Morton betook himself more unto his privacy than innocency at home The first salley of Regal government under the pretended personall conduct of the King put the Assembly brethren in mind to strengthen their incroachment upon the Church to which purpose follows a discharging of Chapters with their election of Bishops the titular Bishops are warned to quit their anti-christian corruptions in particular was instanc'd their receiving Ecclesiastick emoluments so that notwithstanding all former Acts and agreements for life their known assignation of benefice must be as well extinct as their Jurisdiction and office yet to please the young King who beyond his years had a discretive Judgement and held Episcopacy in a reverend esteem that they might seem to leave them somewhat to do they make them Itinerant Visiters of their Hospitals themselves being the Sacrilegious Collectors of the Rents Beside this they heave hard to obtain an establishment of the policy in the Second Book of their Discipline but as that yet could not be got to be incorporated with other Parliament Acts At this time two French Noblemen raise fears and jealousies in abundance the Duke of Alanson in England by endeavouring a Marriage with Queen Elizabeth with whom he held private conference but was suspected to aime at restoring the Queen of Scots Lord Aubignie in Scotland who was become the only favorite of the King The consequences of the Marriage were debated by the Lords in Council and their opposite possibilities or conjectures represented to the Queen The new humours of Esme Stuart Lord d' Aubignie whom the King had ●arely c●eated Duke of Lenox was a business undoubted to be of Ecclesiastical cognizance and therefore taken into consideration by the Assembly the Christian result of whose counsels was this To set up against him an emulous rival Iames Stuart of the Ochiltrie Family call'd Earl of Arran which title he attained by cession from one of the Hamiltons not well in his wits to whom he had been Guardian but these two were soon reconciled by the King and the Assembly Brethren defeated in their plot They can soon find means to be revenged and make the King hear of his misdemeanour A large complaint is sent up to Queen Elizabeth which being sweetned with the discovery of a feigned designe to conveigh the captive Queen out of rison laid to the charge of the Duke of Lenox rellisheth well in the Court and Council of England from whence come endeavours and Embassies to degrade him from favour if not his honour and dem●nds to have him bani●●ed out of Scotland The young King had now quit himself of his pupillage and with that of his custome to return suppliant answers by his Regent according to the instructions that ever accompanied the demands Sir Robert Bowes the Agent was admitted to deliver his Message but not with his condition to have Lenox removed from the Council and therefore went grumbling home without audience Humes was sent with a complement after him and had the like reception in England where he was turn'd over to Lord Treasurer Burleigh and could have no admission to the Queen Lord Burleigh at large expostulated with him about the miscarriage of some in the Scotch Kings Council The Queen of Englands succesfull endeavours were magnified and her tender care in preventing many eminent mischiefs from the French Some sharp language was used which was hoped would cut off the Kings affection to the Duke of Lenox and make way for Mortons restitution to favour but the issue was otherwise Morton was question'd for many great enormities especially the murder of the Kings Father Randolph is sent to intercede somewhat magisterially and hinder the proceeding against him for his life The King adhears to his Laws by which he answers he is bound to submit Delinquents to Justice Randolph by the help of the Assembly Brethren makes a strong faction of Lenox's enemies and Mortons Friends draws Argile Angus and many other of the Nobility to the party but their different interests caus'd division in their counsels made them quit the engagement and leave Morton after proof and his own confession of the murder to pay his Head ●o the Justice of the Law In this time passed many arrogant Acts in their general Assemblies one among the rest did confine the holy Kirk of Iesus Christ in that Realm to the Ministers of the blessed Evangel and such as were in communion with them excluding all the Episcopal party and de●iv●ring them up to Satan as being Members of a Kirk divided from the Society of Christs body They professed That there was no other face of Kirk no other face of Religion then was presently at that time established which therefore is ●ver stiled Gods true Religion Christs true Religion the true and Christian Religion admi●ting it seems no other Religion to be so much as Christi●n but that Beside th●s other