together with the former Acknowledgment of Sins and Engagement to duties should be read publickly to the People upon the day of the Intimation and the last Fast day when the Covenant was to be sworn This resolution of the Commission upon the same grounds was unanimously approven by the Committee of Estats then sitting and by their Act October 14. Ordained to be put in Execution in all things according to the directions of the Commission And accordingly in the moneth of December it was for the second time sworn in all the Congregations of the Kingdome upon the same day except where vacancy or the Ministers being under scandal or process did occasion a delay till another day that the place was supplyed by another Minister with great Solemnity and such mixture of Joy Sorrow as became people entering in Covenant with the Lord And was thereafter Subscribed by all the Swearers After ward the Parliament Conveening in January 1649 by their very first Act except the Election of their President upon the same grounds Resolved to keep a Fast by themselves for the Causes contained in the Acknowlegment and to Renew the Covenant according to the Order of the Commission which was also most solemnly done And last of all the Generall Assembly 1649. by their Act July 7. did unanimously and expresly Ratify the Proceedings of the Commission as to the Acknowledgment of Sins Engagement to dueties the Fasts and Renewing of the Covenant by Swearing and Subscribing thereof Hence as the Covenant it self so the Solemn Acknowledgment of Sins Engagement to duties became National Authorised by the Supream Judicatures of Church and State and are still obliging by Oath Oh! that the Lord had kept these things in the Imagination of the thought of our hearts for ever ERRATA WHilst this was upon the Press some Errors which escaped in some sheets were corrected in others so that thou must not stumble though some Copies be more correct then others Besides other literal escapes which will not marr the sense before thou read the Book correct with thy pen thâ—se following Pag. 3. lin 4. for other as read as other p. 4. l. 32. r. witnesses p. 5. l. 3. r. solemn p. 6. l. 12. r strong p. 8. l. 15. r. sufficiently p. 15. l 29. for or r on â—b l. 16. r. opportunity p. 24. l. 14. for of r. or p. 25. l. 4. r. resolution Ib. l. 32. forâ— are r. are a lb. 33. r. worthies p. 30. l. 21. for 27. r. 17. lb. 23. for 10. r. 8. p. 35. l. 8. r. 1560. Ib. l. 30. r. 1571. p. 38. l. 16. r. 1584. p 67. l. 27. for hoth r. both p. 70. l. 12. for he r. the. p. 81. l. 12. r. during p. 88. l. 18. r. slain p. 100. l. 11. de e the. Ib. l. 12. r. generally Ib. 19. for the r. that p. 103 l. 14. for out r. ought p. 120. l. 16. for what r. that p 129. l 12. r. rageth in p. 154. l. 23. for where r. were p. 188 l. 6. r. his p 281. l. 27. r. it is p. 282. l. 13. r. Advocats A True and short DEDUCTION Of the WRESTLINGS of the CHURCH of SCOTLAND For the KINGDOM of JESUS CHRIST From the beginning of the Reformation of Religion unto the Year 1667. AFter all these great glorious things which the Lord in his Love Mercy and Faithfulness hath wrought for this Land and in his Holiness and Righteousness hath declared amongst us these clear and powerfull Manifestations of his blessed Truth which have so brightly shined forth to the Glory Beauty and Praise of this whole Nation After these many sacred and most solemn Engagements whereby in the evidence and power of the same Truth all Ranks and degrees from the King even to the meanest became and are still bound and devoted to the Most High and Holy Our Covenanted God and to our blessed Lord Jesus Christ who alone is King in Zion and of all Saints and whose are all the Kings and Kingdomes of the Earth for the advancement of his Glory and Kingdome and for the owning and maintaining of his glorious Work and precious Truth which is all our Felicity and Joy And after all this horrid Apostacy and Rebellion whereby the same wretched Nation in the same Generation and almost in the same Persons neither from the conviction of any pretended Reason or Conscience nor from any solid persuasion of the very Advantage designed but in the manifest Spirit of Wickedness and violence have forgotten despised and blasphemed the former power and Glory Rebelled against God by breaking the Holy Covenant Rejected our Lord and Saviour Overturned the Work of his own blessed Spirit and Arme Abrogated and rescinded all these righteous Lawes and Ordinances whereby it was established And by most Unjust Arbitrary and Cruel Lawes and Practises have endeavoured the rebuilding and promoving of the Kingdome of Darkness and Antichrist and precipitating of all men either into the same condemnation with themselves or utter ruine and Extermination After we say all these things which the Lord hath thus wrought and permitted in the midst of us neither the Discouragement and Fainting of some nor the Unsuccesfulness of the more honest and Zealous endeavours of others nor yet our Silence hithertil is greatly to be wondered at For whose eyes can behold all these things without Dimnes and affecting of the heart And whose heart can consider them without Astonishment and Horrour if not Stupefaction or Discouragement How little wonder is it that every visage suppose of the fairest Nazarit be blacker then a coale That every eye run down with waters that the souls of many refuse to be comforted neither do nor dare rejoice as other people When not only by their going a whoreing from the Lord their dayly bread is become the bread or Adversity and the waters of Affliction and when their famine of the Word of the Lord is such that though they wander from sea to sea seeking it they cannot find it Bot also the Comforter that should releeve their souls is far from them and either covereth Himself with a cloud that their prayers cannot pass through or then answereth them only by terrible things in Righteousness How can they who by their Vanities have moved the Holy God to Jealousy and thereby have provoked their Rock to fell them stand before their Enemies or chase a thousand put ten thousand to flight alâ—hough that we should plead with our Mother with our Rulers with all other ranks of persons within the Land that they would put away their whoredomes out of their sight their Adulteries from betwen their breasts yet what hope is there that Words shall prevaill where the Power and Glory of the most High is contemned Or that Reason shall be heard where the Counsell of God is rejected Here indeed is matter of Wonder and Praise even the Longsuffering of the Lord which is Salvation and the Mercy and
them over-ruled in the Year 1640. the King and Prelats vigorously arm again and prepare for a new war But this intended War is composed by a new Pacification and in the mean time the Parliament formerly adjourned until Iune 1640 doth conveen at the time appointed and by their fourth fifth and sixth Acts fully establish Presbyterial Government ratify the Covenant with the Addition and Explanation of the Assembly and all Acts made thereanent abrogat the Estate of Bishops and all Acts whatsoever made in their favours Thereafter in the Treaty ensuing the Pacification it is agreed that the Acts past in the last Parliament with these to be made in the next Session thereof shall be published in the King's Name and have the strength of Laws in all time coming Which Treaty being closed and the last Session of the above-mentioned Parliament sitting in the Moneth of Iune 1641. the King in person being present among them and the Oath of Parliament for maintenance of Religion in purity as then established and of the King's Authority and the Peoples Liberties according to the Covenant and for endeavouring by all just and humble meanes of Union and Peace betwixt the three Kingdomes appointed to be taken by that all succeeding Parliaments being taken by the second Act thereof superscribed by the King and subscribed by the President the foresaid Treaty is amply and perpetually confirmed and the whole Articles thereof are ratifyed and recorded Thus by all the Security that either Sacred Oaths or Acts of Lawful Authorized Assemblies Ordinances of King and Council doubled and re-iterated Pacifications and Treaties Acts of Parliament Enacted Re-enacted the Kings Authority and Consent being often and solemnly interposed both by promise and hand-writ And all that either Religion Truth Faith Honour or Honesty could devise or grant these Wicked Prelats are cast out of this Church and Kingdom Presbyterial Government fully established the pure Worship of God with His pure and powerful Ordinances and Ministry restored and in the maintenance and pursuance of all these great Blessings the whole Land by many Oaths most Solemn tyes engaged unto the Lord for ever By all which Blessings and the restoring of the Lord 's own Ordinances amongst us as the Work of the Gospel and the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus in the Conversion of many thousands were greatly advanced and the Glory of God in the abounding of true Piety and flourishing of Righteousness did eminently shine amongst us as the memory of these times in all such as fear God and love our Lord Jesus Christ doth sweetly testify so all these great things were transacted to the perpetual shame and confusion of all our calumnious Adversaries without any diminution of his Majesty's just Authority and Greatness As the Power and Glory of the Lord was great in this Land so the splendor and fame thereof reaching unto other Nations it pleased the Lord thereby to provoke His People in England at that time grievously groaning under the Tyrannous yoke of Prelacy and justly alarmed by the imminent fears of prevailing Popery to set about and intend the like blessed Reformation It doth not concern us to reflect on the Causes and beginnings of that War betwixt the King and Parliament there nor what were the transactions betwixt the two Kingdoms in order to that Aid and Assistance given by Scotland and how the same was mannaged But this is certain that upon the Representation of the most just and important grounds of the maintenance of Religion and Liberty against the prevailing power of Popery Prelacy and Tyranny in that Kingdom of England and their most instant and earnest desires for our help and Assistance and rhe most rational clear motives of our own Security the hazard and loss whereof had undoubtedly been the consequence of the Prelats Victory there this Kingdom was induced in the Year 1643. to enter into that Sacred Bond of the Solemne League and Covenant never to be forgotten containing no other Articles then every one's Sincere and constant endeavours in their several places callings for the preservation of the Reformed Religion in this Church in Doctrine VVorship Discipline and Government the Reformation of the same in England and Ireland according to the VVord of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches and the nearest Conjunction and Vniformity of all the three in Truth Faith and Love the extirpation of Popery Prelacy Error and Profanity the preservation of the rights and Liberties of the People and of the Kings person and Authority in defence of the true Religion and the Kingdom 's Liberties the Discovery and the punishment of Incendiaries the retaining of the Peace and Vnion of the Kingdomes the mutual assistance and defence of all entering into this League and the performing of all duties we owe to God in the amendment of our lives and in walking exemplarly one before another And all these in order to no other end then the Glory of God the advancement of the Kingdom of Iesus Christ the Honor and Happiness of the King and his Posterity and the true Liberty Safety and Peace of the Kingdom This is that Covenant which in all the controversies it hath occasioned did never receave a greater confirmation then from the malice and opposition of it's adversaries who in the same Spirit with the same Spite have alwayes persecuted and reproached it with the same Calumnies of Rebellion Sedition and Blood which from the beginning the Devill hath ever been most active to raise and stir up against the Lord Jesus his Gospel Kingdom and Followers But seing such only as are blessed do evite the offence of Truth and all who truely seek Gods Glory or Love the Lord Jesus did and still do heartily approve and embrace this Covenant though it had brought the Sword not only into Britain but with the Truth into all the Earth though it were reproached as unfriend not only to our King but with our Lord Jesus to Caesar and all the Kings of the Earth though it had divided and disturbed not only Realms and States but with the Gospel families and nearest relations and had with Paul moved Sedition throughout the whole World we ought not thereby to be either shaken or offended We know also that all the subtilty and malice of Hell have been set on work and spared no calumny or cavillation by which either it's Words Matter or Manner might be impugned But these are so often and fully answered and without the assistance of any man's Patrociny by the obvious plainness of it's Phrase the Holiness Importance of it's Purpose and the Justice and Necessity of it's way and Manner so clearly confuted that nothing can be added Only seing the Constancy of Truth ought not to cede to the Confidence of prevailing Powers as we have asserted and do hold the subject matter of this League and Covenant to be in it self Holy Just and True so we cannot but disprove
absolutely necessary it leaves no issue or expedient It is not needful here to clear the necessity and advantages which may induce Subjects to the making of Leagues and Conventions in certain cases without the consent of the Prince nor the exigence of these Times for the Covenant we plead for These things are cleared by undenyable Records which all the Wars Blood and Confusions that thereafter ensued flowing either from the perverse and obstinate opposition violence and Persecution of the enemies of Truth or being the effect of Gods Righteous Judgement upon such whose hearts were false and proved unstedfast in His Covenant notwithstanding all the present insulting of the Adversaries doth nothing disprove Neither do we here resume the above mentioned practices of our first Reformers for justifying the case in hand and the explication of these old Acts here obtruded who by all their necessary Leagues Bands and Conventions never conceaved the same to be contraveened Only we cannot but regret that as the Act made in the last Parliament against Conventions and Bonds was a fearful step of the present great Apostacy and directly levelled against the same Covenant by which the Authors of the Acts themselves were and are indissolubly obliged so that old Act Parliament 10. Ja. 6. cap. 12. 1585. which is thereby ratifyed and revived was also one of the woful Acts and effects of the wickedness that then prevailed in the Land and doth relate to and is expresly founded upon the 43. Act. Queen Mary Parliament 6. 1555. which under the colour of discharging Bonds of Man-rent was by the Queen Regent then raging in Persecution against the Professors of the Truth directly intended for the overthrow of the Gospel and Congregation We have hitherto only justifyed the lawfulness or rather the necessity of the Covenant as a League amongst Subjects without the Princes consent and have not spoken thereto as a League with England and the Subjects of an other Kingdom Because as the first point is mainly denied by the Adversary so the same being proven upon in the same grounds first of Just Necessary Defence of our Selves Religion and Libertyes Secondly of the assistance that we owe and do expect in case of Persecution for Truth from all Christians in the bowels of Jesus Christ the obedience of his new and speciall command of Love and the remembrance of that great and last Judgement wherein by this Law all men shall be judged without respect to the difference of Nations and Kingdoms and thirdly upon the ground of the Glory of God which is the great end of all things and to which all inferiour duties of Submission and Obedience ought to cede the Justice and Necessity of the Covenant and League with England may be certainly concluded O! that men who weighing all things in the ballance of their own selfish Interests and designes do make the vain airy enjoyment of Court-favour and the evanishing possession of such advantages as may be acquired thereby preponderate and cast the scales in prejudice of these great and important concernments of the Glory of God and the advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Might yet be awakened by the terror of that dreadful and glorious Judgement of the last day to an impartial consideration of that duty which we owe to all these that suffer and are persecuted for Truth Surely if not visiting not relieving and supporting when it is in our power of the afflicted members of Jesus Christ shall then be the condemnation of the Reprobat against which the exception of a contrary command of any King or Prince or that the afflicted were by men for Truths sake declared Rebells and Traitors or were of an other Kingdome shall furnish no defence Can we in conscience think that the refusal of Assistance to the persecuted for Christ's sake when instantly thereto required shall be upon any of these pretended grounds excused in that day We do not here mention the supervenient consent and Authority of the King by which the alleaged defects to the acknowledgement of all our adversaries were clearly purged because though the same will afterwards fall in as a great accession to the conviction of all Apostats yet we bless the Lord who hath bottomed our Faith and Consciences upon more sure and fixed foundations and who gave His People more evident and gracious testimonies of His Favour Power and Presence while they sincerely walked conform to the grounds mentioned before the King's assent was obtained then ever since The entering into and taking of this Covenant was so much the more necessary and Praise-worthy in us in Scotland for several reasons 1. because it contains no other then the same Duties and obligations which were before by us so solemnly Covenanted to in our Nationall Covenant neither is the restriction of our Alleageance supposed to be made therein any other then the true and righteous qualification of all such engagements most consonant unto and approven by our first Large Confession of Faith Chap. 25. Anent the Civil Magistrate the Kings Coronation-Oath recorded Ia. 6. p. 1. cap. 8. and the Nationall Covenant as it was taken and subscribed both first and last And though our Adversaries have insulted upon the later Confession of Faith as if both our former principles and practises were thereby disproved yet let the words be considered Viz. Infidelity or difference in Religion doth not make void the Magistrat's Iust and Legal Authority nor free the People from due obedience And we are confident that no sober man will think the acknowledgement of just and legal Authority and due obedience a rational ground to infer that Tyranny over either Consciences or Persons is thereby either allowed or priviledged which is all that by us is contended for 2. Because the same National Covenant did powerfully oblige us thereunto not only upon the account of that obstinate opposition which the perfidious Prelats in England both by raising Wars and breach of Pacification had plainly testifyed the revival whereof in case of any probable Capacity we had just reason to apprehend and by a posterior League at that time a most necessary and probable remedy in pursuance of our former engagement to provide against but also in respect of that express ground of opposition to the bloody bond of Trent and of the detestation of all the enemies of Gods Church who thereby conjured themselves against it contained in the National Covenant which could not but be a very fair persuasion and strong inductive to engage in that sacred Bond of the solemn League Covenant against that same accursed conjuratiō which at that time appeared so active 3. Because the Oath of Parliament first taken in the Parliament 1641. the King being present obliging us to endeavour the preservation of the Peace and Vnion of the three Kingdoms did indispensibly oblige us to enter in this Covenant as a most necessary expedient thereto Having thus summarily reviewed both the Matter and Manner of
the Ascendent Power of His own Spirit and Glorious Presence did bring the whole Land under these great convictions mentioned in the conclusion of the League and Covenant of our not valueing the inestimable Benefit of the Gospel nor endeauouring to receave Christ in our hearts and walk worthy of Him in our lives the only Duty and end of all our Covenants and Engagements which is in effect God's greatest Delight and Glory in the World and all our Felicity And unto these unfained resolutions there annexed of Repentance and Amendment And lastly though the Lord from Heaven had both plagued us for and purged us from these fearful Apostacies and Defections whereby men of corrupt minds not holding the Head and End of all things even our Lord Jesus Christ were both in the Years 1645. and 1648. soon turned aside from their stedfastness in the Covenant and became Enemies unto God's own Work and Cause and had therefore stirred us up to the Renewing of our Covenant with God in the Year 1648 with and after a most Solemn Acknowledgement both of the Causes and Evills of these Defections and a most serious detestation of and resolution against both Notwithstanding we say of all these things Yet the great Sin and Evil of not valueing receaving and walking worthy of our Lord Jesus and the not directing and improving the great Blessings of His Gospel Ordinances Covenants Victories and all other Benefits and Enjoyments bestowed on us for the promoving of the Pleasure of our Lord and the Establishing of His Kingdom for the Salvation of Sinners did still remain Thence was it that the generall and great Zeall which then appeared was so suddenly contracted to a very few and much remitted in all And that mens corruptions turning former Professions into feigned pretensions and causing many in place of the great and only end proposed to minde Selfish Designes and Worldly advantages the Lord was provoked to give up some to the prosecution of these base desires 〈◊〉 which they had so quickly backsliden And to abandon others to the delusion of an over-credulous Charity which two Evills did so far prevail in all the Transactions of these Times that though the Over-ruling Providence of the Most High did bring forth thereof the Advantages which we have al-ready mentioned yet were Men thereby acted to pursue Treaties over the belly of most signal Warnings and most pregnant Disswasives to the contrary and to conclude Agreements and accept of Securities in the great Matters of God and of His Work so long contended for and far advanced which no rational man not preferring airy words and professions and Ink-subscriptions to plain refusal visible reluctancies manifest resilings open counter-actings and strong and continued prejudices would be satisfyed with in his own private matters of almost the meanest concernment But though the Lord from heaven did at Dumbar testify against both this evil and sinful course and the great Sin and wickedness that had procured it and thereafter by many of His faithful Servants did give express Testimony Warning against the same yet it is stil persisted in And notwithstanding that by a new discovery after all the assurance contained in the Declaration at Dumfermling that could be imagined the Lord did make it evident at Clova that all these condescensions were only the constraints of Policy the Backsliding and Delusion of these times did proceed until that under a pretence of Necessity preferring the Arm of Flesh to the Almighty Power and Favour of the Most High and through the perswasion of a Mock-Repentance only agreable unto that Mock-Treaty whereon it depended we were induced again to break the Lord's Commandement and our own Engagement in joyning with the People of these Abominations to provoke the Lord to be angry until He should consume us utterly without a remnant or escaping and by partaking of their Sins became apt and ready to partake of their judgements which the Lord by the hand of the TREACHEROUS did suddenly inflict upon us for all our treachery And thereby according to His Righteousness and Great Faithfulness as he had brought upon us the blessing so He also brought upon us the curse of His Holy Covenant and the fears of our own Acknowledgement These were our Forsakings Backslidings which provoked the Lord also to forsake us and at length to give us over unto and leave us in the hands of our enemies and to lay on our necks that long and heavy yoke of forraign Usurpation under which from the Year 1651. unto the Year 1660. we did so grevously groan The remembrance of which things doth necessarily oblidge us to the Declaration of these things 1. That as we desire heartily to resume these professions of unfeigned Humiliation for the undervaluing of the Precious Gospel and slighting of our Lord Jesus Christ contained in our Holy Covenant wherein all the Land without exception are and were so deeply concerned so although in the Narration of the procedure of our sinful and Wofull Defection the particular passages of Self-seeking and Over-credulous Delusion may import a narrower restricton Yet the Lord is our witness that the pure motive of His Glory and the Honor and Truth of His Work and Covenant without prejudice to the persons of any far less of such whom we are perswaded the Lord both did and yet doth honor to be instrumental in His Work and faithfull in His Covenant though neither in the former practice or this present perswasion we do agree have induced us to this reflection which we earnestly obtest may be looked upon by all rather as the matter of our mourning then of our censure 2. That whatever love and sincere respect we retain for such of the Faithful who through the Holy and Wise Permission of the Soveraign Lord by the influence of particular temptations or of that general and powerful snare of an Evil Time were carried on to a Sinful Complyance with the Evil Courses thereof Yet we are perswaded that the remitting of that Zeal sincerity and stedfastness whereunto in our Solemn Acknowledgement upon the most powerful motives we had then lately so seriously engaged our selves and the more Politick then Pious management of these Treaties and Transactions wherein the advancement of the Work of God and prosecution of the Ends of the Covenant so highly pretended could not sincerely and zealously be intended by any imaginary security or sinful assistance thereby obtained but especially the relapsing unto that most sinful Conjunction with the People of these Abominations so solemnly and lately repented for and resolved against which in stead of being salved was by the Constrained Politick Dissembled and Formall Repentance then used to the mocking of the God of Truth and scorn of all our Holy Engagements on all hands mostly aggravated and exaggerated these evils we say were the very foundations of this present Apostacy and the grounds of the Lords controversy which hath so long and yet doth so greivously pursue
