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
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
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
the Accidental hazard of Private mens usurping of the Office or doing of the duty of Publick persons every vertue and vertous Action which may be so abused shall be utterly neglected Impiety shall quickly gain an Universall Empire to the extermination of all Goodness It is true that the God of Order hath assigned to every man his Station and Calling within the bounds whereof he should keep without transgressing by Defect or Excess and therein wait and act in such a measure of the Spirit as He is pleased to comunicate And we do not hold such instances for Regulare ordinary precedents for all times and persons universally which while some have fancyed and heeding more the glory and fame of the Action then the sound and solid Rule of the Holy Scriptures they have been tempted and carried to fearfull Extravagancies Neither are insolent or disorderly much less Wicked attempts which sometimes have covered and yet may mask themselves with a pretence of Zeal upon this or any other ground to be licenced or approved But on the other hand as these instances hold forth for the conviction and reproof of our stupidity and indifferency what an high pitch of Holy Zeall and Courage the Servants of the Lord have sometimes attained and do further demonstrat that He doth sometimes warrant even Private persons in their doing of these things in an Extream Necessity and collapsed state of the Church to which at other times He doth not call them So when the Lord with whom is the residue of the Spirit doth breath upon his people more or fewer to the exciting of more then Ordinary Zeal Courage and Resolution for the Reforming of an Apostat Church for the Execution of justice upon the Adversaries and for the advancing and establishing of Truth and Holiness in the Earth wee should rather ascribe glory and praise to Him whose hand is not shortened but many times choiseth the Weak and Foolish things of the World to confound the Mighty and the Wise then condemn His Instruments for Rebels and Usurpers as it is like Phinâ—has would have been had he lived in this generarion if the same Lord who by his Spirit had Acted him had not also by his own hand rescued him 10. As the Right of Self-Defence mutual Assistance and Reformation is properly and only derivable from the grounds adduced so the Concurse of the Nobles and Primores Regni is no wayes of absolute necessity though indeed singularly conducible for the carrying on thereof Unto which Concurrence as they are doubly obliged according to that unto whom much is given of the same much shall be required so if they shall convert their Power to the strengthning of the hands of the wicked they do thereby not only aggravat their own condemnation but by their endeavouring to wreath fasten more strongly the yoke of wickedness and oppression they do the rather and more justify the cause and plea of all the Asserters of Truth and Righteousness These are a part of the grounds whereupon these Noble Worrhies raised up by God eminently by him inspired did singly act for His own glory which as they have left upon record for their own perpetual vindication so thereby they did clearly purge themselves from all imputation of Rebellion Nor were their proceedings and practises ever by any so much as termed disorderly except by such who being altogether indifferent in the Work of God endeavour by all means to calumniat and shame them from being made precedents to their own prejudice Fourthly It is observable that though the practises of these first times were Extraordinary and to many may appear Disorderly Yet the faithful men whom the Lord honoured both to Suffer to Do for His name did constantly and boldly charge both the Rise and progress of these disorders upon the Persons then in Power Authority who being ordained entrusted by God for the defence maintenance of Truth and Righteousness as the only true foundations and solid grounds of the Peoples felicity whither temporal or eternal and including all the ends for which either the Power or Persons of Governours are appointed and consequently the principal bonds of all obedience and subjection for which all these engadgements are intended and to which they do ultimatly refer by resieling and starting out from this most sacred and fixed line of subordination As they could not claim Obedience to their unjust commands so far-less could they oblidge the people to that more then slavish and brutish subjection in the submitting of their souls bodies goods to the arbitriment of their cruel Tyranny directly contrary unto and destructive of all these holy great Ends both of Gods Glory and the Peoples spiritual and temporal Good for which they were constituted Governours That this was the source and fountain of all disorders in these times and that it was so reputed to be by these valiant Worthies who then opposed them the History thereof doth plainly verify Wee are not forgetful how vehemently the Powers on earth which set themselves against the Lord and their creaturs and flatterers have in all times decryed such assertions The noise belshings thundering of Treason Treason wherewith the very mentioning of such positions useth at once to be attended and condemned do already sound in our ears Let such as are thereby alarmed read the debats and controversies both of former later times Especially these two Martyrs against Tyranny Lex Rex and the Apologetical Narration upon this subject This is our peace and establishment before the Lord and all men that wee with our Noble Reformers do acknowledge and honour Authority as the great Ordinance of God for the uphold and maintainance of Truth and Righteousness and the Persons therewith vested not only as eminently thereby dignified but also as most signally impressed by a very sacred and illustrious Character of the glorious Majesty of the Most High who hath appoynted them But on the orher hand wee cannot but wish that these same persons would constantly remember that not only they are the Ministers of God and to Him accountable but also his Ministers to the People for their Good whom they neither ought to Tyrannize over at their own Pleasure nor Rule only for their own Profit O! that these sacred Boundaries had ever been observed that both Tyranny and Rebellion with all their Antidots and remedies had been perpetually unknown But shall Tyranny unto which Power both in it's self is so easily corrupted and by the flattery of others more frequently abused be not only shrouded under the priviledge and impunity of a Divine Exemption but thereby in effect be more intollerably licenced to the acting of all wickedness and violence and the perverting and overturning of all the ends of Government And in the mean time shall the Peoples most just necessary Defence of themselves whereunto they are seldome and very hardly provocked even by the most extream necessity of all