Acts there were ent●enc●ing upon the civill authority whereupon the King by Letter required the Assembly to abstain from making any innovations in the Policy of the Church and from prejudging the decisions of the State by their conclusions to suffer all things to continue in the condition they were during the time of his minority They regard not his letter send a Committee to Striveling to contest with His Majesty and sit down again about the ordering their Discipline Set Iohn Craig a Presbyter about framing a most rigid * Negative confession of Faith Never let His Majesty have quiet untill himself and his Family subscribe it Wrest a charge from him to all Commissioners and Ministers to require the like subscriptions from all and upon this authority taken by violence play the tyrants over the Consciences of the people They censure the Presbytery of Striveling for admitting Montgomery to the temporallity of the Bishoprick of Glascow and him for aspiring thereto contrary to the word of God and Acts of the Kirk While they are thus fencing with the spirituall Sword in Scotland their pure Brethren in England execute their Commission by the pen where the marriage between Qu. Elizabeth and Alanson new Duke of Anj●u being in a manner concluded they set out a virulent book with this Title The Gulf wherein England will be swallowed by the French Marriage but the Author Iohn Stubbs of Lincolns-Inne a zealous professor as he must needs be who was Brother-in-Law to Cartwright and one William Page who dispersed the Copies soon after had their hands cut off on a Scaffold at Westminster and play'd their parts no more at that weapon But the civil Sword must have its turn and what no menacing bulls of the Assembly nor any pointed calumnies of mercenary pens can keep off must by a
to marry whom she pleased Queen Elizabeth not liking the Perth Parliaments answer nor the young Messenger that brought it they call'd another at Sterlin and from thence sent Pelkarn with a subtile enlargement about their declining the two former of her three Propositions but because they saw so long as the exil'd Queen had the countenance of Queen Elizabeth she had oppo●tunity to encourage and some means to assist their enemies which now began to be somewhat potent they take a sure way to set the two Queens at variance by severall suggestions wherein what was true had been done by Murray's advice if not fi●st procurement the private overture of a Marriage between the Queen of Scots and the Duke of Norfolk and what was false they were sure would incense Queen Elizabeth and prevent all possibility of farther mischief from the South Of this nature was That she had passed away to the D. of Andyn her right to the Crown of England That She and the Duke of Norfolke intended to cut off the present Royall poss●ssours of both Kingdomes which plot● must be discoverd by providence just at Pelcarnes coming to the English Court whereupon the Queen and Duke were presently secured After this the Regent Murray goes on with less opposition and better success in Scotland ye● in the midst of his victories was rewarded for his murders rebellions and falsehood being shot at Lithgow in the belly upon a private revenge and so prevented of dispatching the young Prince which may be very fairly guessed by his proceedings to be intended his Mother boasting her self to have been the Wife not the Harlot of Iames the fifth and so this her son the lawfull inheritor of the Crown The holy Brethren would fain had Murray cannoniz'd for a Saint and Martyr in the cause and his bloud reveng'd they car'd not upon whom so any of the Queens dutifull Subjests might be cut off To bring such upon tryal as stood most in their way were many popular supplicates presented and what reason was rendred for deferring the enquiry at least till the Assizes if not rather till the next Assembly in May they either take for a close compliance of their Peers with the Queens or an impolitick yielding advantage to their enemies At length some of the wisest began to put in questions by what authority they could proceed to this or any other execution of Laws the Queen being deposed the King in his non-age and no legal establishment to be made of a successor to Murray in his Regency of the Kingdome Fain would they have made use of an old by grant extorted from the Queen but that they found null by the former election of Murray and if now taken up for authentick might be thought a recalling her Majesties authority from the dead This not holding good they leave all their sawcy French Proverbs behind them and come fawning upon Queen Elizabeth in English she denies them as well advice as assistance having before made plausible promises of both to the Queen of Scots though her prisoner The Rebe●l● were sensible what ground the Qu●ens party daily got by their Anarchy though their