Acts enjoyning the Levies c. for carrying on the said Engagement I insist the longer upon this and do make all these digressions that it may appear that it was onely by private men all this was done It is said that they were protestors in Parliament yet I think it is obvious to any that understands that though your Protestation was a testimony and gave you the greater clearness to act against that against which you had born your testimony yet it did not enstate you in any condition of being a Judicatory or Publique Persons you having lest the Parliament upon your Protestation and though some of you were appointed Members of the Committee of Estates yet that same Parliament in that same Act did declare That all who were nominated to be of that Committee should at their first sitting take the Oath for the faithful carrying on of that Engagement and otherwise not to sit or vote nor have any place therein moreover those that then you look'd upon as your Enemies having got by you to Sterling and having taken in the Town and routed your Forces there and you being at Fawkirk and your men daily leaving you and you becoming more and more inconsiderable you did that I may omit nothing so far as I can remember that was matter of Fact it being the chief part of my design to help you in your search by remembering you of all the several Transactions about and since that time judge it necessary to invite the English Army to your assistance and this as I am informed by the advice of the Kirk though they had formerly in their Pulpits and Remonstrances declared them to be an Army of Sectaries And how useful their incomming was to you and how they did carry themselves you may remember and what was the nature of their desires to the Committee of Estates notwithstanding what they had met with from the Parliament of Scotland yea and from many of your selves as you may know in particulars neither desiring recompence from you for the injuries England and themselves had received nor desiring greater security from you but that you should establish the power of the Kingdom in the hands of honest and godly men however prejudiced against them and for the others that they should not be employed without Englands consent And notwithstanding you were a party separated from the rest upon so honest an accompt and had taken such extraordinary wayes yet since it hath evidently appeared that some if not many if not the greatest part did protest in Parliament and rise in Arms and proceed in the business upon unsound ends and principles which did appear to such of you as were acquainted with the business and did see a far off not long after they were re-established in power by their jealousies of honest men their laboring to get such into Judicatories and Armies and places of Trust as would serve their corrupt interest and their discountenancing and opposing of godly men And ever since your divisions and jealousies have grown the seed of the Serpent and of the women hath distinctly appeared even in that little handful that seemed to be separated for the Lord and for his peoples interest and how these have retarded you in your Progress after solemn acknowledgements of miscarriages in Omissions and Commissons and solemn Engagements to duties of advancing the power of godliness in countenancing of it and establishing the power of the Kingdom in the hands of such as were godly and discountenancing and purging out such as were otherwise How they have labored to entangle you into the Yoke of Bondage you had formerly been serving under how they have made you fall backward and how they have entangled and ensnared you and themselves and the Kingdom in many sorrows is apparent this day to these that runs by I chiefly mean in the whole business with the King These men though they were as busie and forward for bringing in the English Army as any and had as much intimacy with them yet seeing their way which they did walk into in England to be inconsistent with their interest the chief of them being Lords and being apprehensive that the godly in Scotland might comply with that Interest of Levelling at least the Arbitrary and absolute way of great men and withal the Ministers being possessed with prejudices against them as appehending them to be Enemies to them as Ministers though indeed as appears onely to their Arbitrary way in spiritual things and there too much medling in Civil things or at least that they are no great freinds to these together with the Commissioners carrages at London all these did concur to procure that notwithstanding of all the former curtesies received from them within a few weeks after the English Armies going out of Scotland there was nothing almost to be heard in Pulpits but the Army of Sectaries the perfideous Murtherers filthy Dreamers Contemners of Authority Razers of the foundations of Government Alterers thereof contrary to the Covenant and therefore perfideous Covenant-breakers the Kirk must put out a Declaration to this and the State approve it and these that were look'd upon as Instruments of your deliverance whose assistance the Kirk themselves thought fit to take in a few weeks before may not be spoken of but with Indignation Whereas when these things are examined which they did after they went out of Scotland I suppose it will be found their necessitie was as great that put them on to do these things and the hazard as eminent to the interest of all the Godly in England yea Scotland also and of all they had been fighting for the fore-going year as that which put you to rise in Arms and to do all that followed upon it in 1648. I shall for this onely instance the Letter written by the chief Rulers in Scotland to the Principall Leaders of the English Army presently after their departure out of Scotland pressing them