Money never refuse Baptism to such Brats or to couple Whores and Rogues together which are there called half-Mark-Marriages when by their previous Dalliances the Belly begins to swell so that for Shame they cannot in that Condition go to be married in their own Country and I have heard it as the Encomium of a deceased Parson God be with him he never refused to make a Christened Soul or a married Couple But lest any should say that these are malicious Reflections upon the Church of England I answer that a Poet of their own viz. Mr. Hickeringil in his Ceremony-Mongers Character and other Books says a great deal worse and in express Terms That it is the worst constituted Church in the World But that which is enough to confound the Impudence of Gain-sayers The most part of the Abuses which Dissenters accuse the Church of England of are named and a Reformation of them commanded by his Majesty in his late gracious Letter to the Bishop of London which as it hath heightned and confirmed the good opinion which all honest Men had of him it hath also incensed the Debauchees and high-flown Prelatists who upbraid him as now beginning to discover himself and say that it were not best for him to meddle too much Which verifies the Observation that Dissenters have always entertained of those Tantivies that let their Hyperbolical Pretensions of Zeal for Religion and Loyalty be what they will if the King put but forth his Hand and touch them they will curse him to his Face and rather than part with an Inch of Superstition or a swinish Lust will as the Party have always done say a Confederacy with Hell and Rome as times past and present do evidence beyond Contradiction of which if my designed Brevity would permit I could give Authentick Instances out of their own Authors from the Reformation to this very Day But to conclude this Point and manifest to the World that the Presbyterian Discipline is infinitely beyond that so much idolized Discipline of the Church of England let them give such an Instance as this of the now Presbyterian Ministers of Edinburgh who charged their Elders at their Election to visit the Parish two by two and see that the Master of every Family prayed in his Family and if he were not able to do it that they should instruct him and pray with the Family themselves Neither is this a Novelty to capital Applanse but the old Practice of the Presbyterians both at home and abroad where the Government did not obstruct it and which God hath many times bless'd with Success Those being Helps of his own Appointment to assist his faithful Ministers in the Discharge of their Pastoral Duties And we should be very glad to see the Church of England as conscientiously discharge what Discipline their own Canons enjoyn and his Majesty hath now commanded as the aforesaid Ministers are to put theirs in practice out of mere Principle and without any such Command but this is more than we can hope or their Church bear as now constitute which time will verify Nor do we want Testimony from Officers of their own Communion of the good Discipline of Presbyterian Families in Ireland where they quartered and as a thing extraordinary to them gave an Account by Letter to their Friends that they were quartered in Scots Presbyterian House who read pray'd and sung Psalms in their Families twice a Day And yet those are the Men whom the Church of England will not admit into Command though they have sufficiently evidenced their Courage Christianity and Loyalty in the Desence of Dery c. whereof others basely and maliciously have robbed them of the Honour What our Author means by the Orthodox Principles the Scots University were so careful to infuse into their Students or by the great and distinguishing Doctrines of the Church of England defended in Print by an eminent Professor at Glasgow I know not When I was at the University of Edinburgh about 9 Years ago the Assemblies Confession of Faith was taught there and generally by the Episcopalians through the Kingdom though their Practice and the same were as much opposite as black is to white And I cannot think our Author will allow that Confession as Orthodox lest he should thwart a Church-of England-Jury who brought it in as a Libel not many Years ago it being also formerly damned by the University of Oxon And that the Church of England though different in Government and Ceremonies held any Doctrine which distinguished her from other Reformed Churches none ever averred except it were that new up-start slavish Doctrine of Non-Resistance and Passive Obedience in the sense of the present disloyal Recusant Clergy whereof as she had the Dishonour to be the Mother she has also the Ignominy to be the Murderer having basely cut its Throat as Harlots use to do sometimes with their spurious Brood whereof if their darling K. James had had timely Notice a thousand to one if ever the Nation had seen the blessed Day of an Abdication and Vacancy of his Throne and the same filled with the best of Kings as it is now to the Terror of Papists and their Adherents But if as there is all the Reason in the World to believe they are the Apostles