people who though continually afflicted and persecuted in their bodies though their souls be exceedingly filled with the contempt of the proud yet have not nor dare not deny the Lord His Work nor His holy Covenant whom though the Lord hath caused to turn back from the enemy and given for a spoil to them that hate them yea given them as sheep for meat and made them a reproach a scorn and a derision yet have they nor forgotten the Lord nor dealt falsly in His Covenant O! that men would consider this Grace of God whereby as he conforteth and sustaineth his servants in all their afflictions so he warneth backsliders to return and all to flee from the wrath that is to come and to save themselves from this wicked generation Which Grace as it allayeth to the Faithful the smart so ought it to remove from all the scandal of our Lord's cross and is indeed that strength and presence of the Captain of our salvation who was made perfect by suffering with all His sufferers giving for the present joy and peace and afterwards assured victory Now seing it is the Lord who hath so visibly brought upon us these sore Trialls that such as are approved may be made manifest and so graciously delivereth them from the temptation thereof yea thereby refineth purifyeth and maketh many white that they may be more abundant Partakers both of His Holiness and of His Glory and also eminently beareth witness to the Truth Grace and Power of His great Work His holy Covenant and precious Ordinances and Ministry amongst us clearing them by His own Testimony of all these calumnies wherewith either through the invention of some men's malice or the occasion of other mens weakness and sin they were formerly aspersed we shall shut up this discourse with this one word of exhortation Great hath been the Sin of this Land in not believing and obeying the glorious Gospell in not receaving the Lord Jesus in our hearts and witnessing His Light and Grace and Glory in our lives and conversations but in resting on the outward forms and appearances of the true Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government without labouring after the power of Reformation and beauty of holiness the only grace and blessing of all these enjoyments and in perverting and mannaging the possession and profession of all these things unto selfish ends and worldly advantages O foolish people and unwise have we thus requited the Lord for all these mercies of His Gospell pure Ordinances and Holy Covenants to corrupt and deprave them from that great end of the Glory of His grace and mercy in our salvation unto the base designs of serving and satifying our own lusts to His dishonour And therefore is it that the Lord having often in his mercy corrected and warned us hath now at length given us over unto this horrid Apostacy and Defection whereby as the latent malice and hypocrisy of many and the great fainting and want of zeal in all have been manifestly discovered so the Lord is feeding the wicked with their own delusions and putting the zeal and constancy of all to the Test and in effect ripening this whole Land either for a glorious deliverance from that perverse spirit and generation of Antichrist that hath been long mingled in the midst of us and even from the dayes of our first Reformation hath retained and continued the old enmity against the Lord Jesus and His blessed Gospell and Kingdom or else for a totall and final overthrow in utter darkness and desolation And therefore O Scotland because the Lord loved thy Fathers and delighteth not in thy destruction hath He after all our fearful backsliding and sinful fainting and departing which testify against us neither left Himself nor us without a witness but raised up amongst us His own faithful Servants and our brethren with whom we are all equally and indissolubly engaged in the same righteous Cause and Covenant by the mighty power of His grace from the pure zeal of His Glory enabled them first to venture and then to lay down their lives for the Testimony of His Work and Covenant that we may yet at length consider and understand that these were no more the labour and devices of carnal designs then that corruption and weakness of flesh blood could triumph both over it self death hell the chief of terrors O! that men would therefore lay to heart their bonds Engagements unto the Lord repent of their backslidings and cease from their opposition to His Cause Covenant at least that such whom the Lord hath not abandoned unto that depth of Apostacy whereunto others have made defection would yet be wise instructed repent of their fainting Neutrality in the cause of God their connivance or complyance with the declared enemies thereof beware of that wicked Declaration against the Covenant or any other Oath and Subscription likely to be the snare and temptation of these times which either under the pretext of Peace and Order or of due Obedience unto lawful Authority may be wickedly invented and imposed really for the suppressing of Truth and advancing of this Rebellion against the most High God and the establishing of this Antichristian Prelatick Tyranny We have already fully detected the mask and design of such impostures He who hath given Authority and Power unto Kings and Princes and rendered the same Sacred by His holy Sanction and Command as he hath often punished their Ingratitude and Usurpation against His own Soveraignity so will He not hold that people guiltless who being both His Creatures and sworn Subjects either connive at or comply with such Rebellious Princes in their wickedness Shall both the Law of God and the very Propension of the heart and blood to the love and obedience of Parents cede to the obedience of Kings and Rulers for the good and preservation of the Common-wealth and shall not far more all Alleagiance obedience to the same Kings Rulers cede and give place to our Obedience to the Most High our only Soveraign Lord and the conscience of His holy Oath and Commandments for advancement of his glory the great and only end of all things Fix it therefore in your hearts first to love and fear the Lord our God and then to honour and obey the King and let the sincere and inward love of our Lord Jesus Christ the dear esteem of his precious Gospel and the remembrance of our most sacred and solemn Oaths and Covenants and of that beauty power and glory of His pure Ordinances Ministry and Government which we once enjoyed alwayes dwell in your hearts and ever determine and establish you to resist and disown all wicked Usurpations against the Lord and His Anointed all Invasions against His Crown and Prerogative all Corruptions and Humane Inventions in His pure Worship and Ordinances all perversion of the true Government and comely Order in His house and alâ— violations of these indispensible holy
all things but loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ MY LORD for whom I now suffer the loss of all things that I may win Him and be found in Him and that I may not only know the fellowship of His sufferings but the power of His resurrection and attain unto the resurrection of the dead And as for yow my dear Friends as I pray for you that the God of all grace who hath called us unto His eternall glory by Christ Jesus after ye have suffered a while may make yow perfect stablish strengthen and settle yow so I recommend to you the same truth that you be not soon shaken in mind but that ye hold fast the profession of your faith without wavering And as you have receaved the Lord so walk in Him Warning and obtesting you by all manner of obligations and by the hope and joy of that crown which I wait for that ye keep your selves unspotted with the abominable courses and practices of these times whereunto ye may be tempted by the extremity of suffering and particularly that ye beware of unlawfull Oaths and Declarations against the Cause and Covenant of God that ye have no complyance with nor give consent unto this Prelacy which ye have abjured And that you be afraid and aware of Popery which by Connivance doth so visibly abound and dayly increase But by fighting the good fight and keeping of the faith you may finish your course as I do in the assurance of the crown of Righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge hath laid up and shall give unto me and not to me only but to all them that love His appearance ALEXANDER ROBERTSON The Testimony of JOHN NILSON of Corsack who died at Edinburgh Dec. 14. 1666. BEing made a spectacle to the World to Angels and to Men I found it necessary for vindication of the Truth of my self for undeceaving of some encouraging of others to leave this line behind me which with my innocent blood may speak when I am gone I am condemned I shall not say how unjustly as a Rebell against Man but the Lord God of Gods He knoweth all Israel shall know that it is not for Rebellion against God but for endeavouring to recover the blessed work of Reformation and particularly for endeavouring to extirpate Prelacy which hath been the cause of so much sin and suffering within this Land and for renewing of the Covenant from the obligation whereof seing I made my Vow and Promise to the Lord neither I my self nor any humane Authority can absolve me And if any account this Rebellion I do plainly confess that after the way which they call Heresy I worship the God of my fathers Although the insupportable oppression under which I and many others did groan were enough to justify our Preserving and Defending of our selves by Armes yet know that the Cause was not Ours but the Lord's for we suffered all our grievous Oppressions not for evill-doing but because we could not in conscience acknowledge comply with and obey Prelacy and submit unto the Ministery of Ignorant Light and Profane men who were irregularly and violently thurst upon us Neither did we only or mainly designe our civil Liberties but the Liberty of the Gospel the Extirpation of Prelacy the Restauration of our faithful Pastors the Suppression of Profanity Promoving of Piety the saving of ourselves from unjust violence untill we had presented our Grievances and Desires And in a word the Recovering of the once glorious but now ruined Work of Reformation in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Nationall Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant to which I declare my adherence and through grace shall seal the same with my blood My Advocate drew up a Supplication for me wherein was acknowledged that I had been with the Rebels but let none offend thereat for â— do hereby declare that I was so far from accounting that course Rebellion that I judged and still do judge it was my duty to joyn therein and my honor to suffer therefore Otherwise I should have counted my self accessary to the blood of the Lord's People which is shed And cannot but regret that others of the Lord's People when they heard of us did not come forth with speed to help the Lord against the Mighty much more let all mourn that not only many have appeared as Enemies but also conjured themselves against the Lord the same Covenant which they so solemnly sware And as for the Petition it self I knew not that expression was in it Being conscious to my self of so much weakness so many hainous sins which predomine in me of unfruitfulness under the Gospel and unsutable walking thereto I confess my self the vilest of sinners and desire to mourn for the same and pray that the Lord for Christ's sake may freely forgive me as I have forgiven them that have wronged me and hope through the righteousness of Jesus Christ to obtain the same And I do exhort all and every one of my friends to more holiness Prayer and stedfastness alwayes abounding in the Work of the Lord And above all things to detest shun that wicked Declaration against the Covenant the apparant temptation of the time and the very mark of Antichristian Prelacy All that I have is but little but if I had many Worlds I would lay them all down as now I do my life for Christ and His Cause nothing doubting but the Lord will abundantly provide for my Wife and my six Children whom I commit to the Lord's care and recommend to the Kindness and Prayers of the faithful And do lay an express charge on my Wife that she shew all my Children that I have bound them all to the Covenant for which now I lay down my life and that She lay it upon them as my last command that they adhere to every Article thereof The Work and People of God are brought very low It may be because they were not ripe for a deliverance And for the greater triall and filling up of the cup of the Adversaries Or because there was litle or less prayer then should have been amongst these who appeared at this time that the Lord hath made this late breach But dear Friends be not therefore tempted to call in question the Work of Reformation or to think the worse of Christ and His Cause because of sufferings Nor be discouraged because these few who took their lives in their hands fell before the Adversary For as sufferings are often sweetned by the Spirit of God and Glory that resteth upon the sufferers and afterward bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby So the Lord will arise in due time and have mercy upon Zion and plead the cause which is his own And this Testimony as I am this day to seal with my blood so I subscribe with my hand JOHN NILSON OF CORSACK The Testimony
this Covenant upon account of it as done to my self Very Conscience of duty urged me to this against some reluctancy of fear of what might follow Upon the same reasons at Lanrik with the rest I declared my adherence to the Covenant by my lifting up of my hand after the Articles thereof were read And here I cannot but with greef of heart acknowledg my fainting in a day of trial that being ingaged with them upon such accounts I many times in fear designed to withdraw and at length did which as it was the occasion of my falling into the hands of the Enemy so I think among other things it was the cause why God delivered me into their hands Upon the same fear in all my Examinations I have denied my ingagement with them and endeavoured to Vindicate my self by asserting the real designes I had to part from them and have utterly cast away the glory of a testimony which my very being in their company as a favourer of the ends of the Covenant and as one willing to contribute my best endeavours for the promoving of them but especially my declaring for the Covenant did bear unto the Truth and Ordinances of Jesus Christ against this untoward Generation This I confesse to be no less then a denying of Jesus Christ and a being ashamed of his Words before men but I hope the Lord who remembreth that we are but frail dust shall not lay it to my charg but according to his faithfulness and Grace will forgive me who by this Publick Confession take to my self shame and confusion of face and fly to the propitiation offered to all sinners in Jesus Christ And these things as they have procured this death unto me as an act of Gods Justice so they mind me of other evils in mine own heart that have been the source of this my unwillingness to take on Christ's Cross My heart hath not studied to maintaine that Spirituality in walking with God and Edifying Exemplariness with others that became one that had receaved the first fruits of the Spirit and aimed at the Ministery of the Gospel living in times of so much calamity for the Church of God and particular afflictions as to my self If I had spent my dayes in groaning after my house from Heaven would I have shifted so fair an occasion of being cloathed with it Alas that I have loved my Lord and Master Jesus Christ so litle Alas that I have done so litle service to him that I have so litle labour to follow Me to my Everlasting rest This I speak to these especially with whom I have familiarly conversed in my Pilgrimage that seing the Lord will not grant me Life to testify my real Reformation of these things my aknowledgement at Death may have influence upon them to study not only Godliness but the Power of it As I acknowledg that I have not been free and ingenuous in these particulars formentioned so in other things wherein I interponed that Holy name of God as to the not being upon the Contrivance of this riseing in Armes nor privy to any resolution thereanent nor conscious of any Intelligence at home or abroad concerning it I was most ingenuous And they have wronged me much who said that I denied upon Oath that which they were able to make out against me or knew to be truth But non alleage Perjury against me but such as are so manifestly guilty of it before the World that their tougnes in such alleagances are no slander Although I be Judged and condemned as a Rebell amongst Men Yet I hope even in order to this Action to be accepted as Loyal before God Nay there can be no greater act of Loyalty to the King as the times now go then for every man to do his utmost for the Exstirpation of that abominable plant of Prelacy which is the bane of the Throne and of the Countrey which if it be not done the Throne shall never be established in Righteousness until these wicked be removed from before it Sure I ame these who are now comdemned as Rebels against Him by them are such as have spent much time in prayer for Him and do more sincerely wish his standing and have endeavoured it more by this late action so much condemned then the Prelates by condemning them to death This Disaster hath heightened greatly the Afflictions of our Chuch and ought to teach all of you to drink the Wine of Astonishment Ye have not known tribulation till now Now we Judg them happy that are fallen asleep and removed far away and know that God hath been taking away his Servants from the Evils that were to come Know that God's designe is to make many hearts contrite that have been formerly too whole and have not lamented sufficiently the removeall of his Ordinances and Ministery and the reproach rubed upon the Work of Reformation Beware that your sorrow be not a momentany motion of commoun Compassion that evanisheth when it may be there is some intermission in this violent course of sheding innocent blood Labour to have a constant impression that may sacrifice the heart nay ye vvould live much in apprehension of approaching Judgment Certainly the Withdrawing of many from us and not contributing their help to the great work they were ingaged to as well as we the generall Riseing against us in many places of the Countrey but above all this open sheding of the blood of the Saints which involveth the land in the guiltiness of all the righteous blood shed from the foundation of the World have made Scotland fit fuell for the fire of Gods Wrath. I can say nothing concerning times to come but this All things shall work together for good to them that Love God and so this present dispensation And they shall have most comfort in this promise who are most willing that such afflictions as we are brought to be the way that God choiseth to work their good Commit wholly the management of all maters to God and make it your intire study night and day to keep your very garments clean It is hard in times of so generall Corruptions not to be defiled one way or other be free of the Sin as you would be of the Judgments which will certainly be such as will make all the Churches Know that God is the searcher of the hearts and trier of the reins Revel 2.23 and so will not be mocked by these pretences whereby men colour their going along in an evill course from the real Love that they have to a present world If naked Presence amongst them who are esteemed Rebels by men be sufficient to engage them in the Crime and Punishment for that is all the ground of my Condemnation shall not God be much more Zealous of his own glory against all who so much as seem to go along with this course of backsliding As a good Mean and encouragement to all the duties of our time labour to be rooted and grounded in
have been repealed lawfully as this wicked Generation hath done Dear Friends I hope ye will stand fast in this Obligation and in the Solemn Oaths and Ties ye are under and all the body of the Land also will be stedfast in the same upon the greatest hazard ye can meet with And that ye will study perfect holiness and nearness with God which will help to keep you straight in this day of Persecution and sharp Triall that is now raging in this Land I bless the Lord I die not a fool though some men have thought so of me by their speeches to me since my imprisonment neither durst I ever be the man to buy my liberty at such a dear rate as Perjury and to shake off these blessed bonds I did vvillingly come under And I thank God I never yet to this moment rued or repented it And sure I am it is better for me to suffer the vvorst of deaths then to preserve my life by breaking the Oaths of God I also give my Testimony against Prelacy and that vvicked Hierarchy novv established in this Land as that vvhich the Church of Christ could never bear until this day it being such a grand Enemy to the purity of the Gospel and povver of Godliness yea a yoke vvhich the Church of God groaneth under I have no more to say but commends all you the lovers of our Lord Jesus Christ to God Himself and to the good vvord of His grace vvhich is able to build you up untill the day of His appearance and to give you all an inheritance with them that are sanctified through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ And subscribes my self an expectant and apparent heir of the grace of Christ HUMPREY COLHOUN The Testimony of JOHN WILSON Who suffered at Edinburgh Decemb. 22. 1666. Good People and Spectators I Am here condemned to die upon alleaged Rebellion against the King and his Authority which God knoweth I never intended For in my judgement a man's endeavouring to extirpate perjured Prelates and abjured Prelacy according as he is bound by Oath in a sworn Covenant may very well stand with a man's Loyalty to King and Countrey for I am sure the King and his Subjects may be happy yea more happy in the extirpation of Prelates and Prelacy then in their standing Yea the Throne shall never be established in peace until that wicked plant be plucked up by the roots which hath so much wasted and made desolate the Lord's Vineyard For my part I pray that the Lord may bless our King with blessings from Heaven and make him a friend to the Interests of Christ as the best way for the standing of his Throne to many generations And I pray for all that are in Authority under his Majesty that the Lord may not lay to their charge the innocent blood of His Saints which they have shed But the ground of my sentence is truly the renewing of the Covenant with my God and labouring to defend the same according to my Oath And this I profess is and was my duty and by the grace of God will not quite it And in token hereof I am here before you all to lay down my life in defence of the same and require you all to be witnesses to this my Testimony I do declare I am not ashamed but count it my glory I do likewise declare this before you all in the sight of God the Judge of all hearts that since the day I did first swear and subscribe this Covenant for Reformation it hath been sweet unto me for I am persuaded in my Conscience of the warrantableness thereof I did swear the Covenant four times and the last time at Lanerk which was the sweetest time to me of them all For with my whole soul I renewed it and gave up both my soul and body to Him to be at His disposal which I trust in God I shall never rue Hearty praise and thanks be to the blessed God that ever it pleased Him to give unto this poor Church that mercy to enter in Covenant with Himself that He might be unto us a Covenanted God the richest mercy that can be bestowed on men I have lived a Presbyterian in my judgement according as I have sworn and judge it to be the only way that God hath appointed in His word for the Government of His Church on earth for under that Government the power and practice of Religion hath greatly flourished and many a soul hes been converted to the Lord and found sweet fellowship with Him in His Ordinances by the Ministry of His honest and and lawfully called Servants And blessed be the day that ever I heard a faithfull sent Minister preach the Gospell I do declare before heaven and earth that my whole designe in this Rising in Armes was only against abjured Prelacy and Prelaetes the great Oppressors of God's Interests and cruell persecuters of His People both in their consciences and bodies and I judge their Government and why not to be conforme to the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures I might cite many Scriptures to this purpose but I shall only name two Luke 22.26 but ye shall not be so but he that is greatest among you let him be as the yonger and be that is chief as he that doth serve And 1 Pet. 5.3 neither as being Lords over God's heritage c. Yea it may be seen from sad experience that under their Government the power of Godliness hath decayed and avowed profanity and Popery it self hath increased both to the dishonor of the holy Lord and the great grief of the hearts of the Godly I am so persuaded of tne truth of the Covenant and of the error of their way and that Jesus Christ is the only King and Lord over His own House and besides Him there is none else for He will not give His glory to another I am so persuaded of these things that I dare seal the truth thereof with my blood and am come hither for the same end without any fear or amazement yea if every hair of mine head were a man I would have ventured all according to the Covenant which I made with my God And although I be a poor polluted sinner and my house not so with God as it became yet hath He made with me an everlasting Covenant well ordered in all things and sure and this is all my Salvation and all my desire And I hope the Lord will soon tread down all His enemies with shame and the enemies of His Covenant also Therefore let all that love the Lord Jesus Christ and His Truth and Covenant take comfort and courage notwithstanding of all that which is come to pass And let them not be ashamed to adhere thereunto whatsoever sufferings they meet with therein for He will make up that loss in Himself and avenge the wrongs done to Himself them in His own due time I assure you Christ is a good Master to serve if ye
VVorld had been but fevv so his VVords at that time should not be many He spoke to the People the speech and Testimony vvhich he had before vvritten and subscribed Having done speaking to the People who heard him with great attention he sung a part of the 31 Psal and then prayed with such povver and fervency as forced many to vveep bitterly Having ended he gives his cloak and hat from him And vvhen he turnned himself and took hold of the Ladder to go up he said vvith an audible voice I care no more to go up this Ladder and over it then if I were going home to my Fathers House And as he went up hearing a great noise amongst the People he called dovvn to his fellovv-sufferers saying Friends and Fellow-sufferers be not affraid every step of this Ladder is a degree nearer Heaven Then having seated himself thereon he said I do partly believe that the Nobles Counsellors and Rulers of the Land would have used some mitigation of this punishment had they not been instigated by the Prelates so our blood lyes principally at the Prelats door But this is my comfort now that I know my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth and though after my skin worms destroy this Body yet in my flesh shall I see God vvhom I shall see for my self and mine Eyes shall behold pointing to his eyes and not another though my reins be consumed in me And novv I do vvillingly lay dovvn my life for the Truth and Cause of God the Covenants and VVork of Reformation vvhich vvere once counted the Glory of this Nation And it is for endeavouring to defend this and to extirpate that bitter root of Prelacy that I embrace this rope the Executioner putting the rope about his ncek Then hearing the People weep he said Your vvork is not to vveep but to pray that vve may be honourably born through and blessed be the Lord that supports me Novv as I have been beholden to the prayers and kindness of many since my imprisonment and sentence So I hope you vvill not be vvanting to me novv in this last step of my journey that I may vvitness a good Confession And that you may knovv the ground of my encouragement in this VVork and vvhat my hope is I vvill read to you the last Chapter of the Bible And having read it he said Here you see the Glory that is to be revealed upon me a pure river of vvater of life and so forth read the place vvhere the Throne of God is and the Lamb is in it vvhere his Servants serve Him and see His face and His Name is in their foreheads and the Lord God giveth them light and they shall reign for ever and ever and here you see my access to my Glory and revvard Let him that is a thirst come and vvhosoever vvill let him take of the vvater of life freely And here you see also my vvelcome the Spirit and the Bride say Come Then he said I have one vvord more to say to my Friends looking dovvn to the Scaffold vvhere are you You need neither lament me nor be ashamed of me in this condition for I may make use of that expression of Christs I go to your Father and my Father to your God and my God to your King and my King to the blessed Apostles and Martyrs and to the City of the Living God the heavenly Ierusalem to an innumerable company of Angels to the General Assembly and Church of the First-born and to God the Iudge of all and to the Spirits of just men made perfect and to Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant And so I bid you all farevvell For God vvill be more comfortable to you then I could be And he vvill also novv be more refreshing to me then you can be farevvel farevvel in the Lord. Then the Napkin being put on his face he prayed a space vvithin himself after vvhich he put up the cloath from his face vvith his ovvn hand and said he had one vvord more to say and that vvas to shevv them the comfort he had in his Death saying I hope you perceaved no alteration or discouragement in my countenance and carriage and as it may be your vvonder so I profess it is a vvonder to my self and I vvill tell yovv the reason of it Besides the justness of my Cause this is my comfort vvhich vvas said of Lazarus vvhen he dyed that the Angels did carry his soul into Abraham's Bosom so that as there is a great solemnity here of a confluence of People a Scaffold a Gallovvs and People looking out at vvindovvs so is there greater more solemn preparation in Heaven of Angels to carry my soul to Christ's bosom Again this is my comfort that it is to come in Christ's hands and He vvill present it blameless and faultless to the Father and then shall I be ever vvith the Lord. And novv I leave of to speak any more to creatures and turn my speech to thee O Lord and novv I begin my entercourse vvith God vvhich shall never be broken off Farewel Father and Mother Friends and Relations Farevvel the VVorld and all Delights Farevvell meat and drink Farevvel Sun Moon and Stars VVelcome God and Father VVelcome svveet Lord Iesus the Mediator of the nevv Covenant VVelcome blessed Spirit of Grace and God of all consolation VVelcome Glory VVelcome Eternal Life VVelcome Death Then he desired the Executioner not to turn him over untill he should put over his ovvn shoulders himself vvhich after praying a little vvithin himself he did saying O Lord into thy hands I commit my Spirit for thou hast redeemed my Soul Lord God of truth Thus in the 26 Year of his age he died as he lived in the Lord. FINIS Some Instances of the Sufferings of Galloway and Ntthisdale BEcause in the former Deduction mention is made of a Paper containing some of the Sufferings of Galloway and Nithisdale it is not inconvenient for more Particular Information to subjoyn a few instances out of the same Paper And first at three several inroads which the Souldiers have made into that Countrey in the Years 1663 1665 and 1666. they exacted from the People there for adhereing to their old faithful Ministers and not submitting to the Ministry of those whom the Prelates violently obtruded upon them the Summes of Money underwritten viz. Â Lib. S. d. From 49 Families in the Parish of Carsphairn 4864 17 0 From 43 Families in the Parish of Dalray 9577 16 8 From 49 Families in Balmaclelland 6430 10 0 From 9 Families in Balmacghie 425 11 8 From 2 or 3 Families in Tungland 166 12 0 From some poor Persons in Tuynham 81 4 0 From 20 Families in Borg 2026 17 4 From 9 poor Families in Girton 525 10 4 From some poor Families in Anwith 733 6 4 From 34 inconsiderable Families in Kirkpatrick-Durham 2235 6 0 From some few Fam. in Kirkmabrek