to break the Treatie with the late King at the Isle of Wight and that unless it were broken all the Godly in England and Scotland would be ruined And moreover was there any more irregularitie in their proceedings then in yours yea I offer it to your serious consideration from what has been and might be said if there were not more in yours then in theirs Things being thus carried on upon and by the corrupt interest of Lords and Gentlemen their dependers and the interest of the Ministers you the Godly were intangled and ensnared and made to go along upon fair pretences of duty conscience not seeing the designe of those whose interest lay in the busines Upon the pretence of dutie the outing some members of the Parl. of England is taken notice of as a breach of Covenant notwithstanding that the same Party had broken the Committee representing the Parl. of Scotland as is before expressed And that our own Commissioners had written home that the Parliament of England were going on in a
deceiving of themselves and all honest men for the State seeing their way in preaching and declaring against them to tend much to the weakning of their Authority and Designs did study how to carry on their Designs with the fairest outside that might be I shall give one particular instance which is this their forcing of the King to subscribe passing all their former and late proceedings with him and with the State that Declaration wherein he declares all the freinds of the Covenant to be his freinds and the enemies thereof to be his What a strange way that was for them to draw up a Declaration of that nature and to compel him to subscribe it by a Declaration of abandoning his interest if he should refuse to do it I leave to the serious consideration of all godly Ministers and Professors and what hath been the sad consequencies of proceedings in this kinde and I hope it will not be understood as if I spoke against good men whom I honor or against the Ministry my desire being onely to take notice of those things whereby they have wronged themselves and the people of God My dear Friends It doth more then evidently appear that upon all the considerations spoken of you must either abandon your own Interest and all you have been fighting wrestling and praying for or else you must as the people of God and only upon that accompt owne what is your own Interest and the true Interest of that which is the Work indeed in following the Lamb in his quarrell against the Beast in crushing opposing dashing in pieces laying aside and treading upon every thing that stands in the way of his exalting in the midst of his People or would uphold false Christs in more or lesse the power of the Beast whether it be King or Kingness or Parliaments or Interests of Nations or Governments or be it what it will Oh if you were once joyned together upon this accompt how should you be made to revive and your reproach taken away let it not be a stumbling-block in your way that thus did the Sectaries so called in England I do not question but the Lord in his present dispensations is letting you see your sin and error in condemning your Brethren in England for that which materially at least was and is your Dutie what better was their condition there or in probability would have been then yours had not the Lord raised up their Spirits to the consideration of the continual hazard they were exposed to by suffering their Interest to be managed by a number of men who minded not the Interest of the People of God nor the true Interest of the Nation and were upon the closing of a Treatie wherein they were to give up the Interest of the Godly and what they had been fighting for to the will and power of him who was the greatest Delinquent in the three Kingdomes till I say the Lord raised up their Spirits to be instrumentall in laying aside those unsuitable dangerous Instruments and to persecute all that has follow'd upon 't wherein how they have been countenanced and carryed through is obvious And truly I am perswaded that ill the Lord shall be pleased to open your eyes as I hope he will to see it your dutie to take the like course and to see yours and their Interest to be one and your Enemies one though your differences in some things should continue till something of both these ye shall be haunted with sorrowes and distresses and disappointments and disasters one after another let me say this without offence I am far from justifying those in England in al the circumstances either of their way there or of their coming into Scotland and shall not say but that there has been not onely an offence taken by you but also an offence given especially in the way of their coming into Scotland though they have this to say for themselves First that a Treatie was denyed unlesse they would deny the capacitie they stood into and the resolved desperate carrying on the Treatie with the King notwithstanding all the discoveries of him and of his designes and our example eleven years ago who entered England with an Army for matters meerly concerning Scotland without any call from any Publique Judicatories and yet were owned by the Godly in England and that during the time of the Treatie an about and after the close of it Prince Rupert was at Sea robbing their Ships destroying their Trade by vertue of this Kings Commissions Ormond in Ireland in the Head of the Popish Army and severall Commissions issued forth to severals in England Dear Friends If you can look upon them as Brethren as I am sure they are at least the generalitie of the leading counselling Partie and such as are Godly that adhere to them It is your dutie to forgive and forget though they have done you an Injury They say you have wronged them and yet they professe themselves not only willing to forgive you but to follow you with