persuade the Nation that they onely must give Measures and that none can live peaceably there without complying with all their Inclinations 6. That their numbers are not near so great as ours appears convincingly from this that twenty seven Parliaments have run unanimously against them under four Kings and that they have still been easily overcome in all their Rebellions and though now they appear numerous here yet that proceeds from their being all here upon design to make themselves appear considerable that they may be thought necessary and to the end that some of them may recover what was justly taken from them and may get Employments by procuring the Possessors to be incapacitated Whereas others trusting to the Laws the Interest of the Monarchy and Your Highness's just sense of things thought no such appearance necessary till the Convention These Presbyterians have also instigated some Tumults to fright honest Men who will not rise in Arms without Authority yet if there be not Forces sent down under well-principled Officers they will be forced again to beg leave to raise new Forces in self-defence without which we can neither live at home nor go to serve Your Highness in the Convention 7. Many of them pretending that their Presbytery is Iure divino and that they are bound to it by Oaths tho declared Treason do own that they can submit to no Laws inconsistent with Presbytery whereas we are ready to comply with whatever Your Highness and a Parliament shall find convenient for the Monarchy and the good of the Kingdom being grieved at those Animosities in which they delight And to demonstrate our Innocence and our readiness to accommodate all matters justly we desire to be heard before Your Highness or any You shall name 8. We do in the next place offer to Your Highness's Consideration whether in this Age wherein Episcopacy is acknowledged to have been the best Bulwark against Popery the English who so justly love and reverence Episcopacy will unite with Scotland if subjected to Presbytery especially since the Presbyterians who generally own the Covenant are sworn to extirpate Episcopacy having violently and effectually concurred in the last Age to throw it out of both Nations Which Oath will certainly bind them to overthrow Episcopacy in England more industriously when England by the Union becomes a part of their native Countrey We design not by this to load all of that persuasion amongst whom we confess many are so moderate as to deserve that for their sake we should encline heartily to such an Indulgence as may satisfie sober Dissenters nor would we have troubled your Highness with this Account if we had not been assured that there was an Address prepared craving a total extinction of Episcopacy as contrary to the divine right of Presbytery which if it be acknowledg'd they can be subject to no Law and the Covenant though illegal and irreligious must be the Rule Which if yielded no sober Man can live in security and though some things may now be reformed in that Address by advice from London yet the first draught shews their inclination And even the extinction of Episcopacy which will certainly be craved they being sworn to it in their Covenant obliges us to offer this in defence of our Laws and to prevent the inconveniences and insolencies which would ensue on so great an Alteration Lastly We humbly entreat Your Highness to consider that in the Church as it is now established by Law under Episcopacy amongst us we have no Ceremonies at all no not so much as any form of Prayer no Musick but singing in the Churches the Doctrine and Discipline is the same both in the Church and Conventicle and in a word not one Ace of difference between the two but that in the present Church instead of their Moderators whom themselves have sometimes confess'd may be Constant we have Bishops whom the King is pleased to make Lords allowing the Presbyters a free Vote in their Elections and even the Bishops govern only by Presbyteries and Synods as the World shall have a more particular and full account of hereafter And now after this we leave Your Highness and the World to judge what just ground they have for their separation from our Churches Communion or if the difference betwixt us and the Presbyterians for such they all own themselves be indeed such as may justifie their constant clamour present noise and tumults their uncharitable Censures and cruel Persecutions of their reformed Brethren whether the difference betwixt us be truly such as may warrant their dividing the Church disturbing the State and weakning the Reformation which Your Highness hath so generously and piously ingaged to protect and which we shall always heartily pray God to prosper You in THe Reader is desired to observe first that the Figures placed in the Address lead to the Annotations on that part of it which are marked with the same Figures Secondly that the publick Resolutioners and Remonstrators were two contenâ—ding Parties among the Scots Presbyterians who as they found favour from the Usurper or had Power and Interest with the Rabble mutually excommunicated and