faithfulness of our God who hath not only hithertil preserved a Remnant even a holy seed which shal be the substance of our Land But after this late suddain and astonishing stroak of his holy Indignation which seemed to presage no less then the woful overturning of this sinking Church into the depth of all darkness and the dreadful overthrow of this whole Land and Nation in the consummation of his fierce anger to have been poured out in our desolation hath made Light and Salvation to arise and Glory and Praise to spring forth in making his grace more manifest and commending and asserting His Work and Covenant more in the Sufferings and Death of His faithfull Servants and Witnesses then in all the prosperity and Victories which formerly he vouchsaved upon us O! blessed and exalted be his most Holy Name and aboundant Grace who for the wicked and momentany rejoycing of our adversaries hath given to his People such sweet consolations and Exuberant Praise and from the depths of our present distresses and amidst the feares of so imminent and great judgments hath in stead of an Apology before the world put a song of Salvation in our Mouth that as well to Testify for the Lord against the backsliders as for the comfort and consolation of all who love and wait for his Salvation we may call the Heavens to hear and the Earth to give ear that we may publish the Name of the Lord and ascrib Greatness to our God whose work is perfect and all his wayes Iudgment A God of Truth and without Iniquity Just and Right is He. We have corrupted ourselves our spot is not the spot of his Children we are a perverse and crooked generation Do we thus requit the Lord O foolish people and unwise Yet is not He our Father that hath bought us Hath not He made us and established us Let us then remember the dayes of old when the most High did visit us and the Lord became Our God and we became His People and Inheritance This is the Testimony of his dying withnesses this is the voice of his present Dispensations We will therefore call to mind the Years of the right hand of the Most High and the wondrous works of the Lord which He alone did work in our Land We will also declare our manifold Engagements and our most selemn and sacred Covenants with and to Our God that the Lord 's Loving Kindness may be made known that the Innocency Strength and Joy of his Servants may appear that the glory of all his Righteous Judgments which are either already come upon us or which we have reason to fear may be made manifest that wickedness may stop it's mouth and that all the Enemies of the Lord may be confounded It is not here intended to resume these debates which as the Adversaries have formerly moved and pertinaciously maintained against the Work of God and almost against every passage and transaction thereof so have the Lovers and Owners of it abundantly satisfied and the Lord Himself determined with that power and Evidence that the Conversion of some and Conviction of almost all and even of it's most desperat opposers is not the smalest part of it's Glory But seing the party that now prevaileth hath disdained that method and only by plain force and Violence in the most gross and desperat Rebellion Blasphemy and Perfidy against God and his Cause and the highest and most determined contempt and misreguard of all good Conscience and sacred Oathes that ever the sun beheld hath carried on and advanced this present Apostacy and defection under which all the Godly do mourn and the Land perisheth We shall only here endeavour the sincere and candid Representation of these things which as they were once the Glory of the Lord and joy of his people in this poor Nation so are they now the Testimony and Triumph of his witnesses and the Patience and Hope of all his Sufferers and may be the full Satisfaction of all who shall hear of these late and present troubles wherewith the Lord doth Exercise us and will undoubtedly in the end prove etiher the Exaltation and Praise or the Desolation and perpetuall Confusion of BACKSLIDEN SCOTLAND When Scotland through the usurpation of the Roman Antichrist and the contagion of his abominations and through the Prid Lust and Tyranny of Prelacy the very root and strength of that Kingdom of wickedness had fallen into that gross and black darkness of Ignorance and Superstition and into these strong Delusions wherewith the Lord as he hath threatned so hath he ever infallibly plagued that Antichristian course and for many hundreth Years had lien involved therein It pleased the Lord in his wonderful mercy and free love to cause the glorious Light of the everlasting Gospell again to arise and shine forth amongst us Which as it is ever best witnessed by its own Power and Purity So through the Power and Wisdome of God alone even by the Weakness of very mean instruments in the midst of the flames of fiery persecutions and against the rage and fury of the Devil and of all the powers of Hell was this Work advanced and effectuated As the recordes of these times from 1494. until about the Year 1560. do plainly discover Dureing which period of time these things are very observable First That where and when ever the Light and Truth of God did discover testify against the Corruptions Errors Idolatry and Superstitions of Popery in the same manner it testified and declared that the Popes usurped Tyranny and the Prid Idleness and Domination of the wicked Prelates were cheefly the Authors and Maintainers thereof Secondly That such as the Lord did from time to time call to and send forth for the work of the Ministry did walk therein with the same Painfulness Poverty Simplicity Humility and Equality which the Holy command and practises of our blessed Lord and his Apostles do so constantly commend Hence it is that in so far as this point could fall under the enquiry of these times it is clearly held out that they acknowledged no Officer in God's House Superior to a Preaching Minister and according to the standard of this Office did they try reject and crave the Reformation of exorbitant Prelacy As the examinations and testimonies of the faithfull in these dayes do witness Thirdly That as the love of God and his blessed Truth and the Precepts Promise and Presence of our Lord Jesus Chirst did enable unto all Patience with joy such as by the call of a clear and necessary providence the Lord sett forth to be his witnesses who for the love and Testimony of Jesus cheerfully embraced the fire and faggott so when the Lord did multiply the faithful to a Reasonable Capacity they were so far from resigning themselves and abandoning that First and most just Priviledge of Self-defence to the arbitriment even of the lawful Powers and of that Authority which they did acknowledge that they not only
by the erecting of Rule and Government for the security of Religion more particularly and eminently intended 5. That the Powers appoinâ—ed for Preservation cannot warrantably endeavour Subversion 6. That as every man is bound to obey God rather then man so such Violence and intollerable and ineviâ—able injury offered by he Powers on this account as to the person injured destroyeth boâ—h the Common-welath of he people more specially the Glory of God which are the only ends of Governments maketh both the End the Means of Government and Authority and the injured person's Obligation thereunto to cease 7. As the persons one or more reduced to this estate and condition if by a real or apparent incapacity of Acting they conceave them selves called to a Testimony by Suffering ought herein with all patience to give unto God the Glory so having the opportunity of and being called whither to their own Defence or the Assiâ—â—ing of their Brethren in so just a cause they ought therein valiantly to acquit themselves for the Glory of God the mantainance of his Truth and the mutuall preservation one of another 8. As the Combination of more persons whom the same common cause of just and necessary Defence doth join together is founded upon and doth most natively arise from that Primaeve Right and Priviledge which at first gave Being and Rise to all Societies and whereunto the force of extream Necessity through the perversion of that Mean of Government appointed for their Preservation doth ultimatly reduce them so the duty of mutual Assistance is not only warranted by that principle of Humanity and common Stipulation which is the Motive and Bond of mens entering into Society the immediat and subordinat End of all Rule and the most effective Mean whereby that superior end of the Good and Safety of every Individuall therein included can be best secured But also first by that more endearing principle of Christian and brotherly Affection in the Lord upon the indispensible force and obligation whereof the very glory and righteousness of the great and last judgement seemeth to be founded Math. 25 31. to the end And secondly by that supream chief concernment of God's Glory to which the interests of all Powers Common-wealth's must certainly stoop and cede And how is it possible that any scruple anent this can remain with any considerat or conscientious person if we consider that whole Cities Kingdomes Empires for the violation of this duty in not releeving delivering of Innocents from the unjust Tyranny even of lawful Powers have been involved in the Guilt of the violence and cruelty which had been only acted by one or a few persons and have been overtaken therefore by fearfull effects and Iudgments to their utter ruine and Subversion As is most evidently confirmed by that clear intimation thereof made by Ieremiah to the Jewes Chap. 26..15 Know ye for a certain that if ye put me to death ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves upon THIS CITY and upon THE INHABITANTS thereof 9. As the Power exercise of Reformation hath been grosly calumniated by the adversaries as if thereby were meant and had been practised manifest force and violence upon Consciences and Persuasions so on the other hand open Idolatry Blasphemy Perjury Venting and Spreading of Heresy and such like abominations being most dishonorable to God and pernicious to all Common-wealths ought without doubt by all means to be suppressed restrained and severely punished Now that this Vindicative and in case of backsliding Reforming Power is committed to the Magistrat and that he is thereto mainly appointed none will question But what if not only the supreame Magistrat but with him all the Nobles and Primores of the Realme shall turn the principal perverters and chief Patrons of these abominations As we have already cleared that in case either the People or any part of them be violented to a sinful complyance or be wickedly persecuted for adhering to God in the profession and practise of the contrary duties they may lawfully Defend themselves and are mutually bound to assist and deliver one another So it now comes to be considered that seing the maintenance of Truth and the true Worship of God were and are the principal ends and motives of contracting of Societies and erecting of Governments whereunto both the People and Rulers are not only separatly every one for himself but jointly oblidged for the publick advancement establishment thereof that God doth therefore equally exact and avenge the sin of the Rulers only or of the People only or of any part of the People only upon the whole body of the Rulers and People for their simple Tollerance and connivance without their active complyance with the transgressors of necessity both from the principles deduced and from the most visible judgments of God agreeable thereto there must be a Superior and Antecedent obligation to that of Submission incumbent upon all both jointly and separatly for the maintenance vindication and Reformation of Religion in order to the promoting of these great ends of the publick profession of Truth and true Worship which the Lord doth indispensibly require And though this position be indeed more evident where express Covenants betwixt God and the whole People betwixt Rulers and their Subjects and betwixt the People and subjects amongst themselves in order to these Holy Duties can be produced yeâ— seing all Constitutions of Societies and Governments do virtually suppose and imply the same and are founded thereon the Assertion doth with equal certainty firmly hold But that all contradiction may stop it's mouth let the import and true meaning of the Scriptures and instances following be impartially weighed Deut. 13 ver 12 13 14 15. The Lord saith If thou shalt hear that in one of thy cities certain men amongst yow have with-drawn the inhabitants of their city to serve other Gods and if after deligent searchâ—s the thing be found a truth thou shal smite and destroy that city utterly Jos 22 ver 17 18 19. Phinâ—has saith to the two Tribes and the half upon their supposed defection If yee rebel to day against the Lord to morrow he will be wroth with the whole Congregation of Israel And Judges 22. throughout in the case of Israel against Benjamin and Gibeah All the places as they clearly hold out the command and practise most consonant to our position so to think that the same may be evaded by astricting the places to the Hypothesis contained in the letter viz of more or all the cities against one apostatizing and that either an equal division of the cities the one half faithful the other backslidden should bring the matter to an accommodation or that the greater part backsliden who certainly had the casting voice in that Democratick constitution should oblige the fewer remaining stedfast to a sinful acquiescence is to elude all Scripture and mock the Holy Ghost by whom it is given Now whither these places
and what is premised do warrand an just extention thereof in favours of the People against backsliden Rulers both supream and subordinat or even in favours of a part of the People with the caution subjoyned against the greater part wickedly backsliden let the World judge Oh! did the wrath of God for the hidden and secret sin of one poor acursed Achan suddenly and fearfully overtake the whole People and ALL THE CONGREGATION of Israel so that that man perished not ALONE in his iniquity and had not our Reformers great reason to fear and tremble least the Manifest Tolleration of proud cruel and flattering Prelats who had perverted the lawful Powers into bloody Persecuters and of Idolatours Priests whose wickedness and Idolatry had corrupted the whole Land might involve not only themselves but the whole Nation in destroying and overflowing indignation We are not ignorant of the no less wicked then ground less cavils of some as if we would make or have every man to be a Phinehas And what then Would God if wishes yea prayers and teares could make it that all his Servants were as Phinehas and that he would pour upon every one of them the same Spirit of Holy Zeall which was in him that by removall of the cause his fierce anger against this poor consuming Land might cease But as for that Act of Phinehas the termes following being generall and ambigous admitting of severall distinctions and subdistinctions as it is not easy without distinguishing in thesi to define an Action and Call Extraordinary and an Action and Call thereunto only Heroicall and to state the true specificall Difference and just limits betwen an Action and Call Extraordinary and an Action and Call Heroicall as they are strickly taken and contradistinguished and clearly and convincingly to demonstrat what and how much more is required in an Extraordinary Call to an Extraordinary Action then is required in a sufficient Call unto an Heroicall Action and whether an eminent measure of Holy Zeal Magnanimity and Fortitude do constitut a sufficient Call unto an Heroicall Action or do only Dispose and fit the person for the right and better performance thereof as a Call unto the Action and the Fitness of the Person for doing of the same are contradictinguished or may not both Dispose and fit the person for performance of the Action and also include and give a Call unto the Action it self So when the matter is fully considered it will be more difficult then perhaps is apprehended to prove that the Act of Phinehas was Extraordinary strickly taken and in contradistinction to that which is only Heroical or that his Call thereunto was Extraordinary in contradistinction to that which is a sufficient Call unto an Heroicall Action and more difficult to determine otherwise then by naked assertion what that Extraordinary Call was Wherein it did consist Wherein it did differ from Exceed or Excell a Call unto an Heroick Action And therefore it will be also hard convincingly to demonstrat that it might not have been lawfully done by another of the Children of Israel whom the Lord had animated thereunto by the same Holy Zeall and Resolution And this is the more considerable because as we very rarely if at all find the Lord commending and rewarding persons for Extraordinary Actions whereunto they had Extraordinary Calls so much and so highly as here He Commendeth and Rewardeth Phinehas So the Text it self Numb 25. doth lay the great if not the only weight and ground of his Commendation and Reward upon his ZEALL and not upon any Extraordinary Call whereof there is not the least hint or insinuation For vers 11. the Lord saith He turned my wrath away from the Children of â—srael while he was ZEALOUS for my sake among them and therefore vers 12 13. promiseth him His Covenant of peace a seed after him and the Covenant of an Everlasting Priesthood BECAUS he was ZEALOUS for his God And if any shall as it is like some will alleadge that Heroicall Actions are not more Imitable then these which are Extraordinary It is humbly offered to be considered anent Heroicall Actions in generall Whether when the matter of an Action is not only Ordinary that is neither Preternaturall nor Supernaturall though not very Frequent but also Just and Lawfull yea and Necessary both by Divine Precept as a Mean to a good and Necessary End and when either there is not or doth not appear any other to do the work whether I say in that case a Spirit of Holy Zeall Magnanimity and Courage wrought and excited by the Lord in his Servants and People moe or fewer being otherwise in a Rationall and probable Capacity be not for that time a sufficient Call unto the performance of these Actions which are commonly called Heroicall and especially when and where the Action is not unnecessarily irrationally nor in vanity attempted but may be and is performed not only without prejudice of the True Necessary and Chief Good of the Church and Common-wealth or of any particular person's just Right and security but also in the case of the Magistrat and others their wilfull and perverse neglecting of their duty is necessarly undertaken and is not only formally intended by the Actor but also natively and really doth conduce to the Glory of God the Good of Religion the preservation and establishment of Church and Common-wealth and of every particular person's Just Rights and Security by suppressing of Impiety promoving of Truth and Holiness doing of Justice Turning away of wrath and removing of present and preventing of future Jugdments And as for the particular instance of Phinehas if the Lord did not only raise him up to that particular Act of Justice but also warrant and accept him therein and reward him therefore upon the accompt of his Zeall when there was a Godly and Zealous Magistrat able whom we cannot without breach of charity presume but also willing to Execute Justice How much more may it be pleaded that the Lord who is the same yesterday to day and for ever will not only pour out of that same Spirit upon others but also when he gives it both Allow them though they be but private persons and also Call them being otherwise in a Physical and probable Capacity to do these things in an Extremely necessitous and otherwise irrecoverable State of the Church to which in a more intire condition thereof he doth not Call them and particularly when there is not only the like or worse provocations the like Necessity of the Execution of justice and of Reformation for the turning away of Wrath and Removall of Judgments that was in Phinehas case but also when the Supreme Civil Magistrat the Primores Regni and other inferior Rulers are not only unwilling to do their duty but so far corrupted and perverted that they are become the Authors and patronizers of these abominations Which is also the more considerable because if upon the fear or suspicion of
and other essentiall Censures given by God to the spirituall Office-bearers in His Church and warranded by His Word are ratifyed is even in so far and totally cassed and rescinded And that the World may know how presumptuous and absurd this Usurpation is which cannot be justly conceaved without an instance of it's effects we here subjoyn that 4 Act. Sess 3. of the same Parliament for the constitution of a National Synod wherein the King is made soveraignly and properly to constitute this Assembly both as to the Appointment of it's Members Constituent and of it's constant President the absolute regulation of things there to be proposed which are declared to be only such as He shall please to signify the determination and limitation of it's Decisions which are to be agreed to by the President as well as the major part and providing that they be not contrary to the Prerogative or the Laws of the Realm And lastly as to the necessity of the King's presence in person or by his Commissioner and of his Ratification and Approbation without which no Act or Deed is to be of any force Now let the World consider what he could have done more in the constitution and regulation of his own Court of Exchequer And if he hath not done all as to the constitution of this Court immediatly depending upon our Lord Jesus Christ and his sole Authority which He Himself hath done or possibly could do by what warrand or rule He who is King of Kings will require We shal not here stand to examine these Acts according to former Laws Oaths and Engagements hereby most fearfully violated and contemned This is a strain of wickedness above all that former times could imagine O! that God would speak to the Authors but not in his wrath and as he hath set His only Son upon his holy Hill of Zicn so he would cause them to fear His displeasure that they may yet be wise and instructed to kiss the Son left he be angry and they perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a litle Surely to define that the sole Power and Jurisdiction of this Church doth not stand within the same but in some thing without beside our Lord Jesus and that the same is fountain'd in and derived from the King and that all Church-Officers in all Church matters are accountable to him who is neither thereto Gifted nor Called is to set the King upon our Lord Jesus his Throne and a high derogation from and reflection upon him who hes builded the Temple of the Lord bears the Glory sits and rules both as King Priest upon His Throne Who more worthy then Moses was faithful and perfect as a Son over His own House and therefore did not leave His Church destitute of any such necessary and proper Officer or Assister when neither King nor Prince was so much as members thereof And lastly it 's a plain Perversion in stead of Performance of that Promise made to the Church Isai 49. ver 23. That Kings should be it's Nursing Fathers where in place of Dominion there Submission is expresly injoyned they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the Earth We know that this empty Notion of External Policy is vainly pretended to colour the matter But seeing whatsoever can be meaned by external Policy even as to outward decency and Order is either particularly determined by our Lord Himself and His blessed Apostles or under the definition of General and Evident Rules left unto the Churches arbitriment whereby the King being no Church-Officer upon a double account is clearly excluded and seing that under the pretence of this External Policy the greatest most superstitious Novations in the pure Worship of God and the greatest Corruptions and Abuses both by the appointment of new Officers in the Church of Christ without His own warrand and the usurping and perverting of the Power of Spiritual Censures in the Government of Gods House may be and have been introduced we doubt not but all rational men do see the delusions of such vain pretences And certainly since the Act it self doth proceed to grant the King all the Power in over both Ecclesiastick Causes Persons that can be imagined it would be but ordinary ingenuity in our Adversaries plainly to assert that the King is the Great Apostle and Vicegerent of our Lord Jesus Christ in and over His House Although they should not only appear herein destitute of any better warrand then this present Act of Parliament But most plainly to justify al the Usurpation that ever the Pope or Antichrist can be charged with 6. Bishops being thus restored and admitted to sit and give voice in Parliament this Mixture and the Power of their Antichristian Spirit doth quickly exert it self And without regard to the nature of Parliamentary and all Civil Powers which are no wayes conversant about things and perswasions only Internal and meerly appertaining to conscience or to the Word of God which is the ground and warrant upon which all Power whatsoever being only Declarative in matters of this kind ought certainly and expresly to proceed They procure a Dogmatick Act declaring these Positions That it is lawful to Subjects for Reformation or necessary Self-defence to enter into Leagues or take up Arms against the King and such like to be Rebellious and treasonable and particularly that the National Covenant as it was explained in the Year 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant were and are in THEMSELVES UNLAWFUL OATHS and were taken by and imposed upon the Subjects of this Kingdom against the Fundamental Law and Liberties thereof Which neither they nor all the invention of Hell is able to condescend upon or instruct And therefore out of the plenitude of their power as much as ever any Pope pretended to they loose the Obligation of Conscience and free the Subjects of their Engagements And further to compleat this their Wickedness they appoint a Declaration of this High Impiety to be signed by all in Publick Trust that none may be admitted to or exerce the same except they receave in their right hand or in their foreheads this their accursed mark O! Lord our God thow art of purer eyes then to behold Evil and canst not look on Iniquity VVherefore lookst thou on them that deal treacherously and holds thy tongue when the wicked devour the man that is more righteous then he Yet surely O Lord thou hast ordained them for judgement and O mighty God thou hast estabished them for correction Can the World beleeve that a whole Nation in it's most National Capacity including King Parliament and the body of the People should after most clear and evident convictions and signal Manifestations of the Glory and presence of God in the most important and holy Concernments of all Truth and Righteousness most solemnly as it were to day engage themselves by Oath unto the Lord and to morrow without so much as seriously