all kindness and respect and to be usefull to you though it were by laying their Bones in the dust for you If there be Differences amongst you can there be no mids but to destroy one another this seemes to be a strange Paradox and device of Sathan that you think you cannot stand except they fall they do not think so they professe themselves not onely willing but desirous that your interest as the Godly in Scotland should stand though you should differ in judgement from them Can Christ's Kingdom be divided against it self truely it is nothing of Christ that would labour to divide his People in affections and will plead their destroying one of another Dear Friends remember their professions of love to you when they came into this Nation and what a bitter return was made to them in your name what a Christian reply from them what a meeting from you and how unwilling they were the Busines should be decided by blood and how blood-thirsty you were bear the expression none more earnest upon fighting then you notwithstanding all their continuing their professions of love and their moderate carrying of themselves in the Countrey and their returning in their way towards England how eager were even you the Godly in their pursuit how did you long for their ruine whose preservation I dare say as Instruments was and is yours and did conclude them all men ruined and broken whom the Lord would in an outward way own no more after the Lord had made you flee before them they being necessitated to fight being environ'd upon All hands yet notwithstanding all the advantage they had did they not follow you as much as ever and ra her more And the Lord having in a singular way separated you from that Crew ye were intangled vvith and ye beginning to see the errors of former vvays in some things at least and being in a Capacitie to owne your Interest and dis-satisfied in vvhat had formerly bin the state of the Quarrel and vvith the State and the Treatie at Breda and your Brethren in the English Army having renevved their Professions of love to you and their desire to confer vvith you and to have a cessation of Armes and to some of you having gone a great length in particulars to evidence the realitie of their Professions of Love and after the State and Kirk had in such a way declared against your Remonstrance and though in it you had taken away that which was positively and unquestionably the state of the Quarrell and had to my nderstanding put nothing in the room of it yet your desire to fight with them was so great notwithstanding of all these that before you should miss an opportunity ye would rather fall in upon their Quarters upon the Lords day morning And how strangely ye were broken and what were the particular remarkable passages they know best that were there onely it is generally remarked that at Musleburgh at Dunbar and at Hamilton the honest men got the saddest blows However they continue their professions of Love to you even to this day notwithstanding of all they have met with from you then and I dare say from knowledge that since Hamilton if it had pleased the Lord to have opened your eyes to have known what was truly your interest your duty it might have been in the power of the Godly of Scotland not onely to have preserved their own interest but the interest of the Nation and if it should yet please the Lord to open your eyes I am very confident it should not only tend to your good but to the good of the Land and to the rectifying and composing present differences and distances and perhaps the Lords designe is to make each of you usefull in convincing one another in the extreams that either of you it may be hath been inclining to if ye were once together as Brethren Conferring Exhorting Reproving and Watching over each other and Forbearing Forgiving and Loving each other and not as Enemies reproaching contemning smiting taking advantage raising and fomenting prejudices one against another Dear Friends I hope you will not be offended with my Freedom which is not to lay open your nakedness but to shew the kindness tendernss of these whom ye have looked upon as your Enemies that ye maybe perswaded to meet them with the like Sure I am it is the Designe of God to have his People one to cause them follow him together with one heart at least it is his promise it shall be so And that the Whore that sits upon the many waters shall be destroyed and that the Kingdoms of the world shall become the Kingdoms of his Son and I hope he will not loose you even to make you instrumentall in this great Work he is about for it is his time to build up Zion not to destroy her nor no part of her and if it were not for this I should have been laid by from medling into any business so weighty as this is I know it is such a way as the wayfaring man though a fool cannot erre therein FINIS
Treatie with the King and were likely to close in a way wherewith they were dis-satisfied and that they had left out Scotlands interest The proceedings against the King the taking of his life must be also protested against notwithstanding his continued and confirmed obduredness in his ways al the Justice the Covenant tyes to against Delinquents and the execution of Justice upon severals of our own acting only by vertue of his Commissions and that he were himself oft by us declared a Murtherer the grand Murtherer guilty of all the Innocent blood had been shed in the three Kingdoms that we had no ty upon us for the preservation of his Person by the Covenant otherwise then as in the defence and preservation of Religion and Libertie If it be objected that they were not a free constituted Judicatory that did the thing and so upon that accompt it was murther Let it be considered upon the same consideration if it may not be as strongly cleared that Iames