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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
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Wing B4533; ESTC R8736
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23,445
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35
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did not induce the Prelatists and Papists to obstruct the settlement of Presbytery there is no doubt of the reclaiming of the rest their difference not being so much in Principle as in mistaken Matters of Fact and there are very few if any of them chargeable with those German Anabaptist Principles he talks of though some by the Tyranny of the late Government abetted by the Prelatists and for want of a free Exercise of Presbyterian Discipline which informs Mens Heads but does not according to that of the Prelats knock out their Brains run into unwarrantable Excesses and by mistake concluded because the late Government acted so like the Devil that it was thereby dissolved and every one left to his Primitive Liberty not considering that the People had not then though they have since casheer'd it by their Representatives And whereas he aggravates the turning out of some of the Prelatical Hirelings before any thing was done in Parliament against them There are none who throughly understand that Matter will think it so culpable as he would render it especially when it is considered that the Government was dissolved and the People in possession of their Native Right it will appear no Wonder that they should discharge such to preach as their Ministers who were obtruded upon them by Force and into the Labours of Faithful Ministers extruded by Violence but especially they being void of all Piety having entred upon the Ministry with no other Design but as Men do upon an ordinary Calling to get a Livelihood having no other Ordination but the Collation of a prophane Bishop who arrogates to himself the sole Power of Ordaining and declares all the Ordination of the Reformed Churches abroad to be void while he holds that of the Church of Rome to be valid and it being a known Practice amongst them to chop and change Benefices for Advantages and Conveniency as Men do Horses and Cows But whosoever considers that these Hirelings had been the occasion of so much Rapine Profanity Blod and Devastation in the West of Scotland where by their means Sir Ja. Turner with a Body of Hellish Prelatical Lowland Souldiers was brought to waste the Country upon the account of Non-conformity as formerly hinted and twice afterwards an Host of Popish Savage Highlanders then the Episcopal Converters and now their Champions were brought upon them with a design to depopulate the Country in a time of great Peace and Quiet by which means a Famine was brought on those Parts whereof many died though the most industrious People in the Kingdom If it be further considered what they suffered afterwards on the account of the Insurrections at Bothwel-Bridg and that by the Earl of Argyle both occasioned by the Prelatists insomuch that there was scarcely a Family in the West which had not suffered either by Free-quarter Fining Confining Rape Exile Murder Famine yea even many of the Prelatists themselves either in their Families or Relations it being very well known that the Highlanders spoiled all without distinction where they could with conveniency and were so brutish and inhumane as to tear the Mort-cloaths or Pall from Corps going to be buried which they afterwards converted into Caps Now I say all these Barbarities considered which that poor Country suffered upon the account of those Hirelings it may rather seem Matter of Wonder that they should have been so moderate as to content themselves with turning them out and not have vented their Resentments in the utter destruction of them who had occasioned the destruction of so many and certainly if Grace had not subdued Humane Passion they would have done so And I appeal to the Prelatists own Consciences whether they could have carried it with so much moderation to those who had but half so much injured them And as for the Contempt the People shewed of them after the abolition of Episcopacy it denotes how they had behaved themselves when in Power for setting aside some prophane Atheistical Wretches it was never known that the generality of the People did so much vilify the Nonconformist Ministers when under the severest Laws And it demonstrates clearly that they were under the Effects of the Threatning because they made the Sacrifice of the Lord Vile he made them contemptible before the people who if they had profited by them would never have trampled upon them And the true Reason of the Peoples disregard our Author by chance ingenuously acknowledges though he did not intend so much when he says in express Terms The Ejected complained not so much of their being deprived as that all the Profits of the Year were denied them It being just the vulgar and true observation of them That they cared more for the Fleece than for the Flock And though as to Preaching successfully and faithfully they were dumb Dogs yet they could call for their Gain from their Quarter And their complaining 2o much of their Danger from the People puts me in mind of a Gentleman 's Saying in the West of Scotland whose Protection they demanded for fear of the People at their first being obtruded upon them which was thus If you be God's Ministers let God protect you those who were here before you never needed nor sought our Protection And it is a 2hrewd ground of suspicion to the People that you are not God's Ministers when you must have such wicked Means and Instruments to preserve you The poor man being conscious of his own Wickedness and knowing all their Abetters to be such Then he complains that those who would not pray as commanded were ejected wherein he hatefully prevaricates and designedly passes over what they were commanded to pray viz. for their present Majesties which may be seen in the printed Journals of the Scotch Parliament wherein all modest Men cannot but justify their Conduct for though there might have been other Grounds enough to have deprived most of them as Scandal Insufficiency c. yet that they should have no reason to complain of prejudicated Judges and that their Knavery might be evidenced to the World the Parliament with a consummate prudence chused to make their Loyalty to the government their Test and not one was authoritatively turned out but upon the account of refusing to pray for their Majesties and read the Declaration and those who were deservedly enough turned out by the People were by Act of Council restored again till such time as they underwent a legal Trial. But supposing it hard measure if they had any Conscience they might herein acknowledg the Justice of God if they consider that the Presbyterian Ministers were turned out meerly because they would not acknowledg the Prelats though willing enough to own the Civil Government And Malice it self must needs own the Moderation of our present Sovereign when compared with their Darlings of Heaven Charles and James that hanged those who upon better though mistaken Principles refused to pray for them And if his present Majesty exceed any way it is in