persecuted one another These were called Publick Resolutioners who adhered to the publick Resolves of the State in favours of the King and they called Remonstrators who dissented from these Proceedings of the Publick by their open Remonstrances against them The PRESBYTERIAN ADDRESS FROM SCOTLAND TO THE Prince of Orange May it please your Royal Highness WHen we 1 begin to think how the Lord hath blessed your illustrious Progenitors in being the happy Instruments of so much good to his Church and in standing in the Gap and appearing for the People of God his Truth and Interest in Times of the greatest Extremity when matters seemed desperate in the Eyes of all who could look no higher than the Hand of second Causes and how the Lord crowned their resolute Endeavours with the Success of planting 2 a beautiful Church in the United Provinces and delivering the People of God there from the fury of the Spanish Persecutions And that your Royal Highness hath succeeded these Worthies of the Lord as in their Estates and Dignities so in their Zeal for the Gospel of Christ sympathy withi his 3 suffering People and magnaninous Resolution in appearing in such an astonishing way for the 4 Kingdom of our Lord Iesus and for his faithful Servants while lying in the Mouth of the Lyon while Refuge failed and we looked on the Right and Left Hands 5 and no Man was found till the Lord raised up your Highness and put it in your Heart to lay down Life and all things of a 6 corporal Interest at the stake while ye did act for his Glory and lamentably oppressed Servants Ah we have not Hearts to prize that wonderful Mercy the greatness of past and present Sufferings the inexpressible hazard the irremediless as to the hand of Man condition we seemed to be in do heighten the Mercy beyond our
Thanksgiving for your Highness's great and glorious Success to be forthwith observed in all Congregations and that continual Prayers be poured out to God for your Highness's Royal Consort as in Families of private Devotion so in our publick Meetings Edinburg 8. Ian. 1689. ANNOTATIONS YOu are pleased to call the Prince Royal Highness we do not grudge him the highest Titles we know he deserves the greatest that are due to the most worthy Heroes and we hope that in due time he shall justly enjoy these that are proper to the most glorious Monarchs only we cannot but think it strange that the Popes and Puritans should be the only Clergy-Men that take upon them without publick consent to dispose of Royal Titles Just so in your late Address to King Iames the Seventh you are pleased to compare him to some of the great Deliverers of God's People in the Old Testament altho in your former Books Sermons and Prayers you would allow no better Titles to the best of your own Protestant Kings but that of Ahab Iehu or Ieroboam 1 When we begin to think c. The Reader ought not to imagine that this Address is like their extemporary Prayers wherein if one may judge by their Expressions they never so much as begin to think No this is the last Effort of all the Remonstrator-Wit in the Nation revised and refined and indeed the Smoothness and Harmony of the first Paragraph is an undeniable proof of their thoughtfulness and eloquence However I hope the glorious Actions of the Prince and those of his illustrious Ancestors shall be recorded far otherwise than in the Panegyricks of Enthusiasts 2 A Beautiful Church c. This Expression is remarkable for that the Protestant Church in the United Provinces presume not to prescribe to the State as your Assemblies always did sometimes purging the Army as you did the King's at Dunbar to the Ruin of it sometimes declaring against the publick Acts of the Nation as you did against the honorable Attempt made by Duke Hamilton to relieve the King when Prisoner at the Isle of Wight For tho that Army was raised and sent under his Grace for that purpose into England by the publick Authority of the Nation yet you were pleased to condemn it as an irreligious Design and the Battel it self as an unlawful Engagement afterwards compelling the best of the Nobility to do open Penance in Sack cloth before your Congregations for being concerned in it Moreover it 's worth your notice that the Reformed Churches in the United Provinces which you confess so beautyful have their Organs which they use in the Divine Service they observe other Holy days besides the Lords Day and in all their publick Administrations have a grave Liturgy or set Form of Prayer wherein they Religiously and constantly use the Lord's Prayer Creed and Ten Commandments all which you disclaim as superstitious Fooleries 3 His suffering People c. Tho you made others to suffer more and with far greater Bitterness and Cruelty yet you would have your selves thought the only People in Britain that dare suffer for Conscience sake You forget it seems how in the time of your Covenant your Scaffolds stood up for some Months imployed in the bloody Execution of many noble and worthy persons who because of their previous Oaths of Allegiance and Canonical Obedience could not in Conscience or Honor submit to your Covenant