[illustration]
Some had y
r
hands st
r
uck off & hanged others beheaded. Some hanged & quartered
〈◊〉
Some Tortured by bools thumbkins firematches.
Some taken & instantly shot in
〈◊〉
fields. Some banished, others perished in ship-wrack. women hanged, others drowned of stakes in the sea
A Hind let loose,
OR
An Historical Representation of the
TESTIMONIES,
Of the Church of Scotland, for the
Interest of Christ, with the true State thereof
in all its Periods:
TOGETHER WITH
A Vindication of the present Testimony, against the
Popish, Prelatical, & Malignant Enemies of that Church,
as it is now stated for the Prerogatives of Christ, Privileges
of the Church, and Liberties of Mankind, and
sealed by the sufferings of a Reproached Remnant of
Presbyterians there, witnessing against the Corruptions
of the Time.
WHEREIN
Several Controversies of Greatest Consequence are inquired
into, and in some measure cleared; concerning
hearing of the Curates, owning of the present Tyrannie,
taking of ensnaring Oaths & Bonds, frequenting of field
meetings, Defensive Resistence of Tyrannical Violence,
with several other Subordinate Questions useful for these
times.
By a Lover of true Liberty.
Psal. 94. 20.
Shall the Throne of iniquity have fellowship with
Thee that frameth mischief by a Law?
Prov. 28. 15.
As a roaring Lion & a ranging Bear so is a wicked
Ruler over the poor people.
Hos. 8. 4.
They have set up Kings but not by me, they have made
Princes and I knew it not.
Revel. 12. 11.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their Testimony and they loved not their Lives
unto the Death.
Printed in the Year MDCLXXXVII.
The Preface to the Reader.
PResuming it is thy desire, to answer the holy &
honorable designation I accost thee with, I shall
take the Confidence to assure thee, it is my design
to answer in some measure the expectation,
which the Title of this Treatise would offer; in
the hope, that, wherein I come short (as I indeed confess not
only my jealous fears, but my sensible conviction of my insufficiency
for such a great undertaking) thy Christian tenderness
will impute it to my weakness, and not to any want
of worth in the Cause I manage; which is truly worthy,
weighty, noble, & honorable, in the esteem of all the Lovers
of Christ, that have Zeal for his Honor in exercise:
And therefore as it gives me all the encouragement I have,
in dependence on his furniture, whose Cause it is, to make
such an Essay; So it animates my ambition, albeit I cannot
manage it with any proportion to its merit, yet to move the
Christian Reader to make enquiry about it, and then sure I
am he will find it is Truth I plead for, though my plea be
weak. All I shall further say by way of Preface is to declare
the Reason of the Title and the design of the work.
Though Books use not to be required to render a reason
of their names, which often are arbitrarly imposed, more
for the Authors fancy, and the times fashion than for the
readers Instruction: yet, seeing the times injuries do oblige
the Author to conceal his name, the Title will not obscurely
notify it to some, for whose satisfaction this is mainly intended,
and signify also the Scope of the subject; which
aims at
giving goodly words,
not suggared with Parasitick
sweetness, nor painted with affected pedantry, but fairly
brought forth in unhampered freedom, for the beauty of the
blessing of human & Christian Liberty, in its due & true
boundaries. This was the subject of a discourse, as some
may remember, on that Text whence this Title is taken
Gen. 49. 21. Naphtali is a hind let loose:
In prosecuting of
which, the Speaker with several others, falling at the same
time into the hands of the
hunters,
to learn the worth of that
interrupted subject from the experience of the want of it; an
occasion was given, and interpreted by the Author to be a
Call, to study more the preciousness of that privilege predicated
of
Naphtali,
which is the right an
•
property of the
wrestling Tribe of
Israel,
the persecuted witnesses of Christ
now everywhere preyed upon: And now, providence having
opened a door, for
delivering himself as a roe from the hand
of the hunter,
he thought it his duty, and as necessary a piece
of service as he could do to the Generation, to bring to light
his Lucubrations thereupon: With an endeavor to discover,
to all that are free born, and are not contented slaves
mancipated in a stupid subjection to Tyrants absoluteness;
that, this Character of
Naphtali, satisfied with favor and full
with the blessing of the Lord,
that he is a
hind let loose
from the
yoke of Tyrannical slavery, is far preferable, in the account
of all that understand to be Christians or men, to that infamous
Stigma of
Issachar
(the sin, shame, & misery of this age)
to be
a strong Ass couching under two burdens, and he saw that rest
was good, and the Land that it was pleasant, and bowed his shoulder
to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.
But to all that are
not altogether strangers in
our Israel
it will appear, that this
Title is not ineptly applied to the subject and design of this
Treatise. The party, whose Case and Cause and Contendings
are here treated of, being known to have the same
situation of residence in
Scotland,
that
Naphtali
had in
Israel,
viz.
the West and the South (Deut.
33. 23.) will be found,
among all our
Tribes,
most appositely to bear the signature
of
Naphtali,
who, in their
wrestlings
for the Interest of Christ
and the Liberties of his
Israel,
have mostly
jeoparded their lives
in the high places of the fields;
and chiefly to deserve his Elogy,
being
a hind
(called
wild
by nick-name in the scorn of them
that are at ease, but) truly
weak
in their present wilderness
Condition, to
wrestle
against the force & fraud of their Cruel
& cunning
hunters,
who cease not (when they have now got
the rest of the
Roes and hinds of the field
made fast asleep, under
the bondage of the
Lions dens & Mountains of Leopards,
by a
pretence of a falsely so called
Liberty of Conscience
) to seek
and pursue the chase of them for a prey; Yet, really they are
let loose,
and not only suffered to run loose, as a prey to the
hunters by the unwatchfullness of their keepers, but made
to escape loose, by the mercy of the
Mighty one of Jacob,
from
the nets of the hunters, and snares of the foulers, and from
the yoke of the bondage of these beasts of prey, to whose
Authority
they will not
own
a willing subjection: And being
such
hinds,
so
let loose,
they make it their work, to
give goodly
words,
for the worth and honor and Royalties of their
Princely Master, and for the precious Liberties wherewith
he hath endoted and entrusted his Spouse and Children, and
to keep the
goodly words
of his patience, until he return
as a
Roe or a young Hart upon the Mountains of
Bether. This being
the party, who are represented as the Wild folk of
Scotland,
the design of this Treatise is to hold forth the History of their
manifold
Chases,
the Craft, keenness, & Cruelty of their
hunters,
and the
goodlyness
of the
words
of their
Testimony:
Which, by reason of the likeness of the Testimony of former
Periods with the present, and that the latter may be
vindicated by the former, is resumed from the beginning of
the Church of Scotland's wrestlings against the Enemies of
Christ, and deduced through all the most signal steps of this
long propagated and hereditary War. And lest my
words
should not be
goodly
enough, nor my notions grateful to the
Critics of this age, who cast everything as new and nice,
which is someway singular and not suited to their sentiments;
that it may appear the Cause here cleared and vindicated
is not of yesterday, but older than their Grandfathers
who oppose it, I dare avouch without vanity, there is nothing
here but what is confirmed by Authors of greatest note
& repute in our Church, both ancient & modern, namely,
Buchanan, Knox, Calderwood, Acts of General Assemblies, Cawses
of Wrath, Lex Rex, Apologetical Relation, Naphtali, Ius Populi,
History of the Indulgence, Banders disbanded, Rectius Instruendum,
and some other Authors much respected: whose
Authority, more always repelled by rage than ever yet resisted
by reason, though I value more, than all the vain
oblatrations of the Opposers of this Testimony, and think
it sufficient to confute all imputations of its Novelty, and
to counterbalance the weight that may be laid on the Contradictions
of the greatest that treat on this subject: Yet I do
not lay so much stress on the reason of their Authority, as
on the Authority of their reason; which is here represented
with that Candor and Care, that, lest any should cavil that
they are wrested or wronged, when made to speak so patly
to the present Controversies, I have chosen rather to transcribe
their words, than to borrow their matter dressed up
in my own; except where the prolixity & multiplicity of
their Arguments, as clearly demonstrating that which I
adduce them for as that for which they were primarly intended,
did impose the necessity of abridging them; which
yet is mostly in their own words, though reduced into a Syllogistical
form. But this obloquy of Novelty being anticipated,
when I reflect on the helps I have collected from so
many hands, I am rather afraid, the Truths here delivered
be comtemned as obsolete and antiquate, than cast at for
new speculations. However I am content, yea it is my ambition
that nothing here be looked upon as mine, but that
it may appear, this is an old Plea; and that the party here
pleaded for, who are stigmatized with many singularities,
are a people, who
ask the old paths and the good way, that they
may walk therein;
and though their paths be not now much
paved, by the frequency of passengers, and multitude of
Professors walking therein; and albeit it must indeed be
confessed, the word of their Testimony is some way singular,
that the same things were never the word of Christ's patience,
stated as heads of suffering before; yet they are not
untroden paths, but the same way of Truth, which hath
been maintained by the witnesses of Christ in all the Periods
of our Church, and asserted by the greatest Confessors,
though never before sealed by Martyrs. As for the Arguments
I bring to clear & confirm them, whether they be
accounted mine or borrowed from others, I am very indifferent;
if they prove the point they are brought for, which
I hope they will be sound to do: But of this
•
am confident,
there is nothing here can be condemned, until someone or
more of those grave Authors be confuted, and when that is
done (which will be
ad Calendas Graecas,
or against the 30.
of February) there is something besides here which will
challenge Consideration.
The design then of this work is of great importance: even
no less than to essay, the discussing the difficulties of all our
Conflicts with open Enemies, about the present state of
the Testimony; the vindicating of all the heads of sufferings
sustained thereupon, these 27 years past; the proposing of
the right state of the Testimony for the Interest of Christ,
not only of this but of all former Periods; with an account
of the propagation & prosecution of the witnessings,
wrestlings, and sufferings for it from time to time; to the
end it may appear, not only how great the sufferings have
been, since this fatal Catastrophe and overturning of the
Covenanted Reformation, and unhappy restauration of
Tyrannie and Prelacie; but that the grounds, upon which
they have been stated, are not niceties and novelties (as they
are reproached and reputed by many) but worthy and
weighty Truths of great value and validity, and of near affinity
unto & Conformity with the continued series and succession
of the Testimonies in all former Periods. So that in
this little Treatise must be contained, a Compendious History
of the Church of
Scotland
her Testimony in all ages, a
vindication of the present state of it, yea in effect a short
Epitome of the substance of those famous forecited Authors,
as far as we need to consult them concerning the Controversies
of the present time with Adversaries: Which is
much, and perhaps too much, to be undertaken in so small
a volume. But considering, that many who are concerned
in this Cause, yea the most part who concern themselves
about it, are such who have neither access nor time nor capacity
to revolve the voluminous Labors of these Learned
men, for light in this Case; I have done my best, to bring
them into one body of a portable bulk, with as great brevity
as could consist well with any measure of perspicuity; Not
meddling with anything, but what I thought might some
way conduce to clear some part of the present Testimony.
Every undertaking of this nature, cannot but be liable to
several disadvantages that are unavoidable, this hath many
discouraging and difficult.
One
is, that it shall be exposed to
the Common fate of such representations, to be stigmatized
as a seditious Libel, and so may be sent to the flames to be
confuted; and to enflame the fury of these firebrands, already
hell-hot, into the utmost extremity of rage against the
Author, that ever Cruelty itself at its fullest freedom did
exert, against Truth and reason arraigned and cast for Sedition
and Treason: The only Sanctuary in such a Case is, in
prospect of this, to have the greater care, that nothing be
spoken, but what the Speaker may dare to affirm in the face
of Cruelty itself. A
Second
common disadvantage is obvious
from the Consideration of the humor of the Age, wherein
fancy hath greater force than faith, and nothing is pleasing
but what is parasitical, or attempered to the palate of the
Greatest not of the best; And naked Truth, without the
fairdings of flattery, or paintings of that pâkiness which is
commonly applauded as prudence nowadays, is either
bogled at or exposed to scorn & Contempt; and reason, if
roundly written, except it meet with an honest heart, is
commonly read with a stammering mouth, which puts a T
before it, and then it is stumbled at as
Treason:
This Essay
does expect no Entertainment from any, but such who resolve
to harbor Truth be the hazard what will, even when
the world raises the
Hue
&
Cry
after it, and from such who
are really groaning, either by suffering or Sympathie, under
the same grievances here represented. There is a
Third
which makes it not a little difficult, the quality, quantity,
& intricacy of the matter, here to be confined to such a
Compend. All which together considered, do infer a
fourth
difficulty, that hardly can it get a
pass
through the
Press;
which is blocked up against all such books, that may offer a
manifestation of the innocence of that people, and the injustice
& inhumanity of their enemies; which is their only
hope of preventing the worlds knowledge & condemnation
of their actings. Yea there is
a fifth,
that wants not its own
difficulty, that though the
Press
were patent, yet an empty
Purse,
from a poor impoverished people, will as readily
preclude all access to it, as if it were locked up by Law; but
both together make it hard. But there is a
sixth
disadvantage
yet more discouraging, that the
man
as well as the
money
is
wanting to manage the business: And this needs no other
proof, than the necessity of my poor pen to undertake it,
instead of a better. It must needs be very low with that people,
that stand in need of such a pitiful patrociny as mine is.
Our persecuted brethren elsewhere, have this advantage of
us, that they have Champions to espouse their quarrel,
which we have not; but only such, who, as they are reputed
in the world, so in their own sense, own themselves
to be very unaccomplished for such work; and under this
invincible disadvantage also, that, being forced to a wandering
and unsettled life, they have no conveniency, nor can
be accommodated with time nor helps to perform it; and
so circumstantiated, that either it must be done at this time,
and in this manner, or not at all. In the
seventh
place, we
are at a greater loss than any suffering people, in that among
all other bitter ingredients we have this Gall also in our
Cup, that they that suffer most among us have not the comfort
& benefit of the Sympathie of others, that sufferers use
to have from good people. The reason of this makes an
Eight
discouragement, besides what is said above; that not
only is the Case & Cause of that poor persecuted & wasted
Witnessing Remnant obscure in itself, and not known in
the world, nay not so much as in the very neighbouring
Churches of
England & Ireland;
but also more obscured by
the malice of Enemies, traducing, calumniating, & reproaching
that righteous Remnant whom they intend to
ruin; not indeed as Heretics (which is the case of other
suffering Churches, wherein they have the advantage of us
also, that though the name be more odious, yet it makes the
notion of their Cause and the nature of their enemies more
notour, and is more effectual to conciliate Sympathie from
all that know, that Protestants are persecuted by Papists
under the notion of Heretics; But we are at a loss in this,
that our Persecutors, at least the most part of the Executioners
of the Persecution, will not as yet avouch that Protestanism
is Heresy, though we want not this Nick-name
likewise from the Chief of them, that are professed Papists)
but as
Schismatics, Seditious, Rebells, Traitors, Murderers, holding
Principles inconsistent with Government
(to wit, their Tyranny)
and
the peace of human Society
(to wit, their Association
against Religion and liberty) and therefore to be exterminated
out of the world. And this Imposture covering all
their mischiefs, hath prevailed so far with the blinded world,
that under this brand the Consideration of their Case &
Cause is buried, without farther inquiry. This were yet
more tolerable from open enemies; if there were not another
more pressing discouragement in the
Ninth
place, peculiar
to them in
Scotland;
that having to do with treacherous
as well as Truculent Enemies, as they have been much
destroyed by open force, so much more by fraud: while by
ensnaring favors some have been flattered from the Testimony,
others disdaining & suspecting, as well as deprived
of and secluded from, these favors, have s
•
uck to it; hence
Defection brought on Division, and Division Confusion,
which hath reduced the Reformation to a ruinous heap. In
the
next
place, as the Consequent of the former, while the
purer Remnant have been resolutely prosecuting the Testimony,
and not only keeping themselves free of, and standing
at the surthest distance from, all degrees of Complyance,
but also witnessing against their Brethren involved
in them, and thinking it their duty to discountenance them
in these Corruptions & backslidings; they have been therefore
reproached and misrepresented very industriously, as
Ignorant, imprudent, transported with blind Zeal, Extravagant,
wild, Separatists, espousing new & nice notions, Rejecters
of the Ministry, Imposers on the Ministry, Denyers of all Government,
Usurpers of an imaginary Government of their own, that
died as fools, and as guilty of their own blood.
By which odious
& invidious obloquies, they have easily prevailed with many,
both at home & abroad, that are more credulous than considerate,
to believe these things of them: Hence, with prejudicate
people a contrary Representation will find difficult
acceptance. However this
Moreover
is another great disadvantage,
and renders an Essay to vindicate their sufferings
very uneasy, that they are thrust at & tosted on both hands,
by Enemies & professed friends: And by Enemies, that are
not all
Papists:
but professed
Protestants,
owning the same
fundamentals in opinion, though in practice not holding
the same Head: And by friends, that not only are
Protestants,
but
Presbyterians,
under the bonds of the same Solemn & Sacred
Covenants,
the obligation whereof they still own; And
not only so, but such, whose Piety & Godliness cannot be
doubted. This is a
Gravamen
grievous to bear, & greatly aggravates
the difficulty.
Finally,
the greatest of all is, that not
only their Cause is rendered
odious,
but must be confessed
truly to be
odd
& someway
singular;
and therefore will seem
strange & surprising to Strangers, to hear an account of extraordinary
sufferings for & upon extraordinary Causes,
which never were formerly stated as heads of suffering. For
now it is the Dragons chiefest stratagem with us, like to be
the most subtle, ensnaring, & successful of any, that ever
he set on work since ever he began this War with the Lamb,
(which yet I hope will prove as fatal to his Interest as the
former) to bring the sufferings of Christ's witnesses to such
a state, that may seem to spectators little or nothing relative
to Religion, that so he may destroy both them and their Testimony
unlamented, and by that Trick divert others from
concerting that same necessary witness in the season thereof.
And for this end he will change both matter & manner, in
managing the War. He will not now persecute for the old
Controverted heads of Popery, with fire & faggot as formerly,
for refusing to
worship Our Lady,
or the
blessed Sacrament
of the Altar.
These weapons & Engines are so worn
out of use, that they will not work now as they did before.
And that old Baud of
Babylon
is become so ugly and out of
date, that he does not believe her beauty can be so bewitching,
except she put on a new busk. But her Eldest Daughter,
the
Prelatical Church,
of the same Complexion with herself,
except that she is coloured with
Protestant
paint, is fitter
for his service, to allure our Land into fornication; And
who will not be entyced, must be forced to Communion
with her, by finings, confynings, exactions, extortions,
& impositions of Oaths &c. Religion must be little concerned
here: for there is Preaching enough, and of Protestant Doctrine
too, and without the Monkie-Tricks, & Montebank
shows, & fopperies of
English-Popish Ceremonies,
&
Lyturgical services: What would they be at? Is it not better
to yield to this, than to fall into the hand of the
Scottish-Spanish-Inquisition,
that will rack the Purse, the Body, &
Conscience, and all? This is one Complex head of suffering,
and thought a very small one by many. But now finding
this would not do his business yet, it looked too like Religion
still: He hath therefore invented a new Machin: He
will not now Persecute, nor force the Conscience at all (so
good natured is the Devil and his Lievetenant grown, in
their old age) for
matters of mere Religion.
Nay (if we may
believe him, who when he speaketh a lie speaketh it of his
own) he hath not done it this long time, but only, in all the
violent Courses exercised against these Sufferers, he hath
been Magistratically chastising the disobedience & rebellion,
of a few turbulent Traitors, who would not own the Government.
And thus under the notion of Rebellion, &
disouning Authority, he hath had access & success to destroy
almost an innumerable number of honest & innocent, faithful
& fruitful, lovers of Christ; who though indeed they
have had their sufferings stated upon those points, yet I
doubt not shall be found among the followers of the Lamb,
and Confessors and Martyrs of Christ, who have overcome
by the blood of the Lamb & the word of their Testimony,
not loving their lives unto the Death, whose blood is crying
for vengeance against the shedders thereof, And He will
make inquisition for it, when He comes to
overturn, overturn,
& take His own
right,
for which they have been Contending.
Nevertheless this is a prejudice too prevalent with
many, to misregard the Case & Cause of these Contenders,
or anything that can be said to represent them favourablie.
And all these disadvantages, difficulties, & discouragements
together considered, would soon cool my Courage, and
at first blush make me leave off before I begin, were I not
persuaded that it is the Cause of Christ these reproached
people are suffering for, and that their great sufferings &
reproaches are both alike unjust, from both which the Lord
will vindicate them, & bring forth their righteousness as
the light & their judgment as the noon day,
•
n His own time.
