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A29422
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A Brief and true account of the sufferings of the Church of Scotland occasioned by the Episcopalians since the year 1660 being a vindication of Their Majesties government in that kingdom, relating to the proceedings against the bishops and clergy there : with some animadversions upon a libel intituled, The present state and condition of the clergy and Church of Scotland.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing B4533; ESTC R8736
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23,445
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35
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A Brief and True Account OF THE SUFFERINGS OF THE Church of Scotland Occasioned by the Episcopalians Since the Year 1660. Being a Vindication of their Majesties Government in that Kingdom relating to the Proceedings against the Bishops and Clergy there With some Animadversions upon a Libel Intituled The present State and Condition of the Clergy and Church of Scotland LONDON Printed in the Year 1690. A Brief and True Account of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland since the Year 1660 c. SEEING it has always been justly called intolerable Arrogance in the Church of Rome to usurp the Epithet of Vniversal when the far greater Number of Christians decline her Communion It may very well be called a Superlative Impudence in the late Prelats of Scotland and their Clergy to arrogate as theirs the Name of that National Church when by the Convention they were voted the great and insupportable Grievance of the Nation By their Majesties and Parliament the Hierarchy hath been demolished as contrary to the Inclinations of the Generality of the People And by the Laws of God the Majority of their Adherents are uncapable of the distinguishing Priviledges of Church-Members because of their vicious Lives Which leads me to consider how unbecoming it is for them to reflect upon the Nation as supine and indevote Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes If it were not known that it 's ordinary for the greatest Whore to call Whore first one would take them to be very devout Men who thus exclaim against Indevotion but O Hellish Dissimulation and Malice herein they imitate the Devil himself who first tempts and then accuses tho' 't is too visible that their Consciences are past feeling being seared as with a hot Iron There are Thousands in the Nation who remember That when their Hierarchy was restored there the Devil who seemed to be bound for some time before was let loose the Floodgates of all Impiety and Wickedness were set open and Hell did triumph in its Conquests over that Nation and displayed its Banner not only against Religion but even Morality which the Prelates and their Adherents were so far from opposing that they indulged â—he People but especially the Gentry in their Wickedness as knowing That to be the only Method to secure them on their Side insomuch that Cursing Swearing Drunkenness c. became as infallible Characteristicks to distinguish a Prelatist from a Presbyterian as Shibboleth was to discern the Gileadites from those of Ephraim which the following Instances amongst the many hundred more that might be given do sufficiently evince When the booted Apostles as Dragoons c. were imployed to convert the Nation wherein once at least we were in fashion before France sometimes they apprehended Persons by Mistake but as soon as they heard them pronounce the Shibboleth of Cursing and Swearing they were presently set at liberty with the Character of an Honest-man and no Whigg the name then for the Presbyterians of that Nation And in the West of Scotland where so great a Reformation was wrought that in several Parishes there was not the least minced Oath to be heard when those Miscreants were sent amongst them to force a Compliance with the Prelatical Curates thrust upon them as Ministers without their consents the poor Children hearing their execrable Oaths and not knowing what they meant having never heard such before ask'd their-Parents in the greatest simplicity imaginable the meaning of such and such Words a hopeful Church that uses such as Reformers but it 's too well known there that such kind of Men were the greatest Abettors of Them and their Cause And on the other hand when ever it could be said of a Man Behold he Prayeth it might be said with equal certainty Behold he loatheth the Curates and their Ministry excepting a very few Presbyterians who always held it lawful to hear them but never could own that they were the Instruments of their Conversion Yea the Miscreants themselves were so sensible of it that assoon as ever any of their Parishioners begun to set their face Heavenward and worship God in and with their Families they