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
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
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
God with more Faithfulness and Stedfastness in the Truth without the least injurious reflexion thereupon or their own adherence thereunto with more Equability and composure of Spirit sweetly tempered with the Sorrow 's of Sin and Joyes of the Holy Ghost in assurance of Pardon and Life Everlasting and with less perturbation of mind and alteration of Carriage or Countenance then these Worthies did Here indeed was the Faith and Patience of the Saints here did the Lord stand by and strengthen them whom others forsook Yea the Lord to the Admiration of all the conviction of many of their adversaries the confirmation Establishment of the Cause the Encouragement of many thousands His own Eternall Glory and their Immortal Commendation did Work in the hearts of all Beholders more ample enduring Epistles of Commendation then the most Eloquent and Pathetick Rhetorician can Writ in their Favours This accompt further I will give yow of the first ten who died together December 7. that they once resolved to speak severally to the People at their death but thereaâ—â—â— considering that for one Common Cause and upon the same alleageances they were all appointed to die one manner of death together at one time and in one place and having the conveniency of being together in the Prison they preferred to leave a word jointly behind them in writ which as it was the cause of one conjunct Testimony and some others severally So the Foreseing Providence of God in this is very observable for had it been otherwise seing they were not at all permitted to speak to the People upon the scaffold there had nothing of their joint Testimony been extant more then is of these who were not suffered to speak at their death in Glasgow of the rest who Suffered in otheâ— places of the West of whom we have heard nothing more particularly but that the same Spirit of Glory and of God resting upon them did work in them all the same Stedfastness Patience Humility Consolation Courage and Confidence These being the last times wherein Sin aboundeth and the love of many is waxed cold I cannot devine what pity shall be shewed to them that are in Misery especially considering the Universall decay of Religion and dark cloud of prejudice and discountenance whereby the Kingdom of Christ is overshaddowed generally the whole world over and even amongst the Reformed Churches Nevertheless there being a Communion of Saints which should be entertained amongst both Persons and Churches whereby these of the same true Religion amongst other things reciprocally give and receave information of their common affaires that if they can or will express no other act of Love they may at least the more sutably Sympathize and mutually pray one for another And the Lord in his Providence giving the opportunity I thought it convenient yea necessary to communicat the following Deduction of the Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland for the Kingdome of Christ hoping that as it beareth the Name so the Wrestling Church of Scotland in due time shall reap the Blessing of NAPHTALI who Gen. 49.21 is called a Hinde let loose and said to give goodly words for who can tell but Her Wrestlings may be swallowed up of Victory and Liberty and Her ancient Covenanted Doctrin Worship and Government may become as Pleasant and Acceptable as it is Profitable not only within herself but also amongst the Churches abroad This Title being only affirmative of Her and not Negative of other Churches as if only She and not also They had Wrestled for the Kingdom of Christ let no man offend thereat For as the Lord Redeemer hath several Offices equally Necessary in themselves and Inseperable by Man and as particular Churches as well as Persons have their peculiar gifts and Excellencies and accordingly their distinct work assigned unto them whereby amongst other things they more or less eminently assert and Propugn this or that particular Truth So in this distribution whereas other Churches have asserted and contended for his Priestly and Propheticall Offices the lot seemeth to have fallen upon Scotland to assert and wrestle more eminently then many others for the Croun and Kingdom of Jesus Christ For the establishment of this did our first famous Reformers strive by the evidence of Holy Scripture as well as for Soundness of Doctrine and Purity of Worship for Preservation and Restauration of this did their Worthy Successors Zealously contend by Petitions Warnings Conferences and Disputations all Invasion Usurpation or the least encroachment upon this diâ— they valiantly resist by Protestations and Declinatures and for a Testimony to this did they patiently Suffer Bonds Imprisonment Confinement Sentences of Death and of late Death it self Neither should any man think this strange as if Presbyterial Government were in itself Unlawful or the Species of Church Government were indifferent and consequently Contending and Suffering therefore Unwarrantable or Needless as Pretenders to different Forms upon the right and left hand would have the World beleeve Hithertil indeed the Church of Scotland hath heen as a Speckled bird and the