In confidence of which, depending on his Conduct, I shall
undertake, as briefly as is possible for me, to represent their
case, and clear the Cause, so far at least as concerns their
Contest with their pesecuting Enemies, wi
•
h whom I only
deal at present; it not being my purpose to descend particularly
into their necessitated Contendings with Complying
Brethren, partly because they would make the volume to
excresce unto too great a bulk, & because they are to be
seen elsewhere; yet in effect these also are not only here
narratively deduced, but whatever is odious in them is vindicated,
& what is difficult in some measure enodated.
But it may be expected and desiderated, that I should give
a distinct deduction of all the Steps of this woeful defection,
against which a great part of the Testimony hath been stated:
but I would have the Reader advertised, I touch only that
part of the Testimony which hath been sealed by severe sufferings
from enemies. It were a Task transcending my Capacity,
and a Theme wherein I have no pleasure, besides
that it is inconsistent with my Leasure, to enlarge upon such
a sad and shameful subject: Though the world indeed is at a
loss, that they that would do it cannot, and they that
would & should do it will not; And it is a greater loss, not
only to
Scotland,
but also to the whole Christian world, that
what hath been done in this kind already cannot see the light,
or rather that the Church of Christ is deprived of its light,
which through the injury of the times, & the disingenuous
Prudence of some, who suffer themselves to be imposed
upon by the Patrons of Defection, is embezilled & suppressed.
I mean that excellent & faithful
History of Defection,
the
posthumous work of famous
Mr. M'ward,
whose praise is
in the Churches: which if they that have it in keeping, would
do themselves the honor, and the world the happiness, of
publishing it, there would be no more need to discover, from
whence, to what, and how, that Church hath fallen & degenerate;
nor so great dissicultie in that indisputable & indispensable
duty that such a day calls for, in searching &
trying our ways to the end we may turn again to the Lord;
Nor any necessity for my poor essay, to invite & incite the
people of the lord to take Cognizance & Compassion of
poor perishing
Scotland.
I wish that they who have it, may
consult more their own duty and credit, and what they owe
to the memory of the dead, the Churches edification, the
days Testimony, and the honor of Christ, than to continue
robbing the world of such a Treasure; wich I doubt not
to call Treason against Christ, & Sacrilege against the
Church, & stick not to tell them, if they will not publish it,
the world must know there was such a thing done. But it
not being my design now, to detect or reflect upon all the
defections of that declining, & by declensions divided, &
by divisions almost (only not) destroyed Church; I shall
medle with them no further, than what is necessary to clear
the cause; refering the knowledge and account of them,
either to the Notoriety of the grossest of them, or to the
more particular enarration of them, to be found in papers
emitted & published by the Contenders against them: Of
which one is of this same years edition, entitled,
The Informatory
vindication of a poor, wasted, misrepresented Remnant,
&c.
In which may be evident, that notwithstanding of all
this darkness & distress, defection & division, under which
the Church of
Scotland
hath been so long & is still laboring,
there is yet a poor wasted, wounded, rent & almost ruined,
but still wrestling & witnessing Remnant, of Professors
& Confessors of Christ there, who though they have
not only had their soulls exceedingly filled with the scorning
of those that are at ease & with the contempt of the proud,
but their bodies also killed all day long and counted as sheep
for the slaughter, have yet through grace endeavored to
overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their
Testimony, & have not loved their lives dear unto the death,
& have continued to this day contending both against Professed
Enemies, & also declining friends, sustaining from
both the utmost of rage & reproach. And since that little
book gives an account, what their Conten
•
ings have been
against their backdrawing brethren on the right & left hand,
I shall spare labor to offer a discussion of them, only endeavor
to make it not difficult to decide & determine, on
whose side Truth lies, by what is here hinted.
I shall conclude, with advertising the Reader of one thing
further; that, as this Reproached people, for whose Testimony
I am pleading, is now the only party that is persecuted
in
Scotland
(some few excepted; who are exempted
from the pretended favor of the current Indemnities) &
their persecution still continues, notwithstanding of the impudent
as well as insnaring Declarations of Universal Liberty
to all Dissenters, which they look upon as their honor
& happiness, to be thought incapable of Tyrannical & Antichristian
favors; So their past & present oppressions &
sufferings are only here in general agregated described as to
their kinds, & vindicated as to their causes: the particular
deduction of their number, weight, & measure; of their
names that have been martyred & murdered, both by formality
of Law & without all formality of Law, by Sea &
Land, City & Country, on Scaffolds & in the fields; of the
manner of their sufferings; & of the form of their Trialls &
Testimonies, being intended shortly (if the Lord will) to
be emitted & published in a book by itself; which will discover
to the world as rare instances of the injustice, illegality,
& inhumanity of the
Scottish Inquisition,
& of the innocence,
zeal, ingenuity, & patience of the witnesses of
Christ, as readily can be instanced in these latter ages. Only
here is a taste till more come: which if the Lord shall
bless for its designed end, the Glory of God, the vindication
of Truth, the information & satisfaction of all Serious
Sympathisers with
Zion's
sorrows, & the Conviction or
Confutation of Reproachers, so far at least as to make them
surcease from their invidious charges of things whereof the
innocence is here vindicated, I have obtained all my design,
& shall desire to give the Lord the praise.
To fill up the vacancy of this page, it
will not be unprofitable for the Reader,
to cast his eye upon these Sentences
of Great Authors, which relate
to some heads of the following
discourse.
Erasm. Ut Atagen, aliás vocalis, captus obiuutescit, ita
quibusdam servitus adimit vocem, qui liberi loquuntur
libere.
Nazianzen. Melius est pro pietate dissidium, quam concordia
fucata.
Bernard. Si autem de veritate sumitur scandalum, utilius
est ut scandalum oriatur, quam veritas relinquatur.
Bracton. Rex est qui been regit, Tyramius qui populum
opprimit.
Cicero. Amittit is omne imperii jus, qui e
•
imperio Rempublicam
oppugnat.
Aristot. Qui legi paret, is Deo & legi paret; qui Regi,
homini & belluae.
Sweton. Sub paena perjurii non tenentur fidem fervare Regi
degeneri.
Ambrose. Qui non repellit a socio injuriam, si potest, tam
est in vitio quam ill qui facit.
Chamier. At Cives omnes jus habent insurgendi contra Tyrannos,
qui vi aperta regna occupant.
Barclai. Contra Monarchom. Tyrannos, ut hosts publicos,
non solum ab universo populo, sed à singulis etiam,
impeti caedique, jure optimo posse, tota Antiquitas censuit.
AN
Historical Representation
OF THE
TESTIMONIES
OF THE
Church of Scotland,
With the true state of the same in all
the Periods thereof.WITH
A Vindication of the present Testimony.
T
He Church of Christ, in the impression of
all that have the least spark of the days Spirit,
is now brought to such a doleful & dreadful
Case & Crisis; that if it may not be reckoned
The killing of the Witnesses:
yet all that
have or desire the
knowledge of the times,
will judge it no
impeachment to the Prophecy to say, it is either very like
or near unto it. When now the Devil is come down in
great wrath as knowing his time is but short, and therefore
exerting all the energy of the venom & violence, Craft &
Cruelty of the Dragon: And Antichrist,
alias
Pope, his
Captain General, is now universally prevailing, and plying
all his hellish Engines, to batter down, & bury under
the rubbish of Everlasting Darkness, what is left to be destroyed
of the work of Reformation: And the Crowned
heads or horns of the Beast, the Tyrants,
alias
Kings, of
Europe,
his Council of War, are advancing their Prerogatives
upon the ruins of the Nations & Churches Privileges,
to such a pitch of Absoluteness; & improving &
employing their power, for promoving their Masters (the
Devil & Antichrists) Interests, to whom they have gifted
the Churches, mancipated their own, and sacrificed the
Nations Interest; and that with such combination of Counsels,
& Countenance of providential success, that all the
Powers of Hell, the Principalities of Earth, & the Providence
of Heaven, overruling all things for the accomplishment
or the Divine purpose, & purchase, & prediction,
seem to conspire to produce that prodigious Period, and
ultimus Conatus
of the Churches Enemy. And the commencement
is so far advanced, that, now in all the Churches
of
Europe,
either the Witnesses of Christ are
a killing,
or the witness for Christ is in a great measure
killed;
either
the followers of the Lamb, who are cal
•
ed & chosen &
faithful, are
killed
for their Testimony, or fainting in their
Zeal, and falling from their first Love, they are cooled or
cajoled from their Testimony. Some are indulging themselves
in their ease, settleing on their Lees, & sleeping in
a stupid security; And, while the Lord is roaring from
above, & His & their Enemies raging about them, & designing
to raze them after they have ruined their Neighbors,
they are rotting away under the destructive Distempers
of detestable Neutrality, loathsome lul
•
warmness, declining
& decaying in Corruptions, defections, divisions,
distractions, confusions, & so judicially infatuated with
darkness & delusions, that they forget & forgo the necessary
Testimony of the day. Others again, outwearied with
the length & weight of the Trial, under the temptation of
Antichrists formidable strength on the one hand, & a deceitful
prospect of an insnaring Liberty on the other, are
overcome either to be hectored or flattered from their Testimony.
And so in these Churches, comprehending all
that are free from Persecution at this time, the Witness for
Christ is in a great measure killed. Other Churches, which
are keeping & contending for the word of Christ's patience,
are so wasted. & almost worn out, with Persecutions,
afflictions, & calamities, that, after they have been & are
(so much) daily killed for the Word of God, & the Testimony
of Jesus, it may well be said, there hath been & is a
great slaughter of the Witnesses. And it were hard to determine,
which of them can give the largest & most lamentable
account of their sufferings, or which of them have
had the greatest & most grievous experiences, of the Treachery
& Truculency, Violence & Villanie, of Atheistical
& Papistical Enemies: whether the Reformed Church of
France,
howling under the paw of that devouring Lyon, the
French
Tyrant; or the Protestants of
Hungary,
under the
tearing Clawes of that ravenous Eagle the Tyrant of
Austria;
or those of
Piedemont,
under the grassant Tyranny of
that little Ty
•
er of
Savoy.
The accounts they give in print,
the reports they bring with them in their flight from their
respective Countries, & the little Hints we have in
Gazetts
& News Letters, must needs enforce a conviction, if
not extort a Compassion, of the greatness of their pressures;
& that with such a parity, that it is doubtful which preponderats.
I shall not make comparisons, nor aggravate nor
extenuate the sufferings of any of the Churches of Christ,
beyond or below their due measures: But will presume to
plead, that
Scotland,
another Ancient & sometimes famous
Reformed Church, be enrolled in the Catalogue of
suffering Churches, besides these mentioned; and crave,
that she may have a share of that Charity & Sympathy,
which is the demand & desire of afflicted Churches of
Christ, from all the fellow members of that same body:
And so much the rather is this her due; that, whereas
among all the rest of the Churches, Christ's witnesses are
killed in some particular respect, & each of them have their
own proper complaint of it; some upon the account of
Persecution, some of defection, division &c. Of this it
may be said, in all respects, both the witnesses of Christ,
and a witness for Christ, are killed with a witness. This is
the Case of the sometimes Renouned, famous, faithful,
& fruitful, Reformed, Covenanted Church of
Scotland,
famous for unity, faithful for verity, fruitful in the purity
of Doctrine, Worship, Discipline, & Government;
which now, for these 27 years past, under the Domination
of the late Tyrant & present Usurper of
Britain,
hath
been so wasted with oppression, wounded with Persecution,
rent with Division, ruined with defection, that now
she is as much despised, as she was before admired: And
her Witness & Testimony for Reformation, is now as far
depressed & suppressed in obscurity as it was formerly declared
& depredicated in glory & honor. And yet, which
should move the greater commiseration, her witnessings
& wrestlings, Trials & Tentations, have not been inferior,
in manner or measure, quality or continuance, to
any of the forementioned Churches, though in extent not so
great, because her precinct is not so large, whereby the
number of her oppressed & murdered Children could not
be so multiplied, though her
Martyrs
be more, and the
manner of their Murder more illegal, than can be instanced
in any of them, during that time. A particular enumeration
or enarration whereof, cannot be here exhibited, but
is referred & reserved to a peculiar Treatise of that Subject,
which ere long the world may see. Only I shall give a
compendious account of the kinds & causes, grounds and
Heads, of their sufferings, who have been most slighted
& least sympathised with, though they have sustained the
greatest severities of any; and inend endeavor to vindicate
the Merit of their Cause, in the most principal heads upon
which their sufferings have been stated: Whereby it will
appear to impartial men, that will not be imposed upon,
there hath been, & yet is, a great & grievous, & some
way uparalleled, Persecution in
Scotland,
at least inferior
to none: Which hath not hitherto been culy considered,
with any proportion to the importance thereof.
But though this be the Scope, it is not the sum of what is
intended in this Discourse. The Method I have proposed
to prosecute it withal, will discover it: Which is. 1. To
give a brief & summary account, of the Series & Succession,
success & result, of the several Contendings of the Witnesses
of Christ, against His Enemies in
Scotland
from time
to time; that it may appear; whether or not the present
sufferings as now stated can be condemned, if the former be
approven. 2. To rehearse some of the chief means, methods,
& measures, that the Popish, Prelatical, & Malignant saction,
have managed, for the ruin of this witnessing Remnant,
& some of the most signal steps of sufferings sustained
by & from these within these 27 years; by which it will
appear, that the Persecution in
Scotland
hath been very remarkable
(though little regarded) both in respect of the
injustice, illegality, & inhumanity of the Persecutors, &
in respect of the innocence, Zeal, & ingenuity of the
Persecuted. 3. To clear the state & vindicate the merit of
the cause of their sufferings, as to the most material heads
of it, that are most controverted at this time. In the
first
of
these, I must study all compendious brevity, as may consist
with the clearing of my Scope: which is not to enlarge
an Historical deduction, of the rise & result, progress &
prosecution, occasion & continuation, of every Controversy
the Church hath had with her several Adversaries in
several Periods; But only to hint at the chief Heads of
their contendings, with a design to make it appear; that
the most material Heads of sufferings that are now condemned,
as new & nice notions, have been transmitted
from age to age, from the beginning even to this present
time, through all the Periods of this Church.
PERIOD. I.
Comprehending the Testimony of the Culdees.
IT is not without reason reckoned among the peculiar
prerogatives of the renowned Church of
Scotland,
that
Christ's conquest in the conversion of that Nation, is
one of the most eminent Accomplishments of Scripture
Prophecies, of the propagation of His Kingdom in the
New Testament Dispensation: Not only because it was,
when called out of Gentile Paganism, among the rudest
of
Heathen
Nations, & in the ackowledgment of all, among
the
uttermost parts of the Earth,
which were given to Christ
for His inheritance & possession; Whereunto He had, &
hath still, undoubted right, by His Fathers grant, & by
His own purchase; and took Infeofment of it by a glorious
conquest, of that Land which the Roman Arms could
never subdue, & erected His victorious Trophies there,
whither their Triumphs could never penetrate, obtaining
& thereby accomplishing that predicted Song of praise,
From the uttermost parts of the Earth have we heard Songs, even
Glory to the righteous;
Which gives us groun
•
to expect, that
however Christ's Interest there be now very low, and like
to be lost as a prey in the Dragons Mouth, Yet Christ, having
such undoubted & manifold right to it, will not so easily
quit or forego His possession: But also because, He hath
so constantly continued His possession, & maintained His
Title, by a long course of Contendings, by the Testimonies
of His witnesses, against the Invaders thereof, through
all the Periods of the Church, from the very infancy of
this new Dispensation: And because,
Scotland's
conversion
into the Christian Faith was among the first fruits of
the Gentiles, of the oldest date, that any standing Church
holding the head Christ this day can deduce its original
from. For it is clear from Ancient Records, the Christian
Faith was embraced here, a few years after the Ascension
of our Savior, being taught by the Disciples of
John
the
Apostle; & received afterwards great increment from the
Brittons,
flying to
Scotland
to escape the Persecution of the
Emperor
Domitian,
& was long promoted by the ancient
Culdees
or
Cultores Dei;
men whose memory is still fragrant,
for piety & purity of faith & life, who continued
some hundreds of years, under various vicissitudes of Providence,
before either
Prelacy
or
Popery
was known in
Scotland.
They were first universally encouraged by King
Cratilinth,
in the time of the last Persecution under
Dioclesian,
which brought many of Christ's witnesses hither for
Shelter, who were very helpful for the settling of Truth,
& the total extirpation of the Idolatry of the
Druids,
the
Heathen Priests; whereby the pure Doctrine, Worship,
& Government also of Christ's Institution, was established
& continued many years, while these Witnesses of Christ
had no other emulation but of well doing & to advance
Piety. In this Period, these ancient & first Confessors &
Witnesses of Christ, did wrestle strenously, according to
their strength & light, for the Truths & words of Christ's
patience, controverted in their day, both against professed
Enemies Pagan Persecutors &
〈◊〉
, & pretended friends
corrupters of the Faith. Their Testimony was stated, in a
peculiar manner, for the verity, value, & virtue of Christ's
Natures & Offices, in
〈…〉
rel
••
ive to either,
against the Malignants & Sectaries of their time: particularly
for the concerns of His Pr
•
phetical Office. And
though we be at a loss, that for the most art their witness
is buried in oblivion, through the darkness of the times
succeeding: yet the scraps & fragments that are left, do
furnish us with these few Remarks.
I. They maintained the verity of the Christian Doctrine,
against both Pagan Persecutors, & Heretical perverters;
And the purity of His instituted worship, without the vanity
of human inventions, or conformity with, either
the
Druids
on the one hand, or the Heretics on the other:
with which, sometime before the end of that Period, they
were in
•
ested: Chiefly the
Pelagians,
with whom the faithful
would have no communion, but abstracted themselves
in a Monastical life, living & exercising their Religion
in Cells, from whence many places in the Country yet
retain the name, as
Kilmarnock, Kil-Patrick
&c. that is the
Cells of these eminent men among the
Culdees.
And their
Government also, was that of the primitive order without
Bishops,
with little vanity, but great simplicity & holiness.
Many Authors do testity, that near about 400 years the
Church of Scotland knew nothing of the Episcopal Hierarchy,
until
Pa
•
adius
brought it in, & not without great
opposition.
II. In these Recesses, they had the advantage, both of
outward peace when others were in trouble, & of inward
peace of conscience, when others were debauched with
many conjurations, & abjurations, combinations & confederacies,
imposed & exacted by them that prevailed for
the time: whereby they might both keep themselves free
of insnaring
Oaths,
perfidious complyances, &
Associations
with the wicked, & also entertain & encourage the oppressed
for equity, who fled unto their sanctuary for safety.
We find they refused to enter into League with malignant
Enemies. One memorable passage I shall insert
(though strictly it belong not to this
Period,
as I distinguish
it, yet falling out, within 80 years thereafter, in the time
of the
Culdees,
it will not obscurely evidence the truth of
this)
Goranus
the 45 King of
Scots,
earnestly dissuaded
Lothus,
King of
Picts,
to entertain the League with the
Saxons,
not only because they were treacherous & cruel, but because
they were Enemies to the Countre
•
& to the Religion
they professed, concluding thus,
Homi
•
i vero Christiano
id longe omnium videri
&c.
But to a Christian nothing must seem
more grievous, than to consent to such a Covenant, as will extinguish
the Christian Religion, & reduce the profane Customs of
the Heathen, & arm wicked Tyrants the enemies of all humanity
& piety against God & His Law:
whereupon
Lothus
was persuaded
to relinquish the
Saxons. Buchan. Histor. rer. Scotic.
III. Though they were not for partaking in wicked unnecessary
Wars, without authority or against it; yet we have
ground to conclude, they were for War, & did maintain
the principle of resisting Tyrannie: since there was never
more of the pactice of it, nor more happy resistances in any
age, than in that. Where we find, that, as their Ancestors
had frequently done before, so they also followed their
footsteps, in resisting, reduceing to order. repressing, &
bringing to condign punishment, Tyrant; & Usurpers;
And thought those actions, which their Fathers did by the
light of nature & dictates of reason, worthy of imitation,
when they had the advantage of the light of Revelation &
dictates of Faith; the one being indeed moderate & directed
but no ways contradicted by the other. Therefore we read;
that, as their Predecessors had done with
Thereus
the 8
th
King of
Scotland,
whom they banished in the year before
Christ's Incarnation 173. With
Durstus
the II King, whom
they slew in Battle, in the year before Christ 107.
