expect Control or Contradiction and laying them by from all open opposition to the introduction of Poperie and advancement of Slaverie he purposed and proposed the repealing of the Penal Statutes against Papists at the Parliament held by the Earl of Murray Against which when afterwards some of the Common sort of people and of the Souldiers spoke some what freely and for shewing their dislike of setting up the Idolatrous Mass and for speaking against Poperie and the designs of the King they were put to Death in a most Despotical and Arbitrary manner The Persecution the mean while still continuing against us and growing more dangerous and worse to bear that we had all the brunt of it to sustain while the Forces had few other to Persecute but us which they did in great fury murdering in Fields and Scaffolds such as they could catch of us At length what could not be obtained by Law at the formentioned Parliament for taking off the Penal Statutes was effectuate by Prerogative in a Proclamation Feb 12 1687. Granting by the Kings Soveraign Authority Prerogative Royal and Absolute Power which Subjects are to obey without Reserve a Toleration under certain conditions Restrictions and Limitations to all sorts of Perswasions excepting us who are left to the full vigor and utmost rigor of the Laws made against us Suspending Stoping and Disabling all Laws or Acts of Parliament customs or constitutions against any Roman Catholick Subjects giving them freedom in all respects as much as any Prtoestant Subjects whatsoever not only to Exercise their Religion but to enjoy all Offices Benefices c. which he shall think fit to bestow upon them in all time coming Hence Papists were put into places of highest Trust both Civil and Military And Popish Magistrates without any Election established in Burghs c. contrare to the known Laws of the Kingdom admitting none to be Magistrates or so much as a Procutator Notar or member of Court who professes not the Protestant Religion Act 9. Parl 1. Iames 6. Declaring all Papists infamous and unable to sit or stand in Judgment pursue bear Office or to be admitted as proves Witness or Assisors against Protestants Act 45 Parl 3 Iames 6 which is extended to all and whatsomever Office without any Exception or Restriction in all time coming Act 5 Parl 20 Iames 6 Hence also the Idolatrous Mass was set up in the most publick places of the Kingdom and Popish Seminary Priests suffered and encouraged to preach and set up Schools to seduce the People especially the Youth contrate to many express standing Laws Act 3 Parl 1 Iames 6 and Act 5 ibid Ordaining all layers or hearers of Mass to be punished with imprisonment for the first fault banishment for the second and justifying to the Death for the third fault Act 122 Iarl 12 K Iames 6 Decerning That in all time coming the saying of Mass resetting of Jesuites Seminary Priests Traffiquing Papists shall be just cause to infer the pain and crime of Treason Act 196 Parl 14 Iames 6 Ordaining in all time coming all wilfull hearers of Mass and concealers of the same be execute to the Death Ratified in the 1 Act. Parl. 19. Iac. 6. And in 5. Act. Parl 20 Iac 6. Hence Papists have erected Schools and made sold and dispersed their Heretical Books tending to seduce the People from the true Religion contrary to express Laws Act. 106. Parl 7 Iac 6 Act 24 and 25 Parl 11 I 6. This Popish Toleration was neither extended to us all the three Proclamations thereof expresly providing that Field Conventicles all Preachers and Hearers thereat be prosecuted according to the utmost Severity and Rigor of the Lawes made against them left in their full Force and Vigor with a Command to all Judges Magistrates and Officers of â—orces to pursue us with all Violence Nor could we in Conscience and Duty directly or indirectly suffer our selves to be involved by any participation therewith or acceptance thereof in the sin of it against the Laws of GOD and Man Since it appeared evidently to flow from a Blasphemous fountain of Absolute Power through a Treasonable Channel of stoping Suspending and disabling the Penal Statutes made against the Enemies of GOD and of the Kingdom and to be designed for the wicked ends of subverting the Protestant Religion and the peaceable introduction of Popish Idolatrie and Heresie And to offer not the establishment of our Religion but the Tolerating of it under the scandalous notion of a thing to be suffered for a while and with such shameful securities as robbed the Church of all her Legal Charters of Laws and Covenants establishing her Reformation leaving her nothing in lieu thereof but a blind precarious promise of One whose principles oblieged him to keen no Faith with those to whom he promised it But against all these indignities done to Christ and injuries to the Church intended and effected by this Toleration our Ministers thought themselves oblieged to bear witness and Testimony And with respect both to necessity and duty to continue to keep their Meetings in the open Fields whether the Tyranny of the times had driven them Since they durst neither seem to Homologate the Toleration by coming under the sconce of such a protection Nor durst they give such advantage to such as were insatiably thirsting after their Blood and were impowered to shed it as they were seeking and would have found if they had shut up themselves within houses that could neither hold their Friends nor be hid from their Enemies This we looked upon as a Testimony for the interest of the Protestant Religion for our Covenanted Reformation for the Laws Liberties of our Country all undermined and sought to be subverted by that Toleration In the prosecution of this Device when others were killed with Popish kindnesses we were left to feell the sweet effects of Popish Crueltie Some of our Bretheren were Murdered in Fields and Scaffolds since that pretended Toleration Many both Men and Women have been banished and Sold for Slaves in Barbados Other severe Proclamations were issued against our Ministers Intercommuning seting a pryce upon their Heads to encourage all to apprehend them Dead or alive One of them Mr. Iames Renwick a painful Minister being Feb. 1688. was Executed to the Death in Edinburgh the Drums beating all the time of his Praying and speaking upon the Scaffold And after this not only was the Country oppressed with Souldiers free quarterings and frighted with their searches and Insolences in their ryding up and down the Country challenging peaceable Travellers upon the Road about their Opinions of the Kings Authority and if this and that was Rebellion and threatning present Death to such as did not satisfie them But the City of Edinburgh vexed with universal searches and the impositions of these impertinences whereby many were taken and examined by Claver-house who required them to renounce the Covenant imprisoned the Recusants Whereby the Prisons were crouded
Colours and represented the danger of trusting them to the King who being much a Stranger to Men at his first coming over might be easily deceived in the choose of such as were to be Imployed and then it had been easier to keep out then now to put out of Places But it is never too late to seek to be Rid of these that were and are like to be Instruments of our Ruine whose Exclusion from Trust and Power to play their old Tricks is necessary for the King's Interest as well as the Kingdoms which are inseperable And since the King declared against these evil Counsellours and on their Crimes and Mal-administrations founded the Righteousness and Necessity of his Expedition neither King nor Parliament can justly offend at or refuse the Nations Demands to be eased of them nor find it convenient that the Betrayers of our Laws and Robbers of our Priviledges under the last Government be excluded from all share of Administration in this We have experience of their Conduct and Administration already wherein we found nothing but Tyranny Rapine and Violence and such Justice and Law as is discovered above and therefore can never beleive while only Interest hath made them change their way that ever they shall Administer Righteous Judgement And whatever Confidence others may have we cannot be without fears while we are under the power of our old Persecuters But above all it is most offensive to God and all Good men that Murderers of innocent People without and against all Law particularly several of these above Named should not only be Connived at and past without punishment but Encouraged and Intertained in Favour and Trust some of them Discovered and Apprehended as Traitors to the present Government are notwithstanding over looked and suffered to escape Justice and Liberate upon Bale as Major or Lieu. Col. Balfour and Lieu. Nisbet others of them are Members of Parliament as the Commissioners for the Shire of Nithsdale and Stewartry of Anandale Sir Ia. Iohnstoun of Westerhal and Iohnstoun of Corehead who is notourly known to have of late several times in Caballs with Iacobines drunk the late King's Health Blood is a crying Sin defiling the Land which cannot be cleansed but by the Blood of them that shed it We thirst for the Blood of none nor crave the sheding of any but of these who are so guilty of Blood that they are Condemned to the punishment of Murderers by the Law of God and all Nations having shed the Blood of War in Peace without all shaddow of Law But as for those that Murdered our Bretheren without all Process Accusation Trial Conviction Assise or Sentence as is observed in his Majesties Declaration for Scotland We should not be free of the Guilt of their Impunity if we did not seek Justice against them Yet we wonder the less at this that such Criminalls as were Authorized under the former Government by Arbitrary orders tho without Law to perpetrate their Crimes are not Punished when open avowed Traitors Speakers of Treason and Rebells against the Present Government taken in ovett Acts of Lese-Majestie discovered in Plots and Projects and Apprehended in Armes against his Majestie are Indemnified Connived at let out of Prisons and Tolerated and thereby Encouraged and Tempted to go on in their Conspiracies and return to the same Crimes when ever they find Opportunity for they will not ascribe this to his Majesties Clemency but to the weakness of the Government that dare not draw its Sword of Justice In the former Government there was nothing but Severity against those that in the least Discented from it In this there is nothing but Mercy to Rebels both these are Extremes In the Third place we cannot but have sad Reflections upon the bad success of the War Which we think is not so much to be imputed to the bad Conduct of those to whom it is intrusted as to the Wickedness and Malignancy of the Army laying them and the Land open to the danger of the wrath of GOD while the Abominations of Swearing Cursing Profaning the Sabbath Whoredom Drunkenness and all debaucheries which are severely interdicted by Military Lawes if they were put in execution and are so abounding among Officers and Souldiers that the honest hearted among them whom only Conscience did prompt to engage in the service are exceedingly discouraged all the fearers of GOD affrighted to whom the abounding of and continuance in these sins is a greater terror than all the