together with the former Acknowledgment of Sins and Engagement to duties should be read publickly to the People upon the day of the Intimation and the last Fast day when the Covenant was to be sworn This resolution of the Commission upon the same grounds was unanimously approven by the Committee of Estats then sitting and by their Act October 14. Ordained to be put in Execution in all things according to the directions of the Commission And accordingly in the moneth of December it was for the second time sworn in all the Congregations of the Kingdome upon the same day except where vacancy or the Ministers being under scandal or process did occasion a delay till another day that the place was supplyed by another Minister with great Solemnity and such mixture of Joy Sorrow as became people entering in Covenant with the Lord And was thereafter Subscribed by all the Swearers After ward the Parliament Conveening in January 1649 by their very first Act except the Election of their President upon the same grounds Resolved to keep a Fast by themselves for the Causes contained in the Acknowlegment and to Renew the Covenant according to the Order of the Commission which was also most solemnly done And last of all the Generall Assembly 1649. by their Act July 7. did unanimously and expresly Ratify the Proceedings of the Commission as to the Acknowledgment of Sins Engagement to dueties the Fasts and Renewing of the Covenant by Swearing and Subscribing thereof Hence as the Covenant it self so the Solemn Acknowledgment of Sins Engagement to duties became National Authorised by the Supream Judicatures of Church and State and are still obliging by Oath Oh! that the Lord had kept these things in the Imagination of the thought of our hearts for ever ERRATA WHilst this was upon the Press some Errors which escaped in some sheets were corrected in others so that thou must not stumble though some Copies be more correct then others Besides other literal escapes which will not marr the sense before thou read the Book correct with thy pen thâ—se following Pag. 3. lin 4. for other as read as other p. 4. l. 32. r. witnesses p. 5. l. 3. r. solemn p. 6. l. 12. r strong p. 8. l. 15. r. sufficiently p. 15. l 29. for or r on â—b l. 16. r. opportunity p. 24. l. 14. for of r. or p. 25. l. 4. r. resolution Ib. l. 32. forâ— are r. are a lb. 33. r. worthies p. 30. l. 21. for 27. r. 17. lb. 23. for 10. r. 8. p. 35. l. 8. r. 1560. Ib. l. 30. r. 1571. p. 38. l. 16. r. 1584. p 67. l. 27. for hoth r. both p. 70. l. 12. for he r. the. p. 81. l. 12. r. during p. 88. l. 18. r. slain p. 100. l. 11. de e the. Ib. l. 12. r. generally Ib. 19. for the r. that p. 103 l. 14. for out r. ought p. 120. l. 16. for what r. that p 129. l 12. r. rageth in p. 154. l. 23. for where r. were p. 188 l. 6. r. his p 281. l. 27. r. it is p. 282. l. 13. r. Advocats A True and short DEDUCTION Of the WRESTLINGS of the CHURCH of SCOTLAND For the KINGDOM of JESUS CHRIST From the beginning of the Reformation of Religion unto the Year 1667. AFter all these great glorious things which the Lord in his Love Mercy and Faithfulness hath wrought for this Land and in his Holiness and Righteousness hath declared amongst us these clear and powerfull Manifestations of his blessed Truth which have so brightly shined forth to the Glory Beauty and Praise of this whole Nation After these many sacred and most solemn Engagements whereby in the evidence and power of the same Truth all Ranks and degrees from the King even to the meanest became and are still bound and devoted to the Most High and Holy Our Covenanted God and to our blessed Lord Jesus Christ who alone is King in Zion and of all Saints and whose are all the Kings and Kingdomes of the Earth for the advancement of his Glory and Kingdome and for the owning and maintaining of his glorious Work and precious Truth which is all our Felicity and Joy And after all this horrid Apostacy and Rebellion whereby the same wretched Nation in the same Generation and almost in the same Persons neither from the conviction of any pretended Reason or Conscience nor from any solid persuasion of the very Advantage designed but in the manifest Spirit of Wickedness and violence have forgotten despised and blasphemed the former power and Glory Rebelled against God by breaking the Holy Covenant Rejected our Lord and Saviour Overturned the Work of his own blessed Spirit and Arme Abrogated and rescinded all these righteous Lawes and Ordinances whereby it was established And by most Unjust Arbitrary and Cruel Lawes and Practises have endeavoured the rebuilding and promoving of the Kingdome of Darkness and Antichrist and precipitating of all men either into the same condemnation with themselves or utter ruine and Extermination After we say all these things which the Lord hath thus wrought and permitted in the midst of us neither the Discouragement and Fainting of some nor the Unsuccesfulness of the more honest and Zealous endeavours of others nor yet our Silence hithertil is greatly to be wondered at For whose eyes can behold all these things without Dimnes and affecting of the heart And whose heart can consider them without Astonishment and Horrour if not Stupefaction or Discouragement How little wonder is it that every visage suppose of the fairest Nazarit be blacker then a coale That every eye run down with waters that the souls of many refuse to be comforted neither do nor dare rejoice as other people When not only by their going a whoreing from the Lord their dayly bread is become the bread or Adversity and the waters of Affliction and when their famine of the Word of the Lord is such that though they wander from sea to sea seeking it they cannot find it Bot also the Comforter that should releeve their souls is far from them and either covereth Himself with a cloud that their prayers cannot pass through or then answereth them only by terrible things in Righteousness How can they who by their Vanities have moved the Holy God to Jealousy and thereby have provoked their Rock to fell them stand before their Enemies or chase a thousand put ten thousand to flight alâ—hough that we should plead with our Mother with our Rulers with all other ranks of persons within the Land that they would put away their whoredomes out of their sight their Adulteries from betwen their breasts yet what hope is there that Words shall prevaill where the Power and Glory of the most High is contemned Or that Reason shall be heard where the Counsell of God is rejected Here indeed is matter of Wonder and Praise even the Longsuffering of the Lord which is Salvation and the Mercy and
and what is premised do warrand an just extention thereof in favours of the People against backsliden Rulers both supream and subordinat or even in favours of a part of the People with the caution subjoyned against the greater part wickedly backsliden let the World judge Oh! did the wrath of God for the hidden and secret sin of one poor acursed Achan suddenly and fearfully overtake the whole People and ALL THE CONGREGATION of Israel so that that man perished not ALONE in his iniquity and had not our Reformers great reason to fear and tremble least the Manifest Tolleration of proud cruel and flattering Prelats who had perverted the lawful Powers into bloody Persecuters and of Idolatours Priests whose wickedness and Idolatry had corrupted the whole Land might involve not only themselves but the whole Nation in destroying and overflowing indignation We are not ignorant of the no less wicked then ground less cavils of some as if we would make or have every man to be a Phinehas And what then Would God if wishes yea prayers and teares could make it that all his Servants were as Phinehas and that he would pour upon every one of them the same Spirit of Holy Zeall which was in him that by removall of the cause his fierce anger against this poor consuming Land might cease But as for that Act of Phinehas the termes following being generall and ambigous admitting of severall distinctions and subdistinctions as it is not easy without distinguishing in thesi to define an Action and Call Extraordinary and an Action and Call thereunto only Heroicall and to state the true specificall Difference and just limits betwen an Action and Call Extraordinary and an Action and Call Heroicall as they are strickly taken and contradistinguished and clearly and convincingly to demonstrat what and how much more is required in an Extraordinary Call to an Extraordinary Action then is required in a sufficient Call unto an Heroicall Action and whether an eminent measure of Holy Zeal Magnanimity and Fortitude do constitut a sufficient Call unto an Heroicall Action or do only Dispose and fit the person for the right and better performance thereof as a Call unto the Action and the Fitness of the Person for doing of the same are contradictinguished or may not both Dispose and fit the person for performance of the Action and also include and give a Call unto the Action it self So when the matter is fully considered it will be more difficult then perhaps is apprehended to prove that the Act of Phinehas was Extraordinary strickly taken and in contradistinction to that which is only Heroical or that his Call thereunto was Extraordinary in contradistinction to that which is a sufficient Call unto an Heroicall Action and more difficult to determine otherwise then by naked assertion what that Extraordinary Call was Wherein it did consist Wherein it did differ from Exceed or Excell a Call unto an Heroick Action And therefore it will be also hard convincingly to demonstrat that it might not have been lawfully done by another of the Children of Israel whom the Lord had animated thereunto by the same Holy Zeall and Resolution And this is the more considerable because as we very rarely if at all find the Lord commending and rewarding persons for Extraordinary Actions whereunto they had Extraordinary Calls so much and so highly as here He Commendeth and Rewardeth Phinehas So the Text it self Numb 25. doth lay the great if not the only weight and ground of his Commendation and Reward upon his ZEALL and not upon any Extraordinary Call whereof there is not the least hint or insinuation For vers 11. the Lord saith He turned my wrath away from the Children of â—srael while he was ZEALOUS for my sake among them and therefore vers 12 13. promiseth him His Covenant of peace a seed after him and the Covenant of an Everlasting Priesthood BECAUS he was ZEALOUS for his God And if any shall as it is like some will alleadge that Heroicall Actions are not more Imitable then these which are Extraordinary It is humbly offered to be considered anent Heroicall Actions in generall Whether when the matter of an Action is not only Ordinary that is neither Preternaturall nor Supernaturall though not very Frequent but also Just and Lawfull yea and Necessary both by Divine Precept as a Mean to a good and Necessary End and when either there is not or doth not appear any other to do the work whether I say in that case a Spirit of Holy Zeall Magnanimity and Courage wrought and excited by the Lord in his Servants and People moe or fewer being otherwise in a Rationall and probable Capacity be not for that time a sufficient Call unto the performance of these Actions which are commonly called Heroicall and especially when and where the Action is not unnecessarily irrationally nor in vanity attempted but may be and is performed not only without prejudice of the True Necessary and Chief Good of the Church and Common-wealth or of any particular person's just Right and security but also in the case of the Magistrat and others their wilfull and perverse neglecting of their duty is necessarly undertaken and is not only formally intended by the Actor but also natively and really doth conduce to the Glory of God the Good of Religion the preservation and establishment of Church and Common-wealth and of every particular person's Just Rights and Security by suppressing of Impiety promoving of Truth and Holiness doing of Justice Turning away of wrath and removing of present and preventing of future Jugdments And as for the particular instance of Phinehas if the Lord did not only raise him up to that particular Act of Justice but also warrant and accept him therein and reward him therefore upon the accompt of his Zeall when there was a Godly and Zealous Magistrat able whom we cannot without breach of charity presume but also willing to Execute Justice How much more may it be pleaded that the Lord who is the same yesterday to day and for ever will not only pour out of that same Spirit upon others but also when he gives it both Allow them though they be but private persons and also Call them being otherwise in a Physical and probable Capacity to do these things in an Extremely necessitous and otherwise irrecoverable State of the Church to which in a more intire condition thereof he doth not Call them and particularly when there is not only the like or worse provocations the like Necessity of the Execution of justice and of Reformation for the turning away of Wrath and Removall of Judgments that was in Phinehas case but also when the Supreme Civil Magistrat the Primores Regni and other inferior Rulers are not only unwilling to do their duty but so far corrupted and perverted that they are become the Authors and patronizers of these abominations Which is also the more considerable because if upon the fear or suspicion of
this Solemn and important League and Covenant we cannot but wonder at the poor Sophistâ—y of such especially that more Temporizing then Seasonable Casuist who delude themselves in so great matters unto such an Indifferency as to assert that this Covenant doth as necessarily depend upon the King's consent for it's establishment as the private vow of a Daughter in her Father's house or of an Wife under her Husband's power in things free and arbitrary though not absolutely in their own disposal did according to the Judicial Law of the Jewes fall under the Father and Husband's power of ratifying or annulling But the simple proposal of these cases doth hold out such a disparity both as to the Persons being only women under power the Things in themselves being free but at another's disposal and many other Circumstances tedious to insist on and even as to Law it self by which the case is determined being meerly Judicial that none who fear the Lord or mind His Glory in any measure of Sobriety will daigne it with an answer And such indeed are the rest of the Cavils and Calumnies wherewith the Adversaries of Truth have endeavoured to impugn and asperse this Holy Covenant and are so fully and often answered already that to account them worthy the resuming and refuting were in some sort after Vowes to make inquiry There is one thing that our Adversaries have frequently objected which we cannot ommit viz. that the Covenants both National and Solemn League were urged and pressed both by Church Censures and Civill Sanctions of loss of goods sequestration and other arbitrary pains which hath been heavily complained of as a great violence done to Conscience But as it was then too evident that this Priviledge of Conscience was for the most part only pretended by such as had litle or no feeling thereof so the Practice of the present times doth now fully discover that what is now so insolently retorted was never before really scrupled at But the lawfullness of the course and practice then used and the iniquity of this retortion will easily be cleared if it be considered 1. that the Nationall Covenant being a standing binding Oath upon the whole Land and in the Year 1638. only renewed with such an agreeable explanation as none could or did quarrel but such as thereby intended to palliate and persist in their proceeding manifest violations was according to the example of good Josiah who brought back the People and CAUSED them stand to the Covenant of their Fathers 2 Chron. 34.32 most justly commanded and under the pains due to the breach therof ordained to be re-taken 2. That the solemn League and Covenant containing no other obligements then what the National doth import and being a most conducible expedient both for the securing and prosecuting the ends thereof and whereunto the National Covenant upon this ground did clearly oblige The pressing of the same League is warranted not only by the former ground but from the very bond of the National became an indispensible Duty By which reasons as the former proceedings are clearly justifyed so the present practice as being a direct and violent ranversing of these things which were once so righteously and rationally established is the more condemned But whatever be the disparity of these cases in the point of Reason we are sure that light and darkness do not more differ then the Lenity of these former times from the Rigour and violence now practized that where one then suffered for obstinacy against the Covenant hundreths do now suffer for their stedfastness therein As for these Wars and great commotions that ensued upon this great Transaction of the Solemn League we will not thereon insist Only we are confident that nothwitstanding all the Calumnious constructions of our Adversaries al such as seek out and have pleasure in the Works of the Lord will applaud unto the Glory and Righteousness thereof who as by the sword of Apostats in the Years 1644 and 1645. He did punish in his Justice the Hypocrisy and Self-seeking of such in this Land whose hearts were not upright in His Covenant and thereafter in the Year 1648. did by a prevailing Sectarian Party restrain and crush the gross and Generall Apostasy then intended under an Hypocritical pretext of pursuing the ends of the Covenant at that time so palpably perverted and abused so for the manifestation of his own Glory and of His Mercy to them that fear him and did not forget his Covenant He did intermix several gracious Intervals of His aboundant Compassion and at length did give unto His Work and People a full and absolute Victory over that malignant Spirit and Party that had so long prevailed in the Land and caused the wickedness of the wicked to cease and all iniquity to stop it's mouth Thus in the Years 1649 and 1650. thereafter the Lord was with us while we were with Him and while we sought Him He was found of us but as we did forsake Him so did He also forsake us by which position all the mixture and varieties both of our Actings and Gods Providences in these times may clearly be resolved There was indeed at that time in the Land not only a party Faithful unto God and zealous for His Name but also a great Zeal of God from clear knowledge and sad experience generally and solemnly professed before God and all men in our Publick Acknowledgement Anno 1649 In consequence whereof the League and Covenant was also by the whole Kingdom renewed that same Year And in answer thereunto the Lord did mightily both save and defend us from all our Adversaries and as He soon subdued our Enemies at Stirling and turned His Hand against our Adversaries in the North and caused the haters of the Lord faign submission unto Him so for His own Glory the establishment of His People and the utter confusion of His Adversaries He did highly advance His blessed Work by the accession of all these Advantages with the Defect whereof it had been formerly calumniated The Advantages we here mention are besides that Publick Acknowledgement then made and in the deep sense thereof the League and Covenant solemnly again renewed and taken whereby our Engagements were not only doubled but strongly confirmed 1. These many necessary and righteous Lawes enacted in the then Parliaments both for the ratifying the later large Confession of faith and the larger and shorther Catechisms agreed unto by both Kingdoms and for the restraining and coercing of Impiety and Blasphemy the encouragement of the Ministry and for the promoving of Godliness Amongst which Acts that abolishing Patronages deserveth a more special and commendable remembrance Not only because of the many woful Effects Abuses of Patronage as it then was now is exercised whereby frequently Godly men and in some measure qualified for the Work of the Ministry were are unjustly restrained from labouring therein Many Congregations needlesly continued desolate without afixed Ministry Many Naughty men
and utterly insufficient at the sole arbitrement of Patrons violently obtruded upon the People without and against their own consent Presbyteries constrained contrary to the Rule of the Holy Scriptures to ordaine men whom the People neither choised nor could cheerfully receave Foundations of prejudice strife betwixt Pastor and People laid whereby the one cannot preach nor the other hear with profit Symoniacal Pactions often basely made betwixt Patrons the person presented to the disgrace of the Holy Calling as-wel as to the sin and shame of the Persons And the Ministry of too many in dispencing of Word Sacraments Censures made to depend too much upon the Will and pleasure of Man But also because it hath no Precept in the Word of God nor Example in the old Jewish nor new primitive and pure Christian Church to warrant it because Intentionally and Natively it spoileth the People of that Right and Priviledge in Electing their own Pastors which Scripture and Reason alloweth And because being the Patron 's pretended Heritage and therefore by him vendible to whom he pleaseth the whole and sole Power of Presenting of Ministers Planting of Churches Preaching of the Gospel settling Maintenance may be turned over unto put in the hands of men not only Profaâ—e Strangers to both Church Common-wealth but also proâ—esâ—ed Enemies of the Truth yea even Papists or Pagans And therefore being in itself a grievous and unwarrantable Burthen destructive of the Church and Peoples Liberties obstructive of the free course of the Gospel the Freedom Power Plainness of the Ministry and occasional of much base Flattery Partiality under which from the very times of Superstition which introduced it the Church did heavily groan it must needs be so much the greater Blessing to be delivered from it The second Advantage which the Lord's work receaved was by that great and long Transaction with the King in order to His return and Admission to the Government which at length after repeated Addresses many Treaties and the interposing of Forraign States and Princes produced the King's Approbation and Allowance of the Nationall and Solemn League and Covenant Which both by his great Oath unto the Most High God and his hand-writ and Subscription he most amply assured promising in the same manner to advance prosecute their Ends and to seek and procure the establishment thereof and of Presbyterial Government and of the whole work of God in all his Dominions We know our Adversaries persisting in their old malice disown and exclaim upon this Transaction as most disloyal and insolent for Subjects whose part is only to surrender submit to require and enter into Treaties with their Prince But 1. as these reproaches are from the same wicked Spirit false grounds and base and carnall ends which from the very times of popery have resisted and been objected against the Work of Reformation in this Land so do wee thereto oppose in full assurance before God and all the World these solid and evident reasons and warrants whereby not only these Treaties and Transactions with the late King but all these old Contracts and Agreements betwixt the then Powers and People which in some sort are the very foundation of the Protestant Religion in this Realm are justifyed and approven wherein if there be any disparity the difference of a King upon His Throne actually Exercing from a Prince only ascending thereto must cast the advantage on our side 2. Seing there is no Voluntary Kingdom which is not both erected sustained and continued by a Fundamental Contract and no Right thereto so good though even that of Divid himself and His Posterity who held the Kingdom both by inmediate grant and interposed Oath of the Most High which is not setled and confirmed by this agreement 2 Sam. 5.3 2 Kings 11.17 can any rationall man disprove or condemn Treaties so naturally antecedent and previous thereto 3. The reason and necessity of this Treaty is so dependent upon the preceeding War with the last King in which as-well as in his Kingdomes this King did succeed him that seing it can have no opposers but such as therein were enemies we willingly refer hoth the cases to the determinations of the same reasons And as for such who asserting the Covenant and the Justice of the long Parliaments War do nevertheless disprove our procedure in this Treaty as their mis-information doth not prejudge the Truth so neither are we answerable for their inconsequence The third Advantage which the Lord gave His Work was by what the King did after his arrival in Scotland both before and at his Coronation for the greater confirmation of the Covenant and Work of God and the more strong engaging of himself and this whole Land unto the Lord. Before his Coronation he emitteth that Declaration at Dumfermling sufficiently known by this designation wherein Professing and appearing in the full persuasion and love of the Truth he repenteth as having to do with in the sight of God His Fathers opposition to the Covenant and VVork of God and his own reluctancies against the same hoping for mercy through the blood of Iesus Christ and obtesting the Prayers of the faithful to God for his stedfastness and then protesteth his truth and sincerity in entering into the Oath of God resolving to prosecute the ends of the Covenant to his utmost and to have with it the same common friends and enemies exhorting all to lay down their enmity against the Cause of God and not to prefer Man's Interest to God's which will prove an Idole of Iealousy to provoke the Lord and he himself accounteth to be but selfish flattery so-forth proceedeth in the most cordial sincere assuring terms to testify his love and zealous resolutions for God his People and Covenant and on the other hand his great dislike and detestation of all Persons courses and Interests contrary thereto A Declaration so full of heart-professions and high attestations of the Great God that none seriously considering the present times can reflect thereon without horror and trembling from the Holy Jealousy of the Lord either for the then deep Dissimulation or the present unparalelled Apostacy However seeing the same is so assertive that no words could adde to it's assurance nor no argument less then the present Apostacy render it to any neutral person suspect of the least dissimulation sure we are that the generality of the Kingdom did thereby obtain all the warrant of the King 's most full and clear assent to and allowance of the Covenant that either Law or Reason could require Thereafter at his Coronation how the King did again confirm the Covenant and both He and his People thereby again engage themselves unto the Lord the order thereof printed and published to the World doth fully declare In which these passages are very observable 1. That the King is desired in Name of the People jointly to accept the Crown and maintain Religion ACCORDING TO THE
blessing of Mr John Lâ—vingsâ—on his Ministry who being banished the Kingdom for no other cause then his eminency and stedfastness in the Work of God and refusing the Oath of Supremacy there is obtruded by the Bishop upon them in his place one Scot an old excommunicate â—urate continuing under that sentence and in his wickedness that procured the same for which cause mainly he is now complemented and rewarded with the accession of this Kirk and Benefice to two others which he still brooks enjoyes though very far distant from this place This man coming amongst them such as feared the Lord and remembered his Work and Covenant are stirred up in the Zeal of God to testify against his Intrusion whom being a Person excommunicate entering by gross Perjury without their consent and only seeking after the fleece and Benefice all that love our Lord Jesus and the prospering of his pleasure were bound to abhor and detest We do not justify any excess of human passion that might here have been admixed with the sincere zeal of God which we are certain in it's worst appearance all men ought rather to excuse then therefore condemn that duty to which not only the People of that Parish but the whole Church of Scotland were and are in a higher measure indispensibly obliged in opposition to the present course of Apostacy and for extirpation of the Apostat Prelates However four men of the Parish are conveened before the High Commission where being examined they acknowledge that Mr Scot being to preach at Ancrum as their Minister they found themselves pressed in conscience to declare to him their dis-satisfaction with his entry and that they were present with the rest of the People which were there at that time This the Commission contrary the opinion of the more sober most knowing amongst them take for a confession of guilt and immediatly proceed to sentence them as câ—ntemners of the Ordinances to be scourged through the Town sugmatized with the â—â—tter T at the Cross of Edinburgh and thereafter imprisoned and with the first Ship to be carried to the Barbâ—â—oes Islands All which was accordingly performed upon them Thus judgement is turned into gail and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock But God who sustained his servants with that constancy courage that neither the shame nor pain of scourging and burning hindered them openly and audibly to rejoice in the Lord who counted them woâ—thy to suffer for his Name beholdeth also mischief and spite to requite it with his hand For the same alleaged crime shortly thereafter they sentence two Brothers married men to be carried to Barbadoes and their sisteâ— a young woman to be scourged through the Town of Jedburgh As for alleaged conventiâ—ling there is one Mr Smitâ— a Minister seised upon and imprisoned for no other câ—ime then preaching to and praying with a few secretly assembled for fear of the Pâ—elates in the Name of the Lord without the least offence objected from any thing there spoken who being brought before the Commission and in his examination and answers to the Bishop of St Andrewes calling him only Sir without Lord or Grace he is therefore taxed by the Commissioner to whom he answered very respectfully giving him his accustomed titles that he knew he was speaking to Mr James Sharp once a Minister as he himself is Whereupon there is so great offence conceaved that the Commissioner did immediatly ordain him to be carried by the Town-Hangman to the Thieves Hole and there laid in the Irons in company with a Fuâ—ious Fatuous person who was there loose An Indignity so great unusual and insolent that although He had behaved himself not only rudely in his demeanor which is the worst that his Adversaries can charge him with but had been most flagitious in his life yet nothing but that Spirit of Spite and Rebellion that rageth Apostats could prompt Christians to inflict upon one who had ever carried so much as the Title of a Minister But because the open Iron-grate whereby this Hole is shut gave too great access to the charity and compassion of many persons who came to visit him he is therefore upon the third day thereafter carried up to the Iron-house within the Tâ—lbooth continued in his irons and fetters and thereafter in close Prison until by sentence of the same Commission he was banished and confined to Shetland the coldest and wildest of all the Scots Islands where he was to expect no other comfort then the company of some other faithful men who for not owning and submitting to the Curats had been carried there by sentence of the same Court. And as they did thus sentence a Minister for Exercising so the same Court having conveened before them an honest private man ... Black for being present at an alleaged Conventicle but in effect at the meeting of a few Christians for praying and hearing the Lord's Word without so much as any other offence pretended because according to the example and warrant of the Primitive Christians he refused to give His Oath thereupon to delate the names of such as he knew to have been present and because he was not liberall in giving St Andrewes his titles the Commissioner ordaineth him to be scourged thorow the Town although it was well known to the Court that his information could give very small evidence and they were convinced that his refusal did not flow from contempt of the King's Authority but meerly and purely from scruple of Conscience These are a few instances of many particulars of this kind which might be alleaged whereof there is no corner in the whole Countrey nor Parish almost in the West which cannot give evidence and therefore we do remitt any more ample confirmation of these things until we have noted a few moe particulars for clearing thereof 7. As we have observed the Wickedness of these Ecclesiastick Laws and the iniquity and irregularity of the Act of Fining and the introducing of Execution by Military Force a servitude unheard of and intolerable in any free Nation so the evils and oppressions thereof can scarcely be numbered For 1. Upon pretence of that Proclamation commanding People to keep their Parish-Churches and prohibiting the repairing to any other except in case of vacancy under the pain of 20 shillings Scots toties quoties the souldiours being disposed upon to such places which are known to be most averse from this course of Apostacy lying at catch for their own advantage have often taken the opportunity where there was but one Church in the bounds still enjoying a faithfull Minister and many vacancies about to go and beset that Church in the time of Divine Worship to the profane disturbance thereof And thereafter either to cause call some old roll of the Parishioners and exact the Fine of twenty shillings Scots of all others without exception or respect even to the licence contained in the Proclamation it self in case of vacancy or to require an Oath of
people who though continually afflicted and persecuted in their bodies though their souls be exceedingly filled with the contempt of the proud yet have not nor dare not deny the Lord His Work nor His holy Covenant whom though the Lord hath caused to turn back from the enemy and given for a spoil to them that hate them yea given them as sheep for meat and made them a reproach a scorn and a derision yet have they nor forgotten the Lord nor dealt falsly in His Covenant O! that men would consider this Grace of God whereby as he conforteth and sustaineth his servants in all their afflictions so he warneth backsliders to return and all to flee from the wrath that is to come and to save themselves from this wicked generation Which Grace as it allayeth to the Faithful the smart so ought it to remove from all the scandal of our Lord's cross and is indeed that strength and presence of the Captain of our salvation who was made perfect by suffering with all His sufferers giving for the present joy and peace and afterwards assured victory Now seing it is the Lord who hath so visibly brought upon us these sore Trialls that such as are approved may be made manifest and so graciously delivereth them from the temptation thereof yea thereby refineth purifyeth and maketh many white that they may be more abundant Partakers both of His Holiness and of His Glory and also eminently beareth witness to the Truth Grace and Power of His great Work His holy Covenant and precious Ordinances and Ministry amongst us clearing them by His own Testimony of all these calumnies wherewith either through the invention of some men's malice or the occasion of other mens weakness and sin they were formerly aspersed we shall shut up this discourse with this one word of exhortation Great hath been the Sin of this Land in not believing and obeying the glorious Gospell in not receaving the Lord Jesus in our hearts and witnessing His Light and Grace and Glory in our lives and conversations but in resting on the outward forms and appearances of the true Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government without labouring after the power of Reformation and beauty of holiness the only grace and blessing of all these enjoyments and in perverting and mannaging the possession and profession of all these things unto selfish ends and worldly advantages O foolish people and unwise have we thus requited the Lord for all these mercies of His Gospell pure Ordinances and Holy Covenants to corrupt and deprave them from that great end of the Glory of His grace and mercy in our salvation unto the base designs of serving and satifying our own lusts to His dishonour And therefore is it that the Lord having often in his mercy corrected and warned us hath now at length given us over unto this horrid Apostacy and Defection whereby as the latent malice and hypocrisy of many and the great fainting and want of zeal in all have been manifestly discovered so the Lord is feeding the wicked with their own delusions and putting the zeal and constancy of all to the Test and in effect ripening this whole Land either for a glorious deliverance from that perverse spirit and generation of Antichrist that hath been long mingled in the midst of us and even from the dayes of our first Reformation hath retained and continued the old enmity against the Lord Jesus and His blessed Gospell and Kingdom or else for a totall and final overthrow in utter darkness and desolation And therefore O Scotland because the Lord loved thy Fathers and delighteth not in thy destruction hath He after all our fearful backsliding and sinful fainting and departing which testify against us neither left Himself nor us without a witness but raised up amongst us His own faithful Servants and our brethren with whom we are all equally and indissolubly engaged in the same righteous Cause and Covenant by the mighty power of His grace from the pure zeal of His Glory enabled them first to venture and then to lay down their lives for the Testimony of His Work and Covenant that we may yet at length consider and understand that these were no more the labour and devices of carnal designs then that corruption and weakness of flesh blood could triumph both over it self death hell the chief of terrors O! that men would therefore lay to heart their bonds Engagements unto the Lord repent of their backslidings and cease from their opposition to His Cause Covenant at least that such whom the Lord hath not abandoned unto that depth of Apostacy whereunto others have made defection would yet be wise instructed repent of their fainting Neutrality in the cause of God their connivance or complyance with the declared enemies thereof beware of that wicked Declaration against the Covenant or any other Oath and Subscription likely to be the snare and temptation of these times which either under the pretext of Peace and Order or of due Obedience unto lawful Authority may be wickedly invented and imposed really for the suppressing of Truth and advancing of this Rebellion against the most High God and the establishing of this Antichristian Prelatick Tyranny We have already fully detected the mask and design of such impostures He who hath given Authority and Power unto Kings and Princes and rendered the same Sacred by His holy Sanction and Command as he hath often punished their Ingratitude and Usurpation against His own Soveraignity so will He not hold that people guiltless who being both His Creatures and sworn Subjects either connive at or comply with such Rebellious Princes in their wickedness Shall both the Law of God and the very Propension of the heart and blood to the love and obedience of Parents cede to the obedience of Kings and Rulers for the good and preservation of the Common-wealth and shall not far more all Alleagiance obedience to the same Kings Rulers cede and give place to our Obedience to the Most High our only Soveraign Lord and the conscience of His holy Oath and Commandments for advancement of his glory the great and only end of all things Fix it therefore in your hearts first to love and fear the Lord our God and then to honour and obey the King and let the sincere and inward love of our Lord Jesus Christ the dear esteem of his precious Gospel and the remembrance of our most sacred and solemn Oaths and Covenants and of that beauty power and glory of His pure Ordinances Ministry and Government which we once enjoyed alwayes dwell in your hearts and ever determine and establish you to resist and disown all wicked Usurpations against the Lord and His Anointed all Invasions against His Crown and Prerogative all Corruptions and Humane Inventions in His pure Worship and Ordinances all perversion of the true Government and comely Order in His house and alâ— violations of these indispensible holy