Evenus
3.
who was imprisoned & died there, in the year before
Christ 12.
Dardanus,
the 20
th
King, who was taken in
Battle, beheaded by his own Subjects, his head exposed to
Mockage, & his body cast into a sink,
Anno Christi
72.
Luctatus
the 22. King, who was slain for his Leachery &
Tyranny,
anno 110. Mogaldus
the 23. King, slain
anno
113.
Conarus
the 24. King, a Leacherous tyrant, died in Prison,
anno 149. Satrael
the 26. King, hanged
anno
159. So,
after the Christian Faith was publicly professed, they
pursued
Athirco,
the 29. King, when degenerate into
Tyranny, who was forced to kill himself
anno
231. They
slew
Nathalocus,
the 30. King, & cast him into a privy
anno
242. They beheaded
Romachus,
the 36. King, and
carried about his head for a show,
anno
348. As they did
with many others afterwards, as witnesseth
Buchan. lib.
4.
Histor. Scotic,
IV. Whence it is evident, that as they attained, even in
these primitive times, & maintained the purity & freedom
of their Ministry, independent on Pope, Prelate, or
any human Supremacy (that Antichristian Hierarchy, &
Erastian blasphemy, not being known in those days) so
they contended for the order & boundaries of the Magistracy,
according to God's appointment & the fundamental
constitutions of their Government; & thought it their duty
to shake off the yoke, & disoune the Authority of these
Tyrants that destroyed the same. Yea we find that even
for incapacity, stupidity, & folly, they disouned the Relation
of a Magistrate, & disposed of the Government
another way, as they did with
Ethodius
2. whose authority
they did own, but
Titulo tenus.
See
Buchan. loco Citato,
PERIOD. II.
Comprehending the Testimony of the same
Culdees with that of the Lollards.
THe following Period was that fatal one, that brought
in universal Darkness on the face of the whole
Church of Christ, and on
Scotland
with the first of
them: which, as it received very early Christianity, so it
was with the first corrupted with Antichristianism: For
that
Mystorie of iniquity
that had been long working, till
he who letted
was taken out of the way, found
Scotland
ripe
for it when it came: which, while the Dragon did persecute
the woman in the wilderness, did vallantly repel his Assaults,
but when the Beast did arise, to whom he gave his
power, he prevailed more by his subtlety, than his rampant
Predecessor could do by his rage.
Scotland
could Resist the
Roman Legions
while heathenish, but not the
Roman Locusts
when Antichristian. At his very first appearance in the
world under the Character of Antichrist, his harbinger
Palladius
brought in
Prelacy
to
Scotland,
& by that conveyance
the contagion of Popery: which hath always been,
as everywhere so especially in
Scotland,
both the Mother
& Daughter, cause & effect, occasion & consequence, of
Popery.
These rose, stood, & lived together, & sometimes did
also fall together: & we have ground to hope, that they shall
fall again; & their final & fatal fall is not fa
•
off. Whatever
difficulty Authors do make, in calculating the Epocha of
the 42
months
of Antichrists duration in the world, because
of the obscurity of his first rise; yet there needs not be much
perplexity in finding out that Epocha in
Scotland,
nor so
much discouragment from the fancied permanency of that
Kingdom of wickedness. For if it be certain, as it will not
be much disputed, that Popery & Prelacy came in by
Palladius,
sent Legate by Pope
Celestine,
about the year 450. then
if we add 42
Moneths
or 1260
Prophetical d
•
yes,
that is years,
we may have a comfortable prospect of their Tragical conclusion.
And though both clashings & combinations, oppositions
& conjunctions, this day may seem to have a terrible
aspect, portending a darker hour before the Dawning; yet all
these
•
eelings & revolutions, though they be Symptoms of
wrath incumbent upon us for our sins, they may be looked
upon, through a prospect of faith, as presages & prognostics
of Mercy impendent for His Names Sake, encouraging
us, when we see these dreadful things come to pass in
our day, to lift up our heads for the day of our Redemption
draweth nigh. This dark Period continued
•
igh about 1100
years, in which though Christ's witnesses were very few,
yet He had some witnessing & Prophecieing in sackcloth
all the while. Their Testimony was the same with that of
the
Waldenses
&
Albigenses,
slated upon the grounds of
their secession or rather abstraction from that
Mystery Babylon,
Mot
•••
r of harlots
Popery & Prelacy, for their corruption
in Doctrine, worship, Discipline, & Government.
And did more particularly relate to the concerns of Christ's
Priestly Office, which was transmitted from the
Culdees
to the
Lollards,
And by them handed down to the Instruments
of Reformation, in the following Period. Their
Testimony indeed was not
Active,
by way of forcible
resistance, against the Sovereign Powers; but
passive,
by
way of Confession & Martyrdom, & sufferings & verbal
contendings, & witnessings against the prevailing corruptions
of the time. And no wonder it should be so, & in this
some way different from ours, because that was a dispensation
of suffering, when Antichrist was on the Ascendant,
& they had no call nor capacity to oppose him any
other way, and were now spirited for this passive Testimony,
in which circumstances they are an excellent pattern
for imitation, but not an example for confutation of
that principle of defensive resistence which they never contradicted,
& had never occasion to confirm by their practice.
But as in their manageing their Testimony, their manner
was someway different from ours on this respect; so
they had far the advantage of us, that their cause was so
clearly stated upon the greatest of heads of sufferings, having
the clearest connection with the fundamentals of Religion.
Yet we shall find in this Period our Heads of suffering
someway homologated, if we consider.
I. That as they did faithfully keep & contend for the word
of Christ's patience under that dispensation, in asserting &
maintani
•
g both the verity of Christ's Doctrine, & the purity
of His Worship, by testifieing against the corruptions,
errors, Idolatries, & Superstitions of Popery; so they did
constantly bear witness against the usurpation & Tyrannical
domination of the Antichristian Prelates. And as the
Culdees
did vigorously oppose their first introduction, and
after aspiring domination, as well as the corruptions of
their Doctrine, As we have the contendings of Eminent
witnesses recorded from age to age; in the fourth & fifth
Age,
Columbe, Libthac, Ethernan, Kintogerne
or
Mungo;
in the Sexth & seventh Age,
Colmanus, C
•
emens,
&
Samson
with others, in the Eight & ninth Age,
Alcuin, Rabanus
Maurus, Johannes Scotus Acrigena,
are noted in History;
And the
Lollards,
by their Examinations & Testimonies,
are found to have witnessed against the exercise of their
power, & sometimes against the very Nature of their power
it self: so in their practice, they condemned Prelacy as well
as Popery, in that their Ministers did in much painfullness,
poverty, simplicity, Humility, & Equality, observe the
Institution of our Lord. And so far as their light served,
& had occasion to inquire into this point, they acknowledged
no officer in the House of God superior to a preaching
Minister, & according to this standart they rejected & craved
Reformation of exorbitant Prelacy. And it is plain that
they were frequently discovered, by discountinanceing &
withdrawing from their superstitions & Idolatrous worship:
for all which, when they could not escape nor repel their
violence, they cheerfuly embraced & endured the flames.
II. That their Adversaries did manage their cruel craft,
& crafty cruelty, in murdering those Servants of God,
much after the same methods that ours do; except that they
are many stages outdone by their successors, as much as
perfect Artists do outstrip the rude beginnings of Apprentices.
But on the other hand, the Suffe
•
ers in our day,
that would follow the example of those Worthies under
Popery, would be much condemned by this generation,
even by them that commend the matter of their Testimony,
though they will not allow the manner of it to be imitated
in this day. The Adversaries of Christ in this & that
generation, are more like then his Confe
•
sors & witnesses
are. The Adversaries then, when constrained by diversions
of the times troubles, or when their designs were
not ripe, pretended more moderation & aversation from
severity, but no sooner got they opportunity (which always
they sought) but so soon they renewed the Battle
against Jesus Christ; so now: when they had seven abominations
in their hearts, & many cursed designs in their
heads, they always spoke fairest; so now: when they had
a mind to execute their cruelty, they would resolve beforhand
whom to pitch upon before conviction; so now: And
when so resolved, the least pretence of a fault, obnoxious
to their wicked Law, would serve their design; so now:
They used then to forge Articles, & falsely misrepresent
their answers, & declarations of their principles; so now.
Yet on the other hand, if now poor sufferers should glory
in that they are counted worthy to suffer shame for the
name of Christ, as they did then; If now they should suffer
with as great cheerfullnesse, for the smallest points as
for the greatest heads, as they did then, who endured the
flames as gallantly, for eating a Goose upon Friday, as
others did for the Doctrine of Justification, or Purgatory,
or Indulgences, or worshipping of Images & Saints; If
now they should speak for every truth in question, with all
simplicity & plainness, without reserves or shifts declining
a Testimony, as they did; If they should supersede from
all applications to their Enemies for savor, & not medle
with either petitioning or bonding with them, as they did;
nay not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a
better resurrection: Then they might expect the severe
Censure of ignorant & precise fools, as the most part who
suffer now are counted.
III. That they stood aloof from every appearance of a
base
Complyance
with them; not so much as to give them an
interpretative sign of it, which in their meaning might be
thought a recantation, though abstractly consideredit might
be capable of a more favorable construction: As the required
burning of their Bill
was; which might have been
thought a condemning of their accusations: but because
that was not their Adversaries sense of it, they durst not do
it. Not like many now a days, who will not be solicitous
to consult that. Neither would they take any of their
Oaths,
nor pay any of their Eccllesiastical Exactions, as
we find in the Articles brought in against the
Lollards
of
Kyle. Knox Hist. of Reform.
These things are easily complied
with now: and such as will suffer upon such things are condemned.
IV. That while the Love of God and his blessed Truth,
and the precepts, promise, & presence of our Lord Jesus
Christ, did enable them into all patience with joy, in a passive
Testimony, being by the call of a clear 8: necessary providence
sent & set forth to behis witnesses; they did not indeed
endeavor any resistence: yet we find they never
resigned nor abandoned that first & most just privilege of
resistence;
nay, nor bringing public
beasts of prey
to condign
punishment, in an extraordinary way of vindictive
Justice, for the Murder of the Saints. As, upon the Murder
of M
r
.
George Wishchard,
was done with Cardinal
Beaton,
who was slain in the tower of
St. Andrew's
by
James
Melvin:
who perceiving his consorts in the interprise moved
with passion, withdrew them & said;
this work & judgment
of God, although it be secret,
ought to be
done with greater
gravity,
And, presenting the point of the sword to the
Cardinal, said,
Repent thee of thy former wicked life, but especially
of the shedding of the blood of that notable instrument of God,
M
r
. George Wishchard,
which albeit the flame of fire consumed
before men, yet it cries for vengeance upon the
•
& we from God
are sent to revenge it; for here, before my God, I protest, that neither
the hatred of thy person, the love of thy riches, nor the fear of
any trouble thow couldst have d
•
me to me in particular, moved or
moveth me to strike thee, but only because thow hast been & remainest
an obstinate Enemy against Christ Jesus, & His holy Gospel.
Of which fact, the famous & faithful Historian
Mr Knox
speaks very honorably, and was so far from condemning it,
that while after the slaughter they kept out the Castle, he
with other Godly men went to them & stayed with them,
till they were together carried captives to
Fr
•
nce.
Yet now
such a fact, committed upon such another bloody & treacherous
Beast, the Cardinal
Prelat
of
Scotland,
eight years
agone, is generally condemned as horrid Murder.
V. However, though in this dark Period there be no noted
instances of these witnesses resisting the Superior powers,
for reasons above hinted: yet in this Period, we find many
instances of noble & virtuous Patriots, their not only
resisting, but also revenging to the utmost of severity rigorous
& raging Tyrants. As may be seen in Histories. For
before the corruption of Antichrist came to its hight, we find
Ferchardus
I. the 52. K. was drawn to judgment against his
will, great crimes were laid to his charge, & among others
the
Pelagian
heresy, & contempt of Baptism, for which
he was cast into Prison, where he killed himself;
anno
636. Eugenius
8. the 62. King degenerating into wickedness,
& rejecting the Admonitious of his friends & especially
of the Ministers, was killed in a convention of his
nobles, with the consent of all,
anno 765. Donaldus
7. was
imprisoned, where he killed himself,
anno 859. Ethus,
surnamed
Alipes,
the 72. King was apprehended, & his
wicked life laid out before the people, & then compelled
to resign the Government, & died in Prison,
anno
875.
Afterwards when the Government was transmitted to the
Stewarts, James
the 2. the 103. King, who killed
William
E.
of
Douglas
in the Castle of
Sterling,
most treacherously after
he had pretended a civil treatment, was publicly defyed by
the Earls friends; who took the Kings public writ & subscription
made to the said Earl, & tied it to a horse tail,
dragging it through the streets, & when they came to the
Mercat place they Proclaimed
both King & Nobles perjured
Covenant-breakers:
And thereafter when E.
James
his Brother,
was desired to submit, he answered,
he would never
put himself in their reverence, who had no regard to shame, nor to
the laws of God or man, and who had so perfidiously & treacherously
killed his Brother & his Cousins. James
3. the 104. King
for his Treachery & Tyranny was opposed & purswed by arms
by his own subjects; who finding himself under disadvantages,
sent to the rebels (as he thought them & called
them)
an offer of peace, & received this answer; that seeing
the King did nothing honestly, a certain war seemed better
to them then a peace not to be trusted, that there
was no other hope of agreement but one, that he should
quite the Government, otherwise it was to no purpose
to trouble themselves with treaties.
Thereafter in a battle
he was slain at
Bannockburn,
by
Gray, Ker,
&
Borthwick.
James
the 4. the 105. King was also constrained, by the valor
of
Archibald Douglas
E. of
Angus
called
Bell the Cat▪
to reform the Court, and put away some wicked Sycophants
from his Counsel, and give way though against his will
to the execution of judgment upon others: which was the
occasion of that foresaid
Agnomen
to the Earl. For, he
with other Nobles, in a meeting at
Lawder,
consulting how
to reform & repress the insolency of the Court, had the
Apologue of the
Mice
laid out before them; that the Mice
•
ell upon deliberating how to be rid of the Cat, & concluded
the best way was to put a bell about her neck, but when it
came to be put in execution, never a Mouse durst undertake
it: The Earl quickly made application, saying,
I will
bell the Cat;
& forthwith went out & meeting
Cochran,
one
of these wicked Consellours, took hold of him, & hanged
him with a horse halter over the bridge of
Lawder,
& rushing
in to the Kings presence proceeded to snatch
Ramsey,
another of the countries Enemies, out of the Kings Arms,
but that he yielded at length to the Kings earnest entreaties
to spare him. However we see how generously
zealous these noble Patriots were for the countries good,
against Tyrannie, though they were ignorant of Religion: Yet
this all along was still the character of the
Scots
in these
days, none more terrible to Tyrants, none more Loyal
to Kings then they.
PERIOD. III.
Containing the Testimony of the Reformation
from Popery.
AS in the former the Testimony was mostly
Passive,
so in the following Period, when they were increased
in number & strength that embraced the Gospel,
the Lord called & spirited to an
Active
Testimony, for
these two
Twins, Religion & Liberty,
that were then
sought to be stifled in the birth, & are now designed more
declaredly to be destroyed, after they have grown up to
some maturity: Which, as it renders the cruelty of the present
destroyers the more grassant & grievous, so it rubs the
more indelible Infamie, on the shameful security & Asslike
stupidity of this generation, that have received such an
excellent Testimony deposited to their trust, transmitted
to them through a continued trāct of the witnessings &
wrestlings of their worthy Ancestors, and now let it slip
& slide through their feeble fingers; And does the more
justify, yea magnify, the poor endeavors of the present
Sufferers, who at least, when they cannot react these
mighty works in defending Religion & Liberty, do choose
rather to die than to resign the Testimony, or quite the
least Privilege that their Progenitors possessed them of:
And though they be superciliously despised, as little insignificant
nothings, in the eyes of the bulk of the big boasters
of this blind age; yet, if these valiant Heroes who did such
exploits for their God, in commenceing & carrying on the
work of Reformation, were now to see the dull Dotages
of this dreaming generation (not only suffering & consenting
to, but congratulating & applauding, the introduction
& reestablishment of Idolatry & Tyranny, Popery
& Slavery, upon the ruins of the work they built with so
great expense.) And were to read the pitiful
Petitions,
and
airy & empty, flattering & fawning
Addresses,
to this Antichristian
Tyrant, for the
Toleration
of that Religion & Liberty,
under the odious notion of a
Crime,
which they
had conveyed to them under the security of a fundamental
Law;
They, if any, would be acknowledged as their
Children, who disdain & disoune such dishonorable &
dastardly yeeldings, and are therefore most despised with
disdain & despite. A brief Rehearsal of their Contendings
will clear the Case.
While the
Queen Dowager
Regent reigned by the curse of
God, and employed all her power & policy to suppress the
Gospel in
Scotland;
God so Counteracted her, that the
blood of the Martyrs
she caused to be murdered proved the
seed of the Church;
and the endeavors of His Servants had
such success, that no small part of the Barons & Gentlemen,
as well as commons, began to abhor the Tyranny
of the Bishops: yea men almost universally began to doubt,
whether they could without sin give their bodily presence
to the
Mass,
or offer their Children to the Papistical
Baptism? Whether these that were in any public trust,
could with safe conscience serve the higher Powers, in
maintaini
•
g of Idolatry, persecuting their Brethren, &
suppressing Christ's Truth! or whether they might suffer
their Brethren to be murdered in their presence, without
any declaration that such Tyrannie displeased them?
And
from the Scriptures they were resolved, that
a lively Faith
required a plain Confession, when Christ's Truth is impugned;
And that
not only they be guilty that do evil, but also they that consent
to evil, and this they should do, if seeing such things openly
committed, they should be silent, and so allow whatsoever was
done.
From doubts they came to determinations, to endeavor
that
Christ Jesus His glorious Gospel should be Preached,
His holy Sacraments truly ministered, Superstition, Idolatry, &
Tyranny should be suppressed in this Realm;
And that
both as to
the Worship, Discipline, & Government, the Reverend face of
the first primitive & Apostolic Church should be reduced again to
the eyes & knowledge of men.
And in this they never fa
•
nted
till the work was finished. To accomplis
•
this, famous
and faithful Mr
Knox,
and other Servants of the Lord, did
Preach diligently in
Private Meetings.
And for that, when
they were summoned before the Queen; several zealous
& bold men repaired to her, & plainly in the hearing of
the Prelates, did charge them with the cruel device intended,
& told her with a vow,
they should make a day of
it, because they oppressed them & their tennents, for feeding
of their idle bellies, they troubled the Preachers, and would
murder all; should they suffer this any longer? No, it should
not be.
Thereafter, the more effectually to prosecute the
Reformation begun, they entered into
Covenants, to
maintain & advance that work of Reformation,
And to
stand
to the Desence thereof; and of one another, against all wicked
Power, that might intend Tyranny or trouble against them,
and to resent any injury done to any of their Brerhren, upon
the account of the Common Cause, as done to all.
Of which
Covenants they entered into many very solemnly: one
was at
Edinburgh
anno 1557. Another at
Perth,
1559.
Another at
Sterling
1559. binding, that none should have
any correspondence with the Queen, without notifieing it
to one another, And that nothing should proceed therein,
without
common Consent
of them all. Another at
Leith,
anno 1560. Another at
Air,
anno 1562. of the same tenor.
By which Covenants, as their Conjunction was the more
firm among themselves, so was it the more fearful to
their Adversaries; when according to the tenor of them
they kept their Conventions, & held Counsels with such
gravity & clossness, that the enemies trembled. I mention
these things more particularly, because these same very
things commended in our Fathers, are now condemned
in a poor handful, that woe
•
ld aim at imitating their example,
in renewing & reiterating such Covenants of the
same Nature & Tenor, & binding to the same very duties,
and prosecute in the same methods of keeping
General
Meetings
for Correspondence, & consultation about common
mutual Duties in common danger; whereunto they
have not only present necessity to urge them, but also preterite
examples of these Worthies to encourage them, and
their experience of comfort & tranquility they reaped,
by these Christian Assemblies & Godly Conferences, as ost as
any danger appeared to any member or members of their body.