Numbers of Enemies This is the more to be adverted that all that acknowledge GOD are astonished with His signall and stupendous stroks so observably wasting many Thousands of the English Army in Ireland within these few Moneths past for these same Abominations But not only are our Armies filled with the Profane end Profligate Skum of Mankind But to the great Reproach of the Cause wherein Religion is so nearly concerned to the dishonour of GOD and offence of all the Godly many Malignant Enemies to Reformation avowed Adversaries and Persecuters of Truth and Godliness are encouraged imployed and intrusted for the defence of the Interest which within this short time they professedly opposed and by many Dreadful Oaths were engaged to Suppress For the old Dragoons the Late Kings Lieveguard and others after by Executing their old Masters cruell and Arbitrary Orders they had enriched themselves with the spoylls of the oppressed Country and imbrewed their hands in the Blood of innocent and Righteous People when they saw the Prince of Orange like to prevail forsook their King and crouded into his Highness Armies Not for love to his Cause which with the greatest keenness they contended against as long as they could But to prevent the just Vengance of his Victorious Armes then threatened Hence they are yet intertained among the Forces and there tho they have not occasion to exert their fury as formerly Yet they cease not to express their Malice against us in boasting that they hope yet to Persecute us as much as ever And bragging they are and shall be for Prelacy as long as they Live not fearing to impugn the Act of Parliament against it It is certainly a Land-sin to be witnessed against as well as a Grievance that such Enemies of Truth and Godliness should be admitted unto or continued in Power and Trust in the Army or imployed and intertained therein It is dangerous that the Royal Standart should be a Sanctuary to them whom Divine Justice will pursue And absurd that the Army should be polluted and in danger to be infected with the Contagion of such an unhappy conjunction and unholy Association It were more profitable and promising like that the Tears and Cries of the many Widows and Orphans whom their bloody Sword have beraved of their Husbands and Parents might prevail with the Justice of the Government to find them out and give them their reward It were no loss but a great advantage to the King and Countrey both that the Army were
A SHORT MEMORIAL OF THE Sufferings AND Grievances PAST and PRESENT OF THE PRESBYTERIANS IN SCOTLAND Particularly of those of them called by Nick-name Cameronians Printed in the Year 1690. TO THE READER IT is not needful in the entry to give a Deduction either of the Excellent Establishments of Religion and Civil Liberties and Provisions made for security of both that our Fathers obtained and Enjoyed by the Mercy of GOD under the Patrociny of Righteous Rulers Or of the deplorable Demolishments of these Invaluable Intersts since the unhappy Re-introduction of Prelacy and Tyranny which brought Poperie to the very Birth in this Land had it not pleased the Most High GOD by the interposition of the present King as an Instrument to make it abortive But it is very useful and pleasant to remember that the Reformation of the Church of Scotland was sometimes as far Celebrated among all the Churches as now it is Depreciated incontempt and Obscurity Among other peculiar Eminencies of it above many other Churches she had this very early for the subject of her Gloriation through Grace that at once and from the Beginning both Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government were Reformed according to the Pattern of the Institutions of Christ to that degree of Purity that our very first Reformers could assert to the praise of Grace that no Corruption was left in this Church that ever flowed from the Man of Sin Which through the Blessing of GOD upon the Faithful and earnest Labours and Wrestling of His Servants in the Ministry made such progress in a short time that not only the Doctrine was perfectly purged of the Leaven of Popery Arminianisme Socinianisme c. and all other Heresies the Worship of all Idolatry and Superstition but the Discipline was impartially exercised and the Government Reformed from Diocesan Prelacy Sectarian Confusions and Erastian Supremacy of the Civil Powers and framed in the nearest Conformity to the Primitive Apostolick Pattern according to the Word of GOD and example of the best Reformed Churches in the Presbyterial Order of Congregational Classical Synodical and National Assemblies In the Preservation and Observation of which Beautiful Order making our Church Beautiful as Tirzah Comely as Jerufalem Terrible as an Army with Banners This was also her Priviledge and Praise which is the Fruit of this Government wheresoever it hath Place that she was Once and for a long time as much admired for Union as of late for Divisions since these Corruptions made a Breach upon Vs Her Name was once called Philadelphia among all the Reformed Churches and t was long since attested at that unhappy Convention at Perth which attempted the Introduction of some Popish Novations in the Year 1618. That from that backward to the Year 1558. there had been neither Schisme nor Heresie in this Church as also from thence forward the same might have been said excepting the Contentions which the Prelates and Malignants occasioned until the fatal Catastrophe No Church on Earth had more Purity Order or Vnity and was freer of Corruption Defection and Division that this Church This our Renowned Reformation in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government as it was Founded on the Law and the Testimony of the GOD of Heaven so it was Confirmed by all the Sanctions Ratifications and Securities that any Right can be capable of among Men Not only by many Laws penal and Statutory Established as Bulworks for Preserving and Defending it against all the forementioned Adversaries by many Constitutions and Acts of General Assemblies ratified by Parliaments But by many again and again Renewed National and Solemn Covenants sworn to the most High GOD by all Ranks from the King to the Beggar in all Capacities and Conditions This Testimony for this Covenanted Reformation so Confirmed and Established as it hath been Transmitted to Vs through a long continued Tract of many Wrestling and Sufferings from our worthy Ancestors and sealed by much Precious Blood and the Bonds and Bondage of many Faithful Martyrs and Confessors of Christ adhering to the same in our day so as it was then and now Stated and Sealed hath been and is thought by all the Asserters of our Reformation to have such a near and clear Connexion with the great Concern of the Crown-Prerogatives and Imperial Dignities of the Prince of the Kings of the Earth as Head of His visible Kingdom whose incommunicable Glory it is without Competitoor Co-partner either Coordinate or Subordinate to Institute his own Government prescribe His own Laws appoint his own Ordinances which He will have observed without addition dimunition or alteration until His second coming and to constitute His own Officers Cloathed only with His Authority and to be regulated only by His Instructions in their Ministerial Function without any Dependence on Subordination to or Indulgence from any Man or Angel in the exercise thereof under their Master Christ alone to whom it belongs as properly to Rule the Church his own free Kingdom according to the good pleasure of His own Will as it belongs to Him to save his Church by the Merit of his own Sufferings that our Famous Fathers and such of their Children as have been faithful in following their footsteps have judged it a Testimony worthy to Sacrifice all their Interests upon in opposing and contending against all the Invasions and Vsurpations made upon these Prerogatives of Christ and Priviledges of His Church by Poperie Prelacy and Erastian Supremacy all condemned in the Law of GOD diseharged by the Laws of the Land and Abjured in our Covenants National and Solemn League As being highly derogatorie to the Glory of Christ contradictory to His revealed will offensive to His People obstructive to the Power and destructive to the peace purity and Liberty of His precious Gospel Now for adbering to this complex Testimony what have been the Sufferings and Grievances of Presbyterians in general and ours in particular since Anno 1660 from the Popish Prelatical and Malignant Party is more fully demonstrated with the Principles and Testimonie contended for by us vindicated in Naphtali Jus populi the Hind let loose our Informatory Vindication the Testimony against the Toleration given in by that faithful zealous Minister of Christ Mr. James Renwick and here summarly Remonstrated We had once a Resolution at the first appearance of the Prince of Orange who under GOD was the Honoured Instrument of our begun enlargement from them To have Addressed his Highness with this same Memorial But that failing after this long suspence in expectation of some Redress of Grievances whereof we and many others have been in a great measure disappointed We have been induced to publish it in this Iuncture with an Appendix of our present complaints of somethings that we understand to be wrong in the Church State Army and Country at the time of the writing thereof which was in the time and upon occasion of the many Adjournments of Parliament Wherein perhaps something will occur which may
private Subjects Men really invested with Authority do think their Laws and Power to execute them on Offenders may well enough secure the Peoples subjection and will disdain such a suspicion of the questionablenss of their Authority as to make it a Question to the Subjects The more it was made a Question to us the more it became questioned and suspected And the more we were made to enquire into it the further we were from deprehending or recognoscing in him either the Characters or Constitution of a Magistrate to be owned We considered the many righteous Laws established by our worthy Ancestors for the preservation of the True Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom insert in the National Covenant which every Soul in the Kingdom under the Bond of that Covenant is bound to maintain according to their Capacities As Act 8 Parl. 1. King Ia 6 repeated and ratified in many Acts afterwards expresly providing and ordaining that all Kings and Princes at their Coronation and Reception of their Princely Authority shall make their faithful promise by Oath and that they shall profess and maintain the Protestant Religion and shall abolish and gainstand all false Religion contrary the same and shall rule according to Law c. Which Oath of Coronation he did not take would not take could not take while a Papist and therefore we could not look on him as our King by Law We considered likewise that in our Covenants the Allegiance that we must own to the King is expresly limited and qualified thus In the preservation and defence of the True Rellgion Liberties and Laws of the Kingdom Of which Qualification Allegiance to him a destroyer of Religion and Liberty is nor capable We remembred the Principles and Sentiments of our Fathers upon the Admission of King Charles 2. to the exercise