Engagements whereby this whole Nation is perpetually joyned unto the Lord and also ever animat yow to Do or Suffer for the Lords great Name and these precious important concernments as He requireth lest if ye either faint in your mindes or give up your selves to the delusion of some carnal distinction quiting the founder for the safer part against the explicit Testimony or implicit inclination of your own Consciences which later if sincerely aiming at the glory of God and in nothing repugnant to His holy Word is no otherwise to be regarded in times of temptation then as that promised secret leading of the blind in the way they know not you not only lose your Crown but provoke the Lord to cause all the Churches know by your plagues that He it is who searcheth the reins hearts But unto these few names in Scotland that have appeared zealous for God have not forgotten His Covenant in these declining times all these who favour their Righteous Cause The Lord who liveth was dead and is alive for evermore Amen knoweth your works tribulation poverty but yow are rich and also the blasphemy of them which say they are Christians are not but are the synagogue of Antichrist Fear none of these things which yow do or shall suffer your afflictions are but for Triall and may be Short be Faithful unto the death and ye shall have the Crown of life And as ye love God the Father of our Lord Jesus who gave His only and eternall delight unto the death for us Sinners as ye love our Lord Jesus Christ who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood as ye love the Holy Spirit of Grace who breatheth all this love into our hearts and comforteth and sealeth us unto the day of redemption as ye love the blessed Gospel in the light whereof all this love is revealed and God therein mainly glorified as ye love the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood as ye love for your own souls and for your posterity eternal life as ye love poor Scotland and it's deliverance from the dreadful and imminent wrath of God and as you love the preservation of all Interests either Spiritual Temporal or Eternal Adhere stedfastly to the holy Covenants that Sacred and Firm Bond and Engagement unto all duties of Religion and Righteousness our blessed sealed Charter of all the Lord's blessings and ordinances especially of that great Ordinance of the Ministry and Government of the Lord's house which He himself hath appointed the hedge of all other Ordinances and the great and most effectual mean of the Gospel's establishment and advancement For as it is only the holy zeal of God inspired and animated by the fervent love of our Lord Jesus and the fear of the Lord 's great Name and the regard of His sacred Oath that can make you of quick understanding in these perillous times for the discovering of both duties and dangers and strengthen you with all might either for Doing or Suffering that you may endure unto the end so you may be assured that if the Lord's thoughts toward Scotland be thoughts of peace and not of evil to give us an expected end as we have great ground and perswasion of hope it shall be upon the broken plank of this despised Covenant that this tossed and ship-wrackt Church shall be preserved in midst of all these fluctuations and at length attain to it's desired haven of Peace and Truth Yea though this Apostacy and persecution should prevail to wear out the saints of the most High and the Lord because of the overspreading of abomination should determine and bring upon us utter desolation yet shall this your faithfulness be your Peace joy and Victory Let all therefore that desire to be found faithful look unto Jesus and his joy that with Him enduring the cross and despising the shame we may neither faint nor be weary but in end be partakers of his Victory Throne and Crown Thus we have seen and declared the great Work of God in this Land from the first times of our Reformation unto this day we have also teen our manifold provocations whereby we have often Turned Tempted and Provoked the most High and all these judgements Temptations and Discoveries wherewith by the space of now more then an Hundred years he hath corrected and exercised us and we are at length arrived unto and have considered the present state and posture of our affairs Wherein though 1. the extremity of Apostacy exceeding all that any age can parallel and aggreageable by all the circumstances of most clear and glorious Manifestations most solemn and sacred Engagements most sudden and causeless backsliding and most national daring and violent defection that any Church can be charged with 2. The extremity of Persecution and Violence which considering either the Actors once ring-leaders now Apostats from the same Holy Covenant which they persecut or the Manner by Hostile and Military Force without so much as regarding their own Lawes which they pretend for warrant or the cruelty and excess whereby mens lives are imbittered making them prefer Death to the slaveries and insolencies which they sustain Are not to be instanced in any Christian Church 3. The extremity of Sin and profanity and of the enemies boasting and blasphemy whose mouths are set against the Heavens and all the spite of their tongues and indignation of their hearts against the holy Covenant and tenderness of conscience over which and all their followers they wickedly insult and rejoyce And 4. the extremity of mens fainting and deserting so Good a Cause Which in their hearts they secretly own and approve but dare not avow yea are ready to deny for fear of the Adversaries Though we say these extremities undenyably apparent in our present condition do sadly denounce unto this Land the worst and most woful of all extremities even utter forsaking and desolation and that the End is come yet notwithstanding all these hopeless and desperat appearances it is the Lord who causeth light to shine out of darkness and saith in the evening it shall be light who saith unto dry bones live and calleth his People out of their graves who even calleth things that are not as though they were in whom all the seekers of His face ought to rejoyce and joy in the God of their salvation Therefore although that over and above all these menacing evils the power and pride of the Enemy should yet more prevail even many degrees above all the appearances of Human Hope or Help all Neighbouring Nations should not only give them the leisure and conveniency but with all their might conspire and concurre with our enemies to intend their persecution strengthen their Apostacy yet are the Lord 's Faithful not only partakers of that River the streams whereof make glad the City of God though surrounded with the siege of of Nations Batteries of mountains and
mistaken nor was not fighting against a man of straw I was also desirous and did use some poor Endeavours to have the Church of God purged of Insufficient and Scandalous and Corrupt Ministers and Elders for these things I have been mistaken by some and hated by others But I bless the Lord as I had the testimony of my own Conscience so I was and am therein approven in the consciences of many of the Lord 's precious Servants and People and how little soever I may die Desired by some yet by these I know I do die Desired and their approbation and prayers and affection is of more value with me then the Contradiction or Reproach or Hatred of many others the love of the one I cannot Recompence and the mistake or hatred or reproach of the other I do with all my heart Forgive and wherein I have offended any of them do beg their mercy and forgiveness I do from my soul wish that my death may be profitable unto both that the one may be confirmed and established in the straight wayes of the Lord and that the other if the Lord so will may be convinced cease from these things that are not good do not Edify but Destroy One thing I would warn yow all of that God is wroth yea very wroth with Scotland and threatneth to depart and remove His candlestick The causes of his wrath are many and would to God it were not One great cause that Causes of Wrath are despised and rejected of men Consider the case that is recorded Ier. 36. and the consequence of it and tremble and fear I cannot but also say that there is a great addition and increase of wrath 1. By that deludge of Prophanity that overfloweth all the Land and hath reins loosed unto it every where in so far that many have lost not only all use and exercise of Religion but even of Morality and that common Civility that is to be found amongst the Heathen 2. By that horrible Treachery and Perjury that is in the matter of the Covenant and Cause of God and Work of Reformation Be astonished O ye Heavens at this and be horribly afraid be ye very desolate saith the Lord for my People have committed two evils they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters hewed them out cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water Shall be break the Covenant and prosper Shal the throne of iniquity have fellowship with God which frameth mischief by a Law I fear the Lord be about to bring a Sword on these Lands which shall avenge the quarrell of His Covenant 3. Horrible Ingratitude The Lord after 10 years oppression bondage hath broken the yoke of Strangers from off our necks but what do we render unto Him for this goodness Most of the fruit of our delivery is to work wickedness and to strengthen our Selves to do evill 4. A most dreadful Idolatry and sacrificing to the Creature We have changed the glory of the Incorruptible God into the image of a corruptible Man in whom many have placed almost all their Salvation and desire and have turned that which might have been a Blessing unto us being kept in a due line of Subordination under God into an Idol of Jealousy by preferring it before him God is also wroth with a generation of Carnal Corrupt Time-serving Ministers I know and bear testimony that in the Church of Scotland there is a True and Faithful Ministry Blessed be God we have yet many who study their duty and desire to be found faithful to their Lord and Master And I pray you to Honor and Reverence and Esteem much of these for their Works sake And I pray them to be encouraged in their Lord and Master who is with them to make them as iron-pillars and brazen walls and as a strong defenced city in the faithful following of their duty But oh that there were not too many who mind Earthly things and are enemies to the cross of Jesus Christ who push with the side and shoulder who strengthen the hands of evill doers who make themselves transgressors by stustudying to build again what they did formerly warrantably destroy I mean PRELACY and the CEREMONIES and the SERVICE-BOOK a Mystery of iniquity that works amongst us whose steps lead unto the house of the great Whore BABYLON the Mother of fornications Or whosoever else he be that buildeth this Jericho again let him take heed of the curse of Hiel the Bethelite and of that flying roll thereatened Zech. 5. And let all Ministers take heed that they Watch and be Stedfast in the Faith and quit themselves like men and be strong and give faithful and seasonable Warning concerning Sin and Duty Many of the Lords People do sadly complain of the fainting and silence of many Watchmen And it concerneth them to consider what God calleth for at their hands in such a day Silence now in a Watchman when he is so much called to speak and give his Testimony upon the Peril of his life is doubtless a great Sin The Lord open the mouths of His Servants to speak his word with all boldness that Covenant-breaking may be discovered and reproved and that the Kingdom of Jesus Christ may not be supplanted nor the souls of His People destroyed without a witness I have but a few words moe to adde All that are Profane amongst you I exhort them to Repentance for the day of the Lord's vengeance hasteneth and is near But there is yet a door of mercy open for you if ye will not despise the day of salvation All that are Maligners and Reproachers and Persecuters of Godliness and of such as live godly take heed what ye do it will be hard for you to kick against the Pricks You make your selves the Butt of the Lord's fury and his flaming indignation if ye do not cease from and repent of all your ungodly deeds All that are Neutral and Indifferent and Lukewarm Professors be zealous and repent lest the Lord spew you out of His mouth You that lament after the Lord and mourn for all the abominations that are done in this City and in the Land and take pleasure in the stones and dust of Ziâ—n cast not away your confidence but be comforted and encouraged in the Lord. He will yet appear to your joy God hath not cast away his People nor work in Brittain and Ireland I hope it shall once more Revive by the Power of His Spirit and take root downward and bear fruit upward There is yet a Holy Seed and precious Remnant whom God will preserve and bring forth but how Long or Dark our Night may be I do not know the Lord shorten it for the sake of his Chosen In the mean while be ye patient stedfast immoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord in love one to another Beware of Snares which are strawed thick Cleave to the Covenant Work of Reformation Do not decline the
gone before me left behind them concerning our common Cause to leave a word in writ for satisfaction of them who survive me That for preservation defence of the true Religion of this Church and for the relief of my poor brethren afflicted persecuted therefore I joyned with others in Armes that I renewed the Covenant that all men might the better know my Cause and Principles I am so far from denying or being ashamed of that I both acknowledge and avow it as my duty But let no man that will not condemn himself upon the same common obligations to do what I did account me a Rebell therefore because with the same breath that I did swear and with that same hand that I did subscribe to preserve and defend Religion I did also swear to defend the King and his Authority Our Church was not more glorious in her self terrible to her Adversaries while we enjoyed pure Ordinances of Word and Sacraments and her beautiful Assemblies for Government and Discipline of the Lords own Institution then she became of late deformed by the Usurpation and Tyranny of Prelacy And I do solemnly declare as a dying man who dare not dissemble that as I thought and still averre that the erecting of this abjured Prelacy is the cause of much of the Sin in the Land and of all the sufferings of the Lords People therein so I had no worse design then the restoring of the Work of Reformation according to the Covenant and more particularly the extirpation of Prelacy to which his Ma and all the Subjects are as much obliged as I. And let that be removed and the Work of Reformation restored and I darâ— die in saying that his Ma shall not have in all his Dominions more loving loyall peaceable and faithfull Subjects then these who for their non-complyance are loaded with the reproaches of Phanaticisme and Rebellion The sufferings and insupportable oppression of these that could not because of the Command and Oath of God acknowledge comply with Prelacy may seem light to some in whom the spirit of the old enmity that is betwixt the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent remaineth and to others perhaps their Friends who look thereupon at adistance but as there is just reason to think that if these rigid oppressions had been made known to his Ma his justice and clemency would have provided a remedy and as the half thereof would have made the Prelats their patrons and adherents impatiently mad for as loyal as they pretend to be So in the like cases of irresistible necessity when there is little open door for representing of grievances and desires and less hope of relief thereby I suppose it will not be found condemned by the Confessions of Reformed Churches or doctrine of sound Divines but that it is authorized by the light and law of Nature by uncondemned examples in the Holy Scripture and by the practice of all Christian States by Armes to preserve and defend men Lives their Religion Liberties and Fortunes And especially where they are not seeking to acquire a new Religion or new Liberties but only to preserve their old or recover them when they are violently unjustly spoiled of the same as in our case Otherwise we should sin against the generation of the just and condemn as rebellious the most of the through Reformations of the Reformed Churches abroad and of our own at home If this course was lawfull and if it was our duty to joyn therein as I believe and lay down my life in the perswasion that it was and if all the Kingdom was as they are bound by Covenant to assist and defend one another in the â—ommon Cause of Religion and Liberty whatever may be said of these that came not forth to help the Lord against the mighty it cannot but be their dreadful sin who joyned themselves in Armes or took Oaths to oppose suppress and break it seing they have sided themselves against the Lord and his Work and their carriage is a much higher degree of Accession to the blood that is shed then Paul's keeping of the clothes of them that stoned Stephen to death And I wish that they may lay the matter to heart and repent of it that God may forgive them as I forgive all men and particularly Morâ—on who did apprehend me I know that there is a holy seed in the Land who shall be the substance thereof and I pray that the Lord may make them more zealous and valiant for the truth upon earth I know also that there are many whose bowells of compassion have been drawn forth toward these who took their lives in their hands by Prayers to God for them and Charity to them and especially in Edinburgh toward the poor Prisoners of whom I may not only say that what they have done deserveth to be told for a Memorial wherever the Gospel is preached but am assuredly confident that besides the blessings of the poor and persecuted the Lord is not unrighteous to forget their work and labor of love which they have shewed towards his Name in that they have ministred to the Saints do minister And yet I must needs regret that so many in this City once famous and honoured for harmonious owning of the Cause and Covenant of God and blessed above many other Cities with solemn Assemblies for Worship and Government should have been ensnared into an Oath so contradictory to the Oath of the Covenant which was devised contrived and imposed in lieu of the Declaration against the same and for a Grave-stone to suppress the revival of the Work of God within this Land The Apostacy of this Land is very great by Perjury and breach of Covenant and so much the worse and more aggreageble that it is Authorized and very universal And as I cannot but regret that so many are insnared therein so I must needs warne all to abhorre and beware of all Declarations and Oaths contradictory to the Covenant and renunciatory thereof as they would not involve themselves in the guilt and plagues denounced against and ordinarily inflicted upon Perjury and breach of Covenant and so much the rather because this is like to be the Shibboleth and triall of the times As for my self I have seen and do find so much worth in Truth which is to be bought at any rate but sold at none And so much transcendent excellency and amiableness in Christ that not only with cheerfulness confidence I lay down my life for Him and His Truth committing my soul to Him to be kept in hope of a joyfull Resurrection of the body but also bless Him that gave me a life to lose and a body to lay down for Him And although the Merket and price of Truth may appear to many very high yet I reckon it low and all that I have or can do little and too little for Him who gave Himself for me and to me for I account
NAPHTALI OR The Wrestlings of the Church of SCOTLAND For the KINGDOM of CHRIST Contained in A true and short Deduction thereof from the beginning of the Reformation of Religion until the Year 1667. Together with The last Speeches and Testimonies of some who have died for the Truth since the Year 1660. Whereunto are also subjoined A Relation of the Sufferings and Death of M R HEW M C KAIL and some Instances of the Sufferings of Galloway and Nithisdale LAM 1 12. Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger MIC 7 8. Rejoice not against me O mine Enemy When I fall I shall arise When I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a Light unto me ISAI 14 32. What shall one then answere the Messengers of the Nation That the Lord hath founded Zion and the poor of the People shall trust in it Printed in the Year 1667. AD LECTOREM NOn hîc Herculeae sunt cum sudore palestrae Nullus Olympiaco in pulvere Ludus iners Pro sadore cruor Christi de Corpore manat Ardua pro ludo est lucta rapina neces Scotica bis denis luctata Ecclesia Lustris Penè dedit victas lassa labore manus Duros passa Patres dudum velut ame Novercas Vi premitur Stygia fraude subacta gemit Constitit effraenes contra tumidasque procellas Proque Fide steterat dum stetit ulla fides Nusquam cana fides nunc est jurataque Coeli Numina mortales vinc'la nec ulla ligant Credula dum nimis est fida haec Ecclesia vanà Spe lusâ rupto Foedere strata jacet Strata tamen non tota jacet de pulvere surgit Auricomum tollet mox supra astra caput Ipsa triumphalem currum Crux saeva ministrat Sanctorum sanguis fertile semen erit Ecce Sacerdotum turmam Regumque Coronam Pendentem infami de trabe Lector habes Cerne oculo Heroum facies corpora cernas Verba audi videas pectora plena Deo Hîc loquitur Princeps magno cum Judice Vates Et Juvenes Vatum spes animosa senum Hîc Generosa cohors Miles Mercator agelli Cultor Arte rudis spirat ab ore Deum Disce immortalem hinc Animam vitamque futuram Nulla est pro Christo mors male grata pio Pro Christi Crux est diademate Laurea restis Faedere pro Sancto est vitta monile decus READER THE LORD in great mercy having wonderfully and with an outstretched arm notwithstanding all the opposition of Sathan and earthly Principalities redeemed Scotland from the Power and darkness first of Gentilism and then of Antichristianism by raising of some burning and shining Lights and other Instruments fitted for that Work Whereby the Light of the Glorious Gospel from a very small beginning did increase more and more untill at length shining with brightness and heat as the Sun in his strength it filled the Land with knowledge in so much that the name thereof became Jehouah Shammah the Lord is there And having built to Himself a house upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles not only sufficiently instructed with righteous Laws and Judgments for Doctrine and Worship But also provided with all Ordinary Officers necessary in the Christian Church and with a form of Church-Government of his own Institution distinct from and without any prejudice unto the Civil Government of the Kingdom Whereby the Church of Scotland for Soundness of Faith Purity of Worship Excellency of Government Freedom and Power of the Gospel beautiful Order and Unity was not inferior to any if not preferable to most of the Reformed Churches and therefore was deservedly famous and esteemed amongst them Having also for an hundred Years from it's first National Establishment preserved the same from utter overthrow notwithstanding the many various and renewed endeavours of men by force and fraud to reduce it unto the same Errors Ignorance and Superstitions wherein it self at first lay buried and under which others groaned And several times revived and restored it when by it's own Impurity Indifferency and Formality it began to decline or by the Treachery Subtilty or Violence of others it was oppressed Thereby not only disappointing confounding and many times ruining the Adversaries and comforting and strengthening the faithful But also alwayes rebuilding to Himself a Temple the glory whereof did far excell and darken the glory of the former And having many times engaged the whole Land to Himself by several most solemn Obligations of voluntary Surrender and Resignation by frequently renewed Oaths and Covenants So that within these few Years past there were not many persons of age of whatever degree and not so much as one Preaching Minister in all the Land who not only did not make publick profession of the true Reformed Religion but also subject themselves unto the Presbyterial Form of Church Government and Discipline who did not which we desire to be noted for that effect in their own persons swear and subscribe with the hand unto the Lord in the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant In so much that as to the publick Profession of the Truth and almost as to the number of persons the Church of Scotland was of equal extent with the Nation and in that respect of all other National Churches did most resemble the old Church of the Iewes The Lord I say having to the conviction and acknowledgement of our selves and others done such great things for us whereof we are glad the present Apostacy whereby Scotland's Bethel is become Bethaven and the Land that was sometimes Holiness unto the Lord is become alas too Edom-like the border of wickedness an Aceldama a Tragical Theatre of blood persecution ought to be unto us no less matter of Sorrow Shame and Fear then it is Sin in itself Wonder and Amazement unto others Who can hear our Covenanted and Kindest Lord who hateth putting away and defieth us to shew the bill of our Mothers divorcement who groaneth under our Backslidings being pressed therewith as a cart full of sheaves complaining that He is broken with our whorish hearts and therefore declaring that He will be no more our Husband nor we His Wife and that His heart cannot be toward us But that He will drive us out of His house and love us no more and not cover the lip for Shame And in consequence thereof who can behold the Fathers house not only defiled by turning it into a house of Marchandise and den of theeves but the Temple casten down to the ground and the Adversary in the midst thereof insultingly and scornfully set up their ensignes for signes of Triumph And furder behold the blood of the Saints shed like water and their flesh given to be meat to the fowles of the heaven and beasts of the Earth and
not lament with Jeremiah Cap. 9 1 2 3 â— Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the Daughter of my People Oh that I had in the Wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men that I might leave my People and go from them For they be all adulterers an assembly of treacherous men And they bend their tongue like their bowe for lies But they are not valiant fâ—r the Truth upon the Earth for they proceed from evil to evil and they know not me saith the Lord. And this will the more appear not only if we remember the general nature of Backsliding which is a very comprehensive Sin importing less Love Fear and Trust in the true God and proclaiming more Inconstancy Unfaithfulness and ingratitude towards Him then sometimes is found in very Heathens towards their Idols But also if we consider that our present Defection hath all circumstantial Aggravations in the highest degree For it is not in things only Civil Indifferent or of little moment But in things Religious Necessary Important and which at least in their tendency and consequence reach to the very foundation It is not the effect of common humane and invincible infirmity but most free and voluntary yea wilful and deliberate It is not done by stealth or in a corner but avowedly and openly in the sight of the Sun It is not Private and Personal but Representative and Authorized by Acts and Proclamations of King Parliament and Council It is not smoothly and subtilly but most tyrannically carried on by military violence and cruelty It is not of a few or inconsiderable Persons but very Universal The greatest part of all Ranks and of some Ranks almost the whole being some one way or other involved therein It is not only of these who were alwayes of known and professed disaffection to the Cause and Covenant of God but also of many who sometimes being exceeding zealous themselves and exemplary and forcible upstirrers of others therein are now become the chief Ring-leaders theirof and most bloody Persecuters of those who remain stedfast in the Truth It is not in an Heathenish or Antichristian Land or Church divided and broken with several Sects as some others are but even in Scotland so clearly enlightened for which the Lord had wrought so many wonderful works which was under so many obligations of Oaths and Covenants to the contrary and had been so united in the profession of the Truth It is not from violent force Inevitable necessity or irresistible temptation which is neither possible nor yet would excuse it but when the Lord by breaking the yoke of forrain Usurpation had given King and Countrey the fairest opportunity which they ever had to restore confirm and advance His Work as if He had delivered us that we might work all these Abominations And all this for no other end then the base flattering of the Kings humor and inclination the satiating of Prelaticall Pride and Ambition the indulging of the licentious profanity of some Debauched degenerated Nobles and others who could not endure the yoke of Christ's sound doctrine and impartiall discipline And the suppression of Religion and Righteousness in the subversion of the late work of Reformation Whereby we have charged our selves with all the blood that hath been shed upon either side during the former wars Have laid a stumbling block before all who shall see or hear of it to blaspheme Religion as a fiction to condemn the late Work of Reformation as a false pretence for Rebellion and Self-Interest and to affirm that there is neither truth nor ingenuity in the Professors thereof Pass over the Isles of Chittim and see and send unto Kedar and consider diligently and see if there be such a thing hath a Nation changed their Gods which yet are no Gods But Scotland Ah Scotland hath changed her glory for that which doth not profit Be astonished O ye heavens at this and be horribly afraid And so much the rather because few Lands did ever make Defection after this manner but as upon the one hand the Lord gave them up unto more Backsliding until they abounded more with Atheism and all manner of abominations then some Pagan-Nations who never heard nor made Profession of the Gospel So upon the other hand He alwayes pursued them with sorest plagues not only of subjugation at home scattering and exile abroad dividing of Kingdomes amongst themselves and from their former Rulers and final subversion of whole Empires Kingdomes and Common-wealths But also many times with the Final removal of the Gospel and utter dissolution of all visible National Covenant-relation as might be demonstrated from Holy Scripture and other Histories And indeed if He to whom nothing is strange or impossible though they may seem both to us and whose wayes and thoughts are as far above ours as the Heavens are above the Earth do not in the Soveraignity of His Grace recede from His ordinary method of dealing with such apostatizing People and now when he hath seen our way do not heal us we have alas â—oo too just ground of fear that we shall become such a proverb amongst the Nations that the generation to come of our Children and the stranger that cometh from a far Land when they see the plagues of this Land shall wonder and ask Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto this Land What meaneth the heat of this great anger Oh! that the very first and next following steps of Defection together with the Causes of the Lord's wrath against the Land were remembered and acknowledged and that all who have had any accession to the kindling of this flame and who can wholly Justify himself If any would be sure his own mouth should condemn him would draw water and pour it out before the Lord for quenching thereof and that the first resiclers from our National Acknowledgment of Sins and Engagement to duties would glorify God by Confession that he might turn from the fierceness of his Anger But alas He hath at once pour'd out upon us the Spirit of Whoredome and of a deep sleep and hath both made us to erre from His way and hard'ned our hearts from his fear And as we should look bekind us to the Rise so before us to the Result of thâ—se things for though every runner may read the Primum mobile of this course the great axletree and wheels upon which all moveth and who are the furious drivers and slavish drawers thereof and we have both seen the several degrees of Motion and advancement and smarted the sad effects of the same yet I am affray'd that there is now another Spirit in Persons and Tendency in affairs then some men apprehend Whether there be a sufficient ground in the Holy Scriptures to think with some that before the last fall of the Roman Antichrist the Popish Religion shall once more overshadow the Christian World is not proper
answere for itself if according to the Patience Learning Justice of many thow do not Refute and condemn before thow know it or brandish big words as he who upon a Coronation-day offereth duell to all who question the Kings Right when he knoweth that for Major Vis none dare appear in the contrary But in the passing take a word of the National Covenant the Solemn League and Covenant and Solemn Acknowledgment of Sins and Engagement unto Duties that at one view thow may'st see Scotlands Engagements and Breaches the Faithfulness of many flood of Sin and Suffering that hath overflowed the Land Here is the Terminus a Quo and ad Quem of our Backsliding whereof though the most skilled Artist cannot pourtray to the life the whole body the form is so monstruous Complexion so strange he may well darkly represent some Lineaments of fingers and toes that the reader may know Ex ungue leonâ—m yet the Author hath nervously asserted the Truth and drawn matters of Fact with such True Collours that he can only be accused for a Picture fairer then the live-face of many Persons Actions To winde up all be not discouraged upon the one hand nor insult upon the other by the Death of many Mighty men of God Co-workers and Eye witnesses of his Work within these few years past and the stripling-stature of many survivers who have not attained unto the dayes of the years of the life of their Fathers and being but of yesterday can know little of the Lords ancient kindness to the Land except what thâ—ir Fathers have told them For as he hath reserved a numerous remnant of Holy Learned and Faithful men a rich cluster wherein there is a blessing and we have reason to bless Him who gave not our Church dry breasts a miscarrying womb so he can make the barren bear seven become a Joyful mother of many Children and as he hath work for them will raise up both Shepherds and Principal men It is true alas there is grown up a most degenerat Off-spring of all Qualities some whereof and not the meanest being as profane as Machiavel who teacheth Rulers to keep promise and Oath no longer then with pretended advantage they can break and that it is a prejudice to be Really Religious but not so honest as He who notwithstanding affirmeth a Necessity of Seeming to be Religious which they are not accompt no man to be a Man who by Whoring Swearing Drinking Spending all or more then they have do not class themselves into their new Profane Orders become as Cartesian in their Religion by Atheistical doubtings disputings about God the Holy Scripturs Heaven Hell c. as others are in their Philosophy But here is an Advantage that by Discovery and distinguishing betwixt the precious and the vile the Lord hath made this Defection contribut more to the Facility as well as Necessity of a future Purgation of the Church then all her Judicatures could ever effectuat without it And further as he hath frustrated many chief Authors and Promotters thereof of their Hopes and Designs and called Nobles Prelats and others to an accompt before they well tasted the expected sweetness or were warm in their Places or Promotions So though Herod Pilat may aggrie against the Innocent yet where men are like Samsons foxes only tied together by the tail of common Corrupt Principles whilst their heads of Self Interest and designs look different wayes what such a Position Conjunction and Aspect prognosticateth let Scripture Reason and Experience be consulted and they will tell Let us not in the meantime mistake Gods Work Wayes Doings nor Intentions neither be envyous at evil doers nor yet be Curious nor Anxious about futuritions much less limit the Holy one to Means Method or Time but bear the Indignation of the Lord because we have sinned till he plead our cause waiting upon him who is a God of Judgment and waiteth that he may be gracious and in patience possess our souls for though we do not he knoweth his own thoughts toward us it may be they are thoughts of peace and not of evil to give an expected end and that when he hath ripen'd Deliverance he will bring us forth to the Light we shall behold his Righteousness It is a crime of the highest nature with our Rulers to complain or supplicat for redress Others are either of deaf ears or feeble hands and cannot help and seeing we can do no more for the Cause and Covenant of God for our Mother-Church the Land Ourselves Our Brethren Posterity let us open our cause to him who tryeth the Righteous O Lord Hear O Lord Forgive O Lord hearken and do Defer not for thine own sake O my God For thy City and thy People are called by thy Name AMEN The Testimony of M R JAMES WOOD Minister of the Gospel and Professor of Theology in the University of S. Andrewes for Presbyterial Government I MR JAMES WOOD being now shortly by appearance to render up my Spirit to the Lord find my self obliged to leave a word behind me for my just Vindication before the World It hath been said of me that I have in word at least reseiled from my wonted Zeal for Presbyterial Government expressing my self concerning it as if it were a matter not to be accounted of that no man should trouble himself in the matter practice thereof It is true being under sicknes I have some times said I was taken up with weightier matters then any external ordinance and what wonder I said so being under such wrestling anâ—nt my interest in Iesus Christ which is a matter of for greater concernment Surely any Christian in this Church that knows me will judge there is a wrong done to me For since the day that the Lord convinced my heart which was by a strong hand that it was the Ordinance of God appointed by Iesus Christ for governing ordering his visible Church I never had the least change of thoughts concerning the necessity of it nor of the necessity of the use of it And now I declare before God the World that I account so of it still And that however there be some more precious ordinances yet that this is so precious that a true Christian is obliged to lay down his life for the profession thereof if the Lord shall see it meet to put him to the tryal And for my self if I were to live I would account it my glory to seal this word of my testimony with my blood Of this my declaration I take God Angels and Men to be my witnesses and have subscribed thiâ— presents with my hand the 2 of March 1664. about 7 hours afternoon before Mr William Tullidaf and Mr John Carstairs my Brother in Law and John Pitcarn writer hereof M R JAMES WOOD. AS the Matter of this Testimony is very considerable especially from so Great a man as Mr Wood was So the occasion