were presently the Objects of their Hatred and Persecution One remarkable Instance amongst thousands there was in East-Lothian A considerable Yeoman called Sherrift or Sherwood having a Son who by hearing some of the Presbyterian Ministers was convinced of his sinful State by Nature and the necessity of a Saviour and accordingly retired Morning and Evening to bewail himself and seek God His Father was so much alarmed at it that his Son should turn Whig and howl and whine by himself as mourning for Sin and seeking of God by Secret Prayer was then called in the Episcopal Dialect that he complained of it to his Parish Priest lamenting that he had lost one of the hopefullest young Men in Lothain The Godless Miscreant that he might discover himself to be of the true Egyptian Brood who reflected upon the Children of Israel as idle when they sought leave to serve God advised the Father to raise his Son betimes in a Morning and work him hard all Day and he would undertake he should forget to say his Prayers er'e he went to bed at night Adding further That to convince him what kind of villanous Preachers they were whom his Son heard and see the wicked Practices of these Conventiclers whom the Prelatists charged with uncleanness then as their Predecessors the Pagans did the Primitive Christians of old he would lend him his Horse to ride to a Conventicle Hereupon the Father took an opportunity to follow his Son to a Meeting where it pleased God to touch his Heart by the Word preached so that he found himself under a Necessity of practising what he had formerly condemned in his Son and a little while after they were both of them exposed to Sufferings for Nonconformity And that the World may have a further taste of the Prelatical Church of Scotland and of their way of Converting I shall give you another very remarkable Instance which may sufficiently discover what their Design was to convert the Nation to if we consider the Means and Instruments made use of in so good a Work When the Magistrates exacting the Mulcts enacted by Law upon such as absented from hearing the Curates did not prevail upon the Western People to own those as their Ministers who were not ordained according to the Word and intruded upon people by Violence They sent Souldiers upon free Quarter to drive or drag them to Church who usually staid till they had consumed the substance of their Landlords and many times would force them to drive their own Cattle to Market and sell them at an under-rate and then rob them of the Money and moreover behaved themselves in so beastial a manner that no Marriageable-Woman could with safety stay at home by which the Men being alsofled for Nonconformity it came to pass that many poor Infants were left in the House as not able
Episcopal Dialect Fanatical Preachers to convert so many Souls that the more they were oppressed the more they grew and notwithstanding the Cannibal Laws against them and the Malice of the Episcopalians which carried them beyond the Extent of those Laws the Churches were more and more emptied and Meetings more and more crowded where a Frame so far from supineness or indevotion was so vifible that the sighs and groans of those who were pricked at the Heart for Sin were very discernable and betwixt Sermons Godly Conferences c. very audible whereat the Devil was so much enraged that he forthwith stirred up his Instruments the Episcopal-hireling-Preachers who with Infernal bawlings cried like the Jews of old Men Brethren and Fathers help the whole Nation goeth after them At which their Ungodly Diocesans were soon alarm'd and by the Intercession of their wicked Privy Council they procured a Tax to be laid upon the Nation for raising an Army to suppress those Meetings which they maliciously called Rendevouzes of Rebellion And that the Instruments might be adapted to the Work the Troops when raised consisted of the Scum and Refuse of the Nation They bore the Characters of Wickedness on their Foreheads and their Mouths were filled with Blasphemy and Obscenity Their Officers would sometimes curse them if they had apprehended any Women coming from Meetings and not ravished them yea instances can be given that they made the Houses of the Episcopal Preachers whose Cause they were raised to defend their Stews and their Wives and Daughters became their Prostitutes and yet those Miscreants were so well pleased with those Pillars of their Church and Defenders of their Faith that their sullen Countenances were visibly cheared upon their being Levied and when they came to any Town or Village the Prelatists would insult over the Presbyterians and ask them What they thought now Those Bloodhounds were at last imployed to search out fire upon and disperse the Field-Meetings which in many places they did killed several upon the Spot and filled the Jails of the Nation full after which