of his Royal Power Declared in their seasonable and necessary Warning Gen Assem Iuly 27 Sess 27 1649. Wherein they tell us That a boundless and illimited Power is to be acknowledged in no King nor Magistrate that there is a mutual Stipulation and Obligation between the King and the People as both of them are tyed to GOD so each of them are tyed to one another Accordingly Kings are to take the Oath of Coronation to abolish Popery and maintain the Protestant Religion As long therefore as the King refuses to Engage and Obliege himself for security of Religion and safety of his People it is consonant to Scripture and Reason and Laws of the Kingdom that he should be refused And that in the Covenant the Duty of owning the King is subordinate to the Duty of preserving Religion and Liberty And therefore without security of these it were a manifest breach of Govenant and a preferring the Kings Interest to the Interest of Christ to bring him to the exercise of his power And consequently for us to give such a consent to it as such an owning of him as required would amount to Accordingly also the Commission of the General Assembly in their Act of the West-Kirk Declared They would not own the King nor his Interest otherwise than with a subordination to GOD and so far as he should own and prosecute the Cause of GOD and disclaim his and his Fathers opposition to the Work of GOD and the Covenant We called to mind likewise what our Renowned Reformers gave out as the case of their Revolt from the Government of Mary Qu Dowager anno 1559. her persecuting the Professors of the True Religion and oppressing the Liberties of the True Lieges her intruding of Magistrates against all Order of Election her Adultering and Subverting the Old Laws of the Realm c. Which all Men know were as applicable to King Iames 7th as to her And therefore we had their Reason to obliege us and their example to encourage us to say with them We own and promise to our Lawful Soveraign all due Obedience provided we may have our Religion and Liberty secured without which we firmely purpose never to be subject to Mortal Man For which and many other Reasons we reckoned our selves under Obligations to decline the imposed owning of his Authority and took the opportunity in the time of the Expedition of the Earl of Argyle against him to Publish in a Declaration our Reasons why we could not acknowledge it In the mean time the late Earl of Argyle with some other Noblemen and Gentlemen Associating with the Duke of Munmouth to essay some Diversion and Opposition to the Kings designs of advancing and establing Tyrannie and Popery All the Forces Militia Troups and Companies and the whole Army of Heretors were powred in upon those Places of the Kingdom where most of us were sojourning Who besides all the blood shed upon the account of that Expedition the Blood of the Earle himself and others of both Nations engaged with him and many of his Wassalls in the Highlands cruely put to Death by the Marq. of Athol had in Commission and put in execution the Bloodiest Orders we think readily Men could ever receive or obey The greatest employment that that great Army had in hand and in heart was to wreck and exert all their fury and force upon the poor Mountain-Men as they called us Which they did by ranging and spreading themselves many miles in breadth every one within sight of another and searching for us through all the Rocks Woods Mountains and Mosses of the Country where we were hiding with such Vigore Violence and dilligence as if they had been hunting for Hares or Foxes And the greatest ambition and emulation of their Leaders and Champions Graham of Claver-house Liev. Gen. Douglas Brother to the Duke of Queensberry Col. Buchan with others of their inferiour Officers Maj. Balfour Liev. Creightoun and Liev. Livingstoun c. was who should be most skilful and succesfull in destroying us And all this for no other Cause then because we could not Answer to their satisfaction the Questions they proposed without any warrant of Law and against the Common Interest of Mankind which frees all Men from being obliged to discover their secret thoughts Namely because we could not obtain of our Consciences to declare that we would own and acknowledge that Authority which enacted and by which they acted all these mischiefs Yet to the commendation of GODS Clemency and condemnation of Mens cruelty we may say when they had shot all their bolts after they had hanged shot tortured or banished for slaves all they could catch of us they were further from their purpose than when they began our Numbers and Mettings for Gospel ordinances Administrated in Purity and power encreased more and more But at length tho' our Persecution continued the King was pleased to change his Methods with other Dissenters He multiplied many Favours to such of them as he called Moderate And by these means intending to advance the Mysterie of iniquity by stoping the mouths and binding up the hands of all from whom he might
seem obliquely to reflect upon the Government when we complain of the ill Administrations of many Malignants in power But as they are sad Truths which cannot be denyed and tho we may be charged with Imprudence in speaking so freely what many Thousands and those of the surest Friends the Government hath do think So however we be neither Politicians nor Flatterers we think Conscience and Loyalty both doth oblige us to speak what concerns the King and Country both to hear We do not blame the King for delaying the satisfaction that his People have long waited for further than for permitting some into Trust who have abused him with misinformations of what they waited for and with counsels to delay their satisfaction Nor are we jealous of his Majesties sincere intentions to perform what he hath promised and the Estates Demanded as necessary for settling the Church securing Laws restoring Liberties and Redressing Grievances Albeit many here complained of have laboured to suggest grounds of such Iealousie We have got already so much Advantage by the success of his Heroick Expedition And so many repeated Assurances of his Royal Resolutions to fulfill his Declaration and Promises to our satisfaction none of which we can charge him with the breach of tho many of them are not yet accomplished that we should be very unworthy to Iealouse his Integrity We consider his Majestie stated in very Difficult and Dangerous Circumstances since he interposed himself in our Gap between an angry God and a sinful Provocking People Wherein he hath to do with a potent Enemy without and many undermyning Enemies about his Hand seeking to ensnare him in sin and expose him to ruine and hath in his two Kingdoms of Britain People of different Interests and Inclination whom to Govern will require great deliberation and consequently occasion delayes But we lay the blame where it should lye on the Malignants at Court Council and Parliament who are seeking to betray him and us both If some of these be exposed and their old pranks discovered and the Grievous effects of their being so much in Power hinted at We hope the Candid Reader will think it no ill service either to King or Country ERRATA Reader before thou peruse these Sheets be pleased to help these Escapes of the PRESS omitting these of less Note Page 15. Line 34. Read encouraged P. 17. 19. R. superadded by L. 25. R. equaling P. 34. Col. 1. 9. R. 21 Men and 5 Women P. 35 Col. 2. L. 11. for Douglas R. Dundass P. 36. Col. 1. L 5 for Mouat R. Mewae Col. 2. L. 20 R. Dundass and L. 26. R. Dundass P. 39. L. 36. for Orders R. Order P. 48. L. 18. R. flowing A SHORT MEMORIAL OF THE GRIEVANCES and SUFFERINGS Of the PRESBYTERIANS in SCOTLAND Since the Year 1660. Particularly of those of them called CAMERONIANS AFTER King Charles returned from his Exile the first Device which the Malignants then advanced to the highest places of Trust fell upon for overturning our Religion Laws and Liberties was to prevent and obstruct all access either to Justice or Mercy for such as they had a mind to destroy and preclude all Applications for a Redress of Grievances Hence when some faithful Ministers were drawing up a Monitory Supplication to the King congratulating his Return and minding him of his Covenant Engagements and promises to promote and preserve the work of Reformation the Committee of States then siting caused apprehend and without hearing incarcerate them for no other cause but that Supplication against which at that time there was no Law and which all Law and Reason of the World will justifie as the most innocent expedient of getting their just complaints heard and redressed and the common priviledge of all men which slavery it self cannot take away Yet as all Men and they themselves could not but see this a manifest subverting of the Subjects Liberty So in procureing a Law to approve it afterwards they made it worse and more illegal in declaring Petitions to be unlawful and seditious Carol. 2. Parl. 2. Sess. 2. Act 2. Hence no Petition or Remostrance of publick Grievances Oppressing and enslaving Church or Nation either durst be offered or could find Access or Acceptance being interdicted and also punished very severely as in the instance of the Grievances given in against Lauderdale Nor durst Prisoners tender the most innocent Supplication even for release or a more easie Confinement in any terms that seemed either to reflect on their severity or represent the illegality of their prosecutions or in the least to vindicate the cause they were suffering for which caused many afterwards to decline all petitioning and choose rather to ly under the most unsupportable bondage for fear of having it made more miserable The next succeeding Devices to undermine and overturn our Religion and Liberty were the Mischiefs framed into Law by the first Session of the first Parl Charles 2. held by the Earl of Middletoun 1661. Wherein by the very first Act thereof all the Members were involved in a Conscience Ensnaring and Enslaving Oath of Absolute and Implieite Allegiance and Supremacy without the former usual Limitations then standing unrepealed not only wronging Parliaments in their Priviledges and the Church in her Liberties but the Lord Jesus Christ in his Prerogative of Supremacy and Headship over the Church making the King a Pope and not only a Church Member as a Magistrate or Church Officer but the Supreme Architectonick Head of the Church For refusing this afterwards many Ministers and others were banished several of them made to subscribe a Bond to remove out of all his Majesties Dominions within a moneth not to return under the pain of Death And many kept in prison by the Arbittary Power of the Council beside the tenor and extent of their own wicked Act thereupon In the following Acts of that same Session of Parliament they advanced the Kings Prerogative to the highest pitch of Absoluteness and the acknowledgement of this vast and unlimited prerogative in all particulars was formed and imposed Charl 2 Parl 1. Sess. 1. Act 2 3 4 5 11. This was the foundation of all the succeeding Tyranny and source of the Nations slavery and in it self a head of sufferings to several Gentlemen and others who could not in Conscience subscribe or make that acknowledgement of such a prerogative which would manifestly have imported an approving of the first audacious and presumptuous effect and attempt of its power exerted in rescinding and annulling at one blow all the Righteous and Legal Establishments of the Covenanted Reformation and all the Acts made in favours thereof in all the Parliaments and Conventions of Estates from the year 1640. to 1650. even those that the then King Charles 1. approved owned and called They rested not here in a general or gradual unhinging of Legal Constitutions made for security of our Religion and Liberty but then took advantage of the universal silent Submission of