necessities hastened them toward a conclusion of somewhat yet not knowing what they were to seek by what means and in what method to effect it Queen Elizabeth who seem'd not full● satisfied with the thing must not be disgusted by the person The Earl of Lenox the young King's Grandfather is pitcht on for several reasons looking that way and first upon some Assembly revelation he was chosen an Interrex or Interloping King which soon after by some divine counter-light was discovered to be a monster in Government suspected for Saturnes unnatural stomack that might possibly devoure the young King and Iesus Christs Scepter to boot which the Presbytery had given him to play with in his hand To avoid this danger they divest him of his intercalary Kingship and having no law upon earth to impower them they furnish him with a Regency from heaven And now in his time no question all Parliamentary as well as Assembly authority may plead to be by divine right and their proceedings are justified by this extraordinary providence of God Upon this Patent the new Regent reforms what he could by the sword according to the true sense of the Discipline The poor captive Queen in compliance with the principles of nature and likewise in discharge of her civil duty who had the trust though not possession of a Kingdome by submisse yet enough Majestick requests in England by a mediation from France and Spain agitates what she can for her liberty and this for stopping farther effusion of Christian bloud in her Countrey and preventing the progresse of oppressive tyranny over her party Queen Elizabeth sensible of these unchristian proceedings by her arbitrary power sometimes orders a truce between the Scots gives fair answers as well to her prisoner as forein Ambasdours that interceded for her adviseth with her Council Wherein some were mis lead by too facile credulity of false informations from the North others not improbably corrupted all too much ad●cted to their own interests and an overweening solicitude about the peace and security of England This begat an overture too high and imperious for a magnanimous free-born Princesse to yield to put new thoughts and designs into the Pope Spaniard and French enlarged the breach between her English Subjects for they had been divided and some unsatisfied in the proceedings relating to the Scotch Queen reviv'd and multiplied conspiracies at home Into all these did the northwind blow the sparkles of the Disciplinarian Rebellion which more or less encreased the flame where they lighted if upon matter ready to fire with a touch Queen Elizabeth finding her self environ'd with danger and apprehending no possible security but in a perfect composure of the Scotch differences in order to it calls upon the Presbyterian division for a new account about the deposition of their Queen They exhibit a large remonstrance upon it stuffed with so much pride and barbarous insolence as left no place for religion reason or law although they were great pretenders to the last pleading Ancient priviledge of the Scotch peoples superiority to their Prince This for which their Reformed Brethren may thank them they fortified with Calvins authority and in some cases enlarged it to imprisoning and deposing Kings what or wheresoever They not onely justified their censure but magnified their own lenity to their Queen as to the pa●doning of her life to the succession of her son who being in their power and standing onely by their pleasure no marvail if in this years Assembly and Parliament all Acts and Statutes made before by him and his Predecessors annext the freedom and liberty of the true Kirk of God a●e ratified by his name whenas yet he could not superscribe them with his hand Queen
Elizabeth saw and disliked the drifts of these Antimonarchical maxims and practises yet not resolute enough to trust providence with the preservation of her person At the next meeting in the Lord Keepers House persists in one of her principal demands from the Queen of Scots Commissioners to have beside the delivery up of two strong Castles the Duke of Castle Herault the Earles of Huntl●y Argile Humes H●ris c. to be Pledges or Hostages for the good behaviour of their Queen This was to change one pri●oner for more to disarm the Scotch Queen and turn her into a wilderness of wolves or more savage beasts ready every minute to devour her The Bishop of Ross and her other Delegates lookt over Queen Elizabeths shoulder and her Councils to see the black Assembly men vying hard for the honour of this fatal invention returned a modest answer to Her Majesty , That this could not be yielded in Christian prudence nor mercy to their miserable Mistresse wch was repelled by the L. Keeper with that sharp reply which if any thing cut off all mutual confidence in the Queens That the Kingdome Princes Nobles Castles and