These beginnings the zealous Covenanted Reformers left
no means unessayed to promote, by Protestations to the
Parliament, & Petitions, & many reiterated Addresses to
the Queen
Dowager:
From whom they received many
renewed fair promises; which she had never mind to keep,
and wanted not the impudence, when challenged for
breaking them, to declare,
It becomes not Subjects to
burden their Princes with promises, further then it pleased
them to keep the same:
And at another time, that
she
was bound to keep no Faith to Heretics:
And again, that
Princes must not be strictly bound to keep their promises;
And that
herself would make little Conscience to take from
all that sort their Lives & Inheritance, if she might do it
with an honest excuse.
Wherein she spoke not only the
venom of her own heart, but the very soul & sense, principle
& project, of all Popish Princes: Whereby we may
see what security we have for Religion & Liberty this day,
though the most part make such a pretence a pillow to sleep
on. But after many Discoveries in this kind of the Queens
Treachery, at length they would no more be bribed by
promises, blinded by pretences, nor boasted by her Proclamations,
(slandering their interprise, as if it pertained
nothing to Religion) from their endeavors to prosecute
the same: but finding themselves compelled to take the
Sword of Just defense, against all that should persue them
for the matter of Religion, they first signified unto her;
That they would notify to the King of
France;
& all Christian
Princes,
that her cruel unjust & most Tyrannieal
murder intended against Touns & Mnltitudes, was & is
the only Cause of their revolt from their accustomed
obedience, which they owned & promised to their Sovereign;
provided they might live in Peace & Liberty,
and enjoy Christ's Gospel,
without which they firmly
purpose never to be subject to mortal man;
And that better
it were to expose their bodies to a thousand deaths, than
to deny Christ; which thing not only do they, who commit
open Idolatry, but also all such, as, seeing their
Brethren purswed for the Cause of Religion, and having
sufficient means to comfort & assist them, do nevertheless
withdraw from them their dutiful support.
And
thereafter, they published a
Declaration
to the generation
of Antichrist, the pestilent
Prelates,
& their shavelings
within
Scotland.
That they should not be abused, thinking
to escape just punishment, after that they in their blind
fury had caused the blood of many to be shed, but if they
proceeded in this their malicious Cruelty, they should be
dealt with all, wheresoever they should be apprehended,
as Murderers, & open Enemies to God & to Mankind.
And that with the same measure they had measured, &
intended to measure to others, it should be measured
to them—that is, they should, with all force &
power they had, execute just vengeance & punishment
upon them; yea begin that same War which God commandeth
Israel
to execute against the
Canaanites,
that is,
Contract of Peace should never be made, till they desist
from their open Idolatry & cruel Persecution of God's
Children.
I rehearse this Declaration the more expressly,
because in our day
Declarations
of this style & strain, and
aiming at the same Scope, is hideously hissed & houted at
as unheard of novelties. Finally, when by all their Letters,
Warnings, Admonitions & Protestations, they
could obtain no redress, but rather an increase of insupportable
violence; they proponed the Question in a General
Meeting:
Whether she, whose pretences threatened the bondage
of the whole Commonwealth, ought to be suffered so Tyrannically
to domineer over them?
Unto which the Ministers, being
required to give their judgment, answered, that she ought
not. And accordingly they declared her
deposed,
from all
Government over them; because of her persecuting the
Professors of the true Religion, and oppressing the Liberties
of the true Lieges, never being called nor convinced
of any Crime; because of her intrusion of Magistrates
against all order of Election; because of her bringing
in strangers to suppress the Liberty of the Country, and
placing them in greatest Offices of Credite, because of her
altering and subverting the old Laws of the Realm &c.
Which I mention, because hence we may see what things
our Fathers judged, did dissolve the relation between
the people & their Rulers: And when applied to our Case,
will justify their reasons that have renounced the present
Tyranny: This was done at
Edinburgh, anno
1559.
And thereafter, while they vindicated themselves, &
went on with the work of Reformation, throwing down all
monuments of Idolatry, & propogateing the Reformed
Religion; God so blessed their endeavors that their Confession
of faith, and all Articles of the Protestant Religion,
was Read & Ratified by the three Estates of Parliament,
at
Edinburgh Iulij
1560. And the same year the
Book of Discipline, containing the form & order of Presbyterial
Government, was subscribed by a great part of the
Nobility. Thus through the wisdom & power of God
alone, even by the weakness of very mean Instr
•
ments,
against the rage & fury of the devil, and of all the powers
of Hell, was this work of Reformation advanced & effectuated;
And came to the establishment of a Law, which
did not only ratify & confirm the P
•
ote
••
ant Religion,
but abolish Antichristian Popery, and appoint punishment
for the Professors & promoters thereof. Which Law,
often confirmed & ratified afterwards, though it be now
cassed & rescinded by the Prerogative of the present Tyrant,
because it anulls & invalidates his pretence to succession
in the Government (it being expressly enacted afterwards,
by a Parliament at
Edinburgh
156. Confirming
this, that all Princes & Kings hereafter before their Coronation
shall take Oath to maintain the true Religion then
professed, & suppress all things contrary to it) yet is still in
force in the hearts of all honest men, that will not prostitute
Religion, Law, & Liberty to the lusts of Tyrants;
and will be accounted a better bottom to build the hope of
enjoying Religion upon, than the perfidious promises of a
Popish Usurper, pretending a Liberty to dissenting Protestants,
by takeing away the Penal Statuts, the Legal
Bulwark against Popery: All which yet, to the reproach
of all Protestants, some are applauding & Congratulating
in this time by their Addresses & Petitions, to this
destroyer of Law & Religion. I wish they would look
back to see what the building of this Bulwark cost our
Fathers, before they sell it at such a rate: And compare
the present Addresses, Courting & Carressing the Papists,
with the Addresses of these worthy builders of what they
are destroying. There is one dated
Edinb.
May. 27. 1561.
Presented to the Council, showing, that honesty craved
them; and conscience moved them, to make the secrets
of their heart patent, which was;
That, before ever these
Tyrants & dumb Dogs empire over them professing
Christ Jesus within this Realm, they were fully determined,
to hazard Life, and whatsoever they had received.
of God in temporal things—And let these Enemies of
God assure themselves, that if their Counsel put not
order unto them, that they should shortly take such order,
that they shall neither be able to do what they list, neither
yet to live upon the sweat of the brows of such as are no
Debtors to them.
And when the mischievous
Mary,
the
daughter of the Degraded Queen, returning from
France,
set up the Mass but in her own family; the Godly at that
time gave plain signification, that they could not abide that
the Land which God by His power had purged from Idolatry,
should in their eyes be polluted again. Shall that
Idol (say they) be suffered again to take place within
this Realm: It shall not.
The
Idolatrous Priests should die
the death according to God's Law.
And a Proclamation being
issued to protect the Queens Domestic Servants, that
were Papists; There was a Protestation given forth presently,
That if any of her Servants shall commit Idolatry,
say Mass, participate therewith, or take the defense
thereof, in that case this Proclamation was not extended
to them in that behalf, nor to be a Safeguard to
them in that behalf, no more then if they commit murder.
Seeing the one is much more abominable in the sight of
God then the other. But that it may be Lawful to inflict
upon them, the pains contained in God's word, against
Idolaters, wherever they may be apprehended without favor.
The words of
John Knox
upon the following Sabbath
may be added. That
one Mass was more fear
•
ul unto him
then if ten thousand armed Enemies, were Landed in any
part of the realm, of purpose to suppress the whole Religion:
for (said he) in our God there is strength to resist &
confound Multitudes, if we unfeignedly depend upon Him;
but when we join hands with Idolatry, it is no doubt, but
both God's amiable Presence & comfortable defense, will
leave us and what shall then become of us?
Yea when it was
voted in the General Assembly, whether they might take
the Queens Mass from her? Many frankly affirmed; that
as the Mass is abominable, so it is just & right, that it
should be suppressed: And that in so doing, men did no
more hurt to the Queens Majesty, than they that should
by force take from her a Poisoned Cup, when she were
going to drink it.
Thus we have some Specimen of the
Zeal of our fathers against Idolatry. But in a little time,
Court favors blunted it in many. And then had the Servants
of God a double Battle, fighting or the one hand
against Idolatry, and the rest of the abominations maintained
by the Court. And upon the other hand, against
the unfaithfullness of false brethren, and Treachery of
Sycophants, who informed the Court against the Ministers
for their free & faithful Preaching and warning on all occasions;
yet they sustained the brunt of all these assaults,
and came off with honor. At length to be short, in process
of time, this
Mary
a woman of a proud & crafty wit,
and an endured heart against God & His Truth, insisted in
the same steps of Tyranny & Treachery (but with greater
Aggravations) that her Mother walked in, and was served
according to her desert. For after that her Darling
Davie
Rizio,
the
Italian
Fidler (whom most men then supposed,
and do still suspect, to be the Father of King
James,
this
man's Grandfather; and some do think it not unlikly that
his Successors have derived from this stock the
Italian
Complexion & Constitution, both of body & mind, Spare
& Swarthy, Cruel & Crafty) received his
•
ue rewards in
her presence, by the Kings consent & Counsel: she conceived
such contempt of & indignation against the poor
uxorious young King,
Henry
of
Darnely;
that she never
rested, till she &
Bothwel
contrived & executed his Murder.
And then she married that Murdering Adulterer, the
said Earl of
Bothwel.
Whereupon the Protestant Noblemen
pursueing the Murder, took her & sent her Prisoner
to
Lochlevin;
where they made her resign the Government
to her Son
James,
then an Infant. And afterwards
she was beheaded by
Elizabeth
Queen of
England.
We see
now by this deduction what was the Testimony of this Period,
and how in many things it confirms the Heads of the
present Sufferings, which we may particularly remark.
I. The Reformation of
Scotland
had this common with
all other
Protestant
Churches, that it was carried on by resisting
the opposing powers: But it had this peculiar advantage
above all, that at once & from the beginning, both
Doctrine & Worship, Discipline & Government, were
Reformed: as
Mr. Knox
witnesseth, that there was no
Realm upon the face of the Earth at that time that had
Religion in greater Purity.
Yea,
says he,
we must speak
the Truth whomsoever we offend, there is no Realm that
hath the like Purity; for all others, how sincere soever the
Doctrine be, retain in their Churches and the Ministry
thereof some footsteps of Antichrist & dregs of Popery, But
we (praise to God alone) have nothing in our Churches
that ever flowed from that Man of Sin.
The Doctrine was
purely Reformed, according to the Rule of Christ, both
as to Matter & Manner of Delivery. As to the
Matter
of it,
what it was, the Confession of Faith ratified in Parliament
anno
1560. Doth witness. In the
Manner
of it, they studied
not the smooth & pâkie prudence that is now so much
applauded, for not observeing which, such as would fain
be honest in this duty, are so much condemned; but they
cried aloud against & did not spare the sins of the time, with
application to every degree of men: as we have it published
& vindicated in
Mr. Knox
his History. They cried that the
same God who plagued
Pharaoh,
repulsed
Sennacherib,
struck
Herod
with worms, and made the bellies of dogs
the Grave & Sepulcher of the Spiteful
Jezebel,
will not
spare misled Princes, who authorise the Murderers of
Christ's members in this our time: Many now a days
will have no other Religion than the
Qween;
the Queen,
no other than the
Cardinal;
the Cardinal, no other than
the
Pope;
the Pope, no other than the
Devil:
Let men
therefore consider what danger they stand in, if their
Salvation shall depend upon the Queens faith.
And
they used to defend such manner of free dealing, from the
examples of the Prophets reproving Kings Personally:
Now if the like & greater corruptions be in the World
this day, who dare interprise, to put to silence the Spirit
of God, which will not be subject to the apetites of
misled Princes.
Mr. Knox
his defense before the Queen,
when rebuked for speaking of her Marriage in the pulpit,
was: The Evangel, saith he, hath two points,
Repentance
& Faith; in preaching Repentance, of necessity it
is that the sins of men be noted, that they way know
wherein they offend.
And in his dispate with
Lithingtoun,
requiring where any of the Prophets did so use Kings
& Rulers; he gave the example of
Elias.
reproveing
Ahab
& Jezebel,
that
dogs shall lick the blood of
Ahab
and eat
the flesh of
Jezebel; which was not whispered in their ears,
but so as the People understood: well enough, for so
witnessed
Jehu
after the accomplishment;
Elizeiu
reproved
Jehoram,
saying,
what have I to do with thee, if it were
not for
Jehoshaphat,
I would not have looked toward thee;
though a subject yet he gave little reverence to the King.
These were their Arguments for faithfulness then which
are now exploded with contempt. Their
worship
was also
Reformed from all Dregs of Popery, & fopperies of human
Ceremonies, retained in many other Churches;
especially in
England.
To whose Bishops, in Queen
Elizabeth's
time, the Assembly wrote;
That if
Surplice▪
Corner cap, Tippet
&c. have been the badges of Idolaters
in the very act of Idolatry, what have Preachers to do
with the dregs of that Romish Beast? Yea what is he that
ought not to fear to take, either in his hand or fore head,
the mark of that odious Beast?—We think yow should
boldly oppose yourselves to all power, that will dare extol
itself against God, and against all such as do burden
the Conscience of the faithful, further then God hath
burdened them by His own word.
The
Disclpline
&
Government
was from the beginning
Presbyterial,
even before the
establishment; both in
practice,
among the Persecuted Ministers
who kept their
private Meetings:
And in their
Doctrine,
This was one of
Mr Knox's
Articles, he sustained at
St Andrew's,
upon his first entry unto the Ministry,
Art.
S.
There is no Bishop except he preach even by himself wiihout any
substitute.
But so soon as they attained any settlement, they
assembled in their first National Synod,
anno
1560. by
virtue of that Intrinsic Power, granted by the Lord to
His Church; nor did they so much as petition for the Indulgence
of the then Authority; But upon Christ's warrant,
they kept & held their Courts in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ only, and in His sole Authority, by direction of
His Word & Spirit, concluded all their Counsels, Votes,
& Acts. And as they knew nothing of an Exotick
Supremacy,
so they put out & held out
Prelacy,
and kept a perfect
Parity;
which was nothing infringed by the extraordinary
Employments & Commissions delegated to some
Superintendents,
upon the account of the particular exigence of
these times.
II. Next we find in the Practice of these renowned Reformers,
many demonstrations of pure zeal, worthy of all
imitation: which I remark the rather, because poor Sufferers
that would now imitate it, are condemned as blind &
ignorant zealots. But why are not the Reformers condemned
for the same things? We find in the first place, that
they were so far from
complying
with, or conniving at, or
countenancing public sins, that they could not contain
themselves from declaring their Detestation of the sight of
them: yea the very boys did abominate it, as at the Reformation
of
St Iohnstoun,
a boy cried with a bold voice,
This is intolerable, that when God by His Word hath plainly condemned
Idolatry, we shall stand & see it used in despite.
Whereupon
he & others throw down all the monuments of Idolatry
in the place. But if now any should enterprise such a
thing, when the Idol of the Mass is set up in every City,
they might expect
Ierubbaals
censure of the
Abiezrites;
th
•
it is true they might have the same encouragement, because
they have the same Command as he had, to wit, the perpetual
precept of throwing down Idolatrous Altars. Next they
were so far from complying with the Enemies, in
keeping the
peace
with them, that they thought it a great sin not to oppose
them, when their brethren were forced to take the sword
of self defense, being persuaded by these arguments:
That by their fainting & abstracting their support, the
Enemies would be encouraged; And thereby they should
declare themselves both Traitors to the Truth once professed,
and Murderers of their Brethren, whom their
presence & Concurrence might preserve; And that if
they should deny their Brethren suffering for His Names
sake, they should also deny Christ, and be denied of
Him; And that God hath often punished subjects with
their Princes, for winking at and not resisting their manifest
iniquity; And therefore, as He is immutable in
nature, so would He not Pardon them in that which He
hath punished in others &c.
Which Arguments prevailed
with the noble Earl of
Glencarn,
in zeal to burst forth in
these words—
Albeit never man should accompany me, yet I
will go to my Brethren, and if it were but a Pike upon my shoulder,
I had rather die with that company then Live after them.
But now professors cannot only sit at home in their shops
& ceiled houses, when the Lord's people are pursued &
murdered in the fields, but also can hire their Murderers,
& strengthen their hands, by paying them
Cesses
&
Localities,
and what they require for help to do their work,
and maintaining them in their iniquity. Which famous
Mr Knox
disproveth very much in his day; Arguing that
if
people thought they were innocent, because they were
not the actors of such iniquity, they were utterly deceived;
for God doth not only punish the chief offenders,
but the Consenters to such iniquity, And all are
judged to consent, who give not Testimony against it;
As the Rulers & Bishops are Criminal of all the innocent
blood, thats shed for the Testimony of Christ's Truth,
so are all who assist & maintain them in their blind rage,
and give no declaration that their Tyranny displeaseth
them; This doctrine is strange to the blind world, but
the verity of it hath been declared in all notable punishments
from the beginning; when the old world was destroyed
by water,
Sodom
&
Jerusalem
were destroyed,
were all alike wicked? yet all perished; why? All kept
silence, or did not resist, by which all
•
approved iniquity,
and joined hands with the Tyrants, as it had been
in one Battle against the Omnipotent.
Which words if
impartially applied, will condemn & confute the dull
Daubings of the present Complyances, in maintaining
Tyrants & their Emissaries, by Emoluments which they
require & exact, and that professedly, for promoting their
accursed projects; And will justify Consciencious sufferers,
for refusing to pay these impositions. And this will
the more appear, if we add some more of his pithy expressions
in the same place, clearing the subject he is upon,
and answering an objection, what poor people might do,
when compelled to give obedience to all their Rulers demanded?
Ye may saith that Author, without sedition
withhold the fruits & profits, which your false Bishops &
Clergy most unjustly received of yow: Upon which he
subjoins the preceeding Arguments.
Yet now a days
these have no weight, but such as refuse either to pay Oppressors
exactions, or
Curates
stipends, are condemned
for giddy fools. Again we find, that when they were
challenged for duty, they would never decline a declaration
of its righteousness, nor do anything directly or indirectly
which might seem a condemning of it. And therefore
they would receive no
pardons
for these things which
they could not confess to be
offenses. John Knox,
challenged
for offending the Queen, had her promise, that
if he would confess an offense, his greatest punishment
should be, but to go within the Castle of
Edinburgh,
and immediately to return to his own house; he refused
absolutely. But now, if our
Pardon-mongers
& prudent
men had been so circumstantiate, surely they could
have helped themselves with their distinctions, they might
confess & be pardoned for offending the Queen, though not
confess it to be a fault in their Conscience: But
Mr Knox
had not learned that then. When they were pursuing the
Murder of King
Henry
of
Darnely,
the Queen finding her
self not strong enough, offers to forgive & pardon that
insurection: The Earl of
Morton,
in name of all the rest,
did not only refuse a Cessation, but told her they would
not ask a pardon. But now sufferers, for refusing of these
base & unmanly as well as unchristian Complyances, are
much condemned. Finally, because this strictness, especially
in their severity against their Enemies, may be accused
of
Jewish rigidity,
inconsistent with a Gospel Spirit
of
Lenity;
which also is imputed to the much condemned
sufferers of
Scotland
at this time, for their Testimonies against
Toleration
&
Liberty of Conscience:
Let us hear what
Knox
says;
whatsoever God required of the Civil Magistrate
in
Israel
or
Judah,
concerning the observation of true Religion
during the time of the Law, the same doth He require
of Lawful Magistrates, professing Christ Jesus, in
the time of the Gospel: And Cites a large Testimony out
of
Augustine
to this purpose.
And afterward objecting to
himself the practice of the Apostles, who did not punish
the Idolatrous
Gentiles;
he answers,
That the Gentiles,
being never avowed to be God's people before, had never
received his Law, and therefore were not to be punished
according to the rigor of it, to which they were never
subject, being strangers from the Commonwealth of
Israel;
But if any think, after the Gentiles were received
in the number of
Abraham's
children, and so made one
people with the
Jews
believing, then
•
hey were not
bound to the same obedience of
Israel's
Covenant, the
same seems to make
Christ
inferior to
Moses,
and contrary
to the Law of His heavenly Father; for if the Contempt
and transgression of
Moses
's Law was worthy of
death, what judge we the contempt of Christ's ordinance
to be? And if Christ be not come to dissolve, but to fulfill
the Law of His Heavenly Father, shall the Liberty of
His Gospel be an occasion that the special glory of His
Father be trodden underfoot, and regarded of no man?
God forbid; And therefore I fear not to affirm, that the
Gentiles be bound by the same Covenant that God made
with His people
Israel,
in these words;
Beware that thou
make not any Covenant with the Inhabitants of the Land but
thou shalt destroy their Altars &c.