the Nation to break down at once the carved work of the whole Fabrick of the Reformation as with Axes and Hammers in that insolent effrontry and indignity against Heaven in making void the National and Solemn League and Covenants which the Church and State both in their Representatives and Members did most solemnly Swear and Subscrive for themselves and Posterity which for the matter of them perpetually obliging for the manner so Religiously engaged into and for their ends so Glorious no power on Earth can dispense with disannull or disable which not only the Lord from Heaven did ratify by the Conversion of many Thousands and vouchsafing his presence gracious in Ordinances and propitious in Providences at the subscriving of them But in this Land at the Inauguration of the King Charles 2. being the condition upon which he was admitted to the Government the latter of these Covenants was Ratified and Established as the great fundamental Law of the Kingdom whereon all the Rights and Priviledges either of King or People are principally bottomed and secured and as the very Magna Charta of our Reformation Yet this not only they did break in Heaven-daring boldness but to flatter the King in making way for Prelacy Tyranny and Popery and to indulge the licentiousness of some debauched Nobles who could not endure the Yoke of Christs Government according to his Institutions there Covenanted to be preserved they enacted and declared it should have no Obligation or binding Force any farther and that none should henceforth require the renewing of it Carol. 2. Parl. 1. Sess. 1. Act. 7. And afterwards that the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant were in themselves Unlawful Oaths and therefore annulled all Acts and Constitutions Ecclesiastical or Civil approving them Parl. 1. Sess. 2. Act. 2. And not only so but in contempt of Heaven they caused burn them by the hand of the Hangman For adhering unto these Sacred Inviolable and Indispensible Engagements the sufferings of Presbyterians have in a great measure been stated since that time The next wicked project was to remove out of the way all who were eminent Instruments in promoting that work of Reformation now about to be razed and whom they feared would obstruct their Antichristian and Tyrannical designs both in the State and in the Church Accordingly the Noble Marquess of Argyle was beheaded for no other alledged cause but for his complyance with the English when they had made a Conquest of our Land Wherein also the Judges that condemned him were Socii Criminis And afterwards the Lord Wariston upon the same pretence And for the same pretended cause many other Gentlemen above 800 were Arbitrarly and Exorbitantly fined some under divers stiles twice over Such of the Ministry also as had been most faithful servent for the interests of their Master and of his Church were cruelly and most illegally removed some by Death as famous Mr. Guthrie for asserting the Kingly Prerogative of Christ in opposition to the Erastian Supremacy encroaching thereupon others by Banishment for giving faithful warning and protesting against the defection of that time thereby only contraveening a wicked Proclamation discharging them to speak against the Proceedings of the State others Indicta causa without access to give in their defences or to get so much as an extract of their sentence After they had thus prepared their way by the very first Act of the second Sess of the first Parl. anno 1662. They reestablished and redintegrated their Dagon of Episcopal Prelacy with all its inseparably concomitant retinue of Pride Perjury Simony Sacriledge and intollerable Usurpations and Corruptions And wreathed again about our Neck that Yoke which neither our Fathers who wrestled much against it nor we were nor ever shall be able to bear which as it is insupportable to and hated of all the Godly and desirable to none but dissolute debauched Persons who cannot endure Christs discipline impartially exercised and do find incouragement under the wings of Prelacy being in its original both the Mother and Daughter Root and Off-spring Cause and Effect of Popery a device which advanced the Man of Sin to his hight in the World and the only remaining support of his hopes of recovering these Kingdoms by Christs conquest rescued from his Tyranny in its nature evidently eversive of the very nature of Gospel Church Government in its ends only adapted to bring the Church into a slavish dependence on subordination to an usurped Supremacy of the Magistrate which is a change only of the Pope not of the Popedom And in its effects alwayes found to be most deplorably destructive to the purity and power of Religion and peace of its sincere profession and that which hath introduced and encouraged Impiety Error Schism and Persecution in these Lands So by all the sober and judicious that have known the Case of this Church and Kingdom it hath been acknowledged to be the source and spring of all our Sorrows and Grievances under which we have groaned these 28 Years This abjured Prelacy as it was introduced by manifest Perjury and Persidy so it was at first erected and hitherto advanced and supported on such a Foundation as might bear out and justify the Contrivers and Promoters of it as well in all attemprs to set up Popery it self the Act establishing it Declaring the disposal of the Government of the Church doth properly belong to his Majesty as an inherent Right of the Crown by vertue of his Royal Prerogative and Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastick An usurpation upon the Kingdom of Christ equivalent to any that ever the Papacy it self durst aspire unto over the Government of the Church The first effect whereof was by another Act 1 Sess. 2 Parl. Carol. 2. the restoring the old exploded bondage of Parronages another old Relict of Popish Slavery depriving the Church of the freedom of Calling and Choosing their own Pastors And dispossessing all the Ministers who entered since the Year 1640. of their Churches and Benefices possessed without the presentations of Patrons After which by the instigation of the Prelates the Council passed an Act October 1662 whereby above 300 Ministers were violently put out of their Charges and their Congregations laid desolate without all Legal Procedure without either Accusation or Citation Conviction or Sentence or a hearing allowed to them And therefore for simple Nonconformity and refusing subjection to and taking Collations from the Prelates the rest of the Ministers in great numbers were with cruelty more beseeming Turks thrust from their Labours and banished with a nice and strange confinement 20. Miles from their own Parish Church Six Miles from a Cathedral and three Miles from a Burgh In whose room succeded a swarm of Ignorant and Scandalous Apostates the Prelates and their Mercenary Substitutes the Curats against whom such Charges might alwayes have been adduced and to this day such Accusations are in readiness to be produced to any competent ludicatories that
might not be heard a Barbarity never known in Scotland before and rarely heard of except in the Duke d' Alvas murdering the Protestants in the Netherlands But frequently used almost at all the Executions since of our Martyred Brethren in this Land Immediatly hereafter Souldiers were sent out on free Quarter to examine men by Tortures threatning to kill or rost alive all that would not delate all they knew Accessary to that rising Who accordingly by fire Matches and other tortures forced Women to discover their Husbands and other Relations although they knew not it they were there stripped them who Reset the Fugitives and thrusted them in crouds to Prisons in cold and nakedness And some they murdered without Process that would not because they could not discover those persecuted people Yea and drove away the Goods of the Country without respect to Guilt or Innocency In the mean time such as were in Armes and some that were not were Intercommuned and interdicted of all Reset Harbour Hiding Corresponding or Comfort under pain of Rebellion and of being counted guilty of the same Crimes wherewith the Intercommuned were charged And many Gentlemen Ministers and others were Forfeited of their whole Estates very illegally Yea some that were not present at that Appearance in Armes nor Legally Convict nor cited to answer according to Law were yet Forfaulted before the Act of Parl. 2. Act 11. Carol. 2. contrate to express standing Statutes And further all Dissenters and such as did not joyn in suppressing that Expedition were by order from the Council robbed of their Armes and Horses fit for service their guilty Consciences puting them in Fears and dictating their desert of greater opposition After all these Cruelties murdering the Persons and oppressing the Estates of poor Dissenters what they could not do by Law nor Force nor Futy they contrived to effectuate by Craft under the notion of Clemency but such a Clemency as was a greater Cruelty then any former Persecution The poor People that had nothing left them but a good Conscience must have that robbed from them likewise Therefore these wicked Councellers and Prelates still stirred up by the Curates having none or a seared Conscience of their own contrived to take away from People all Remainders of Conscience or to make them pliable to comply with every corruption they should introduce by imposing Conscience-debauching and ensnaring Oaths and Bands most Deceitfully and Ambiguously framed most Illegally imposed and Insolently pressed and more numerous since that time than ever was heard of in any Nation in one Age there being scarce one year since that time wherein several of these Oaths and Bonds have not been vented and imposed contradictory to one another contrary to our sworn Covenants and work of Reformation impossible to keep and unlawful to take Yet finding they could not yet suppress the persecuted Meetings for Gospel Ordinances but that the more violence was used the greater and more frequent they grew They fell upon a more crafty device to divide and destroy the Remnant to overturn what remained of the Churches Priviledges undestroyed and to settle Ministers and People into a silent and stupid Submission to all the Kings Usurpations upon the same by giving an Indulgence Anno 1669. to some outed Ministers with Restrictions and Instructions clearly homologatory of the Supremacy whence it flowed establishing the height of Erastianism prejudicial to the freedom of the Ministry injurious to the Priviledges of the Church contrary to Presbyterian Principles and contradictory to the Covenants The Grant and Acceptance whereof hath been the bane of the Church of Scotland and a Bone of Contention rending and ruining the Remnant of Ministers and People Unite before The end of it was to advance the Supremacy as upon this occasion they enlarged and explained it And because it was against Law therefore that the Kings Letter might be made the Supreme Law afterwards at least Law enough for the Council to proceed enact and execute what the King pleased in matters Ecclesiastick The Parl. 2. Act 1. Carol. 