birds round about have been against her She hath endured the scourge of many tongues as well as the Violence of many hands upon both hands false witnesses have laid to her charge things which she knew not as being amongst other things too Laxe or too Rigide Yea as Unnatural Children have eaten thorow their Mothers bowels so Unkindly Brethren have rewarded her evil for good Standing on the other side and looking upon her and her affliction in the day of her calamity rejoicing over her in the day of her destruction and speaking proudly in the day of her distress yea laying hands on her Substance in the day of her calamity The wrath of man worketh not the Righteousness of God neither doth his invincible Truth need the help of humane Passions if therefore such men do not fear I shall not desire that their own tongues may fall upon themselves and that the Lord may render unto them according to their deeds and according to the wickedness of their endeavours but rather study the revenge of good will by Prayer that He would open their eyes convert their hearts that they may take revenge on themselves Charity which thinketh no evil obleegeth to beleeve till wee see the contrary that Scripture Conscience Covenant and Credite will make those who did once laudably assert constantly propugn and adhere to the Ius Divinum of Presbyterial Government until they publish which none can do as convinceing reasons of Retractation contrary Practice And whatever might be expected of others Religion Reason Candor Gratitude and Policy would seem to require that those who in their distress intreated obtained the succesful Assistance of the Covenanted Interest of Scotland others who owe thereunto whatever they are or have more then just nothing debt or broken fortunes should have been so far from contâ—mptuous throwing away the Covenant as an old Almâ—nack when by it as a
stirrup they had mounted the saddle of Power Promotion and Riches and from subtile dissolving the nerves or forcible breaking the Arme of Preâ—bytery that they should rather have said to both as Ruth to Naomâ— Where thâ—u goest I will go where thou lodgest I will lodg thy People shall be my People and thy God my God Where thou diest I will die and there will I be buried God do so to me and more aâ—so if ought but death part thee and me And it may be truly said as the Church of Scotland hath had no Detractors but such as were Ignorant of her or mis-informed about her or whom Faction Partiality Prejudice Wickedness or Love of unlawful Liberty did inspire So no Person or Party hath endeavoured hithertil to root out Presbytery but the Lord hath made it a burdensome stone unto them And I am sure there is no other Form of Church Government can boast of so many Testimonies by Blâ—od as Presbyterial Government might do But of all Contradicters the Church of Scotland of old and late hath only had to do within herself with Prelatists some whereof being high flown have pleaded a Jus Divinum others Antiquaries have pleaded Antiquity and many Adiaphorists of late being beaten from both these strengths have pleaded Indifferency in general and only Jus Carolinum as to this or that Species But as no eyes save their own neither these except by delusion of their seâ—se could ever see Prelacy that is an Ordinary Ecclesiastical Ordâ—r Distinct from and Superior to that of a Preaching Presbyter having the sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction in the Holy Scripture otherwise then by Prohibition to Lord it over Gods heritage or in the example of Diotrephes who loved Preheminence as many famous writing whereunto I refer the Reader unanswerably demonstrat therefore the Office being a stranger in the Word of God rather then the brasâ—n Serpent which once had Divine Institution should be Nehushtan in the Church So let no man Exorcist-wise adjure us by the Charming words of Antiquity Primitive times and Bishops Fathers c. For Moses we know the Prophets and Apostles we know but what is Antiquity and who are the primitive Bishops and Fathers Must men be stigmatized as giddy-headed Novellists and as much Athenian in their Principles and Professions as other mâ—n in their Newes or then be Implicite in-tail-following Antiquaries No there is a Medium of proving all things and holding that which is good Pure Antiquity deserveth all esteem and reverence but Simple Antiquity as such is neither a certain nor Safe Rule and much less oblieging to future times and so remote as our's are Our Lord Himself repelleth that pretence that it was said of old Were there not many Errors and Corruptionâ— which themselves will not Justify as ancient and early in the Church yea more as Prelacy is alleaged to be We are commanded to the Law and Testimony but never to the Fathers and good reason because few or none of them were without gross errours in Judgment or Practice Are not the writings of the first Age very few or obscure Are not many of these and after Ages lost or Corrupted Yea other later writings are deceatfully emitted under the name of Ancient Times and Persons so that in such a mist it is hard to determine what was written by these Fathers what not Later Corrupt or Inadvertant writters about these former times did speak of Persons and things under the abused Names which were corruptly used in thâ—ir own times And the writtings of particular Persons suppose of greatest Antiquity do rather hold forth their own private Opinion or the Practice of the Time and Place wherein they lived then the Universal Judgment and Practice of the Church in all Times and Places And if they will Sanctuary themselves in primitive Times let it be cleared what is meant by Primitive For if the two first Ages be meant it is more then they can do to prove by sufficient Authority that there was then such a Prelacy as is before mentioned or now usurped and exercised If after ages be meant wherein the Church grew more corrupt and Prelacy did aspire and exalt itself to an Universal Supremacy in the Bishop of Rome and establishment of that Antichristian Hierarchy then indeed they are like themselves for twins were never more like in face then the present