When therefore the Lord
puteth the Sword in the hand of a people, they are no
less bound to purge their Cities & Countries from Idolatry,
then were the
Israelites,
what time they received
the Possession of the Land of
Canaan.
III. For the head of
Resistence
of Superior powers, we
have no clearer instances in any Period then in this, where
of the above mentioned hints give some account, to which in
their sentiments & arguments may be here subjoined. They
prised and improved this principle so much, that they put
it in their
Confession of faith Art. 14. To save the Life of Innocents,
to repress Tyranny, to defend the oppressed,
are among
the good works of the Second Table, which are most
pleasing & acceptable to God, as these works are commanded
by Himself; And
to suffer innocent blood to be
•
hed if
we may withstand it,
is affirmed to be sin, by which God's hot
Displeasure is kindled against the proud & unthankful
world. And if there were no more to render the late.
Test
of
Scotland
detestable, that condemns all resistence of Kings
upon any pretence whatsoever, this may make all Christians
& all men abhor the contrivance of it; that that same
Test
that confirms this
Thesis,
doth also impose the
Antithesis
upon Conscience. It obliges to this Confession in the
first part of it, and to deny it in the Latter. But no wonder,
that men of feared Consciences can receive anything, though
never so contradictory to itself; And that men who deny
sense and that principle irradicated in human nature, may
also deny Conscience, & make a fool of it in sowdering
Contradictories. But not only did our Reformers assert this
Truth for which now their children adhering to their
Testimony suffer both rage and reproach, but also gave
their reasons for it. As (1)
Mr Knox,
in his first Conference
with the Queen, argues thus:
There is neither greater
honor nor obedience to be given to Princes than Parents;
but so it is that the father may be stricken with a frenzy,
in the which he would slay his own children; now if the
children arise, take his weapon from him, bind his
hands, do the children any wrong? It is even so with
Princes, that would murder the Children of God subject
to them, their blind zeal is nothing but a very mad frenzy;
and therefore to take the sword from them, and
cast them into prison till they be brought to a more sober
mind, is no disobedience against Princes. (2) In his Conference
with
Lithingtoun,
he proves the same point, from
the consideration of the justice of God, punishing the people
for not resisting the Prince. The Scripture of God
teacheth me (saith he)
Jerusalem
&
Judah
were punished
for the sins of
Manassoh;
If you allege they were punished
because they were wicked, and not because the
King was wicked, the Scripture says expressly,
for the
sins of Manasseh;
yet will I not absolve the people, I will
grant the whole people offended with their King, but
how? to affirm that all
Judah
committee the acts of his
impiety, hath no certainty; who can think, that all
Jerusalem
should turn Idolaters immediately after
Hezekiah
notable
Reformation? One part therefore willingly followed
him in his Idolatry, the other suffered him, & so were
criminal of his sin, even as
Scotland
is guilty of the Queens
Idolatry this day.
In the same Discourse he makes it plain,
that all are guilty of Innocents murder who do not oppose
it, from
Jeremiah's
words in his defense before the Princes
—
Know ye for certain if ye put me to death ye shall surely
bring innocent blood upon yourselves and upon the City and upon
the Inhabitants thereof;
Now if the Princes & the whole people
should have been guilty of the Prophets blood, how
shall others be judged innocent before God, if they suffer
the blood of Innocents to be shed when they may save it?
(3)
Ibid.
he argues from the distinction between the person
placed in Authority, and the ordinance of God, the one
may be resisted the other cannot. The plain words of the
Apostle makes the difference:
The ordinance is of God,
for preservation of mankind, punishment o
•
vice, which
is holy & constant; Persons commonly are profane &
unjust: He that resisteth the power there, is only meant
of the just power wherewith God hath armed His Magistrates,
which who so resists, resists God's or
•
inance; But
if men in the fear of God, oppose themselves to the fury
of Princes, they then resist not God, but the Devil who
abuses the sword & Authority of God: It is evident the
people resisted
Saul,
when he had sworn
Jonathan
should die, whom they delivered: The Spirit of God
accuses them not of any crime, but praises them & condemns
the King: This same
Saul
again commanded the
Priests of the Lord to be slain, his guard would not obey,
but
Doeg
put the Kings cruelty in execution; I will not
ask, whether the Kings servants not obeying resisted the
ordinance of God, or whether
Doeg
murthering gave obedience
to just Authority? The Spirit of God condemns
that fact
Psal.
52. that God would not only punish the
Commander, but also the merciless executer; Therefore
they who gainstood his command, resisted not the
ordinance of God. (4).
Ibid.
He argues from examples,
not only of resisting but of punishing Tyrants: chiefly
the example of
Uzziah
is pertinent to this purpose, 2
Chon.
26. who after his usurping the Priests Office, was put
out of the Temple. When it was replied, that they
were the Priests that with stood the King, not simple people:
He answered, The Priests were subjects, as
Ab
•
athar
was deposed by
Solomon
&c. yet they made him go
out of the Temple for his Leprosy, and the people put
him from the Kingdom.
It is noted also that
Mr Knox,
in
that discourse, adduces examples of those, who use to be
brought in as objections against defensive Arms, even the
Primitive Christians,
before that Passage last cited: what
precepts, says he, the Apostles gave, I will not affirm;
But I find two things the faithful did, the one was
they assisted their Preachers even against the rulers, the
other was they suppressed Idolatry wheresoever God
gave unto them force, asking no leave of the Emperor
nor of his deputies: Read the Ecclesiastical Histories, and
ye shall find examples sufficient.
IV. In the next place we may inquire into the judgment
of these Reformers, concerning that Question that is now
so pusling to many; which indeed was never started before
this time as a head of suffering, but now, when it is started,
we may gather from our Ancestors Actings & Determinations
about it, how it ought to be answered. They
were indeed in capacity, and accordingly did improve it,
for
disouning the Authority
of both the Queens: but their capacity
was not the thing that made it duty, if it had not
been so before. Capacity makes a thing possible, but not lawful:
It does indeed make a duty seasonable, and clears the
Call to it, and regulates the timing of Affirmative duties,
but the want of it can never dispense with negative Precepts:
And a duty, negative especially, may become necessary,
when it hath not the advantage of seasonableness
or capacity; certainly it were duty to depose
•
he
Pope
from
his usurped authority, and to disoune it even in
Rome
itself,
but there it would not be thought very feasible or seasonable,
for twenty or thirty people to avouch such a thing
there, yet at all times it is a duty never to own it. It is
thought unseasonable & unfeasable to disoune the Tyrants
authority, but it is made necessary, when u
•
ged never to
own it. And for this we have the grounds of our Ancestors,
showing who may be disouned, and must not be
owned. I shall first insert here
John Knox
his propositions,
prosecuted in his
second blast,
extant at the end of
Anton.
Gilbies
Admonition to
England & Scotland. 1. It is not
birth only nor propinquity of bloodh that maketh, a King
lawfully to Reign over a people, professing Christ Jesus and
His Eternal verity, but in his Election, the ordinance which
God hath established in the election of inferior judges, must
be observed. 2. No manifest Idolater, nor notorious transgressor
of God's holy precepts, ought to be promo
•
ed to any public
regiment, honor, or dignity, in any realm, Province,
or City, that hath subjected themselves to Christ
Jesus and His blessed Evangel. 3. Neither can Oath, or promise,
bind any such people to obey & maintain Tyrants, against
God and His Truth known. 4. B
•
t if rashly they have promoted
any manifest wicked person, or yet ignorantly have chosen
such an one, as after Declareth himself unworthy of regiment,
above the people of God (and such be all Idolaters &
Cruel Presecuters) most justly may the same men depose &
punish him, that unadvisedly before they did nominate, appoint,
& elect.
Accordingly this was done in deposing
both the Queens: wich is fully vindicated by the Earl of
Morton,
in his discourse to the Queen of
England,
as
Buchanan
Relates it,
Lib. 20. Pag.
746. The deed itself,
neither the Custom of our Ancestors of taking a Course
with their Governor, will suffer it to be accounted
new, nor the moderation of the punishment to be odious:
for it were not needful to recount so many Kings punished
by death, bonds, & exile by our Progenitors. For
the
Scottish
nation, being from the beginning alwise free,
hath created Kings upon these conditions, that the Government
entrusted to them by the people's suffrages,
might be also (if the matter required) removed by the
same suffrages: Of which Law there are many footsteps
remaining even to our day; for both in the Isles about,
and in many places of the continent, in which the old
Language & institutions have any abode, this Custom is
kept, in creating their Governors of Clanns: And the
Ceremonies, used at the entering into Government,
do yet retain the express representation of this Law.
Whence it is evident, that the Government is nothing
else but a mutual stipulation between Kings & people:
which further appears, from the inviolated tenor of the
Ancient Law, since the beginning of the Scottish Government,
reserved even unto our memory, without the
least essay either to abrogate it, or disable, or diminish
it. Yea even when our fathers have deposed, banished,
& more severely punished so many Kings, yet
never was any mention or motion made, of relaxing the
rigor of that Law: And not without reason, seeing it
was not of that kind of Constitutions, that change with
the times, but of those which are engraven in the minds
of men from the first original, and approved by the mutual
consent of all Nations, and by natures Sanction
continued inviolable and perpetual, which being subject
to no other Laws do Command & rule all. This,
which in every action doth offer itself to our eyes &
minds, and whether we will or not abides in our breasts,
our Predecessors followed; being always armed against
violence, and ready to suppress Tyrants—And
now for the present, what have we done, but insisting
in the footsteps of so many Kingdoms & free Nations,
suppressed Tyrannical Licentiousness, extolling itself
above all order of Laws, not indeed so severely as our
Predicessors in like cases; if we had imitated them, not
only would we have been far from all fear of danger, but
also have escaped the trouble of Calumnies—What
would our Adversaries be at? Is it that we should arm with
Authority Tyrants convicted of grievous Crimes, maintained
by the spoils of the subjects, having hands embrued
in royal blood, and hearts gaping for the oppression
of all good men? And shall we put them upon our head,
who are infamously suspected of Parricide, both projected
& perpetrated?
To which we may add, a foreign
conclusion indeed, but adduced & maintained by
Mr Craig,
in the Assembly
anno
1564. which had been determined
by Learned men in
Bononia, Principes omnes,
tam supremi quam inferiores, possunt & debent Reformari,
vel deponi per cos per quos eriguntur, confirmantur, vel admittuntur
ad officium, quoties a side praestita subditis per
juramentum desiciant, quoniam relatio juramenti subditorum
& principum mutua est, & utrinque aequo jure servanda
& resormanda, juxta Legem & conditionem juramenti
ab utraque parte sacti.
That is, all Rulers be they
supreme or inferior, may & ought to be reformed, or
bridled (to speak moderately) by them by whom they are
chosen, confirmed, or admitted to their office, so oft as
they break that promise made by Oath to their subjects,
because that the Prince is no less bound by Oath to their
subjects, then are the subjects to their Princes, And therefor
ought it to be kept & reformed equally, according to
Law & condition of the Oath that is made of either Party.
By comparing which two Testimonyes together, we may
see the reasons, why neither of the two
Royal Brothers,
that
have ruled in our day, could be conscientiously owned
as Magistrates, in the Case they have been in for several
years past: The first testimony is for the second▪
Brother, the Latter is for he first thats gone. But as
for
Mr Knox
his opinion, it is evident he had written a
•
a book
against the Government of women:
which though he
did not intend it particularly against
Mary
of
Scotland,
yet▪
it did invalidate her authority as well as other women's.
This book he ounes and maintains, in his first conference
with her, and consequently could not own her authority as
of the Lord, though he gave her common respect, as the title
of Majesty &c. yet when he was particularly urged by the
Queens question,
yow think,
said she,
that I have no just
authority;
He would not answer in the affirmative, but
shifted it, by telling her; That
learned men in all ages,
have had their judgment free, and most commonly disagreeing
from the Common judgment of the world. And
though, he says, he could live under her government (so
may & would the greatest disouners of Tyranny, if they
be not troubled with questions about owneing it) yet he
affirms that with the Testimony of a good Conscience,
he had communicate his judgment to the world, and that
if the realm found no inconveniences in her government,
he would no further disallow than within his own
breast.
Certainly then in his Conscience he did not &
could not own her, as the Magistrate of God; And that
though many things which before were holden stable, had
been called in doubt, yet neither Protestant nor Papist
could prove, that any such question was at any time moved
in public or private, Neither could ever such a question
be moved, if the Conscience were not posed, and then
when it must speak, it must of necessity be unpleasant to
Tyrants. Thus we have heard both the positions & scruples
of this witness, let us also hear his arguings that People
may punish Princes for their Idolatry & murder &c. And
therefore much more may disoune them: And therefore again
much more may they forbear to own them, when called;
for can a dead man by Law be owned to be a Magistrate,
&
Custos
of the Law.
Idolatry
(saith he in his conference
with
Lithington
) ought not only to be suppressed, but the
Idolater ought to die the death: but by whom? by the
people of God, for the Commandment was given to
Israel;
yea a Command, that if it be heard that Idolatry
is committed in any one City, that then the whole body
of the people arise and destroy that City, sparing neither
man woman nor child. But shall the King also
be punished? If he be an Idolater, I find no privilege
granted unto Kings more then unto people,
to offend God's Majesty. But the people may not be
Judges to their King.—God is the universal Judge; so
that what His Word commands to be punished in the
one, is not to be absolved in the other; And that the
people, yea or a part of the people, may not execute God's
judgments against their King being an offender, I am sure
you have no other warrant, except your own imaginations,
and the opinion of such as more fear to offend
their Princes than God.
In the same Conference we have
the instance of
Jehu
adduced to prove that Subjects may
execute God's judgments upon their Princes. It was objected,
Jehu
was a King before he executed judgment
upon
Ahab's
house, and the fact was extraordinary, and
not to be imitated. He answered, he was a mere Subject;
No doubt
Jezebel
both thought & said he was a Traitor,
and so did many others in
Israel & Samaria.
And whereas
it was said, that the fact was extraordinary; I say, it
had the ground of God's ordinary judgment, which commandeth
the Idolater to die the death; and
•
herefore I yet
again affirm, it is to be imitated of all those that prefer
the true honor of the true Worship & Glory of God to
the affection of flesh & wicked Princes. We are not
bound, said
Lithingtoun
to follow extraordinary examples,
unless we have the like Comman
•
meant & assurance.
I grant, said the other, if the example repugn to
the Law, but where the example aggrees with the Law, &
is as it were the execution of God's judgment expressed
within the same, I say that the example approved of God
stands to us in place of a Commandment; for as God in
His Nature is Constant & Immutable, so cannot He
condemn in the ages subsequent that which He hath
approved in His Servants before us. Then he brings another
Argument from
Amaziah
who fled to
Lachish,
but
the people sent thither and flew him there.
Lethingtoun
doubted, whether they did well or not:
•
e answered,
where I find execution according to God's Law, and God
Himself not accuse the doers, I dare not doubt of the
equity of their Cause: And it appears. God gave them
sufficient evidence of His approving the fact, for He
blessed them with peace and prosperity. But prosperity
does not alwise prove that God approves the fact: yes,
when the acts of men agree with the Law, and are rewarded
according to the promise in that Law, then the
prosperity succeeding the fact is a most infallible assurance
that God hath approved it; but so it is, that there is a
promise of lengthening out prosperity to them that destroy
Idolatry. And again, concluding
Uzziahs
example,
he says there, The people ought to execute God's
Law, even against their Princes, when that their open
Crimes by God's Law deserve punishment, especially
when they are such as may infect the rest of the multitude.
V. There is another thing for which people have suffered
much in our day of blasphemy rebuke & trouble, which yet
we find was not so odious in our Reformers eyes as this dull
& degenerate age would represent it. That in some cases
it is Lawfull & laudable for private persons, touched with
the zeal of God & love to their Country, & respect to Justice
trampled upon by Tyrants, to put forth their hand to
execute righteous judgment upon the Enemies of God &
mankind, intolerable Traitors, Murderers, Idolaters;
when the ruin of the Country, Destruction of Religion
& Liberty, and the wrath of God is threatened, in & for
the impunity of that vermin of villains, and may be averted
by their destruction, always supposed, that these whose
office it is to do it decline their duty. The mind of our
Reformers as to this is manifest, both in their practice &
opinion. We heard before of the slaughter of Cardinal
Beaton,
and of the fiddler
Rizio:
we shall find both commended
by
Mr Knox,
giving account how these that were
carried Captives to
France
for this Cause from
St Andrew's
were delivered.
This (saith he) we write, to let the
posterity to come to understand, how potently God
wrought in preserving & delivering of those, that had
but a small knowledge of His Truth, and for the love
of the same hazarded all; That if we in our days, or our
posterity that shall follow, shall see a dispersion of such
as oppose themselves to impiety, or take upon them to
punish the same otherwise then Laws of men will permit,
if such shall be left of men, yea as it were despised
& punished of God: yet let us not damn the persons that
punish vice (and that for just cause) nor ye
•
despair, but
that the same God that dejects will raise up again the persons
dejected, to His glory and their comfort: And to
let the world understand in plain terms what we mean;
that great abuser of this Commonwealth, that Pultron
& vile Knave
Davio
was justly punished
March
9. 1565.
by the Counsel & hands of
James Douglas
Earl of
Mortoun,
Patrick
Lord
Lindsay
&c: who for the
•
r just act, and
most worthy of all praise, are now unworthily left of all
their Brethren.
This is not only commended by the Author
alone, but we find it concluded by all the Brethren at
that time, when the Queen brought in the Idol of the
Mass again, and the proud Papists began to avow it: then
let it be marked that, The Brethren universally offended,
and espying that the Queen by Proclamation did but
delude them, determined to put to their own hands, and
to punish for example of others; And so some Priests in
the
West
Land were apprehended, Intimation was made
to others, as to the Abbot of
Cosragnel,
the Parson of
Sanwhar,
and such, that they should neither complain
to the Queen nor Council, but should execute the punishment
that God has appointed to Idolaters in His
Law, by such means as they might, wherever they
should be apprehended.
Upon this the Queen sent for
Mr Knox,
and dealt with him earnestly, that he would be
the instrument to persuade the people not to put hand to
punish. He perceiving her craft, willed her Maj. to punish
Malefactors according to Law, and he durst promise
quietness, upon the part of all them that professed Christ
within
Scotland,
but if her Maj. thought to delude the
Laws, he feared some would let the Papists understand,
that without punishment they should not be suffered so
manifestly to offend God's Majesty. Will ye (quoth she)
allow they shall take my Sword in their hand?
The Sword
of Justice (said he) Madam is God's, and is given to
Princes & Rulers for one end; which if they transgress,
sparing the wicked & oppressing the Innocents, they that
in the fear of God execute judgment, where God hath
commanded, offend not God, although Kings do it not:
the examples are evident, for
Samuel
spared not to slay
Agag
the fat & delicate King of
Amalek,
whom King
Saul
had saved; Neither spared
Elias Jezebels
false Prophets,
&
Baals
Priests, albeit that King
Ahab
was present;
Phineas
was no Magistrate, and yet feared he not
to strike
Zimri
&
Cozbi
in the very act of filthy fornication:
And so Madam your Maj. may see that others then
Magistrates may Lawfully punish, & have punished the
vice & crimes that God commands to be punished. He
proved it also at more length in his
Appellation,
from
Deut. 13. If thy Brother solicit thee secretly saying, let us go
serve other God's, consent not to him, let not thine eye spare him
〈…〉
him; let thy hand be first upon him, and afterward the hand
of the whole people.
Of these words of
Moses,
two things appertaining
to our purpose are to be noted: The first is,
that such as solicitate only to Idolatry ought to be punished
to death, without favor or respect of person;
for He that will not suffer man to spare his son, wife, &c.
will not wink at the Idolatry of others, of what state or
condition soever they be: It is not unknown that the
Prophets had Revelations of God, which were not
common to the people; Now if any man might have
claimed any privilege from the rigor of the Law, or
might have justified his fact, it should have been the
Prophet, but God commands, that the Prophet that
shall so solicitate the people to serve strange God's, shall
die the death, notwithstanding that he allege for himself
dream, vision, or Revelation, because he teacheth
Apostasy from God: hereby it may be seen, that none
provoking the people to Idolatry ought to be exempted
from the punishment of death. Evident it is that no state,
condition, nor honor can exempt the Idolater from
the hands of God, when He shall call him to an account:
How shall it then excuse the people, that they, according
to God's command, punish not to death such as shall
solicitate or violently draw the people to Idolatry? The
second, is that the punishment of such Crimes, as Idolatry,
blasphemy, & others that touch the Majesty of
God, doth not appertain to Kings & chief Rulers only,
but also to the whole body of the people, and to every
member of the same, according to the vocation of every
man, and according to that possibility & occasion which
God doth minister, to revenge the injury done against
His Glory: And that doth
Moses
more plainly speak in
these words of the same Chapter,
If in any City which the
Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt hear this brute, there are
some men sons of Belial
—Plain it is that
Moses
speaks not
nor giveth charge to Kings, Rulers, & Judges only; but
he commands the whole body of the people, yea and
every member of the same, according to their possibility.