2. held by Lauderdale Asserts and Declares That by vertue of the Supremacy the ordering of the Government of the Church doth properly belong to his Majesty and Successors as an Inherent Right to the Crown and that he may enact and emitt such Constitutions Acts and Orders concerning Church Administrations Persons Meetings Matters as he in his Royal Wisdom shall think fit Which Acts Orders c. Are to be observed and obeyed by all Subjects any Law Act or Custom to the contrary notwithstanding But now as before faithful Ministers that were not thus Indulged sensible of the indispensable necessity of Preaching the Gospel and of the Peoples great necessity calling them to it from several quarters after they had undergone and endured many hazards and hardships of Villany and Violence Imprisonment and Banishment for meeting in the Houses where they were easily Intraped Interrupted and Insulted over were forced to go to the Fields and Preach in places most convenient secret and safe whither the People being tyred of their cold and dead Curates and wanting long the Ministry of their old Pastors resorted in great numbers on the greatest of hazards the Council then at the instigation of the Bishops and Curates raised Troops of Horse and Dragoons to pursue them as Traitors and Rebells for their following that Necessary and Signally blessed Duty Impowred and Encouraged to apprehend and bring Dead or Alive some Ministers with prices put upon their Heads and to incarcerate all they could find either at the Meetings or suspected to be coming to or from them Hence Prisons were filled some were sent to the Bass some Banished and many hundreds driven from their Dwellings Outlawed and Intercommuned For Legalizing such Mischiess the second Sess. of the second Parliament Anno 1670. held by Lauderdale made many wicked Laws causes of many Grievances following As Act 2. Ordaining all of every quality or sex called to depone upon Oath their knowledge of such Meetings and Persons therein to declare the same in all particulars interrogate under the pains of Fining Imprisonment or Banishment and Deportaion to the Indies as the Council shall think fit oblidging People thereby to betray their own Neighbours Act 5. Declaring all outed Ministers found Preaching or Praying in any House except in and to their own Family shall be Imprisoned till they find Caution under the pain of 5000 Marks not to do the like again and every Hearer shall be toties quoties fined each Tennant in 25 Pounds Scots each Cottar in 12 Pounds c. And that all that Preach in the Fields or in any House where any of the People are without Doors shall be punished with DEATH and any that shall seise and secure any of them dead or alive shall have 500 Marks reward Act 6. Imposing most I yrannically exorbitant and grievous Fines upon any that shall offer their Children to be Baptized by any but
their wicked Laws were condemned for their simple declared Opinion of it Which the Council and Court of Justiciarie particularly Sir George Mackenzie Advocate did extort from them by terrible menacings of Death and Torture For being interrogate Whether the rysing at Bothwel-bridge was Rebellion and a sin against GOD Many for saying it was not yea for not saying it was and waving the Question as reckoning themselves not oblieged to Answer were cruelly condemned and executed tho they declared and were known to be as free as the Child unborn of these Actions they were examined upon In Fine After our Patience had been long outwearied with insupportable Slavery and under such intollerable Oppressions in our Consciences Persons and Estates so universaly extended that in the present circumstances we had more reason to hope that past miseries present Pressures and future Dangers of greater Encroachments then foreseen by all men that did not willingly shut their Eyes should have incited and invited all that had any regard to the great Interests of Religion and Liberty to concur in an Essay to emancipate themselves and posterity from that Yoke of grassant growing Tyrannie Than to fear the condemnation of any under these Oppressions or the clamour and out cry of those that were at ease against the Informality Illegalily Unseasonableness or Unfealableness of such Revolt We were Enduced and Enforced at length when we could do no more to preserve what remained of these Interests or save our Consciences innocent from all participation of the sin of the destroyer of them To declare for our parts a Revolt from and disown Alleagiance to King Charles the Second as being no longer to be accounted our Supreme Magistrate but ipso jure devested of that Office and Trust Reposed and Devolved on him by express Compact and Covenant When he broke all these conditions whereupon his Authority and our Alleagiance were founded in his utter violating and making void the Covenant and Coronation Oath whereby our Subjection to him limited to those provisions was explicitely disingaged and remitted when he did unhinge and insringe all the Legal Establishments of our Religion and subverted all our Religious Liberties by usurping a Blasphemous Sacrilegious Supremacy over Ecclesiastical Ordinances instituted by Christ And when now he had overturned all Fundamental constitutions of the State as well as the Church subverting the Peoples Rights Liberties Laws and all securities of our Life and Enjoyments whatsoever by claiming and taking an Absolute Tyrannical Civil Prerogative paramount to all Law inconsistent either with the Freedom or Safety of the People Whereby no shadow of Government was left but Arbitrary Absoluteness making the Kings Letter the Supreme Law of Scotland while Innocent and Honest People for Conscience were grievously oppressed and Perjuries Adulteries Idolatries and all Impieries were not only Indemnified and past without punishment but encouraged as Badges of Loyalty For which causes we openly proclaimed our Revolt from the Government as it was then Administrate And in the same Declaration we reckoned our selves oblieged to protest against the Reception of the Duke of York in Scotland And against his succeeding to the Crown who was then declared incapable of Succession of the Government by a Vote of the two Honourable Houses of the Parliament of England For For owning and not daring to disown which Revolt it is impossible to enumerate our Kinds and Degrees of Sufferings for this we had our Ministers and Brethren Murdered both in the Fields and Scaffolds and Prisons and Seas Besides those that were slain at Airds-moss where Bruce of Earleshall attacked us and slew Mr. Richard Cameron a Faithful and Zealous Minister with many of our Brethren After this it was generally imposed on Prisoners even such as could not be charged with any Accession to the forementioned Declaration to give an account of their Thoughts and Consciences about the Lawfulness of the Kings Authority which if they could not own or declined to declare their Thoughts as judging it the common Interest of Mankind to plead for the Freedom of Thoughts from all humane Jurisdiction or if any answered with such innocent Qualifications as that they owned all Lawful Authority In the Lord or According to the Word of God then they were punished as Traitors executed to the Death and some at their first apprehending Tormented with Fire-matches then laid in Irons afterwards Tortured with the Boots or Thumbkins and after all executed in a most Barbarous manner without suffering them to speak their dying Words for beating of Drums Thus a great number of innocent People have been destroyed without respect to Age or Sexe some meer Boyes have been for this hanged some stouping for Age some Women also hanged and some Drowned because they could not satisfy the Council Justitiary Court and the Souldiers with their thoughts about the Goverment In the Year 1681. the Duke of York as Commissioner from his Brother held a Parliament Auspicated with the Blood of Mr. Donald Cargil a Godly and Faithful Minister which was shed at the Cross of EDINBURGH the day before the sitting down of the Parliament wherein he not only presided against all our Righteous Laws that Make a Papist incapable of such a Trust and against their own Laws without taking the Oaths of Administration but procured an Act to be made recognizing his Succession to the Crown notwithstanding all standing unrepealed Laws against papists wherein also many Acts were contrived that have been great causes of the desolation and depopulation of the Country that ensued As Act 4. dowbling the Fines imposed by former Laws for Fieid Conventicles And ordering Heretors and Masters to put away their Tennants Cottars or Servants at any time of the Year without any warning or process of removing notwithstanding of any Tacks or Terms to run And to retain their goods c. Act 18. Declaring that all Jurisdiction doth so reside in his Majestie that his Majesty may by himself or any Commissionated by him take Cognizance and Decision of any cases or causes he pleases Hereby a foundation was laid for overturning all Civil and Criminal Justice and for erecting the Tyranny of the Popish Inquisition whensoever matters were ripe for it and for commissionating Souldiers to take away the lives of Innocents without all Process of Law as was frequently exemplified afterward And Act 6. and 25. Framing and Imposing on all in Trust a detestable and self contradictory Test which turned out of all places of Trust any that retained any measure of common Honesty For explaining which the late Earl of Argyle was arfaigned and condemned and escaping prison forced to flee to forraign Lands As many others both Gentlemen and Commons were constrained to leave the Land where for multiplied illegal and ensnaring impositions they could neither live like Men nor like Christians but as Asses couching under all burdens These and the like Acts with many others Arbitrarly superadded Proclamations which have been multiplied every year