what soever else was valuable in Scotland could be no considerable pledge for the security of England While matters were thus carried on there both parties in Scotland by Queen Elizabeths order enter into a truce which the Disciplinarians kept according to the articles of their faith putting to the sword what persons of quality they wished out of the way wherein the murder of their late King and a feigned design to poison this now in being served them very plausibly for a disguise They seized upon what Castles and Forts they could get by fraud or stratagem without any great noise of armes among the rest that on Dunbriton frith where the fury of the meaner sort being slacked by customary murder the wrath of the Regent and his sanguinary Chaplains must have a solemn holy sacrifice to appease it which was the Archbishop of St. Andrews whom they found in that Castle He craved the ordinary justice of the law but the fear of Queen Elizabeths mediatory Letters or any other prevalent possibility to save him carried him the shorest way by a Council of war to be as he was dispatched at the Gallows But divine vengeance not ●ong after found the Regent out at Sterlin sitting secure as he thought in his Parliament of Rebolls where by the hands of some on the Queens party he paid the due debt of his bloud to the innocence of that holy Martyr whom he murder'd And now the good Brethren haing divers months since out stript the rebellious precedents of their ancestors by leaping over the letter and all pretentions of Law and authority in the election of their Regent find themselves safe on this side all scrupulous trouble and so without any more addresses into England or home disputes about stating their power commit their cause to the protection of Iohn Erskin Earl of Marre whose first ominous repulse before Edenburgh and mild temper inclining toward a composure together with his impardonable endeavours to bring in again Archbishops and Bishops drew such swarms of contentious Presbyters about him that after thirteen moneths strugling with his own Conscience and their unconscientious proceedings he dyed through extremity of grief In this time by the good managing of the Brethren a proposition was made by the Members of Parliament in England That if the Queen of Scots acted any thing against the known Laws of the Land upon advantage given by her contract of marriage with the Duke of Norfolk she should be proceeded against as a Wife to one of the Peers of the Realm But for Royal Majesties sake Queen Elizabeth interposeth by her power and would not suffer it to be put to the Vote of the House or at least not enacted as a Law After all this jugling and under-hand contrivance the Disciplinarian faction in Scotland perceiving trouble and hazard increasing upon them at home and potent enemies multiplying abroad resolve now to cut up root and branch of all that hindred the growth of their dominion and having but blunt instruments in Scotland make bold with the highest authority and sharpest ax of England to effect it wherein as part of the work is easie with some rotten boughs which having no intrinsecal conjunction nor continuity with that body whereof they had been arms and members were broaken off at pleasure by the hand of Justice so the knotty pieces were not without some difficulty wrought off by the strength of malice and acuteness of subtilty in the too partial industrious Journey-men for the cause The Bishop of Rosse the Queen of Scots greatest agent and advocate fencing under the umbrage of the publick Embassie saved his life but not his liberty to do her service Felion Story Barnes Mather c. were at several times arraigned and executed But these were taken to be at too great a distance to give warning to their captive Queen The Duke of Norfolk was her principal adhearent they aim'd at the most likely Champion to have justified her title who though at his death he protested his chiefest endeavours had been to reestablish the oppressed Queen and suppress the rebellious practises in her Kingdom yet because his Plot was laid in the dark and his complices abroad such as for their own ends kept not within the compass of his designs but wrought the ruine of England into their hopes met with Law enough to condemn him by his Peers and after four moneths reprieve by the Queens singular favour inexorable Justice to behead him upon the Scaffold This much heightened the Assembly men in Scotland who wiping their eyes to behold with much consolation of spirit by what a slender thread their successes had hung the ax over their imprisoned Queen endeared each other by the mutual assurance they gave it could not be long before her Head too must off and then the Discipline they thought would take place with the unquestionable Succession of the King Not ten dayes passed after the Dukes death before they