Prelats resemble the Romish but then it were Candor in them to tell plainly that Papacy and Prelacy are of one Original with this difference that Prelacy is the first born or rather the Father which begat the other And if they mean a Middle time betwixt these Periods wherein indeed Bishops were first known in the Church and will reckon their descent from them why are they so unlike unto them that they look neither like Sons nor Successors Ask those who have dived into these depths of Antiquity and they will tell that a present Prelat and a faithful Presbyterian Pastor or Moderator at most do little more differ then the present Prelats and these first Primitive Bishops For as it was long before such a thing was known in the Church so when thorow the Malice and Subtilty of Sathan the Ambition of some Church-men the Unwatchfulness of others and Indulgence of some Magistrats it did creep in at first it was intended and acknowledged for no more then a Prudential Humane device for greater Unity a Cure because without warrant worse then the desease which as the Apostles never prescribed in their own times though there were then many Divisions so there is alike Reason to Extend further to Papal Supremacy in the case of divisions amongst Prelats and Patriarches and had never the impudence to aspire with some present Prelats so high as a Jus Divinum At first these Primitive Bishops being Elected by other Presbyters with consent of the people and not by the Civil Magistrat only as now the Prelats are by the Kings Letter to the Dean and Chapter were Ordained by the laying on of the hands of Presbyters and rot of Bishops only as the Prelats are Their Ordination vas not Essentially different from that of Presbyters nor to an Order distinct from and Superior to that of Presbyters or Pastors as the Consecration of the Prelats is alleaged to be Neither did they though perhaps they had a negative voice usurp the sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction nor Exerce the Acts thereof without the potestative Concurrence of Other Presbyters as now the Prelats do Many of them being Holy Humble and Sober in their conversation toward the people and other Presbyters did nor with the present Prelats assume the lofty Tittles of Lordship Grace c. Nor live and ride in such state and pomp claming and taking the preference of the greatest Peeres of the Land Ordinarly and especially at the beginning they had not such vast charges as now the Prelats have Diocies over Hundreds of Pastors and many Thousands of people
and Inclinations of Persons Times and Places or the pretended conveniency of Civil Policy as to leave Doctrin and Worship thus Indifferent and arbitrarily determinable and variable according to these crooked and changable rules If Church Government must be Indifferent and thus arbitrarily determinable and Ambulatory because the Holy Scripturs do not Expressly affirme that Presbyterial Government is the Only Government which should be in the Christian Church and also Expressly declare that it is Unalterable to the worlds end and that the first Institution and Practice thereof by the Apostles and their Successors in the Ministry never was nor shall be Repealed why may not the Civil Magistrat or any other arrogating a power of Instituting or Altering Church Government or Officers by Parity of reason make many other Necessary and Practicall points of Faith which are not more Expressly declared by the Holy Scriptures to be Unalterable Truths then Presbyterial Government is though all be evident enough to be also Indifferent arbitrarily determinable mutable then farewel Infant-baptisme Womens receaving of the Lords Supper observation of the first day of the week for the Christian Sabbath yea farewel Law Testimony more sure Word of Prophecy whereunto we should go take heed for a new Rule of Faith Practice welcome Humane Prudence State-Policy Corrupt Changable Disposition of man pretended Necessity or Conveniency of State Time Place yea welcome all Doctrins Practices which though they were once positively prohibited can alleage that the Scripture doth not Expressly declare that they never were nor shall be repealed And where are we then In vain is the Law in vain is the pen of the Scribe and every one without transgression may do what seemeth good in his own eyes if only he can Temporize and offeâ—d not the Civil Magistrat by violation of his Arbitrary Institutions and Lawes in Church affâ—iâ—s wherein he must be Supream O my soul come not intâ— the secrets of such Latitudinarian or rather in this Nullifidian Adiaphorists We would not be here mistaken as if we denyed to the Civil Magistrat any Power which the Holy Scriptures allow unto Him for as we assert his Office to be an Ordinance of God and his Person being lawfully therewith vested to be signally impressed with a special Character of Majestick Authority wherefore in a due Subordination to Him who is Lord over all He should be subjected to and obeyed So we chearfully grant that whereas the Heathen Magistrat because of his Morall incapacity to Exerce more power about Religion and Ecclesiastical affairs hath only a Power in Actu signaâ—o and â—us ad rem the Christian Magistrat hath Ius in re and in Actu Exercito may and should by his Lawes establish the true Religion within his dominions and command his Subjects to make publick profession thereof That by his Civil Sanction he may and should Ratify Ecclesiasticall Sentences aggreeable to the Word of God That anent these he may and should Exercise an Antecedent Discretive Iudgment whereby he may not adde an Implicit approbation That for Preaching and Propagation of the Gospel and for nursing of Piety and Learning he may and should provide Necessary and Convenient accommodation and encouragement as to Persons Places and Revenues That for his own Information and Advice he may call Occasionall Meetings of Church Officers and others to Confer and Debate matters before him That Pro râ— nata he may Convocate Ecclesiasticall Synods to reason and conclude Church affairs according to the Scripture That for his own Information and for preventing of Outward Force