And yet notwithstanding of an Indemnity October 2 1688 alledged as ample as Absolute Power could make it tho not expresly excluded they were detained Prisoners until the Report of his Highness the Prince of Orange now King of Brittain his prevailing and fear of his Victorious Arms did move them not to keep any longer any that might be evidences and Witnesses of their Arbitrary cruelty As the same reason also it seems did constrain them to take down and bury the heads of those they murdered for fear lest these monuments of their cruelty standing might occasion the Question to be moved by whom and for what they were set up Than which nothing shall be more confounding to them when inquisition shall be made for blood Thus these Enemies of the Country the encroaching Privy Council and the Prelates in special now universally contemned since the Toleration were going on in their Designs to enslave the Nation and to prevent and suppress all Essayes to retrive or revive any hopes of recovering any Liberty Multiplying their searches not only for us but for any that were suspected to favour their present Majesties Cause and undertaking so soon as it began to be surmised here and laying up in irons and closs prison some Gentlemen upon suspicion of their being privy to it And as soon as they had certain intelligence of King William his great and generous Resolutions in order to the Restauration and Preservation of Religion Laws and Liberties in these three Kingdoms They made such vigorous preparations for opposition and issued out such virulent Proclamations inveighing against his Highness under such severities of certifications requiring all from 60 to 16 to concur under their displayed Banner for Arbitrary Government as if they had feared an Invasion from Turks or Tartars Yet in the mean time tho there were suspicions then and discoveries since of an intended Popish Massacre they disarmed the Western Shires and sent Orders to the Officers of Forces especially imploying such as were professedly Popish to go through the Country and take all their Armes leaving them nothing to defend themselves withal and causing the People to swear that they had no other Armes than such as they got And in their march meeting with some of our number they threatned to shoot them presently if they would not own King Iames pray for him and for confusion to all his Enemies which they refusing at first were appointed to be shot and had their faces covered with Napkins and with great difficulty escaped by complying By the former Summary and abridged Abstract and compendious Deduction of our many and manifold Grievances the Truth whereof can be evidenced by many demonstrative Evidences it may appear what have been our sufferiugs since that fatal Revolution anno 1660 from the Popish Prelatical and Malignant Party and what have been their Attempts Machins and Methods to overturn our Religion Laws and Liberties and subject us to meer Arbitrary and Absolute Tyrannie At least what have been their capital Devices whereby they have ruined and sought to raze us And what have been the principal causes and kinds of our Sufferings in their prosecuting the same The particular Relation of which so far as can be collected is intended GOD willing afterwards in due season to be published Only here it may not be inconvenient to subjoyn by way of specimen a short Recapitulation in bulk of some instances of our several kinds of Sufferings with a touch at some of the most principal Instruments thereof in the five Western Shires First For Fines and other Exorbitant and Illegal Exactions of Money the particular summs cannot be here enumerated but their vastness when together calculate may be easily collected by the scraps already gathered of some poor Families of Farmers Cottars Servants c. and many of these omitted or not known which would very considerably augment the summ in some few Shires viz. Clidsdale Renfrew Air Galloway Nithsdale and Annandale only for but a few years to wit since Bothwel bridge insurrection amounting to above 288000. pounds Scots Money Besides the many honest Families which have been casten out of their houses harassed and spoiled of their All Some of their houses being thrown down some Burnt some shut up their goods and moveables seized upon their Crop and Cattel also disposed of at the will of their Persecuters in the forementioned Shires amounting to above 200 of all which we have a particular account in readiness to instruct The immediate Authors Actors and Instruments of these oppressions were principally the Curates instigating the Privy Council which impowered the Forces and Noblemen and Gentlemen of the Country to prey upon the poor People All cannot be here expressed but some of the most noted in the Western Shires shall be named who were the greatest Persecuters and Oppressors by Finings and other Exactions Of Officers of the Forces Col. Dowglas now Liev Gen. Dowglas Brother to the Duke of Queensberry exacted above 2000 Pounds Scots Money in Galloway Nithsdale Shire of Aire and other Places Liev. Gen. Drumond besides the Forefaultries of Gentlemen did also exact moneys of the poor in the Shire of Air. The Earl of Lithgow and his Souldiers spoiled much in Galloway The Earl of Airly and his Troup in the same Shire The Lord Balearras a great Oppressor in Galloway besides all the Robberies he committed in Fife Graham of Claverhouse afterwards Viscount of Dundee with his Brother and subaltern Officers in Galloway Nithsdale and Anandale exacted by Fines and otherwise above 13500 pounds Scots money Col Buchan a most violent persecuter in Galloway and Shire of Air by Robberies took from the People upwards of 4000 pounds Scots Major Cockburn a great oppressor in Galloway Major White in Clidsdale and shire of Air exacted by Fines and otherwise above 2500. p Scots Major Balfour now called Liev Col Balfour a great persecuter and Oppressor in Clidsdale Captain Strauchan with his Troup oppressed and spoiled much in Galloway other places Captain Inglis with his Troup did dispossess many Families and got much spoil in Galloway shire of Air and Clidsdale Captain Dowglas in Galloway committed much outrage and spoil Captain Dalzel harassed much in Anandale Captain Bruce in Nithsdale Meldrum in Clidsdale in several Inroads uplifted from poor Families upwards of 2300 Pounds besides the vast summes he exacted in Mers and Tiviotdale with the Earle of Hume Ker of Gradown Laird of Hayning and Blindlee and in Tweddale with the Laird of Possa all great Persecuters Liv. Winram in Galloway a very vigilant Persecuter and Spoyler Liev. Barns also in the same Shire took much Spoyl Liev. Iohn Living stoun a most violent Persecuter and Exacter Liev. Lauder in the Shire of Air a most outragious Persecuter and Oppressor Bonshaw a Borderer a High-way Man afterwards an Officer of Dragoons robbed much from the poor People in Clidsdale Duncan Grant a Creple with a Tree Leg a very outragious Persecuter exacted in Clidsdale from
unto followed Such as had not served the Enemy in destroying nor engaged by Oaths and Tests to destroy the cause now to be sought for and defended But that they should be well affected of approven Fidelity and of a sober conversation Having also declared That the cause they were called to appear for was the service of the Kings Majesty in the defence of the Nation Recoverie and preservation of the Protestant Religion and in particular the work of Reformation in Scotland in opposition to Popery Prelacy and Arbitrary Power in all its Branches and Steps until the Government of Church and State be brought to their Lustre and Integrity established in the best and purest times Upon these terms we offered to compleat two or three more Regiments if it had been accepted But before we offered to be Souldiers we had first made an offer to be Subjects And because we did not look upon our selves as Subjects to the Late King who treated us as Enemies We made therefore a voluntary Tender of our Subjection in a peculiar Petition by our selves which we purposed to have given in to the Meeting of Estates at their first sitting down We shewed it to several Honourable Members but by their Advice it was delayed until the Meeting prevented the purpose of it by Proclaiming the King and Queen The Tenor whereof here Follows TO THE MEETING of ESTATES Of the Kingdom of SCOTLAND THE NOBLEMEN BARONS and BVRGESSES Lawfully Called and Chosen now Assembled at Edinburgh for Establishing the Government Restoring and Securing the True Religion Laws and Liberties of the said Kingdom The Humble PETITION of the poor People who have Suffered Grievous Persecution for their Revolt from and disowning the Authority of James the VII Pleading for the devolving the Government upon the Prince of Orange now King of England SHEWETH THat the sad effects of the Late Arbitrary and Tyrannical Course of Government which these Nations and we in a special manner have been groaning under these years past From which to Relieve them the Most Serene and Illustrious Prince of Orange was induced by the Propitious Conduct of a very Glorious Providence to Undertake this Noble and Heroick Enterprise And for Redressing which This Honourable Convention is Called and Conveened Together with the revived hopes since His Highness Auspicious Arrival that all honnest men have begun to conceive and entertain of getting their Grievances freely Represented and Redressed The denyal whereof these several years hath been to us and many others a Grievance very grievous Have necessitate incited invited and encouraged us among others tho of the meanest Figure and lowest Interest in this great Affair Yet as persons pressed to declare and oppressed for declaring their Consciences Sentiments and Resentments of the Late abused Government to take the Boldness now to open our hearts to this Great and Honourable Meeting And with all humility as becomes to Represent to Your Honours That as we conceive we wanted not Right and Reason upon Consciencious Grounds to decline the Illegally extorted and Arbitrarly imposed acknowledgement of our Allegiance unto Iames the VII Whose Authority we could never own because of his Illegal Investiture without taking or being in Capacity to take the Oath of Coronation while addicted to Poperie contrare to the Laws of God and Man because of his Advancing the Prerogative unto an Illimited and most Despotical Absolutness which all were required to obey without Reserve And because of his Arbitrary abusing it to the undermining and overturning our Religion Laws and Liberties and intended Introduction of Poperie and Slaverie at the opened gap of the Prelatical Hierarchy Erastian Supremacy and the Late vastly extended Toleration And because we could not own it our Sufferings have been very great known to this and other Nations and we are confident will not now be condemned by any that have espoused the Cause and have been honoured to concur in the Enterprise of Rescuing these Nations from the Unsupportable Yoke of the Late Popish Domination upon the same or equivalent grounds on which we durst not own it So we prostrate ourselves yet sorrowing under the smart of our still bleeding wounds at your Honours Feet who have a Call a Capacity and we hope a good mind to cure them And offer this our Petition enforced by all the formerly felt presently seen and for the future feared Effects and Efforts of this Throne of Iniquity and the mischief thereby framed into Law and practised or projected against all Law by the Cry of the Blood of our murdered Brethren by the slavery of the banished free born Subjects of this Realm by all the miseries that many forefeited disinhereted harassed and wasted honest Families have been redacted to their Estates and Lives being at the mercy of incensed Souldiers for adhering unto the Ancient Covenanted Establishments of Religion and Liberty And by all the Arguments of Justice Necessity and Mercy that ever could conciliate Commiseration among Men of Wisdom Piety and Vertue humbly Beseeching Requesting and Craving of your H Now when GOD hath given you this opportunity to Act for His Glory the good of the Church and Nation your own Honour and the Happiness of Posterity Now when this Kingdom