wrought by their Agents that Commissioners were sent Lord de l' Amour Sadler Wilson and Bromley to expostulate with the Queen of Scots about her treasonable practises against the Crown of England and to ring the knell of the Dukes destiny in her ears The French more earnestly than before interceding for her liberty are silenced with instances of their own cashiering their Kings Childerike by Pipin Charls of Lorraign by Hugh Capet imprisoning the Queens of Lewis Philip the Long and Charls the Fair successively The cases of Henry the Second of England Alphonsus of Castile and Charls the fifth of Spain and Scicilie are produced as precedents for taking the Crown their Mothers surviving And the honourable restraint of the Queen of Scots pleaded a favour beyond her desert
HISTORICALL COLLECTIONS OF ECCLESIASTICK AFFAIRS IN SCOTLAND And Politick related to them Including the Murder of the Cardinal of St. Andrews And the Beheading of their Queen Mary in England By Ri. Watson Sanguis sanguinem tetigit Hosea Chap. 4. ver. 2 By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and commiting adultery they break out And bloud toucheth bloud London Printed by G. D. for Iohn Garfield and are to be sold at his Shop at the sign of the Rolling-Presse for Pictures near the Royal Exchange in Corn-hill over against Popes-head-alley 1657. TO The Right Reverend FATHER in GOD And Religious Assertour of Christs Catholick Church JOHN LORD Bishop of ROCHESTER My Lord THE certain hazard of all one hath or is in these uncertain times annexed to the nicessity of a strict account to be rendred in the porch or passage unto eternity of the managing all affairs and offices relating either to obligation or restitution in this world puts me upon a serious review of mine own concernment wherein among many instances of chief regard I find one of my great engagements unto your Lordship with the impresse or character of Holy Orders into which I receiv'd my entrance by the imposition of your sacred hands unto whom I take my self in some degree of duty to stand responsable for what I act by that Commission or write with any reflexion upon the Doctrine or Discipline of our Church The Historical Observations I here humbly present your Lordship with are inseparable from that title in respect of both the Sect of Schismaticks I describe having according to the Tradition I am guided by in a phrenetick fury from the beginning thrown the price of their estates at their false Apostles fe●t and they with them cast souls and bodies into the fire of a raging persecution by impious cruelties when predominant by opprob●ious calumnies when unarmed and by civil wars when their plough shares and pruning hooks could at any time be fashioned into swords or axes for the cutting down not onely superfluous innovations in the habit but the very body and existence of that Apostolick rule and worship to which pattern we pretend I pursue them but to the period of their first domestick insolencies drencht in the bloud of that famous Queen Whom their best Poet but one of Her Majesties worst subjects once thought worth this Distich Quae sortem antevenis meritis virtutibus annos Sexum animis morum nobilitate genus What latter attempts they made when they marched over their borders to reform according to the mysterious model of their new Cove nant that whereunto their old enormous practices ought rather to have been conformed is declar'd and historiz'd by that Royal Pen which hath Registred to their eternal infamy their cutting in sunder the common Tie● of nature soveraignty and bounty their forgetting speciall fresh obligations wherewith their active spirits had been gratified not without some seeming diminution to or depr●ssion of the Doners interest and honour their inroad with an intent to confirm the Presbyterian copy they had set by making our Church to write after them though it were in bloudy characters How infatuated they were in those counsels how by providence defeated in their most desperate wicked e●ds the unpittied spectacle of their downfal demonstrates to all the world Yet my Lord this is not to raise a Trophee out of their miseries or to trample on their dejected persons If by pourtrai●ing the horrid actio●s of their Ancestours I can excite their guilty consciences to compare the copy with the original and repent effectu●lly for the transcend●ncie of their own rebellions I shall have great complacency in the assurance that I have outrun or outwrit my hopes Howsoever in what proportion I may expect credit to be given unto my care which was not little in the Collection and what resignation by the impartial Reader unto the naked truth of the contents I shall not doubt but hereby I may in the same confirm all pious and humble hearts in the preferring the ancient and univ●rsal successive government of the Christian Church