and Inward Confusion he may be Present therein by Himself or his Delegats That by his Power he may and should Defend and Encourage the Church in the free and peaceable Possession of all her Intrinsecall Priviledges and all the Members thereof in the Profession and Practice of the same That by the same Authority he may and should repress Error Heresy Superstition Atheisme Blasphemy and Profanness and Punish the Authors and Spreaders thereof That in case of negligence he may Command all and even Ministers to perâ—orme their râ—spective duties in general as necessity requireth And that for Civil transgressions he may Civilly puniâ—h Ecclâ—siastical Persons as well as other Subjects according to the Law of God and Righteous Lawes of the Land The Zealous discharge of all which we would thankfully acknowledg to God and Man as the Faithfull performance of that gracious Promise that Kings shall be the Churches nursing â—atheâ—s But if discontented herewith as if all this together with the Weighty affairs of the Common wealth were too little work for his Transcendent Power and Abilities and as if Jesus Christ had no Kingdom or Government or these were not distinct from the Kingdoms and Government of the World or though thâ—y were as if he were equally Head and Fountain of both He will needs aâ—bitrarily Institut or Alter the Species of Church Government Authorise Exauthorise or Restrain Church-Officers in the Exercise of the Power of Order or Jurisdiction in whole or in part as the Parliament and Councill have prohibited some Hundreds the whole Exercise of their Ministry and the High Commission which claimeth no power but what is solely and immediatly derived from the King hath deprived some from the Office interdicted Others the administration of the Lords Supper If he will Define Articles of Faith and prescribe what heads of Doctrine Ministers shall treat or not treat of in their Sermons as the King hath done in his printed Letter to the Bishop of York And thereupon Primarily Immediatly and Antecedently to any Judgment of the Church which is the Pillar of Truth and to which the Spirits of the Prophets are Subject Cognosce and Determine of Ministers Doctrine when the Church herself is willing and ready to try the Spirits And Criminally or Capitally punish them therefore under the pretence of Treason and Rebellion as several instances can be adduced against King and Councill in the series of our Church If he will Ordain particular Church Censurs to to be executed against particular persons for particular definite Ecclesiastical alleaged offences leaving nothing undone by Himself in person but the Execution of what he hath appointed As the Parliament hath appointed Suspension and Deprivation of Ministers for not observing the Bishops meetings and the King in his Commission to the High Commission hath appointed Excommunication whereas they may as well Immediatly Suspend Deprive and Excommunicat themselves as Appoint them to be executed in the manner specified in the said Act of Parliament and Commission If after the example of Antichristian or Pagan Nations he will Institut and Enjoin Needless Vain Superstitious Significant and Burdensome Rits in the Worship of God as most of the Imposed Ceremonies in the Lyturgy can be instructed be If he will arrogate the Sole Power of convocating Ecclesiastical Synods which is an Intrinsecall priviledg of the Church
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
anointing conjuring hallowing of GODS good creatures with the superstitious opinion joyned therewith his Worldly Monarchy and wicked Hierarchy his three solemne vowes with all his shavelings of sundry sorts his erronious and bloudy decrees made at Trent with all the subscribers and approvers of that cruell and bloudy Band conjured against the Kirk of GOD and finally wee detest all his vaine Allegories Rites Signes and Traditions brought in the Kirk without or against the Word of GOD and Doctrine of this true reformed Kirk to the which we joyne ourselves willingly in Doctrine Faith Religion Discipline and use of the Holy Sacraments as lively members of the same in Christ our Head promising and swearing by the Great Name of the Lord our GOD that we shall continue in the obedience of the Doctrine and Discipline of this Kirk and shall defend the same according to our vocation and Power all the dayes of our lives under the pains contained in the Law and danger both of Body and Soul in the day of GODS fearful Judgment And seeing that many are stirred up by Sathan and that Roman Antichrist to promise sweare subscribe and for a time use the Holy Sacraments in the Kirk deceitfully against their own Consciences minding thereby first under the external cloak of Religion to corrupt and subvert secretly GODS true Religion within the Kirk and afterward when time may serve to become open enemies and persecutors of the same under vain hope of the Popes dispensation devised against the Word of GOD to his greater confusion and their double condemnation in the day of the LORD JESUS Wee therefore willing to take away all suspicion of hypocrisy and of such double dealing with GOD and his Kirk Protest and call The Searcher of all hearts for witnesse that Our mindes and hearts do fully agree with this our Confession Promise Oath and Subscription so that Wee are not moved for any wordly respect but are persuaded onely in our Consciences through the knowledge and love of Gods true Religion printed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit as we shall answer to him in the day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed And because we perceave that the quietness and stability of our Religion and Kirk doth depend upon the safety good behaviour of the Kings Majesty as upon a comfortable Instrument of Gods mercy granted to this Countrey for the maintaining of this Kirk and ministration of Justice amongst us we protest and promise with our hearts under the same Oath Hand-writ and Pains that we shall defend his Person and Authority with our goods bodies and lives in the defence of Christ his Evangel Liberties of our Country ministration of Justice and punishment