the Neighbouring and all other Nations of Europe have their Eyes upon you expecting you will acquit your selves like the Representatives of a free Nation in redeeming it from Slaverie otherwise ineluctable following the Noble footsteps of your Renowned Ancestors and the present Precedent and Pattern of this Honourable Convention and Parliament now sitting in England That you will proceed without any farther Procrastinations alwayes especially now Dangerous when Papists and other Malignant Enemies are openly attempting to raise a Rebellion against the State to declare the late Iniquous Government dissolved the Crown Vacant and Iames VII whom we never have and resolve with many Thousands never again to owne to have really Forfeited and rightly to be deprived of all Right and Title he could ever pretend thereunto And to provide that it may never be in the Power of any succeeding Governour for the time to come to aspire unto or arrive at such a Capacity of Tyrannizing Moreover since Anarchy and Tyranny are equally to be detested and the Nation cannot subsist without a Righteous Governour and none can have a nearer Right nor fitter Qualifications than his Illustrious Highness whom the Most High hath signally Owned and Honoured to be our deliveror from Popery end Slavery We Cry and Crave that King William now of England may be Chosen and Proclaimed King of Scotland and that the Regal Authority be devolved upon him with such necessary Provisions Limitations and Conditions of Compact as may give Iust and Legal Securities of the Peace and Purity of our Religion Stability of our Laws priviledges of Parliaments and Subjects Liberties Civil and Ecclesiastick and make our Subjection both a clear Duty and a comfortable Happiness And because Kings are but Men mortal mutable and
fallible particularly We crave that he be bound in his Royal Oath not only to Govern according to the Will and Command of GOD and Ancient Laudible and Righteous Laws in the Ministration of Justice punishment of Iniquities Redressing of just Grievances and preservation of true Liberties But above all that he and his Sucessors profess persevere in Protect and maintain the true Protestant Religion abolish Poperie and all false Religion Heresie Idolatrie and Superstition revive the Penal Lawes against the same re-establish and Redintegrate the Ancient Covenanted Work of Reformation of this Church in Doctrine worship discipline and Government according to the Word of GOD Confession of Faith Covenants National and Solemn League upon its old foundations as Established from the Year 1638. and downward to 1650 And that he restore and Confirme by his Princely Sanction the due Priviledges of the Church granted to her by JESUS CHRIST her only Head and Supreme and never assume to himself an Erastian Supremacy over the Church in Causes Ecclessiastick or Unbounded Prerogative in Civils above Law but as the Keeper of both Tables of the Law of God in a way Competent to Civil Authority interpose his Power for the Ejecting out of the Church the Prelats the main Instruments of the Church and Nations Miseries And from all Administration of the Power and Trust in the State such Malignant Enemies as have promoted the Ruine thereof Upon these or the like Termes We tender our Allegiance to King William and hope to give more pregnant Proof of our Loyalty to his Majesty in Adverse as well as Prosperous Providences than they have done or can do who profess Implicite Subjection to Absolute Authority so long only as Providence preserves its Grandure MAY IT THEREFORE PLEASE YOUR HON. To take the Premises into Your serious Consideration and put a Favourable Construction on this our Humble and Earnest Request which sense of Duty in desire to Exoner our Conseiences and in Complyance with and at the Solicitation of the Cries of many Thousands in the Nation moved and craved We take the Confidence to present to Your HON. In the Hope that Zeal for GOD and his Church regard to Iustice and Mercy Care of Your own as well as the Countries Interest dutiful Love Loyalty and Gratitude to King William and even Pity to us will prevail with Your Wisdom to grant in with all convenient Expedition And Your Supplicants shall ever Pray c. FROM what is above hinted it may appear that We are not Enemies to Government but that as we have had Occasion We have given more Evidences of true Loyalty than any of our Traducers and of true Zeal to have this Government fixed on such a Foundation as may make it Secure and Stable and Subjection thereunto to be not only a Duty but a Comfort And with the same inviolable Zeal Affection and Fidelity since others will not We cannot forbear to Remonstrare those Grievances that are as well hateful to GOD and hurtful to the Government as Grievous to Us. First As to the Church tho' all Honest Subjects have been impatiently expecting the settlement thereof from the Kings Declaration his Promises at the Acceptance of the Crown and his Instructions to D. Hamiltoun Yet to this Day it is neither Settled nor Purged nor Planted but kept in uncertain suspense what to fear or what to hope Popery indeed is much suppressed in a way wherein much of GOD and little of Man is to be acknowledged and admired yet the Ancient Laudable Laws against Papists Seminary Priests Sayers and Hearers of Mass are not Revived Reinforced nor put in Execution while many of these Idolaters and Intycers to Idolatry are connived at past without punishment and favourably Intreated when some of us have apprehend them and delivered them into Custody Whence they are much encouraged where they Cohabite in great Numbers especially in the Sea Coast of Galloway where they may open a Door and free Ingress to the Irish whenever they have a mind to Invade whereby the Country about is contiunally Tormented with fears of their Massacres and Murdering Attempts We can never be freed from the hazard of the Return of Popery so long as Papists are so much Tolerated and are bragging of their hopes of getting a Toleraration established Suspending and Dispensing with the Penal Statutes against them which will defile the Land with Idolatry and expose us to the Judgement of GOD. We desire also to be thankful that Poperies eldest Daughter the Episcopal Hierarehy or Prelacy hath got such a knock on the head that it is abolished by Law its return so far Legally precluded that the removal thereof being one of the Stipulations Artieles of Compact with his Majesty at the Disposal and Acceptance of the Crown it cannot be restored without asignal Violation of the Regal Covenant the native Consequences whereof may beforeseen to be so dangerous that we hope the Kings Wisdom and Justice will be proof against all the Insinuations and Perswasions of the Church of England to hazard it yet it is a very burdensome Grievance that the settlement of the Church Government is so long suspended and the Nation kept in Suspense not knowing what shall be settled in stead of Prelacy abolished whereby the Land is left to settle in nothing but to rest and rott in old Crying sins and new provocations are daylie Multiplied without control Scandals and Disorders to the dishonour of GOD reproach of Religion stumbling the weak hardening the perverse and offending all are not restrained but much encouraged and different factions much fomented while Church Government and Discipline the only Preservative and restaurative Medicine for such Distempers is neither established nor any rule determined by which it shall be Established except the Inclinations of the People which are in themselves very variable and must be ruled by and not a Rule unto the Institutions of IESVS CHRIST And as they are variable so they are as Various and diverse as there are Numbers of Persons or Parties that prefer their own Humours and Interests to the Supreme Law the revealed will of Christ Some are for Erastianisme Some for a constant Moderatorship some for a Superintendency some perhaps for Independency some for a Toleration of all some are for a continuance of the Curates either without any Accommodation with them and secluding them from a share of the Government but suffering them still to Exercise their Ministry Or by an Accommodation and Coalition with them in the Government also some again are for the continuance of Patronages how ever it be We and many Thousands are against all these things as being contrary to the Word of GOD abjured frequently in our COVENANTS NATIONAL and SOLEMN LEAGVE condemned in the confession of this and all other best Reformed Churches And in the doleful experience of former times known to be inlets to many wicked inventions innovations and corruptions in the Church And in process of time
productive of Prelacy again Which in the Lords strength We and many Thousands do intend never to submit to tho for our Recusancy we should suffer the greatest persecution from Men. We are for the Restauration and Re-establishment of this Churches Ancient Covenanted Reformation in its Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of God Confession of Faith Catechisms Larger and Shorter National and Solemn Covenants and Acts of General Assemblies in all its Legall Immunities Securities and Sanctions as before the Year 1650. These Different Inclinations cannot be a Rule of Government and order but of Ataxie and Confusion Nor can they be determined by a Lesbian rule unconstant and uncertain But somewhat to which all must vail and and submit and which must claim the last Appeal Tho we might with as great Confidence as others Venture the success of our Plea for Presbyterie upon the decision of a Poll and Plurality of Votes providing which could not be denied none be admitted to Vote but such as are well affected to the Government of King William and Queen Marry Yet we cannot subject the determination of that Plea to any other Rule than he Institution of CHRIST considering that either the Lord IESVS who is anointed only King and Head of his Church and is faithful in all his House must not have appointed any Government or order thereof at all which would exceedingly Reflect upon His Wisdom and Faithfullness and the Perfection of his Law or this Government which he hath appointed must not be Arbitrary and Ambulatory indifferently determinable by the will and inclinations of Men no more than others of His Institutions can be We plead for no Government and for nothing in this of Presbyterie but what we have the Lawes of CHRIST in his Word the Ancient Lawes of the Nation the Constitutions of the Church never yet repealed by any subsequent Authority Ecclesiastick and the Covenant Eengagements of all ranks in the Land of Indespensible obligation for Nor do we plead for any exercise or extent of this order further then is necessary for the purging of the Church of every Antichristian or Erastian Corruption and Invention Defection or Schism Error or Scandal in Officers or Members impartially And for the Planting of the Church with Godly able and Faithful Ministers for the Instruction conviction conversion Edification and Consolation of the Members thereof But now not only is this Government not established but even that of Prelacy is not effectually nor can be abolished while the many iniquous Laws against Presbytery and pressing submission to Prelacy are not rescinded And while