NAPHTALI OR The Wrestlings of the Church of SCOTLAND For the KINGDOM of CHRIST Contained in A true and short Deduction thereof from the beginning of the Reformation of Religion until the Year 1667. Together with The last Speeches and Testimonies of some who have died for the Truth since the Year 1660. Whereunto are also subjoined A Relation of the Sufferings and Death of M R HEW M C KAIL and some Instances of the Sufferings of Galloway and Nithisdale LAM 1 12. Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger MIC 7 8. Rejoice not against me O mine Enemy When I fall I shall arise When I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a Light unto me ISAI 14 32. What shall one then answere the Messengers of the Nation That the Lord hath founded Zion and the poor of the People shall trust in it Printed in the Year 1667. AD LECTOREM NOn hîc Herculeae sunt cum sudore palestrae Nullus Olympiaco in pulvere Ludus iners Pro sadore cruor Christi de Corpore manat Ardua pro ludo est lucta rapina neces Scotica bis denis luctata Ecclesia Lustris Penè dedit victas lassa labore manus Duros passa Patres dudum velut ame Novercas Vi premitur Stygia fraude subacta gemit Constitit effraenes contra tumidasque procellas Proque Fide steterat dum stetit ulla fides Nusquam cana fides nunc est jurataque Coeli Numina mortales vinc'la nec ulla ligant Credula dum nimis est fida haec Ecclesia vanà Spe lusâ rupto Foedere strata jacet Strata tamen non tota jacet de pulvere surgit Auricomum tollet mox supra astra caput Ipsa triumphalem currum Crux saeva ministrat Sanctorum sanguis fertile semen erit Ecce Sacerdotum turmam Regumque Coronam Pendentem infami de trabe Lector habes Cerne oculo Heroum facies corpora cernas Verba audi videas pectora plena Deo Hîc loquitur Princeps magno cum Judice Vates Et Juvenes Vatum spes animosa senum Hîc Generosa cohors Miles Mercator agelli Cultor Arte rudis spirat ab ore Deum Disce immortalem hinc Animam vitamque futuram Nulla est pro Christo mors male grata pio Pro Christi Crux est diademate Laurea restis Faedere pro Sancto est vitta monile decus READER THE LORD in great mercy having wonderfully and with an outstretched arm notwithstanding all the opposition of Sathan and earthly Principalities redeemed Scotland from the Power and darkness first of Gentilism and then of Antichristianism by raising of some burning and shining Lights and other Instruments fitted for that Work Whereby the Light of the Glorious Gospel from a very small beginning did increase more and more untill at length shining with brightness and heat as the Sun in his strength it filled the Land with knowledge in so much that the name thereof became Jehouah Shammah the Lord is there And having built to Himself a house upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles not only sufficiently instructed with righteous Laws and Judgments for Doctrine and Worship But also provided with all Ordinary Officers necessary in the Christian Church and with a form of Church-Government of his own Institution distinct from and without any prejudice unto the Civil Government of the Kingdom Whereby the Church of Scotland for Soundness of Faith Purity of Worship Excellency of Government Freedom and Power of the Gospel beautiful Order and Unity was not inferior to any if not preferable to most of the Reformed Churches and therefore was deservedly famous and esteemed amongst them Having also for an hundred Years from it's first National Establishment preserved the same from utter overthrow notwithstanding the many various and renewed endeavours of men by force and fraud to reduce it unto the same Errors Ignorance and Superstitions wherein it self at first lay buried and under which others groaned And several times revived and restored it when by it's own Impurity Indifferency and Formality it began to decline or by the Treachery Subtilty or Violence of others it was oppressed Thereby not only disappointing confounding and many times ruining the Adversaries and comforting and strengthening the faithful But also alwayes rebuilding to Himself a Temple the glory whereof did far excell and darken the glory of the former And having many times engaged the whole Land to Himself by several most solemn Obligations of voluntary Surrender and Resignation by frequently renewed Oaths and Covenants So that within these few Years past there were not many persons of age of whatever degree and not so much as one Preaching Minister in all the Land who not only did not make publick profession of the true Reformed Religion but also subject themselves unto the Presbyterial Form of Church Government and Discipline who did not which we desire to be noted for that effect in their own persons swear and subscribe with the hand unto the Lord in the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant In so much that as to the publick Profession of the Truth and almost as to the number of persons the Church of Scotland was of equal extent with the Nation and in that respect of all other National Churches did most resemble the old Church of the Iewes The Lord I say having to the conviction and acknowledgement of our selves and others done such great things for us whereof we are glad the present Apostacy whereby Scotland's Bethel is become Bethaven and the Land that was sometimes Holiness unto the Lord is become alas too Edom-like the border of wickedness an Aceldama a Tragical Theatre of blood persecution ought to be unto us no less matter of Sorrow Shame and Fear then it is Sin in itself Wonder and Amazement unto others Who can hear our Covenanted and Kindest Lord who hateth putting away and defieth us to shew the bill of our Mothers divorcement who groaneth under our Backslidings being pressed therewith as a cart full of sheaves complaining that He is broken with our whorish hearts and therefore declaring that He will be no more our Husband nor we His Wife and that His heart cannot be toward us But that He will drive us out of His house and love us no more and not cover the lip for Shame And in consequence thereof who can behold the Fathers house not only defiled by turning it into a house of Marchandise and den of theeves but the Temple casten down to the ground and the Adversary in the midst thereof insultingly and scornfully set up their ensignes for signes of Triumph And furder behold the blood of the Saints shed like water and their flesh given to be meat to the fowles of the heaven and beasts of the Earth and
not lament with Jeremiah Cap. 9 1 2 3 â— Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the Daughter of my People Oh that I had in the Wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men that I might leave my People and go from them For they be all adulterers an assembly of treacherous men And they bend their tongue like their bowe for lies But they are not valiant fâ—r the Truth upon the Earth for they proceed from evil to evil and they know not me saith the Lord. And this will the more appear not only if we remember the general nature of Backsliding which is a very comprehensive Sin importing less Love Fear and Trust in the true God and proclaiming more Inconstancy Unfaithfulness and ingratitude towards Him then sometimes is found in very Heathens towards their Idols But also if we consider that our present Defection hath all circumstantial Aggravations in the highest degree For it is not in things only Civil Indifferent or of little moment But in things Religious Necessary Important and which at least in their tendency and consequence reach to the very foundation It is not the effect of common humane and invincible infirmity but most free and voluntary yea wilful and deliberate It is not done by stealth or in a corner but avowedly and openly in the sight of the Sun It is not Private and Personal but Representative and Authorized by Acts and Proclamations of King Parliament and Council It is not smoothly and subtilly but most tyrannically carried on by military violence and cruelty It is not of a few or inconsiderable Persons but very Universal The greatest part of all Ranks and of some Ranks almost the whole being some one way or other involved therein It is not only of these who were alwayes of known and professed disaffection to the Cause and Covenant of God but also of many who sometimes being exceeding zealous themselves and exemplary and forcible upstirrers of others therein are now become the chief Ring-leaders theirof and most bloody Persecuters of those who remain stedfast in the Truth It is not in an Heathenish or Antichristian Land or Church divided and broken with several Sects as some others are but even in Scotland so clearly enlightened for which the Lord had wrought so many wonderful works which was under so many obligations of Oaths and Covenants to the contrary and had been so united in the profession of the Truth It is not from violent force Inevitable necessity or irresistible temptation which is neither possible nor yet would excuse it but when the Lord by breaking the yoke of forrain Usurpation had given King and Countrey the fairest opportunity which they ever had to restore confirm and advance His Work as if He had delivered us that we might work all these Abominations And all this for no other end then the base flattering of the Kings humor and inclination the satiating of Prelaticall Pride and Ambition the indulging of the licentious profanity of some Debauched degenerated Nobles and others who could not endure the yoke of Christ's sound doctrine and impartiall discipline And the suppression of Religion and Righteousness in the subversion of the late work of Reformation Whereby we have charged our selves with all the blood that hath been shed upon either side during the former wars Have laid a stumbling block before all who shall see or hear of it to blaspheme Religion as a fiction to condemn the late Work of Reformation as a false pretence for Rebellion and Self-Interest and to affirm that there is neither truth nor ingenuity in the Professors thereof Pass over the Isles of Chittim and see and send unto Kedar and consider diligently and see if there be such a thing hath a Nation changed their Gods which yet are no Gods But Scotland Ah Scotland hath changed her glory for that which doth not profit Be astonished O ye heavens at this and be horribly afraid And so much the rather because few Lands did ever make Defection after this manner but as upon the one hand the Lord gave them up unto more Backsliding until they abounded more with Atheism and all manner of abominations then some Pagan-Nations who never heard nor made Profession of the Gospel So upon the other hand He alwayes pursued them with sorest plagues not only of subjugation at home scattering and exile abroad dividing of Kingdomes amongst themselves and from their former Rulers and final subversion of whole Empires Kingdomes and Common-wealths But also many times with the Final removal of the Gospel and utter dissolution of all visible National Covenant-relation as might be demonstrated from Holy Scripture and other Histories And indeed if He to whom nothing is strange or impossible though they may seem both to us and whose wayes and thoughts are as far above ours as the Heavens are above the Earth do not in the Soveraignity of His Grace recede from His ordinary method of dealing with such apostatizing People and now when he hath seen our way do not heal us we have alas â—oo too just ground of fear that we shall become such a proverb amongst the Nations that the generation to come of our Children and the stranger that cometh from a far Land when they see the plagues of this Land shall wonder and ask Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto this Land What meaneth the heat of this great anger Oh! that the very first and next following steps of Defection together with the Causes of the Lord's wrath against the Land were remembered and acknowledged and that all who have had any accession to the kindling of this flame and who can wholly Justify himself If any would be sure his own mouth should condemn him would draw water and pour it out before the Lord for quenching thereof and that the first resiclers from our National Acknowledgment of Sins and Engagement to duties would glorify God by Confession that he might turn from the fierceness of his Anger But alas He hath at once pour'd out upon us the Spirit of Whoredome and of a deep sleep and hath both made us to erre from His way and hard'ned our hearts from his fear And as we should look bekind us to the Rise so before us to the Result of thâ—se things for though every runner may read the Primum mobile of this course the great axletree and wheels upon which all moveth and who are the furious drivers and slavish drawers thereof and we have both seen the several degrees of Motion and advancement and smarted the sad effects of the same yet I am affray'd that there is now another Spirit in Persons and Tendency in affairs then some men apprehend Whether there be a sufficient ground in the Holy Scriptures to think with some that before the last fall of the Roman Antichrist the Popish Religion shall once more overshadow the Christian World is not proper
God with more Faithfulness and Stedfastness in the Truth without the least injurious reflexion thereupon or their own adherence thereunto with more Equability and composure of Spirit sweetly tempered with the Sorrow 's of Sin and Joyes of the Holy Ghost in assurance of Pardon and Life Everlasting and with less perturbation of mind and alteration of Carriage or Countenance then these Worthies did Here indeed was the Faith and Patience of the Saints here did the Lord stand by and strengthen them whom others forsook Yea the Lord to the Admiration of all the conviction of many of their adversaries the confirmation Establishment of the Cause the Encouragement of many thousands His own Eternall Glory and their Immortal Commendation did Work in the hearts of all Beholders more ample enduring Epistles of Commendation then the most Eloquent and Pathetick Rhetorician can Writ in their Favours This accompt further I will give yow of the first ten who died together December 7. that they once resolved to speak severally to the People at their death but thereaâ—â—â— considering that for one Common Cause and upon the same alleageances they were all appointed to die one manner of death together at one time and in one place and having the conveniency of being together in the Prison they preferred to leave a word jointly behind them in writ which as it was the cause of one conjunct Testimony and some others severally So the Foreseing Providence of God in this is very observable for had it been otherwise seing they were not at all permitted to speak to the People upon the scaffold there had nothing of their joint Testimony been extant more then is of these who were not suffered to speak at their death in Glasgow of the rest who Suffered in otheâ— places of the West of whom we have heard nothing more particularly but that the same Spirit of Glory and of God resting upon them did work in them all the same Stedfastness Patience Humility Consolation Courage and Confidence These being the last times wherein Sin aboundeth and the love of many is waxed cold I cannot devine what pity shall be shewed to them that are in Misery especially considering the Universall decay of Religion and dark cloud of prejudice and discountenance whereby the Kingdom of Christ is overshaddowed generally the whole world over and even amongst the Reformed Churches Nevertheless there being a Communion of Saints which should be entertained amongst both Persons and Churches whereby these of the same true Religion amongst other things reciprocally give and receave information of their common affaires that if they can or will express no other act of Love they may at least the more sutably Sympathize and mutually pray one for another And the Lord in his Providence giving the opportunity I thought it convenient yea necessary to communicat the following Deduction of the Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland for the Kingdome of Christ hoping that as it beareth the Name so the Wrestling Church of Scotland in due time shall reap the Blessing of NAPHTALI who Gen. 49.21 is called a Hinde let loose and said to give goodly words for who can tell but Her Wrestlings may be swallowed up of Victory and Liberty and Her ancient Covenanted Doctrin Worship and Government may become as Pleasant and Acceptable as it is Profitable not only within herself but also amongst the Churches abroad This Title being only affirmative of Her and not Negative of other Churches as if only She and not also They had Wrestled for the Kingdom of Christ let no man offend thereat For as the Lord Redeemer hath several Offices equally Necessary in themselves and Inseperable by Man and as particular Churches as well as Persons have their peculiar gifts and Excellencies and accordingly their distinct work assigned unto them whereby amongst other things they more or less eminently assert and Propugn this or that particular Truth So in this distribution whereas other Churches have asserted and contended for his Priestly and Propheticall Offices the lot seemeth to have fallen upon Scotland to assert and wrestle more eminently then many others for the Croun and Kingdom of Jesus Christ For the establishment of this did our first famous Reformers strive by the evidence of Holy Scripture as well as for Soundness of Doctrine and Purity of Worship for Preservation and Restauration of this did their Worthy Successors Zealously contend by Petitions Warnings Conferences and Disputations all Invasion Usurpation or the least encroachment upon this diâ— they valiantly resist by Protestations and Declinatures and for a Testimony to this did they patiently Suffer Bonds Imprisonment Confinement Sentences of Death and of late Death it self Neither should any man think this strange as if Presbyterial Government were in itself Unlawful or the Species of Church Government were indifferent and consequently Contending and Suffering therefore Unwarrantable or Needless as Pretenders to different Forms upon the right and left hand would have the World beleeve Hithertil indeed the Church of Scotland hath heen as a Speckled bird and the birds round about have been against her She hath endured the scourge of many tongues as well as the Violence of many hands upon both hands false witnesses have laid to her charge things which she knew not as being amongst other things too Laxe or too Rigide Yea as Unnatural Children have eaten thorow their Mothers bowels so Unkindly Brethren have rewarded her evil for good Standing on the other side and looking upon her and her affliction in the day of her calamity rejoicing over her in the day of her destruction and speaking proudly in the day of her distress yea laying hands on her Substance in the day of her calamity The wrath of man worketh not the Righteousness of God neither doth his invincible Truth need the help of humane Passions if therefore such men do not fear I shall not desire that their own tongues may fall upon themselves and that the Lord may render unto them according to their deeds and according to the wickedness of their endeavours but rather study the revenge of good will by Prayer that He would open their eyes convert their hearts that they may take revenge on themselves Charity which thinketh no evil obleegeth to beleeve till wee see the contrary that Scripture Conscience Covenant and Credite will make those who did once laudably assert constantly propugn and adhere to the Ius Divinum of Presbyterial Government until they publish which none can do as convinceing reasons of Retractation contrary Practice And whatever might be expected of others Religion Reason Candor Gratitude and Policy would seem to require that those who in their distress intreated obtained the succesful Assistance of the Covenanted Interest of Scotland others who owe thereunto whatever they are or have more then just nothing debt or broken fortunes should have been so far from contâ—mptuous throwing away the Covenant as an old Almâ—nack when by it as a
and Inclinations of Persons Times and Places or the pretended conveniency of Civil Policy as to leave Doctrin and Worship thus Indifferent and arbitrarily determinable and variable according to these crooked and changable rules If Church Government must be Indifferent and thus arbitrarily determinable and Ambulatory because the Holy Scripturs do not Expressly affirme that Presbyterial Government is the Only Government which should be in the Christian Church and also Expressly declare that it is Unalterable to the worlds end and that the first Institution and Practice thereof by the Apostles and their Successors in the Ministry never was nor shall be Repealed why may not the Civil Magistrat or any other arrogating a power of Instituting or Altering Church Government or Officers by Parity of reason make many other Necessary and Practicall points of Faith which are not more Expressly declared by the Holy Scriptures to be Unalterable Truths then Presbyterial Government is though all be evident enough to be also Indifferent arbitrarily determinable mutable then farewel Infant-baptisme Womens receaving of the Lords Supper observation of the first day of the week for the Christian Sabbath yea farewel Law Testimony more sure Word of Prophecy whereunto we should go take heed for a new Rule of Faith Practice welcome Humane Prudence State-Policy Corrupt Changable Disposition of man pretended Necessity or Conveniency of State Time Place yea welcome all Doctrins Practices which though they were once positively prohibited can alleage that the Scripture doth not Expressly declare that they never were nor shall be repealed And where are we then In vain is the Law in vain is the pen of the Scribe and every one without transgression may do what seemeth good in his own eyes if only he can Temporize and offeâ—d not the Civil Magistrat by violation of his Arbitrary Institutions and Lawes in Church affâ—iâ—s wherein he must be Supream O my soul come not intâ— the secrets of such Latitudinarian or rather in this Nullifidian Adiaphorists We would not be here mistaken as if we denyed to the Civil Magistrat any Power which the Holy Scriptures allow unto Him for as we assert his Office to be an Ordinance of God and his Person being lawfully therewith vested to be signally impressed with a special Character of Majestick Authority wherefore in a due Subordination to Him who is Lord over all He should be subjected to and obeyed So we chearfully grant that whereas the Heathen Magistrat because of his Morall incapacity to Exerce more power about Religion and Ecclesiastical affairs hath only a Power in Actu signaâ—o and â—us ad rem the Christian Magistrat hath Ius in re and in Actu Exercito may and should by his Lawes establish the true Religion within his dominions and command his Subjects to make publick profession thereof That by his Civil Sanction he may and should Ratify Ecclesiasticall Sentences aggreeable to the Word of God That anent these he may and should Exercise an Antecedent Discretive Iudgment whereby he may not adde an Implicit approbation That for Preaching and Propagation of the Gospel and for nursing of Piety and Learning he may and should provide Necessary and Convenient accommodation and encouragement as to Persons Places and Revenues That for his own Information and Advice he may call Occasionall Meetings of Church Officers and others to Confer and Debate matters before him That Pro râ— nata he may Convocate Ecclesiasticall Synods to reason and conclude Church affairs according to the Scripture That for his own Information and for preventing of Outward Force and Inward Confusion he may be Present therein by Himself or his Delegats That by his Power he may and should Defend and Encourage the Church in the free and peaceable Possession of all her Intrinsecall Priviledges and all the Members thereof in the Profession and Practice of the same That by the same Authority he may and should repress Error Heresy Superstition Atheisme Blasphemy and Profanness and Punish the Authors and Spreaders thereof That in case of negligence he may Command all and even Ministers to perâ—orme their râ—spective duties in general as necessity requireth And that for Civil transgressions he may Civilly puniâ—h Ecclâ—siastical Persons as well as other Subjects according to the Law of God and Righteous Lawes of the Land The Zealous discharge of all which we would thankfully acknowledg to God and Man as the Faithfull performance of that gracious Promise that Kings shall be the Churches nursing â—atheâ—s But if discontented herewith as if all this together with the Weighty affairs of the Common wealth were too little work for his Transcendent Power and Abilities and as if Jesus Christ had no Kingdom or Government or these were not distinct from the Kingdoms and Government of the World or though thâ—y were as if he were equally Head and Fountain of both He will needs aâ—bitrarily Institut or Alter the Species of Church Government Authorise Exauthorise or Restrain Church-Officers in the Exercise of the Power of Order or Jurisdiction in whole or in part as the Parliament and Councill have prohibited some Hundreds the whole Exercise of their Ministry and the High Commission which claimeth no power but what is solely and immediatly derived from the King hath deprived some from the Office interdicted Others the administration of the Lords Supper If he will Define Articles of Faith and prescribe what heads of Doctrine Ministers shall treat or not treat of in their Sermons as the King hath done in his printed Letter to the Bishop of York And thereupon Primarily Immediatly and Antecedently to any Judgment of the Church which is the Pillar of Truth and to which the Spirits of the Prophets are Subject Cognosce and Determine of Ministers Doctrine when the Church herself is willing and ready to try the Spirits And Criminally or Capitally punish them therefore under the pretence of Treason and Rebellion as several instances can be adduced against King and Councill in the series of our Church If he will Ordain particular Church Censurs to to be executed against particular persons for particular definite Ecclesiastical alleaged offences leaving nothing undone by Himself in person but the Execution of what he hath appointed As the Parliament hath appointed Suspension and Deprivation of Ministers for not observing the Bishops meetings and the King in his Commission to the High Commission hath appointed Excommunication whereas they may as well Immediatly Suspend Deprive and Excommunicat themselves as Appoint them to be executed in the manner specified in the said Act of Parliament and Commission If after the example of Antichristian or Pagan Nations he will Institut and Enjoin Needless Vain Superstitious Significant and Burdensome Rits in the Worship of God as most of the Imposed Ceremonies in the Lyturgy can be instructed be If he will arrogate the Sole Power of convocating Ecclesiastical Synods which is an Intrinsecall priviledg of the Church
of Scotland England and Ireland by the providence of GOD living under one King and being of one reformed Religion Having before our eyes the glory of GOD and the advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the Honour and Happinesse of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity and the true publick Liberty Safety and Peace of the Kingdoms wherein every ones private condition is included And calling to minde the treacherous and bloody Plots Conspiracies Attempts and Practices of the Enemies of GOD against the true Religion and Professours thereof in all places especially in these three Kingdoms ever since the Reformation of Religion and how much their rage power and presumption are of late and at this time increased and exercised whereof the deplorable estate of the Church and Kingdom of Ireland the distressed estate of the Church Kingdom of England and the dangerous estate of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland are present and publick testimonies We have now at last after other means of Supplication Remonstrance Protestation and Suffering for the preservation of our selves and our Religion from utter ruine and destruction according to the commendable practice of these Kingdoms in former times and the example of GODS People in other Nations after mature deliberation resolved and determined to enter into a mutuall and solemn League and Covenant Wherein we all subscribe and each one of us for himself with our hands lifted up to the most high GOD do Swear 1. That we shall sincerely really and constantly through the grace of GOD endeavour in our several places and callings the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Chuch of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government against our common Enemies The Reformation of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of GOD and the example of the best Reformed Churches And shall endeavour to bring the Churches of GOD in the three Kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and Uniformity in Religion Confession of Faith Form of Church-government Directory for Worship and Catechizing That we and our Posterity after us may as Brethren live in Faith and Love and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us 2. That we shall in like manner without respect of persons endeavour the Extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-government by Arch-bishops Bishops their Chancellours and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons and all other Ecclesiasticall Officers depending on that Hierarchy Superstition Heresy Schism Prophanesse and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness Lest we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues And that the Lord may be one and his Name one in the three Kingdoms 3. We shall with the same sincerity reality and constancy in our severall vocations endeavour with our estates and lives mutually to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of the Parliaments and the Liberties of the Kingdoms And to preserve and defend the Kings Majesty's Person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms That the world may bear witnesse with our consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesty's just power and greatnesse 4. We shall also with all faithfulnesse endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil instruments by hindering the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his people or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any faction or parties amongst the people contrary to this League and Covenant That they may be broughr to publick triall and receive condigne punishment as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve or the supream Judicatories of both Kingdomes respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall judge convenient 5. And whereas the happinesse of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms denyed in former times to our Progenitors is by the good Providence of GOD granted unto us and hath been lately concluded and settled by both Parliaments We shall each one of us according to our place and interest endeavour that they may remain conjoyned in a firme Peace and Union to all Posterity And that Justice may be done upon the willfull Opposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article 6. We shall also according to our places and callings in this Common cause of Religion Liberty and Peace of the Kingdoms assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof And shall not suffer our selves directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination perswasion or terrour to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed Union and conjunction whither to make defection to the contrary part or to give ourselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this cause which so much concerneth the Glory of GOD the good of the Kingdoms and honour of the King But shall all the dayes of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein against all opposition and promote the same according to our power against all Lets and Impediments whatsoever And what we are not able our selves to suppresse or overcome we shall reveale and make known that it may be timely prevented or removed All which we shall do as in the sight of GOD. And because these Kingdoms are guilty of many sins and provocations against GOD and his Son Jesus Christ as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers the fruits thereof We professe and declare before GOD and the world unfained desire to be humbled for our own sins and for the sins of these Kingdoms especially that we have not as we ought valued the inesteemable benefit of the Gospel that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof and that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts nor to walk worthy of him in our lives wich are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us And our true and unfained purpose desire and endeavour for ourselves and all others under our power and charge both in publick and in private in all dutyes we owe to GOD and man to amend our lives and each one to go before another in the example of a real Reformation That the Lord may turn away his wrath and heavy indignation and establish these Churches and Kingdoms in truth and Peace And this Covenant we make in the presence of Almighty GOD the Searcher of all hearts with a true intention to peform the same As we shall answer at that great Day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed Most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his Holy Spirit for this end and to blesse our desires and proceedings with such successe as may be deliverance and safety to his people and encouragement to other Christian Churches