consequents thereof are very observable which were thus Mr Sharp having formerly been intimately familiar with Mr Wood came to visite him under his Sickness whereunto Sharps Apostacy had no small accession thereafter did falsely spread a report by word writ that Mr Wood had reseiled from Presbyterial Government Whereof when Mr Wood was informed he was of new grievously affected and afflicted and thereupon for his own Vindication left this Testimony behind him But Mr Sharp finding himself thereby made a publlck lyar making lyes still his refuge pursueth Mr Wood being dead as well as alive with a new slander alleaging his Testimony to be Fictitious or Extorted from him when through distemper of his sickness he knew not what he did and thereupon caused summond the Witnesses the Writter and some other persons before the High Commission But the contrary of this was and is most Evident not only because this Testimony was written and subscribed a considerable number of dayes before his Death dureing which intervall as before he was so composed that he spake many gracious words about his own soul Ordered his Civil affairs and a famous Physician was not without hopes of his Recovery But also because hearing that some of his faithful Brethren Co-Presbyters were in the town he sent once again for them and before them and some other Ministers at other times purged himself of that unjust Imputation and did bear witness for Presbyterial Government more fully freely then is in the written Testimony some time thereafter of his own accord did call for the Writter there being none other present in the chamber at the beginning did indite and cause him writ the same as it now is without any Alteration as also in a Letter written some considerable time before inviting Mr Carstairs to come and visite him he had made mention of the Backsliding Tryalls and Sufferings of the times and expressed his desire to Live that he might give a more free Testimony to the Truth Notwithstanding all which Mr Sharp obstructing the reading of a Letter written by Mr Carstairs to the Chancelor containing and clearing the matter of fact persisted with great Attestations before the High Commission in his former false alleagance and Slandering both of the Dead and the Living and caused imprison the Writer and one of the witnesses and forced the other whom for his eminent Parts Holiness and Faithfulness he most pursued to a Retirement for his own safety What shall be given to Thee O Sharp Or what shall be done to Thee O false Tongue Sharp arrows of the Mighty and Coals of Juniper The Nationall Covenant OR The Confession of Faith of the Kirk of Scotland subscribed at first by the Kings Majesty and his Houshold in the yeare 1580. Thereafter by Persons of all rankes in the yeare 1581 By ordinance of the Lords of the Secret Councill and Acts of the general Assembly Subscribed againe by all sorts of Persons in the Yeare 1590 By a new Ordinance of Council at the desire of the General Assembly With a General Band for maintenance of the true Religion the Kings Person And now subscribed in the Year 1638. By Us Noblemen Barons Gentlemen Burgesses Ministers and Commons then under-subscribing Together with our resolution and promises for the causes after specified To maintaine the said true Religion and the Kings Majesty according to the Confession foresaid and Acts of Parliament And now upon the Supplication of the General Assembly to His Majesty's high Commissioner and the Lords of his Majesty's Honorable Privy Council subscribed again in the Year 1639. by Ordinance of Council and Act of General Assembly The Tenor whereof here followeth WE All and every one of Us underwritten Protest that after long and due Examination of our owne Consciences in matters of true false Religion We are now throughly resolved of the Truth by the Word and Spirit of God and therefore we believe with our hearts confess with our mouths subscribe with our hands and constantly affirme before God and the whole Word that this onely is the true Christian Faith and Religion pleasing God and bringing Salvation to man which now is by the mercy of God revealed to the world by the preaching of the blessed Evangel and receaved believed and defended by many and sundry notable Kirks and Realmes but chiefly by the Kirk of Scotland the Kings Majesty and three estates of this Realme as Gods eternall Truth and onely ground of our Salvation as more particularly is expressed in the Confession of our Faith stablished and publickly confirmed by sundry Acts of Parliament and now of a long time hath beene openly professed by the Kings Majesty and whole body of this Realme both in Burgh and Land To the which Confession and forme of Religion wee willingly agree in our consciences in all points as unto Gods undoubted Truth and Verity grounded onely upon his written Word And therefore we abhorre and detest all contrary Religion and Doctrine But chiefly all kinde of Papistry in generall and particular heads even as they are now damned and confuted by the Word of God and Kirk of Scotland but in special we detest and refuse the usurped authority of that Roman Antichrist upon the Scriptures of God upon the Kirk the civill Magistrate and conscience of men All his tyrannous lawes made upon indifferent things against our Christian liberty His erronious Doctrine against the sufficiency of the written Word the perfection of the Law the office of Christ and his blessed Evangel His corrupted Doctrine concerning originall sinne our naturall inability and rebellion to Gods Law our Justification by faith only our imperfect Sanctification and obedience to the Law the nature number and use of the Holy Sacraments His five bastard Sacraments with all his Rites Ceremonies and false Doctrine added to the ministration of the true Sacraments without the Word of God His cruell judgement against Infants departing without the Sacrament his absolute necessity of Baptisme his blasphemous opinion of Transubstantiation or reall presence of Christs body in the Elements and receiving of the same by the wicked or bodies of men His dispensations with solemne Oathes Perjuries and degrees of Mariage forbidden in the Word his cruelty against the innocent divorced his divellish Masse his blasphemous Priesthood his profane Sacrifice for the sinnes of the dead and the quick his Canonization of men calling upon Angels or Saints departed worshipping of Imagery Relicts and Crosses dedicating of Kirks Altars Dayes Vowes to creatures his Purgatory Prayers for the dead praying or speaking in a strange language with his Processions and blasphemous Letany and multitude of Advocates or Mediators his manifold Orders Auricular Confession his desperate and uncertaine Repentance his general and doubtsome Faith his satisfactions of men for their sinnes his Justification by works opus operatum works of Supererogation Merits Pardons Peregrinations and Stations his holy water baptising of Bells conjuring of Spirits crossing saning
of Scotland England and Ireland by the providence of GOD living under one King and being of one reformed Religion Having before our eyes the glory of GOD and the advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the Honour and Happinesse of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity and the true publick Liberty Safety and Peace of the Kingdoms wherein every ones private condition is included And calling to minde the treacherous and bloody Plots Conspiracies Attempts and Practices of the Enemies of GOD against the true Religion and Professours thereof in all places especially in these three Kingdoms ever since the Reformation of Religion and how much their rage power and presumption are of late and at this time increased and exercised whereof the deplorable estate of the Church and Kingdom of Ireland the distressed estate of the Church Kingdom of England and the dangerous estate of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland are present and publick testimonies We have now at last after other means of Supplication Remonstrance Protestation and Suffering for the preservation of our selves and our Religion from utter ruine and destruction according to the commendable practice of these Kingdoms in former times and the example of GODS People in other Nations after mature deliberation resolved and determined to enter into a mutuall and solemn League and Covenant Wherein we all subscribe and each one of us for himself with our hands lifted up to the most high GOD do Swear 1. That we shall sincerely really and constantly through the grace of GOD endeavour in our several places and callings the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Chuch of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government against our common Enemies The Reformation of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of GOD and the example of the best Reformed Churches And shall endeavour to bring the Churches of GOD in the three Kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and Uniformity in Religion Confession of Faith Form of Church-government Directory for Worship and Catechizing That we and our Posterity after us may as Brethren live in Faith and Love and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us 2. That we shall in like manner without respect of persons endeavour the Extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-government by Arch-bishops Bishops their Chancellours and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons and all other Ecclesiasticall Officers depending on that Hierarchy Superstition Heresy Schism Prophanesse and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness Lest we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues And that the Lord may be one and his Name one in the three Kingdoms 3. We shall with the same sincerity reality and constancy in our severall vocations endeavour with our estates and lives mutually to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of the Parliaments and the Liberties of the Kingdoms And to preserve and defend the Kings Majesty's Person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms That the world may bear witnesse with our consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesty's just power and greatnesse 4. We shall also with all faithfulnesse endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil instruments by hindering the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his people or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any faction or parties amongst the people contrary to this League and Covenant That they may be broughr to publick triall and receive condigne punishment as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve or the supream Judicatories of both Kingdomes respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall judge convenient 5. And whereas the happinesse of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms denyed in former times to our Progenitors is by the good Providence of GOD granted unto us and hath been lately concluded and settled by both Parliaments We shall each one of us according to our place and interest endeavour that they may remain conjoyned in a firme Peace and Union to all Posterity And that Justice may be done upon the willfull Opposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article 6. We shall also according to our places and callings in this Common cause of Religion Liberty and Peace of the Kingdoms assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof And shall not suffer our selves directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination perswasion or terrour to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed Union and conjunction whither to make defection to the contrary part or to give ourselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this cause which so much concerneth the Glory of GOD the good of the Kingdoms and honour of the King But shall all the dayes of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein against all opposition and promote the same according to our power against all Lets and Impediments whatsoever And what we are not able our selves to suppresse or overcome we shall reveale and make known that it may be timely prevented or removed All which we shall do as in the sight of GOD. And because these Kingdoms are guilty of many sins and provocations against GOD and his Son Jesus Christ as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers the fruits thereof We professe and declare before GOD and the world unfained desire to be humbled for our own sins and for the sins of these Kingdoms especially that we have not as we ought valued the inesteemable benefit of the Gospel that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof and that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts nor to walk worthy of him in our lives wich are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us And our true and unfained purpose desire and endeavour for ourselves and all others under our power and charge both in publick and in private in all dutyes we owe to GOD and man to amend our lives and each one to go before another in the example of a real Reformation That the Lord may turn away his wrath and heavy indignation and establish these Churches and Kingdoms in truth and Peace And this Covenant we make in the presence of Almighty GOD the Searcher of all hearts with a true intention to peform the same As we shall answer at that great Day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed Most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his Holy Spirit for this end and to blesse our desires and proceedings with such successe as may be deliverance and safety to his people and encouragement to other Christian Churches
groaning under or in danger of the yoke of Antichristian Tyranny or to joyn in the same or like Association Covenant To the Glory of GOD the enlargement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the peace tranquillity of Christian Kingdoms and Common-wealths A Solemn Acknowledgement of publick Sins and Breaches of the Covenant AND A Solemn Engagement to all the Duties contained therein namely thâ—se which do in a more speciall way relate unto the dangers of these times ANNO 1648. WE Noblemen Barons Gentlemen Burgesses Ministers of the Gospel and Commons of all sorts within this Kingdom by the good hand of GOD upon us taking in serious consideration the many sad afflictions and deep distresses wherewith we have been exercised for a long time past and that the Land after it hath been sore wasted with the Sword and the Pestilence and threatened with Famine and that shame and contempt hath been poured out from the Lord against many thousands of our Nation who did in a sinful way make War upon the Kingdom of England contrary to the Testimony of his Servants and desires of his People and that the remnant of that Army returning to this Land have spoiled and oppressed many of our Brethren and that the Malignant party is still numerous retaining their former principles wait for an opportunity to raise a new and dangerous War not only unto the rending of the bowells of this Kingdom but unto the dividing of us from England overturning of the work of God in all the three Kingdoms And considering also that a cloud of calamities doth still hang over our heads threaten us with sad things to come We cannot but look upon these things as from the Lord who is righteous in all his wayes feeding us with the bread of tears and making us to drink the waters of affliction untill we be taught to know how evil and bitter a thing it is to depart away from him by breaking the Oath and Covenant which we have made with him and that we may be humbled before him by confessing our sinne and forsaking the evil of our way Therefore being pressed with so great necessities and straits and warranted by the word of God and having the example of Gods people of old who in the time of their troubles and when they were to seek delivery and a right way for themselves that the Lord might be with them to prosper them did humble themselves before him and make a free and particular confession of the sins of their Princes their Rulers their Captains their Priests and their people and did engage themselves to do no more so but to reform their wayes and be stedfast in his Covenant And remembring the practise of our predecessours in the year 1596. Wherein the General Assembly and all the Kirk-judicatories with the concurrence of many of the Nobily Gentry and Burgesses did with many tears acknowledge before God the breach of the National Covenant and engaged themselves to a Reformation even as our predecessors and theirs had before done in the Generall Assembly and convention of Estates in the year 1567. And perceiving that this duty when gone about out of conscience and in sincerity hath alwayes been attended with a reviving out of troubles and with a blessing and successe from Heaven We do humbly and sincerely in his sight who is the searcher of hearts acknowledge the many sins and great transgressions of the Land We have done wickedly our Kings our Princes our Nobles our Judges our Officers our Teachers and our People Albeit the Lord hath long and clearly spoken unto us we have not hearkened to his voice Albeit he hath followed us with tender mercies we have not been allured to wait upon him and walk in his way And though he hath stricken us yet we have not grieved Nay though he hath consumed us we have refused to receive correction We have not remembred to render unto the Lord according to his goodnesse and according to our own vows and promises but have gone away backward by a continued course of backsliding and have broken all the Articles of that solemn League and Covenant which we swore before God Angels and men Albeit there be in the land many of all ranks who be for a Testimony unto the Truth and for a name of joy and praise unto the Lord by living godly studying to keep their garments pure and being stedfast in the Covenant and Cause of God Yet we have reason to acknowledge that most of us have not endeavoured with that reality sincerity and constancy that did become us to preserve the work of Reformation in the Kirk of Scotland Many have satisfied themses with the purity of the Ordinances neglecting the power thereof yea some have turned aside to crooked wayes destructive to both The prophane loose and insolent carriage of many in our Armies who went to the Assistance of our BRETHREN in ENGLAND And the tamperings and unstraight dealing of some of our Commissioners and others of our Nation in London the Isle of Wight other places of that Kingdom have proved great lets to the work of Reformation and setling of Kirk-Government there wherby Errour and Schism in that Land have been encreased and Sectaries hardened in their way We have been so far from endeavouring the extirpation of Prophannesse and what is contrary to the power of godlinesse that prophanity hath been much winked at and Prophane persons much countenanced many times employed until iniquity and ungodlinesse hath gone over the face of the land as a flood Nay sufficient care hath not been had to separate betwixt the precious and the vile by debarring from the Sacrament all ignorant and scandalous persons according to the Ordinances of this Kirk Neither have the Priviledges of the Parliaments and Liberties of the Subject been duly tendered But some amongst our selves have labored to put into the hands of our King an arbitrary and unlimited power destructive to both And many of us have been accessory of late to those means and ways whereby the freedom and priviledges of Parliaments have been encroached upon and the Subjects oppressed in their Consciences persons and Estates Neither hath it been our care to avoid these things which might harden the King in his evill way But upon the contrary he hath not onely been permitted but many of us have been instrumentall to make him exercise his power in many things tending to the prejudice of Religion and of the Covenant and of the Peace and safety of these Kingdoms Which is so farre from the right way of preserving his Majesty's Person and Authority that it cannot but provoke the Lord against him unto the hazard of both Nay under a pretence of relieving and doing for the King whilst he refuses to do what was necessary for the house of God some have ranversed and violated most of all the Articles of the Covenant Our own Consciences within and Gods judgements upon us without do
convince us of the manifold willfull renewed breaches of that Article which concerneth the discovery and punishment of Malignants whose crimes have not onely been connived at but dispensed with and pardoned and themselves received unto intimate fellowship with our selves and entrusted with our Counsels admitted unto our Parliaments and put in places of Power and Authority for managing the publick affaires of the Kingdome Whereby in Gods justice they got at last into their hands the whole power and strength of the Kingdome both in judicatories and Armies And did imploy the same unto the enacting and prosecuting an unlawful Engagement in warre against the Kingdome of England Notwithstanding of the dissent of many considerable members of Parliament who had given constant proof of their integrity in the cause from the beginning of many faithful testimonies and free warnings of the servants of God of the Supplications of many Synods Presbyteries and Shyres and of the Declarations of the Generall Assembly and their Commissioners to the contrary Which ingagement as it hath been the cause of much sinne so also of much misery and calamity unto this Land and holds forth to us the grievousnesse of our sinne of complying with Malignants in the greatnesse of our judgement that we may be taught never to split again upon the same rock upon which the Lord hath set so remarkable a Beacon And after all that is come to passe unto us because of this our trespasse and after that grace hath been shewed unto us from the Lord our God by breaking these mens yoke from of our necks and putting us again into a capacity to act for the good of Religion our own safety and the Peace and safety of this Kingdowe should we again-break his Commandment and Covenant by joyning once more with the people of these abominations and taking into our bosome those Serpents which had formerly stung us almost unto death This as it would argue great madnesse and folly upon our part So no doubt if it be not avoided will provoke the Lord against us to consume us untill there be no remnant nor escaping in the Land And albeit the Peace and Union betwivt the Kingdoms be a great blessing of God unto both and a Bond which we are obliged to preserve unviolated And to endeavour that justice may be done upon the opposers thereof Yet some in this Land who have come under the Bond of the Covenant have made it their great study how to dissolve this Union and few or no endeavours have been used by any of us for punishing of such We have suffered many of our Brethren in severall parts of the Land to be oppressed of the common Enemy without compassion or relief There hath been great murmuring and repining because of expense of means and pains in doing of our duty Many by perswasion or terror have suffered themselves to be divided and withdrawn to make defection to the contrary part Many have turned off to a detestable indifferency and neutrality in this cause which so much concerneth the glory of God and the good of these Kingdoms Nay many have made it their study to walk so as they might comply with all times and all the revolutions thereof It hath not been our care to countenance encourage intrust and employ such onely as from their hearts did affect and mind Gods Work But the hearts of such many times have been discouraged and their hands weakened their sufferings neglected and themselves slighted and many who were once open enemies and alwayes secret underminers contenanced and employed Nay even those who had been looked upon as Incendiaries and upon whom the Lord had set marks of desperate Malignancy falshood deceat were brought in as fit to manage publick affaires Many have been the lets and Impediments that have been cast in the way to retard and obstruct the Lords work and some have keeped secret what of themselves they were not able to suppresse and overcome Besides these and many other breaches of the Articles of the Covenant in the matter thereof which it concerneth every one of us to search out and acknowledge before the Lord as we would wish his wrath to be turned away from us So have many of us failed exceedingly in the manner of our following and pursuing the duties contained therein not onely seeking great things for our selves and mixing of private interests and ends concerning our selves and friends and followers with those things which concern the publick good but many times preferring such to the Honour of God and good of his cause and retarding Gods work until we might carry alongs with us our own interests and designes It hath been our way to trust in the means and to rely upon the arm of flesh for successe Albeit the Lord hath many times made us meet with dispointment therein and stained the pride of all our Glory by blasting every carnall confidence unto us We have followed for the most part the counsels of flesh and blood and walked more by the rules of policy then Piety and have hearkened more unto men then unto God Albeit we made solemn publick profession before the World of our unfained desires to be humbled before the Lord for our own sinnes and the sinnes of these Kingdoms especially for our undervaluing of the inestimable benefit of the Gospel and that we have not laboured for the power thereof and received Christ into our hearts and walked worthy of him in our lives and of our true and unfained purpose desire and endeavour for our selves and all other under our power and charge both in publick and private in all dutyes which we owe to God and man to amend our lives and each one to go before another in the example of a reall Reformation that the Lord might turn away his wrath and heavy indignation and establish these Kirks and Kingdoms in truth and peace Yet we have refused to be reformed and have walked proudly and obstinatly against the Lord not vâ—lueing his Gospel nor submitting our selves unto the obedience thereof not seeking after Christ nor studying to honour him in the excellency of his person nor employ him in the vertue of his offices not making conscience of publick Ordinances nor private nor secret duties nor studying to edify one another in love The ignorance of God and of his Son Jesus Christ prevailes exceedingly in the Land The greatest part of Masters of families amongst Noblemen Barons Gentlemen Burgesses and Commons neglect to seek God in their families and to endeavour the the Reformation thereof And albeit it hath been much pressed yet few of our Nobles and great ones ever to his day could be perswaded to perform family duties themselves and in their own persons which makes so necessary and useful a duty to be misregarded by others of inferior rank Nay many of the Nobility Gentry and Burrows who should have been examples of Godlinesse and sober walking unto others have been ring-leaders of excesse and rioting
faithfulness of our God who hath not only hithertil preserved a Remnant even a holy seed which shal be the substance of our Land But after this late suddain and astonishing stroak of his holy Indignation which seemed to presage no less then the woful overturning of this sinking Church into the depth of all darkness and the dreadful overthrow of this whole Land and Nation in the consummation of his fierce anger to have been poured out in our desolation hath made Light and Salvation to arise and Glory and Praise to spring forth in making his grace more manifest and commending and asserting His Work and Covenant more in the Sufferings and Death of His faithfull Servants and Witnesses then in all the prosperity and Victories which formerly he vouchsaved upon us O! blessed and exalted be his most Holy Name and aboundant Grace who for the wicked and momentany rejoycing of our adversaries hath given to his People such sweet consolations and Exuberant Praise and from the depths of our present distresses and amidst the feares of so imminent and great judgments hath in stead of an Apology before the world put a song of Salvation in our Mouth that as well to Testify for the Lord against the backsliders as for the comfort and consolation of all who love and wait for his Salvation we may call the Heavens to hear and the Earth to give ear that we may publish the Name of the Lord and ascrib Greatness to our God whose work is perfect and all his wayes Iudgment A God of Truth and without Iniquity Just and Right is He. We have corrupted ourselves our spot is not the spot of his Children we are a perverse and crooked generation Do we thus requit the Lord O foolish people and unwise Yet is not He our Father that hath bought us Hath not He made us and established us Let us then remember the dayes of old when the most High did visit us and the Lord became Our God and we became His People and Inheritance This is the Testimony of his dying withnesses this is the voice of his present Dispensations We will therefore call to mind the Years of the right hand of the Most High and the wondrous works of the Lord which He alone did work in our Land We will also declare our manifold Engagements and our most selemn and sacred Covenants with and to Our God that the Lord 's Loving Kindness may be made known that the Innocency Strength and Joy of his Servants may appear that the glory of all his Righteous Judgments which are either already come upon us or which we have reason to fear may be made manifest that wickedness may stop it's mouth and that all the Enemies of the Lord may be confounded It is not here intended to resume these debates which as the Adversaries have formerly moved and pertinaciously maintained against the Work of God and almost against every passage and transaction thereof so have the Lovers and Owners of it abundantly satisfied and the Lord Himself determined with that power and Evidence that the Conversion of some and Conviction of almost all and even of it's most desperat opposers is not the smalest part of it's Glory But seing the party that now prevaileth hath disdained that method and only by plain force and Violence in the most gross and desperat Rebellion Blasphemy and Perfidy against God and his Cause and the highest and most determined contempt and misreguard of all good Conscience and sacred Oathes that ever the sun beheld hath carried on and advanced this present Apostacy and defection under which all the Godly do mourn and the Land perisheth We shall only here endeavour the sincere and candid Representation of these things which as they were once the Glory of the Lord and joy of his people in this poor Nation so are they now the Testimony and Triumph of his witnesses and the Patience and Hope of all his Sufferers and may be the full Satisfaction of all who shall hear of these late and present troubles wherewith the Lord doth Exercise us and will undoubtedly in the end prove etiher the Exaltation and Praise or the Desolation and perpetuall Confusion of BACKSLIDEN SCOTLAND When Scotland through the usurpation of the Roman Antichrist and the contagion of his abominations and through the Prid Lust and Tyranny of Prelacy the very root and strength of that Kingdom of wickedness had fallen into that gross and black darkness of Ignorance and Superstition and into these strong Delusions wherewith the Lord as he hath threatned so hath he ever infallibly plagued that Antichristian course and for many hundreth Years had lien involved therein It pleased the Lord in his wonderful mercy and free love to cause the glorious Light of the everlasting Gospell again to arise and shine forth amongst us Which as it is ever best witnessed by its own Power and Purity So through the Power and Wisdome of God alone even by the Weakness of very mean instruments in the midst of the flames of fiery persecutions and against the rage and fury of the Devil and of all the powers of Hell was this Work advanced and effectuated As the recordes of these times from 1494. until about the Year 1560. do plainly discover Dureing which period of time these things are very observable First That where and when ever the Light and Truth of God did discover testify against the Corruptions Errors Idolatry and Superstitions of Popery in the same manner it testified and declared that the Popes usurped Tyranny and the Prid Idleness and Domination of the wicked Prelates were cheefly the Authors and Maintainers thereof Secondly That such as the Lord did from time to time call to and send forth for the work of the Ministry did walk therein with the same Painfulness Poverty Simplicity Humility and Equality which the Holy command and practises of our blessed Lord and his Apostles do so constantly commend Hence it is that in so far as this point could fall under the enquiry of these times it is clearly held out that they acknowledged no Officer in God's House Superior to a Preaching Minister and according to the standard of this Office did they try reject and crave the Reformation of exorbitant Prelacy As the examinations and testimonies of the faithfull in these dayes do witness Thirdly That as the love of God and his blessed Truth and the Precepts Promise and Presence of our Lord Jesus Chirst did enable unto all Patience with joy such as by the call of a clear and necessary providence the Lord sett forth to be his witnesses who for the love and Testimony of Jesus cheerfully embraced the fire and faggott so when the Lord did multiply the faithful to a Reasonable Capacity they were so far from resigning themselves and abandoning that First and most just Priviledge of Self-defence to the arbitriment even of the lawful Powers and of that Authority which they did acknowledge that they not only
none other then that of the Devil as to conciliat and endear the Powers to Prelats who while they creat the King's Prerogative pretend themselves to be the King 's only Creatures so to arm and animat the same Powers against our Lord and His followers Let it's Rise and Effects both first and last be marked and observed and the search will declare that wicked men lusting to Tyranny and licentiousness are checked and galled by the freedom and power of faithful Ministers in the application of the Holy Word and Spiritual Censures What remedy This freedom is found Treasonable and prejudiciall to the King's service and Interest and the plain Zeall of God is therefore taxed as Sedition and Treason and under these formalities the Priviledges of the Church are infringed and all the asserters thereof lashed with the same calumny whereupon and to perfect the cure the King must be declared IN ALL and OVER ALL And by vertue of his fained Omnipotency and for recovery of that Unity and Order which only the coming of our Lord His blessed Gospel and Powerful Ministry is pretended to have disturbed the Ancient Policy or the Church must be restored and the greatest flatterers made the Archest Prelats who by inhaunsing and by destroying the Power may compesce the pretended insolency of the Ministry and by the continual pretending of Dissatisfaction and Disloyalty may terrify men out of all Conscience until by the introducing of Will-worship and vain Superstitions they may extinguish all Light and thereby reduce that Golden Age of Order into stupid Flattery and of Unity into Implicit Obedience And if these be not the kind caresses and most native issues of Prerogative and Prelacy and the very restoring and re-establishing of the Kingdom of Antichrist he who cannot find it in this Period will find all supplyed by the next 7. Though we love not to reflect on Events and know that no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before him yet seing thereby the Lord's Judgments are made manifest men ought both to observe and fear The dissastrous ends of all the promoters of Prelats in these dayes viz of the Earle of Morton beheaded Mr Iohn Douglass Archbishop of St Andrews dying in the pulpit the Earle of Arran after disgrace privately killed Mr Patrick Adamson Arch-bishop of St Andrews after recantation and disgrace dying in extream poverty may justly cause their course the rather to be shunned and detested But that which we love rather to observe is that as the promoters and advancers of Prelacy were alwayes known to be men of no Principles and for the most part of very flagitious practices so the resisters thereof and favourers of Presbytery especially the Lord 's faithful Ministers in these dayes were not only very eminent in Knowledg Piety and Holiness but above all had that great Testimony and confirmation which our Lord Himself maketh use of Iohn 7.18 that they sought not their own glory and therefore neither spoke nor did of themselves but sought His Glory that sent them and therefore were true and no unrighteousness was in them As both their slighting of Court favours by which they were much tempted and their obstinat refusall of Bishopricks whereof King Iames himself bare them witness doth Testify 8. The Lord whose Work is perfect and who when He beginneth will also make an end hereafter in the Year 1586. shineth through the cloud dissipateth the darkness and after the storm blesseth us with a great calm wherein the Assemblies re-assuming their just power and the matter by the King being brought to a treaty and Conference the Bishops are first Restrained then Reduced Thereafter the order of Presbyteries being set down perfected in the Year 1590. both the Nationall Covenant is renewed and subscribed by Order of the Secret Council at the Assemblies desire and all the power that remained either in Bishops or Commissioners by the Assembly is devolved upon the new erected Presbyteries And thus the Work of the Lord in the Parl. 12. Iam. 6. bv the 114. Act. thereof ratifying Presbyterial Government in all it's Assemblies Courts and Officers qualifying and restricting the former Act. 1584. anent the King's Prerogative and abrogating all Acts contrary thereto or inconsistent therewith and by other Acts there recorded receaveth it's last and full accomplishment with Power and Beauty added to the former Grace and Glory 9. That as only the malice of Sathan and wickedness of men have in all Ages opposed the establishment of Presbytery so the Lord whose great Work and Ordinance it is doth no less evidently commend it by making as on the one hand it 's sincere and holy severity powerfully to coerce and restrain all vice and profanity so on the other hand the harmonious and orderly Subordination of it's Courts and Assemblies most efficaciously to prevent and suppress all Schisme and Heresy Which both the experience of these and all succeeding times do most clearly confirm But though the Lord had shewed us all these great and manifold temptations and troubles and terminated them all in such an wonderful and blessed deliverance that we might for ever fear His great Name love His precious Truth and keep His holy Covenant and though in the short Sun-shine of that day of Salvation He caused both King and People to taste and see the Order Beauty and Power of that Establishment Yet O! how soon did we forget the Works of the Lord We keeped not His Covenant O Lord the People of thine Inheritance enjoyed it but a litle It is not necessary for our design that we should trace and recount all these sad steps and degrees by which the Holy and Wise God thought fit to bring back his Church in this Land unto that great distress that hereafter ensued and caused her to wander long in a Wilderness of great Desertion nor what were the causes and beginnings of that so horrid Defection which the Histories of the most partial pens whatever provocations they pretend to be in the Lord 's faithful Ministers cannot purge nor palliat from a mere design of carnal Policy carryed on by manifest Diâ—simulation and palpable fraud It is enough for us let the true Histories of these proceedings be examined and it will appear without the help of our obsevation that as the beginnings of that Defection were no other then the Unfaithfulness of Man and the inconsistence of the Wisdom of God with the carnal wisdom of this World and that old opposition and rooted prejudice of the Kings and Powers of the Earth who have for the far greatest part set themselves and taken counsel against the Lord and against His Anointed so for the unquestionable confirmation of all that hath been said either as to the wicked Rise or woful Effects of Prelacy in this Church the Devil's part therein was visibly to promote his own Kingdom by re-acting the most palpable and gross Mystery of Iniquity that can possibly be described In so far