our National and Solemn League Cevenants for Preserving and Promoting Reformation are so far forgotten and trampled upon that the Acts Antiquating and Discharging them to be owned are not only not Abrogated but so far yet observed that it is hardly allowed they should be publickly mentioned While also the Ecclesiastical Supremacy a feather likewise of Antichrists wing and a Blasphemous and Sacrilegious Encroachment upon Christs Prerogatives and His Kingdoms Priviledges is not revocked nor declared void whereby it stands declared by wicked Laws to be the inherent Right of the Magistrate to Order Dispose Alter or Innovate the external Government of the Church and to plant or transplant Ministers and give them Instructions to Regulate them in the Exercise of their Function which if not Abolished will not only optn a Door to the Introdnction of Prelacy or Popery again But if the Protestant Religion be never so well Established this will in process of time unhinge all possible Settlements thereof There is nothing more the Interest of the Church than to seek that this Mountain in the way of its Reformation be removed and all Acts confirming the same repealed and Indulgences following therefrom be declared to be Usurpations Another Pillar of Prelacy the constant support of it and stop to Reformation does yet continue while the burdensome Bondage of Patronages is not removed whereby the Church is Robbed of the Liberty of choosing her own Guides intrusted with her greatest concerns the Great-men have open access Implicity to impose and Prey upon and Pester the Church with Corrupt Teachers But if all these things were Rectified it is impossible the Church can ever be settled or purged or planted as long as the Episcopal Curats intruded by the Prelats Collation and Patrons Presentation contrare to the Institutions of Christ and the Constitutions of this Reformed Church without the Call and contrare to the Inclinations of the People in many places but every where the Bane of the Nation the Scandal of the Church and the cause of all our Confusions are continued in the Churches How can the Church be settled when those that unsettled it continue in the same Capacity to oppose all Righteous Settlements of Reformation How can the Church be purged when the greatest Corrupters and the most corrupted Members remain in Power Either they must be looked upon and Subject themselves as Members of the Presbyterian Church and then Discipline cannot but strike against them in such a measure of Severity as may be some way proportioned to the greatness of their Scandal their Obstinacy Impenitency and Continuance in it as long as they could and the hazard of their Leavening the whole Lump or they must be looked upon as Pure and Perfect Schismaticks seting up a distinct Church and seperate Communion within a well Constitute National Church and as such they ought to be Censured and Restrained How can the Church be planted when those Plants that the LORD never planted fill so much of His Vineyard and continue in so many Paroches either to sterve them with the hungry Husks of Ethick Homilies and Harangues of Moral Vertues instead of Gospel Holiness not knowing to Preach the Mystery of the Covenant of Grace or declare the Counsel of GOD to the Conversion of Sinners unto CHRIST or so poyson them with points of Popery Arminianisme Socinianisme Yet many of them do yet Peaceably possess the places they were intruded into and others dispossessed are reponed by Force contrare to the inclinations of the Paroch and notwithstanding their opposition in some places as for instance in Colintown and in Peebles where great Insolences were committed affronting the Magistrates and disturbing the Presbyterian Meeting which have been overlooked but the least Accession to any Opposition that was made hath been severely punished one Francis Beatie upon this account being for these many weeks kept in prison and his Petitions for Liberty ejected This hath discouraged many and opened their mouths to reflect That tho this Government be as much admited for Acts of Mercy to Rebells as the former was for Cruelty yet wherever any Presbyterian can be apprehended in any fault he must expect the rigour of Severity We do not justifie illegal Tumults nor do we approve that people should transgress their Line and Station in endeavours of Reformation when there is a Magistrate to be
applied unto But as Magistrates ought to interpose their Power for extruding and easing the people of Intruders so when they abuse it to the re inforcing of these intrusions honnest and zealous people can as hardly be restrained from resisting such Invasions and Impositions against the Laws of GOD and Man as they can be kept from withstanding a violent Invader of their Property or Intruder on their Heritage For our part as we thought it a seasonable duty to take the opportunity of the Interregnum before the settlement of a Government that we could subject our selves to for cleansing the Western Shiers of these Creatures which was done with all the discretion that the confusions of that time and the feared shortness of that opportunity could admitt And whatever clamour they make of their Persecutions in their Late Printed Account and Information to the Church of England stuft with Lies we defy them to give an instance of any hurt done by us to any of their Persons or Families or to charge us with one Six-pence worth of their Goods If any have let it be proven and punished which if others in other places had imitated in that season with the like discretion the Nation might have been much eased and the Government prevented of a great deal of trouble So tho we are not for Persecuting them who were our greatest Persecuters nor rendering them any evil for their evil farther than to restrain them from coming back again to Persecute us and from Intruding where they have no Right Yet we are resolved through Gods Assistance to endeavour by all approven means to hold them out now when they are out And sooner to die and venture the loss of all things temporal than to suffer any of them to repossess themselves of the Churches whence they are thrown out or any other within our reach untill after sufficient Evidences of their remorse they shall come in at the door of CHRISTS Appointment If in this we Offend the Malignants in the Parliament or Council we cannot help it it is not the first time nor perhaps the last But for the Noble Honoured Patriots among them who are well affected to the Cause of Reformation the Nations good and his Majesties Honour and Happiness we are confident they will construct of our ingenuity in good part as flowing from conscience and Candor And we are hopeful his Majestie will Compassionat us in this matter and consider the Case that it is more for his Honour and Interest to have respect to the Consciences of so many People than to the humor and haughtiness of a few debauched Lords and Gentlemen who delight in these vexations and who by Custom as it were have it for their Element to impose upon poor Peoples Consciences And we hope his Majesty will think upon the Redressing of this Grievance of the Continuance of these Episcopal Curates who took notice of this as one of the Grievances in his Declaration that he came to relieve the Nation from In the netxt place as to the State tho we desire to be more abstract from these Administrations that are above our reach yet it is obvious and Grievous to all that desire the Establishment thereof in Righteousness and Peace that the settlement of Church and State both is Retarded and Obstructed by the frequent Adjournments of Parliaments in so Critical a Season when the Government is not well settled the Enemies thereof are prevailing the Friends thereof are sore discouraged and devided and the Forces have no Maintenance If ever there 〈◊〉 of Parliaments now it must be when the greatest Interests 〈◊〉 King and People are in so eminent Hazard And yet it is more Grievous that when they Conveen and have opportunity to Act for the good of the Nation the settlement of the Church Government and the Redress of Grievances the Disputes of divided Factions about things of lesser Moment do hinder their Establishing of those things that all agree are Absolutely necessary Time might be afterwards spared for many of these Debates with which the present precious opportunity is wasted and they might with more Advantage and Facility be Adjusted and Composed afterwards if once the Establishment of the Church and the Security of the Nation were provided for and these things for which they have his Majesties Instructions were Settled and Enacted But we fear these Differences are much Fomented by Self-seeking Malignant Incendiaries who love to Fish in troubled Waters and to pursue their selfish and sinistrous ends of Undermining the Church supplanting the King's Interest and betraying the Countries Liberties from whom these Disorders and Grievances have proceeded which are now desired to be Rectified and Redressed and from whose Influence all these Retardments and Disapointments do flow which the Nation so much complains of For as the open and avowed Enemies of the King and Country owning the late King Iames his Interest all consisting either of the Popish or Prelatical and Malignant Faction not so much as one Presbyterian being among them are very many Insolent and Prevalent not only in the Highlands but in all the hires of the Kingdom and no doubt have their Active Agents Correspondents and Abetters in the Parliament Council and all the Supreme Judicatories of the Kingdom so there are far moe secret undermining Enemies who for the time are not appearing in opposition to the Government that are as great Enemies to the King and Country and all Righteous Interests as any that do most appear who are now desiring Places and ingyring themselves into publick Trust not to serve King William whose Advancement to the Throne they opposed with all the Power and Policy they had nor simply to satisfy their Insatiable Ambition but to put themselves in better Capacity to serve King Iames in Retarding all Righteous Establishments Rending the Parliaments and Ruining Us all Yea however some may account it Policy it is not only a Grievance but a Sin dishonouring God and destructive to the Nation and a dangerous Politick threatning hazard to Religion and Liberty and the Government that many wicked Malignants Enemies to Reformation are admitted imployed in the publick Administrations as Officers of State Members of Council Parliament and other Judicatories and places of Trust who not only were our cruel Persecuters and Murderers of our Bretheren whose Blood cries for Vengence against them but were the professed and sworn Tools of the late Tyranny and Instruments of the Nations Slavery Ministring to King Iames and cooperating with him in all his Encroachments upon our Religion Laws and Liberties as absolute Vassals of his Despotical Will under Oaths and Pensionary Obligations to obey without reserve and to this day are either evil Counsellours to perswade the King to some degrees of Arbitrariness or very disaffected to the Government Counsellers to Encouragers of or Connivers at Rebellion against it It had been worthy Service to the Nation to have at first exposed these Men in their own