agrees very well with their Religion an essential Part whereof as they say themselves was their stedfast Allegiance to the late King which verifies from their own Mouths our Observation of them that they and their Hirelings instead of preaching Sinners into Christ have made it their Work to convert the Nation into a stupid slavish subjection to Tyranny by them falsly called Loyalty and their greatest Argument instead of Thus saith the Lord was Thus saith the King And indeed this is not to be wondered at it being just with God to discover they were none of his Ministers but to fill them as Backsliders with their own Ways and make it evident they were the Ministers of the King to whom they swore as Head of their Church and had no other Ministerial Power but what they derived from him and all who know them must needs say they preached more against such as opposed the Tyranny of their King than against the most avowed Rebels to God and his Word But their Brethren who possess the Pulpits now are resolved to avoid that Extream and many of then chuse rather to wrest the Fifth Commandment to reach a Blow at their present Majesties than to insist upon the Theme of Loyalty to their King though they bellowed it from the Pulpits to procure submission to the hateful Tyranny of the two last Reigns But their profound and universal silence on that Subject now and forbearing to declare their abhorrence of the present Rebellion by the Prelatists in conjunction with their Brethren the Papists does sufficiently demonstrate what Friends they are to his present Majesty their Zeal for him bearing no proportion to their Zeal for the last two they being eagerly forward then to abhor Associations Petitions for Parliaments and Insurrections yea to degrade as unworthy to be Members of their Church Mr. Johnson c. who maintained the lawfulness of resisting Tyranny but we see no such publick Declarations against the Mutineers and Rebels now But to return to the Prelates address they conclude with a presumptuous Assurance that God would give King James the Necks of his Enemies for which his present Majesty is very much obliged to them who as they did then they look upon him still as his principal Enemy but their Prayers Faith and Undertakings were all of a Piece and failed them most abominably and they were thereby sufficiently discovered to have no Interest with God who rejected their presumptuous Faith nor with the People for whose Assegiance they undertook who did by their representatives unanimously chuse the Prince of Orange their King and at the same time rejected the Prelates as an insupportable Grievance and gave a Demonstration to the World that the Prelatical Maxim No Bishop no King is as false as the Devil the Author of it And whereas the Scribler pleads for a charitable Allowance to them because of the Laws then in Force he forgot sure that these very Laws were made by the Instigation of the Prelates and their Party and consequently can be no Excuse And that the late K. was so well assured of their Adherence to him that he expresly commands the Viscount Dundee to summon the Prelates and such others as he confided in to frame a Convention of States in Opposition to the other Neither has his Confidence failed him for as they all owned him while they sat in the Convention their Party hath actually joined the Popish High-landers Irish and French who fight for him since and such of them as were entertained in our present King's Pay betrayed his Forces twice to the Rebels and this is all the Service he can ever expect from the Scots Prelatists Next he tells you the said Address very much incensed the Common People against them as if his present Majesty had no other Friends there but such and that none of the Nobility and Gentry were incensed at that rascally Affront put on him by the Prelates Sure he forgot that the Convention had not sat long till it sent the Prelats a going and I hope they are not the common inferiour sort and if his Majesties great but by them ill deserved Clemency had not prevented it 's not improbable that those Rabshakeh and Shimei-like-Prelates had felt the Resentments of others heavier than those of the inferiour sort for that scandalous Libel And now I cannot but observe the Harmony betwixt the Papists and Scots Prelatists the saying of this Pamphleteer agreeing so exactly with what the D. of Gordon's Gentleman lately come up a violent known Papist said in a certain Company That King William had none to own his Cause in Scotland but the inferiour Sort the Presbyterians and tells a great many of the same impudent Lies concerning the severe Usage of the Episcopal Clergy there which are in this Pamphlet whereby they design to render his Majesties Government to the Church of England odious that he should suffer the Scots Episcopal-men to be so illegally abused which our Pamphleteer does also in a sly manner insinuate by saying The government might be pleased to protect them from the Insolence of the Rabble which is as much as to say but a hollish Lie they do not But granting them charitable Allowances for that Address because of the Laws then in Force What can he say to justify their opposing his Majesties Accossion to the Crown when they were not under the dread of those Laws as it is known every Man of them did in the Convention and that Arch Pimp of Glasgow Paterson had the Impudence in their Face to maintain the unlawfulness of deposing the late King Sure this says their Opposition was of Choice and not Fear and tho they may be forced to submit yet how they can be dsteemed Loyal Subjects to a Government whose Being they opposed I cannot understand Our Author discovers no little Malice and Ignorance in his enumerating the sorts of Presbyterians in Mountaineers Cameronians and Indulged All Scots-men know the first two to be but one and for his reckoning all the rest Indulged because Accepters of the Liberty under King James thinking thereby to bring an Odium upon them as Countenancers of the dispensing Power nothing can be more malicious as may be seen by their Address wherein they plainly tell him their Principles are contained in the Assemblies Confession of Faith which is far from owning any other Power in the Magistrate than to encourage the Good and punish the Wicked and consequently the Bounds of our Obedience This was not a cheating him with a pretended principle of Passive Obedience and yet to dethrone him notwithstanding when he touched their Mitres which gives us a new explanation of the Prelatical Maxim No Bishop no King Another of his Reflections is that they do not check nor restrain those Cameronians whom he charges with Anabaptistical Principles c. Which is a gross Untruth it being known that several of those Cameronians have been reclaimed by their Admonitions and if the Malice of Hell