the Obligations whereof you thought sufficient to cancel all former Tyes even those of the Ten Commandments not excepted 4 The Kingdom of the Lord Iesus c. Id est Presbytery after the Scotch Model for that in their Language is the Kingdom of Christ altho your Ruling Elders and you governed with such a Rod of Iron as seems quite opposite to Christ's Scepter 5 No Man was found to help us c. Did not Father Petre with all vigor employ his power and interest at the Court to procure your Indulgence and Toleration If he had not applyed himself to serve your Interest he had not obeyed the Directions of his Society for distracting the Reformation then you faithfully served the Whore of Babylon in supplanting the Church when her Face was against a more powerful and formidable Enemy 6 Of a Corporal Interest c. A fulsom expression indeed but that 's not extraordinary for some Men to use were not Honor and Reputation things of far greater value for a Prince to venture but you presume to measure his Highness by your own Scantling 7 Like them that dream c. When his Highness knows you better he will find that you are Dreamers indeed 'T were good for the People whose Morals you have debauched that you dream'd less for it cannot be denyed but that in the multitude of your Dreams there are divers Vanities 8 Our Provocations c. There is certainly nothing could recommend you more to his Highness than most ingenuously to confess and forsake your habituul Faults your incurable spight against the Royal Race your sawciness to King Iames the Sixth your binding King Charles the First a Sacrifice upon the Altar your open Rebellions against King Charles the Second If you will heartily acknowledge these Provocations and what you have frequently done against the Authority of King and Parliament and by some publick Deed of yours renounce the Principles that naturally yield such Consequences then there is no doubt but the Prince of Orange will accept your Repentance 9 To wrestle c. It cannot be denyed indeed but that your Prayers in the publick are Wrestlings without a Metaphor but they are levelled most against the Pulpit and all the struggling is how to press out one sentence after another and to keep wind in the Bags for two hours together Just so we were told after you were warmed with the dispensing Power that the Queens Big Belly was the effect of the Heat and Pregnancy of these your Wrestlings in Prayer But the Priests thought 't was the Result of their Devotions at Loretto And as you ascribe all the courage and conduct of this wonderful action of the Prince to the prevalency of your own Prayers so in your Addresses to King Iames you alledged all the piety and goodness you so much magnified in the late Indulgence to have proceeded from the same fountain altho it be well known that that very Indulgence was first framed at the Conclave sent hither from Rome Secr. Coleman's Letters still upon Record are sufficient to convince the world that such an Indulgence was all along design'd as the readiest method to destroy the North. Heresie 10 Melted the Hearts of some c. Namely the Sons of the Church of England who as you would charitably represent them can do nothing in favours of the Protestant Religion but when they are forced to it by some extraordinary Accidents or outward Violence 11 Implacable Adversaries c. Compare this with your late Address to King Iames when you had neither the Courage
A MEMORIAL For His HIGHNESS the Prince of Orange In Relation to the AFFAIRS OF SCOTLAND Together with The ADDRESS of the Presbyterian-Party in that Kingdom to His HIGHNESS AND Some OBSERVATIONS on that Address By two Persons of Quality Psal. xcv 10. Forty years long have I been grieved with this generation c. Licensed LONDON Printed for Randal Taylor near Stationers Hall. 1689. A MEMORIAL for His Highness the Prince of Orange in relation to the Affairs of Scotland May it please Your Highness THE Rise of our Animosities and the reason why they are warmer in Scotland than in England is That England reformed by the Royal Authority and therefore the Government of their Church was suted to the Monarchy but Scotland Reforming by force and violence some of our Reformers coming from Geneva and the Republicks of Switzerland tho otherwise good Divines yet were so far mistaken in their Politicks as to inspire many of their Converts with an aversion to the Monarchy as well as to Popery Buchanan and others wrote Books which were thereafter condemn'd as Treasonable even in King Iames's minority These Puritans as they were then called so vex'd the righteous Soul of King Iames the 6th that he was never at ease or secure till he succeeded to the Crown of England and then he setled Episcopacy in Scotland as most sutable to the Monarchy and fitted to unite the two Kingdoms and though it was fully agreed to for many years yet some factious and ambitious Noblemen being desirous to advance themselves though by the ruin of their Country and some Priest riden and blind Zealots among the Gentry admiring the Parts and Persons of their Enthusiastick Preachers were instigated by them to