them over-ruled in the Year 1640. the King and Prelats vigorously arm again and prepare for a new war But this intended War is composed by a new Pacification and in the mean time the Parliament formerly adjourned until Iune 1640 doth conveen at the time appointed and by their fourth fifth and sixth Acts fully establish Presbyterial Government ratify the Covenant with the Addition and Explanation of the Assembly and all Acts made thereanent abrogat the Estate of Bishops and all Acts whatsoever made in their favours Thereafter in the Treaty ensuing the Pacification it is agreed that the Acts past in the last Parliament with these to be made in the next Session thereof shall be published in the King's Name and have the strength of Laws in all time coming Which Treaty being closed and the last Session of the above-mentioned Parliament sitting in the Moneth of Iune 1641. the King in person being present among them and the Oath of Parliament for maintenance of Religion in purity as then established and of the King's Authority and the Peoples Liberties according to the Covenant and for endeavouring by all just and humble meanes of Union and Peace betwixt the three Kingdomes appointed to be taken by that all succeeding Parliaments being taken by the second Act thereof superscribed by the King and subscribed by the President the foresaid Treaty is amply and perpetually confirmed and the whole Articles thereof are ratifyed and recorded Thus by all the Security that either Sacred Oaths or Acts of Lawful Authorized Assemblies Ordinances of King and Council doubled and re-iterated Pacifications and Treaties Acts of Parliament Enacted Re-enacted the Kings Authority and Consent being often and solemnly interposed both by promise and hand-writ And all that either Religion Truth Faith Honour or Honesty could devise or grant these Wicked Prelats are cast out of this Church and Kingdom Presbyterial Government fully established the pure Worship of God with His pure and powerful Ordinances and Ministry restored and in the maintenance and pursuance of all these great Blessings the whole Land by many Oaths most Solemn tyes engaged unto the Lord for ever By all which Blessings and the restoring of the Lord 's own Ordinances amongst us as the Work of the Gospel and the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus in the Conversion of many thousands were greatly advanced and the Glory of God in the abounding of true Piety and flourishing of Righteousness did eminently shine amongst us as the memory of these times in all such as fear God and love our Lord Jesus Christ doth sweetly testify so all these great things were transacted to the perpetual shame and confusion of all our calumnious Adversaries without any diminution of his Majesty's just Authority and Greatness As the Power and Glory of the Lord was great in this Land so the splendor and fame thereof reaching unto other Nations it pleased the Lord thereby to provoke His People in England at that time grievously groaning under the Tyrannous yoke of Prelacy and justly alarmed by the imminent fears of prevailing Popery to set about and intend the like blessed Reformation It doth not concern us to reflect on the Causes and beginnings of that War betwixt the King and Parliament there nor what were the transactions betwixt the two Kingdoms in order to that Aid and Assistance given by Scotland and how the same was mannaged But this is certain that upon the Representation of the most just and important grounds of the maintenance of Religion and Liberty against the prevailing power of Popery Prelacy and Tyranny in that Kingdom of England and their most instant and earnest desires for our help and Assistance and rhe most rational clear motives of our own Security the hazard and loss whereof had undoubtedly been the consequence of the Prelats Victory there this Kingdom was induced in the Year 1643. to enter into that Sacred Bond of the Solemne League and Covenant never to be forgotten containing no other Articles then every one's Sincere and constant endeavours in their several places callings for the preservation of the Reformed Religion in this Church in Doctrine VVorship Discipline and Government the Reformation of the same in England and Ireland according to the VVord of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches and the nearest Conjunction and Vniformity of all the three in Truth Faith and Love the extirpation of Popery Prelacy Error and Profanity the preservation of the rights and Liberties of the People and of the Kings person and Authority in defence of the true Religion and the Kingdom 's Liberties the Discovery and the punishment of Incendiaries the retaining of the Peace and Vnion of the Kingdomes the mutual assistance and defence of all entering into this League and the performing of all duties we owe to God in the amendment of our lives and in walking exemplarly one before another And all these in order to no other end then the Glory of God the advancement of the Kingdom of Iesus Christ the Honor and Happiness of the King and his Posterity and the true Liberty Safety and Peace of the Kingdom This is that Covenant which in all the controversies it hath occasioned did never receave a greater confirmation then from the malice and opposition of it's adversaries who in the same Spirit with the same Spite have alwayes persecuted and reproached it with the same Calumnies of Rebellion Sedition and Blood which from the beginning the Devill hath ever been most active to raise and stir up against the Lord Jesus his Gospel Kingdom and Followers But seing such only as are blessed do evite the offence of Truth and all who truely seek Gods Glory or Love the Lord Jesus did and still do heartily approve and embrace this Covenant though it had brought the Sword not only into Britain but with the Truth into all the Earth though it were reproached as unfriend not only to our King but with our Lord Jesus to Caesar and all the Kings of the Earth though it had divided and disturbed not only Realms and States but with the Gospel families and nearest relations and had with Paul moved Sedition throughout the whole World we ought not thereby to be either shaken or offended We know also that all the subtilty and malice of Hell have been set on work and spared no calumny or cavillation by which either it's Words Matter or Manner might be impugned But these are so often and fully answered and without the assistance of any man's Patrociny by the obvious plainness of it's Phrase the Holiness Importance of it's Purpose and the Justice and Necessity of it's way and Manner so clearly confuted that nothing can be added Only seing the Constancy of Truth ought not to cede to the Confidence of prevailing Powers as we have asserted and do hold the subject matter of this League and Covenant to be in it self Holy Just and True so we cannot but disprove
the dangerous Method of some who the better to enforce the obligation of the Oath of God do suppose the Matter thereof especially as to that article against Prelacy to be antecedently Indifferent and not determined either by the Word of God or any other Moral Precept Justly apprehending how easily in this light and backsliding time such suppositions may become positions and that the obligation of the Oath of God now so much violated and little regarded may be found too weak to secure mens stedfastness As we are therefore persuaded and would have all to consider and fix it in their hearts that this wicked Prelacy and it's Hierarchy are not only contrary to the Word of God to the Practice of the Holy Apostles to sound Doctrine and the Power of Godliness under which express consideration we are also sworn to endeavour it's extirpation but by the sad experience of all Ages in the Christian Church especially in these our later times had been found most pernicious to all Truth and Righteousness and the main Engine and Device whereby the Devil hath alwayes laboured to advance his Kingdom of Darkness and therefore hath been the great butt and aime for the overthrow whereof the great Work of God in this Land hath been so Powerfully and Gloriously manifested so do we most constantly hold that as wel this Article against Prelacy as all the rest contained in this Holy Covenant were and are antecedently oblidging both to King and People without the supervention of either Oath or Promise and that the rooting out of Prelacy the wicked Hierarchy therein so obviously described is the main duty in the endeavour whereof as most advantageous unto all these great and holy Ends proposed by the Covenant all the Zeal of the faithful ought to be concentred As for such profane Jugglers who neither considering this Oath and Covenant as a special Ordinance and blessing of God whereby we are more effectually stirred up and enabled to the performance of all the duties of Religion and Righteousness therein contained nor knowing that this Covenant made with God and accepted by Him is also the Lords Covenant with us for the securing and establishing unto us all the great Blessings and Priviledges therein expressed that as we therein do avouch the Lord to be our God so doth He avouch us to be His People Do from the Righteousness and Necessity of it's matter vainly argue the superfluity of any accessory Obligation and would thence infer that the same may be the more easily dispensed with or renounced We de only remit them to that Solemn Covenant Deut. 29.10 c. made there betwixt the Lord and His People and thereafter so often renewed only for their greater Engagement to the most necessary duties of God's express commands We come in the next place unto the Manner and Form of this League and Covenant wherein not purposing to resume the many debates that have been raised anent it we shall only take notice that these old Acts and Laws viz. Act. 43. Parl. 6. of Mary 1555. and Act. 12. Parl. 10. Iam. 6.1585 made against Leagues and Bands contracted without the Kings consent are now obtruded with the force and lustre of a new Act. cap. 4. of the last Parliament to condemn the Covenant as from the beginning Unlawfull and Rebellious But as these old Acts at the time of the entering into this League and Covenant did then stand explained by the 29. Act. Parl. 2. Charl. 1. ratifyed and authorized by the King himself in a sense most consistent with the Covenant and could no wayes render the same from the beginning unlawful much less could the revival thereof in their greatest rigour or the superveniency of any other Act thereanent dissolve the Sacred Obligation of this Oath once lawfully contracted so the reason of the former answer made ro this objection and the Justice and Equity of that Act. 29. P. 2. C. 1. whereby the same was declared remaineth in ful force viz. that no League nor Bond made by the Subjects for maintenance of Religion Liberty and the Publick good of Church or State was or can be understood to be prohibited by these old Acts and Laws objected Because as the makers of such Bonds cannot be reputed to be movers of Sedition to the breach of the publick peace which is the express reason and certification of these old Acts objected so both the King and his Government being appointed for the preservation of these great ends and Interests and He himself principally oblidged both by the Command and Oath of God upon him to authorize all such bonds Covenants and other means which may advance the same It were a gross Paradox both in Reason and Religion that the King's neglect of his duty and perverting of his Office to the overthrow of these ends for which he is ordained should therefore oblige the People to a sinful Complyance and stupid connivance to the high Dishonour of the Great God and King of Kings and the utter ruine of the souls bodies and fortuns of themselves and their Posterity It 's true it may be and is replyed that this answer and reasoning doth proceed from an unjust jealousy of Kings and is founded upon an intollerable presumption in the Subject to censure and judge their actings But seeing the entering into this Covenant and into all others which we allow was so far from proceeding upon an unjust jealousy that on the contrary it was in a manner extorted by the force of the most palpable and rational necessity that can be imagined and seeing the feeling and discerning thereof is so far from that criminal presumption alleadged that to disprove it is in effect to deny both sense and reason unless our adversaries can prove that notwithstanding thereof the King is by God the Lord vested with such an uncontrollable Dominion and Soveraignty that whatever Violence Outrage or Cruelty he commit the People are obliged by a patience or rather stupidity greater then that of Beasts to endure without gain saying it is impossible for them to establish the Tyranny that they contend for But that the World may see that such objections are only the wicked flattery of selfish men and how little they do therein either use or regard Reason in the late Act abovementioned made against Leagues and Conventions it is declared that the explication contained in the Act 1640. viz. That such Leagues and Conventions as are made by Subjects for the preservation of the King Religion and the Laws are not prohibited by these old Acts is false and disloyall and contrary to the true and genuine meaning thereof which Declaration is not only a naked Assertion and contrary to the express reason and certification of these old Acts which is before sett down but so blind and irrational that in case of an Interregnum or the incapacity of the King to give His consent to any Bond Meeting or Convention which in such a case may be
NATIONAL SOLEMN LEAGUE COVENANT to which he declareth his cordial assent wishing no longer to live then he might see Religion this Kingdō flourish in all happiness 2. After a Sermon most pertinently plainly and powerfully preached upon that 2 Kings 11. v. 12 17. wherein amongst other things the binding power force of the Oath of God and the hazards of the breach thereof are fully represented the Action commenceth with the King 's most Solemn Renewing of the National and Solemn League and Covenant which was in this manner The King kneeling and lifting up his right hand before the three Estats of the Kingdom the Commissioners of the General Assembly and the whole People and Congregation by his great Oath in presence of the Almighty God the Searcher of hearts he assureth declareth his allowance of the NATIONAL COVENANT SOLENN LEAGUE COVENANT promising faithfully to prosecute the Ends thereof and to establish the same with the Presbyterial Government and the whole VVork of God in all his Dominions 3. That having thus taken the Covenants the King is presented to the People and their willingness to have him for their King demanded which they accordingly declare 4. That he did also swear and take the Coronation-Oath appointed and recorded Parl. 1. Iac. 6. cap. 8. to which both the Covenants are most consonant Promising by the Eternal Almighty God who liveth and reigneth for ever to observe and keep the same 5. That when he Sword was put in his hand he is desired to receave the same For the Defence of the Faith of Iesus Christ of the true Religion ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL SOLEMN LEAGUE COVENANT for the Ministration of Iustice which he accordingly accepteth 6. After the Crown is set upon his head the Peoples Obligatory Oath is proclaimed whereby they all swear by the Eternal Almighty God who liveth reigneth for ever to be true faithful to the King ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL SOLEMN LEAGUE COVENANT 7. Being installed and set upon the Throne he is exhorted by the Minister to remember That his Throne is the Lord's Throne 1 Chron. 29. ver 23. And being a Covenanted King set thereon he ought under God to rule for God and especially to beware that he made not the Lord's Throne a Throne of Iniquity to frame mischief by a Law even such mischievous Laws as have been enacted by his Predecessors destructive to Religion and grievous to the Lord's People 8. The Nobles of the Land being called one by one and kneeling before the King on the Throne and holding their hands betwixt his hands did Swear by the Eternal and Almighty God who liveth and reigneth for ever to be true and faithful to the King ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL AND SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 9. The action is closed by a most solid and weighty exhortation both to King and People to keep the Covenant and beware of the breach of it which is enforced by these fearful threatenings and instances recorded in the Scriptures of Truth against Covenant-breakers particularly these Nehem. 5. ver 13. where Nehemiah did shake his lap saying So God shake out every man from his house from his labour that performeth not this promise even thus be he shaken out and emptied and all the Congregation said Amen Ier. 34. v. 18 19 20 21. And 2 Chron. 24.23 24 25. With this Pathetick application That if they should break the Covenant God would shake off the King's Crown and turn him from the Throne that he would shake the Nobles out of their possessions and empty them of their Glory and would deliver both to the hands of their enemies who seek their life That breach of Covenant and Rebellion against God was an old and continued Sin in the King's house which God had already severely punished if therefore the King should not acknowledge Iesus Christ King of Zion who is above him but break this Covenant God's controversy against the King's Family would be carried on unto the weakning if not the overthrow of it And lastly both the King and Nobles are certifyed that if the King and they who are engaged to support his Crown shall conspire together against the Kingdom of Iesus Christ both the supporters and the supported will fall together This is that great Action wherein almost all the Solemnities are so twisted with that sacred Bond that the World must acknowledge that never King and People under the Sun became so expresly and strictly obliged both unto God one to another amongst themselves as we were and are by these most Sacred Oaths of the Holy Covenants most indissolubly engaged The fourth and last Advantage was that plenary and last Complement of all Securities whatsoever amongst men viz. the Ratification of all these preceeding Treaties Transactions Engagements and Actions concluded and enacted by the King then having attained the Age of 21 Years compleat and the Parliament fully and freely conveened in the Moneth of Iune 1651. whereby the same did pass into a perpetual Law And this Covenant which from the beginning was and is the most firm and Indispensible Oath of God became at length the very Fundamental Law of the Kingdom whereon all the Rights and Priviledges either of King or People are principally bottomed and secured This is the fair side of the Transactions and providences of thesse times and the effects of the Lord 's favourable presence and the consequence of that Zeal which we have mentioned O! that we had sincerely minded and walked agreeably to all these Engagements surely our times should have endured for ever but seing both our own backslidings and the Lord 's withdrawing from us do evidently testify against us let us ascribe Righteousness unto our God that in the remembrance of all these Judgements wherewith he hath punished us less then our inquities deserve we may not only take unto our selves shame and Confusion of face because we have sinned against Him and thereby stop the mouth of all these blasphemies and boastings of the Adversaries of the Lord and His Holy Covenant which our Backslidings have so widely opened but in the thoughts of His faithfulness be encouraged to hope in His Mercy and for the return of our Departed Glory although we have rebelled against Him The Principal Step of our Defection and the only Rise and Cause of all our Sin and Calamity we acknowledge to have been no other then that which is the condemnation of the World that Light indeed came unto us but we loved Darkness better then Light because our deeds were evil For the Lord did cause His Gospel to shine amongst us in as great Power and Purity as ever any Nation enjoyed and by the Advantages of his own Holy Ministry and Government the accession of our many fold Covenants and Engadgements did beautify and secure the same unto us And though that after a long continuance of all these blessings the Lord by
the Ascendent Power of His own Spirit and Glorious Presence did bring the whole Land under these great convictions mentioned in the conclusion of the League and Covenant of our not valueing the inestimable Benefit of the Gospel nor endeauouring to receave Christ in our hearts and walk worthy of Him in our lives the only Duty and end of all our Covenants and Engagements which is in effect God's greatest Delight and Glory in the World and all our Felicity And unto these unfained resolutions there annexed of Repentance and Amendment And lastly though the Lord from Heaven had both plagued us for and purged us from these fearful Apostacies and Defections whereby men of corrupt minds not holding the Head and End of all things even our Lord Jesus Christ were both in the Years 1645. and 1648. soon turned aside from their stedfastness in the Covenant and became Enemies unto God's own Work and Cause and had therefore stirred us up to the Renewing of our Covenant with God in the Year 1648 with and after a most Solemn Acknowledgement both of the Causes and Evills of these Defections and a most serious detestation of and resolution against both Notwithstanding we say of all these things Yet the great Sin and Evil of not valueing receaving and walking worthy of our Lord Jesus and the not directing and improving the great Blessings of His Gospel Ordinances Covenants Victories and all other Benefits and Enjoyments bestowed on us for the promoving of the Pleasure of our Lord and the Establishing of His Kingdom for the Salvation of Sinners did still remain Thence was it that the generall and great Zeall which then appeared was so suddenly contracted to a very few and much remitted in all And that mens corruptions turning former Professions into feigned pretensions and causing many in place of the great and only end proposed to minde Selfish Designes and Worldly advantages the Lord was provoked to give up some to the prosecution of these base desires 〈◊〉 which they had so quickly backsliden And to abandon others to the delusion of an over-credulous Charity which two Evills did so far prevail in all the Transactions of these Times that though the Over-ruling Providence of the Most High did bring forth thereof the Advantages which we have al-ready mentioned yet were Men thereby acted to pursue Treaties over the belly of most signal Warnings and most pregnant Disswasives to the contrary and to conclude Agreements and accept of Securities in the great Matters of God and of His Work so long contended for and far advanced which no rational man not preferring airy words and professions and Ink-subscriptions to plain refusal visible reluctancies manifest resilings open counter-actings and strong and continued prejudices would be satisfyed with in his own private matters of almost the meanest concernment But though the Lord from heaven did at Dumbar testify against both this evil and sinful course and the great Sin and wickedness that had procured it and thereafter by many of His faithful Servants did give express Testimony Warning against the same yet it is stil persisted in And notwithstanding that by a new discovery after all the assurance contained in the Declaration at Dumfermling that could be imagined the Lord did make it evident at Clova that all these condescensions were only the constraints of Policy the Backsliding and Delusion of these times did proceed until that under a pretence of Necessity preferring the Arm of Flesh to the Almighty Power and Favour of the Most High and through the perswasion of a Mock-Repentance only agreable unto that Mock-Treaty whereon it depended we were induced again to break the Lord's Commandement and our own Engagement in joyning with the People of these Abominations to provoke the Lord to be angry until He should consume us utterly without a remnant or escaping and by partaking of their Sins became apt and ready to partake of their judgements which the Lord by the hand of the TREACHEROUS did suddenly inflict upon us for all our treachery And thereby according to His Righteousness and Great Faithfulness as he had brought upon us the blessing so He also brought upon us the curse of His Holy Covenant and the fears of our own Acknowledgement These were our Forsakings Backslidings which provoked the Lord also to forsake us and at length to give us over unto and leave us in the hands of our enemies and to lay on our necks that long and heavy yoke of forraign Usurpation under which from the Year 1651. unto the Year 1660. we did so grevously groan The remembrance of which things doth necessarily oblidge us to the Declaration of these things 1. That as we desire heartily to resume these professions of unfeigned Humiliation for the undervaluing of the Precious Gospel and slighting of our Lord Jesus Christ contained in our Holy Covenant wherein all the Land without exception are and were so deeply concerned so although in the Narration of the procedure of our sinful and Wofull Defection the particular passages of Self-seeking and Over-credulous Delusion may import a narrower restricton Yet the Lord is our witness that the pure motive of His Glory and the Honor and Truth of His Work and Covenant without prejudice to the persons of any far less of such whom we are perswaded the Lord both did and yet doth honor to be instrumental in His Work and faithfull in His Covenant though neither in the former practice or this present perswasion we do agree have induced us to this reflection which we earnestly obtest may be looked upon by all rather as the matter of our mourning then of our censure 2. That whatever love and sincere respect we retain for such of the Faithful who through the Holy and Wise Permission of the Soveraign Lord by the influence of particular temptations or of that general and powerful snare of an Evil Time were carried on to a Sinful Complyance with the Evil Courses thereof Yet we are perswaded that the remitting of that Zeal sincerity and stedfastness whereunto in our Solemn Acknowledgement upon the most powerful motives we had then lately so seriously engaged our selves and the more Politick then Pious management of these Treaties and Transactions wherein the advancement of the Work of God and prosecution of the Ends of the Covenant so highly pretended could not sincerely and zealously be intended by any imaginary security or sinful assistance thereby obtained but especially the relapsing unto that most sinful Conjunction with the People of these Abominations so solemnly and lately repented for and resolved against which in stead of being salved was by the Constrained Politick Dissembled and Formall Repentance then used to the mocking of the God of Truth and scorn of all our Holy Engagements on all hands mostly aggravated and exaggerated these evils we say were the very foundations of this present Apostacy and the grounds of the Lords controversy which hath so long and yet doth so greivously pursue
this Poor Church and Nation O! that all men would yet at length after all the evils and warnings which God hath sent amongst us seriously consider their wayes take unto themselves shame and give unto God the Glory before the decree bring forth our utter destruction and desolation Who knoweth but the Lord would repent Himself for His servants when He seeth our power is gone and return on high for His own Glory and the Congregation of the poor that compass Him about and render vengeance unto all his adversaries 3. That neither failing nor backsliding of many of the faithful nor the wicked Hypocrisy and Dissimulation practized on the other hand in the carrying on and concluding of these Treaties whereby the King was brought under the bond of the Holy Covenant doth lessen or annul His Obligation thereto far less the Security which the People especially such who know not these depths of Sathan did obtain thereby for their warrant and confirmation Surely the greatest Aggravation of Perjury cannot annul the Sacred Obligation of an Oath nor an intended Falshood loose the bond of Truth nor will vile Dissimulation and the most fearful mocking of God and the whole World deliver from His Holy Justice and Jealousy who is a terrible and swift witness against and avenger of all such abominations Did the wicked dissimulation and rebellious heart of the Children of Israel wherewith they entered in Covenant with the Lord Deu. 29.10 to 28. liberate them from the sin of Apostacy and all these fearful plagues threatened against it Did not that Dissimulate promise and engagement of the remnant of the Jewes made to Ieremiah chap. 42.20 rather hasten and aggravat the punishment of their disobedience v. 21 and 22 All who love Truth or fear an Oath do no doubt abhor such wickedness But the main objection is that all these condescensions were extorted by Force and Fear which doth excuse the Dissimulation and annul the Oath We shall not here insist to clear and refute this cavillation which others have so fully answered For as to the position that neither force nor fear do cause to cease the obligation of an Oath in a matter meerly Indifferent much less Holy Righteous and true as the matter of the Covenant is all yeeld But that neither Force Fear nor any other indirect way can be alleadged for the annulling of these engagements both the preceeding Treaties the just and necessary Reasons and all other cicumstances do most evidently confirm So that the whole World may justly wonder that these men who both in profession and practice do plainly evidence their profane Indifferency and regardless violation of all Oaths wherein Interest doth not concurre should by the manifest Patronizing of all Perfidy whereof no instance can be adduced in the breach of any treaty wherein the stronger weaker did ever compose any matter of Right which is not more justifyable the shamefull disgracing of the King himself whom neither Conscience Honor Honesty nor the example of his Father could teach the constancy of the most mean and abject of his Subjects should plead pretend to rational pretext for the present Apostacy and not rather content themselves to say with the King in one of his Declarations emitted shortly after his return to England that it is well known by what abusive meanes His Majesty was adduced to make and publish that Declaration at Dumfermling without any more special condescendence which is impossible But oh that the World did also know and consider all the re-iterated Oaths and Subscriptions High and Solemn Attestations Free and unrequired Professions Fearfull Execrations made before God Angels and Men both in Publick upon the Throne under the Crown in plain Parliament and also in Private Conferences which many yet alive can sufficiently attest by which this poor Church and Nation was insnared and precipitated into all the Sin and Misery that since the Year 1650. unto this day hath afflicted us However the Lord who seeth and heareth doth also consider to require it and the violence done to Himself in many of his suffering members who partly even in the conscience of the very things which they that are mostly therein concerned do mockat dare not prostitute their Consciences in an ambulatory Complyance with the wicked Apostacy in these times 4. We cannot but observe that after the prevailing and during the time of the English usurpation these only for the most part remained mindful of and faithful to the King who were faithful and stedfast in the Covenant when as these who formerly did and at present do pretend so highly for the King in prejudice both of Jesus Christ and the Holy Covenant did in their slavish complyance abandon all Alleagance and Honesty to complement the then Powers for the promoving of their own selfish designes which is the only bond of all their Engagements and rule and aim of all their Actions And though many of them do now pretend to have been sufferers yet it is well known that if they had had the half of these temptations which the Faithful upon the account of their alleageance did constantly resist the Kings Interest for their part had been for ever forgotten as it was by many of them openly renounced and abjured And that the main reason of their then seeming and pretended Loyalty was the improbability of credit with and acceptance from the Usurpers because of their known Naughtiness Having thus declared the Lords great Work and Glorious Presence amongst us in all these Mercies and Judgements which he shewed upon us and these strange Vicissitudes Alternations sometimes of His Grace Power engageing us with heart hand unto Himself sometimes of our own hearts Wickedness and Unstedfastness again causing us to apostatize and backslide from His Holy Command and Covenant which daring the space of an hundred years from the Year 1560 have in the Holy and Wise Providence of God passed over us that by all these great Temptations which our eyes have seen and the Signs and wonders which he hath wrought we might know that the Lord is our God and Jesus Christ our King and that by all these things He only went about to establish us for a peculiar People unto Himself in the Glorious Light of His Truth and Beauty of His Holiness far exalted above many other Nations We are now come to the Year 1660 wherein though the Lord was pleased according to His Glorious Soveraignity by His own immediate hand to break the yoke of our Oppressors restore our Covenanted King Lawes and Liberties and to make all Factions Parties and Interests not only to cede unto but unanimously to conspire for this Blessed Restitution yet how evidently hath it since appeared that the Lord had not given unto us an heart to perceave eyes to see nor ears to hear unto that very day We need not here resume the King 's most Solemn and Indissoluble Engagements which we have so lately mentioned nor add that
after Worcester fight and from beyond Sea he did confirm by private letters to persons of unquestionable credit that he was and through the Grace of God would continue the same man that he had declared Himself to be in Scotland nor that it was the conscience of that clause of the Covenant relating to the maintenance of His Person and Authority which during the times of Usurpation did retain the sence and love of his Interest so fresh and deeply rooted in mens hearts Nor that the publick owning publishing and reprinting thereof by the then Parliament in England in March 1660. was the first Public Act that durst or did appear in his favours Nor lastly need we remember that Letter written and directed by the King after his return to the Presbytery of Edinburgh and this whole Church wherein he declares Himself resolued by the Grace of God to protect and preserve the Government of the Church of Scotland as it is setled by Law without violation Seing that though according to it 's then State and posture such a Solemn and Publick Assurance might have been reputed a perpetual Security yet the whole strain of the Letter is such as tendeth only to divide the whole Ministery and to abuse the greater part of them And particularly the altering and suppressing of that most fixed and certain ground of his Engagement even the Word of God and the Holy Covenant for that of Law which is but frail and moveable did even then discover to many that latent Dissimulation and Instability whereby others were either weakly or willingly deluded The thing we observe is that both King and Peoples Obligations were not then greater then the oportunity appeared to be most happy for the accomplishing of the Lord's Work the making of his Name Great One in all these Nations the Nations happy high above all Nations in Name in Praise the establishing of the King and his posterity upon the Throne in Glory prosperity that the owning of adhering unto the Solemn League and Covenant our Magna Charta of Religion and Righteousness had both in the perswasion of all sober men and even in the conviction of the greatest part of our Adversaries infallibly produced and effectuated all these blessings But Oh! how suddenly and strangely was this blessed appearance overclouded the expectation of all the Godly disappointed the joy and peace of all corrupted and marred and this Land reduced unto this present so woful desolation and sore distress which though the groans tears and the Blood of the Persecuted the cry of Violence and Oppression the Desolation and Profanation of Gods Sanctuary the reigning power of Darkness the Pride Rage and Blasphemy of Perjury and all Profanity which hath filled the Land and the dreadful Wrath of the most Holy and Great God which both burneth round about and hangeth over it do sufficiently make manifest yet for our greater upstirring to consider and lay to heart that all these evils are come upon us because our God is not amongst us and what the heat of this great Anger meaneth also for the clearing of the Innocency Testimony of the Lords sufferers we do shortly exhibite the violent course of this precipitant Defection The King being returned and re-established in May 1660. the Antichristian Spirit of Prelacy ever enemy to the Gospel and Kingdom of our Lord Jesus and the Holy Covenant whereby the same are promoted taking occasion from these many troubles and confusions which the opposition and false-heartedness of many in the same Covenant did principally provoke the Lord to inflict upon thir Lands and advantage from the proneness of mens Power to decline unto Tyranny and their corruptions to all licentiousness did first most falsely and atrociously slander the Covenant as the Bond of all Iniquity Rebellion and Confusion which prejudice being enforced which many apparent advantages that then did attend it did so suddenly and strongly spread and root it self in the hearts of our Nobles Rulers and the generality of the Land that without so much as seriously reflecting upon their former so Solemn Engagements Sacred Oaths Publick Professions Vigorous Actings and Appearances for the Cause and Covenant of the Lord with any consideration of Conscience Honesty or Honor which so great and sudden a mutation from their former wayes though they had been as wicked as in effect they are true and righteous did certainly call for in sober and earnest Repentance they with the concurrence of such vile Sycophants and treacherous persons in the Church and Ministry as the worldly wealth and Power of Prelacy had wickedly debauched set themselves in a most determined and resolute Fury whereinto all their former zeal for God is by the malice of Satan suddenly corrupted by the plain force of Power and colour of Authority whereunto they had now attained to deface and overturn the whole Work of God raze it's fundations annul His Covenants repeal all Acts made in their favors incapacitate and persecute all opposers and lastly to efface and dissolve all sense and bond of Conscience by which this fearful course of Apostacy might be in the least checked or controlled We shall not here premise any thing for clearing of the Unlawfulness of the succeeding Acts and Deeds whereby this Apostacy was carried on and for the loosing and freeing of us from all obligation of Obedience thereto or Complyance therewith Any who can but suppose that not only a whole Parliament but also all men are and have often been found liars and compare impartially the things present with the things that are past must necessarily conclude that all these Acts and Deeds of Defection were and are Gross Perjury and Wickedness and that so long as that maxim shal hold that we ought rather to obey God then Man they can never be binding either in Conscience or Reason Seing therefore that the only Rule of these Counter-actings and overturnings was to destroy that which the Lord had so gloriously planted and to loose that whereunto we were and are indissolubly obliged referring our selves to what is already said for vindicating the Lords Work and our Holy Covenants we proceed to lay forth the Sinfulness and Wofulness of this Defection as follows 1. In July 1660. by immediate clandestine warrants without any cause signifyed or citation given the Lord Marquess of Argile and some other Gentlemen who were conceaved to have been instrumental in the former Work of God and that they might be of influence for obstructing of the then designed overthrow thereof were attached and committed close Prisoners 2. In August 1660. the Committee of Estates appointed by the Parliament 1651. being again set down the very first day of their meeting do violently seise upon several faithful Ministers peaceably and quietly assembled together and imployed in the drawing up of a monitory Letter to the King in the most rational and dutiful manner and for the most important and necessary Ends of Gods