And who dare be so impudent as to deny
•
his to be most
reasonable & just? For seeing God had delivered the
whole body from bondage, and to the whole multitude
had given His Law, and to the twelve tribes had
distributed the Land of
Canaan;
was not the whole &
every member addebted to confess the benefits of God,
and to study to keep the possession received? which they
could not do, except they kept the Religion established,
& put out iniquity from amongst them. To the carnal
man this may seem to be a rigorous & severe judgment,
that even the Infants there should be appointed to the
cruel death: and as concerning the City, and spoill of
the same, man's reason cannot think but that it might
have been better bestowed, than to be consumed. But
in such cases let all creatures stoup, and desist from
reasoning, when Commandment is given to execute
His Judgment. I will search no other reasons, than the
Holy Ghost hath assigned; first, that all
Israel
should
fear to commit the like abomination;
And secondly,
that the
Lord might turn from the fury of His anger:
Which plainly
doth signify, that by the defection & Idolatry of a few,
God's wrath is kindled against the whole, which is never
quenched, till such punishment be taken upon the offenders,
that whatsoever served them in their Idolatry
be brought to destruction &c.
I have enlarged so far upon
this Period, that it may appear, there is nothing now in
Controversy, between the suffering & reproached party
now in
Scotland,
and either their Friends or Enemies,
which could fall under our Reformers inquiry; but they
have declared themselves of the same sentiments, that are
now so much opposed: And therefore none can condemn
the present heads of suffering, except also they condemn
the Reformers judgment; and consequently the imputation
of novelty must fall.
PERIOD. IV.
Containing the Testimony of the first Contenders
against Prelacy and Supremacy, from
the year 1570. to 1638.
HItherto the Conflict was for the Concerns of Christ's
Prophetical
&
Priestly
Office, against
Paganisine
&
Popery.
But from the year 1570. And dounward,
the Testimony is stated, and gradually Prosecuted, for the
Rights, Privileges, & Prerogatives of Christ's
Kingly
Office:
which hath been the peculiar Glory of the Church of
Scotland,
above all the Churches in the Earth, that this hath
been given to her as the word of her Testimony; and not
only Consequentially & Reductively, as all other Churches
may challenge a part of this dignity, but Formally & Explicitely
to contend for this very head,
The Headship & Kingship
of Jesus Christ,
the Prince of the Kings of the Earth,
and His Mediatory
Supremacy
over His own Kingdom of
Grace, both visible & Invisible. This is Christ's supremacy,
a special radiant Jewel of His Imperial Croun: which, as
it hath been as explicitly encroached upon in
Scotland,
by
His Insolent Enemies, as ever by any that entered in opposition
to Him; so it hath been more expressly witnessed
and wrestled for, by His suffering Servants in that Land,
than in any place of the world. This was in a particular
manner the Testimony of that
Period,
during the reign of
King
James
the
Sixth;
as it hath been in a great measure in
our day, since the year 1660. Which, as it is the most
important Cause, of the greatest Consequence that Mortals
can contend for; So it hath this peculiar Glory in it,
that it is not only for a Truth of Christ, of greater value
then the standing of Heaven & Earth, but also it is the very
Truth, for which Christ Himself died, considered as a
Martyr;
And which concerns Him to vindicate & maintain
as a Monarch. The Witnesses of that day made such
an high account of it, that they encouraged one another
to suffer for it, as the greatest Concern;
being a witness
for Christ's Glorious & free Monarchy, which as it is the
end of the other two Offices
, so the Testimony is more
Glorious to God, more honorable to His Son, and more
Comfortable to them, then the Testimony either for His
Prophetical office, or for His Priesthood, because His Kingdom
was specially impugned at the time; As
Mr Forbes
&
Mr Welsh
write in a Letter to the Ministers at Court. The
Corruptions & Usurpations wronging this Truth, that they
contended against, were
Prelacy
and the Kings
Supremacy
in Ecclesiastical matters: which will be useful to hint a
little, how they Prosecuted the Conflict. When Satan
(whose Kingdom was then declining) by several instruments
& means, both by force & fraud, did endeavor to
put a stop to the Reformation, by reintroducing the Antichristian
Hierarchy of
Prelacy,
when he could not reestablish
the Antichristian Doctrine of Popery; he left no
means unessayed to effectuate it. And first he began to
bring the name
Bishop
in request, that was now growing
obsolete & odious, by reason of the abuse of it (as it ought
to be still; for though the name be found in the Scriptures,
yet neither is that Catechrestical application of it to Prelates
to be sound, nor was there any other reason for the translation
of it after that manner, except it were to please
Princes; seeing the native signification of it is
an Overseer,
proper and common to all faithful Pastors.) And indeed his
first essay reached little further then the bare name, for they
were to be subject to & tried by Assemblies, and hardly
had so much power as Superintendents before. But it was
a fine Court-juggle for Noblemen, to get the Church revenues
into their hands, by restoring the Ecclesiastical
titles, and obtaining from the titulars either Temporal
Lands, or Pensions to their dependers: so they were only
Tulchan
Bishops, a Calfeskin to cause the Cow give milk.
Yet, though this in our day would have been thought tolerable;
The faithful Servants of Christ did zealously oppose
it.
Mr Knox
denunced
Anathema
to the Giver, and
Anathema
to the Receiver. And the following Assembly
condemned the office itself, as having
no sure warrant,
authority, nor ground in the Book of God, but brought
in by the folly & corruption of men's invention, to the
overthrow of the Church; and ordained all that brooked
the office, to dimit
simpliciter,
and to desist & cease from
preaching, while they received
de novo
admission from
the General Assembly, under the pain of excomunication.
Hereby they were awakened & animated, to a more
vigorous Prosecution of the establishment of the House of
God, in its due Government. In pursuance whereof,
the Assemblies from that time until the year 1581. Did
with much painfulness & faithfulness attend the work; until,
by perfecting of the
Second Book of Discipline,
they
completed their work, in the exact Model of
Presbyterial
Government,
in all its Courts & Officers. Which was Confirmed,
& Covenanted to be kept inviolate, in the
National
Covenant,
subscribed that year by the King, his Court,
& Council; and afterwards by all ranks of People in the
Land. Whence it may be doubted, whether the impudence
of the succeeding Prelates that denied this, or their perjury
in breaking of it, be greater. This was but the first
brush: a brisker assault follows. Wherein, for the better
establishment of Prelacy, that what it wants of Divine
right, might be supplied by the accession of human Prerogative,
and not only
Diocesan
but also
Erastian
Prelacy
might be set up, to destroy Christ's Kingdom & advance
Satan's; the Earl of
Arran
& his wicked Complices,
move the King, contrary both to the Word & Oath of
God, to usurp the prerogative of Jesus Christ, and assume
to himself, a blasphemous Monster of
Supremacy, over
all Persons, & in all Causes, as well Ecclesiastical as Civil.
But this
also the faithful Servants of God did worthily & valiantly
resist: and at the very first appearance of it, gave in a Grievance
to the King,
anno
1582.
That he had taken upon
him a spiritual Power, which properly belongs to Christ,
as only King & Head of the Church; the Ministry &
execution whereof, is only given to such as bear office
in the Ecclesiastical Government in the same: so that in
the Kings Person, some men press to erect a new
Popedom,
as though he could not be full King of this Commonwealth,
unless as well the spiritual as temporal
Sword be put in his hand, unless Christ be rest of His
Authority, and the two Jurisdictions confounded, which
God hath divided, which directly tendeth to the wrack
of all true Religion.
Which being presented by the Commissioners
of the General Assembly; the Earl of
Arran
asked, with a frouning Countenance, who dare subscribe
these treasonable Articles?
Mr Andrew Melvin
answered,
we dare, & will subscribe, & render our Lives in the
Cause. And afterward, that same Assembly presented
Articles, showing, that
seeing the spiritual Jurisdiction of
the Church, is granted by Christ, and given only to
them, that by preaching, teaching, & overseeing, bear
Office within the same, to be exercised, not by the injunctions
of men, but by the only Rule of God's Word
—hereafter, no other of whatsomever degree, or
under whatsomever pretence, have any color to ascribe,
or to take upon them any part thereof, either in
placing or displacing of Ministers, without the Churches
admission, or in stopping the mouths of Preachers, or
puting them to silence, or take upon them the judgment
of trial of Doctrine &c.
But in contempt & contradiction
to this, and to prosecute & exert this new usurped Power,
Mr Andrew Melvin
was summoned before the secret
Council, for a Sermon of his, applying his doctrine to
the Times Corruptions: whereupon he gave in his declinature
against them as incompetent Judges; and told
them,
they were too bold, in a Constitute Christian
Church, to pass by the Pastors, Prophets, & Doctors,
and to take upon them to judge the Doctrine, and to
control the Ambassadors of a Greater then was there,
which they neither ought nor can do. There are (saith
he, Loosing a little Hebrew Bible from his girdle) my
Instructions & Warrant: see if any of you can control
me, that I have past my injunctions.
For this he was
decerned, to be warded in the Castle of
Edinbrugh,
but he
being informed, that if he entered in ward he would not
be released, unless it were for the scaffold, he conveyed
himself secretly out of the Country. Hereafter when the
Parliament 1584. had enacted this Supremacy, and submission
to Prelacy, to be subscribed by all Ministers; the
faithful first directed
Mr David Lindsey
to the King, desiring
that nothing be done in Parliament prejudicial to the
Churches Liberty: who got the Prison of
Blackness
for his
Pains. And then when they could not get access for shut
doors to Protest before the Parliament; yet, when the
Acts were proclaimed at the Cross of
Edinburgh,
they took
public Documents, in name of the Church of
Scotland
(though they were but two) that they protested against the
said Acts: and fled to
England,
leaving behind them reasons
that moved them to do so. And
Mr James Melvin
wrote against the subscribers at that time very pertinently:
Proving, first, that they had not only set up a new
Pope,
& so become Traitors to Christ, and condescended to
that chief error of Papistry, whereupon all the rest depend;
but further, in so doing they had granted more to
the King, than ever the Popes of Rome peaceably obtained
&c.
And in the end, as for those that Lamented
their own weakness & feebleness, he adviseth them, to
remove the public slander, by going boldly to the King &
Lord's,
and show them how they had fallen through
weakness, but by God's power are risen again; and there
by public note & witness taken, free themselves from
that subscription, and to will the same to be delete, renouncing
& detesting it plainly, and thereafter publicly
in their Sermons, and by their Declaration & retractation
in writ,
presented to the faithful, manifest the same,
let them do with stipend, benefice, & Life itself what
they list. This I insert, because this Counsel is now condemned,
and when poor people, offended with Ministers
subscriptions of Bonds & other Complyances, desire acknowledgments
of the offense, they reject it as an impertinent
imposition, and plead they are not obliged to manifest
any retractation but to an Ecclesiastical Judicatory.
To which I shall say nothing here, but this is no novelty.
After this, it is known what bickerings the faithful witnesses
of Christ had, in their Conflicts with this supremacy,
upon the account of
Mr David Blacks
Declinature,
which they both advised him to, & approved when he gave
it in, against the King & Conncil as Judges of his Doctrine.
And the Commissioners of the General Assembly ordained
all, to deal mightily with the power of the word, against
the Councils encroachments; for which they were charged
to depart forth of
Edinburgh.
After which he added a second
Declinature: Declaring,
there are two Jurisdictions in
this realm, the one Spiritual the other Civil; the one
respecting the Conscience, the other externals; &c.—
Therefore, in so far as he was one of the spiritual office-bearers,
and had discharged his spiritual Calling in some
measure of grace & sincerity, should not nor could not
be Lawfully judged, for preaching and applying the word,
by any Civil power; he being an Ambassador & Messenger
of the Lord Jesus, having his Commission from
the King of Kings, and all his instructions set down &
limited in the book of God, that cannot be extended,
abridged, or altered by any mortal wight, King or Emperor;
And seeing he was sent to all sorts, his Commission
& discharge of it should not nor cannot be Lawfuly, judged,
by them to whom he was sent; they being sheep &
not Pastors, to be judged by the Word and
••
t to be
judges thereof in a judicial way.
The
Interloquutor
being past against him for this; the Brethren thought it
duty, that the Doctrine of the Preachers should be directed
against the said
Interloquutor,
as against a strong & mighty
hold set up against the Lord Jesus, and the freedom of the
Gospel; and praised God for the force & unity of the Spirit,
that was among themselves. And being charged to
depart out of Toun, they leave a faithful Declaration at
Large; showing, how the Liberties of the Church were
invaded & robbed: But all this was nothing, in comparison
of their wrestlings for the Royalties of their Princely Master,
and Privileges of His Kingdom, against that Tyrants
Insolencies, after he obtained he Croun of
England.
For then he would not suffer the Church to indict her own
Assemblies. And when the faithful thought themselves
obliged to counteract his Encroachments, and therefore
convened in an Assembly at
Aberdeen, anno
1605. they
were forced to dissolve: and thereafter, the most eminent
of the Ministers there assembled, were transported Prisoners
to
Black-ness.
Whence being cited before the Council,
they decline their Judicatory. And one of their Brethren,
Mr Robert Youngson,
who had formerly succumbed,
being moved in Conscience, returned: and when the rest
were standing before the Council, desired to be heard; and
acknowledged his fault, and therefore, howbeit not
summoned by the Lord's, was charged by the Living God,
and compelled to compear that day, to justify that Assembly,
to the great astonishment of the Lord's, and comfort
of His brethren; He subscribed the Declinature with
the rest: And for this they were arraigned, and condemned,
as guilty of Treason, and banished. Before
the execution of which sentence,
Mr Welsh
wrote to
the Lady
Fleming,
to this effect.
What am I, that He
should first have called me, and then constituted me a
Minister of glad things, of the Gospel of Salvation, these
fifteen years already, and now last of all to be a sufferer
for His Cause & Kingdom? To witness that good Confession,
that Jesus Christ is the King of Saints, and that
His Church is a most free Kingdom, yea as free as any
Kingdom under Heaven, not only to convocate, hold
& keep her Meetings, Conventions, & Assemblies:
But also to judge of all her affairs in all her Meetings &
Conventions, among His members and Subjects. These
two points. (1) That Christ is the Head of His Church.
(2) That she is free in her Government from all other jurisdiction
except Christ's, are the special Cause of our imprisonment,
being now convict as Traitors, for maintaining
thereof. We have now been waiting with joyfulness
to give the last Testimony of our blood in confirmation
thereof. If it would please our God to be so
favorable, as to honor us with that dignity.
After
this, the King resolving by Parliament to advance the
estate of Bishops again, as in the time of Popery, without
Cautions as before; and further to establish not only that
Antichristian Hierarchy, but an Erastian Supremacy: The
faithful Ministers of Christ, thought themselves bound in
Conscience to protest. And accordingly they offered a
faithful Protestation to the Parliament
Iulij
—1606. obtesting,
that they would reserve into the Lord's own hands,
that Glory which He will communicate neither with
man nor Angel, to wit, to prescribe from His holy
Mountain a Lively pattern, according to which His
own Tabernacle should be formed: Remembering alwise,
that there is no absolute & undoubted Anthority
in this world, except the sovereign Authority of Christ
the King; to whom it belongeth as properly to rule the
Church, according to the good pleasure of His own
will, as it belongeth to Him to save His Church by the
Merit of His own Sufferings: All other authority is so
intrenched within the marches of Divine Command,
that the least overpassing of the bounds set by God Himself,
bring men under the fearful expectation of Temporal
& Eternal judgments.—If ye should authorize
Bishops, ye should bring into the Church the ordinance
of man, which experience hath found, to have been
the ground of that Antichristian Hierarchy, which
mounted up on the steps of Bishops preeminence, until
that man of sin came forth, as the ripe fruit of man's wisdom,
whom God shall consume with the breath of
His own mouth. Let the sword of God pierce that belly,
which brought forth such a monster: And let the staff of
God crush that egg, which hath hatched such a Cockatrice:
And let not only that
Roman
Antichrist be thrown
down from the high bench of his usurped authority, but
also let all the steps whereby he mounted up to that unlawful
preeminence, be cut down & utterly abolished in
this Land: And beware to strive against God with an
open displayed banner, by building up again the walls of
Jericho,
which the Lord hath not only cast down, but
also hath laid them under an horrible Interdiction & execration,
so that the building of them again must needs
stand to greater charges to the builders, then the reedifying
of
Jericho,
to
Hiel
the
Bethelite
in the days of
Ahab.
Yet notwithstanding of all opposition, Prelacy was again
restored in Parliament. And to bring all to a Complyance
with the same, Presbyteries & Synods universally charged,
under highest pains, to admit a
constant Moderator
without
change: which many refused resolutely, as being the first
step of Prelacy. Upon this followed a great Persecution of
the faithful, for their
Nonconformity,
managed by that
Mongrel & Monstrous kind of Court, made up of Clergymen
& Statesmen, called
the High Commission Court,
erected
anno
1610. whereby many honest men were put violently
from their charges & habitations; the Generality were involved
in a great & fearful Defection. But the Copestone
of the wickedness of that
Period,
was the Ratification of
the
five Articles of Perth; kneeling at the Communion, private
Communion to be given to the sick, private Baptism,
and
Confirmation
of Children by the Bishop,
and
observation of festival
days.
Which were much opposed & testified against by the
faithful, from their first hatching
anno
1618. to the year
1621. when they were ratified in Parliament: at what time
they were also witnessed against from Heaven, by extraordinary
Lightenings & Tempest. And against this the Testimony
of the faithful continued, till the Revolution
anno
1638. Here we see how the Cause was stated in this
Period;
and may gather also, wherein it aggress, and how far it
differs from the present Testimony, now suffered for under
all rage & reproach.
I. The matter of the Testimony was one with that that
we are suffering for, against Popery, Prelacy, & Supremacy;
except that it was not so far extended against
Tyranny,
because that Tyrant was not such an usurper,
nor such a violater of the fundamental constitutions of the
Civil Government, as these that we have had to do with
all. But as to the managing the Testimony, they far out
stripped their successors in this generation, in conduct &
courage, Prudence & zeal, as is above hintend in many
instances: to which we may add some more. When several
plots of Papist Lord's had been discovered, conspiring
with the King of
Spain,
And they were by the Kings
Indulgence favored, and some were also persuaded to
treat with them: famous
Mr Davidson
opposed with great
resolution; Declaring before the Synod of
Lothian,
that it
favored much of defection in these days,
that such notorious
rebels to God, His Church, & the Country,
should be so treated with; we should not rashly open a
door to God's Enemies, without better proof of their
manners nor were yet seen.
And when a convention in
Falkland
was consulting to call home these conspiring Traitors:
Mr Andrew Melvin
went thither uncalled; and when
found fault with by the King for his boldness, he answered,
Sir, I have a call to come here from Christ & His Church,
who have special Interest in this Turn, and against
whom this Convention is assembled directly: I charge
yow, and your Estates, in the Name of Christ & His
Church, that ye favor not His Enemies whom He hateth,
nor go about to call home nor make Citizens of
these, who have traitorously sought to betray their City &
native Country, with the overthroiw of Christ's Kingdom.
And further challenged them of
treason against Christ,
His
Church & the Country, in that purpose they were about.