join with the Puritanical Party and at length to rise in a most unjustifiable War against their lawful Sovereign During which the Presbyterians entred in a Covenant wherein they obliged themselves by solemn Oath to extirpate Prelacy and bring all opposers of their Covenant to condign punishment and thereafter into a League with England wherein they obliged themselves to reform England after the Model of the best reformed Churches abroad for their own ends leaving the Rule thus general All these Oaths and Leagues being entred into by Subjects without and against yea and in despite of the Royal Authority and the evident design of them being to overturn the fundamental constitution of the Church and State in the two Kingdoms were therefore mostly justly condemn'd as Treason by the Parliaments in both Nations Notwithstanding whereof the Covenanters in prosecution of the black designs of these Oaths raised first the Rabble and afterwards strong Armies against that most pious and Protestant King Charles I. who out of a religious desire as much as in him lay to preserve their peace and his own condescended to all that they desired in a Parliament held by himself at Scotland But the lust of rebellious Zealots hath no bounds for the Faction encouraged with this success and having obtained now the Government of the Church they immediately after usurped that of the State calling by their own pretended Authority rebellious Parliaments wherein they rescinded all the Royal Prerogatives murthered thousands of the Kings best subjects and almost quite ruined all the Antient Families of the Nation who opposed them preferring and enriching chiefly mean and factious persons who headed the Rabble robbing more from these Loyal Families in one month without any pretext of Law than hath been exacted from them since the Kings Restauration in prosecution of it besides the many other barbarities which they committed under pretext of Religion as the Poyniarding hundreds of them in cold bloud after Quarter granted and the hanging them with the Kings Commission about their Necks At length having robbed the King of all Power to defend himself they gave him perfidiously up to those who inhumanly murthered him at his own Palace-gate to the great reproach and scandal of the Reformation themselves being all the while after supported by these very Regicides against the Royalists whom they called Malignants till God restor'd King Charles II. and then offers of Peace and Pardon were made to these Presbyterians provided they would but disown the Covenant and their rebellious principles But they refusing all offers Episcopacy was restored chiefly for the Monarchies sake The Faction being enraged at this proceeded with all fire and fury to preach up Rebellion in their Conventicles The Parliament in the mean time justly displeased at this insolence and contempt of Authority and desirous to secure the peace and the people from the Poison of rebellious and false Doctrine appointed all to come to Church whereupon they broke forth in open Rebellions and some of their Ring leaders being taken in the guilt and not disowning nor promising to help these faults were punish'd in order to terrify others and this is all the Severity complain'd of By this your Highness may see 1. That You being come to support our Laws You are in honour bound to support Episcopacy which is confirmed by twenty seven Parliaments 2. That Episcopacy is necessary for support of the Monarchy and that the Scottish Presbytery is not opposed by us as an Ecclesiastical Government but as having incorporated into it many horrid Principles inconsistent with humane Society in which the Monarchy is more concerned than we 3. That what these who were in the Government did was conform to Law and that these Laws were made for preservation of the Protestant Religion Monarchy humane Society and Self-defence And that they value their Church-Government more than the Protestant Religion is clear by their late compliance with the Papists upon getting an Indulgence Whereas the Church of England and we hazarded all rather than comply They magnified the dispensing Power and we opposed it 4. This appears more clearly by their present Principles whereby many as we are informed own that Subjects have a right to force their King to do them Justice and that they are his Judges and may dethrone him That the Rebellion against King Charles the First and Second and in favour of the Duke of Monmouth were just and that the Monarchy being returned by Forfeiture to the People there remains no Prerogative with future Kings who are to have no more power than the People will give them and because we love the Monarchy we are decry'd as Slaves whereas it had been easier for us to have connived at their Insolencies and to become Republicans with them 5. To evidence that they resolve not as yet to be quiet They in place of accommodating differences at this time wherein all Protestants should shew what happy change they hope for from Your Highness coming to restore our Religion and Laws do threaten Magistrates out of their Government and Ministers from their Charges forcing them to swear after many indignities that they shall never return to their Imployments doing thereby all that in them lies to disgrace Your Highnesses designs and to