Glory and the Kings service that can be imagined as the Letter it self set down at large in the Apologetick Narration doth testify And though this duty and employment was no other then what the meanest subject in the most private capacity might and all were indispensibly obliged to have done yet those Ministers and one Gentleman with them are therefore instantly without hearing committed Prisoners 3. This Committee proceeding to prepare for the succeeding Parliament which was all it's work and design the Parliament siteth down the 1 day of January Where having taken the Oath of Supremacy without respect to it's due limitation contained in the 114. Act. Ia. 6. Parl. 12. 1592. then standing unrepealed and exalting the Kings prerogative upon the alleaged Warrand of the VVord of God and Laws of the Land but in effect directly contrary to both above all Offices Parliaments Laws Leagues Conventions Peace and War and likwise upon meer assertions alleageances in place of declaring upon known and certain grounds which is all that any Parliament can lawfully do directly Innovating the Fundamental Law Constitution of the Kingdom thereby making the Kings Throne the foundation of all the succeeding Perjury and Apostacy They spoil and divest first the Solemn League and Covenant and then the National Covenant Presbyterial Government the whole Work of God of all legal warrand and Authority Declaring all Acts and Practises made and standing in favours thereof to be void and null And by the same great Act rescissory they revive and reinforce all the corruptions and Superstitions of Crossing Kneeling and the like introduced by any Parliament since the Reformation As the Acts of the first Session of the last Parliament do clearly testify Although that these Acts have been and are both in themselves in their effects just cause of great astonishment and mourning to all the Faithful in the Land yet when we remember that height of Wickedness and Profanity that then abounded and the false flattering perjurious Sermons practises by which the Parliament was thereunto instigated but most of all that Act that then passed for an Anniversary Thanksgiving wherein as if we had been delivered to commit all this great Wickedness the Spirit and Work of the Lord are heinously blasphemed and calumniated as the only Author and Cause of all the Blood Bondage Usurpation Rebellion Rapine Violence and other Evils that either the malice and wickedness of men had caused or God in his Righteous Judgement had therefore permitted or inflicted and the Ranversing of our Blessed Reformation Holy Covenants and the Righteous Laws whereby they were established accounted the Restitution of Religion Righteousness and Liberties And the 29 of May as most Auspicious appointed for the yearly solemn commemoration thereof A day the profane Institution whereof cannot be better demonstrated then by it 's more profane observance and celebration ever since practised These things we say being considered do justly adde horror to our astonishment trembling unto our mourning But that their practise might be also consonant to their Acts and Statutes and by cutting off or laying aside it 's most eminent Opposers the return of Prelacy might be more effectually promoted in the same Session of Parliament not only was that Innocent and Faithful one Mr Cutâ—ry singled out and signally honoured by God to bear testimony to the Kingdom of His Son Jesus Christ His Cause and Covenant for no other fault then his faithfulness therein and his Declining the King's usurped Authority in prejudice of the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus and the priviledges of His Church clearly warranded by 114 Act Parl. 12. la. 6. then standing unrepeal'd and by a great cloud of faithful Witnesses who in like manner did testify against this Usurpation cruelly slain and put to death But also under the colour of certain Epidemick crimes wherein the Soveraignity of Divine Providence more then any man's malice had involved the whole Land others who had been eminent in the Work of God particularly the Marquess of Argyle were condemned to death and forfeited and several other Faithful Ministers besides these who were at first imprisoned by the Committee of Estates were without any cause signifyed imprisoned confined or otherwise vexed and incapacitated 4. The rise and re-establishment of this Antichristian Prelacy being thus prepared in the interval after this first Session of Parliament the King nominateth and presenteth Bishops and four of them being called to Court are there Re-ordained and Consecrated and that in such a manner as doth clearly infer their disowning and renouncing their former Minstery and their Warrand Mission thereunto In consequence whereof all the Ordinary meetings of Presbyteries and Synods are discharged until they should of new be licenced Authorized thereto by the Bishops now nominated and appointed and to the effect that matters might the better succeed several of our Faithful Ministers upon groundless suspitions and for refusing of the Oath of Supremacy arbitrarly and rigorously imposed without so much as admitting such qualifications as no Christian ought or can deny are some of them Banished and others confined 5. The second Session of this last Parliament sitting in May 1662. by their first Act they restore and re-establish Prelacy in all it 's pretended Rights Dignities and Priviledges but in effect in it's real Usurpations and Corruptions And for the better setling thereof and evident declaring to the World how Erastian and Antichristian this Woful Government is both in it's Rise Designs and Effects as by this Act the Restitution thereof is expresly founded upon the King's Supremacy as being an inherent Right in the Crown for the disposal of the external Government of the Church So it is also declared that whatever the King shall determine with advice of the Bishops and such of the Clergy as he shall nominate in the externall Government of the Church shall be valid and effectual without any other Proviso then that the same be consistent with the Laws of the Realm But the Absolute Complement of all Wickedness and the Hight of Usurpation above all that ever the Papacy it self aspired unto is that which followeth whereby the King and Parliament for clearing all scruples which may occurre from former Acts and Practices do rescind all former Acts by which the sole and only power of Jurisdiction within this Church doth stand in the Church and in the Meetings and Assemblies thereof and all Acts of Parliament and Council which may be interpreted to have given any Church-power Jurisdiction or Government to the Office-bearers of the Church their respective meetings other then that which acknowledgeth a dependence upon and subordination to the Soveraign Power of the King as supream and is to be regulated and authorized in the exercise thereof by the Bishops who are to put order to Ecclesiastick matters and to be accountable to the King for their Administration And the foresaid 114 Act Parl. 12. la. 6. whereby the Priviledges Power
rest refuge which even in former times when the proud were called happy such as wrought wickedness were set up yea they that tempted God were delivered the Lord did provide and reserve for his Own wherein they that feared him and thought upon his Name spoke often one to another and the Lord hearkened and heard it they under the pretence lest the People should thereby be alienat from their Lawful Pastors as they call them who in effect are Wolves and Thieves discharge all Private Meetings in houses for Religious Exercises which might tend to the prejudice of the publick Worship in Churches Under which qualification all Christian Fellowship and Society amongst such who cannot overcome their just aversion from these Churches and publick Meetings which these Apostat Prelats have prophaned and polluted and whereunto they have wickedly intruded are prohibited and reproached 9. By a Proclamation emitted this second Session of Parliament they again enjoin the observance of that Anniversary Holy Day the 29 of May even the Moneth and Day which they had devised of their own heart for a feast unto the People And to the effect they might the more infallibly attain their purpose of Outing all faithfull Ministers they subjoin the certification of Deprivation of Benefice or Stipend against all such who should not because in conscience could not observe it like as de facto severalls who could not in conscience satisfy themselves either as to the Authority or Reason of the appointment are therefore without Citation or hearing Outed of their Benefices and Stipends for that Year and the same either immediatly ingathered by the common Collector or gifted to some other 10. In the same Session of Parliament pretending that the whole Land a few only excepted were notourly and heinously involved in the crimes of Treason and Lese-Majesty through no other cause nor occasion then our most Necessary Righteous and Lawful entering into the Solemn League Covenant and prosecuting the holy ends theirof once so signally owned and countenanced by the Lord and so fully Authorized by all the Law Security that can be imagined for as for the English Usurpation few were guilty of Complyance therewith who were not also most forward in this Apostacy and the very vilest and worst of such had been declared an honest man by an express and particular Act of the same Parliament they appoint a packed close Committee wherein the generality of the faithfull to the number of about 800 not adding a hundred more who by private resentment or upon some other prejudice were listed in this roll without citation or any cause signifyed or any manner of tryal taken were most arbitrarily Fined and for the most part in such pecuniary mulcts and summs as it pleased the malicious suggestions of the delators to impose and in many particulars so absurdly the sometimes the same person was found twice fined under divers stiles in diverse Shires and others were left blanck either in the Name or Surname who might be filled up either for one person or another as the best conjecture should determine and others were fined who were dead long before or were Infants and Minors under age and others who to this day could never be found If this be the righteous judgement which the Lord doth require let the world declare Surely this Act is such as hath no precedent nor fellow except that other Act of Billeting whereof as the Power and Interest of some persons against whom it was intended have by an after Act sufficiently discovered it's Irregularity and absurdity so until the like discovery as to other Acts may be obtained it may evidently enough declare what manner of Power and Reason did over-rule this Parliament But these two Acts being past the Parliament proceed to declare by their Act of Indemnity the Kings special Grace and Goodness in pardoning such whom only the Parliaments own Apostacy and unparalelled Rebellion against the God or Heaven made criminal excepting for the most part only such who were most Innocent 11. This Session of Parliament being ended the Council go about the execution of the Acts therein concluded especially against the Ministers not obtaining Presentations and by their Act and Proclamation at â—lasgow emitted the 1. day of October 1662. they command all such Ministers to remove themselves forth of their respective Parishes betwixt and the day of November then nixt ensueing discharging them thereafter to exercise any part of their Ministerial Function within the same what and how great the iniquity and rigor of this Act is we will not stand to declare Certainly he who commanded his Apostles to pray that their flight might not be in the Winter did regard and doth remember the great distress which many poor families then sustained who being deprived of livelyhood turned out of doors indigent and very numerous might according to the cruelty of their adversaries have starved and perished We need not here insist upon the particular steps whereby the restless jealousies of these wicked Prelats did urge forward and advance this Presecution by their impetrating of reiterate Acts and Proclamations until they obtained that last Act and Proclamation concluding and adjudging all these Ministers unto such a nice and impossible Confinement which not only the necessity of humane frailty and it's dependance upon many indispensible conveniences do render more rigid intollerable then the most strict imprisonment and the most barbarous banishment but also the most curious skill of the most exact Geographer can scarce make practicable It is enough for us to note that having by a posterior Proclamation extended the same pains unto all Ministers outed upon whatsoever ground of non conformity to this present course of Apostacy in which condition all the faithfull Ministers in Scotland a very few excepted are included there were never so many Innocent and Faithful Ministers in any Christian Church at once and for such a cause reduced to such hardships fears and uncertainties and that by such persons who not only are as deeply solemnly sworn and engaged as they are in the same Cause and Covenant for which they suffer but by such who once some of them at least appeared to have had the zeal of God so that if it had been possible they would have pluckt out their own eyes and have given them to such whose Enemies they now are only because they tell them the truth Such is the fearful snare prevailing Power of Apostacy but God seeth telleth their wanderings and putteth all their tears into his bottle Having because of the necessary connection of these things thus represented them together we return to the third Session of the same Parliament and its Acts Where 12. By the first Act thereof they ratify the former Act anent Ministers who entered in and since the year 1649 and such who keep not the Diocesian meetings and do recommend to the privy Council the effectual execution theirof and to call all such
another Minister by plain force and cast out their lawful Pastor and if it be sincerely resolved what the faithful in that Church are then obliged to do surely none will think that they ought instantly to relinquish their true Pastor own submit to this Intruder but on the contrare all must grant that they ought to adhere to their lawful Minister not only discountenance withdraw from the Usurper but by all lawful means endeavour his Ejection which case if but translated to the present condition of this oppressed Church under usurping Prelates will with the same evidence resolve the question 6. That whatever construction or interpretation many to whom it is given to believe but not to suffer may put upon their hearing of the Curates as to the inferring or not inferring their owning of and submission to their Ministry yet this is certain that as it is the most probable argument and presumption of owning that can be alleadged so is it that which this Act requires for to testify both a due acknowledgement of and hearty complyance with the present Government by Prelates and as an undoubted evidence of the peoples giving their cheerful Concurrence Countenance and Assistance to the Curates 7. That seing hearing of the Curates by the acknowledgement of all the more ingenuous is not a duty to which they are moved by conscience but rather used by them as a thing though lawful yet arbitrary for the eviting a greater inconvenience seing that this Act and every article theirof is undoubtedly gross and wicked Perfidy against God and his holy Covenant commanding the disowning and relinquishing the Lords Ministry whom we are bound to maintain and the owning and encouraging by hearing such vile Intruders as we are bound to extirpate thereby designing expresly to involve all as much as is possible in the same Perfidy and to loose the former obligation of the Oath of God whatever may be said in the case abstractly considered yet we are perswaded that being thus stated not hearing becomes a case of Testimony and an indispensible duty 8. That as it is the sin and misery of all declining times that the zeall of God is at the best rather wished for as a Blessing then minded as a Duty so we are confident that the true and right zeall of God should and would not only inspire all with an unanimous Aversion against the the profane intruding Curates but animate us as one man to drive away these Wolves and Thieves and to eradicate these plants which our heavenly Father never planted 9. That though the Curates could instruct and justify their External Call yet such are their lies lightness by which they cause the people to erre the visible truth of their vile Perjury and Prophanity which they preach and practise that all serious observers may easily discover them to be inwardly ravening Wolves under the sheeps cloathing of an pretended external call of whom in conscience of our Lords command all ought and should beware 10. That whatever may be the difference in these things even amongst the faithful yet all must aggree and acknowledge that the violent pressing of such to hear who upon such probable grounds from a tender sense of conscience do only plead that Christian innocent most safe priviledge of a peaceable forbearance is not only contrare to that ample promise of Indulgence to tender consciences made and declared by the King from Breda before his return 1660. but is in effect to violent all conscience and the hight of oppression and rigor 11. That as the grounds laid down may and do sufficiently answer all objections so therefrom may be shortly cleared first that common and ordinary Sophism that hearing and observing the Ordinances is an indispensible Duty from which neither the wickedness nor frailty of the Minister doth loose But as it may be easily answered that this when acknowledged doth rather suppose then inferre the complexed lawfulness of hearing Curates as Ministers and that their Ministry is the Lords Ordinance which is plainly denyed so we are also to consider that such duties and performances are only acceptable unto the Lord specially in the matters of his Worship which are intirely sound and wholly agreeable unto his will truely done in spirit and altogether performed in truth Nam boâ—um est ex omni causa hence it is that the prophanity and wickedness even of the Lords lawful Priests let be the Perjury and Profanity of wicked Intruders have not only caused the People to abhorre the offering of the Lord to the Priests heavy charge but eveÌ„ the Lord himselfe to abhorre his sanctuary to account incense an abomination so that he cannot away with the calling of assemblies it is iniquity even the solemn meeting shall it then be accounted iniquity for to hate that which the Lord hates and withdraw from that which he hath forsaken Ought we not rather to distinguish a holy abhorring from a profane contempt though both of them proceed from the Curats sin and in the sense thereof rather wish for and withdraw with Jeremiah unto a cottage in the wilderness that there we may mourn for all these abominations surely were there no more in this matter but that Holines becomes the house of God for ever and men of clean hands and a pure lip ought to draw near and turn unto him it were sufficient to justify the Lords People who in drawing near to God cannot in conscience either regard or make use of the mouths and hands of these Apostates which are continually filled with lyes and violence as either sent by the Lord to them-ward or to be imployed by them to God-ward 2. From these grounds may be cleared that grand objection from our Lords command to the People of the Jewes Matth. 23. ver 2 3. saying The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses seat therefore whatsoever they bid yow observe that observe and do Whence some inferre that even such as without a title do usurp the office of teachers ought notwithstanding to be both heard and observed but it is answered 1. That it neither appeareth from the words nor yet from any other Record that the Scribes and Pharisees did by intrusion possess themselves of Moses chair but on the contrare as by Moses chair is only understood the Office of teaching resolving and judging according to Moses law to which although the Levites were appropriate yet is there is no such determination thereanent in the Word of God as can by any manner of inference reject the Scribes Pharisees as intruders so it is more presumable that seeing our Lord in that long Legend of evils woes pronounced against them doth not in the least charge them with Intrusion but rather acknowledge their Vocation by calling them the Builders they had thereto lawfully attained 2. As our Lords Words bear no command for the People to hear but only to observe and do what they heard rather supposing then
their sufferings which were no other then their adherence to their faithfull Ministers though casten out and rejected by men yet continuing through the grace of God to preach amongst them and their detestation of a crue of unworthy Curates scatterers and devourers not Pastors of the flock thrust in amongst them more violently then upon any other part of the Countrey The thing we have here to observe is that the manner of their persecution was first and last by plain Hostile Invasion After which maner Sir Iames Turner with his Forces having twice before been amongst them in March 1666 with greater power and fury then ever formerly marcheth against them where being arrived what exactions oppressions and insolencies he and his forces committed by arbitrary fining plundering quartering imprisoning beating wounding binding men like beasts chasing to moors and mountains and by harassing and laying both Parishes and Countrey-sides almost wholly desolate the ruine and beggery of several hundreds of families and the impoveverishing and great distress of many others do abundantly testify And yet after all these atrocious injuries by the contrivance and authority of the Bishop of Galloway who sometimes appeared so zealous for the Covenant and Work of God that frequently in his administration of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to the People of his own Parish while he was a private Minister when they were sett at Table and ready to Participate he caused them to renew the Oath of the Covenant subjoining thereto both that solemnity and these words used by Nehemia Chap. 5.13 when in the like case he did shake his lap and said so God shake out every man from his house and from his labor that performeth not this promise even thus be he shaken out and emptied by the prescription we say of the same Bishop and his Synod these poor oppressed people after all these exactions are urged and compelled to subscribe an acknowledgement that Sir Iames had used them civilly and discreetly whereby they were forced not only to deny common sense and lay aside their just resentments but by this their Subscription which might be opposed to all their complaints they were virtually excluded from all hope of redress All which things are not only confirmed by the notoriety of the matter of fact but are also by that grievous and mournfull Paper of their sufferings most amply cleared and instructed To which though Sir Iames hath made an answer for his own vindication yet seeing the same doth for the most part resolve in a simple denyall which it was easy for him to make having neither accuser nor contradicter and he at most giveth only an account of vindicateth his orders without so much as denying the excess that might have ensued in that military way of execution expressly waving to answer the extortions of these parties which were commissionated for civill Fines any further reply were superfluous This poor people having continued and lyen under all these miseries for the space of seven moneths and upward after Sir Iames his third Invasion and thereby witnessed not only their very firm Christian Patience towards God but also given a greater testimony of their loyally and submission to the King's commands then all the flattering and flaunting professions of these their adversaries who rather then to suffer the hundred part of these hardships would curse both God and their King will amount to And knowing by sad experience that both Separat Petitioning had been by Sir Iames insolently rejected that Joint Petitioning was by Act of Parliament condemned and consequently all hope this way being cut off upon an very Accidental Indeliberat Occasion they were stirred up and gave the rise to the actions and commotions following which was thus Sir Iames still breathing forth persecutions upon the 13 of November last ordereth four souldiours from Dumfreis to the Parish of Dalray in Galloway to poind a poor old man's goods and in case they should find none to seise and apprehend his person and bring him prisoner to Dumfries The souldiours in prosecution of this order apprehending the old innocent man bind him hand and foot like a beast and lay him bound upon the ground ready to be carried along When two or three of his neighbours commoyed with so great an indignity come and desire the souldiours to loose him they in stead of satisfying their desire suddenly assault the Countrey-men with their swords drawn and necessitat them to their own defence Whereupon one of the souldiours being wounded the other three throw down their Arms and the poor man is relieved The Countreymen having thus accquited themselves against these first aggressors in prosecution of their own necessary defence against the violence of 10 or 12 more souldiours who were oppressing in the same Parish whom now they had greater cause to fear then before upon the morrow thereafter with the assistance of 6 or 7 whom they joined to themselves they quietly seise upon and secure them all of them rendering their Arms except one who was killed in his resistance After this the Countrey being a little hereby alarmed but most of all determined by their former sad experience that Sir James would certainly avenge himself of this affront upon the whole Countrey without distinction of free and unfree and that in fury and rage as far exceeding his former persecutions as the cause was different they gather to the number 54 Horsemen with some few Footmen and instantly resolving upon it they march towards Dumfreis where upon the 15 of November they take Sir James prisoner and disarm the Souldiours that were with him without harm or violence to any except the wounding of one man who made more obstinate resistance Being thus by the over-ruling hand of Divine Providence and the force of irresistible necessity more then by any human contrivance engaged in a business of this importance beyond all hope of retreat and considering how many in the West and els-where did groan under the yoke of this wicked Prelacy and did suffer by their Tyranny whom the just apprehension of that rigour and cruelty to which the report of what had hapned would enrage the adversaries against all without distinction might persuade yea necessitat to a conjunction they from Dumfreis move towards the West In the mean time the report being brought to the Council the Arch-bishop Presiding and over-ruling in it Lieut. General Dalzel is immediatly ordered to march with all the Forces toward Glasgow which accordingly was done with more hast rage and fury then if 10000 Infidels had with fire and sword invaded the Land And a Proclamation is emitted against the Rebels as they called them risen in Arms in Galloway Air and other Places of the West when as at this time there were not 40 Men in the Sherifdom of Air who had joyned with them declaring this Insurrection to be manifest and horrid Rebellion and therefore charging the persons accessary to lay down Arms within 24 hours
certain Faithfull Ministers persuaded and brought out in the full assurance of most certain Victory and that their Cause was such that upon the Event they could venture their salvation yet the contrary is most certainly known that they came out for the most part most voluntarly and of their own accord thinking it their duty as one of them in his Testimony doth declare to appear for and help the Lord against the mighty And that though they had and still retain a most firm persuasion of the justice of the Lord's Cause and Covenant and a very confident assurance that the Lord will arise and own it to the utter confusion of His adversaries Yet knowing that Times and Seasons are in the Lord's hand and that the time hath already been when such who had indignation and whose heart was against the holy Covenant did prosper and by Arms pollute the Sanctuary of strength and place the Abomination that maketh desolate wherein though the people that did know their God were strong and did exploits yet did they fall by the sword and by flame and by captivity and by spoil many dayes These men did neither limit the Holy One nor ballance their resolution upon the assurance of future Events Yea the fear and apprehension of these many visible signs attending this Action whereby the Lord 's standing controversie and continuing displeasure against the Land for fearfull breach of Covenant and the many horrible sins that have ensued which then more then ever were discovered both in the actuall opposition of many and faint withdrawing of others of whom better things were looked for did justly make them conceave that as the Lord who hath ever glorified His own Name would also now glorify it both in their active and passive Testimony a seal which His Work and Cause hath not hitherto so visibly had And that they were rather thereto called then to be the Lands Deliverers for which all that fear the Lord may think with trembling greater judgments are yet ordained 5. That amongst the many observable providences of God whereby he brought this Action to it's period their turning from Lanerk towards Edinburgh and leaving the West specially these parts where many faithful men were preparing for a Conjunction doth bear the very eminent characters of the Lord's Work and Purpose which he hath since made manifest and was the occasion of the proscribing of several both Ministers and Gentlemen as we shall hereafter mention 6. That as the Louthian-men were very active in appearing against this faithfull company so after the Conflict they were very vigilant and inhumane to take and spoil all such flyers as they rencountred A sin which no doubt by reason of it's greater aggravations the Lord will require with greater severity then that of Edom Obad. 12. c. who rejoyced over the children of Iudah in the day of their destruction and laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity who stood in the cross way to cut off such as did escape and delivered up these that did remain in the day of distress and therefore he is threatened by the Lord that for his violence against his brother shame should cover him and he should be cut off for ever Thus we have seen the indignation of the Lord in the most dreadful and astonishing of all judgements even his suffering and causing the righteous to fall before the wicked in delivering the soul of his turtle dove unto the multitude of the wicked His Name unto reproach and blasphemy His Strength into captivity and His Glory into the enemies hands A providence that may justly move our astonishment to a greater height then that of Iosuah chap 7. v. 9. Oh Lord what wilt thou do unto thy great Name And how terrible are the charge and succeeding Judgements which these things do denounce But the Lord who in wrath remembers mercy maketh both judgement and mercy his peoples song and it is to his enemies alone that a cup without mixture is poured out as the things which follow will declare The Arcbishop of St. Andrews having caused celebrat the report of this Victory with almost as many Guns from the Castle as there were men slain in the fields and as if the 40 had been 40000 Infidels the prisoners are brought in and secured We cannot but here mention the ready and charitable relief which many good people in Edinburgh did then extend to them certainly it is gone up for a Memorial before God and shall have a return But who can express the malice of that Antichristian spirit raging both in the Arch-Prelate and his dependents which misery it self doth not satiate and therefore they do so exclaim against this poor expression of humanity as preposterous and savouring of disaffection that even some of their own Complices did condemn them for it The Councill falling immediately to the examination of the Prisoners they remitt first 10 thereafter 14 to the Iustices to be arraigned or rather condemned as Traitors they having first determined and prescribed the very maner of their execution and about the same time the Commissioner going West with some others impowered for that effect do likewise at Air and Glasgow condemn other sixteen These things we join together because both their Indictments maner of Tryall Doom and Execution were the same except in so far as shall be noted The Indictment and Charge of Treason exhibited against all consisted of two heads and crimes deduced from old and late Acts of Parliament and aggravated by many circumstances viz. rising and gathering in Arms and renewing the Covenant without and against the Kings Authority and consent Every one 's particular accession was libelled from and proven by his own confession before the Council This place might require a large digression for answering the crimes objected and clearing the innocency of the Lord's Witnesses but seing the preceeding Narration doth not only furnish all arguments thereto requisite but warranteth them by Precedents beyond contradiction it shall suffice now to observe 1. That God the Fountain of all Power and Author of all Right as wherever he hath granted to any creature a Being he hath also armed it with a love and power of Self-preservation sutable to it's capacity so much more where unto a Being He hath superadded a Right as in all rationall creatures which cannot be violated but both by Force and Injury hath He granted both the Power and Right of Self-defence which is really one and the same thing with it and in effect nothing else but that divine Impress and rational Instinct whereby the very course of Nature is upholden so inseparable from the Being and Right of the creature that it never ceaseth except where by the Soveraign Will and Law of God the Right is first annulled and the Being may be destroyed Which position being the clear and true foundation of all Rule and Righteousness and even of the Being of all things it may justly be wondered
ordained Neither can this inference appear unwarranted or hard unto any who will impartially consider that though the same qualification doth in the like maner affect and define all duties whatsoever which we owe either to God or our Countrey yet it were most absurd thence to infer that if these more eminently intrusted should either turn directly Apostates and enemies to the Christian Faith or adversaries and destroyers of the Common-wealth the people of an inferior degree might not step forward to occupy the places and assert the Interests which these wicked men had so traiterously forfaulted and deserted All which must necessarily be granted if it be but rightly considered that as Order and the Observance thereof is only a mean subordinate to and intended for the Glory of God and the good of the people so must all the Regulation and Determination thereof be only admitted in so far as it is Conducible and no wayes to render it Destructive or Repugnant to these great Ends of its appointment From all which we clearly conclude that thir words in the Covenant of Places and Callings are no more Restrictive in the cases above mentioned then a General 's command to his souldiours entering in battel being thus qualifyed doth impede the necessity of Succession in case of the vacancy of any charge either through death or desertion requisit for the obtaining of the proposed end of Victory but that they are in effect specially the antecedent and subjoined words sincerely really and constantly all the dayes of our life being considered rather Exegetick and Ampliative 8. That whatsoever Laws Covenants and Engagements were standing and binding unto us before this late fearful Apostacy and Defection they are still in the sight of God and in the Consciences of all that fear His Name and mind his Glory the rather more strong and obligeing then in the least infringed or dissolved It being impossible that such Sacred Oaths so solemnly sworn unto the most High and such Righteous Laws by vertue thereof statuted and enacted for the carrying on and establishment of the Work of God thereby intended should be Ambulatory and Mutable at the pleasure of men specially of such who without regard of God Conscience Honor or Honesty have in the very pride and power of Wickedness not only broken the Lords bands casten away His cords and violently under the pretext of abused Authority overturned his whole Work but done despite against the same both by ignominious Burning and Blaspheming of the Lords holy Covenant And this Position Rescissory we oppose unto their great Act Rescissory and to all Acts and practices of the like nature antecedent thereto or dependent thereupon Being fully perswaded that though now they appear unequally ballanced yet the Lord shall declare from heaven His Righteousness and laugh at His enemies Acts and Devises and have them all in derision 9. That though we do heartily approve their 〈◊〉 veneration and just esteem of lawfull Authority the great and excellent Ordinance of God who to prevent all prejudice that it may incur and inconvenience that may ensue thereon do so far transmit this respect to the person therewith vested as to hold for a Maxime but indeed equally against Religion Reason and Experience that the King doeth no wrong And though we are perswaded that the true rise and cause of the sin and calamity under which we lye is from the malice perjury flattery and violence of that Antichristian spirit ruling in the apostat Prelates and therefore would willingly cloath our selves even in the sight of man with that ample Allowance and full Authority whereby the King did once approve the holy Covenant and countenance the Lords Work as if the same did yet stand as it ought not retracted or repeal'd Yet seing our late Parliament by their second Act Session second have reprobated and discharged all pretences of Authority in this kind notwithstanding that the same hath been and may be most necessary in many cases for the preserving of the Kingdom salving of State-inconveniences we do therefore rather subsist on the former grounds and turn our complaint and prayer unto God who is the great King over all looking for His appearance and waiting for His salvation 10. That the Glory of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ the Defence and Maintenance of the blessed Gospel and it 's precious Ministry and Ordinances are Duties Concernments infinitly more important then the defence and preservation of our Lives Liberties and the Common-wealth against the most barbarous and horrid violences and injuries that can be imagined Like-as the violation and destruction of all these is so evidently designed and wickedly practised by this late and present Apostacy that a clearer ground and cause of Self-defence and Reformation cannot possibly be supposed so that to condescend to answer the peevish clamours of these Neutral and careless men who say what needeth all this noise for the extrinsick and arbitrary forms of Government and modes of VVorship both with and without which Religion and Righteousness have equally flourished and prospered where to shut our eyes from beholding the Glory and Grace of God that in this Land hath so visibly appeared in and been advanced by this great Ordinance of PRESBYTERY by Himself for that end appointed and also from the observing of these deludges of Profanity Wickedness Superstition and Violence which the Devill by his great engine of PRELACY hath alwayes and in all Churches caused and procured 11. That as such was the State Condition and Engagements of this Church and Kingdom at the time of the King's return and before the re-erecting of this Prelacy that all and every one of the Nation were most strictly obliged sincerely really and constantly to have resisted and opposed this wicked Defection to the last drop of their blood so the sinfull complyance of many and wofull fainting and withdrawing of others might indeed incapacitat such as remain faithful from the best but neither could nor can dis-engage them from their utmost endeavours From these grounds and what hath been formerly represented the argument of the Indictment of Treason above-mentioned viz. That all Convocations and Risings in Arms or Subjects entering in Leagues without or against the Kings Authority are treasonable But such was the late Rising and renewing of the Covenant Therefore c. May be easily and clearly answered that all such Risings and entering into Leagues as are not warranded and commanded by the Superior Law and Authority of God who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords which by our own express Acts and Statutes are acknowledged and are not founded upon the Fundamental Right and necessarily intended for the preservation of Religion and Righteousness the great and principal End of all Laws and Governments according whereunto our Laws have also by posterior Statutes been expresly interpreted are indeed treasonable But such the late Rising was not but on the contrary was more clearly approven by these grounds then