of iniquity against all enemies within this Realm or without as we desire our GOD to be a strong and merciful defender to us in the day of our death and coming of our Lord Iesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all Honour and Glory Eternally Like as many Acts of Parliament not onely in general do abrogate annull and rescind all Lawes Statutes Acts Constitutions Canons civil or municipall with all other Ordinances and practique penalties whatsoever made in prejudice of the true Religion and Professours thereof Or of the true Kirk-discipline jurisdiction and freedome thereof Or in favours of Idolatry and Superstition Or of the Papisticall Kirk As Act. 3. Act. 13. Parl. 1. Act. 23. Parl. 11. Act. 114. Parl. 12. of King Iames the sixt That Papistry and Superstition may be utterly suppressed according to the intention of the Acts of Parliament repeated in the 5. Act. Parl. 20. K Iames 6. And to that end they ordaine all Papists and Priests to be punished by manifold Civill and Ecclesiastical pains as adversaries to Gods true Religion preached and by Law established within this Realme Act. 24. Parl. 11. K. Iames 6. as common enemies to all Christian government Act. 18. Parl. 16. K. Iames 6. as rebellers and gainstanders of our Soveraigne Lords Authority Act. 47. Parl. 3. K. Iames 6. and as Idolaters Act. 104. Parl. 7. K. Iames 6. but also in particular by and atcour the Confession of Faith do abolish and condemne the Popes Authority and Jurisdiction out of this Land and ordaine the maintainers thereof to be punished Act 2. Parl. 1. Act 51. Part. 3. Act 106. Parl. 7. Act 114. Parl. 12. K. Iames 6. do condemne the Popes erronious doctrine or any other erronious doctrine repugnant to any of the Articles of the true and Christian religion publickly preached and by law established in this Realme And ordaines the spreaders and makers of Books or Libels or Letters or writs of that nature to be punished Act 46. Parl. 3. Act 106. Parl. 7. Act 24. Parl. 11. K. Iames 6. do condemne all Baptisme conforme to the Popes Kirk and the Idolarry of the Masse and ordaines all sayers willfull hearers and concealers of the Masse the maintainers and resetters of the Priests Jesuites traffiquing Papists to be punished without any exception or restriction Act 5. Parl. 1. Act. 120. Parl. 12. Act. 164. Parl. 13. Act. 193. Parl. 14. Act. 1. Parl. 19. Act. 5. Parl. 20. K. Iames 6. do condemne all erroneous bookes and writtes containing erroneous doctrine against the Religion presently professed or containing superstitious Rites and Ceremonies Papisticall whereby the people are greatly abused and ordaines the home-bringers of them to be punished Act 25. Parl. 11. K. Iames 6. do condemne the monuments and dregs of by-gone Idolatry as going to the Crosses observing the Feastivall dayes of Saints and such other superstitious and Papisticall Rites to the dishonour of GOD contempt of true Religion and fostering of great errour among the people and ordaines the users of them to be punished for the second fault as Idolaters Act 104. Parl. 7. K. Iames 6. Like as many Acts of Parliament are conceaved for maintenance of GODS true and Christian Religion and the purity thereof in Doctrine and Sacraments of the true Church of God the liberty freedom thereof in her National Synodal Assemblies Presbyteries Sessions Policy Discipline and Jurisdiction thereof as that purity of Religion and liberty of the Church was used professed exercised preached and confessed according to the reformation of Religion in this Realm As for instance The 99. Act. Parl. 7. Act. 23. Parl. 11. Act. 114. Parl. 12. Act. 160. Parl. 13. of King Iames 6. Ratified by the 4. Act. of King Charles So that the 6. Act. Parl. 1. and 68. Act. Parl. 6. of King Iames 6. in the Yeare of God 1579. declares the Ministers of the blessed Evangel whom GOD of his mercy had raised up or hereafter should raise agreeing with them that then lived in Doctrin and Administration of the Sacraments and the People that professed Christ as he was then offered in the Evangel and doth communicate with the Holy Sacraments as in the reformed Kirk's of this Realm they were publickly administrat according
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
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
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
as this Apostacy arising from small beginnings by fair and smooth pretensions crafty insinuations Court-flatteries false calumnies and suggestions open and gross perjuries and violent dissorders according to the working of Sathan After great and long opposition by Conferences Warnings petitions faithful and constant Testimonies and sufferings of the Zealous Witnesses of our Lord both unto bonds banishment Sentences of Death against the again aspiring Prerogative and usurping Prelacy under it's shaddow did in the secret and holy Judgement of God chang the Glory of God and of our Lord Jesus into the Similitude and Image of the Roman Beast turning the Power of Godliness unto Formality his faithful Ministers into corrupt Hirelings the Power and Life of Preaching into Flattery and Vanity the Substance of Religion into empty and ridiculous Ceremonies the Beauty and Purity of the Ordinances into Superstitious Inventions of Kneeling Crossing Holy Dayes and the like the Beautiful and Powerful Government of Gods House for the Edification of Souls to a Lordly Dominion over Consciences and violent Persecution of mens persons And in a word the great End of the Glorious Gospel and it's Blessed Ministry even the salvation of poor sinners which is the pleasure of the Lord the fruit of the travel of His Soul the Joy of Heaven the Crown and Glory of the blessed Apostles and the End of all things and of the second Appearance of the Great God into an Empty Title and specious pretext for the fulfilling of mens lusts and pleasures the establishing of their Power and Tyranny and the ruine and exterminion of all such as opposed and mourned for all these Abominations Thus this Work and Kingdom of Darkness did advance apace and had almost attained unto it's full maturity of hurrying this poor Land and