nor Fidelity to open your Mouths against Popery altho your selves could not but be convinced that it was violently breaking in upon us at the Door which was opened mostly by your Divisions Here you also promise to stir up the People under your Charges I know not how they came to be under your Charge but this the whole Nation too well knows that the Design of most of your Sermons and Prayers too is to stir them up as you have done formerly to Tumults Calumnies and Assassinations and whose name I beseech you do you magnifie in this unless it be his who was a Lyar and Murderer from the beginning Here also it 's observable that in the List ye assign of the first Reformers ye make no mention of the Learned Calvin sure the peaceable Father Knox would not have denyed him the honor of naming him among the Reformers and at least have given him equal place with either Zuinglius or Luther But ah his Letters his unsavoury Letters these unadvised and unholy Letters to the Limbs of the Beasts the Bishops of England our throughly reformed Consciences cannot away with these Letters wherein like a worldly Courtier and carnal Politician he compliments and commends these Popishly affected Bishops and approves of the Constitution of their Superstitious Church as most agreeable to the Government of the State and Monarchy of England tho not to the Republick at Geneva These ye think were carnal and worldly ends unbecoming the purity of your new Light and Doctrine therefore the poor old Gentleman Calvin must be no longer mentioned among the Reformers Another Dash of a through-paced Assembly would certainly exclude Luther too for you know he never took the Covenant and therefore could not be throughly reformed And besides he seems to smell rankly of the Scarlet Whore in the Superstitious Forms of Prayer Ceremonies in Worship and Holy Days which he allowed and appointed to be observed in the Church where he was concerned 12 Improved to the Honor of his Name c. You should have added here and to the Persecution of far better Christians than our selves 13 Beautiful Government c. If the Devils Sacrifices human Blood aud Slaughter the trampling upon the State the Exirpation of all Liturgies and the everlasting Contentions of publick Resolutioners and Remonstrators could make it beautiful it cannot be denyed but that it was so in the highest degree 14 Once famous for c. A Church without Prayers whose Worship is invisible and as often vaiyed as the several Administrators appear in different places or are affected with different Passions a Church without Canons without Uniformity and void of Decency in this sense your Church was and is still famous 15 Purity and Piety c. In this Catalogue of excellent things that made your Church famous not one word of Charity indeed that 's none of the Ingredients of the Remonstrator-Constitution He who would see that in its proper Colours let him strip Christianity naked of all Morality and in lieu of that place these Vices which our Saviour reproved in the Pharisees Hypocrisie Pride Insolence and Singularity Then add to these a Conversation so ordered as to apply the Prophetical Language of the Old Testament frequently and impertinently to every trifling Occurrence keeping at the same time the greatest distance from what 's recommended in Christ's Sermon on the Mount and by this means a Man may have some Idea of the Religion of our Remonstrators 16 On how refreshing c. 'T was very comfortable indeed to you that you imagined his Highness the Prince had no account of the Regular Clergy but from these that studied to defame them and to represent them all without exception either as ignorant or wicked persons But to your great Grief the Prince is not precipitant he will deliberately enquire into your former ways and how the Remonstrator-Learning appeared either in Sermons as Books against Popery when it so fiercely assaulted us May be some will be so just as to tell his Highness that Learning was never so much your Talent and that some of the most famous Doctors our Nation had since the Reformation Men whose Learning and Conscience were their greatest Crimes were not allowed a Country Church to preach in nor so much as the benefit of a private School to teach when you were last upon the Stage 17 Punished by death c. It would be difficult for you to name one Man put to death for being present at a Field-Conventicle tho I could name some that you have killed formerly for wearing the King's Livery And it would be as impossible for you to justifie your Meetings in the Field with vast numbers of armed Men when the Laws have declared it treasonable and when there is not any thing in the Worship of the Church established by Law that you scruple at except the Lord's Prayer the Doxology and the Reading of the Scriptures before the Minister goes into the Pulpit neither of which we are ashamed of tho you ought to be for separating upon