About the same time in a private Conference with the
King, he called the King
God's silly vassal;
and taking him
by the sleeve, told him; Sir, yow, and Church & Country
is like to be wracked for not telling the Truth,
and
giving yow faithful Counsel; we must discharge our duty,
or else be enemies to Christ & yow: Therefore I must
tell yow, there are two Kings and two Kingdoms; There
is Christ and His Kingdom, whose subject King
James the
6th is, and of whose Kingdom he is not a King,
nor a Head, nor a Lord, but a member, and they
whom Christ hath called to watch over & govern his
Church, have sufficient Authority, and Power from
Him, which no Christian King should control but assist,
otherwise they are not faithful subjects to Christ. Sir,
when yow were in your swedling clouts, Christ
reigned freely in this Land, in spite of all His enemies;
but now the wisdom of your Council, which is Devilish
& pernicious, is this, that yow may be served of
all sorts of men to your purpose & grandeur,
Jew
&
Gentile, Papist & Protestant, because the Ministers &
Protestants in
Scotland
are too strong, & control the
King, they must be weakened & brought low, by stirring
up a party against them, and the King being equal &
indifferent, both shall be fain to flee to him, so shall
he be well settled: But, Sir, let God's wisdom be the
only wisdom, this will prove mere & mad folly; for
His curse cannot but light upon it, so that in seeking both
yow shall lose both. To the like effect,
Mr Robert Bruce,
in a Sermon upon
Psal,
51. gives faithful warning of the
danger of the times. It is not we (says he) that are
Partie in this cause; no, the quarrel is betwixt a greater
Prince and them. What are we, but silly men? Yet it
has pleased Him to set us in this Office, that we should
oppone to the manifest usurpation that is made upon His
Spiritual Kingdom. Is there a more forcible mean to
draw down the wrath of God, than to let
Barabbas
that nobilitate
Malefactor pass free, and to begin the war against
Christ and His Ministry. It puteth on the Copestone,
that so many of our brethren should not be so faithful, as
their Calling & this Cause craveth. Fy upon false brethren,
to see them dumb, so faint hearted, when it
comes to the Chock: Not only are they ashamed to
speak the thing they think, which is a shame in a Pastor,
but speak directly against their former Doctrine. They
will speak the Truth a while, till they be put at, but incontinent
they will turn and make their gifts weapons to
fight against Christ; for there is none so malicious as an
Apostate when he begins to slide back &c.
The same
faithful witness, because he would not preach as the King
would have him, against his own conscience, to justify &
Proclaim the Kings Innocency, in a forged conspiracy
against him, was put from his Church in
Edinburgh,
and
being requested in an insinuating manner to desist from
preaching but for nine or ten days; he condescended at
first, thinking the matter of no great importance: yet that
night his body was cast in a fever, with the terror of his
conscience, and he promised he should never obey their
Commandment anymore. These were faithful men, yet
we find they challenge themselves in deep humiliation, for
their short comings & defections, at the renovation of the
National Covenant,
March,
30. 1596. the greatst solemnity
ever had been seen in
Scotland
before that time, so
that the place might worthily have been called
Bochim.
O
when shall we see such a day, when even the most faithful
among us, shall mourn over our far more aggravated defections!
but if they mourned then for these first degrees of
declensions, we may say,
quam gravius ingemiscerent illi fortes
viri, qui propter Ecclesiae Scoticanae Libertatem. olim in acie
decertarunt, si nostram hanc ignaviam (ne quid gravius dicam)
conspicerent!
I know notwithstanding of all this, that some
encourage themselves in a base Complyance with the present
corruptions of our Church, from the practice of these
Worthies; Alledging, they did not scruple to hear & join
with Prelatical men, dispensing the ordinances. But this
Objection will be easily refelled, if we consider, first, the
Period
wherein they were but growing up to a more perfect
Reformation, and therefore might bear with many things
which we cannot, after we have been reformed from
them: They were then advancing and still gaining ground,
we are now declining, and therefore should be more shy
to lose what we have gained. They had then of a long time
enjoyed their Judicatories, unto which they might recur
for an orderly redress of such grievances that offended
them; and when they were deprived of them, yet they were
still in hopes of recovering them, and so suspended their
total secession from that corrupt Church, until they should
recover them; in the mean time still holding their right and
maintaining their cause against these Invaders. But we
were at thevery first beginning of this unhappy Revolution,
totally deprived of our Judicatories, and denuded of all
expectation of them in an ordinary way, and of all place,
but what they are Masters of to contend with them that
way; therefore must keep ourselves free of their▪ Communion.
But next if we consider their practice, we shall find
these Worthies were not such
Conformists,
as our Complyers
would make them. What if we find among them
Meetings,
that were Called & Counted as Seditious &
Schismatic, as Ours are now? we find a
field Meeting,
yea a General Assembly, at
Dumfermling
without & against
the Kings warrant, when the
•
ports were shut against
them,
anno
1585. But that is not so pat to the purpose,
as that we find
Private-Meetings
at
Edinburgh,
and that in
the very time of public Service in the Churches, discharged
by open Proclamation
anno
1624. wherein it is charged,
that they had no respect to the ordinary Pastors, contemned
& impugned their Doctrine, disobeyed & controlled
their Discipline, abstained to hear the Word
preached, and to Participate of the Sacraments. And
long before that, we find the sincerer sort scrupled to hear
Bishop
Adamson,
not withstanding that he was absolved
in the Assembly. And that afterwards, the doubt being
proponed to the Assembly, if it be a slander to a Christian,
to absent himself from the Sermons of them that are suspended
from all function in the Ministry. The Assembly
Answered, there is no slander in the Case but rather it is
slanderous to resort. And why is not this ground to think
it slanderous or scandalous to resort to them, who deserve
to be suspended (all of them by a Spiritual cognizance,
and some of them to be
suspended
Corporally, for their villainy)
when there can be no access orderly to do it. And
the rather, because we find in this Period, that sometimes
Ministers were so faithful & zealous against the Corruptions
of the Ministry, that they decerned Ministers to
be suspended for far smaller faults, than many now could
exempt themselves from;
viz.
if they were not powerful &
Spiritual, if they did not apply their Doctrine to Corruptions,
if they were obscure & too Scholastic before
the people, cold & wanting zeal, flatterers, dissembling
at public sins for flattery or fear &c. As we may read in
the
Advice of the Brethren, deputed for penning the Corruptions
in the Ministry, anno
1596. I wish our silent prudent Ministers
now would consider the justness of this Censure, and
what ground people have to be offended at such censurableness.
But not only this may answer the false imputation
of Conformity on these witnesses of Christ at that time,
but I shall set down a part of a Letter of one of the banished
Ministers at that time, discovering his mind about
hearing
these men, that were then serving the times.
Mr John
Welsh,
writing to
Mr Robert Bruce,
—what my mind is
concerning the root of these branches, the bearer will
show yow more fully. They are no more to be counted
Orthodox, but Apostates; They have fallen from their
Callings by receiving an Antichristian, and bringing in
of Idolatry, to make the Kingdom culpable, and to
expose it to fearful Judgments, for such an high perfidy
against an Oath so sol
•
mnly enacted & given; And are
no more to be counted Christians, but strangers, Apostates,
& Persecutors, And therefore
not to be heard any
more,
either in public, or in Consistories, Colleges,
or Synods; for what fellowship hath light with darkness?
We see then as to that part of the Testimony, they were
not dissonant to the witness of the present reproached sufferers.
II. As the matter & manner of their Testimony against
all the invaders of the Churches privileges, did speak
forth a great deal of sincere & pure zeal; so their
practice
was conform, showing forth a great deal of strictness, and
averseness from all sinful Complyances, even with things
that would be now accounted of very minute & inconsiderable
consequence, and for which honest sufferers now
are flouted at as fools. When that Oath was formed for
acknowledging the Supremacy, there was a Clause added
which might have been thought to salve the matter,
according
to the Word of God.
I fear many now would not stand
to subscribe, with such a qualification. Yet the faithful
then perceived the Sophistry, that it made it rather worse,
affirming that that brat of Hell was according to the word
of God: And therefore, though there were several eminent
men to persuade them to it both by advice & example,
yet they could not in conscience Comply; And pleaded
also from the illegality of that imposition, that they should
be charged with the subscription of Laws, a thing never
required before of any subject; if they offended against the
Laws, why might they not be punished according to the
Laws? When many honest faithful Patriots, for their attempt
at
Ruthven
to deliver the Country from a vermin
of Villains that abused the King, to the destruction of the
Church & Kingdom, were charged to crave
Pardon,
&
take remission; they would do neither, judging it a base
condemning of duty: which puts a brand upon our sneaking
Supplicators, & Petitioners, & Pardon-mongers, as unworthy
to be called the race of such Worthies, who scorned
such baseness, and chose rather to endure the extremity
of their unjust Sentences, of Intercommuning &
Banishment &c. And when the Earl of
Gowrie
accepted
of a Remission, he afterwards condemned himself for it,
and desired that his old friends would accept of his friendship,
to whom he had made himself justly suspected.
Mr Black,
when he had the same favor offered to him,
refused altogether, left so doing he should condemn himself,
and approve the Courts Proceedings: And the Brethren,
confering with the Counselors, craving that some
penalty should be condescended unto for satisfying his Majesty
in his honor, would not condescend to any how
light soever; lest thereby they should seem to approve the
Judicatorie & their Proceeding. The Imprisoned Ministers,
for declining the Council, had it in their offer, that if they
would without any confession of offense only submit
themselves to his Majesty,
pro scandalo, accepto non dato,
they should be restored to their places: But it pleased God
so to strengthen them, that they stopped their Mouths, and
convinced them in their Consciences, that they could not
do it without betraying of the Cause of Christ. Again in
another case, we have Instances of such strictness, as is
much scorned now a days. The Ministers of
Edinburgh
were committed to ward, for refusing to pray for the
Queen, before her execution in
Forthringam
Castle 1586.
they refused not simply to pray for her, but for the preservation
of her life, as if she had been innocent of the crimes
laid to her charge, which had imported a condemnation
of the proceedings against her. Afterwards in the year
1600. the Ministers of
Edinburgh,
would not praise God
for the delivery of the King, from a pretended Conspiracy
of the Earl of
Gowrie
at that time, of which they had
no credit nor assurance; and would not crave Pardon for
it neither. For this
Mr Robert Bruce
was deprived of the
exercise of his Ministry, and never obtained it again in
Edinburgh:
But now for refusing such compelled & imposed
Devotion, to pray or praise for the King, poor people
are much condemned. I know it is alleged, that
these faithful sufferers in those days, were not so strict as
they are now, in submitting to unjust Sentences, and
obeying & keeping their Confinements. I shall grant, there
was much of this, and much might be tolerate in their
circumstances, when the Court procedure against them
was not so illegal, their Authority was not so Tyrannical,
nor so necessary to be disouned, and they were so
stated, that they were afraid to take guilt upon them, in
making their escapes: whereas it is not so with us. Yet
we find very faithful men broke their Confinements: As
Mr John Murray,
confined about
Dumfreis,
perceiving
there was no end of the Bishops malice, and that he would
be in no worse case than he was, he resolved without Licence
either of King or Council to transport himself: So
did also
Mr Robert Bruce.
III. For resistence of Superior Powers, we have in this
Period, first the practice of some Noblemen an
Ruthven,
anno
1582. who took the King, and seised on that Arrant
Traitor, Enemy to the Church & Country, the Earl of
Arran;
declaring to the world the Causes of it, the Kings
Correspondence with Papists, his usurping the Supremacy
over the Church, and oppressing the Ministers, all by
means of his wicked Counselors, whom therefore they
removed from him. The King himself emitted a Declaration
allowing this deed. The General Assembly approved
of it, and persuaded to a Concurrence with it, and nothing
was wanting to ratify it, as a most Lawfull & laudable
action. At length the Fox escapes, & changes all, and retracts
his former Declaration. The Lord's again rallie, and
interprise the taking of the Castle of
Stirling,
and gain it;
but afterward surrender it: after which the Earl of
Gowrie
is executed, and Ministers are commanded to retract the
Approbation of
Ruthven
business, but they refused: and
many were forced to flee to
England,
and the Lord's were
banished. But in the year 1585. they return with more success,
and take the Castle of
Stirling.
The cowardly King
does again acknowledge & justify their Enterprise,
that
they needed no Apology of words, Weapons had spoken well enough,
and gotten them audience to clear their own Cause:
but his after
carriage declared him as crafty & false, as he was cowardly
& fearful. Again we have the advice of the General Assembly,
for resisting, when the Ministers were troubled,
upon
Mr Blacks
bussiness, and there was an intention to
pull them out of their Pulpits: They advised them to stand
to the discharge of their Calling, if their flocks would save
them from violence, and yet this violence was expected
from the King and his Emissaries. As to that point then
there can be no dispute.
IV. There was little occasion for the Question about the
Kings Authority in this Period, but generally all acknowledged
it: because they were not sensible of his usurpation,
and his cowardice made him incapable of attempting any
thing that might raise commotions in civil things. Yet we
remark, that whatsoever Authority he usurped beyond his
sphere, that was disouned & declined by all the Faithful, as
the Supremacy. Next that they resented, & represented
very harshly, any aspiring to
Absoluteness;
as
Mr Andrew
Melvin
could give it no better name, nor entertain no better
notion of it, then to term it,
The bloody Guillie,
as he
inveighs against it in the Assembly, 1582. And next, in
this same Period, we have a very good description of that
Authority, which the King himself allows not to be
owned, which out of a Kings mouth abundantly justifies
the disouning of the present Tyrannie: This same King
James,
in a speech to the Parliament in the year 1609.
saith,
A King degenerateth into a Tyrant, when he leaveth to
rule by
〈◊〉
, much more when he beginneth to invade his Subjects
Persons, Rights, & Liberties, to set up an Arbitrary Power,
impose unlawful taxes, raise forces, make War upon his Subjects,
to pillage, plunder, wast, and spoil his Kingdoms.
PERIOD. V.
Containing the Testimony for the last Reformation
from Prelacy, in all its steps, from
the year 1638, to 1660.
THe following
Period,
from the year 1638. to 1660,
continues & advances the Testimony, to the greatest
hight of Purity & Power, that either this Church
or any other did ever arrive unto, with a Gradation, Succession,
& Complication of wonders, of Divine Wisdom,
Power, Justice & Mercy, signally & singularly owning &
sealing it, to the Confusion of His Enemies, Comfort of
His People, Conviction of Indifferent Neutrals, and
Consternation of All. Now after a long winter, and night
of Deadness & Darkness, the sun returns with an amiable
approach of Light & Life: now the winter was past, the
rain was over & gone, the flowers appear on the earth, and
the time of singing of birds is come, and the voice of the
turtle is heard in our Land. Now the second time, the
Testimony comes to be managed in an
Active
manner,
as before it was
Passive:
As the one hath been always observed
to follow interchangably upon the other, especially
in
Scotland,
and the Last always the Greatest; which
gives ground to hope, though it be now our turn to suffer,
that when the summer comes again after this winter, and
the day after this night, the next Active Testimony shall
be more notable than any that went before. The matter of
the Testimony was the same as before, for the Concerns
of Christ's
Kingly
Prerogative, but with some more increase
as to its opposites: for these grew successively in every
Period, the Last always including all that went before.
The first Period had
Gentilism
principally to deal with, the
second
Popery,
The third
Popery
& Tyrannie, the fourth
Prelacy
&
Supremacy,
this fifth hath all together, and
Sectarianisme
also, to contend against. The former had always the
opposites on one hand, but this hath them in extremes on
both hands; both fighting against one another, and both
fighting together against the Church of
Scotland,
and she
against both, till at length one of her opposites prevailed,
viz.
the
Secterian
Party, and that prevailing brought in the
other, to wit, the
Malignant,
which now domineers over
all together. Wherefore, because this Period is in itself
of so great importance, the Revolutions therein emergent
so eminent, the Reformation therein prosecuted wanting
little of its perfect Complement; the Deformation succeeding
in its Deviation from the Pattern being so destructive;
to the end it may be seen from whence we have fallen,
and whether or not the present reproached Sufferers
have lost or left their ground, we must give a short deduction
of the Rise, Progress, & End of the Contendings
of that Period.
In the midst of the forementioned Miseries & Mischiefs,
that the pride of Prelacy and Tyrannical Supremacy had
multiplied beyond measure upon this Church & Nation,
and at the hight of all their haughtiness, when they were
setting up their
Dagon,
and erecting Altars for him, imposing
the
Service-book,
and book of
Canons
&c. the Lord in
Mercy remembered His people, and surprised them with
a sudden unexpected Deliverance, by very despicable
means; even the opposition of a few weak women, at the
beginning of that Contest, which, ere it was quashed, made
the Tyrant tumble headless off his throne. The zeal
against the
English popish Ceremonies,
obtruded on
Edinburgh,
did first inflame some feminine hearts to witness
their detestation of them; but afterwards was followed out
with more Masculine fervor, accosting King & Council
with Petitions, Remonstrances, Protestations, & Testimonies
against the Innovations, and resolving upon a
mutual Conjunction, to defend Religion, Lives, & Liberties,
against all that would innovate or invade them.
To fortify which, and conciliate the favor both of God
& man in the Resolution, All the Lovers of God, and
friends to the Liberty of the Nation, did solemnly Renew
the
National Covenant
(wherein they were signally countenanced
of the Lord) which, though in itself obliging to
the Condemnation of Prelatical
Hierarchy,
and clearly
enough confirming Presbyterial Government, yet they engaged
into it with an inlargment, to suspend the practice
of Novations already introduced, and the approbation of
the Corruptions of the present Government, with the
late places & power of Church men, till they be tried in
a free General Assembly. Which was obtain
•
that same
year, and indicted at
Glasgow:
and there, not with standing
all the opposition that the Kings Commissioner could
make, by Protestations & Proclamations to dissolve it, the
six preceeding Assemblies establishing Prelacy were annulled,
The
Service-Book,
and
high Commission
were condemned;
All the
Bishops
were deposed, and their Government
declared to be abjured in that National Covenant;
though many had, through the Commissioners,
persuasions, subscribed it in another sense without that
application: As also the
five Articles of Perth
were there
discovered, to have been inconsistent with that Covenant
& Confession, and the Civil places & power of Church
men were disproved & rejected: on the other hand
Presbyterial
Government
was Justified & Approved, and an Act
was passed for their keeping yearly General Assemblies.
This was a bold beginning, into which they were animated
with more than human resolution, against more than
human opposition, Hell as well as the powers of the earth
being set against them. But when the Lord gave the Call,
they considered not their own deadness, nor were daunted
with Discouragments, nor staggered at the promise through
unbelief, but gave Glory to God, out braving all difficulties.
Which in the following year were much increased,
by the Prelates and their Popish Partakers, rendevouzing
their forces under the Kings Personal Standart, and menacing
nothing but misery to the zealous Covenanters: yet
when they found them prepared to resist, were forced to
yield to a Pacification, concluding that an Assembly &
Parliament should be held for healing all grievances of
Church and State. In which Assembly, at
Edinburgh,
the
Covenant is ratified & subscribed by the Earl of
Traquair
Commissioner, and enjoined to be subscribed by the body
of the whole Land, with an explication expressly condemning
the five
Articles of Perth,
the Government of
Bishops, the Civil places & power of Church men: But
the sons of
Belial
cannot be taken with hands, nor bound
with bonds of faith, humanity, or honor; For in the
year following, King & Prelates, with their Popish Abettors,
go to arms again; but were fain to accommodate the
matter by a new Pacification, whereby all Civil & Religious
Liberties were ratified. And in the following year
1641, by Laws, Oaths, Promises, subscriptions of
King & Parliament fully confirmed. The King,
Charles
the I.
being present, and consenting to all; though in the
mean time he was treacherously encouraging the
Irish
murderers,
who by his Authority made a
Massacre
of many
thousand Innocent Protestants in
Ireland.
But in
Scotland
things went well, the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus was
greatly advanced, the Gospel flourished, and the Glory
of the Lord did shine upon us, with such a splendor that
it awaked
England,
and animated the Lord's People
there, then groaning under those Grievances from which
Scotland
was delivered, to aspire to the like Reformation.
For advice in which, because though all aggreed to cast
off the yoke of
Prelacy,
yet sundry forms of Church Government
were projected to be set up in the room thereof,
chiefly the
Independent
order, determining all Acts of
Church Government, as Election, ordination, and deposition
of officers, with Admission, Excommunication,
& Absolution of members, to be done & decided by the
voices of every Particular Congregation, without any
Authoritative Concurrence or interposition of any other,
condemning all imperative & decisive power of Classes
&c. as a mere usurpation; Therefore the Brethren in
England
wrote to the Assembly then fitting at
Edinburgh,
who gave them answer
That they were grieved, that
any of the Godly should be found not aggreeing with
other Reformed Churches in point of Government, as
well as Doctrine; and that it was to be feared, where
the edge of Discipline & Government is different, the
Doctrine & Worship shall not long continue the same
without change; That the Government of the Church,
by Compound Presbyteries & Synods, is a help & strength,
and not a hindrance to particular Congregations &
Elderships, in all the parts of Government; and
are not an extrinsical Power set over Particular
Churches, but the intrinsical power where with Christ
hath invested His Officers, who may not exercise it Independently,
but with subordination unto Presbyteries &c.