of Passive Obedience whose Cause this Man advocates we know what Friend he is to the Government For if they believe their own Doctrine they must needs look upon resisting and dethroning the greatest Tyrant as unlawful and consequently disapprove of what the Nation has done against the late King and look upon their present Majesties as Usurpers whom they may lawfully resist and depose when they have sufficient Force which that they may attain we need not doubt of their Zeal to buz about their venemous Principles and intoxicate the Minds of those who that they may without Controul enslave themselves and others by their Profanity to the Devil which his present Majesty by his Letter aforesaid has shewed himself an Enemy to they will freely render Themselves and the Nations Slaves to the Tyranny of France and Rome What was the Behaviour of the Episcopal Clergy at the Insurrection of Bothwel-Bridg our Author says every one knows but I believe if all the Truth were told he himself knows little of it and I am confident helooks upon himself as some Body and would be very angry if his Neighbours did not so too However seeing he hath put me in Mind of it I 'le let some know what I am sure he is not willing they should which is thus When the extraordinary Hazard of those in whose Houses they met the frequent Surprizes and barbarous Usage of those who did meet and the Blessing of God upon the Endeavours of the Preachers did so much increase the Number of Meeters that they could not with Conveniency and Safety be accommodated with Houses they betook themselves to the Field where it pleased God by the Foolishness of Preaching or in the
Mercy to those who professedly disown his Title for never was any Government known so mild towards those who refuse to own it and the least Punishment that can be is to turn such from their Employments And what kind of Friend to the Government this Pampheleteer is who complains of Injustice in depriving of such Men may be casily guessed As for his hear-say Violences used to their Clergy whereof the most atrocious Instances are the killing of one and daubing his Face with Excrements and abusing the Wife of another though in Child-bed they are Hellish Prelatical Lyes and we challenge him to make good his Assertions that any Presbyterians were concerned in those Inhumanities which if any such happened look liker the brutish impudent Fury of 2ome Episcopalians whose Relations have perhaps suffered by the Information or Rage of those Curates whose malicious Carriage hath several times drawn upon them the Resentments of those of their own communion to revenge the Injuries offered to their Wives Children and remoter Relations of which we can give many Instances if needful but that we may be assured they are impudent atrocious Lies he neither gives Time nor Place nor Name of those Persons so abused which to be sure he would if he could only he tells you he has been told so and he cannot certainly tell you who did it though their Neighbours threatned thom Just like the Instance of Papaprelatical Veracity used by the D. or York and his Episcopal Council of Scotland against the University of Edinburgh when they had affronted him by burning the Pope in December 1680. they first alledged that the Students threatned to burn the Provost's House because he like a Blockhead had suffered the King's Souldiers to enter the City contrary to his own Oath and the Towns Priviledges to prevent the burning of the Pope and when they had buzzed about this supposed Threatning then they burn'd it themselves and charged the Students with it no make them odious and find Occasion of dissolving the University which they did for some time and though the said Students offered to come to any legal Trial for their Vindication it was never accepted because the Council knew it could be proved that some of the Duke's Livery were seen come from the House just as it took fire and that a Barrel of Powder having the Castle-Mark on it which it was not possible for any to come at but from the King's Ammunition was found in the Park near the said House The most violent Prosecutors of the said Students were the Bishops of St. Andrews Edinburgh and the profane Russian Sir William Ratherson then Clerk to the council and as great a Whore-master as his Brother the Bishop who both of them particularly when the Students were examined by the Council about the Pope-burning took care to have that Question ask'd at them if they went to Church knowing the Prelatists had not such a Hatred at Popery as the others which as it was discovered then appears above board now when they joyn actually with the Papists in Arms against the present Government in that Kingdom and according to our last Advices from Ireland the Robels build their great Hopes upon an Association of the Scots Prelatists who have sworn Allegiance to their present Majesties that they may have the greater Opportunity of undermining them Our Author in the next place resolves to give us a touch of his Hyperbolical or rather hellish because lying Oratory That it 's beyond the Power of Words to express their Misery to