that account 18 Solemn Acts of Parliament c. The King and Parliament having experience of your sawcy Behaviour and unheard of Cruelties for so many years did in a full and Free Parliament re-establish the Episcopal Government about a year after the Restoration of King Charles and it is arrogant as well as unjust for you to imagine that his Highness the Prince will believe you when you asperse the Memory of his Royal Uncle King Charles whom all Men know to have been merciful and wise to a Miracle with such Cruelties as are inconsistent with the Laws of Nature and Nations Ye ought in Justice to have told the Prince also how many Indulgences he emitted in your favours and how little you deserved them at his Hands you should have likewise told him that Episcopacy never forced it self upon the State by violence as Presbytery did and still endeavous to do But the King Nobility and Gentry wearied with the tyrannical Discipline of your Assemblies did over and again ratifie that Apostolical Government in Parliament and cannot therefore now be removed till those many Laws be taken away even by them who are deeply sworn never to endeavour the alteration of the Government in the Church or State. Which Oath was not as your Covenant pressed upon any without the consent of lawful Authority nor under any penalties except the not being intrusted in publick Offices be accounted as such and it were very hard not to allow the Government the choice of such as should serve in it 19 These sent from us c. And you are confident his Highness will believe all they say without any farther examination just as you would have the ignorant Mobile believe and receive all your Doctrines with an implict Faith. 20 Extirpation of Prelacy c. And will nothing less satisfie you than the total Extirpation of that Government which hath now continued in all the parts of
the Christian Church for fifteen hundred years and was first planted with Christianity it self by the Apostles whose Doctrines it seems you relish not in these Points which are not agreeable to your Covenant When the Parliament is legally constituted and the Sense of the whole Nation fully heard there may be some things in the Constitution of the Church-Government made more perfect but it is strange if it can be entirely removed unless the Civil Government of the Nation be again usurped by a Committee of the general Assembly It will be considered who they are that demand this Change A Set of Men who have renounced the Communion of all the Reformed Churches in Europe Presbyterian or Episcopal for the Conform Clergy in Scotland are willing to refer all Debates between them and you to foreign Presbyterians who cannot be supposed to have any Biass to our side And tho your Industry and Faction in populous Cities on the South Side of Forth make you appear numerous yet any who throughly knows the Nation knows that you are not truly one twentieth part of it But whatever your strength be let me intreat you that when ye beg for new Revolutions ye would forbear to abuse the sacred Name Jesus by making it the Prologue to Confusions in his Church alas it hath been too too ordinary to usher in such black Designs with that holy Name 21 We hope c. Now comes in your Apology for your late Address under the Influences of the Dispensing Power and then your zeal against Popery appeared in a profound silence for you told your People you preached Christ and that was enough tho you did not insist on the particular Controversies against Rome Now and then you darted some waspish Reflections against the Church of England when she was otherwise employed than to take notice of your whistling Arguments and unjustifiable spight against her which appeared more visible lately when it was tost in your Divan whether or not you should address the Prince of Orange for abolishing Episcopacy over all Britain and Ireland but tho you be sworn to that in your Covenant yet you must wait some further time for it It is a part of the Ceremony ye use in removing the conformed Clergy of the West to inquire if they have the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England and if they have it it is wrapped up in the Ministers Gown and both committed to the flames together with loud shouts of Joy and Triumph Witness your late Outrage to Mr. Bell Minister of Kilmarnock and even your pretended kindness for the Prince of Orange is known to be much cooled since you heard of his communicating with the Church of England nor is it long since you preached that the Church of England was more idolatrous than the Church of Rome because they received the Sacrament kneeling where they believed no Corporal Presence to be Just so one of these whom you have since appointed a Commissioner from you to the Prince hearing that his Highness frequented the Prayers of the Church of England and that he had received the Sacrament from the Hands of a Bishop was so unadvisedly indiscreet and impertinent as to say that he never expected better of a Dutch Conscience A true Specimen of a Remonstrator's Charity and signal evidence that ye value not the best Consciences