places do injoyn either patience when the clear call and dispensations of God do inevitably call unto suffering without which patience were no patience but rather stupidity or that bounty and debonairity which our Lord would have his disciples to practise in the remitting and dispensing with the utmost extensions and points of Right for the better reproving and condemning of the animosities and rigid contentions of men for matters of small or no moment and the more effectuall commending the grace and peace of the Gospel So thence to infer that men should give way to all Violence and Sacriledge to the subverting of Religion and Righteousness is after the manner of Sathan to cheat and abuse men by the holy Scriptures of Truth unto wickedness and error and grossly to exceed that signal rule mainly in these places intended to wit that we should be perfect even as our Father which is in heaven is perfect who though he filleth the earth with his goodness and extendeth his bounty unto all causing the sun to rise upon the evill and on the good yet doth he love righteousness and helpeth and delivereth the oppressed and commandeth the zeal of his own glory wherein He himself doth often eminently appear by the hand of His people to take vengeance on His adversaries Let us therefore in the consideration of what is said Rev. 13.10 he that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword both possess our souls in patience under all the former sufferings and hope and rejoice in the faith of the succeeding delivery there subjoyned These are the Defences which these Faithful men did summarily hint at and being often interrupted were scarcely permitted to propone All which being rejected as unworthy to be heard what wonder if what their Advocats did plead in their defence upon the point of Quarter given to some of them in the field was also repelled We are not to dip in matters of this kind but certainly it much discovereth the spirit of malice and violence that now prevaileth that neither the Nature and Import of Quarter which pertaineth nothing to Grace or Pardon whereof these men were declared incapable but is a paction of the Law of Nations whereby the person worsted by quitting of his arms the only and oftentimes the probable means either of his safety or vengeance doth condition for and redeem his immunity as to life Nor yet the honor of the Granters Persons Commissionated by the King for the command of his Forces with the common Priviledges and dignities belonging to such Offices Nor yet the Practice of all Nations about even in the case of Intestine War Nor the rational arguments of humanity and prudence not to reduce men to utter despair in succeeding Insurrections from which no Kingdom is priviledged Nor lastly the Paucity of these few innocents not exceeding 5 or 6 who could have been thereby benefited there being many other taken and not upon Quarter could prevail against that Pedantick distinction inter bellum justum injustum But this being alleadged to have been bellum injustum as indeed it was in the justest sense therefore no faith nor Quarter must be herein observed quia sc adversus Hostes tantum est Bellum at in Perduelles judicium as if from this one should conclude that though in War there may be faith and Quarter yet in Iudgement there ought neither to be Truth nor Performance All defences therefore being repelled these persons accused were all condemned to be hanged to death as Traitors and their Heads and right Hands to be cut off to be disposed on by the Council and their Goods and Estates to be forfaulted to the Kings use And accordingly upon several dayes this Sentence was executed upon thirty five of these faithful men and by Ordinance of Council the heads of many of them were affixed upon the Ports of several Burghs and the right hands of the first ten to the high contempt of God and His holy Covenant and to the provocation of His jealousy on the Tolbooth of Lanerk where the Covenant was by them solemnly renewed and sworn As for the other five they were and are reprived One of them who in all his Tryall to the conviction of all appeared most constant in the Covenant and bold and pertinent in his Testimony upon the colour of a fit of distraction by which he was once vexed and through the intercession of many in his behalf An other of them for his vile and abject fainting to the very reproach of humanity redeeming his life by becoming Hang-man to seven of his fellows when two ordinary Executioners in the Burghs about had plainly refused declaring they would have nothing to do with the blood of such Righteous men and one of them therefore imprisoned The other three partly because of their fainting and condescendence to take the Declaration and partly through the favour and intercession of friends We shall not nor cannot enter upon the particular declaration of that Grace Constancy and Courage by which the Lords faithful Witnesses were sustained and did bear Testimony to the Word of his Truth the holy Covenant and the Cause and Work of God Only this is certain that the Lord did not more desert that vile abject person to the weakness of flesh and blood whereby he was depressed below the very contempt of men then by His Grace and Glory evidently to manifest the power thereof He was eminently present with such as He honoured to be his Witnesses to cause them contemn and triumph over Principalities and Powers hell and death and all their terrours as may be evident from these things following 1. That the Council pitching upon those men without choise for a Test of discrimination did require several of them by taking the Declaration to renounce the Covenant which they constantly refused And so were Martyred not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection 2. That Mr Hew Mackaile a young man of 25 years of age and an Expectant in the Ministery being arraigned and accused through meer spite of the Arch-Bishop of St. Andrewes against whose Iudas-like Apostacy he had preached four years ago for no greater accession then that he had been some few dayes with these that rose with a sword having been most uncircumspectly taken leaying them because of his infirmity and weakness the day before the Conflict did not only most patiently endure cruel Torture whereby he was examined for the discovery of the contrivance of that Rising which all men knew and saw to be Indeliberat but notwithstanding the promise of favour plainly made to him upon condition of ingenuity which he sincerely used being also condemned did utterly reject all insinuations made unto him upon condition of the least Retractation and bitterly mourning for and repenting of his apparent fainting and relinquishing though it really proceeded more from his infirmity then fear or love of life but rejoycing in
insurrections of the Universe against it and are built on that rock against which the very gates of hell cannot prevail and do also know that their God whom they fear is able to deliver them from this fiery Triall and He will deliver them from their persecuters and if not that nothing save the design of greater glory to this own Name in a greater mercy and salvation to His People shall impede it but all that love the Lord's Salvation have also fair ground of hope that the Lord as he will pour out His wrath upon his adversaries so will He remember for Scotland his Covenant awake and give a shout against His enemies and that now when He seeth their wrath how they behave themselves strangely and say our hand is high and the Lord hath not done all this the Lord will bring forth for His remnant even that holy seed which shall be the substance of this Land that Deliverance which is laid up in store with Him and sealed up amongst His treasures For unto God belongeth vengeance and recompense even the vengeance of His broken Covenant of His dear Saints blood and of His polluted Sanctuary The adversaries foot shal slide in due time for the day of their calamity is at hand and the things that shall come upon them make haste For the Lord shall judge his people and repent himself for his servants when he seeth that our power is gone and there is none shut up or left And the Lord shall say see now that I even I am He and there is no God with me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand for I lift up my hand to heaven and say I live for ever if I whet my glittering sword and mine hand take hold on judgement I will render vengeance to mine enemies and will reward them that hate me I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh and that with the blood of the slain and the captives from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy Rejoyce O ye Nations with his people for He will avenge the blood of His Servants and will render vengeance to His adversaries and will be mercifull unto His Land and to His People This is the Song which God hath taught us and therewith we shut up and seal the FAITH AND PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS AND now having finished the Narration intended of the Work of God and having seen and being persuaded that all the degrees and Passages of its Progress and Advancement were the very vestiges of the Lords ascendent Power and Glory which He hath also sealed by the Salvation of many thousands for our assured confirmation that as this Work is of God so shall it not come to nought But that these Antichristian 〈◊〉 who oppose it though in the same Spirit and Power of Darkness which hath mainly caused and procured all the sin temptation and ruine that hath befallen any Gospel-Church 〈◊〉 the blessed coming of our Lord JESUS in the fleâ—h they should arise unto yea surmount the very height of the Papacy and Antichrist himself in their Persecutions Tyranny They shall nevertheless in the end be found even to fight against God and perish for ever in their gain-saying As we do therefore desire to remain stedfast immoveable and always abounding in the Work of the Lord and every point and circumstance thereof without fainting or wearying even unto the Death in and over which the Lord hath caused His faithful witnesses so gloriously to Triumph so we do only here subjoyn for the clear and unanswerable conviction and condemnation of the perfidy and wickedness of these accursed Prelates both before the World and even in their own consciences if any sense thereof do yet remain That though we had never seen any of these great and glorious things whereby the Lord since the Year 1637. did revive confirm and magnify His Work amongst us and that the National Covenant had net been since retaken much less explained and established nor the League and Covenant ensued it Yet since the same doth still stand in the plain and simple terms wherein it was conceaved and in that sense and meaning wherein both it 's express Words and all the circumstances which we have before observed do plainly evince that it was at first taken as this Covenant doth remain unto this Day notwithstanding all the Prelats wickedness perjury and violence unrepeal'd or condemned and by no contrary explanation or gloss either is or can be detorted from being an undenyable abjuration of accursed Prelacy and all it's corruptions so is it a certain fixed and immoveable foundation for all the Work of God that hath ensued and a very sure ground of confidence to all who seriously perpend and firmly adhere to it that the Lord who loved us of old and chosed our Fathers shall yet again by his mighty Spirit and Power turn the hearts of the Children unto the Fathers and bring us back unto the Lord God of our Fathers and upon this same Foundation yet repair our breaches build up the old wastes raise rear up His Glory FINIS The last SPEECHES AND TESTIMONIES Of some who have Suffered for the TRUTH IN SCOTLAND Since the Year 1660. The last Speech of the MARQUES of ARGILE At his Death in Edinburgh May 27. 1661. MANY will expect that I speak many things and according to their several opinions and dispositions so will their expectations be from me and constructions of me But I resolve to disappoint many for I come not hither to justify my self but the Lord VVho is Holy in all His wayes and Righteous in all His VVorks Holy and blessed is His Name Neither come I to condemn others I know many will expect that I will speak against the hardness of the Sentence pronounced against me But I will say nothing to it I bless the Lord I pardon all men as I desire to be pardoned of the Lord my self Let the will of the Lord be done That is all that I desire I hope that ye will have more charity to me now then yee would have had at an other time seing I speak before the Lord to whom I must give an account very shortly I know very well that my words have had but very litle weight with many And that many have mistaken my Words Actings both Many have thought me to be a great Enemy to these great works that have of late been brought to pass But do not mistake me good People I speak it in the presence of the Lord I entered not upon the Work of Reformation with any design of advantage to my self or prejudice to the King and his Government As my later Will which was written 1655. and thereafter delivered to a Friend in whose hands it still remaineth can show As for these Calumnies that have gone abroad of me I blesse God I know them to be
Adversary to reproach and blaspheme and did withall not a litle obscure and darken the beauty of severall former Actings about His blessed and glorious Work of Reformation happily begun and far advanced in these Lands wherein He was graciously pleased to Employ and by Employing to Honour me to be an Instrument though the least and unworthiest of many whereof I am not ashamed this day but account it my Glory how ever that Work be now cried down opposed laid in the dust and trod upon And my turning aside to comply with these men was the more aggravated in my person that I had so frequently and seriously made profession of my Aversness from and Abhorrence of that way and had shown much Dissatisfaction with these that had not gone so great a length for which as I seek God's mercy in Christ Jesus so I desire that all the Lord's People from my example may be more stirred up to watch and pray that they enter not into temptation 2. I do not deny on the other hand but must Testify in the second place to the Glory of His Free-grace that the Lord my God hath often shewed and engraven upon my Conscience the Testimony of His Reconciling and Reconciled Mercy through the Merits of Jesus Christ pardoning all my iniquities and assuring me that He would deliver me also by the graces of His Holy Spirit from the spait tyranny and dominion thereof And hath often drawn out my spirit to the exercise of Repentance and Faith and after engraven upon my heart in legible characters His merciful pardon and gracious begun cure thereof to be perfected thereafter to the Glory of His Name the Salvation of my Soul and Edification of His Church 3. I am pressed in conscience to leave here at my death my true honest Testimony in the sight of God and Man to and for the Nationall Covenant the Solemn League Covenant the Solemn Acknowledgement of our Sins Engagement to our duties to all the grounds Causes of Fasts and humiliations of the Lords displeasure contending with the Land And to the several Testimonies given to His Interests by Generall Assemblies Commissioners of the Kirk Presbyteries and by other honest and faithful Ministers and Professors 4. I am pressed also to encourage His Doing Suffering Witnessing People and Sympathizing ones with these that suffer that they would continue in the duties of Mourning Praying Witnessing and Symparthizing with these that suffer and humbly to assure them in the Name of the Lord our God the God of His own Word and Work of His own Cause Covenant and People that He will be Seen Found and Felt in His own gracious Way and Time by His own Means Instruments for His own Glory Honor to return to His own Truths and Interests and Servants and revive His Name His Covenant His Word His Work His Sanctuary and His Saints in these Nations even in the three Covenanted Nations which were by so Solemn Bonds Covenants Subscriptions and Oaths given away and devoted unto Himself 5. I exhort all these that have been or are Enemies or unfreinds to the Lord's Name Covenant or Cause Word Work or People in Britain and Ireland to Repent and Amend before these sad judgements that are posting fast come upon them for their sinning so highly against the Lord because of any temptation of the Time on the right or left hand by Baits or Straits whatsoever and that after so many Professions and Engagements to the contrary 6. I dare not conceal from yow that are Friendly to all the Lord's Interests that the Lord to the commendation of His Grace be it humbly spoken hath severall times in the exercise of my Repentance and Faith during my trouble and after groans and tears upon these three notable chapters to wit the 9 of Ezra the 9 of Nehemiah and the 9 of Daniel with other such sutable Scriptures and in the very nick of fervent and humble Supplication to Him for the Reviving again of His Name Cause Covenant Word and Work of Reformation in these Covenanted Nations and particularly in poor Scotland which first solemnly engaged to Him to the good Example and Encouragement of His People in the other two Nations to do the same also That the Lord I say hath several times given to me good ground of hope and lively expectations of His Mercifull Gracious Powerful and Wonderful Renewing and Reviving again of His fore-mentioned great Interests in these Covenanted Nations And that in such a Way by such Means and Instruments with such Antecedents Concurrents Consequents and Effects as shall wonderfully rejoyce His Mourning Friends and astonish His Contradicting and counter-acting Enemies 7. I do earnestly recommend my poor Wife and Children and 〈◊〉 posterity to the choicest Blessings of God anâ—â—o the Prayers and Favour of all the Lord's Children anâ— Servants in their earnest dealing with God and Men â—n their behalf That they may not be ruined for â—y Cause but for the Lord my God's sake they 〈◊〉 be favoured assisted supplyed and comforted 〈◊〉 so may be fitted by the Lord for His Fellowship and Service whom God Himself hath moved me often in their own Presence and. with their own Consent to dedicate devote and resign alike and as well as I devote and resign my own Soul and Body to Him for all Time and Eternity 8. I beg the Lord to open the eyes of all the Instruments of my Trouble that are not deadly Irreconcileable Enemies to Himself and His People that they may see the wrong done by them to His Interests and People and to Me and Mine and may repent thereof and return to the Lord and may more cordially own and adhere to all His Interests in time coming The good Lord give unto them Repentance Remission and Amendement and that is the worst wish I wish them and the best wish I can wish unto them 9. I do earnestly beg the fervent prayers of all His Praying People Servants and Instruments whether absent or present wherever they be in behalf of His Name Cause and Covenant Work and People and in behalf of my Wife Children and their Posterity And that the Lord would glorify Himself edify His Church encourage His Saints further His Work accomplish His good Word by all His Doings and Dealings in Substance and Circumstance toward all His own 10. Whereas I have heard that some of my unfreinds have slandered and defamed my Name as if I had been accessary to his late Majestie 's death and to the making of the Change of the Government thereupon the great God of Heaven be witness and Judge between Me and my Accusers in this for I am free as I shall now answer before his Tribunal from any Accession by Counsel or Contrivance or any other way to his late Majestie 's death or to their making that change of Government And I pray the Lord to preserve our present King his Majesty and to pour out His best blessings
upon his royall Posterity and to give unto them good and faithfull Counsellors holy and wise Counsels and prosperous successes to God's Glory and to the good and interest of His people and to Their own Honour and Happiness 11. I do here now submit and commit my Soul and Body Wife and Children and Childrens Children from generation to generation for ever with all others his Friends and Followers all His Doing and Suffering Witnessing and Sympathizing ones in the present and subsequent Generations unto the Lord's choice Mercies Graces Favours Services Employments Impowerments Enjoyments Improvements and Inheritments on Earth and in Heaven in Time and Eternity All which suits with all others which He hath at any time by His Spirit moved and assisted me to make and put up according to His will I leave before and upon the Father's Mercifull Bowels and the Son's Mediating Merits and the Holy Spirit 's Compassionate Groans for now and evermore Amen The Joint Testimony of these who died together in Edinburgh Dec 7. 1666. subscribed by them in prison the same day of their death Men and Brethren THis is a great and important work both for us who are now to render up our spirits to Him that gave them And for yow who are not a litle concerned in the Cause and in our blood by justifying or condemning our sentence And therefore as we speak to yow as Dying men who dare not dissemble with God or man nor flatter our selves So ye should not be idle curious or unconcerned Spectators We are condemned by men and esteemed by many as Rebels against the King whose Authority we acknowledge But this is our rejoycing the testimony of our conscience that we suffer not as Evill doers but for Righteousness for the Word of God and Testimony of Jesus Christ And particularly for our renewing the Covenant and in pursuance thereof for Preserving and Defending of our selves by Armes against the Usurpation and insupportable Tyranny of the Prelats And against the most unchristian and inhumane Oppression and Persecution that ever was enjoyned and practised by just Rulers upon Free Innocent and Peaceable Subjects The Covenant and Cause being so just in themselves and the duties of Self-preservation and mutual Defence in maintenance thereof being to Judicious and unbyassed men so clear we need to say the less for vindication of our Practice Only the Lawes establishing Prelacy and the Acts Orders and Proclamations made for Complyance therewith being executed against us by Military Force and Violence And we with others for our simple Forbearance being Fined Confined Imprisoned Exiled Scourged Stigmatized Beaten Bound as beasts and Driven unto the mountains for our lives And thereby hundreds of Families being beggared several Parishes and some whole Country-sides exceedingly impoverished And all this either Arbitrarily and without any Law or respect had to guilt or innocency Or Unjustly contrary to all Conscience Justice and Reason though under the Pretence of iniquous Laws and without regard had to the penalty specifyed in the Law And all Remonstrating of Grievances were they never so just and many and Petitions for Redress being restrained by Laws condemning all former Remonstrances and Petitions in the like cases There was no other remedy left to us but that last of necessary Self-preservation and Defence And this being one of the greatest Principles of Nature warranted by the Law or God Scriptural Instances and the consent and Practices of all Reformed Churches and Christian States abroad and of our own famous Predecessors at home It cannot in reason or Justice be reputed a Crime nor condemned as Rebellion by any humane Authority Though we be not the first that have suffered for the Cause or God within the Land yet we are among the first that have been Legally condemned and put to Death Expresly for taking the Covenant And we are so far from being ashamed thereof that we account it our honour to be reckoned worthy to suffer for such a Cause And cannot but bless the Lord that we have such a cloud of Witnesses in this and other Reformed Churches going before us in the same duty for Substance and in Suffering therefore We cannot but regret if we could with tears oâ— blood the Nationall and Authorized Backsliding of the Land by Perjury and breach of Covenant The overturning of the Work of Reformation The great Desolation of the House of the Lord by smiting of the Shepherds and scattering of the Flocks The Intrusion of so many mercenary Hirelings into the Ministry who because of Apostacy Perjury Ignorance and Profanness can neither be acknowledged as God's mouth to the People in Preaching nor employed as their mouth to Him in Prayer The abounding of Popery Superstition and Profanness by unheard-of Oaths Blasphemies Uncleannesss and Drinking even in some whose Office and Place requireth them to be more Examplary And the shedding of the Blood of the Saints by the rage of Persecution And therefore we cannot but disown all these abominable Laws Courses Practices declare our abhorrence of the same dissent therefrom Protesting before Angels and Men that we be not interpreted as consenters thereto and beseeching the Hearer of prayer that we be not involved in the guilt thereof nor partake of the plagues which follow thereupon As this Land was happy above all Nations for the purity and plenty of the Gospel and for a Form of Church Government more conform to the Patern in the Scriptures then in others of the Reformed Churches So we acknowledge His great goodness to us in speciall that gave us our lines in such pleasant places For we have such full perswasion of the Truth of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland And have felt so much of the Power and Sweetness thereof that we do here declare our firm belief and perswasion of and adherence to the same in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Nationall Covenant the Solemn League and Covenant the Confession of Faith Catechisms Directory of worship and Propositions for Government Accounting it our honor and happiness to have been born in it to have lived in Communion with it and now to die through Grace Members Witnesses and Asserters thereof And further as Christians and as Members of the same Church and Common-wealth in the Fear and zeal of our God in Love to our Brethren in desire of the Perservation of Church and Kingdom and for our own Exoneration now when we take our leave of the World We do seriously and in the bowels of Christ Supplicate Warn Exhort and Obtest yow all the Inhabitants of the Kingdom from the King to the meanest of the Subjects according to your old Principles Professions Promises Declarations Oaths and Covenants faithfully to Own Maintain preserve and Defend the said Religion And after the example of our Noble and Renowned Ancestors to quit your selves like Men Christians in endeavouring by all just Means according to your Places and Powers to shake off this heavy
yoke of PRELACY which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear which is Destructive to all our true Interests Religious and Civill As ye would not involve your selves in the guilt and plagues of Perjury and Breach of Covenant And as you tender the good of your own Names Persons Estates Families and Liberties as well as of your immortal Souls And as ye would partake of the good of God's chosen and of our joyes when ye come so near Eternity as we are We shall say no more but as we were not afraid to take our lives in our hands so we are not afraid to lay them down in this Cause And as we are not ashamed of Christ because of His cross so we would not have you offended in Christ nor discouraged because of us For we bear you record that we would not exchange lots with our Adversaries nor redeem our Lives Liberties and Fortunes at the price of Perjury and breach of Covenant And further we are assured though this be the daâ— of Iacob's trouble that yet the Lord when He hath accomplished the Triall of His own and filled up the cup of His Adversaries He will awake for judgement plead His own Cause avenge the quarrel of His Covenant make inquiry for blood vindicate His People break the arm of the wicked and establish the just For to Him belongeth judgement and vengeance And though our eyes shall not see it yet we believe that the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing under His wings that He will revive His Work repair the breaches build the old wastes and raise up the desolations Yea the Lord will judge His people repent Himself for His servants when their power is gone and there is none shut up or left And therefore Rejoyce O ye Nations with His People For He will avenge the blood of His servants and will render vengeance to His adversaries and He will be merciful to His Land and People So let thy Enemies perish O Lord but let them that love Him be as the Sun when He goeth forth in His might Sic subscribitur Iohn MeCulloch of Barholm And. Arnot Iohn Gordon of Knockbrex Robert Gordon his Brother Iohn Ross Iohn Schields Iames Hamilton Iohn Parker in Bosby Christopher Strang. Gawin Hamilton Another Testimony which was also left by such of the Former ten Persons as were in the same Chamber with Thomas Paterson Merchant in Glasgow who being in like manner Indited but dying of his Wounds before Sentence did communicate the same to his friends with his Assent thereunto MEn and Brethren being condemned by our Rulers as Traitors lest we should seem to many to suffer as evill doers In the first place we bless and praise the Lord our God who hath made us the unworthiest of all men Worthy to be faithfull to Him who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and in simplicity and godly Sincerity singly to mind his glory and who also maketh the cross of Christ though by men superscribed with Treason our sweet consolation and his own joy our strength 2. We declare in the presence of the same God before whom we are now ready to appear that we did not intend to Rebell against the King and his just Authority Whom as we acknowledg for our Lawful Soveraign so we do earnestly pray in his behalf that God would open his eyes and Convert his heart that he may remember his Vowes made unto God relieve this oppressed Kirk and long reign and flourish in righteousness 3. We declare that perceaving the Holy Covenants of our God broken the Work of the Lord overturned the Gospel and Kingdome of Jesus Christ despised and trampled upon his pure Ordinances corrupted his faithful and our soul-refreshing Ministers cast out and the Land filled with Perjury and Profanity and like to be hurried back to that gulf of Ignorance Superstition and Confusion whence the Lord did so gloriously deliver us And finding our selves not only Spoiled of our most precious blessings and most dear enjoyments but urged and compelled by cruel Violence and Barbarous Persecution to wicked Apostacy from our Holy Covenants and to Rebellion against our God And all this done by no other hand then the wicked and perjured Prelats And for no other ends whatever they may pretend then the satisfying of their own vile lusts and establishing their so often abjured Antichristian Tyranny over both Souls and Bodies of Men And lastly finding former Petitions condemned as Seditious and our private complaints when but muttered insolently rejected We did in the fear and Zeal of our God and by the warrant of his Holy Word according to the first and most Innocent instinct of pure Nature and the Practice of all People and Persons in the like case And after the Example of all the oppressed Kirks of Jesus Christ and of our Noble Ancestors take the Sword of Necessary Self-defence from the rage and fury of these wicked violent Men until we might make our heavy Grievances known to his Majesty and obtain from his Justice a satisfying remedy We will not now mention our particular Sufferings nor the sighes and groans of poor wasted Galloway which though very heavy from the hand of man are all to light for Jesus Christ Nor are we willing to reflect upon these grievous and bitter Lawes and Edicts by which they seem to be warranted Only we know that God is Righteous whose Lawes and judgments are Superior and above all the Lawes and Actions of men And to him who will judge righteously We intirly Commit our Cause which is none other then the Reviving of the Work of God and Renewing of his Covenant Which though it pleased the Holy and Wise God not to favour with Success in the field and though by men it be made our Condemnation yet it is our Righteousness Innocency and Confidence in his sight And all praise and thanks be unto our God who not only kept us stedfast in his Covenant and made us Willing and Ready to adventure our Lives for His Name but hath also accepted and dignifyed our Offer with this publick Appearance Where in his own glorious presence before whom we shall instantly appear and before our often Sworn and once Zealous and tender Brethren in the same Cause and in midst of Thee O Edinburgh once famous for the Glory and Zeal of God and of this Covenant we may give and Seal this our Testimony with our blood We therefore the unworthiest of all the Faithful do in the Spirit of God and Glory Testify and Seal with our Blood and Lives that both the National Covenant and Solemne League and Covenant are in Themselves Holy Just and True and perpetually Binding containing no other thing then our Indispensable Obligations to all Duties of Religion and Righteousness according to the revealed Will of God which no Authority nor Power of Man is or ever shall be able to disannul And that our blessed Reformations both from Popery
and Prelacy and all that was done or ensued in the sincere and upright prosecution thereof was and is the Work of God which though Men fight against yet shall they never be able to prevail And as this is our Faith so it is our Hope to all that wait for the Salvation of God that Our God will surely appear for his own Glory and vindicate his Cause and persecuted People and render vengeance to his Adversaries even the vengeance of his Holy Temple and broken Covenent O be not then moved with our Sufferings with are but Light and Momentany for they Work for us a far more execeding and Eternal weight of Glory and for you also a strong Confirmation and abounding Consolation against the like trial that possibly may befal you O then save your selves from this Wicked and Apostat Generation and be ye stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the Work and Cause of the Lord Waiting for the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ which in his Times he shall shew who only hath Immortality dwelling in the Light which no man can approach whom no man hath seen or can see to whom be honour and Power everlasting AMEN The Testimony of CAPT. ANDREW ARNOT one of the former ten who died Decem. 7. DEar Friends and Spectators I am brought by the good providence of God to this publick place of execution which is no dishonour for points of Treason as is alleadged but God knoweth who knoweth the secrets of hearts whether in Rebellion or not I cam forth He is my witness wil be my Judge And whoever they be that any way have been instrumentall or incensed against me to procure this Sentence against me God forgive them I forgive them I am not now purposed to disput the matter of my being in company with these worthy Christians who are now defeat and broken their blood shed and they despitfully mocked by many I acknowledge and declare that I was with them As to the cause of my being with them whither in Rebellion or not God knoweth and all Israel shall know And for me I say the Cause is the Lords who made the Heaven and the Earth though now it be hated And I desire to bear witness with the rest of the worthy witnesses who are gone before and are now staged to that glorious Work of Reformation in Britain and Ireland and to Gospel-Ordinances in their Purity as they have been taught and administrated these 30 Years last by past And I adhere to the Presbyterial way of Doctrin Worship Discipline and Government by General Assemblies Synods Presbyteries and Sessions according to the Patern of the holy Scriptures Jesus Christ himself being the head Corner-stone the Confession of faith Cathechismes Shorter and Larger Directory for Worship National Covenant Solemne League Covenant every Paper tending to the good of the true Religion And this I think fit to Testify Declare under my hand not knowing if I shall have any Liberty to speak intend God willing to Seal with my Blood shortly I confess that unexpectedly I am come to this place though some times I have had some small thoughts of it And I do account my self highly honoured to be reckoned amongst the witnesses of Jesus Christ to suffer for his Name Truth and Cause and this day I esteem it my Glory Garland Crown royall dignity to fill up a part of His sufferings And now I take my leave of you all my dear and worthy Friends and acquaintances The Blessings of the Eternall God be multiplied upon yow and your seed and upon all the suffering Friends of Christ this day upon my dear and loving Wife who hath been a faithful sympathizer with me and upon my dear Children The work of God is now at under but Christ shall carry the Day Blessed is he that believeth and seeth not for there shall be a performance Now the Eternall God who brought again the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead the great sheepherd of the flock strengthen and establish you and all the Lord's people So pray ye and so prayeth your Friend ANDREW ARNOT The Testimony of JOHN SHIELDS Yeoman one of the former ten who died at Edinburgh the 7 day of Decemb. 1666. I Am a man unlearned and not accustomed to speak in publick yet being now called to witness and suffer for the Lord in publick I cannot be altogether silent of that which Religion and Reason hath taught me anent the cause of my suffering I bless the Lord I suffer not as an evil doer especially not for any Rebellion against his Majesties lawful Authority I attest him who is the searcher of hearts that was never my intention in the least and it is as litle the nature and intention of what I have done But for renewing of the Covenant with the Lord and following the ends thereof as to the suppressing of abjured Prelats and Intruders upon the Lords flock and the restoring of the Government of the House of God by Presbyteries as He himself hath appointed in his Word with a faithful Godly Called and Sent Ministery And together with pure Ordinances the Power of Godliness For this I am condemned and to suffer this day This I acknowledged freely before our Judges This I still acknowledg and am persuaded that herein I witness a faithful Confession This Cause and Covenant I commend to all the Lord's People It is not free for you to forsake if You are inviolably ingaged in it It is not safe to desert it because of the Curse of the perjurer and false swearer There is unspeakable blessedness in the pursuance of it whereof I can bear witness to the Lord by my rich Experience since we began to Do and Suffer at this time for him Whereupon I cheerfully lay doun my Life for this his Cause He it is who Justifieth it what man or Authority under heaven can condemn it Arise O Lord let not man prevaill against Thee plead and Iudg this Cause which is thine own for thine own names sake The Testimony of another of the former ten Persons left subscribed with a Friend I designed no Rebellion against lawful Authority but the suppressing of Prelacy and of Profanity and advancing of Holiness in Gods World In a Word I adhere to all the Articles of the good Covenant and did intend the restoring of our good and Soul-refreshing Ministers and the casting out of the dumb greedy Dogs that cannot bark In this Cause I was a free Voluntier pressed by none thinking it my duty to appear for helping the Lord against the Mighty This I testify under my hand from the Tolbooth of Edinburgh the 6 of December 1666. The Testimony of M R ALEXANDER ROBERTSON Preacher of the Gospel and Probationer for the Ministry who died at Edinburgh Decemb. 14. 1666. FEaring that after the example of others I should not be permitted to speak openly to the People I thought fit beside my adherence to what my brethren who have