before the new Genevatizing bloudy discipline of some heady Scots and perswade all moderate and quiet minded men to acknowledge one supremacy over both estates by trusting the same hand with Christs Scepter here on earth which himself doth with it and the civill sword But this endeavour may seem impertinent if not impudent in the face or memory of that most Reverend heroick Prelate whose greater eminency in authority and interest in the same Country hath with much more advantage particularly and amply satisfied the world by a grearer Volume for the suppressing which so many subtilties and violences had been used beside the power of a forraign Magistrate for a surprisal of the Secretarie in his preparing it to the Presse that nothing could be a surer evidence than such self-confessing guiltinesse against that party nor ought else after the Grace and Reverence of the renowned Authour put a greater estimate and opinion upon the Book at least if publisht as he writ it May it please your Lordship therefore to believe upon my word who am invested with the second order to make it valid that this Treatise was designed long since in a preparatorie antecedence unto the other and to that purpose with more ingenious confid●nce than worldly prudence trusted in the same hand which was to print and reap the profit of His Grace's work from which after the dilatory pretences of some judgement to be made by a view to be taken of it or rather after the Printers turn was served in dispersing the greater Copies it was returned with this sentence delivered by a person whose name I had not of much learning honour and integrity upon perusal of it That there was too much gall in the ink wherewith it was wrote and supposed that an enemy was the Collector for that through the sides of those the design is against our own Mother is wounded My Lord if the name of that severe person with a particular of his exceptions had been sent me I should have endeavoured his satisfaction or if theirs could have been otherwise effected whom I serve in it and mine own reputation preserved who have made implicite reference to this in another Book a sharp reply to which I am yet to expect perchance I might have chosen rather to lose my pains than give such a person scandal or confront his censure professiing in the words of my learned Collegue heretofore now a most singularly devout and acute Divine in the case of like question and appeal unto your Lordship That I would rather dye than either willingly give occasion or countenance to a schism in the Church of England I mean that Church of England which conform'd her self to the Ancient Latin and Greek Church and I would suffer much evil before I would displease my dear Brethren I adde such as keep close to their due
principles in the service of Jesus and in the Ministeries of that Church Wherefore my Lord if any thing of that nature have pass'd my Pen in the vacancie of a Synod I submit to any Canon of retractation or penance shall be prescribed me by your Reverence together with that joint primitive Oracle and most worthy person who● the Doctor took and I do by his wary precedent for the other Pillar of his Sanctuary the Lord Bishop of Sarum whose countena●ce and favour I some years since was honoured with more I presume for the integrity of my principles than any meritorious pregnancie in my parts But my Lord if some timorous or superstitious Ca●t●le in my Grave Censour would keep me so far from Rome as to thrust me into the precincts of Geneva I confesse to him and all the world that upon demonstrative reasons I am much more affraid in Christianities behalf of the Leman Lake than Tiber and look with more horrour on the rebellions sprung and reprobatory damnation denounc'd from thence than on any encroachment upon Kings or indulgencies unto the people so prodigally made by and defused from the Papal See In fine my Lord the glosses are not many I have upon points controverted between the Church of Rome and us if those few be so short as to render my sense suspected I will enlarge them when call'd upon to the full state I have made of them deliberately unto my self For the gall in my ink I shall say onely with your Lordships leave I know not where more commendably or excusably I may affect to give it a deeper black than in the relation of their proceedings whose souls were as red as scarlet and the issue of all their enterprises died in bloud I may be no lesse concerned to anticipate an after c●nsure incident from persons of another rank I mean such of the Scotch Nobility or related to them whose faith and gallantry hath effaced such their ignoble progenitours impeachments in their coates and yet may conceive their Names and Families purposely tainted by my Pen where I make a blot in some branch of their pedigree or descent To whom I professe I searched not their