groaning under or in danger of the yoke of Antichristian Tyranny or to joyn in the same or like Association Covenant To the Glory of GOD the enlargement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the peace tranquillity of Christian Kingdoms and Common-wealths A Solemn Acknowledgement of publick Sins and Breaches of the Covenant AND A Solemn Engagement to all the Duties contained therein namely thâ—se which do in a more speciall way relate unto the dangers of these times ANNO 1648. WE Noblemen Barons Gentlemen Burgesses Ministers of the Gospel and Commons of all sorts within this Kingdom by the good hand of GOD upon us taking in serious consideration the many sad afflictions and deep distresses wherewith we have been exercised for a long time past and that the Land after it hath been sore wasted with the Sword and the Pestilence and threatened with Famine and that shame and contempt hath been poured out from the Lord against many thousands of our Nation who did in a sinful way make War upon the Kingdom of England contrary to the Testimony of his Servants and desires of his People and that the remnant of that Army returning to this Land have spoiled and oppressed many of our Brethren and that the Malignant party is still numerous retaining their former principles wait for an opportunity to raise a new and dangerous War not only unto the rending of the bowells of this Kingdom but unto the dividing of us from England overturning of the work of God in all the three Kingdoms And considering also that a cloud of calamities doth still hang over our heads threaten us with sad things to come We cannot but look upon these things as from the Lord who is righteous in all his wayes feeding us with the bread of tears and making us to drink the waters of affliction untill we be taught to know how evil and bitter a thing it is to depart away from him by breaking the Oath and Covenant which we have made with him and that we may be humbled before him by confessing our sinne and forsaking the evil of our way Therefore being pressed with so great necessities and straits and warranted by the word of God and having the example of Gods people of old who in the time of their troubles and when they were to seek delivery and a right way for themselves that the Lord might be with them to prosper them did humble themselves before him and make a free and particular confession of the sins of their Princes their Rulers their Captains their Priests and their people and did engage themselves to do no more so but to reform their wayes and be stedfast in his Covenant And remembring the practise of our predecessours in the year 1596. Wherein the General Assembly and all the Kirk-judicatories with the concurrence of many of the Nobily Gentry and Burgesses did with many tears acknowledge before God the breach of the National Covenant and engaged themselves to a Reformation even as our predecessors and theirs had before done in the Generall Assembly and convention of Estates in the year 1567. And perceiving that this duty when gone about out of conscience and in sincerity hath alwayes been attended with a reviving out of troubles and with a blessing and successe from Heaven We do humbly and sincerely in his sight who is the searcher of hearts acknowledge the many sins and great transgressions of the Land We have done wickedly our Kings our Princes our Nobles our Judges our Officers our Teachers and our People Albeit the Lord hath long and clearly spoken unto us we have not hearkened to his voice Albeit he hath followed us with tender mercies we have not been allured to wait upon him and walk in his way And though he hath stricken us yet we have not grieved Nay though he hath consumed us we have refused to receive correction We have not remembred to render unto the Lord according to his goodnesse and according to our own vows and promises but have gone away backward by a continued course of backsliding and have broken all the Articles of that solemn League and Covenant which we swore before God Angels and men Albeit there be in the land many of all ranks who be for a Testimony unto the Truth and for a name of joy and praise unto the Lord by living godly studying to keep their garments pure and being stedfast in the Covenant and Cause of God Yet we have reason to acknowledge that most of us have not endeavoured with that reality sincerity and constancy that did become us to preserve the work of Reformation in the Kirk of Scotland Many have satisfied themses with the purity of the Ordinances neglecting the power thereof yea some have turned aside to crooked wayes destructive to both The prophane loose and insolent carriage of many in our Armies who went to the Assistance of our BRETHREN in ENGLAND And the tamperings and unstraight dealing of some of our Commissioners and others of our Nation in London the Isle of Wight other places of that Kingdom have proved great lets to the work of Reformation and setling of Kirk-Government there wherby Errour and Schism in that Land have been encreased and Sectaries hardened in their way We have been so far from endeavouring the extirpation of Prophannesse and what is contrary to the power of godlinesse that prophanity hath been much winked at and Prophane persons much countenanced many times employed until iniquity and ungodlinesse hath gone over the face of the land as a flood Nay sufficient care hath not been had to separate betwixt the precious and the vile by debarring from the Sacrament all ignorant and scandalous persons according to the Ordinances of this Kirk Neither have the Priviledges of the Parliaments and Liberties of the Subject been duly tendered But some amongst our selves have labored to put into the hands of our King an arbitrary and unlimited power destructive to both And many of us have been accessory of late to those means and ways whereby the freedom and priviledges of Parliaments have been encroached upon and the Subjects oppressed in their Consciences persons and Estates Neither hath it been our care to avoid these things which might harden the King in his evill way But upon the contrary he hath not onely been permitted but many of us have been instrumentall to make him exercise his power in many things tending to the prejudice of Religion and of the Covenant and of the Peace and safety of these Kingdoms Which is so farre from the right way of preserving his Majesty's Person and Authority that it cannot but provoke the Lord against him unto the hazard of both Nay under a pretence of relieving and doing for the King whilst he refuses to do what was necessary for the house of God some have ranversed and violated most of all the Articles of the Covenant Our own Consciences within and Gods judgements upon us without do
convince us of the manifold willfull renewed breaches of that Article which concerneth the discovery and punishment of Malignants whose crimes have not onely been connived at but dispensed with and pardoned and themselves received unto intimate fellowship with our selves and entrusted with our Counsels admitted unto our Parliaments and put in places of Power and Authority for managing the publick affaires of the Kingdome Whereby in Gods justice they got at last into their hands the whole power and strength of the Kingdome both in judicatories and Armies And did imploy the same unto the enacting and prosecuting an unlawful Engagement in warre against the Kingdome of England Notwithstanding of the dissent of many considerable members of Parliament who had given constant proof of their integrity in the cause from the beginning of many faithful testimonies and free warnings of the servants of God of the Supplications of many Synods Presbyteries and Shyres and of the Declarations of the Generall Assembly and their Commissioners to the contrary Which ingagement as it hath been the cause of much sinne so also of much misery and calamity unto this Land and holds forth to us the grievousnesse of our sinne of complying with Malignants in the greatnesse of our judgement that we may be taught never to split again upon the same rock upon which the Lord hath set so remarkable a Beacon And after all that is come to passe unto us because of this our trespasse and after that grace hath been shewed unto us from the Lord our God by breaking these mens yoke from of our necks and putting us again into a capacity to act for the good of Religion our own safety and the Peace and safety of this Kingdowe should we again-break his Commandment and Covenant by joyning once more with the people of these abominations and taking into our bosome those Serpents which had formerly stung us almost unto death This as it would argue great madnesse and folly upon our part So no doubt if it be not avoided will provoke the Lord against us to consume us untill there be no remnant nor escaping in the Land And albeit the Peace and Union betwivt the Kingdoms be a great blessing of God unto both and a Bond which we are obliged to preserve unviolated And to endeavour that justice may be done upon the opposers thereof Yet some in this Land who have come under the Bond of the Covenant have made it their great study how to dissolve this Union and few or no endeavours have been used by any of us for punishing of such We have suffered many of our Brethren in severall parts of the Land to be oppressed of the common Enemy without compassion or relief There hath been great murmuring and repining because of expense of means and pains in doing of our duty Many by perswasion or terror have suffered themselves to be divided and withdrawn to make defection to the contrary part Many have turned off to a detestable indifferency and neutrality in this cause which so much concerneth the glory of God and the good of these Kingdoms Nay many have made it their study to walk so as they might comply with all times and all the revolutions thereof It hath not been our care to countenance encourage intrust and employ such onely as from their hearts did affect and mind Gods Work But the hearts of such many times have been discouraged and their hands weakened their sufferings neglected and themselves slighted and many who were once open enemies and alwayes secret underminers contenanced and employed Nay even those who had been looked upon as Incendiaries and upon whom the Lord had set marks of desperate Malignancy falshood deceat were brought in as fit to manage publick affaires Many have been the lets and Impediments that have been cast in the way to retard and obstruct the Lords work and some have keeped secret what of themselves they were not able to suppresse and overcome Besides these and many other breaches of the Articles of the Covenant in the matter thereof which it concerneth every one of us to search out and acknowledge before the Lord as we would wish his wrath to be turned away from us So have many of us failed exceedingly in the manner of our following and pursuing the duties contained therein not onely seeking great things for our selves and mixing of private interests and ends concerning our selves and friends and followers with those things which concern the publick good but many times preferring such to the Honour of God and good of his cause and retarding Gods work until we might carry alongs with us our own interests and designes It hath been our way to trust in the means and to rely upon the arm of flesh for successe Albeit the Lord hath many times made us meet with dispointment therein and stained the pride of all our Glory by blasting every carnall confidence unto us We have followed for the most part the counsels of flesh and blood and walked more by the rules of policy then Piety and have hearkened more unto men then unto God Albeit we made solemn publick profession before the World of our unfained desires to be humbled before the Lord for our own sinnes and the sinnes of these Kingdoms especially for our undervaluing of the inestimable benefit of the Gospel and that we have not laboured for the power thereof and received Christ into our hearts and walked worthy of him in our lives and of our true and unfained purpose desire and endeavour for our selves and all other under our power and charge both in publick and private in all dutyes which we owe to God and man to amend our lives and each one to go before another in the example of a reall Reformation that the Lord might turn away his wrath and heavy indignation and establish these Kirks and Kingdoms in truth and peace Yet we have refused to be reformed and have walked proudly and obstinatly against the Lord not vâ—lueing his Gospel nor submitting our selves unto the obedience thereof not seeking after Christ nor studying to honour him in the excellency of his person nor employ him in the vertue of his offices not making conscience of publick Ordinances nor private nor secret duties nor studying to edify one another in love The ignorance of God and of his Son Jesus Christ prevailes exceedingly in the Land The greatest part of Masters of families amongst Noblemen Barons Gentlemen Burgesses and Commons neglect to seek God in their families and to endeavour the the Reformation thereof And albeit it hath been much pressed yet few of our Nobles and great ones ever to his day could be perswaded to perform family duties themselves and in their own persons which makes so necessary and useful a duty to be misregarded by others of inferior rank Nay many of the Nobility Gentry and Burrows who should have been examples of Godlinesse and sober walking unto others have been ring-leaders of excesse and rioting
the uttermost for the advancement of his own Kingdom doth quickly take advantage of for setting on work and promoving of that Mystery of iniquity Which springing up in that bitter root of Pride and working in the Spiritual power and subtilty thereof as it began to work very early in the Christian Church even amongst the Disciples themselves in presence of their and our Lord as appeareth by their contention who should be greatest And notwithstanding all the Grace Power and Presence of the Lord which appeared in the times that followed all the long violent persecution wherewith the Church of God was then exercised yet continuing it's motion did still advance until attaining it's maturity in the revelation of the Man of Sin it filled and overwhelmed the Christian World with these strong delusions of Superstition Idolatry and all darkness that so long prevailed therein So it is the main and only Engine whereby Sathan as in all other Churches so in this of Our's hath so actively bestired himself and attempted the overthrow of their later Reformations These are the causes why notwithstanding of that great and glorious Light which the Lord made to shine amongst us the true Government and Discipline of the Church of Christ though his own great Ordinance instituted both for Fencing and securing of Truth in Purity and for promoving of the same in Power and though by the Light of that same Truth clearly discovered and Manifested through long opposition and many difficulties did scarce in these dayes attain it's establishment Yet the Lord who of his own free Mercy and Grace did visit us with the day-spring of his blessed Gospel from on high did also by his own Power and Presence in and with his faithful Servants at length also compleat his work and establish his Kingdome over us and his Government amongst us And so the Kingdome became the Lord's even the first fruits of the Kingdomes of the Earth unto our Lord Jesus Christ The Progress and Period of this work was from the Year 1560. unto the Year 1592. dureing which space these things are very observable 1. So soon as this Church attained to freedome from persecution and contrary violence they Assembled in their first National Synod in the Year 1560. by vertue of that Intrinsick Power and Priviledg granted by our Lord unto his Church and exercised by his Apostles and their followers and that without any question or control Nor did they so much as petition for the licence of the then Authority though the same might have been more easily obtained then the warrant at that time impetrated for conveening of the Parliament 2. As they first Assembled and by vertue of the same warrant did set on foot and continue a constant series of their Courts and meetings except in so far as by plain force and violence they were restrained so they held the same in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ only and in his sole Authority by Direction of his Word and Spirit concluded all their Counsels Votes and Acts. It 's true that they much and long wished for and thereafter heartily accepted the countenance and concurrence of the Powers for the time and that not only for Decency but also as the gracious performance of that promise Isa 49. ver 23. of the favour and assistance of Kings and Queens to the Church in the later dayes But as they were persuaded that the Lord Jesus perfect in all his house when invested at his exaltation with all Power in Heaven and in Earth did make a full grant and Commission of all Gifts and Offices requisit in his Church 1 Cor. 12. ver 28. Ephes 4. v. 8. 11. Wherein neither King nor Prince is mentioned and that there was no Authority wanting to these first Decrees made at Ierusalem though emitted upon that simple warrant Ast. 15. ver 28. It seemed good unto the Holy Ghost and unto us wherein neither King nor Prince was included so did they account it a gross usurpation for the Kings on Earth in place of their promised Patrociny to which they are oblidged to claim and invade an Over-ruling Arbitriment in the matters of God and his Church beleev that He who established the distinction and confirmed their Right by separating Caesar's things from the things of God doth also exact the same on their part 3. The Brethren conveening in these Assemblies did meet in perfect Parity and Equality against which the Extraordinary employments and Commissions delegated to some upon the account of the particular exigence of these times did grant no Priviledge or Preheminence From these three observations without mentioning the first Book of Discipline containing the true grounds and frame of Presbyterial Government which was compiled in the Year 8560. and then approved by the whole Church and subscribed to by a great many Lords and Counsellors it is evident that Presbyterial Government was from the beginning of the Reformation constantly intended and it's foundation really laid We need not mention that the Pope's Authority and all Jurisdiction flowing therefrom was by Law in the same Year 1560 expresly abrogated and discharged nor that in these first Assemblies greater Benefices were craved to be dissolved and Prelacy reputed to be only an Humane Device nor is it necessary for us to clear how that Extraordinary employment of Superintendency used for a few Years in the beginning was both only designed for an Interim and in it self wholly different from Prelacy and was at length rejected as burthensome All these things are sufficiently cleared by the late Large Apology 4. It is observable that as the Avarice and Power of some who possessed and grasped after the Churches Revenues did by the procurement of a few packed Commissioners in the Year 1671 introduce these Mock-Bishops called Tulchan for the better securing of their own gain which in the Assemblies immediatly succeeding were first protested against then quarrelled and lastly restrained and subjected thereunto So the Lord used the same as a warning to awaken and animat his Servants to a more vigorous prosecution of the establishment of His House in it's due Government In pursuance whereof the Assemblies with the King's concurrence from the Year 1575 until the Year 1581. did with much Prayer Fasting and Painfulness intend the work until by perfecting of the Second Book of Discipline and reducing of the Bishops to a simple Dimission and condemning their Office as unwarrantable they câ—mpleated their work in the exact model of Presbyterial Government in all it's Courts and Officers 5. During this space in March 1581. as we now reckon and after the Assembly had condemned the Office of Bishops as unwarrantable the King his Court and Council did swear and subscribe to the National Covenant By which both the Pope's usurped Authority over the Church in one Article and his wicked Hierarchy in another are abjured And the swearers did join themselves unto this true Reformed Church in Doctrine Faith Religion and
Discipline promising by the Great Name of the Lord our God to continue in the Obedience of the Doctrine and Discipline thereof all the dayes of their lives Which Discipline as the foregoing Assertions do clearly discover to have been from the beginning fundamentally Presbyterial so the Model of Presbytery being now compleated and any shaddow of power that the Mock-Bishops had lately usurped being now fully abrogated it is sufficiently clear that both Prelacy is by this Covenant abjured and Presbytery owned and sworn to And really if it be further considered that the Assemblies both 1581. and 1590 while most intent and forward in the erecting of Presbyteries did enjoyn and require the same to be subscribed by all ranks of People in the Land and that these Acts were both seconded and enforced by Ordinances of King and Council it may be justly doubted whether the impudence of the succeeding Prelats in denying of the Obligation or Perjury in breaking of it be greater This is the Great Oath into which as the Lord God did bring us by the Power of his own Spirit and Truth in opposition to that Bloody Bond called the Holy League wherein Antichrist and his followers had at that time conjured themselves against the true Church of God So the Kingdom thereby became the Lords and we his peculiar people as-well by the people's subjecting of themselves and their Alleageance as by the King 's submitting Himself and his Scepter in a due Subordination unto God and our Lord Jesus Christ for the maintenance and defence of his Church and Gospell the Liberties of the Land and Ministration of Justice And this Oath and the Ordinances enjoyning it notwithstanding the many fearful violations thereof that have ensued do yet stand to this day unrepealed and declared against to the unanswerable conviction and condemnation even in their own Courts and Consciences of all it 's wicked Transgressors 6. As the Tulchan Bishops were the effect and product of the Avarice of these Lords that favoured them So the same principle of Avarice and Wickedness did again resist the Work of God when almost brought to Perfection by stirring up certain of the Nobles to re-induce Bishops for the better inhaunsing of their Benefices and the devouring of the Churches patrimony And not only for their better establishment that what they want of Divine Right and Warrant might be supplyed by the accession of the Kings power and Command but also that by their meanes the growing wickedness of these times might abound without restraint or control the Devil inciteth others of the more prophane licentious and violent Courtiers such as the Earle of Arran and his complices to move and instigat the King contrary both to the Word and Oath of God to usurp the Prerogative of Jesus Christ who is alone King in Zion and to invade His Churches Priviledges purchased for Her with His own Blood by assuming to Himself in the first and immediat Instance the cognition of Her Doctrine and Censures Which though the Church did constantly and valiantly oppose both by Petitions and Protestations yet this Wickedness did so impetously proceed that all at once in a Parliament summarily called in the Year 1582. the Prerogative of Our Lord is translated upon the King and his Jurisdiction and Empire exalted over all persons and Causes the Estate of Bishops their power and dignity confirmed the power of the General Assemblies of the Church put in the King's hand We mention not these things with any purpose to debate these questions which have been moved on this Subject Only we are confident that how extensive soever the King's power may be in the case of Reformation which Alas for the most part cometh short of it's reach yet where a Church is Regularly constituted and so acting and by Him sworn to be maintained no King or Prince ought so far to intrude Himself into Her Power and Priviledges unto which he is neither called nor gifted as to assume to Himself a Soveraign immediat power of judging and discerning upon Doctrine and her most spirituall Rights and Censures and thereby in effect not only to constitut Himself a Proper and direct Church-Officer without our Lords appointment but in stead of Papacy so justly abrogated and so solemnly abjured to erect and revive the same in Himself a Secular Person far more absurdly and intollerably We know that other formalities and notions are pretended as these of Treason Sedition and Disorder to palliat and colour this Usurpation but seing nothing spoken or acted by warrant of the Word of God can fall under the definition or pain of these crimes and that all Ministers and Ecclesiastick Courts are known allowed and presumed both to speak and act according to that only warrant and Lastly seing both the warrant is to them committed and the Church is priviledged and permitted to have it 's own proper power and cognition thereanent as it followeth by clear consequence that the things questioned must and ought to be first subjected to her tryal and cognition so none do deny the Magistrat's just right and power over both these things and persons they being once lawfully found to be destitut of the warrant pretended But seing both Scripture and Reason doth testify against this Usurpation as most unlawful in it self and injurious to our Lord Jesus and that all experiences have proven it to be most pernicious to His Church Kingdom therefore many of his faithful Servants have worthily and valiantly resisted it not only to bonds and banishment but even to blood for the Testimony of their Lord Master We return to the purpose of this observation which is to vindicat the honour of the Lord's Work and the memory of his faithful Servants in the discovery of the old malice and subtilty of the great Enemy of the Church of God working in the wicked Prelats their abettors who to the effect they may enjoy their carnall designes and prosecute their wicked lusts without controll endeavour mainly by an absolute surrender of all things powers persons and interests to flatter and exalt the King unto an illimited Soveraignty and pretended Omnipotency thereby both to oblidge and enable him the more to such acts deeds and grants as are requisite for the satisfying of their vain Ambition insatiable Covetousness and wicked lusts Which Flattery and Usurpation being not more agreeable to the vain heart of man then contrary to the Kingdom of our Lord and the Power and Purity of His blessed Gospel what wonder if his faithful Servants who can neither deny His Name nor dissobey His commands by complying with the wicked practices and the blasphemous flattery of these vile Apostats be not only hated of all men but with their Lord and Master become the continual object of the reproaches violence and cruelty of the wicked as enemies and rebells to lawful Authority Now that the World may perceav the wicked intent and design of this Prerogative that it is