Nation headlong into that Gulf of Confusion Error and Superstition whereinto Popery did formerly involve us when it pleased the Lord according to His Great Mercy and faithfulness to remember His Covenant though we had fearfully forgotten it and in the midst of that growing darkness and those manifold Confusions to cause His Spirit to move and Light to arise upon this Land about the middle of the Year 1637. Which appearing in the former Power and Glory did from a very small and improbable beginning even the opposition of a few weak Women to the introducing and reading of that Carcase of formality the Service-Book then ready to be imposed proceed in such an Univerâ—al Vigorous Regular and Powerful method through the whole Land without the least mixture and ingredient of force and Violence but only by these most warrantable and inquestionable meanes of Petitioning Remonstrating Protesting and renewing their Covenant with God and amongst themselves that before the end of the Year 1638. the Work of God was revived with more Glory and Splendor then ever formerly it had attained We know that not only the Renewing of the Covenant especially with the enlargement explaining the same in order to the Novations in Worship and Corruptions in Government whereunto this Church had Apostatized and the bond of Mutual Defence thereto added but also their Protestings joynt Petitionings have been condemned as Seditious Rebellious But seing the same both from the clear Word of God the pure Light of Nature the Zealous and Valiant Practices of our first Reformers and the Lawes and Constitutions of the Realme are clearly warranted And by the Power and Presence of God were signally approved and by the supervenient Acts of the King Parliament and Generall Assembly so fully established and confirmed And seing that they only were and are condemned by such as either being the Children of the Devil filled with all subtilty and mischief and enemies of all Righteousness cease not to pervert the right Wayes of the Lord or by such who for advancement of their own Interests have sacrificed all Conscience and Reason to Ambition and Covetousnes or by such who in base and open flattery of the King and of the Powers and neither knowing nor regarding any other Interest or Concernment then that which dependeth on their Pleasure do set and serve the same in place of the most High Or lastly by such who never did nor do concern themselves in such enquiryes but affect a pretended Gallantry in Gallio's Indifferency therefore remitting such as are further desirous of satisfaction unto the debats Papers of these Times and especially unto the late large Apology we shall only mention the steps and progress of the Lords Work and our Engagements therein according to our first purpose In the beginning of the Year 1638. great multitudes of people consisting of all Ranks being awaked by the Arbitrary imposing of a Service-Book more corrupt in some things then that of England and the Book of Canons and the erecting and violent exercing of the High Commission-Court to the perverting of the Pure Worship of God the utter subverting of all regular Government and the confounding of all things Divine and Humane and the destroying of our Civil Liberties and conceaving the true cause of all the abounding Sin imminent calamities of these Times to be the violation of the National Covenant formerly thrice sworn in the Land they again most Solemnly with a very wonderful gracious mixture of Tears and joy renew the same almost in all parts of the Land with the addition above mentioned to forbear the practice and approbation of all Innovations in Worship or Corruptions in Government until the same should be lawfully determined and that other of Mutual Defence and Assistance in the prosecution of the ends of that Covenant against all sorts of persons whatsoever And in November the same Year the Generall Assembly at Glasgow determined anent the foresaid novations and corruptions disproving and rejecting under these heads the five Articles of Perth the Government of the Church by Bishops the erecting of Prelacy therein and all the Corruptions flowing therefrom whereby the Oath of the Covenant is clearly explained and purifyed In the Year 1639. the Prelats being routed run to Court 〈◊〉 up the King England and Irland with all their Friends and Popish partakers in Scotland against the faithful Covenanters as Rebellious and Seditious Persons But they having prepared for their own just Defence the Lord by His outstretched Arm and Power dispelling all these menacing clouds and imminent storms doth by a Pacification concluded reduce a fair calm The King therein aggreeing that an Assembly and Parliament shall be held and that all matters respectively shall be therein determined The Assembly sitting in August thereafter the Kings Commissioner being present and assenting doth ratify the conclusions of the last Assembly at Glasgow and the Commissioner and Secret Council subscribe the Covenant as it was then explained and at the Petition of the Assembly it is enacted to be again subscribed for the Fifth time by the Body of the whole Land But no Faith Honesty nor Honor binding the Prelats and a Court by
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