all things but loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ MY LORD for whom I now suffer the loss of all things that I may win Him and be found in Him and that I may not only know the fellowship of His sufferings but the power of His resurrection and attain unto the resurrection of the dead And as for yow my dear Friends as I pray for you that the God of all grace who hath called us unto His eternall glory by Christ Jesus after ye have suffered a while may make yow perfect stablish strengthen and settle yow so I recommend to you the same truth that you be not soon shaken in mind but that ye hold fast the profession of your faith without wavering And as you have receaved the Lord so walk in Him Warning and obtesting you by all manner of obligations and by the hope and joy of that crown which I wait for that ye keep your selves unspotted with the abominable courses and practices of these times whereunto ye may be tempted by the extremity of suffering and particularly that ye beware of unlawfull Oaths and Declarations against the Cause and Covenant of God that ye have no complyance with nor give consent unto this Prelacy which ye have abjured And that you be afraid and aware of Popery which by Connivance doth so visibly abound and dayly increase But by fighting the good fight and keeping of the faith you may finish your course as I do in the assurance of the crown of Righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge hath laid up and shall give unto me and not to me only but to all them that love His appearance ALEXANDER ROBERTSON The Testimony of JOHN NILSON of Corsack who died at Edinburgh Dec. 14. 1666. BEing made a spectacle to the World to Angels and to Men I found it necessary for vindication of the Truth of my self for undeceaving of some encouraging of others to leave this line behind me which with my innocent blood may speak when I am gone I am condemned I shall not say how unjustly as a Rebell against Man but the Lord God of Gods He knoweth all Israel shall know that it is not for Rebellion against God but for endeavouring to recover the blessed work of Reformation and particularly for endeavouring to extirpate Prelacy which hath been the cause of so much sin and suffering within this Land and for renewing of the Covenant from the obligation whereof seing I made my Vow and Promise to the Lord neither I my self nor any humane Authority can absolve me And if any account this Rebellion I do plainly confess that after the way which they call Heresy I worship the God of my fathers Although the insupportable oppression under which I and many others did groan were enough to justify our Preserving and Defending of our selves by Armes yet know that the Cause was not Ours but the Lord's for we suffered all our grievous Oppressions not for evill-doing but because we could not in conscience acknowledge comply with and obey Prelacy and submit unto the Ministery of Ignorant Light and Profane men who were irregularly and violently thurst upon us Neither did we only or mainly designe our civil Liberties but the Liberty of the Gospel the Extirpation of Prelacy the Restauration of our faithful Pastors the Suppression of Profanity Promoving of Piety the saving of ourselves from unjust violence untill we had presented our Grievances and Desires And in a word the Recovering of the once glorious but now ruined Work of Reformation in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Nationall Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant to which I declare my adherence and through grace shall seal the same with my blood My Advocate drew up a Supplication for me wherein was acknowledged that I had been with the Rebels but let none offend thereat for â— do hereby declare that I was so far from accounting that course Rebellion that I judged and still do judge it was my duty to joyn therein and my honor to suffer therefore Otherwise I should have counted my self accessary to the blood of the Lord's People which is shed And cannot but regret that others of the Lord's People when they heard of us did not come forth with speed to help the Lord against the Mighty much more let all mourn that not only many have appeared as Enemies but also conjured themselves against the Lord the same Covenant which they so solemnly sware And as for the Petition it self I knew not that expression was in it Being conscious to my self of so much weakness so many hainous sins which predomine in me of unfruitfulness under the Gospel and unsutable walking thereto I confess my self the vilest of sinners and desire to mourn for the same and pray that the Lord for Christ's sake may freely forgive me as I have forgiven them that have wronged me and hope through the righteousness of Jesus Christ to obtain the same And I do exhort all and every one of my friends to more holiness Prayer and stedfastness alwayes abounding in the Work of the Lord And above all things to detest shun that wicked Declaration against the Covenant the apparant temptation of the time and the very mark of Antichristian Prelacy All that I have is but little but if I had many Worlds I would lay them all down as now I do my life for Christ and His Cause nothing doubting but the Lord will abundantly provide for my Wife and my six Children whom I commit to the Lord's care and recommend to the Kindness and Prayers of the faithful And do lay an express charge on my Wife that she shew all my Children that I have bound them all to the Covenant for which now I lay down my life and that She lay it upon them as my last command that they adhere to every Article thereof The Work and People of God are brought very low It may be because they were not ripe for a deliverance And for the greater triall and filling up of the cup of the Adversaries Or because there was litle or less prayer then should have been amongst these who appeared at this time that the Lord hath made this late breach But dear Friends be not therefore tempted to call in question the Work of Reformation or to think the worse of Christ and His Cause because of sufferings Nor be discouraged because these few who took their lives in their hands fell before the Adversary For as sufferings are often sweetned by the Spirit of God and Glory that resteth upon the sufferers and afterward bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby So the Lord will arise in due time and have mercy upon Zion and plead the cause which is his own And this Testimony as I am this day to seal with my blood so I subscribe with my hand JOHN NILSON OF CORSACK The Testimony
of GEORGE CRAWFORD Yeoman who died at Edinburgh Decemb. 14. 1666 SEing I am to die after this manner I lay before yow this Testimony which I avow before God and leave behind me to the World That which moved me to come along with these men was their persuasion and my desire to help them which with a safe conscience I could not well refuse who being tyrannically opprest by the Prelats and their dependants and upholders and seing no other way was left to be taken took up Armes for their own defence And if this be Rebellion I leave it to the great God the supream Judge to decern For in my weak judgement I found it warrantable from the Word of God and without prejudice of the King's Authority whom I pray God to direct and guide in the right wayes of the Lord and to make him prosper therein so that he may be surely set in his Kingdom having Him whom no enemy can resist to defend him seeing there was nothing intended by us against his or any others just and lawful Authority But that which was my principall and chief design was giving my poor assistance to the rooting out of Prelats Prelacy and all such as are come into God's vine-yard without the Master's commission these Hirelings who came not in at the true door Iesus Christ but have climbed up some other way as thieves and robbers whose voice the sheep know not All which is too sadly confirmed by the dreadfull and horrid sins that are risen in the Land and the curses and plagues that have followed thereupon that so by taking away these the abuses which proceed from them and the sad consequences which follow their standing falling with them the Covenant of God might be re-established and true Pastors that were silenced might be set at liberty their mouths opened and they themselves put to the keeping of their flocks and all other such persons who were banished or any other vvay under suffering relieved And I do adhere to the vvay of Church-Government svvorn to in the Covenant vvhich I think and assert to be conform to God's Word vvhich vvith His Spirit directing is the only Patern and judge in all controversies and hovvever our endeavours at this time have not been successful it is of the Lord vvho vvill come in his own time for He can do as well with few as vvith many but it is like the cup of the Adversaries is not full And who knoweth but the Lord God of hosts vvill hiss for the bee of Egypt and the fly of Assyria vvho vvill be more cruel and blood-thirsty then vve vvere to avenge the quarrel of His ovvn People and to make vvay for the establishing of His ovvn Cause I say no more but as I vvas vvilling to hazard my life for this Cause so I am ready to lay it down at my Master's feet seing He calls for it And I pray the Almighty to send His Spirit of Consolation promised by His Son to His ovvn people to strengthen them and bear them through till the appointed time of the Lord 's coming with Deliverance for He will come for His own Cause and for His peoples sake and will not tarry The last Speech and Testimony of M R HEW M C KAILE Preacher of the Gospel and Probationer for the Ministry at his death in Edinburgh Decemb. 22. 1666. BEing by a great surprisal of Providence thus staged before the World in a matter of so universall concernment to all that fear God and desire to be stedfast in his Covenant I could not forbear to leave behind me this standing Testimony concerning the Occasion and Uses thereof for the Glory of God for the Vindication of my Profession from the aspersions cast thereon by Men and the Edification of these by my death to whom I had devoted my Life in the work of the Ministery I have esteemed the Government of this Church by Presbytery to be among the chief of the Ordinances of Jesus Christ which by his blood he hes purchased and ascended up on high to bestovv as a gift upon it as being the very Gospell-Ministery in it's Simplicity and Purity from the Inventions of Men and so the Mean by which other Ordinances are administred and the most fundamental Truths made effectual in the hearts of his People and therefore that it ought with that same carefulness to be contended for Experience both of the having and wanting of it hath given it this Epistle of Commendation so as it may be both known and read of all men Which is also true of the solemne Engagements of the Nation thereto by the Nationall Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant which I have esteemed in their Rise Renewing pregnant performances of that promise Isaiah 44.5 where it is evident that where Church Reformations come to any maturity they arrive at this degree of saying I am the Lords subscribing with the hand unto the Lord. So was it in the dayes of the Reforming Kings of Iudah and after the Restauration from the Captivity in the dayes of Nehemiah This same promise did the Lord Jesus make Yea Amen to us when he redeemed us from spirituall Babilon which is so much the greater evidence that these were the very Motions of Gods Spirit in our first Reformers that they were expressly designed against the greatest motions of the Spirit of Darkness in Antichrist and his supposts and against the greatest confirmations that ever these Abominations attained by the decrees of the Council of Trent and that bloody Bond called the Holy League And therefore whatever indignity is done unto these Covenants I do esteeme to be no less then doing despite unto the spirit of Grace in his most eminent Exerting of himself but especially Declaring against the same as flowing from a Spirit of Sedition and Rebellion to be a Sin of the same nature with theirs who ascribed Christ his casting out of Devils to Beelzebub and that with this aggravation that these Scribes and Pharisees came never the length of prefessing Christ and submiting themselves to Him and his wayes Buâ— we are condemned to death upon the account of this Covenant for adhereing to the dueties therein sworn to by such as once did as much themselves as we have done and some of them more then some of us Which considerations have moved me to great feares of Gods wrath against the Land according to the curse that we are bound under if we should break that Covenant in the fear of it many times to pour out my soul before the Lord as soon as I heard of a Party up in Armes in behalf of the Covenant all other door being shut whereby the redress of the manifest violations of it might be obtained and these by manifest unheard of violence obtruded upon others to go along with them being bound by that Covenant against detestable Indifferency and Neutrality in this matter to esteem every injury done to any ingaged in
this Covenant upon account of it as done to my self Very Conscience of duty urged me to this against some reluctancy of fear of what might follow Upon the same reasons at Lanrik with the rest I declared my adherence to the Covenant by my lifting up of my hand after the Articles thereof were read And here I cannot but with greef of heart acknowledg my fainting in a day of trial that being ingaged with them upon such accounts I many times in fear designed to withdraw and at length did which as it was the occasion of my falling into the hands of the Enemy so I think among other things it was the cause why God delivered me into their hands Upon the same fear in all my Examinations I have denied my ingagement with them and endeavoured to Vindicate my self by asserting the real designes I had to part from them and have utterly cast away the glory of a testimony which my very being in their company as a favourer of the ends of the Covenant and as one willing to contribute my best endeavours for the promoving of them but especially my declaring for the Covenant did bear unto the Truth and Ordinances of Jesus Christ against this untoward Generation This I confesse to be no less then a denying of Jesus Christ and a being ashamed of his Words before men but I hope the Lord who remembreth that we are but frail dust shall not lay it to my charg but according to his faithfulness and Grace will forgive me who by this Publick Confession take to my self shame and confusion of face and fly to the propitiation offered to all sinners in Jesus Christ And these things as they have procured this death unto me as an act of Gods Justice so they mind me of other evils in mine own heart that have been the source of this my unwillingness to take on Christ's Cross My heart hath not studied to maintaine that Spirituality in walking with God and Edifying Exemplariness with others that became one that had receaved the first fruits of the Spirit and aimed at the Ministery of the Gospel living in times of so much calamity for the Church of God and particular afflictions as to my self If I had spent my dayes in groaning after my house from Heaven would I have shifted so fair an occasion of being cloathed with it Alas that I have loved my Lord and Master Jesus Christ so litle Alas that I have done so litle service to him that I have so litle labour to follow Me to my Everlasting rest This I speak to these especially with whom I have familiarly conversed in my Pilgrimage that seing the Lord will not grant me Life to testify my real Reformation of these things my aknowledgement at Death may have influence upon them to study not only Godliness but the Power of it As I acknowledg that I have not been free and ingenuous in these particulars formentioned so in other things wherein I interponed that Holy name of God as to the not being upon the Contrivance of this riseing in Armes nor privy to any resolution thereanent nor conscious of any Intelligence at home or abroad concerning it I was most ingenuous And they have wronged me much who said that I denied upon Oath that which they were able to make out against me or knew to be truth But non alleage Perjury against me but such as are so manifestly guilty of it before the World that their tougnes in such alleagances are no slander Although I be Judged and condemned as a Rebell amongst Men Yet I hope even in order to this Action to be accepted as Loyal before God Nay there can be no greater act of Loyalty to the King as the times now go then for every man to do his utmost for the Exstirpation of that abominable plant of Prelacy which is the bane of the Throne and of the Countrey which if it be not done the Throne shall never be established in Righteousness until these wicked be removed from before it Sure I ame these who are now comdemned as Rebels against Him by them are such as have spent much time in prayer for Him and do more sincerely wish his standing and have endeavoured it more by this late action so much condemned then the Prelates by condemning them to death This Disaster hath heightened greatly the Afflictions of our Chuch and ought to teach all of you to drink the Wine of Astonishment Ye have not known tribulation till now Now we Judg them happy that are fallen asleep and removed far away and know that God hath been taking away his Servants from the Evils that were to come Know that God's designe is to make many hearts contrite that have been formerly too whole and have not lamented sufficiently the removeall of his Ordinances and Ministery and the reproach rubed upon the Work of Reformation Beware that your sorrow be not a momentany motion of commoun Compassion that evanisheth when it may be there is some intermission in this violent course of sheding innocent blood Labour to have a constant impression that may sacrifice the heart nay ye vvould live much in apprehension of approaching Judgment Certainly the Withdrawing of many from us and not contributing their help to the great work they were ingaged to as well as we the generall Riseing against us in many places of the Countrey but above all this open sheding of the blood of the Saints which involveth the land in the guiltiness of all the righteous blood shed from the foundation of the World have made Scotland fit fuell for the fire of Gods Wrath. I can say nothing concerning times to come but this All things shall work together for good to them that Love God and so this present dispensation And they shall have most comfort in this promise who are most willing that such afflictions as we are brought to be the way that God choiseth to work their good Commit wholly the management of all maters to God and make it your intire study night and day to keep your very garments clean It is hard in times of so generall Corruptions not to be defiled one way or other be free of the Sin as you would be of the Judgments which will certainly be such as will make all the Churches Know that God is the searcher of the hearts and trier of the reins Revel 2.23 and so will not be mocked by these pretences whereby men colour their going along in an evill course from the real Love that they have to a present world If naked Presence amongst them who are esteemed Rebels by men be sufficient to engage them in the Crime and Punishment for that is all the ground of my Condemnation shall not God be much more Zealous of his own glory against all who so much as seem to go along with this course of backsliding As a good Mean and encouragement to all the duties of our time labour to be rooted and grounded in
the Love of Jesus Christ This will be tender of any thing that may have the least reflexion upon him His Words or Works and will prompt the soul to Zealous appearing for Him at the greatest hazard and to as much willingness to die for Him as to Live that they may Glorify Him And for the encouragement of yow all in this matter I do declare that ever since the day of my coming into prison God hath keeped my soul free from all Amazement or fear of death that since my inditement and sentence God hath so manifested Himself at several times that he hath lifted up my soul above Prelats Principalities PowerS Death Hell to rejoice be glad in His Salvation and from my soul to account him Worthy for whom in this his Cause I should undergo the greatest shame or Paine And to assured hopes of Eternal Communion with Him in Heaven And that nothing hath more brangled my peace then shifting an open and free testimony before my Examinators to the work that I was ingaged in I do freely pardon all that have accession to my blood and wish that it be not laid to the charg of this sinful Land but that God would grant Repentance to our Rulers that they may obtaine the same reconciliation with Him whereof I myself do partake Truely I beleeve many of them if not instigated by the cruel Prelats at whose door our blood doth principally lie would have used more mitigation But that reluctancy of mind to shed blood will be so far from Vindicating of them that upon the contrary it will be a witness against them in the Day of the Lord. I heartily submit my self to Death as that which God hath appointed to all men because of Sin and to this particular way of it as deserved by my particular Sins I praise God for this Fatherly chastisement whereby he hath made me in part and will make me perfectly partaker of his Holiness I glorify Him that called me forth to suffer for His Name and Ordinances and the solemne engagements of the Land to Him and that he hath taken this way to take me away from the evill to come The Lord bless all His Poor Afflicted groaning People that are behind Hereafter I will not talk with flesh and blood nor think on the Worlds consolations Farewel all my Friends whose company hath been refreshful to me in my Pilgrimage I have done with the Light of the Sun and Moon Welcome Eternal Life Everlasting Love Everlasting Praise Everlasting Glory Praise to Him that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever Though I have not been so with Thee as I ought to have been in the House of my Pilgrimage yet thow hast made with me an Everlasting Covenant Ordered in all things and Sure And this is all my Salvation and all my desire Bless the Lord O my Soul that hath pardoned all my Iniquities in the Blood of His Son and healed all my Deseases Bless Him O all ye his Angels that excel in strength ye Ministers that do his pleasure Bless the Lord O my Soul Halelujah Edinburgh Tolbooth December 22. 1666. Sic subscribitur HEW M c KAIL. I have heard that some of the Prisoners are willing to save their lives by taking the Declaration That is by abjuring that Work and Cause for which they adventured their Lives Which if they do our blood shall bear witness against them in the great Day of God And God shall so punish some of them in this Life that they shall curse the day that ever they shifted to dy on a scaffold HEW M c KAIL. The Testimony of JOHN WODROW Merchant in Glasgow who died in Edinburgh Decemb. 22. 1666. Dear Friends I Am condemned to die I shall say little concerning men who have judged and condemned me they are to answer to God for it But I bless the Lord who hath counted me worthy to die for so good and honourable a cause And that I be not mistaken after I am gone hence I have thought fit to testify that in singleness and sincerity of heart I came into the service not constrained but from conscience of my being engaged by Covenant to God and with a full purpose to perform my vows made in that Covenant unto the Lord in the strength of Jesus Christ And that I might endeavour to restore again the precious Ordinances to their former purity power and to recover the fair Church in this Land which our blessed Lord hath purchased to Himself and bought at so dear a rate to her former Beauty which is now defaced And particularly to bring down that Antichristian Prelacy and that perjured crue of Prelats who have so perfidiously wronged the Interests of our blessed Lord and Master Jesus Christ This is the only Cause for which I undertook this service and joyned with others my dear and Covenanted brethren And that I had no intention to wrong the King's person or Authority but to seek his real good according to my duty in the Word of God and also as I sware in the same Covenant wherein I did swear against Prelacy And notwithstanding I be condemned of men as a Rebel yet I am justifyed of God my God and Father in and through my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who giveth me sweet peace of conscience and joy of heart I grant it is not enough to justify me before Him that I had a just Cause unless likewise I had therewith the acceptation of my person through Faith in the Merits of Jesus Christ who standeth in our nature in heaven which I dare declare this day as a dying man that I have obtained for I am confident that through His righteousness made over unto me He hath made me free in which I shall stand for ever and that within a few hours I shall see Him in peace as I am seen of Him and behold and wonder and wonder and behold for evermore that most glorious excellency of His. And this yeeldeth to me great consolation in all my extremities were they never so great This I say is my peace and consolation this day even Christ my Righteousness who hath both accepted my Person and Cause Therefore I count it a small thing to be judged and condemned of men for my Testimony is on high and my record in heaven And now my Friends I am condemned to die for adhering to my Covenant made with God for Reformation of Religion and Conversation to which all ranks of the Land are as well bound as I though many alas too many shaking off all fear of God have despised the Oath not only by breaking the Covenant but by professing and declaring avowedly the bond thereof null and not binding either to their own or other mens consciences And this mischief is framed by a Law which doth greatly highten the Sin O! tell it not in Oath and publish it not in Askelon Oh! that this should be heard of amongst Papists and Pagans
that professed Reformed Protestants should stand in so litle aw of a solemn Oath and Name of the great and living God But I exhort and obtest you all that so much the more as others have made void His Covenant you would esteem it the more precious and closely follow the Reformation vowed in every Article thereof upon all occasions given you of the Lord And that you abhor detest and refuse any engagement whatsoever that may wrong your Oath in the Covenant directly or indirectly as ye would escape the wrath of God that is coming on such breaking of Covenant but rather choise the greatest extremity of affliction then the least sin of this sort as Moses did who refused to be called the Son of Pharaoh's Daughter but chused rather to suffer reproach for Christ And be not afraid of suffering for Christ as though it were an evill thing neither scar ye at His cross for the Lord Himself saith My yoke is easy and My burthen light Yea it is lighter to us then to many that stand by Believe Faith maketh all burthens light to the believing Sufferer And now I beseech you believers in Christ abide in Him and bring forth fruit unto Holiness and study tenderness in all manner of conversation and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord And let not this profane and mocking Generation have any thing to reproach you with but that whereof you would not be ashamed that when you suffer ye may not suffer as evill doers that whereas they speak evill of you they may be ashamed that falsly accuse your good conversation in Christ It is not knowledge nor a bare Profession that glorifieth God but Tenderness Holiness and Righteousness that do commend Religion and His Cause to all men and shall convince your Adversaries of their Wickedness in wronging you and make them the more inexcusable in that day when they shall be judged Yea what know ye but ye may win others by your tender and good conversation I recommend to you that ye would be much and fervent in the use of that precious duty of Prayer wherein most near Communion with God upon earth is to be found Be much in prayer with and for others Forsake not the assembling of your selves together as the manner of some is I wish they may see the evill of it who neglect it but exhort one another and so much the more as ye see the day approaching Earnestness and diligence will hasten the Lord's coming with relief unto you and to the Lords born-down Work and your slackness in this may make the wheels of His chariot to move the more slowly For the effectuall fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much with God It will do more then Armies of men and weapons of War for your defence and deliverance I beseech you also my dear Friends that you acquaint yourselves with the Word of God in the Holy Scripture that ye may have acquaintance with Jesus Christ who is clearly set forth therein that ye may know Him in His excellency and come to love and believe in Him whom ye know that ye may be acquainted with His revealed will therein and may know what is truth and cleave fast thereto from a sure persuasion that it hath the warrant of His Word and may be guarded against every error of the wicked and that ye may fully know what is good and what is evill And that ye may suffer with confidence when ye are brought forth thereto as I am Finally my dear Friends be ye perfect be of good comfort be of one minde live in peace and the God of love and peace shall be with you JOHN WODROW The Copy of JOHN WODROW His Letter to His Wife dated Decemb 22. 1666. which was the Day on which He suffered My Heart REverence the good Providence of the Lord our God who can do nothing wrong For whatsoever He doth is well-done and my Soul faith Amen I had not a will of my own my Heart since that day wherein Yow and I parted My Lord and my God captivated it brought it to a submission unto His will I bless Him for evermore for it that I was never left to my own will Praise O praise Him all ye living And O thou my soul praise the Lord for it I bless the Lord for evermore that ever He visited my Fathers Family that ever He condescended to come unto my Fathers Family and to give a visit to the like of me He visited me there and set his Love upon me and hath chosen me for this very end to be a witness for his covenanted Reformation For this my Soul is glad and my Glory rejoyceth for this Honour wherewith He hath honoured me And that though I be condemned to die by men on earth yet am I justifyed of God through the blood of my Saviour Jesus Christ who standeth in our nature in Heaven and hath made me free through his imputed Righteousness made over unto me in which I stand for ever And within a few hours I shall see Him in peace as I am seen of Him and behold and wonder and wonder behold for evermore even that most glorious excellency which is in Him All that which is spoken of Him is but litle O my Heart my dear Love come and see I beseech yow I thought I had known something of my dearest Lord before that I had some love from and to Him before But never was it so with me as it hath been with me since I came within the doors of this Prison many a precious visit hath his gracious Majesty given unto me He is without all comparison O love love Him 0 come to Him O taste and see and that shall resolve the question best The thing I suffer for is the Covenanted Reformation I bless God and all that is within me doth bless and magnify His Holy Name for this tnat Scotland did ever enter into a Covenant with the Lord into a sworn Covenant with the hand lifted up to the Lord And I have now sworn and renued this Covenant again for my self you and my four Children in all the parts and points thereof And I pray God help you to abide in the Covenant for ever And now I give you and my four Children unto the Lord and commit you ro Him as your Covenanted God and Husband my Childrens Covenanted Father I say no more but either study to be indeed a sincere Christian a seeker of His face in sincerity or else you will be nothing at all I recommend you and your young-ones to Him who is God All-sufficient and aboundeth in Mercy and Love to them that Love Him and keep his Covenant The blessing of the Covenant be upon you so fare you well So saith Your loving and dying Husband JOHN WODROW The Testimony of RALPH SHIELDS An English-man who died in Edinburgh Decemb. 22. 1666. My Friends I Am come here to die and I thank God it
is not for evill doing that I now suffer although I be charged with Rebellion against the Kings Authority yet 1 declare before God and you all that in all this matter I never intended to wrong his Majestie 's just Power and greatness but for conscience sake did respect Authority as the Ordinance of God appointed for the punishment of evill doers and that I wish his Ma all welfare both in this life and the world to come and that it may be his happiness to consider his Obligations to God and Perform the same that so it may be well with him and his Posterity to many generations and I pray God make him a friend to His Cause and the truly Godly who own the same though falsly called Phanaticks or turbulent persons I declare I have such persuasion of the Interest of Religion Reformed and sworn unto in the Covenant that I dare venture not only to lay down my own life but if every hair of my head were a man they should all be put to venture for this cause I would not have the world to stumble at the Cause because of my death after this manner for I rejoyce greatly in it and I desire every good Christian as they tender their own souls that they would grip fast lay hold on and cleave to Jesus Christ and His way My coming out at this time I say was not against his Majesty but for the Covenant which is now troden under foot my intention was for the Cause of Christ I take God to witness it was nothing else I came out for and for that I am free to lay down my life I bless God I am much encouraged in this and not at all afraid to die for so good and clear a Cause and I hope He will bring me thorow all my difficulties in this dark shadow of death I hope I have the peace of a good conscience and have had some glimpses from Jesus Christ of His countenance and reconciled Face since I came into this prison for which I desire to bless His Name with all my soul heart and spirit And I rejoyce that He hes made use of me to suffer for His Cause And I think it too litle not only to lay down my body but if it were possible even my very soul at the stake for that Cause and for Jesus Christ my good and kind Master who hath loved me and given Himself for me I give the Lord thanks that I had some of His Presence since I came into this condition and again I say I am much encouraged and not afraid to die and bless Him that I die not as a murtherer or evill door or Rebel to Authority but for such a cause as this O that it were the happiness of my Nation of England once to subiect themselves unto the sweet yoke of Christs Reformed Government under which this Nation of Scotland hath enjoyed so much of the Power and life of the Gospel by a faithful Ministry according to the Covenant sworn by them both And now my dear Friends in Christ and fellow-Covenanters though I be a stranger in this Land being an English-man but trifted by providence in the prosecution of my calling to have my residence for a time here in Scotland which I look upon as a singulare evidence of God's special love to me though I be a stranger I say to many of you yet I must be bold as a dying friend to beseech you by the mercy of God and by your appearance before Jesus Christ when we shall have to do with none but Him as our Judge that ye be faithfull and stedfast in the Cause of God and Covenant which ye have sworn with hands lifted up to the most high God which no Power on earth can loose you from and that ye keep you from snares unto the contrary and not suffer your selves to fall into a detestable Neutrality and Indifferency in that Cause of God And especially that ye keep your selves free of any Engagements by word or write that may wrong your Oath of the Covenant I commit my Wife and Children to His care who careth for them that put their trust in Him before the Sons of men not doubting but they shall be eyed with goodwil and favor by the Godly after I am gone And now I render up my Spirit to Him who gave it me and for whose sake I now lay down my life To this God my Covenanted God be glory blessing and praise for now and ever Amen That this is my mind and Testimony which I leave behind me I witness by my ordinary subscription R. SHIELDS The Testimony of HUMPREY COLHOUNE At his Death in Edinburgh Decemb 22. 1666. Dear Friends and Spectators I am come here this Day to this Place to die this Death for crimes for which I thank God my Conscience doth not condemn me My crime as is alleaged is for Disloyalty against the King's Majesty Yet I thank God that my appearing lately with the Lord's People was from my sense of my obligation in the Covenant and the sense of the wrongs done in the Land and the crying oppressions committed therein This was the end of my appearing for the Lord against His enemies to bear witness against the same The which obligation of the Oath of God I judge that none on earth can loose the Conscience from I bless the Lord again and again I die for this Oath and Covenant And I thank God also that I have by the great mercy of the Almighty God in Christ Jesus obtained mercy and forgiveness for all my transgressions both against the first and second Table of the Law And that through that Ocean of grace which is in the Lord Jesus Christ I believe that I am justified and sanctified and believe now to be glorified with Him by that blessed blood of His which hath purchased this Salvation to me through faith in the same made application of according to the good Covenant of grace He hath performed this out of his vvonderfull and incomparable free-grace And this is my joy and exceeding great rejoycing and consolation and all my salvation for vvhich I am Grace's debtor throughout all Eternity I die vvith this my Testimony my adherence to the National Covenant to the Solemn League and Covenant to the Work of Reformation a great length carried on and now overthrown most sinfully by ungodly Men vvho have established their Apostacy by Law which no just Power on earth could ever do Also I adhere to the Presbyterial Government the Confession of Faith Cathechisms Larger and Shorter And to the Solemn Acknovvledgement of the Church of Scotland And Publick Testimonies thereof against the sins of the time This day I rejoyce that He hath counted me vvorthy to lay dovvn my life for Him as one that beareth vvitness against the breach of all the Sacred Oaths and Ties that were established in this Land yea by the just Laws both of God and Man which never could