none other then that of the Devil as to conciliat and endear the Powers to Prelats who while they creat the King's Prerogative pretend themselves to be the King 's only Creatures so to arm and animat the same Powers against our Lord and His followers Let it's Rise and Effects both first and last be marked and observed and the search will declare that wicked men lusting to Tyranny and licentiousness are checked and galled by the freedom and power of faithful Ministers in the application of the Holy Word and Spiritual Censures What remedy This freedom is found Treasonable and prejudiciall to the King's service and Interest and the plain Zeall of God is therefore taxed as Sedition and Treason and under these formalities the Priviledges of the Church are infringed and all the asserters thereof lashed with the same calumny whereupon and to perfect the cure the King must be declared IN ALL and OVER ALL And by vertue of his fained Omnipotency and for recovery of that Unity and Order which only the coming of our Lord His blessed Gospel and Powerful Ministry is pretended to have disturbed the Ancient Policy or the Church must be restored and the greatest flatterers made the Archest Prelats who by inhaunsing and by destroying the Power may compesce the pretended insolency of the Ministry and by the continual pretending of Dissatisfaction and Disloyalty may terrify men out of all Conscience until by the introducing of Will-worship and vain Superstitions they may extinguish all Light and thereby reduce that Golden Age of Order into stupid Flattery and of Unity into Implicit Obedience And if these be not the kind caresses and most native issues of Prerogative and Prelacy and the very restoring and re-establishing of the Kingdom of Antichrist he who cannot find it in this Period will find all supplyed by the next 7. Though we love not to reflect on Events and know that no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before him yet seing thereby the Lord's Judgments are made manifest men ought both to observe and fear The dissastrous ends of all the promoters of Prelats in these dayes viz of the Earle of Morton beheaded Mr Iohn Douglass Archbishop of St Andrews dying in the pulpit the Earle of Arran after disgrace privately killed Mr Patrick Adamson Arch-bishop of St Andrews after recantation and disgrace dying in extream poverty may justly cause their course the rather to be shunned and detested But that which we love rather to observe is that as the promoters and advancers of Prelacy were alwayes known to be men of no Principles and for the most part of very flagitious practices so the resisters thereof and favourers of Presbytery especially the Lord 's faithful Ministers in these dayes were not only very eminent in Knowledg Piety and Holiness but above all had that great Testimony and confirmation which our Lord Himself maketh use of Iohn 7.18 that they sought not their own glory and therefore neither spoke nor did of themselves but sought His Glory that sent them and therefore were true and no unrighteousness was in them As both their slighting of Court favours by which they were much tempted and their obstinat refusall of Bishopricks whereof King Iames himself bare them witness doth Testify 8. The Lord whose Work is perfect and who when He beginneth will also make an end hereafter in the Year 1586. shineth through the cloud dissipateth the darkness and after the storm blesseth us with a great calm wherein the Assemblies re-assuming their just power and the matter by the King being brought to a treaty and Conference the Bishops are first Restrained then Reduced Thereafter the order of Presbyteries being set down perfected in the Year 1590. both the Nationall Covenant is renewed and subscribed by Order of the Secret Council at the Assemblies desire and all the power that remained either in Bishops or Commissioners by the Assembly is devolved upon the new erected Presbyteries And thus the Work of the Lord in the Parl. 12. Iam. 6. bv the 114. Act. thereof ratifying Presbyterial Government in all it's Assemblies Courts and Officers qualifying and restricting the former Act. 1584. anent the King's Prerogative and abrogating all Acts contrary thereto or inconsistent therewith and by other Acts there recorded receaveth it's last and full accomplishment with Power and Beauty added to the former Grace and Glory 9. That as only the malice of Sathan and wickedness of men have in all Ages opposed the establishment of Presbytery so the Lord whose great Work and Ordinance it is doth no less evidently commend it by making as on the one hand it 's sincere and holy severity powerfully to coerce and restrain all vice and profanity so on the other hand the harmonious and orderly Subordination of it's Courts and Assemblies most efficaciously to prevent and suppress all Schisme and Heresy Which both the experience of these and all succeeding times do most clearly confirm But though the Lord had shewed us all these great and manifold temptations and troubles and terminated them all in such an wonderful and blessed deliverance that we might for ever fear His great Name love His precious Truth and keep His holy Covenant and though in the short Sun-shine of that day of Salvation He caused both King and People to taste and see the Order Beauty and Power of that Establishment Yet O! how soon did we forget the Works of the Lord We keeped not His Covenant O Lord the People of thine Inheritance enjoyed it but a litle It is not necessary for our design that we should trace and recount all these sad steps and degrees by which the Holy and Wise God thought fit to bring back his Church in this Land unto that great distress that hereafter ensued and caused her to wander long in a Wilderness of great Desertion nor what were the causes and beginnings of that so horrid Defection which the Histories of the most partial pens whatever provocations they pretend to be in the Lord 's faithful Ministers cannot purge nor palliat from a mere design of carnal Policy carryed on by manifest Diâ—simulation and palpable fraud It is enough for us let the true Histories of these proceedings be examined and it will appear without the help of our obsevation that as the beginnings of that Defection were no other then the Unfaithfulness of Man and the inconsistence of the Wisdom of God with the carnal wisdom of this World and that old opposition and rooted prejudice of the Kings and Powers of the Earth who have for the far greatest part set themselves and taken counsel against the Lord and against His Anointed so for the unquestionable confirmation of all that hath been said either as to the wicked Rise or woful Effects of Prelacy in this Church the Devil's part therein was visibly to promote his own Kingdom by re-acting the most palpable and gross Mystery of Iniquity that can possibly be described In so far
this Solemn and important League and Covenant we cannot but wonder at the poor Sophistâ—y of such especially that more Temporizing then Seasonable Casuist who delude themselves in so great matters unto such an Indifferency as to assert that this Covenant doth as necessarily depend upon the King's consent for it's establishment as the private vow of a Daughter in her Father's house or of an Wife under her Husband's power in things free and arbitrary though not absolutely in their own disposal did according to the Judicial Law of the Jewes fall under the Father and Husband's power of ratifying or annulling But the simple proposal of these cases doth hold out such a disparity both as to the Persons being only women under power the Things in themselves being free but at another's disposal and many other Circumstances tedious to insist on and even as to Law it self by which the case is determined being meerly Judicial that none who fear the Lord or mind His Glory in any measure of Sobriety will daigne it with an answer And such indeed are the rest of the Cavils and Calumnies wherewith the Adversaries of Truth have endeavoured to impugn and asperse this Holy Covenant and are so fully and often answered already that to account them worthy the resuming and refuting were in some sort after Vowes to make inquiry There is one thing that our Adversaries have frequently objected which we cannot ommit viz. that the Covenants both National and Solemn League were urged and pressed both by Church Censures and Civill Sanctions of loss of goods sequestration and other arbitrary pains which hath been heavily complained of as a great violence done to Conscience But as it was then too evident that this Priviledge of Conscience was for the most part only pretended by such as had litle or no feeling thereof so the Practice of the present times doth now fully discover that what is now so insolently retorted was never before really scrupled at But the lawfullness of the course and practice then used and the iniquity of this retortion will easily be cleared if it be considered 1. that the Nationall Covenant being a standing binding Oath upon the whole Land and in the Year 1638. only renewed with such an agreeable explanation as none could or did quarrel but such as thereby intended to palliate and persist in their proceeding manifest violations was according to the example of good Josiah who brought back the People and CAUSED them stand to the Covenant of their Fathers 2 Chron. 34.32 most justly commanded and under the pains due to the breach therof ordained to be re-taken 2. That the solemn League and Covenant containing no other obligements then what the National doth import and being a most conducible expedient both for the securing and prosecuting the ends thereof and whereunto the National Covenant upon this ground did clearly oblige The pressing of the same League is warranted not only by the former ground but from the very bond of the National became an indispensible Duty By which reasons as the former proceedings are clearly justifyed so the present practice as being a direct and violent ranversing of these things which were once so righteously and rationally established is the more condemned But whatever be the disparity of these cases in the point of Reason we are sure that light and darkness do not more differ then the Lenity of these former times from the Rigour and violence now practized that where one then suffered for obstinacy against the Covenant hundreths do now suffer for their stedfastness therein As for these Wars and great commotions that ensued upon this great Transaction of the Solemn League we will not thereon insist Only we are confident that nothwitstanding all the Calumnious constructions of our Adversaries al such as seek out and have pleasure in the Works of the Lord will applaud unto the Glory and Righteousness thereof who as by the sword of Apostats in the Years 1644 and 1645. He did punish in his Justice the Hypocrisy and Self-seeking of such in this Land whose hearts were not upright in His Covenant and thereafter in the Year 1648. did by a prevailing Sectarian Party restrain and crush the gross and Generall Apostasy then intended under an Hypocritical pretext of pursuing the ends of the Covenant at that time so palpably perverted and abused so for the manifestation of his own Glory and of His Mercy to them that fear him and did not forget his Covenant He did intermix several gracious Intervals of His aboundant Compassion and at length did give unto His Work and People a full and absolute Victory over that malignant Spirit and Party that had so long prevailed in the Land and caused the wickedness of the wicked to cease and all iniquity to stop it's mouth Thus in the Years 1649 and 1650. thereafter the Lord was with us while we were with Him and while we sought Him He was found of us but as we did forsake Him so did He also forsake us by which position all the mixture and varieties both of our Actings and Gods Providences in these times may clearly be resolved There was indeed at that time in the Land not only a party Faithful unto God and zealous for His Name but also a great Zeal of God from clear knowledge and sad experience generally and solemnly professed before God and all men in our Publick Acknowledgement Anno 1649 In consequence whereof the League and Covenant was also by the whole Kingdom renewed that same Year And in answer thereunto the Lord did mightily both save and defend us from all our Adversaries and as He soon subdued our Enemies at Stirling and turned His Hand against our Adversaries in the North and caused the haters of the Lord faign submission unto Him so for His own Glory the establishment of His People and the utter confusion of His Adversaries He did highly advance His blessed Work by the accession of all these Advantages with the Defect whereof it had been formerly calumniated The Advantages we here mention are besides that Publick Acknowledgement then made and in the deep sense thereof the League and Covenant solemnly again renewed and taken whereby our Engagements were not only doubled but strongly confirmed 1. These many necessary and righteous Lawes enacted in the then Parliaments both for the ratifying the later large Confession of faith and the larger and shorther Catechisms agreed unto by both Kingdoms and for the restraining and coercing of Impiety and Blasphemy the encouragement of the Ministry and for the promoving of Godliness Amongst which Acts that abolishing Patronages deserveth a more special and commendable remembrance Not only because of the many woful Effects Abuses of Patronage as it then was now is exercised whereby frequently Godly men and in some measure qualified for the Work of the Ministry were are unjustly restrained from labouring therein Many Congregations needlesly continued desolate without afixed Ministry Many Naughty men
and utterly insufficient at the sole arbitrement of Patrons violently obtruded upon the People without and against their own consent Presbyteries constrained contrary to the Rule of the Holy Scriptures to ordaine men whom the People neither choised nor could cheerfully receave Foundations of prejudice strife betwixt Pastor and People laid whereby the one cannot preach nor the other hear with profit Symoniacal Pactions often basely made betwixt Patrons the person presented to the disgrace of the Holy Calling as-wel as to the sin and shame of the Persons And the Ministry of too many in dispencing of Word Sacraments Censures made to depend too much upon the Will and pleasure of Man But also because it hath no Precept in the Word of God nor Example in the old Jewish nor new primitive and pure Christian Church to warrant it because Intentionally and Natively it spoileth the People of that Right and Priviledge in Electing their own Pastors which Scripture and Reason alloweth And because being the Patron 's pretended Heritage and therefore by him vendible to whom he pleaseth the whole and sole Power of Presenting of Ministers Planting of Churches Preaching of the Gospel settling Maintenance may be turned over unto put in the hands of men not only Profaâ—e Strangers to both Church Common-wealth but also proâ—esâ—ed Enemies of the Truth yea even Papists or Pagans And therefore being in itself a grievous and unwarrantable Burthen destructive of the Church and Peoples Liberties obstructive of the free course of the Gospel the Freedom Power Plainness of the Ministry and occasional of much base Flattery Partiality under which from the very times of Superstition which introduced it the Church did heavily groan it must needs be so much the greater Blessing to be delivered from it The second Advantage which the Lord's work receaved was by that great and long Transaction with the King in order to His return and Admission to the Government which at length after repeated Addresses many Treaties and the interposing of Forraign States and Princes produced the King's Approbation and Allowance of the Nationall and Solemn League and Covenant Which both by his great Oath unto the Most High God and his hand-writ and Subscription he most amply assured promising in the same manner to advance prosecute their Ends and to seek and procure the establishment thereof and of Presbyterial Government and of the whole work of God in all his Dominions We know our Adversaries persisting in their old malice disown and exclaim upon this Transaction as most disloyal and insolent for Subjects whose part is only to surrender submit to require and enter into Treaties with their Prince But 1. as these reproaches are from the same wicked Spirit false grounds and base and carnall ends which from the very times of popery have resisted and been objected against the Work of Reformation in this Land so do wee thereto oppose in full assurance before God and all the World these solid and evident reasons and warrants whereby not only these Treaties and Transactions with the late King but all these old Contracts and Agreements betwixt the then Powers and People which in some sort are the very foundation of the Protestant Religion in this Realm are justifyed and approven wherein if there be any disparity the difference of a King upon His Throne actually Exercing from a Prince only ascending thereto must cast the advantage on our side 2. Seing there is no Voluntary Kingdom which is not both erected sustained and continued by a Fundamental Contract and no Right thereto so good though even that of Divid himself and His Posterity who held the Kingdom both by inmediate grant and interposed Oath of the Most High which is not setled and confirmed by this agreement 2 Sam. 5.3 2 Kings 11.17 can any rationall man disprove or condemn Treaties so naturally antecedent and previous thereto 3. The reason and necessity of this Treaty is so dependent upon the preceeding War with the last King in which as-well as in his Kingdomes this King did succeed him that seing it can have no opposers but such as therein were enemies we willingly refer hoth the cases to the determinations of the same reasons And as for such who asserting the Covenant and the Justice of the long Parliaments War do nevertheless disprove our procedure in this Treaty as their mis-information doth not prejudge the Truth so neither are we answerable for their inconsequence The third Advantage which the Lord gave His Work was by what the King did after his arrival in Scotland both before and at his Coronation for the greater confirmation of the Covenant and Work of God and the more strong engaging of himself and this whole Land unto the Lord. Before his Coronation he emitteth that Declaration at Dumfermling sufficiently known by this designation wherein Professing and appearing in the full persuasion and love of the Truth he repenteth as having to do with in the sight of God His Fathers opposition to the Covenant and VVork of God and his own reluctancies against the same hoping for mercy through the blood of Iesus Christ and obtesting the Prayers of the faithful to God for his stedfastness and then protesteth his truth and sincerity in entering into the Oath of God resolving to prosecute the ends of the Covenant to his utmost and to have with it the same common friends and enemies exhorting all to lay down their enmity against the Cause of God and not to prefer Man's Interest to God's which will prove an Idole of Iealousy to provoke the Lord and he himself accounteth to be but selfish flattery so-forth proceedeth in the most cordial sincere assuring terms to testify his love and zealous resolutions for God his People and Covenant and on the other hand his great dislike and detestation of all Persons courses and Interests contrary thereto A Declaration so full of heart-professions and high attestations of the Great God that none seriously considering the present times can reflect thereon without horror and trembling from the Holy Jealousy of the Lord either for the then deep Dissimulation or the present unparalelled Apostacy However seeing the same is so assertive that no words could adde to it's assurance nor no argument less then the present Apostacy render it to any neutral person suspect of the least dissimulation sure we are that the generality of the Kingdom did thereby obtain all the warrant of the King 's most full and clear assent to and allowance of the Covenant that either Law or Reason could require Thereafter at his Coronation how the King did again confirm the Covenant and both He and his People thereby again engage themselves unto the Lord the order thereof printed and published to the World doth fully declare In which these passages are very observable 1. That the King is desired in Name of the People jointly to accept the Crown and maintain Religion ACCORDING TO THE
this Poor Church and Nation O! that all men would yet at length after all the evils and warnings which God hath sent amongst us seriously consider their wayes take unto themselves shame and give unto God the Glory before the decree bring forth our utter destruction and desolation Who knoweth but the Lord would repent Himself for His servants when He seeth our power is gone and return on high for His own Glory and the Congregation of the poor that compass Him about and render vengeance unto all his adversaries 3. That neither failing nor backsliding of many of the faithful nor the wicked Hypocrisy and Dissimulation practized on the other hand in the carrying on and concluding of these Treaties whereby the King was brought under the bond of the Holy Covenant doth lessen or annul His Obligation thereto far less the Security which the People especially such who know not these depths of Sathan did obtain thereby for their warrant and confirmation Surely the greatest Aggravation of Perjury cannot annul the Sacred Obligation of an Oath nor an intended Falshood loose the bond of Truth nor will vile Dissimulation and the most fearful mocking of God and the whole World deliver from His Holy Justice and Jealousy who is a terrible and swift witness against and avenger of all such abominations Did the wicked dissimulation and rebellious heart of the Children of Israel wherewith they entered in Covenant with the Lord Deu. 29.10 to 28. liberate them from the sin of Apostacy and all these fearful plagues threatened against it Did not that Dissimulate promise and engagement of the remnant of the Jewes made to Ieremiah chap. 42.20 rather hasten and aggravat the punishment of their disobedience v. 21 and 22 All who love Truth or fear an Oath do no doubt abhor such wickedness But the main objection is that all these condescensions were extorted by Force and Fear which doth excuse the Dissimulation and annul the Oath We shall not here insist to clear and refute this cavillation which others have so fully answered For as to the position that neither force nor fear do cause to cease the obligation of an Oath in a matter meerly Indifferent much less Holy Righteous and true as the matter of the Covenant is all yeeld But that neither Force Fear nor any other indirect way can be alleadged for the annulling of these engagements both the preceeding Treaties the just and necessary Reasons and all other cicumstances do most evidently confirm So that the whole World may justly wonder that these men who both in profession and practice do plainly evidence their profane Indifferency and regardless violation of all Oaths wherein Interest doth not concurre should by the manifest Patronizing of all Perfidy whereof no instance can be adduced in the breach of any treaty wherein the stronger weaker did ever compose any matter of Right which is not more justifyable the shamefull disgracing of the King himself whom neither Conscience Honor Honesty nor the example of his Father could teach the constancy of the most mean and abject of his Subjects should plead pretend to rational pretext for the present Apostacy and not rather content themselves to say with the King in one of his Declarations emitted shortly after his return to England that it is well known by what abusive meanes His Majesty was adduced to make and publish that Declaration at Dumfermling without any more special condescendence which is impossible But oh that the World did also know and consider all the re-iterated Oaths and Subscriptions High and Solemn Attestations Free and unrequired Professions Fearfull Execrations made before God Angels and Men both in Publick upon the Throne under the Crown in plain Parliament and also in Private Conferences which many yet alive can sufficiently attest by which this poor Church and Nation was insnared and precipitated into all the Sin and Misery that since the Year 1650. unto this day hath afflicted us However the Lord who seeth and heareth doth also consider to require it and the violence done to Himself in many of his suffering members who partly even in the conscience of the very things which they that are mostly therein concerned do mockat dare not prostitute their Consciences in an ambulatory Complyance with the wicked Apostacy in these times 4. We cannot but observe that after the prevailing and during the time of the English usurpation these only for the most part remained mindful of and faithful to the King who were faithful and stedfast in the Covenant when as these who formerly did and at present do pretend so highly for the King in prejudice both of Jesus Christ and the Holy Covenant did in their slavish complyance abandon all Alleagance and Honesty to complement the then Powers for the promoving of their own selfish designes which is the only bond of all their Engagements and rule and aim of all their Actions And though many of them do now pretend to have been sufferers yet it is well known that if they had had the half of these temptations which the Faithful upon the account of their alleageance did constantly resist the Kings Interest for their part had been for ever forgotten as it was by many of them openly renounced and abjured And that the main reason of their then seeming and pretended Loyalty was the improbability of credit with and acceptance from the Usurpers because of their known Naughtiness Having thus declared the Lords great Work and Glorious Presence amongst us in all these Mercies and Judgements which he shewed upon us and these strange Vicissitudes Alternations sometimes of His Grace Power engageing us with heart hand unto Himself sometimes of our own hearts Wickedness and Unstedfastness again causing us to apostatize and backslide from His Holy Command and Covenant which daring the space of an hundred years from the Year 1560 have in the Holy and Wise Providence of God passed over us that by all these great Temptations which our eyes have seen and the Signs and wonders which he hath wrought we might know that the Lord is our God and Jesus Christ our King and that by all these things He only went about to establish us for a peculiar People unto Himself in the Glorious Light of His Truth and Beauty of His Holiness far exalted above many other Nations We are now come to the Year 1660 wherein though the Lord was pleased according to His Glorious Soveraignity by His own immediate hand to break the yoke of our Oppressors restore our Covenanted King Lawes and Liberties and to make all Factions Parties and Interests not only to cede unto but unanimously to conspire for this Blessed Restitution yet how evidently hath it since appeared that the Lord had not given unto us an heart to perceave eyes to see nor ears to hear unto that very day We need not here resume the King 's most Solemn and Indissoluble Engagements which we have so lately mentioned nor add that