and other essentiall Censures given by God to the spirituall Office-bearers in His Church and warranded by His Word are ratifyed is even in so far and totally cassed and rescinded And that the World may know how presumptuous and absurd this Usurpation is which cannot be justly conceaved without an instance of it's effects we here subjoyn that 4 Act. Sess 3. of the same Parliament for the constitution of a National Synod wherein the King is made soveraignly and properly to constitute this Assembly both as to the Appointment of it's Members Constituent and of it's constant President the absolute regulation of things there to be proposed which are declared to be only such as He shall please to signify the determination and limitation of it's Decisions which are to be agreed to by the President as well as the major part and providing that they be not contrary to the Prerogative or the Laws of the Realm And lastly as to the necessity of the King's presence in person or by his Commissioner and of his Ratification and Approbation without which no Act or Deed is to be of any force Now let the World consider what he could have done more in the constitution and regulation of his own Court of Exchequer And if he hath not done all as to the constitution of this Court immediatly depending upon our Lord Jesus Christ and his sole Authority which He Himself hath done or possibly could do by what warrand or rule He who is King of Kings will require We shal not here stand to examine these Acts according to former Laws Oaths and Engagements hereby most fearfully violated and contemned This is a strain of wickedness above all that former times could imagine O! that God would speak to the Authors but not in his wrath and as he hath set His only Son upon his holy Hill of Zicn so he would cause them to fear His displeasure that they may yet be wise and instructed to kiss the Son left he be angry and they perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a litle Surely to define that the sole Power and Jurisdiction of this Church doth not stand within the same but in some thing without beside our Lord Jesus and that the same is fountain'd in and derived from the King and that all Church-Officers in all Church matters are accountable to him who is neither thereto Gifted nor Called is to set the King upon our Lord Jesus his Throne and a high derogation from and reflection upon him who hes builded the Temple of the Lord bears the Glory sits and rules both as King Priest upon His Throne Who more worthy then Moses was faithful and perfect as a Son over His own House and therefore did not leave His Church destitute of any such necessary and proper Officer or Assister when neither King nor Prince was so much as members thereof And lastly it 's a plain Perversion in stead of Performance of that Promise made to the Church Isai 49. ver 23. That Kings should be it's Nursing Fathers where in place of Dominion there Submission is expresly injoyned they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the Earth We know that this empty Notion of External Policy is vainly pretended to colour the matter But seeing whatsoever can be meaned by external Policy even as to outward decency and Order is either particularly determined by our Lord Himself and His blessed Apostles or under the definition of General and Evident Rules left unto the Churches arbitriment whereby the King being no Church-Officer upon a double account is clearly excluded and seing that under the pretence of this External Policy the greatest most superstitious Novations in the pure Worship of God and the greatest Corruptions and Abuses both by the appointment of new Officers in the Church of Christ without His own warrand and the usurping and perverting of the Power of Spiritual Censures in the Government of Gods House may be and have been introduced we doubt not but all rational men do see the delusions of such vain pretences And certainly since the Act it self doth proceed to grant the King all the Power in over both Ecclesiastick Causes Persons that can be imagined it would be but ordinary ingenuity in our Adversaries plainly to assert that the King is the Great Apostle and Vicegerent of our Lord Jesus Christ in and over His House Although they should not only appear herein destitute of any better warrand then this present Act of Parliament But most plainly to justify al the Usurpation that ever the Pope or Antichrist can be charged with 6. Bishops being thus restored and admitted to sit and give voice in Parliament this Mixture and the Power of their Antichristian Spirit doth quickly exert it self And without regard to the nature of Parliamentary and all Civil Powers which are no wayes conversant about things and perswasions only Internal and meerly appertaining to conscience or to the Word of God which is the ground and warrant upon which all Power whatsoever being only Declarative in matters of this kind ought certainly and expresly to proceed They procure a Dogmatick Act declaring these Positions That it is lawful to Subjects for Reformation or necessary Self-defence to enter into Leagues or take up Arms against the King and such like to be Rebellious and treasonable and particularly that the National Covenant as it was explained in the Year 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant were and are in THEMSELVES UNLAWFUL OATHS and were taken by and imposed upon the Subjects of this Kingdom against the Fundamental Law and Liberties thereof Which neither they nor all the invention of Hell is able to condescend upon or instruct And therefore out of the plenitude of their power as much as ever any Pope pretended to they loose the Obligation of Conscience and free the Subjects of their Engagements And further to compleat this their Wickedness they appoint a Declaration of this High Impiety to be signed by all in Publick Trust that none may be admitted to or exerce the same except they receave in their right hand or in their foreheads this their accursed mark O! Lord our God thow art of purer eyes then to behold Evil and canst not look on Iniquity VVherefore lookst thou on them that deal treacherously and holds thy tongue when the wicked devour the man that is more righteous then he Yet surely O Lord thou hast ordained them for judgement and O mighty God thou hast estabished them for correction Can the World beleeve that a whole Nation in it's most National Capacity including King Parliament and the body of the People should after most clear and evident convictions and signal Manifestations of the Glory and presence of God in the most important and holy Concernments of all Truth and Righteousness most solemnly as it were to day engage themselves by Oath unto the Lord and to morrow without so much as seriously
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
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
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
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
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