when they will not stretch to the full length of your covenanted Standard I cannot here omit what one Veatch canting in Mr. Hamilton's Meeting House at Edinburgh lately said his words were these Oh Sirs wonderful things and great things Sirs very great things have been done here by mean Instruments meaning the Rabble on whose commendation he had fully enlarged before But alas Sirs the half of your work is not done so long as the Prelates and Curates are to the Fore that is in true English so long as they are left alive and if the Prince of Orange will not put to his helping hand and lend God a lift I will say to him as Modecai did to Hester Hester iv 14. Who knows but thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this but if thou wilt altogether hold thy peace deliverance will come from another place to the Jews a most pertinent Epithet for Remonstrators but thou and thy fathers house shall perish Another of their Preachers about the same time holding forth to his Auditory said Oh Sirs Sirs but ye be an hide-bound people a lucken handed and fast griping people Sirs I could gar that is cause a few Fourteens that is Scotch Marks drive all the Prelates and Curates out of the Town indeed I could easily do it Sirs This is a Doctrine very agreeable I confess to the Covenant but whether it be so to the Gospel of Peace or no I leave the World to judge 22 Who knew not where to hide their Heads c. Good lack poor Gentlemen no where to hide their Heads and yet if we may believe what ye confidently affirmed before the Byass of the whole Nation is for Presbytery it seems they were a very merciless as as well as unconscionable People who were so much affected to your Cause and yet would not allow the Professors of it when persecuted the least shelter Mendaces oportet esse memores but this was your comfort in these troubles that many Angels were sent to support you and if it were not that I am resolved to avoid all personal Reflections I could name some who when removed from their places for Nonconformity had little or nothing and yet purchased considerable Estates under the pretended persecution The Severity of our Laws never appeared against Dissenters for having different Opinions from the established Church nor can you instance any one that suffered either Ecclesiastick or Civil Censure only upon that account but for High Treason against the State. Some indeed according to their demerit suffered death such as Cameron one of your Preachers who emitted a Declaration of War against the King declaring that every covenanted Brother was bound to cut off from the face of the Earth his Majesty and all that had or did bear Office under him and Hackstoun of Rathallat and a Weaver Murtherers of the late Archbishop of S. Andrews as also a Fidler who had murdered his own Wife when big with Child These were some of the Martyrs of your new Gospel whose Heads and Hands you have lately removed from the publick Gates at Edinburgh and buried with all the Solemnity that the Reforming Rabble and your Preachers upon their Van could possibly make 23 Asserted by Parliament c. The absolute power seemingly implied not asserted in some Parliaments is not to be understood in that unlimited sense that your Assemblies assumed it to themselves but as it is restrained and interpreted by the constant tenor of our Laws the practice of the Nation and the just and necessary exceptions that all such general words must be supposed to receive from Reason
and the Liberties of Mankind 24 For going on in his work c. Let it be a through Reformation a truly covenanted Work such as may bring all Malignants the most Protestant Kings not excepted to condign punishment or else you 'll never believe it to be indeed the Work of the Lord. 25 Humble you c. He will be sufficiently humbled if ever you get him under the Yoke of Presbyterian Discipline and you should take all care to conceal from him the Methods you are wont to use for humbling Princes as also the difference betwixt your way and that of the Presbyterian Churches abroad either in France or the Netherlands 26 Accession to our Persecution c. You mean undoubtedly the Conform Clergy whom when you have not power to persecute ye shew your inclinations to it by calumniating and misrepresenting them However in the present business whenever lawful Authority injoyns them they will be ready to observe a day of Thanksgiving for our Deliverance from Popery and Slavery with more chearfulness and order than you can pretend to In the mean while it 's worth the Prince's notice how you adventure without the State to appoint publick Solemnities It may be some will inform his Highdess how your Predecessors appointed a Thanksgiving on that very day wherein the State had injoyned a Fast. And to shew their cross Disposition a Fast at another time when King Iames the Sixth had appointed a Feast for the publick entertainment of Foreign Ambassadors in the City of Edinburgh THis is the Address which in your publick Meeting of the Assembly at Edinburgh you agreed to and subscribed but upon the News of the Prince's having communicated with