another Minister by plain force and cast out their lawful Pastor and if it be sincerely resolved what the faithful in that Church are then obliged to do surely none will think that they ought instantly to relinquish their true Pastor own submit to this Intruder but on the contrare all must grant that they ought to adhere to their lawful Minister not only discountenance withdraw from the Usurper but by all lawful means endeavour his Ejection which case if but translated to the present condition of this oppressed Church under usurping Prelates will with the same evidence resolve the question 6. That whatever construction or interpretation many to whom it is given to believe but not to suffer may put upon their hearing of the Curates as to the inferring or not inferring their owning of and submission to their Ministry yet this is certain that as it is the most probable argument and presumption of owning that can be alleadged so is it that which this Act requires for to testify both a due acknowledgement of and hearty complyance with the present Government by Prelates and as an undoubted evidence of the peoples giving their cheerful Concurrence Countenance and Assistance to the Curates 7. That seing hearing of the Curates by the acknowledgement of all the more ingenuous is not a duty to which they are moved by conscience but rather used by them as a thing though lawful yet arbitrary for the eviting a greater inconvenience seing that this Act and every article theirof is undoubtedly gross and wicked Perfidy against God and his holy Covenant commanding the disowning and relinquishing the Lords Ministry whom we are bound to maintain and the owning and encouraging by hearing such vile Intruders as we are bound to extirpate thereby designing expresly to involve all as much as is possible in the same Perfidy and to loose the former obligation of the Oath of God whatever may be said in the case abstractly considered yet we are perswaded that being thus stated not hearing becomes a case of Testimony and an indispensible duty 8. That as it is the sin and misery of all declining times that the zeall of God is at the best rather wished for as a Blessing then minded as a Duty so we are confident that the true and right zeall of God should and would not only inspire all with an unanimous Aversion against the the profane intruding Curates but animate us as one man to drive away these Wolves and Thieves and to eradicate these plants which our heavenly Father never planted 9. That though the Curates could instruct and justify their External Call yet such are their lies lightness by which they cause the people to erre the visible truth of their vile Perjury and Prophanity which they preach and practise that all serious observers may easily discover them to be inwardly ravening Wolves under the sheeps cloathing of an pretended external call of whom in conscience of our Lords command all ought and should beware 10. That whatever may be the difference in these things even amongst the faithful yet all must aggree and acknowledge that the violent pressing of such to hear who upon such probable grounds from a tender sense of conscience do only plead that Christian innocent most safe priviledge of a peaceable forbearance is not only contrare to that ample promise of Indulgence to tender consciences made and declared by the King from Breda before his return 1660. but is in effect to violent all conscience and the hight of oppression and rigor 11. That as the grounds laid down may and do sufficiently answer all objections so therefrom may be shortly cleared first that common and ordinary Sophism that hearing and observing the Ordinances is an indispensible Duty from which neither the wickedness nor frailty of the Minister doth loose But as it may be easily answered that this when acknowledged doth rather suppose then inferre the complexed lawfulness of hearing Curates as Ministers and that their Ministry is the Lords Ordinance which is plainly denyed so we are also to consider that such duties and performances are only acceptable unto the Lord specially in the matters of his Worship which are intirely sound and wholly agreeable unto his will truely done in spirit and altogether performed in truth Nam boâ—um est ex omni causa hence it is that the prophanity and wickedness even of the Lords lawful Priests let be the Perjury and Profanity of wicked Intruders have not only caused the People to abhorre the offering of the Lord to the Priests heavy charge but eveÌ„ the Lord himselfe to abhorre his sanctuary to account incense an abomination so that he cannot away with the calling of assemblies it is iniquity even the solemn meeting shall it then be accounted iniquity for to hate that which the Lord hates and withdraw from that which he hath forsaken Ought we not rather to distinguish a holy abhorring from a profane contempt though both of them proceed from the Curats sin and in the sense thereof rather wish for and withdraw with Jeremiah unto a cottage in the wilderness that there we may mourn for all these abominations surely were there no more in this matter but that Holines becomes the house of God for ever and men of clean hands and a pure lip ought to draw near and turn unto him it were sufficient to justify the Lords People who in drawing near to God cannot in conscience either regard or make use of the mouths and hands of these Apostates which are continually filled with lyes and violence as either sent by the Lord to them-ward or to be imployed by them to God-ward 2. From these grounds may be cleared that grand objection from our Lords command to the People of the Jewes Matth. 23. ver 2 3. saying The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses seat therefore whatsoever they bid yow observe that observe and do Whence some inferre that even such as without a title do usurp the office of teachers ought notwithstanding to be both heard and observed but it is answered 1. That it neither appeareth from the words nor yet from any other Record that the Scribes and Pharisees did by intrusion possess themselves of Moses chair but on the contrare as by Moses chair is only understood the Office of teaching resolving and judging according to Moses law to which although the Levites were appropriate yet is there is no such determination thereanent in the Word of God as can by any manner of inference reject the Scribes Pharisees as intruders so it is more presumable that seeing our Lord in that long Legend of evils woes pronounced against them doth not in the least charge them with Intrusion but rather acknowledge their Vocation by calling them the Builders they had thereto lawfully attained 2. As our Lords Words bear no command for the People to hear but only to observe and do what they heard rather supposing then
any other the like Instance which can be adduced or instructed from the parallel of any other Age or Nation Therefore it was altogether Lawful Righteous and Necessary Which answer though the Lords faithful Witnesses did sufficiently insinuat and propone yet both the Constitution of the Court and persons of the Judges before whom they were arraigned were such as the same was rather accounted an aggravation of their Crime and Treason But seeing this was not done without the specious pretexts not only of iniquous Laws but also of Religion and Scripture We shall briefly consider first that Queree often made to them where they had read or how they could instruct that under the Pretence of Religion it is lawful for Subjects to rise in Rebellion against lawfull Authority To which it is answered that this Queree is a clear begging of the question by expresly supposing that the late Rising was only in pretence for Religion but really in Rebellion which ought first to have been proved and is in effect an arrant calumny and falshood 2. That even the Queree it self seems to imply and grant that for Subjects to rise in Arms really for the defence of Religion against the invasions of the Powers under the pretence of Lawful Authority is both lawful and laudable Which being the true case and cause of this late Rising and so clearly warranted both by the Word and Covenant of God and the practise of all Reformed Churches we are content to refer these poor mens Innocency unto the Consciences and secret thoughts of their adversaries Secondly we shall consider these texts of Scripture which were pretended against the Innocents and 1. it was much urged that Rebellion is as the sin of witch-craft To which one of themselves did roundly and clearly answer that the place having been spoken by the Prophet to a King because of his disobedience and contempt of the command of God and not to Subjects would sooner conclude his Accusers then himself to be a Rebell Secondly it answered that Rising up against Authority it self the Ordinance of God and disobeying the Powers therewith vested standing and acting in their right line of Subordination is indeed Rebellion and as the sin of witchcraft but to resist and rise up against persons Abusing sacred Authority and rebelling against God the Supream is rather to adhere to God as our Liege Lord and to vindicate both our selves and his abused Ordinance from man's wickedness and Tyranny The second text objected was that Math. 26.52 where even our Lord himself when violently seised upon by wicked men but who were then in Authority did nevertheless restrain his disciples from his own defence and rescue saying unto Peter Put up again thy sword into his place for all they that take the sword shal perish with the sword To which as it was sufficiently answered without any reply by one of these Impeached whom they accounted distracted though without the least appearance of impertinency who thereto did oppone Luke 22.36 Where our Lord speaking at the same time and to the same purpose saith he that hath no sword let him sell his garment and buy one Yet for further clearing we say 1. That from the place it self in all the Evangelists it is most evident that that command was given and these words spoken by our Lord only for to testify his voluntar submission unto the Fathers will by laying down of his life for fulfilling of the Scripture as is clear from the same 26. of Matth. v. 54. Iohn 18.11 otherwise the context being considered that not only in Luke 22.36 cited He forewarning his disciples of hazards to come adviseth them to provide swords and weapons and in the 26 of Matt. asserts his power to have called 12 legions of Angels to his assistance which clearly implyes the lawfulness thereof this Scripture objected doth more confirm then impugn the Lawfulness of Defensive Arms. 2. Is it possible that men should be so much demented by flattery as to think that it was unlawful for Jesus Christ the Mighty God and Lord over all to have defended himself by the assistance of his Disciples against the horrid Wickedness and Insurrection of the vilest of His creatures had it not been that it was necessary that the Scriptures concerning him should be accomplished 3. Where our Lord saith in the place objected all they that take the sword shal perish with the sword as He thereby only condemneth Unjust and Offensive war so the Saying it self by its later part doth tacitely imply the Lawfulness and Justice of both Defensive and Vindictive Arms the same being otherwise justly founded Though these Texts were only objected yet to help our Adversaries who are known not to be much conversant in the Scripture and to obviate the scruples that may thence arise to others we subjoyn a third text Iohn 18.36 where our Lord saith if my Kingdom were of this world then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Iews whence some infer that all Arms even in Defence of Religion are unlawfull and prohibited But it is answered as the intent and scope of our Lord's answer was to clear himself of that calumny objected against Him by the Iews that he made Himself a King in opposition to Caesar so the meaning of it is plain and obvious to wit that our Lord's Kingdom is not of the Nature and for the Ends for which other Kingdoms of this world were instituted but wholly spiritual for declaring the Truth and thereby gaining souls unto glory Whence as our Lord would there infer that he came not to conquer to himself Disciples by outward force and thereby to gain followers by the spoiling of Caesar and other Princes so it is without all shaddow of connexion thence to conclude that a people having receaved the blessing of the Gospel and Kingdom of Iesus Christ should without Resistance suffer themselves to the manifest dishonor of God and the hazard of the eternal damnation of themselves and their posterity to be impiously and sacriledgiously spoiled and deprived thereof when they are in a capacity to defend the same The truth whereof together with the hypocrisy of our Adversaries may soon be discovered if the Question be but stated in the terms of one Forraign independent Prince's invading another meerly upon the account of the Christian Faith and whatever solution or evasion they shall herein make will as exactly quadrat to the case in hand it being almost ridiculous to conceave that the greatest aggravation of Invasions of this Kind to wit that it is made by a Prince upon his own Subjects whose Profession he himself is principally bound to maintain should import any speciality and difference in the cases The last text is that of Math. 5.39 and remanent verses to the end where our Lord saith resist not evill but whosoever shall smite thee c. with the other parallel places specially Rev. 13.10 But it is answered that as these
places do injoyn either patience when the clear call and dispensations of God do inevitably call unto suffering without which patience were no patience but rather stupidity or that bounty and debonairity which our Lord would have his disciples to practise in the remitting and dispensing with the utmost extensions and points of Right for the better reproving and condemning of the animosities and rigid contentions of men for matters of small or no moment and the more effectuall commending the grace and peace of the Gospel So thence to infer that men should give way to all Violence and Sacriledge to the subverting of Religion and Righteousness is after the manner of Sathan to cheat and abuse men by the holy Scriptures of Truth unto wickedness and error and grossly to exceed that signal rule mainly in these places intended to wit that we should be perfect even as our Father which is in heaven is perfect who though he filleth the earth with his goodness and extendeth his bounty unto all causing the sun to rise upon the evill and on the good yet doth he love righteousness and helpeth and delivereth the oppressed and commandeth the zeal of his own glory wherein He himself doth often eminently appear by the hand of His people to take vengeance on His adversaries Let us therefore in the consideration of what is said Rev. 13.10 he that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword both possess our souls in patience under all the former sufferings and hope and rejoice in the faith of the succeeding delivery there subjoyned These are the Defences which these Faithful men did summarily hint at and being often interrupted were scarcely permitted to propone All which being rejected as unworthy to be heard what wonder if what their Advocats did plead in their defence upon the point of Quarter given to some of them in the field was also repelled We are not to dip in matters of this kind but certainly it much discovereth the spirit of malice and violence that now prevaileth that neither the Nature and Import of Quarter which pertaineth nothing to Grace or Pardon whereof these men were declared incapable but is a paction of the Law of Nations whereby the person worsted by quitting of his arms the only and oftentimes the probable means either of his safety or vengeance doth condition for and redeem his immunity as to life Nor yet the honor of the Granters Persons Commissionated by the King for the command of his Forces with the common Priviledges and dignities belonging to such Offices Nor yet the Practice of all Nations about even in the case of Intestine War Nor the rational arguments of humanity and prudence not to reduce men to utter despair in succeeding Insurrections from which no Kingdom is priviledged Nor lastly the Paucity of these few innocents not exceeding 5 or 6 who could have been thereby benefited there being many other taken and not upon Quarter could prevail against that Pedantick distinction inter bellum justum injustum But this being alleadged to have been bellum injustum as indeed it was in the justest sense therefore no faith nor Quarter must be herein observed quia sc adversus Hostes tantum est Bellum at in Perduelles judicium as if from this one should conclude that though in War there may be faith and Quarter yet in Iudgement there ought neither to be Truth nor Performance All defences therefore being repelled these persons accused were all condemned to be hanged to death as Traitors and their Heads and right Hands to be cut off to be disposed on by the Council and their Goods and Estates to be forfaulted to the Kings use And accordingly upon several dayes this Sentence was executed upon thirty five of these faithful men and by Ordinance of Council the heads of many of them were affixed upon the Ports of several Burghs and the right hands of the first ten to the high contempt of God and His holy Covenant and to the provocation of His jealousy on the Tolbooth of Lanerk where the Covenant was by them solemnly renewed and sworn As for the other five they were and are reprived One of them who in all his Tryall to the conviction of all appeared most constant in the Covenant and bold and pertinent in his Testimony upon the colour of a fit of distraction by which he was once vexed and through the intercession of many in his behalf An other of them for his vile and abject fainting to the very reproach of humanity redeeming his life by becoming Hang-man to seven of his fellows when two ordinary Executioners in the Burghs about had plainly refused declaring they would have nothing to do with the blood of such Righteous men and one of them therefore imprisoned The other three partly because of their fainting and condescendence to take the Declaration and partly through the favour and intercession of friends We shall not nor cannot enter upon the particular declaration of that Grace Constancy and Courage by which the Lords faithful Witnesses were sustained and did bear Testimony to the Word of his Truth the holy Covenant and the Cause and Work of God Only this is certain that the Lord did not more desert that vile abject person to the weakness of flesh and blood whereby he was depressed below the very contempt of men then by His Grace and Glory evidently to manifest the power thereof He was eminently present with such as He honoured to be his Witnesses to cause them contemn and triumph over Principalities and Powers hell and death and all their terrours as may be evident from these things following 1. That the Council pitching upon those men without choise for a Test of discrimination did require several of them by taking the Declaration to renounce the Covenant which they constantly refused And so were Martyred not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection 2. That Mr Hew Mackaile a young man of 25 years of age and an Expectant in the Ministery being arraigned and accused through meer spite of the Arch-Bishop of St. Andrewes against whose Iudas-like Apostacy he had preached four years ago for no greater accession then that he had been some few dayes with these that rose with a sword having been most uncircumspectly taken leaying them because of his infirmity and weakness the day before the Conflict did not only most patiently endure cruel Torture whereby he was examined for the discovery of the contrivance of that Rising which all men knew and saw to be Indeliberat but notwithstanding the promise of favour plainly made to him upon condition of ingenuity which he sincerely used being also condemned did utterly reject all insinuations made unto him upon condition of the least Retractation and bitterly mourning for and repenting of his apparent fainting and relinquishing though it really proceeded more from his infirmity then fear or love of life but rejoycing in
his own folly whereby the Lord did bring him to such a manifestation of his Grace and declaration of His Glory he to the admiration of all in his most constant and Christian suffering by his blood sealed the Truth and glorified God 3. That others of them though obscure and illiterate men upon the Scaffold hurried and interrupted in the declaring of their Testimony by the Prelats Orders and the rudeness and inhumanity of these that executed them yet did bear witness to the cause of God and of that grace and assurance whereby the Lord upheld them to the admiration and astonishment of all the beholders 4. That though at Glasgow and Air where eleven of them were executed all mean Countrey-men and some of them of decrepit age and others of them very young not exceeding 18 years their enemies caused beat drums about the Scaffold that they might not be heard a barbarity never practised in Scotland and rarely heard of except in the Duke of Alva's Martyring of the Protestants in the Low-countreyes yet were they so litle thereby amazed that both by words of of Praise and thanksgiving to God that had honoured such plough-men as they termed themselves to be His witnesses and the constancy of their countenance and whole carriage they did bear such testimony to the Holy Covenant as both many were thereby confirmed and their Enemies ashamed 5. That though some of them did appear weak and faint-hearted at first yet so powerfully and abundantly was it given to them in that hour that out of weakness they were made strong and declared that they had seen such glimpses of the Glory of God betwixt the prison and the Scaffold that all fear was clearly discussed And particularly a young Countrey-boy not much above sixteen years of age being condemned at Aix mostly because he did refuse to take the Declaration which they told him was the renouncing of that Covenant which he had taken at Lanerk though both through fear and ignorance of the very grounds of Christianity he fell into great anxiety neither daring to die nor yet to redeem his life at the rate proposed Yet after the Prayers and Conference of some that had access to him at Irwin two dayes before his death on the morning that he suffered he appeared so much changed both from the depth of fear and perplexity unto great resolution and joy and so much enlightened with the knowledge of God in our Lord Jesus Christ and the hope of Salvation through His Name that all that saw him do bear testimony to the Grace and wonderfull Work of God of that joy of heart that carried him to the Scaffold leaping and praising God From all which particulars and from the severall Testimonies and Speaches which these left behind them in writing we must conclude and rejoyce that God out of the dark cloud of such a sad and astonishing providence which lately overspread us hath brought forth so blessed and bright a cloud of Witnesses strengthened and filled with so much grace and glory to bear Testimony unto His Name Covenant and Cause and for the confirmation of all that love and wait for His Salvation We have hitherto ommitted to say any thing to that Oath of Conjuration taken by the Militia of Edinburgh and the concurrence and assistance of many others who did either Actually rise in Arms for the suppressing of God's People and Cause or since the Conflict did stop apprehend and spoil them in the cross way and have been assisting and abetting to their deaths and persecutions either as Guarders of Prisons Courts or Scaffolds or as Iudges Clerks Advocats Assizers or Officers in the Dooms pronounced against them If after all the truth equity and reason that have been represented and the Power and Glory which God hath declared men will not hear and fear nor be converted neither the tongues of men and Angels nor of such as should return from the dead would be of any force or persuasion to prevail with them Is it possible that Edinburgh should think that the pretence of a new invented Oath of alleageance and fidelity to the King and for the defence of his Authority against all Insurrections and Rebellions wherein the Prelates and the Up hold of their wickedness and the Subjecting of all the Godly to their lust and tyranny were and are clearly intended and designed shall warrand them in the great day of the Lord who is terrible unto the Kings of the earth for taking part with Rebels and Apostats against the God of heaven and for opposing and oppressing of such as continuing stedfast in the common Cause and Covenant for which Edinburgh was once very honourable and eminent did only endeavour to liberat themselves from that intolerable Bondage both of Bodies and Consciences more grievous then death under which they groaned doth Edinburgh thus not only condemn the practice of Our Noble Ancestors and Reformers who accounted it neither Insurrection nor Rebellion to set themselves for the defence of the Gospel against the then Powers who did endeavour to oppress it but by this Oath abandon both Religion and Liberty in this so perillous and backsliding a Generation to the lust and tyranny of abused Authority and whatsoever it shall please to impose without control or contradiction Do they thus remember the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant once so powerfully sworn and owned amongst them and the mutuall defence and assistance wherein every one of us is thereby bound to another to the uttermost of our Power against all sorts of persons whatsoever and not to suffer our selves by whatsoever Combination Terror or Perswasion to be divided and withdrawn from that blessed Vnion therein contained While on the contrary they conspire and conjure themselves against such whom they are not only bound to assist but also to relieve of all the persecutions and oppressions which they suffer and sustain only for their adherence to the same holy Covenants Surely these things being duly considered this Oath in stead of qualifying the Declaration in lieu whereof being more general plausible and insnaring it was contrived and imposed will be found a practical application of all the Wickedness and unrighteousness which is therein only speculatively declared and may in the righteous judgement of God by reason not only of the equality but even of the excess hereof to London's sin bring upon Edinburgh London's plagues and judgements We need not here insist to testify against the rest who in any sort concurred or assisted in the opposition and persecution above-mentioned the meanest part of whose accession doth far exceed Paul's keeping the clothes of such as stoned Stephen If we consider that the suffering and not opposing to the utmost of our power the shedding of innocent blood doth involve all under that certain denounciation made by Ieremiah unto the Princes of Iudah and all the People Ier. 26 15. saying Know ye for certain that if ye put me to death
Engagements whereby this whole Nation is perpetually joyned unto the Lord and also ever animat yow to Do or Suffer for the Lords great Name and these precious important concernments as He requireth lest if ye either faint in your mindes or give up your selves to the delusion of some carnal distinction quiting the founder for the safer part against the explicit Testimony or implicit inclination of your own Consciences which later if sincerely aiming at the glory of God and in nothing repugnant to His holy Word is no otherwise to be regarded in times of temptation then as that promised secret leading of the blind in the way they know not you not only lose your Crown but provoke the Lord to cause all the Churches know by your plagues that He it is who searcheth the reins hearts But unto these few names in Scotland that have appeared zealous for God have not forgotten His Covenant in these declining times all these who favour their Righteous Cause The Lord who liveth was dead and is alive for evermore Amen knoweth your works tribulation poverty but yow are rich and also the blasphemy of them which say they are Christians are not but are the synagogue of Antichrist Fear none of these things which yow do or shall suffer your afflictions are but for Triall and may be Short be Faithful unto the death and ye shall have the Crown of life And as ye love God the Father of our Lord Jesus who gave His only and eternall delight unto the death for us Sinners as ye love our Lord Jesus Christ who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood as ye love the Holy Spirit of Grace who breatheth all this love into our hearts and comforteth and sealeth us unto the day of redemption as ye love the blessed Gospel in the light whereof all this love is revealed and God therein mainly glorified as ye love the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood as ye love for your own souls and for your posterity eternal life as ye love poor Scotland and it's deliverance from the dreadful and imminent wrath of God and as you love the preservation of all Interests either Spiritual Temporal or Eternal Adhere stedfastly to the holy Covenants that Sacred and Firm Bond and Engagement unto all duties of Religion and Righteousness our blessed sealed Charter of all the Lord's blessings and ordinances especially of that great Ordinance of the Ministry and Government of the Lord's house which He himself hath appointed the hedge of all other Ordinances and the great and most effectual mean of the Gospel's establishment and advancement For as it is only the holy zeal of God inspired and animated by the fervent love of our Lord Jesus and the fear of the Lord 's great Name and the regard of His sacred Oath that can make you of quick understanding in these perillous times for the discovering of both duties and dangers and strengthen you with all might either for Doing or Suffering that you may endure unto the end so you may be assured that if the Lord's thoughts toward Scotland be thoughts of peace and not of evil to give us an expected end as we have great ground and perswasion of hope it shall be upon the broken plank of this despised Covenant that this tossed and ship-wrackt Church shall be preserved in midst of all these fluctuations and at length attain to it's desired haven of Peace and Truth Yea though this Apostacy and persecution should prevail to wear out the saints of the most High and the Lord because of the overspreading of abomination should determine and bring upon us utter desolation yet shall this your faithfulness be your Peace joy and Victory Let all therefore that desire to be found faithful look unto Jesus and his joy that with Him enduring the cross and despising the shame we may neither faint nor be weary but in end be partakers of his Victory Throne and Crown Thus we have seen and declared the great Work of God in this Land from the first times of our Reformation unto this day we have also teen our manifold provocations whereby we have often Turned Tempted and Provoked the most High and all these judgements Temptations and Discoveries wherewith by the space of now more then an Hundred years he hath corrected and exercised us and we are at length arrived unto and have considered the present state and posture of our affairs Wherein though 1. the extremity of Apostacy exceeding all that any age can parallel and aggreageable by all the circumstances of most clear and glorious Manifestations most solemn and sacred Engagements most sudden and causeless backsliding and most national daring and violent defection that any Church can be charged with 2. The extremity of Persecution and Violence which considering either the Actors once ring-leaders now Apostats from the same Holy Covenant which they persecut or the Manner by Hostile and Military Force without so much as regarding their own Lawes which they pretend for warrant or the cruelty and excess whereby mens lives are imbittered making them prefer Death to the slaveries and insolencies which they sustain Are not to be instanced in any Christian Church 3. The extremity of Sin and profanity and of the enemies boasting and blasphemy whose mouths are set against the Heavens and all the spite of their tongues and indignation of their hearts against the holy Covenant and tenderness of conscience over which and all their followers they wickedly insult and rejoyce And 4. the extremity of mens fainting and deserting so Good a Cause Which in their hearts they secretly own and approve but dare not avow yea are ready to deny for fear of the Adversaries Though we say these extremities undenyably apparent in our present condition do sadly denounce unto this Land the worst and most woful of all extremities even utter forsaking and desolation and that the End is come yet notwithstanding all these hopeless and desperat appearances it is the Lord who causeth light to shine out of darkness and saith in the evening it shall be light who saith unto dry bones live and calleth his People out of their graves who even calleth things that are not as though they were in whom all the seekers of His face ought to rejoyce and joy in the God of their salvation Therefore although that over and above all these menacing evils the power and pride of the Enemy should yet more prevail even many degrees above all the appearances of Human Hope or Help all Neighbouring Nations should not only give them the leisure and conveniency but with all their might conspire and concurre with our enemies to intend their persecution strengthen their Apostacy yet are the Lord 's Faithful not only partakers of that River the streams whereof make glad the City of God though surrounded with the siege of of Nations Batteries of mountains and