that Degree as they suffer it But I would have him to remember that there are Episcopal Inhumanities which we have felt of a far higher Nature than those he falsly alledges they suffer viz. Rapes Rapine Murder Hanging Drowning Beheading Famine torturing with Boots Thumikins c. which we have Words to express and pray if he can let him give us Instances of their Sufferings to the Degree This next Reflection is upon the want of Divine Service in many Churches for some Months to which he may readily be answered That most of them have wanted it ever since the Restitution of Prelacy for what Service has been in them since it has by its Effects proved far enough from being Divine as may be seen by their want of Converts of which we challenge the whole Party to produce any if they can Perverts we are sure they may and therefore we give them the like Choice as Elijah gave to Baal's Priests The God that answereth by Fire let him be God Let those whose Ministry God has owned by the Seal of Conversion be his Ministers and the others not and we are sure to find the Scots Prelatical Curates to be excluded and that Threatning exactly fulfilled on them Because you ran and I have not sent you therefore you shall not profit my People whereby God hath owned our Cause and maintained the Truth of our Arguments against their Mission and Ordination Not that I would accuse all who cannot perhaps give Proof of their Ministry by Conversion as no Ministers knowing that God is Soveraign and may use in that Work whom he pleases but I say that considering their way of Ordination and coming in upon Flocks which they have maintained after so much Light to the contrary in Opposition to that Way which is clearly exhibited in the Word their Universal want of Success while God hath blessed their Opposites with it is to me as visible a Demonstration that God owns our Cause and disowns theirs as his burning up of Elijah's Sacrifice while that of the Baalicolites remained untouched was that he owned him as his Prophet and disowned them And that some Churches are unprovided and others not so well as they should be is no Reflection upon us but on themselves who have by their Inhumanity diminished the Number of our Ministers prevented the breeding up of others and at present obstruct the Settlement of our Church by their horrid Lies and sly malicious Insinuations But when their Party was predominant I have seen several Churches nay I am sure the most part of the Churches in some Counties where there was little or no Divine Service as they call it because the People could not be prevail'd upon to come and hear them and in that case let any Man judg whether it be fit to impose such a Minister whom the People would not hear or where have they a Precedent in the Scripture for such Practices Next he tell us that the Nobility Gentry and better sort of the Commonalty respect the Persons and Functions and extreamly commiserate the Condition of their Clergy c. A Mass of malicious Impudence Was it not the Nobility and Gentry and the Representatives of the Commonalty that made those Laws which turn'd them out and decalred the Function of their Bishops an insupportable Grievance to the Nation Where were their Advocates then why did they not appear in Parliament or wherefore did not their Nobility and
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
mentioned were executed to satisfy the Fury of the ungodly Prelatists the Court became a little exorable and sent down a Pardon to the rest but that Limb of Antichrist and infernal Locust the Apostate Arch-Bishop Sharp being a Revolter and consequently profound to make Slaughter with a Malice like his Father the Devil kept up the same till several more were executed a Demon stration that the most implacable enraged Tyrant hath more Bowels of Mercy than a waspish formal Prelate In like manner when an Indulgence was granted to settle the Minds of the People after the Insurrection at Bothwel-Bridg the Generation of Vipers the Episcopalian Seed of the Serpent did most bitterly revile the D. of Monmouth whom they look'd upon as the Procurer of it and flew in the Face of Majesty it self expressing themselves in the Lady Hatton's Dialect What the Devil shall the K's Bastard-Son govern us And the unconstant turn-coat Clergy some of whom while the Presbyterians kept in Arms declared their Dissatisfaction with Prelacy and after their Defeat recanted again by their Muse Ninian Paterson Curate of Liberton published an obscene scurrilous Lampoon reflecting upon the Government for that Indulgence which made some of the Episcopal Party themselves wonder that ever such a Fellow should have been suffered to pollute a Pulpit afterwards That you may taste a little of their Poets Modesty I shall give you some of his Lines which occur to my Memory In his Proaemium he addresses the King thus We are like Jobs this 19 Years perplex'd Betwixt Destruction and Distraction vex'd And that dread Sir though not so strange as true By Scabs and Devils now indulg'd by you And Abundance more a great deal worse which I have forgot But that you may know that their Pen-men