the English Church you demurred a little and the sending of it to his Highness was delayed till ye heard from your Friends at Court by whose advice your Address perhaps suffered some Alterations before it was sent thither but these as I am credibly informed were not material and therefore deserve no notice However the industry you used to have some persons of Quality at London subscribe it was very remarkable for as some of these persons themselves have told me you would not allow them to read it till they should first sacredly promise to subscribe it A Method very agreeable to that which ye used in getting hands to the Covenant when several young Children were taught to write their Names of purpose to affix them to it and School-Boys were brought from dreiving their Tops to dreive on the Work of the Lord in subscribing the Covenant Implicit Faith it seems is a Doctrine as much in vogue among Scots Presbyterians as among Papists themselves and the Consistory and Conclave do not really differ so much as you would have the World believe In all this that I have said I must tell you that I have no thoughts of Cruelty against Distenters I indeed pity them as deluded And if it were in my power I would not persecute them but rather as Brethren restore them with the Spirit of Meekness I allow that so long as they are willing to contain themselves within the just Liberties and Limits of Subjects they have as good a right to the Royal Protection as any other Set of Men in the Nation but then they should let the World see that they can allow other Protestants to live too as having the same natural Right with themselves and that they are capable of such an Accommodation as the Learned Protestants abroad are not against and that they do not abhor the Communion and Practices of other Reformed Churches and particularly that they do not think themselves bound by the Covenant or any other Tye to persecute these of the Church of England Lastly it were very just and pertinent in them to declare their resolutions never again by their Sentences to counteract and condemn the Decrees of the supreme Civil Judicatures of the Nation and to satisfie the World in this it will be fit for them by some publick deed to disclaim and renounce that absolute Supremacy or Papacy which the Kirk hath always claimed over Kings and Civil Powers Many publick and known Instances might be assigned wherein they have challenged and usurped this power but Hercules may be known by his Foot and therefore one instance that 's yet fresh in the memory of many shall serve for all and it 's that of the unnatural as well as undutiful Behaviour of the Kirk to their lawful Sovereign King Charles the Second in the year 1650 when like a hunted Partridge he fled from the Birds of Prey in England to them for Sanctuary The easiest Proposals they made to him were no less than these 1. To subscribe the Covenant which they knew his Majesty did not nor could not like because of the Destruction it had brought upon his Father and Kingdoms and of the Door it opened for continual Rebellion against himself 2. To make publick satisfaction to the Kirk that is open Penance before their Congregations for his own Sins and these of his Fathers House particularly for his and his Families Godless Opposition as they called it to the Cause of God the Work of the Covenant 3. That his Majesty should subscribe and publish to the World a Declaration charging himself and his Family with the whole guilt of all the Miseries and Blood not excepting that of the Royal Martyr his Father which had been occasioned by these unhappy Civil Wars themselves had raised and carried on for so many years before Upon these Conditions they promised to make him a most glorious King indeed But when his Majesty modestly declined the last two which in Honor and Conscience he could not submit to immediately out comes that Tundering Bull from the General Assembly against him THE ACT OF THE WEST KIRK it was commonly called so because the Assembly was held at the West Church of Edinburgh where both the foresaid Declarations which they would have imposed upon the King and that Act of the West Kirk are still kept and to be seen upon Record in the publick Register at that place A true and exact Copy of which Act as it was faithfully transcribed from the authentick Original I shall here for the satisfaction of the Reader subjoyn West Kirk the 13th Day of August 1650. THe Commission of the General Assembly considering that there may be just ground of stumbling from the King's Majesties refusing to subscribe and emit the Declaration offered unto him by the Commissioners of the General Assembly concerning his former Carriage and Resolutions for the future in reference to the Cause of God and Enemies and Friends thereof doth therefore declare that this Kirk and Kingdom do not own or espouse any malignant Party Quarrel or Interest but that they fight meerly upon their former Grounds and Principles and in Defence of the Cause of God and of the Kingdom as they have done these twelve years past and therefore as they do disclaim all the Sin and