Grahame and all that died upon a Scaffold since 1648. were murthered since it may be made appear that according to the strict accompt of the Lawes of this Nation there has not been a free nor right constituted Parliament since 1648. as appeares by what is aforesaid concerning the constituting of the Parliament that sat down the fourth of Ianuary 1649. As a dutie the King that now is behooved to be proclaimed immediatly though then engaged and running head-long in his Fathers steps Commissioning Prince Rupert Iames Grahaem Ormond making an open and avowed Peace with the Irish Rebels to which height his Father never came Commissioners are sent to him and though at that time through the strength of his passion to the way his heart was engaged unto and the apparent hopes in Ireland whether he also sent his goods he was kept from any seeming condescendence to their desires Yea though they were exceedingly baffled and slighted yet the Lords seeing no consistencie at all betwixt those in England and their Prerogative Interest as Lords and finding a spirit of levelling as they named it beginning to break out honest men beginning to think and to make it appear they thought the Lords interest to be exorbitant and tyrannicall and that the most of them were enemies to Pietie and pious men and to motions tending to the countenancing of both and that they were friends to the getting in and keeping in naughtie men in places of trust with a design to uphold their interest and greatnes and beginning then to look after their libertie in those things that great men had encroched upon them these considerations though so slighted as aforesaid did move them under the notion of duty to presse a second addresse In which many Godly men were ensnared by condescending unto it upon this attempt that they were desirous to shun the scandal of being complyers with these they called Sectaries who had declared against Monarchy hovv that business vvas carried on many of you know better then my self An Express being sent to the Isle of Iarsey to the King by his return a Treaty was desired at Breda the King writing to the Committee of Estates naming them so which he had not formerly done though then only with a Proviso in order to that Treaty The same day and place that the King wrote to the Committee of Estates he did write to James Graham relating the former Commission given him to come into Scotland giving him an accompt of all passages between him and them in Scotland and pressing him vigourously to prosecute the business and the rather because he thought his coming to Orkney had occasioned the sending of that second address unto him and he was hopefull his vigourous prosecuting of that which he had intrusted him with should be a means to make the Committee fall lower in their conditions And though the Copy of this Letter came to Scotland and was known by the Committee of Estates before they fell upon their Instructions notwithstanding of all this these who had projected the business would go on and did prosecute it with so much heat and earnestness that the business both in Instructions and Commissioners was concluded by the Committee of Estates although the Parliament were to sit down vvithin four or five dayes after Those of you that were upon publique business may remember how the whole matter was carried being hudled over and over-hasted so as might have rendred the businesse suspitious to any that were not much left of God to some it did clearly appear to be carryed on by way of designe Though the shenning of scandall made some honest men go along in it yet I think that which partly did entangle severalls was the expectation they had that the King would not agree to the Instructions As for the carrying on of the Treaty and the managing of it in Holland I refer that to the causes of the Commissions Fast appointed when they sate at Sterling and to the Westland Remonstrances of Kirk and Army My designe in all this is that you may take notice how a party and faction even of those whom the Lord had separated from the rest of the Nation pretending as highly as ever has carried aside and entangled the Godly and undermmed you And when in part your snare is discovered unto you though with the price of many sorrows to your selves and much misery to the Land now they begin to appear in their own colours My dear Friends Give me leave in a Christian freedom to expostulate with you and from what I have laid down before you either as matter of Fact or as your received principles to speak freely my own heart unto you what my thoughts reach unto concerning your present low condition as what may have had a great hand in the Providence of God to make your condition as it is I think it may appear unto you from what hath been said though I should adde nothing that there is a distinct interest of the People of God from all worldly interests that it does also clearly appear that your mingling yours therewith and your complying and joyning with Malignant and carnall Instruments in prosecution thereof hath had no small influence in bringing you to so low a condition as you are at this day Yea and which is a greater abomination and also exceedingly tending thereto when you and your brethren in England did fall into mistakes and differences together have you not strengthened the hands of your and their enemies by declaring one anothers Infirmities to the world and not only so Have not you the people of God sided with the men of the world in their way of reproaching your Brethren Yea have not you made them Judges of the differences between you and them which is contrary to that of the Apostle even in Civill things betwixt such as are Saints indeed that they should not bring their causes before the Heathen Judges much less their spiritual differences And