and Sword-men or if you will Hectors and Buffoons are near a-kin in Morals you must understand this Clergy-Poet was famous and well known by the Name of Knaggs a Scotch Word for a Pin to hang any thing one The Occasion of his being called so was thus Coming on a time into a GEntlewoman's Chamber before she was fully dressed he took up her Neck-lace which when she enquired after he told her he had hung it upon a Knag and when she asked where he shewed it her hanging on his .... c. a very modest Episcopal Preacher Our Author says the Episcopal Clergy generally complain'd of Violation of Justice under the late Administration and though some were too accessary others suffered for their Opposition and that the whole are not culpable for the Miscarriages of a few which take it in the Complex is a hateful Prevarication and great Untruth The Nation too well felt it and smarts yet for it That they generally in their Sermons and otherwise abetted the Tyranny of the Court and thundered Anathema's against those that maintained the lawfulness of resisting Tyrants and though it 's true the honestest amongst them were turned out by the Test that says nothing in defence of those at present ejected The Anti-Testers being thrown out in the Time of Charles the Second and consequently are too honest to have any share in his Apology and it 's well known the generality of those who continued in afterwards went along with the Court in every thing till such time as Liberty was given to the Presbyterians which was always more intolerable to the Prelatists than Liberty to the Papists and then htey snuffed not that they were angry with the Tyranny of the Manner for it was according to their own Doctrine that the King was emboldened to issue his Proclamation in such a tyrannical Stile but that like Cain being conscious to themselves of their Brethrens Blood they were afraid to see them any way countenaced by those in Power and for Cain's Reason too lest every one that found them should kill them for they knew well enough that the inhumane Laws in their darling King James's Time which made it Death for any Nonconformists to preach or People to hear them were contrived by their Abettors and passed by consent of the Bishops They knew also that the brutish impotent revengeful Tortures of Boots and Thumikins had been inflicted on the Presbyterians by Advice of the Privy-Council where their Bishops were the most obdurate Spectators and impertinent spiteful movers of Questions to the poor tortured Prisoners They knew further that they had procured and given consent to the Antichristian-like Execution of Gentlemen within an hour after their Sentence as Jerriswood and others like the practice of that Italian who threatned to stab his Neighbour if he would not deny God and when he had done it stabbed him notwithstanding that he might kill his Soul too by allowing him no time to repent They knew further that their Prelats had sat in Council where Men were examined and threatned with Torture to declare their Thoughts on such an such Points and after having declared them were hanged for the same as James Skein and others which was an invasion on the Right of Mankind Nay Tyranny was come to such an height that their meanest scoundrel Officers would take upon them to examine as Judges Persons whom they had apprehended and torture them with burnt Matches betwixt their Fingers to tell the Ministers Names who they had heard preach and who of their Acquaintance were there besides And the base impudent Priests whose Fathers were not good enough to eat with the Dogs of their Flocks were hence incouraged to vomit out scurrilous Reflections upon their own Patrons Families and those of the greatest Quality because favourers of Presbytery they were so far from complaining of the Violation of Justice as our lying Pamphleteer would insinuate In the next place the Scribler mentions an Address of the Scotish Bishops which he says very much incensed the common inferior People against them and pleads for some charitable Allowance to that Action because of the Laws then in force and seeing as he says they are willing to submit to the Government the Power of those in Authority might be pleased to cover them from the Rage and Insolence of the Rabble Wherein he shews himself plainly an Enemy to the Government He passes over the Address very smoothly though it was that scandalous Libel against his present Majesty when attempting our Deliverance They who will may read it in Gazette Numb 2398. Novemb. 12. 1688. and I shall only animadvert upon two or three Passages in it And first they reckon the long and illustrious Race of our Kings the greatest Glory of the Kingdom Diametrically opposite to the Sentiments of all sober Men who allowing that its due place constantly affirm the greatest Glory of that Nation to be their early and long profession of the Christian Religion being among the first Fruits of the Gentiles gifted unto Christ Psalm 2. amongst the utmost Ends of the Earth and in the Opinion of good Historians blessed with the first Christian King But this Expression of the Antichristian-Prelats