have been repealed lawfully as this wicked Generation hath done Dear Friends I hope ye will stand fast in this Obligation and in the Solemn Oaths and Ties ye are under and all the body of the Land also will be stedfast in the same upon the greatest hazard ye can meet with And that ye will study perfect holiness and nearness with God which will help to keep you straight in this day of Persecution and sharp Triall that is now raging in this Land I bless the Lord I die not a fool though some men have thought so of me by their speeches to me since my imprisonment neither durst I ever be the man to buy my liberty at such a dear rate as Perjury and to shake off these blessed bonds I did vvillingly come under And I thank God I never yet to this moment rued or repented it And sure I am it is better for me to suffer the vvorst of deaths then to preserve my life by breaking the Oaths of God I also give my Testimony against Prelacy and that vvicked Hierarchy novv established in this Land as that vvhich the Church of Christ could never bear until this day it being such a grand Enemy to the purity of the Gospel and povver of Godliness yea a yoke vvhich the Church of God groaneth under I have no more to say but commends all you the lovers of our Lord Jesus Christ to God Himself and to the good vvord of His grace vvhich is able to build you up untill the day of His appearance and to give you all an inheritance with them that are sanctified through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ And subscribes my self an expectant and apparent heir of the grace of Christ HUMPREY COLHOUN The Testimony of JOHN WILSON Who suffered at Edinburgh Decemb. 22. 1666. Good People and Spectators I Am here condemned to die upon alleaged Rebellion against the King and his Authority which God knoweth I never intended For in my judgement a man's endeavouring to extirpate perjured Prelates and abjured Prelacy according as he is bound by Oath in a sworn Covenant may very well stand with a man's Loyalty to King and Countrey for I am sure the King and his Subjects may be happy yea more happy in the extirpation of Prelates and Prelacy then in their standing Yea the Throne shall never be established in peace until that wicked plant be plucked up by the roots which hath so much wasted and made desolate the Lord's Vineyard For my part I pray that the Lord may bless our King with blessings from Heaven and make him a friend to the Interests of Christ as the best way for the standing of his Throne to many generations And I pray for all that are in Authority under his Majesty that the Lord may not lay to their charge the innocent blood of His Saints which they have shed But the ground of my sentence is truly the renewing of the Covenant with my God and labouring to defend the same according to my Oath And this I profess is and was my duty and by the grace of God will not quite it And in token hereof I am here before you all to lay down my life in defence of the same and require you all to be witnesses to this my Testimony I do declare I am not ashamed but count it my glory I do likewise declare this before you all in the sight of God the Judge of all hearts that since the day I did first swear and subscribe this Covenant for Reformation it hath been sweet unto me for I am persuaded in my Conscience of the warrantableness thereof I did swear the Covenant four times and the last time at Lanerk which was the sweetest time to me of them all For with my whole soul I renewed it and gave up both my soul and body to Him to be at His disposal which I trust in God I shall never rue Hearty praise and thanks be to the blessed God that ever it pleased Him to give unto this poor Church that mercy to enter in Covenant with Himself that He might be unto us a Covenanted God the richest mercy that can be bestowed on men I have lived a Presbyterian in my judgement according as I have sworn and judge it to be the only way that God hath appointed in His word for the Government of His Church on earth for under that Government the power and practice of Religion hath greatly flourished and many a soul hes been converted to the Lord and found sweet fellowship with Him in His Ordinances by the Ministry of His honest and and lawfully called Servants And blessed be the day that ever I heard a faithfull sent Minister preach the Gospell I do declare before heaven and earth that my whole designe in this Rising in Armes was only against abjured Prelacy and Prelaetes the great Oppressors of God's Interests and cruell persecuters of His People both in their consciences and bodies and I judge their Government and why not to be conforme to the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures I might cite many Scriptures to this purpose but I shall only name two Luke 22.26 but ye shall not be so but he that is greatest among you let him be as the yonger and be that is chief as he that doth serve And 1 Pet. 5.3 neither as being Lords over God's heritage c. Yea it may be seen from sad experience that under their Government the power of Godliness hath decayed and avowed profanity and Popery it self hath increased both to the dishonor of the holy Lord and the great grief of the hearts of the Godly I am so persuaded of tne truth of the Covenant and of the error of their way and that Jesus Christ is the only King and Lord over His own House and besides Him there is none else for He will not give His glory to another I am so persuaded of these things that I dare seal the truth thereof with my blood and am come hither for the same end without any fear or amazement yea if every hair of mine head were a man I would have ventured all according to the Covenant which I made with my God And although I be a poor polluted sinner and my house not so with God as it became yet hath He made with me an everlasting Covenant well ordered in all things and sure and this is all my Salvation and all my desire And I hope the Lord will soon tread down all His enemies with shame and the enemies of His Covenant also Therefore let all that love the Lord Jesus Christ and His Truth and Covenant take comfort and courage notwithstanding of all that which is come to pass And let them not be ashamed to adhere thereunto whatsoever sufferings they meet with therein for He will make up that loss in Himself and avenge the wrongs done to Himself them in His own due time I assure you Christ is a good Master to serve if ye
knew Him rightly His cross it is sweet easy to the believer for He maketh death to be life and bringeth light out of darkness I desire to follow the blessed Captain of my salvation through well and wo. I beseech you my dear Friends whom now I am to part with that ye stand to the defence of all the truths of God and of His Word that ye receive the Lord Christ as He hath offered Himself therein ye who have not closed with Him And that he who hath closed with Him abide in Him by a lively faith and love bringing forth fruits that you may put credit on your profession and keep off every thing that may shame your glorious and blessed Master before this evill and adulterous generation And I give you all warning and deâ—ort you heartily as ye love your own souls and as ye will answer to Him who shall judge the quick and dead that ye stand fast in all the duties ye are sworn unto in the National and in the Solemn League and Covenant both towards God your King and one another And that ye beware of snares in taking of any Oaths or Declarations contrary in the least to the Oath of God in these Covenants I leave my wife and little children upon Jesus Christ my Lord who are now to be made a widow and fatherless for His sake trusting He will care for them And I recommend them to the counsell and kindness of His people under Him I can forgive the wrong done to me in taking away my life for this Cause and wish God to be merciful to these that have condemned me or have had any hand in my death But blessed be God that brought and hath kept me on His side of this Cause and honoured me to be a publick witness for Him and His blessed Truth and Cause for which I shall praise Him in the World to come whether I now go yea I will praise Him on the borders of Death Eternity To His blessed Name Father Son and Holy Ghost be praise for now and ever So saith your dying friend for Christ JOHN WILSON A true Relation of the Sufferings and Death of M R HEW M c KAIL. Preacher of the Gospel M R Hew M c Kail having passed and improven the vertuous means of his Education at the University of Edinburgh and with his Uncle Mr Hew Mc Kail Minister there in whose family he did reside to the satisfaction and good hope of all in the Winter 1661. upon the very turne of this sad Catastrophe offers himself to Tryall being 20 years old before the Presbytery of Edinburgh in order to the work of the Ministery and being by them amply approven and licensed and having preached at several times with the great benefit and applause of all his hearers he did preach his last publick Sermon in Edinburgh in the Great Church thereof upon the Sabbath immediatly preceeding that 8 of September 1662. the day affixed by the then Parliament for the removal of the Ministers of Edinburgh His text was Song 1.7 In this Sermon taking occasion to speak of the great and many persecutions to which the Church of God hath been and is obnoxious and amplifying the Point from the Persons and Powers who have been instrumental therein he said that the Church and People of God had been persecuted both by a Pharaoh upon the Throne a Haman in the State and a Iudas in the Church and falling to inlarge the several wayes and manner of the Persecutions of these men the issue thereof the cases of Haman and Iudas appeared in the conviction of his Adversaries to have such a near resemblance to the state and condition of the then Rulers of State and Church that though he did make no Application yet he was reputed to be guilty thereof Whereupon within a few dayes thereafter there was a Party of Horsemen sent to the Place where he then lived near to Edinburgh for to seise his Person and make him Prisoner But upon almost no more then a moments advertisement he escapes out of his bed and shifting only to another chamber was miraculously preserved from the Search then used though most diligent and accurate For this cause he being necessitated to leave that Place retired home-ward to his Fathers house where having lurked a while and thereafter as occasions call'd him spent the four years that have since interveen'd in several places and with much uncertainty Yet during all this space to the certain knowledge and sweet remembrance of all that conversed with him he was most seriously exercised in the Study of Piety and true Knowledge wherein as he greatly advanced above all his equalls so at length he became most eminent and exemplary While he is thus living and employed at his Fathers house the late Troubles arising in the West fall out and the newes thereof having alarmed him with the rest of that Countrey upon the 18. of Nov. last being the Sabbath for such motives and upon such considerations as he himself doth fully afterward declare he joined himself to those who rose in these parts for the assisting of that poor afflicted Party as in their consciences by their Covenant they thought themselves indispensably obliged When and where he joined with them or what was his part or endeavours amongst them needs not to be remembered Only this is certain that being of a thin body and tender constitution he was so disabled and weakened with the toil and fatigue of continual marching and tempestuous weather particularly at Air where he lay a considerable time as if he had been dead by reason of fainting that he could no longer endure it Whereupon on Tuesday Novemb. 27. he was necessitated to part from them in the morning near to the New Bridge upon Cramond water And in his way towards Libberton Parish about twelve of the clock passing through Bread's Craigs he was taken without resistance having only a small ordinary sword by such of the Countreymen as were then sent out to view the fields in which passage it is very observable that his escape formerly mentioned was not more miraculous then his present taking was fatal for it is without question had he but retained and observed the least of that advertency and caution wherein at other times he was known to be both ready very happy he might without either hazard or trouble have escaped this inconvenience but God who gave him the full experience of his turning all things unto the good of them that love Him did thus by his simplicity and folly prepare the way for His own Glory and His servants joy and Victory Being brought to Edinburgh and first to the Towns Council-house in their search for letters he was immediatly stript and there being none found committed prisoner to the Tolbuith Upon the Wedensday being the 28 of November by order from the Secret Council he was brought before the Earle of Dumfreis Lord Sinclar Sir Robert Manray
of all his hearers As 1. he inquired How should he going from the Tolbooth through a multitude of gazing People and guards of Souldiers to a Scaffold and Gibbet overcome the impression of al these To which he answered By conceaving a deeper impression of a multitude of Angels who are also on-lookers According to that we are a gazing-stock to the VVorld Angels and Men For the Angels rejoycing at our good confession are present to convey and carry our souls as the soul of Lazarus unto Abraham's bosom Not to receave them for that is Iesus Christ's work alone who will welcome them to Heaven Himself with the songs of Angels and blessed Spirits But the Angels are ministring Spirits always ready to serve and strengthen all dying believers 2. As Stephen saw the Heavens opened and Iesus standing on the right hand of God VVho then said Lord Iesus receave my Spirit so said he do I believe that Iesus Christ is also ready to receave the souls of his dying sufferers 2. He enquired VVhat is the way for us to conceave of Heaven who are hasting unto it seing the Word saith Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him Whereunto he answered that the Scripture helps us two wayes to conceave of heaven The first is by way of similitudes as in that Rev. 21. where heaven is held forth by the representation of a glorious City there described but in the same place it is also termed the Bride but O how unlike are these two a Bride and a City which doth clearly evidence the insufficiency and vast disproportion of all such similitudes and therefore he addeth the Scripture furnisheth yet a more excellent way to conceave of heaven and that is 1. by conceiving the love of Christ to us even what is the breadth and length and depth and hight and the immenseness of that love of Christ which passeth knowledge which is also the highest and sweetest motive of praise unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and hath made us Kings and Priests unto God and His Father to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever Amen 2. By holding forth the love of the Saints to Jesus Christ and teaching of us to love him in sincerity which is the very joy and exultation of heaven Rev. 5.12 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receave power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing And no other thing then the soul breathing forth love to Jesus Christ can rightly apprehend the joyes of heaven The last words which he spoke at supper were in the commendation of Love above knowledge saying O but notions of Knowledge without Love are of small worth evanishing in nothing and very dangerous After supper his father having given thanks he read the 16 Psalm and his first words thereafter were If there were any thing in the World sadly and unwillingly to be left it were the reading of the Scriptures I said I shall not see the Lord even the Lord in the land of the living but this needs not make us sad for where we go the Lamb is the book of Scripture and the light of that City and there is life even the river of the water of life and living springs To this he added many excellent observations and making mention of the 23 v. of the 31 Psal O love the Lord all ye his saints he added that where love was it was so operative that it made flesh spirit and where it was not there spirit was made flesh thereafter he sung a part of the same Psalm Supper being ended he cals smilingly for a pen saying it was to write his Testament wherein he only ordered some few books which he had to be redelivered to several persons He went to bed a litle after eleven of the clock and having slept wel till 5 in the morning he arose and called to his Camerade Iohn Wodrow saying pleasantly up Iohn for you are too long in bed you and I look not like men going this day to be hanged seeing we lye so long Thereafter he said to him in the words of Isaiah ch 42. v. 24. Who gave Iacob for a spoil and Israel to the robbers did not the Lord he against whom we have sinned for they would not walk in his ways neither were they obedient unto His Law c. and I think Iohn said he I have not known it nor do I lay it to heart as it is't said in the end of the 25 verse But John said he for all this be not affraid but read the 43. ch v. 1.2 for all will go well with us Iohn said to him you and I will be chambered shortly in heaven beside Mr Robertson He answered I fear Iohn you bar me out because you was more free before the Council then I was but I shall be as free as any of you upon the Scaffold Before break-fast he said he had got a clear ray of the Majesty of the Lord after his awaking but it was a litle again over-clouded Thereafter he prayed and attested the Lord that he had devoted himself to the service of God in the Ministry of the Lord Jesus and the edification of souls very early adding albeit I have not been so with my God yet thow hast made vvith me an Everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure this is all my desire joy and salvation albeit thovv make me not a house to grovv Novv Lord vve come to thy throne a place vve have not been accquainted vvith earthly King's thrones have dvocats against poor men but thy Throne hath Jesus an Advocate for us Our supplication this day is not to be free of death nor of pain in death but that vve may vvitness before many vvitnesses a good confession His Father coming to him that morning to bid him â—arewel his last words to him were after prayer and a litle discourse that his suffering vvould do more hurt to the Prelates and be more edifying to God's people then if he vvere to continue in the Ministry for tvventy years And then he desired his Father to leave him else he would but trouble him I desire it of you said he As the best and last service you can do me to go to your chamber and pray earnestly to to the Lord to be vvith me on that Scaffold for how to carry there is my care even that I may be strengthened to endure to the end About tvvo of the clock in the Afternoon he vvas carried to the Scaffold vvith other five that suffered vvith him vvhere he appeared to the conviction of all that formerly knevv him vvith a fairer better and more stayed countenance then ever they had before observed Being come to the foot of the Ladder he directed his speech North-vvard to the multitude And premising That as his Years in the
VVorld had been but fevv so his VVords at that time should not be many He spoke to the People the speech and Testimony vvhich he had before vvritten and subscribed Having done speaking to the People who heard him with great attention he sung a part of the 31 Psal and then prayed with such povver and fervency as forced many to vveep bitterly Having ended he gives his cloak and hat from him And vvhen he turnned himself and took hold of the Ladder to go up he said vvith an audible voice I care no more to go up this Ladder and over it then if I were going home to my Fathers House And as he went up hearing a great noise amongst the People he called dovvn to his fellovv-sufferers saying Friends and Fellow-sufferers be not affraid every step of this Ladder is a degree nearer Heaven Then having seated himself thereon he said I do partly believe that the Nobles Counsellors and Rulers of the Land would have used some mitigation of this punishment had they not been instigated by the Prelates so our blood lyes principally at the Prelats door But this is my comfort now that I know my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth and though after my skin worms destroy this Body yet in my flesh shall I see God vvhom I shall see for my self and mine Eyes shall behold pointing to his eyes and not another though my reins be consumed in me And novv I do vvillingly lay dovvn my life for the Truth and Cause of God the Covenants and VVork of Reformation vvhich vvere once counted the Glory of this Nation And it is for endeavouring to defend this and to extirpate that bitter root of Prelacy that I embrace this rope the Executioner putting the rope about his ncek Then hearing the People weep he said Your vvork is not to vveep but to pray that vve may be honourably born through and blessed be the Lord that supports me Novv as I have been beholden to the prayers and kindness of many since my imprisonment and sentence So I hope you vvill not be vvanting to me novv in this last step of my journey that I may vvitness a good Confession And that you may knovv the ground of my encouragement in this VVork and vvhat my hope is I vvill read to you the last Chapter of the Bible And having read it he said Here you see the Glory that is to be revealed upon me a pure river of vvater of life and so forth read the place vvhere the Throne of God is and the Lamb is in it vvhere his Servants serve Him and see His face and His Name is in their foreheads and the Lord God giveth them light and they shall reign for ever and ever and here you see my access to my Glory and revvard Let him that is a thirst come and vvhosoever vvill let him take of the vvater of life freely And here you see also my vvelcome the Spirit and the Bride say Come Then he said I have one vvord more to say to my Friends looking dovvn to the Scaffold vvhere are you You need neither lament me nor be ashamed of me in this condition for I may make use of that expression of Christs I go to your Father and my Father to your God and my God to your King and my King to the blessed Apostles and Martyrs and to the City of the Living God the heavenly Ierusalem to an innumerable company of Angels to the General Assembly and Church of the First-born and to God the Iudge of all and to the Spirits of just men made perfect and to Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant And so I bid you all farevvell For God vvill be more comfortable to you then I could be And he vvill also novv be more refreshing to me then you can be farevvel farevvel in the Lord. Then the Napkin being put on his face he prayed a space vvithin himself after vvhich he put up the cloath from his face vvith his ovvn hand and said he had one vvord more to say and that vvas to shevv them the comfort he had in his Death saying I hope you perceaved no alteration or discouragement in my countenance and carriage and as it may be your vvonder so I profess it is a vvonder to my self and I vvill tell yovv the reason of it Besides the justness of my Cause this is my comfort vvhich vvas said of Lazarus vvhen he dyed that the Angels did carry his soul into Abraham's Bosom so that as there is a great solemnity here of a confluence of People a Scaffold a Gallovvs and People looking out at vvindovvs so is there greater more solemn preparation in Heaven of Angels to carry my soul to Christ's bosom Again this is my comfort that it is to come in Christ's hands and He vvill present it blameless and faultless to the Father and then shall I be ever vvith the Lord. And novv I leave of to speak any more to creatures and turn my speech to thee O Lord and novv I begin my entercourse vvith God vvhich shall never be broken off Farewel Father and Mother Friends and Relations Farevvel the VVorld and all Delights Farevvell meat and drink Farevvel Sun Moon and Stars VVelcome God and Father VVelcome svveet Lord Iesus the Mediator of the nevv Covenant VVelcome blessed Spirit of Grace and God of all consolation VVelcome Glory VVelcome Eternal Life VVelcome Death Then he desired the Executioner not to turn him over untill he should put over his ovvn shoulders himself vvhich after praying a little vvithin himself he did saying O Lord into thy hands I commit my Spirit for thou hast redeemed my Soul Lord God of truth Thus in the 26 Year of his age he died as he lived in the Lord. FINIS Some Instances of the Sufferings of Galloway and Ntthisdale BEcause in the former Deduction mention is made of a Paper containing some of the Sufferings of Galloway and Nithisdale it is not inconvenient for more Particular Information to subjoyn a few instances out of the same Paper And first at three several inroads which the Souldiers have made into that Countrey in the Years 1663 1665 and 1666. they exacted from the People there for adhereing to their old faithful Ministers and not submitting to the Ministry of those whom the Prelates violently obtruded upon them the Summes of Money underwritten viz. Â Lib. S. d. From 49 Families in the Parish of Carsphairn 4864 17 0 From 43 Families in the Parish of Dalray 9577 16 8 From 49 Families in Balmaclelland 6430 10 0 From 9 Families in Balmacghie 425 11 8 From 2 or 3 Families in Tungland 166 12 0 From some poor Persons in Tuynham 81 4 0 From 20 Families in Borg 2026 17 4 From 9 poor Families in Girton 525 10 4 From some poor Families in Anwith 733 6 4 From 34 inconsiderable Families in Kirkpatrick-Durham 2235 6 0 From some few Fam. in Kirkmabrek
the uttermost for the advancement of his own Kingdom doth quickly take advantage of for setting on work and promoving of that Mystery of iniquity Which springing up in that bitter root of Pride and working in the Spiritual power and subtilty thereof as it began to work very early in the Christian Church even amongst the Disciples themselves in presence of their and our Lord as appeareth by their contention who should be greatest And notwithstanding all the Grace Power and Presence of the Lord which appeared in the times that followed all the long violent persecution wherewith the Church of God was then exercised yet continuing it's motion did still advance until attaining it's maturity in the revelation of the Man of Sin it filled and overwhelmed the Christian World with these strong delusions of Superstition Idolatry and all darkness that so long prevailed therein So it is the main and only Engine whereby Sathan as in all other Churches so in this of Our's hath so actively bestired himself and attempted the overthrow of their later Reformations These are the causes why notwithstanding of that great and glorious Light which the Lord made to shine amongst us the true Government and Discipline of the Church of Christ though his own great Ordinance instituted both for Fencing and securing of Truth in Purity and for promoving of the same in Power and though by the Light of that same Truth clearly discovered and Manifested through long opposition and many difficulties did scarce in these dayes attain it's establishment Yet the Lord who of his own free Mercy and Grace did visit us with the day-spring of his blessed Gospel from on high did also by his own Power and Presence in and with his faithful Servants at length also compleat his work and establish his Kingdome over us and his Government amongst us And so the Kingdome became the Lord's even the first fruits of the Kingdomes of the Earth unto our Lord Jesus Christ The Progress and Period of this work was from the Year 1560. unto the Year 1592. dureing which space these things are very observable 1. So soon as this Church attained to freedome from persecution and contrary violence they Assembled in their first National Synod in the Year 1560. by vertue of that Intrinsick Power and Priviledg granted by our Lord unto his Church and exercised by his Apostles and their followers and that without any question or control Nor did they so much as petition for the licence of the then Authority though the same might have been more easily obtained then the warrant at that time impetrated for conveening of the Parliament 2. As they first Assembled and by vertue of the same warrant did set on foot and continue a constant series of their Courts and meetings except in so far as by plain force and violence they were restrained so they held the same in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ only and in his sole Authority by Direction of his Word and Spirit concluded all their Counsels Votes and Acts. It 's true that they much and long wished for and thereafter heartily accepted the countenance and concurrence of the Powers for the time and that not only for Decency but also as the gracious performance of that promise Isa 49. ver 23. of the favour and assistance of Kings and Queens to the Church in the later dayes But as they were persuaded that the Lord Jesus perfect in all his house when invested at his exaltation with all Power in Heaven and in Earth did make a full grant and Commission of all Gifts and Offices requisit in his Church 1 Cor. 12. ver 28. Ephes 4. v. 8. 11. Wherein neither King nor Prince is mentioned and that there was no Authority wanting to these first Decrees made at Ierusalem though emitted upon that simple warrant Ast. 15. ver 28. It seemed good unto the Holy Ghost and unto us wherein neither King nor Prince was included so did they account it a gross usurpation for the Kings on Earth in place of their promised Patrociny to which they are oblidged to claim and invade an Over-ruling Arbitriment in the matters of God and his Church beleev that He who established the distinction and confirmed their Right by separating Caesar's things from the things of God doth also exact the same on their part 3. The Brethren conveening in these Assemblies did meet in perfect Parity and Equality against which the Extraordinary employments and Commissions delegated to some upon the account of the particular exigence of these times did grant no Priviledge or Preheminence From these three observations without mentioning the first Book of Discipline containing the true grounds and frame of Presbyterial Government which was compiled in the Year 8560. and then approved by the whole Church and subscribed to by a great many Lords and Counsellors it is evident that Presbyterial Government was from the beginning of the Reformation constantly intended and it's foundation really laid We need not mention that the Pope's Authority and all Jurisdiction flowing therefrom was by Law in the same Year 1560 expresly abrogated and discharged nor that in these first Assemblies greater Benefices were craved to be dissolved and Prelacy reputed to be only an Humane Device nor is it necessary for us to clear how that Extraordinary employment of Superintendency used for a few Years in the beginning was both only designed for an Interim and in it self wholly different from Prelacy and was at length rejected as burthensome All these things are sufficiently cleared by the late Large Apology 4. It is observable that as the Avarice and Power of some who possessed and grasped after the Churches Revenues did by the procurement of a few packed Commissioners in the Year 1671 introduce these Mock-Bishops called Tulchan for the better securing of their own gain which in the Assemblies immediatly succeeding were first protested against then quarrelled and lastly restrained and subjected thereunto So the Lord used the same as a warning to awaken and animat his Servants to a more vigorous prosecution of the establishment of His House in it's due Government In pursuance whereof the Assemblies with the King's concurrence from the Year 1575 until the Year 1581. did with much Prayer Fasting and Painfulness intend the work until by perfecting of the Second Book of Discipline and reducing of the Bishops to a simple Dimission and condemning their Office as unwarrantable they câ—mpleated their work in the exact model of Presbyterial Government in all it's Courts and Officers 5. During this space in March 1581. as we now reckon and after the Assembly had condemned the Office of Bishops as unwarrantable the King his Court and Council did swear and subscribe to the National Covenant By which both the Pope's usurped Authority over the Church in one Article and his wicked Hierarchy in another are abjured And the swearers did join themselves unto this true Reformed Church in Doctrine Faith Religion and
Discipline promising by the Great Name of the Lord our God to continue in the Obedience of the Doctrine and Discipline thereof all the dayes of their lives Which Discipline as the foregoing Assertions do clearly discover to have been from the beginning fundamentally Presbyterial so the Model of Presbytery being now compleated and any shaddow of power that the Mock-Bishops had lately usurped being now fully abrogated it is sufficiently clear that both Prelacy is by this Covenant abjured and Presbytery owned and sworn to And really if it be further considered that the Assemblies both 1581. and 1590 while most intent and forward in the erecting of Presbyteries did enjoyn and require the same to be subscribed by all ranks of People in the Land and that these Acts were both seconded and enforced by Ordinances of King and Council it may be justly doubted whether the impudence of the succeeding Prelats in denying of the Obligation or Perjury in breaking of it be greater This is the Great Oath into which as the Lord God did bring us by the Power of his own Spirit and Truth in opposition to that Bloody Bond called the Holy League wherein Antichrist and his followers had at that time conjured themselves against the true Church of God So the Kingdom thereby became the Lords and we his peculiar people as-well by the people's subjecting of themselves and their Alleageance as by the King 's submitting Himself and his Scepter in a due Subordination unto God and our Lord Jesus Christ for the maintenance and defence of his Church and Gospell the Liberties of the Land and Ministration of Justice And this Oath and the Ordinances enjoyning it notwithstanding the many fearful violations thereof that have ensued do yet stand to this day unrepealed and declared against to the unanswerable conviction and condemnation even in their own Courts and Consciences of all it 's wicked Transgressors 6. As the Tulchan Bishops were the effect and product of the Avarice of these Lords that favoured them So the same principle of Avarice and Wickedness did again resist the Work of God when almost brought to Perfection by stirring up certain of the Nobles to re-induce Bishops for the better inhaunsing of their Benefices and the devouring of the Churches patrimony And not only for their better establishment that what they want of Divine Right and Warrant might be supplyed by the accession of the Kings power and Command but also that by their meanes the growing wickedness of these times might abound without restraint or control the Devil inciteth others of the more prophane licentious and violent Courtiers such as the Earle of Arran and his complices to move and instigat the King contrary both to the Word and Oath of God to usurp the Prerogative of Jesus Christ who is alone King in Zion and to invade His Churches Priviledges purchased for Her with His own Blood by assuming to Himself in the first and immediat Instance the cognition of Her Doctrine and Censures Which though the Church did constantly and valiantly oppose both by Petitions and Protestations yet this Wickedness did so impetously proceed that all at once in a Parliament summarily called in the Year 1582. the Prerogative of Our Lord is translated upon the King and his Jurisdiction and Empire exalted over all persons and Causes the Estate of Bishops their power and dignity confirmed the power of the General Assemblies of the Church put in the King's hand We mention not these things with any purpose to debate these questions which have been moved on this Subject Only we are confident that how extensive soever the King's power may be in the case of Reformation which Alas for the most part cometh short of it's reach yet where a Church is Regularly constituted and so acting and by Him sworn to be maintained no King or Prince ought so far to intrude Himself into Her Power and Priviledges unto which he is neither called nor gifted as to assume to Himself a Soveraign immediat power of judging and discerning upon Doctrine and her most spirituall Rights and Censures and thereby in effect not only to constitut Himself a Proper and direct Church-Officer without our Lords appointment but in stead of Papacy so justly abrogated and so solemnly abjured to erect and revive the same in Himself a Secular Person far more absurdly and intollerably We know that other formalities and notions are pretended as these of Treason Sedition and Disorder to palliat and colour this Usurpation but seing nothing spoken or acted by warrant of the Word of God can fall under the definition or pain of these crimes and that all Ministers and Ecclesiastick Courts are known allowed and presumed both to speak and act according to that only warrant and Lastly seing both the warrant is to them committed and the Church is priviledged and permitted to have it 's own proper power and cognition thereanent as it followeth by clear consequence that the things questioned must and ought to be first subjected to her tryal and cognition so none do deny the Magistrat's just right and power over both these things and persons they being once lawfully found to be destitut of the warrant pretended But seing both Scripture and Reason doth testify against this Usurpation as most unlawful in it self and injurious to our Lord Jesus and that all experiences have proven it to be most pernicious to His Church Kingdom therefore many of his faithful Servants have worthily and valiantly resisted it not only to bonds and banishment but even to blood for the Testimony of their Lord Master We return to the purpose of this observation which is to vindicat the honour of the Lord's Work and the memory of his faithful Servants in the discovery of the old malice and subtilty of the great Enemy of the Church of God working in the wicked Prelats their abettors who to the effect they may enjoy their carnall designes and prosecute their wicked lusts without controll endeavour mainly by an absolute surrender of all things powers persons and interests to flatter and exalt the King unto an illimited Soveraignty and pretended Omnipotency thereby both to oblidge and enable him the more to such acts deeds and grants as are requisite for the satisfying of their vain Ambition insatiable Covetousness and wicked lusts Which Flattery and Usurpation being not more agreeable to the vain heart of man then contrary to the Kingdom of our Lord and the Power and Purity of His blessed Gospel what wonder if his faithful Servants who can neither deny His Name nor dissobey His commands by complying with the wicked practices and the blasphemous flattery of these vile Apostats be not only hated of all men but with their Lord and Master become the continual object of the reproaches violence and cruelty of the wicked as enemies and rebells to lawful Authority Now that the World may perceav the wicked intent and design of this Prerogative that it is