the Council Banished some and sold others for Slaves some of which were set at Liberty at the Thames-Mouth afterwards The Landlords were made to give Bond that thier Tenants should not go to Meetings and many times Fined upon that account The Gentry were Fined Confined and Imprisoned because of their Ladies and Children going to Meetings It was declared Treason so much as to exchange a Word with many of the Meeters At last it came to that Crisis That the People were forced to venture their Lives and resolve to defend themselves and their Ministers or have no Ordinances at all Whence happened divers Skirmishes with various success but many times the Soldiers were baffled and therefore they harrassed the Country in the Night time that no Person of any Morality could be quiet but were disturbed by their frequent and rude Searches in which they behaved themselves with so much Barbarity Blasphemy and Obscenity that they look'd liker Pagans than Professors of Christianity which confirmed the People in their dissent who readily argued That it could not be the Cause of Christ which such Children of Hell were so zealous to maintain nor they his Ministers who must imploy such Miscreants to procure them Hearers And if at any time they apprehended such as had been present at a Meeting where Resistance was made or if they could but be proved to have had a walking Sword at any Meeting whether there had been Resistance or not they were in hazard of their Lives by their Ungodly Laws James Learmont being Beheaded for being at a Meeting where a Party of Soldiers were baffled tho' it was proved That he had nothing but a Horse-rod in his hand And the Laird of Knoll a Teviotdale Gentleman narrowly escaped the like Fate for being at a Meeting where there was no Resistance with a Sword about him because a Neighbouring Gentleman who was brought as a Witness against him would swear no further Than that he had a Staff or a Scabbard under his Cloak which the Jury could not find within reach of the Law And by a continued Series of Tyrannical Proceedings many of the most considerable and substantial Yeomen many considerable Citizens some formerly Magistrates of Corporations and divers of the Gentry became liable to lose their Lives by their wicked Laws which occasioned their meeting together sometimes in pretty good posture of Defence to hear the Gospel and at such a Meeting it was where the Great Papa-Prelatical Champion Dundee with a considerable Force of Foot and Dragoons was routed by the Conduct of William Cleland then a Boy but afterwards the immortaly famous Lieut. Colonel who at Dunkel with about Eight hundred Presbyterian Soldiers routed the whole Tyranno-Papa-Prelatical Host which consisted of near six thousand Men or if you will Savage Beasts in Human Shape After the Defeat of Claverhouse at the said Meeting the Gentlemen concerned in the Resistance knowing they were destined to the Slaughter if ever apprehended and that the whole Country would be ruined for their sakes resolved to keep together in their own Defence to whom a great many others in like Circumstances gathered in a little time and if the Gentry had acted their parts as the People did theirs or would but have vouchsafed them Conduct in Probability Scotland had not at this Day been vexed with a graceless untoward Generation of Prelatisis from whom as to the Differences betwixt us and them we could never from first to last have any thing but Hectoring for Reason Damning and Cursing for Argument And it 's the King's Will to satisfy our Objections from the Light of Nature Word of God and Conscience enlightned by the same Thus you have an Account of the Prelatical Hireling Curates and of their Carriage before and how the same occasioned the Insurrection at Bothwel-Bridg and now follow some Instances of their Carriage after that was over The D. of Monmouth having carried on that Affair with the Clemency and Generosity natural to him was maligned by our Prelatists because he did not sacrifice the Prisoners to the Revenge of those Episcopal Furies which they did themselves afterwards in the most inhumane manner imaginable for having sent several Hundreds of them to Sea the Ship was cast away and that probably with Design on the Coast of Orkney and the ungodly Episcopal Brute the Captain lock'd down the Hatches when the Ship was a sinking that they might be destroyed so that none escaped but such as were above Deck which they were allowed to be in Parcels lest they should have been smothered when altogether in the Hold nor did the poor Remnant that were saved escape the bitter Taunts and Malice of the Episcopalians of that Place And how intolerable the least Favour showed to the Presbyterians was to that reprobate Faction is evident from the following Instances When a great many of the Prisoners taken at the Insurrection in 1666 formerly