insurrections of the Universe against it and are built on that rock against which the very gates of hell cannot prevail and do also know that their God whom they fear is able to deliver them from this fiery Triall and He will deliver them from their persecuters and if not that nothing save the design of greater glory to this own Name in a greater mercy and salvation to His People shall impede it but all that love the Lord's Salvation have also fair ground of hope that the Lord as he will pour out His wrath upon his adversaries so will He remember for Scotland his Covenant awake and give a shout against His enemies and that now when He seeth their wrath how they behave themselves strangely and say our hand is high and the Lord hath not done all this the Lord will bring forth for His remnant even that holy seed which shall be the substance of this Land that Deliverance which is laid up in store with Him and sealed up amongst His treasures For unto God belongeth vengeance and recompense even the vengeance of His broken Covenant of His dear Saints blood and of His polluted Sanctuary The adversaries foot shal slide in due time for the day of their calamity is at hand and the things that shall come upon them make haste For the Lord shall judge his people and repent himself for his servants when he seeth that our power is gone and there is none shut up or left And the Lord shall say see now that I even I am He and there is no God with me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand for I lift up my hand to heaven and say I live for ever if I whet my glittering sword and mine hand take hold on judgement I will render vengeance to mine enemies and will reward them that hate me I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh and that with the blood of the slain and the captives from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy Rejoyce O ye Nations with his people for He will avenge the blood of His Servants and will render vengeance to His adversaries and will be mercifull unto His Land and to His People This is the Song which God hath taught us and therewith we shut up and seal the FAITH AND PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS AND now having finished the Narration intended of the Work of God and having seen and being persuaded that all the degrees and Passages of its Progress and Advancement were the very vestiges of the Lords ascendent Power and Glory which He hath also sealed by the Salvation of many thousands for our assured confirmation that as this Work is of God so shall it not come to nought But that these Antichristian 〈◊〉 who oppose it though in the same Spirit and Power of Darkness which hath mainly caused and procured all the sin temptation and ruine that hath befallen any Gospel-Church 〈◊〉 the blessed coming of our Lord JESUS in the fleâ—h they should arise unto yea surmount the very height of the Papacy and Antichrist himself in their Persecutions Tyranny They shall nevertheless in the end be found even to fight against God and perish for ever in their gain-saying As we do therefore desire to remain stedfast immoveable and always abounding in the Work of the Lord and every point and circumstance thereof without fainting or wearying even unto the Death in and over which the Lord hath caused His faithful witnesses so gloriously to Triumph so we do only here subjoyn for the clear and unanswerable conviction and condemnation of the perfidy and wickedness of these accursed Prelates both before the World and even in their own consciences if any sense thereof do yet remain That though we had never seen any of these great and glorious things whereby the Lord since the Year 1637. did revive confirm and magnify His Work amongst us and that the National Covenant had net been since retaken much less explained and established nor the League and Covenant ensued it Yet since the same doth still stand in the plain and simple terms wherein it was conceaved and in that sense and meaning wherein both it 's express Words and all the circumstances which we have before observed do plainly evince that it was at first taken as this Covenant doth remain unto this Day notwithstanding all the Prelats wickedness perjury and violence unrepeal'd or condemned and by no contrary explanation or gloss either is or can be detorted from being an undenyable abjuration of accursed Prelacy and all it's corruptions so is it a certain fixed and immoveable foundation for all the Work of God that hath ensued and a very sure ground of confidence to all who seriously perpend and firmly adhere to it that the Lord who loved us of old and chosed our Fathers shall yet again by his mighty Spirit and Power turn the hearts of the Children unto the Fathers and bring us back unto the Lord God of our Fathers and upon this same Foundation yet repair our breaches build up the old wastes raise rear up His Glory FINIS The last SPEECHES AND TESTIMONIES Of some who have Suffered for the TRUTH IN SCOTLAND Since the Year 1660. The last Speech of the MARQUES of ARGILE At his Death in Edinburgh May 27. 1661. MANY will expect that I speak many things and according to their several opinions and dispositions so will their expectations be from me and constructions of me But I resolve to disappoint many for I come not hither to justify my self but the Lord VVho is Holy in all His wayes and Righteous in all His VVorks Holy and blessed is His Name Neither come I to condemn others I know many will expect that I will speak against the hardness of the Sentence pronounced against me But I will say nothing to it I bless the Lord I pardon all men as I desire to be pardoned of the Lord my self Let the will of the Lord be done That is all that I desire I hope that ye will have more charity to me now then yee would have had at an other time seing I speak before the Lord to whom I must give an account very shortly I know very well that my words have had but very litle weight with many And that many have mistaken my Words Actings both Many have thought me to be a great Enemy to these great works that have of late been brought to pass But do not mistake me good People I speak it in the presence of the Lord I entered not upon the Work of Reformation with any design of advantage to my self or prejudice to the King and his Government As my later Will which was written 1655. and thereafter delivered to a Friend in whose hands it still remaineth can show As for these Calumnies that have gone abroad of me I blesse God I know them to be
Adversary to reproach and blaspheme and did withall not a litle obscure and darken the beauty of severall former Actings about His blessed and glorious Work of Reformation happily begun and far advanced in these Lands wherein He was graciously pleased to Employ and by Employing to Honour me to be an Instrument though the least and unworthiest of many whereof I am not ashamed this day but account it my Glory how ever that Work be now cried down opposed laid in the dust and trod upon And my turning aside to comply with these men was the more aggravated in my person that I had so frequently and seriously made profession of my Aversness from and Abhorrence of that way and had shown much Dissatisfaction with these that had not gone so great a length for which as I seek God's mercy in Christ Jesus so I desire that all the Lord's People from my example may be more stirred up to watch and pray that they enter not into temptation 2. I do not deny on the other hand but must Testify in the second place to the Glory of His Free-grace that the Lord my God hath often shewed and engraven upon my Conscience the Testimony of His Reconciling and Reconciled Mercy through the Merits of Jesus Christ pardoning all my iniquities and assuring me that He would deliver me also by the graces of His Holy Spirit from the spait tyranny and dominion thereof And hath often drawn out my spirit to the exercise of Repentance and Faith and after engraven upon my heart in legible characters His merciful pardon and gracious begun cure thereof to be perfected thereafter to the Glory of His Name the Salvation of my Soul and Edification of His Church 3. I am pressed in conscience to leave here at my death my true honest Testimony in the sight of God and Man to and for the Nationall Covenant the Solemn League Covenant the Solemn Acknowledgement of our Sins Engagement to our duties to all the grounds Causes of Fasts and humiliations of the Lords displeasure contending with the Land And to the several Testimonies given to His Interests by Generall Assemblies Commissioners of the Kirk Presbyteries and by other honest and faithful Ministers and Professors 4. I am pressed also to encourage His Doing Suffering Witnessing People and Sympathizing ones with these that suffer that they would continue in the duties of Mourning Praying Witnessing and Symparthizing with these that suffer and humbly to assure them in the Name of the Lord our God the God of His own Word and Work of His own Cause Covenant and People that He will be Seen Found and Felt in His own gracious Way and Time by His own Means Instruments for His own Glory Honor to return to His own Truths and Interests and Servants and revive His Name His Covenant His Word His Work His Sanctuary and His Saints in these Nations even in the three Covenanted Nations which were by so Solemn Bonds Covenants Subscriptions and Oaths given away and devoted unto Himself 5. I exhort all these that have been or are Enemies or unfreinds to the Lord's Name Covenant or Cause Word Work or People in Britain and Ireland to Repent and Amend before these sad judgements that are posting fast come upon them for their sinning so highly against the Lord because of any temptation of the Time on the right or left hand by Baits or Straits whatsoever and that after so many Professions and Engagements to the contrary 6. I dare not conceal from yow that are Friendly to all the Lord's Interests that the Lord to the commendation of His Grace be it humbly spoken hath severall times in the exercise of my Repentance and Faith during my trouble and after groans and tears upon these three notable chapters to wit the 9 of Ezra the 9 of Nehemiah and the 9 of Daniel with other such sutable Scriptures and in the very nick of fervent and humble Supplication to Him for the Reviving again of His Name Cause Covenant Word and Work of Reformation in these Covenanted Nations and particularly in poor Scotland which first solemnly engaged to Him to the good Example and Encouragement of His People in the other two Nations to do the same also That the Lord I say hath several times given to me good ground of hope and lively expectations of His Mercifull Gracious Powerful and Wonderful Renewing and Reviving again of His fore-mentioned great Interests in these Covenanted Nations And that in such a Way by such Means and Instruments with such Antecedents Concurrents Consequents and Effects as shall wonderfully rejoyce His Mourning Friends and astonish His Contradicting and counter-acting Enemies 7. I do earnestly recommend my poor Wife and Children and 〈◊〉 posterity to the choicest Blessings of God anâ—â—o the Prayers and Favour of all the Lord's Children anâ— Servants in their earnest dealing with God and Men â—n their behalf That they may not be ruined for â—y Cause but for the Lord my God's sake they 〈◊〉 be favoured assisted supplyed and comforted 〈◊〉 so may be fitted by the Lord for His Fellowship and Service whom God Himself hath moved me often in their own Presence and. with their own Consent to dedicate devote and resign alike and as well as I devote and resign my own Soul and Body to Him for all Time and Eternity 8. I beg the Lord to open the eyes of all the Instruments of my Trouble that are not deadly Irreconcileable Enemies to Himself and His People that they may see the wrong done by them to His Interests and People and to Me and Mine and may repent thereof and return to the Lord and may more cordially own and adhere to all His Interests in time coming The good Lord give unto them Repentance Remission and Amendement and that is the worst wish I wish them and the best wish I can wish unto them 9. I do earnestly beg the fervent prayers of all His Praying People Servants and Instruments whether absent or present wherever they be in behalf of His Name Cause and Covenant Work and People and in behalf of my Wife Children and their Posterity And that the Lord would glorify Himself edify His Church encourage His Saints further His Work accomplish His good Word by all His Doings and Dealings in Substance and Circumstance toward all His own 10. Whereas I have heard that some of my unfreinds have slandered and defamed my Name as if I had been accessary to his late Majestie 's death and to the making of the Change of the Government thereupon the great God of Heaven be witness and Judge between Me and my Accusers in this for I am free as I shall now answer before his Tribunal from any Accession by Counsel or Contrivance or any other way to his late Majestie 's death or to their making that change of Government And I pray the Lord to preserve our present King his Majesty and to pour out His best blessings
knew Him rightly His cross it is sweet easy to the believer for He maketh death to be life and bringeth light out of darkness I desire to follow the blessed Captain of my salvation through well and wo. I beseech you my dear Friends whom now I am to part with that ye stand to the defence of all the truths of God and of His Word that ye receive the Lord Christ as He hath offered Himself therein ye who have not closed with Him And that he who hath closed with Him abide in Him by a lively faith and love bringing forth fruits that you may put credit on your profession and keep off every thing that may shame your glorious and blessed Master before this evill and adulterous generation And I give you all warning and deâ—ort you heartily as ye love your own souls and as ye will answer to Him who shall judge the quick and dead that ye stand fast in all the duties ye are sworn unto in the National and in the Solemn League and Covenant both towards God your King and one another And that ye beware of snares in taking of any Oaths or Declarations contrary in the least to the Oath of God in these Covenants I leave my wife and little children upon Jesus Christ my Lord who are now to be made a widow and fatherless for His sake trusting He will care for them And I recommend them to the counsell and kindness of His people under Him I can forgive the wrong done to me in taking away my life for this Cause and wish God to be merciful to these that have condemned me or have had any hand in my death But blessed be God that brought and hath kept me on His side of this Cause and honoured me to be a publick witness for Him and His blessed Truth and Cause for which I shall praise Him in the World to come whether I now go yea I will praise Him on the borders of Death Eternity To His blessed Name Father Son and Holy Ghost be praise for now and ever So saith your dying friend for Christ JOHN WILSON A true Relation of the Sufferings and Death of M R HEW M c KAIL. Preacher of the Gospel M R Hew M c Kail having passed and improven the vertuous means of his Education at the University of Edinburgh and with his Uncle Mr Hew Mc Kail Minister there in whose family he did reside to the satisfaction and good hope of all in the Winter 1661. upon the very turne of this sad Catastrophe offers himself to Tryall being 20 years old before the Presbytery of Edinburgh in order to the work of the Ministery and being by them amply approven and licensed and having preached at several times with the great benefit and applause of all his hearers he did preach his last publick Sermon in Edinburgh in the Great Church thereof upon the Sabbath immediatly preceeding that 8 of September 1662. the day affixed by the then Parliament for the removal of the Ministers of Edinburgh His text was Song 1.7 In this Sermon taking occasion to speak of the great and many persecutions to which the Church of God hath been and is obnoxious and amplifying the Point from the Persons and Powers who have been instrumental therein he said that the Church and People of God had been persecuted both by a Pharaoh upon the Throne a Haman in the State and a Iudas in the Church and falling to inlarge the several wayes and manner of the Persecutions of these men the issue thereof the cases of Haman and Iudas appeared in the conviction of his Adversaries to have such a near resemblance to the state and condition of the then Rulers of State and Church that though he did make no Application yet he was reputed to be guilty thereof Whereupon within a few dayes thereafter there was a Party of Horsemen sent to the Place where he then lived near to Edinburgh for to seise his Person and make him Prisoner But upon almost no more then a moments advertisement he escapes out of his bed and shifting only to another chamber was miraculously preserved from the Search then used though most diligent and accurate For this cause he being necessitated to leave that Place retired home-ward to his Fathers house where having lurked a while and thereafter as occasions call'd him spent the four years that have since interveen'd in several places and with much uncertainty Yet during all this space to the certain knowledge and sweet remembrance of all that conversed with him he was most seriously exercised in the Study of Piety and true Knowledge wherein as he greatly advanced above all his equalls so at length he became most eminent and exemplary While he is thus living and employed at his Fathers house the late Troubles arising in the West fall out and the newes thereof having alarmed him with the rest of that Countrey upon the 18. of Nov. last being the Sabbath for such motives and upon such considerations as he himself doth fully afterward declare he joined himself to those who rose in these parts for the assisting of that poor afflicted Party as in their consciences by their Covenant they thought themselves indispensably obliged When and where he joined with them or what was his part or endeavours amongst them needs not to be remembered Only this is certain that being of a thin body and tender constitution he was so disabled and weakened with the toil and fatigue of continual marching and tempestuous weather particularly at Air where he lay a considerable time as if he had been dead by reason of fainting that he could no longer endure it Whereupon on Tuesday Novemb. 27. he was necessitated to part from them in the morning near to the New Bridge upon Cramond water And in his way towards Libberton Parish about twelve of the clock passing through Bread's Craigs he was taken without resistance having only a small ordinary sword by such of the Countreymen as were then sent out to view the fields in which passage it is very observable that his escape formerly mentioned was not more miraculous then his present taking was fatal for it is without question had he but retained and observed the least of that advertency and caution wherein at other times he was known to be both ready very happy he might without either hazard or trouble have escaped this inconvenience but God who gave him the full experience of his turning all things unto the good of them that love Him did thus by his simplicity and folly prepare the way for His own Glory and His servants joy and Victory Being brought to Edinburgh and first to the Towns Council-house in their search for letters he was immediatly stript and there being none found committed prisoner to the Tolbuith Upon the Wedensday being the 28 of November by order from the Secret Council he was brought before the Earle of Dumfreis Lord Sinclar Sir Robert Manray
gone before me left behind them concerning our common Cause to leave a word in writ for satisfaction of them who survive me That for preservation defence of the true Religion of this Church and for the relief of my poor brethren afflicted persecuted therefore I joyned with others in Armes that I renewed the Covenant that all men might the better know my Cause and Principles I am so far from denying or being ashamed of that I both acknowledge and avow it as my duty But let no man that will not condemn himself upon the same common obligations to do what I did account me a Rebell therefore because with the same breath that I did swear and with that same hand that I did subscribe to preserve and defend Religion I did also swear to defend the King and his Authority Our Church was not more glorious in her self terrible to her Adversaries while we enjoyed pure Ordinances of Word and Sacraments and her beautiful Assemblies for Government and Discipline of the Lords own Institution then she became of late deformed by the Usurpation and Tyranny of Prelacy And I do solemnly declare as a dying man who dare not dissemble that as I thought and still averre that the erecting of this abjured Prelacy is the cause of much of the Sin in the Land and of all the sufferings of the Lords People therein so I had no worse design then the restoring of the Work of Reformation according to the Covenant and more particularly the extirpation of Prelacy to which his Ma and all the Subjects are as much obliged as I. And let that be removed and the Work of Reformation restored and I darâ— die in saying that his Ma shall not have in all his Dominions more loving loyall peaceable and faithfull Subjects then these who for their non-complyance are loaded with the reproaches of Phanaticisme and Rebellion The sufferings and insupportable oppression of these that could not because of the Command and Oath of God acknowledge comply with Prelacy may seem light to some in whom the spirit of the old enmity that is betwixt the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent remaineth and to others perhaps their Friends who look thereupon at adistance but as there is just reason to think that if these rigid oppressions had been made known to his Ma his justice and clemency would have provided a remedy and as the half thereof would have made the Prelats their patrons and adherents impatiently mad for as loyal as they pretend to be So in the like cases of irresistible necessity when there is little open door for representing of grievances and desires and less hope of relief thereby I suppose it will not be found condemned by the Confessions of Reformed Churches or doctrine of sound Divines but that it is authorized by the light and law of Nature by uncondemned examples in the Holy Scripture and by the practice of all Christian States by Armes to preserve and defend men Lives their Religion Liberties and Fortunes And especially where they are not seeking to acquire a new Religion or new Liberties but only to preserve their old or recover them when they are violently unjustly spoiled of the same as in our case Otherwise we should sin against the generation of the just and condemn as rebellious the most of the through Reformations of the Reformed Churches abroad and of our own at home If this course was lawfull and if it was our duty to joyn therein as I believe and lay down my life in the perswasion that it was and if all the Kingdom was as they are bound by Covenant to assist and defend one another in the â—ommon Cause of Religion and Liberty whatever may be said of these that came not forth to help the Lord against the mighty it cannot but be their dreadful sin who joyned themselves in Armes or took Oaths to oppose suppress and break it seing they have sided themselves against the Lord and his Work and their carriage is a much higher degree of Accession to the blood that is shed then Paul's keeping of the clothes of them that stoned Stephen to death And I wish that they may lay the matter to heart and repent of it that God may forgive them as I forgive all men and particularly Morâ—on who did apprehend me I know that there is a holy seed in the Land who shall be the substance thereof and I pray that the Lord may make them more zealous and valiant for the truth upon earth I know also that there are many whose bowells of compassion have been drawn forth toward these who took their lives in their hands by Prayers to God for them and Charity to them and especially in Edinburgh toward the poor Prisoners of whom I may not only say that what they have done deserveth to be told for a Memorial wherever the Gospel is preached but am assuredly confident that besides the blessings of the poor and persecuted the Lord is not unrighteous to forget their work and labor of love which they have shewed towards his Name in that they have ministred to the Saints do minister And yet I must needs regret that so many in this City once famous and honoured for harmonious owning of the Cause and Covenant of God and blessed above many other Cities with solemn Assemblies for Worship and Government should have been ensnared into an Oath so contradictory to the Oath of the Covenant which was devised contrived and imposed in lieu of the Declaration against the same and for a Grave-stone to suppress the revival of the Work of God within this Land The Apostacy of this Land is very great by Perjury and breach of Covenant and so much the worse and more aggreageble that it is Authorized and very universal And as I cannot but regret that so many are insnared therein so I must needs warne all to abhorre and beware of all Declarations and Oaths contradictory to the Covenant and renunciatory thereof as they would not involve themselves in the guilt and plagues denounced against and ordinarily inflicted upon Perjury and breach of Covenant and so much the rather because this is like to be the Shibboleth and triall of the times As for my self I have seen and do find so much worth in Truth which is to be bought at any rate but sold at none And so much transcendent excellency and amiableness in Christ that not only with cheerfulness confidence I lay down my life for Him and His Truth committing my soul to Him to be kept in hope of a joyfull Resurrection of the body but also bless Him that gave me a life to lose and a body to lay down for Him And although the Merket and price of Truth may appear to many very high yet I reckon it low and all that I have or can do little and too little for Him who gave Himself for me and to me for I account