Heraldry for a distinction but as I intended no man injury or disrepute so I preferred necessary truth to his or their vulgar honour in my design Which being in that respect a case of Conscience craves likewise your Lordships cognisance though as it regards the rule of prudence I must answer it at my hazard For the rest my Lord til it appear by more than an obscure single suffering that I have infringed the canon of Christian Charity or deviated from the doctrine and practice of the Ancient Church I humbly crave your Lordships favourable protection of this essay and of my name in that communion into the Ministery whereof your ordination introduced me which no new discoveries nor discourses in forreign parts have obliged my reason to desert nor doth any self-conviction discourage me in my subscription as that Churches and My Honoured Lord Caen Aug. 27. 1657. Your Lordships most humbly obedient Son and Servant Ri. Watson HISTORICALL Collections IF the sacred Oracles and Records which Christ with his Apostles Evangelists Disciples delivered unto the ears and deposited in the hands of the Primitive-Church had been at large in every particular preserved and by the same authority successively transmitted whereby that smaler volume of their writings hath been manifested to our knowledge and commended to our belief the errours and abuses in Christianity had been fewer or refomation whensoever necessary more regular such a standing rule giving sudden Evidence against the least obliquities which Schism and Heresie could transgresse in and being a Bar against the boldness of those spirits which when the letter of Scripture is not as it never but is in the sense clear and powerfull to confound them rather multiply than rectifie things amisse upon their pretended priviledge of prophesie or revelation The mystery of Gods providence in withholding this succour from his people is not so much to be repin'd at as his mercy to be magnified in administring the remainder of those helps which is compleat to the support and satisfaction of any moderate inquirer after the general of doctrine and particulars of discipline the explication of the former and enlargement of the latter being ever taken into the power of the Catholick-Church which in its orginal purity so studied a visible communion of Saints that either by expresse dispensation or indulgent connivance many national provincial yea in●eriour corporate or collegiate Congregations had that latitude of difference and singularity of profession or practice● for which any proper 〈◊〉 pretence could be produced before a general Council or in lesse matters before their Patriarch and Bishops vested with authority to such purpose as wherein their content and complacency kept all devout well-meaning Christians from Schism and a scandalous separation Others whose pride ambition or covetousnesse carried them beyond the canon of moderation and peace were severely censur'd curs'd excommunicated cut off from Christs body which like rotten members they might otherwise have corrupted and gangrand having no re-admission or re-union to that holy sound continuity without serious and open repentance humble submission to the high authority of the Church which if they persisted obstinately to contemn or neglect the power of truth subdued their doctrines the storm of Gods wrath dispersed their conventicles the sword of his vengeance executed their persons in some exemplary temporal death if it pursued them not to eternal damnation How far the visible Church whether Romane or Greek made at any time a general defection from her self in a manifest detortion of or declention and deviation from her own canon is neither my design nor duty in reference to my present undertaking to search no more than to condemn or vindicate particular Churches in their separate condition The Sum of what I intend in this my Treatise is to shew how the Scotch-Presbyterian Kirk which when time was would have fain been accepted as the pattern of purity and clearest extraction of Christian Religion began Reformation upon no deep sense no deliberate Examen how corruption crept in nor proceeded according to any other rule than the Anomalie of a prejudicate fancy or premeditated malice which intended rather the destruction of persons than composition of minds ●o a due temper and sobriety in worship having no other commission but what was given out by the spirit of disobedience and errour nor the countenance of any precedent beside what might be cited from the unhappy successe in the attempts of Rebellion and Schism The first Sect of preparatory Reformers their History pretends to were the Lollards of Kyle who in the reign of King Iames the fourth about the year 1494. becoming numerous and troublesome both to Church and State were accused to the King not onely as Hereticks but Rebels The