Which as they are Representative of particular Churches,
conjoined together in one under their Government;
so their determination, when they proceed orderly,
whether in Causes common to all, or brought
before them by reference in case of aberration, is to the
several Congregations Authoritative, & not Consultatory
only. And this subordination is not only warranted
by the light of nature, but grounded upon the Word of
God, and conform to the Pattern of the Primitive &
Apostolic Church, for the Preservation of verity &
unity, against Schism, Heresy, & Tyrannie, which
is the fruit of this Government where soever it hath place.
So from henceforth the Assembly did incessantly urge
uniformity
in Reformation, with their Brethren in
England,
as the chiefest of their Desires, Prayers, & Cares. And in
the year 1643. prevailed so far, that the
English
Parliament
did first desire that the two Nations might be strictly united
for their mutual defense, against the Papists & Prelatical
faction and their Adherents in both Kingdoms; and not to
lay down Arms, till these implacable Enemies should be
brought in subjection: and did instantly urge for the help &
assistance from
Scotland.
Which being sent did return with
an Olive branch of Peace, and not without some beginnings
of a Reformation in
England.
And afterwards, a bloody
War beginning between the King & Parliament, with great
success on the Kings side, whence the Papists at the time
got great advantage (witness the cessation of Arms concluded
in
Ireland
) Commissioners were sent from both
Houses to
Scotland,
earnestly inviting to a nearer union of
the Kingdoms, and desiring Assistance from this Nation to
their Brethren in that their great distress: And this, by the
good hand of God, produced the
solemn League & Covenant
of the three Kingdoms, first drawn up in
Scotland,
and
approven in the Assembly at
Edinburgh,
and afterward
embraced in
England,
to the terror of the Popish and
Prelatical party, and to the great comfort of such as
were wishing and waiting for the Reformation of Religion,
and the recoveries of Just Liberties. The tenor
whereof did import,
their sincere & constant endeavors, in
their several places & Callings, for preservation of the Uniformity
in Reformation, in Doctrine, Worship, Discipline, & Government;
The extirpation of Popery, Prelacy, Error & Prof
•
nity;
the preservation of the Rights & Liberties of the people, and of the
Magistrates Authority, in defense of the true Religion and Liberty;
the discovery & punishment of Incendaries; the retaining of the
Peace & Union of the Kingdoms; the mutual assistance & defense
of all under the bond of this Covenant; and the performing all duties
we owe to God, in the amendment of our Lives, and walking
exemplarly one before another.
This is that
Covenant
comprehending
the purpose of all Prior, and the Pattern of all
posterior Covenants, to which Christ's witnesses did always
adhere, for which the present witnesses do suffer &
contend; That Covenant, which the Representative of
Church & State in the three Nations did solemnly Subscribe
& Swear, for themselves & posterity, of which the
obligation, either to the duty or the punishment, continues
indispensibly on the Generation; which for the moral
equity o
•
its matter, the formality of its manner, the importance
of its purpose, the holiness of its solemn Engagment,
and the Glory of its Ends, no power on Earth,
can Disannul, Disable, or Dispense; That Covenant,
which the Lord did Ratifie from Heaven, by the conversion
of many thousands at their entering under the bond of
it, securing & establishing unto them, and all the faithful,
the blessings & privileges therein expressed, and avouching
Himself to be their God, as they had avouched themselves
to be His people; That Covenant, which in all the Controversies
it hath occasioned, did never receive a greater
confirmation than from the malice & opposition of its Adversaries;
That Covenant, which malignants do malign
& deny, and Sectaries scorn & lay aside, as an
Almanac
out of date;
which hath been many ways traduced & reproached
by enemies, and yet could never be reflected on
by any Serious in this Land, without a honorable & fragrant
remembrance: Especially that Retortion of Adversaries
of the rigor of its imposition upon Recusants, to justify
their cruelty upon its Asserters now, is to be refelled,
not with confutation of its importance, but with disdain
of its impudence. For who were the Recusants: but wicked
enemies to God and Church & Nation, who for their
malignancy were then to be prosecuted, not for their
scrupling at a Covenant, but for their contumacious Contempt
of a Law? This was no violence done to their conscience;
for as they had none, and could not pretend to
any, so they were never troubled for that, but for their
opposition & conspiracy against the common cause. However,
it went through at that time: And that the Covenanted
Reformation, in a nearer conjunction betwixt the
united Churches, might be promoted, the Parliament of
England
called an Assembly of Divines at
Westminster:
and
desired the Assembly of
Scotland
to send thither their Commissioners;
which accordingly nominated & elected,
Mr
Alexander Henderson, Mr Robert Dowglas, Mr Samuel Rutherford,
Mr Robert Balzie, Mr George Gillespie
Ministers,
And
John
Earl of
Cassils, John
Lord
Maitland,
and
Sir
Archbald Iohnstoun
of
Waristoun,
Ruling Elders; to Propone,
Consult, Treat, & conclude in all such things as
might conduce to the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy, Heresy,
Schism, Superstition, & Idolatry, and for the
settling of the so much desired union of the whole Island,
in one form of Church Government, one Confession of
Faith, one common Catechism, & one Directory for
the Worship of God. Forces were also sent, to assist the
Parliament of
England:
which were favored with great
success in their Entreprizes, till that War was ended by
the total overthrow of Tyranny at that time, and all its
upholders. But that Popish, Prelatical, & Malignant
faction being brought much under in
England,
attempted
(not unlike the
Syrians,
who thought the God of
Israel
was
not God of the Hills & Valleyes both) to try the fortune of
War in
Scotland,
under the conduct of that Treacherous
& truculent Traitor
Montrose,
gathering an Army of wicked
Apostates &
Irish
Murderers: who prevailing for a time,
did punish, in the Justice of God, the Hypocrisy & self-seeking
of such in this Land whose hearts were not upright
in His Covenant; at length was defeat at
Philiphaugh,
in
the year 1645. yet certain it is, that they had Commission
& warrant from the King: as the Assembly that year,
Feb.
13. remonstrates it to himself;
Warning him in the name of
their Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, that the guilt which
cleaved to his throne was such, as (whatsoever flattering
Preachers or unfaithful Counselors might say to the contrary)
if not timely repented, could not but involve himself
& his Posterity, under the wrath of the Everliving
God, for his being guilty of the shedding of the blood of
many thousands of his best Subjects, for his permitting
the Mass & other Idolatry in his family & Dominions
&c.
At the same time also the Assembly did zealously
incite the Parliament to a speedy course of Justice, against
these Incendaries & Murderers, as the only mean of cleansing
the Land from that deluge of blood then current, and
of appeasing the wrath of God: and solemnly & seasonably
warned all ranks, to applaud the Glory & Righteousness
of that Judgment of the sword, in the hands of these
Apostates & Murderers, and to search to understand the
Language of that Dispensation; wherein many Public
sins & breaches of Covenant are pointed at, as the Causes
of that desolation; And the Covenant itself is there very
Encomiastically vindicated.
We are so far from repenting
of it (say they) that we cannot mention it without great
joy & thankfulness to God, as that which hath drawn
many blessings after it, and unto which God hath given
manifold evident Testimonies: for no sooner was the Covenant
begun to be taken in
England,
but sensibly the condition
of affairs there was changed to the better, and our
forces sent into that Kingdom, in pursuance of that Covenant,
have been so mercifully & manifestly assisted & blessed
from Heaven, that we have what to answer the enemy
that reproacheth us concerning that business, & that which
may make iniquity itself to stop her mouth: but which is
more unto us than all victories, the Reformation of Religion
in
England,
& Uniformity therein between both
Kingdoms (a principal end of that Covenant) is so far advanced,
that the Government of the Church by Congregational
Elderships, Classical Presbyteries, Provincial &
National Assemblies, is aggreed upon by the Assembly of
Divines at
Westmnster,
and voted & conc
•
uded in both
houses of Parliament.
After this the Malignants in
England
being crushed in all their Projects, the King renders
himself to the
Scots
in
New castle:
by whom (because by
Covenant they were not obliged to defend him, but only in
defense of Religion & Liberty, which he had been destroying
and they defending; because in this war he did directly
oppose & oppugn these conditions, under which they
were only to defend him, and therefore they had all alongst
carried towards him as an enemy, as he to them; And because
by the same Covenant they were obliged to discover,
& render to condign punishment all Malignants & Incendaries,
of whom he was the chief, and to re
•
ain the Peace
& Union of the Kingdoms, which could not be retained in
maintaining their destroyer, And to assist mutually all entered
into that Covenant, which he was fighting against)
he was delivered up into the
English,
and kept under restraint
in the Isle of
Wight,
until he received his just demerit,
for all his oppressions, Murders, Treachery, & Tyranny;
being condemned & execute
Ianuar. 30. anno
1648/9
Which fact, though it was protested against both before
& after by the Assembly of the Church of
Scotland,
out of
zeal against the
Sectarians,
the executioners of that extraordinary
Act of Justice; yet it was more sor the manner than
for the matter, and more for the motives & ends of it
than for the grounds of it, that they opposed themselves
to it, and resented it. For they acknowledged & remonstrated
to himself, the Truth of all these things upon
which that sentence & execution of Justice was founded.
And when a wicked Association, &
Unlawful Engagment
was on foot to rescue him, they opposed it with all their
might: Showing, in their Answers to the Estates that
year 1648. and Declarations & Remonstrances, the sinfulness
& destructiveness of that Engagment; that it
was a breach of the Commandments of God, & of all
the Articles of the Covenant; Declaring withal, they
would never consent to the Kings Restitution to the exercise
of his Power, without previous assurance by solemn
Oath under his hand & seal, for settling of Religion according
to the Covenant. By which it appears, they were
not so stupidly Loyal, as some would make them. Yet
indeed it cannot be past without regrate, that there was too
much of this plague of the
Kings-evil
even among good
men: which from that time forth hath so infected the heads
& hearts of this Generation, that it hath almost quite extinct
all Loyaltie to Christ, and all zeal for Religion & Liberty.
Then it began to infuse & diffuse its Contagion,
when after the death of
Charles
the
first,
in the year 1649.
they began, after all that they had smarted for their trusting
these treacherous Tyrants, and after that Grace had been
shown them from the Lord their God, by breaking these
men's yokes from from off their necks, and puting them
again into a Capacity to act for the good of Religion, their
own safety, and the peace & safety of the Kingdom, to
think of joining once more with the people of these abominations,
and taking into their bosoms these Serpents
which had formerly stung them almost to death.
Hinc il
••
lachrimae, en origo & Scaturigo nostrae defectionis!
There was
indeed at that time a Party faithful for God, who considering
the many breaches of the Solemn League & Covenant,
and Particularly by the late Engagment against
England,
did so travel that they procured the Covenant to be
renewed, with the
Solemn Acknowledgment of sins & Engagment
to duties,
which was Universally subscribed &
sworn through all the Land; wherein also they regrete
this tampering with Malignants. And therefore the Lord
did mightily save & defend them from all their Adversaries,
subdued them at
Stirling,
and in the North. They did also
give warning concerning the young King, that notwithstanding
of the Lord's hand against his Father,
yet he
hearkens unto the Counsels of these, who were Authors
of these Miseries to his Father; by which it hath
come to pass, that he hath hitherto refused to grant the
just & necessary desires of the Church & Kingdom, for
securing of Religion & Liberty: And it is much to be
feared, that these wicked Counsellers, may so far prevail
upon him, as to engage him in a war, for overturning
the Work of God, and bearing down all those in the
three Kingdoms that adhere thereto. Which if he shall do,
cannot but bring great wrath from the Lord upon himself
& throne, and must be the cause of many new &
great Miseries & Calamities to these Lands.
And in the
same warning, by many weighty reasons, they prove, that
he is not to be admitted to the exercise of his power, without
security for Religion & Liberty. And when the bringing
home of the King came to be voted in the Assembly,
there was one faithful witness,
Mr Adam Kae
Minister in
Galaway,
protested against it; fore showing & fore telling,
what mischeef & misery he would bring with him when he
should come. These things might have had some weight,
to demur the Nation from meddling with that perfidious
Traitor. But all this serves only to aggravate the sin &
shame of that distraction, which hath procured all this destruction,
under which the Land mourns to this day:
That notwithstanding of all these Convictions, warnings
yea and discoveries of his Malignancy, Treachery, & inclinations
to Tyranny; They sent Commissioners, and
concluded at Treaty with him at
Breda.
During which
Treaty, the Commissions which he had sent to that bloody
villain
Montrose,
& his Cut throat Complices, to raise an
Army, & wast & invade the Country with fire & sword
the second time; were brought to the Committee of Estates,
discovering what sort of King they were treating with.
Whereupon, after serious Consulting not only together,
but with the Lord: And after many debates what to do in
such a doubtful case, wherein all was in danger, the Estates
concluded to break off the Treaty, and recall their Commissioners.
To which intent, they sent an Express with
Letters to
Breda;
which by providence falling into the
hands of
Libberton,
a true Libertine, & false betrayer of
his trust & Country, was by him, without the knowledge
of the other Commissioners, delivered unto the
King: who consulting the Contents of the Packet with
his Jesuitical & Hypocritical Cabal, found it his interest to
play the fox (being disappointed at that time to play the
Tiger) and dissemble with God & man. And so sending
for the Commissioners, he made a flattering speech to
them, showing that now after serious deliberation he was
resolved to comply with all their Proposals. Where upon
the poor cheated Commissioners dispatch the post back
with Letters, full of praise & joy, for the satisfaction they
had received. The Estates, perceiving themselves imposed
upon, consulted again what to do; and in end, being
overswayed more with respect to their own credit
(which they thought should be impeached, if they should
retract their own Plenipotentiary Instructions, to conclude
the Treaty upon the Kings assent to their Conditions) than
to their reclamant consciences, they resolved to bring home
that pest, and thereby Precipitated themselves & us into ineluctable
misery. Yet they thought to mend the Matter,
by binding him with all Cords, and puting him to all most
explicit Engagments, before he should receive the Imperial
Croun. Well, upon these terms home he comes,
and before he set his foot on
British
ground he takes the Covenant.
And thereafter, because the Commission of the
General Assembly, by the Act o
•
the
West Kirk August.
13.
1650. Precluded his Admittance unto the Croun, if he
should refuse the then required satifaction, before his Coronation
he emits that Declaration at
Dumferling;
wherein,
Professing & appearing in the full persuasion &
love of the Truth, he repenteth (as having to do with
& in the sight of God) his Fathers opposition to the Covenant
& work of God, & his own reluctances against
the same, hoping for Mercy through the blood of Jesus
Christ, and obtesting the prayers of the faithful to God
for his stedfastness; and than protesteth his Truth &
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 & 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 Idol of Jealousy to provoke the Lord,
and he himself accounteth to be but selfish flattery.
A
declaration so full of heart Professions, & high Attestations
of God, that none considering what followed can reflect
thereon, without horror & trembling from the holy Jealousy
of the Lord, either for the then deep dissimulation
or the after unparalelled Apostasy. I know it is objected
by Court parasites, that the King was then compelled to
do these things. To which I shall only say: It would
have cost any of them their head at that time, to have asserted
that he did upon deliberation & choice mock God &
man, and entered into these Engagments, only with a
purpose to be thereby in better Capacity, to destroy what
he swore to maintain; only because he could not have the
Croun without this way, which in the Confession of the
objectors themselves was only deliberate & premeditate
Perjurie. Next, if it should, be granted he was Compelled;
let it be also considered, who Compelled him;
and these will be found to be the deceitful Courtiers. For,
let it be adverted, what
Mr Gilespie
declares of the Case,
who put the pen in his hand when he subscribed that Declaration:
He, perceiving there was sufficient ground to
Jealouse his reality, and seeing evidently that the Courtiers
prevailed with the King on a sudden to offer to subscribe
the Declaration (when they observed that the Commissioners
of Church & State were resolute, & ready to go
away in a fixedness, to leave out the puting of his Interest
in the state of the quarrel) and being afraid of the sad
Consequences of it, spoke his mind plainly to the King,
That if he was not satisfied in his Soul & Conscience, beyond
all hesitation of the righteousness of the subscription,
he was so far from overdriving him to run upon that, for
which he had no light, as he obtested him, yea he charged
him in his Masters name, and in the name of these who
sent him, not to subscribe this Declaration, no not for
the three Kingdoms.
Whereupon the King answered,
Mr Gillespie, Mr Gillespie I am satisfied, I am satisfied with the
Declaration, and therefore will subscribe it.
Upon which some
of the Courtiers swore that
Mr Gillespie
intended simply to
dissuade the King from subscribing it, that so Church and
State might professedly lay aside his Inetrest: which would
have defeat their hopes to make up themselves, as now they
have done, upon the then designed ruin of the Interest of
Truth. Then at his Coronation, we have his again reiterated
confirmations of that Covenant:
first,
he is desired
in name of the people to accept the Crown, and maintain
Religion according to the National & Solemn League &
Covenant; whereunto he gave his apparently Cordial consent
(the words are in
the form & order of the Coronation
with the whole Action.) Then
next,
a Sermon being
Preached upon 2
King.
11. 12, & 17. the action commenceth,
with his most solemn renewing of the National and
solemn League & Covenant, by Oath.
Then,
he is presented
to the people, and their willingness demanded to
have him for their King on these terms. At the same time,
in the
next
place, he took the Coronation Oath.
Then
on
these terms he accepted the Sword. And after the Crown
is set upon his head, the people's obligatory Oath is proclaimed
on the terms foresaid, otherwise he is not that
King to whom they swore subjection.
Then
being set
upon the Throne, he was by the Minister put in mind
of his Engagments, from 1
Chron.
29. 33. And then the
Nobles of the Land came one by one kneeling, and lifting
up their hands between his hands, swore the same Oath.
These things done, the whole Action was closed with a
most solid & severe exhortation from several instances,
Neh. 5. 13. Ier.
34. 18, 19, 20, &c. There after in the year
1651. followed the Ratification of all these preceeding
Treaties, Transactions, & Engagments, concluded &
enacted by the King, and the Parliament then fully &
freely convened; whereby the same did pass into a Perpetual
Law. And this Covenant, which from the beginning
was & is the most sure & indispensible Oath of God,
became at length the very fundamental Law of the Kingdom,
whereon all the rights or privileges, either of
King or people, are principally bottomed & secured. This
might seem security sufficient, but considering the former
discoveries & experiences they had of his Treachery, and
the visible appearances (in the mean time) of his Refusalls,
visible Reluctances, manifest Resilings, open Counter
actings, and continued prejudices against the Covenant,
and his following unprecedented avowed perjury, every
thing doth indelebly fasten upon them the weakness at
least of an overweening Credulity, and upon him the
wickedness of a perfidious Policy, in all these Condiscensions.
After this it came to pass, that zeal for the Cause
rightly stated was suddenly contracted to a few, and the
flame thereof extinguished in many, and Court wild fire
substitute in its place: whereby a plain defection was violently
carried on by the
Public Resolutioners,
who relapsing
into that most sinful Conjunction with the People of these
abominations, so solemnly repented for & resolved against,
did notwithstanding bring in Notorious
Malignants,
into
places of power & Trust, in Judicatories & Armies, in a
more Politick than Pious way of requiring of them a constrained
& dissembled Repentance, to the mocking of the
God of Truth, and Scorn of all our holy Engagments.
Which defection did not only cause for a long time an incurable
Division; the first of that kind, and most permanent
of any that ever was in the Church of
Scotland,
by
reason of the surcease of General Assembl
•
es, stoped &
hindered by the yoke of the
Sectarian
Usurpation; but also
was the spring & source of all our defections since, all
flowing from & fomented by that same spirit that fostered
that: And for that, since that time, the Lord hath been
contending with this Church & Nation, bringing us under
the bondage of these Malignant Enemies, whom we
suffered them then to encourage & introduce. And both
at that time, & since that time, the Lord never countenanced
an Expedition where that Malignant Interest was
taken in unto the state of the quarrel. Upon this our Land
was invaded by
Oliver Cromwell,
who defeat our Army at
Dumbar,
where the Anger of the Lord was evidently seen
to smoke against us, for espousing that Interest. And remarkable
it is, how in that very day where in the
Public
Resolutions
were concluded in the Assembly at
St Andrew's,
the Lord then shed the blood of His people at
Ennerkeithing;
so as that the Assembly, having in great hast hurried
through this Approbation, were all made to run for
it, and Adjourn themselves to
Dundie,
where they met
and completed that step of defection. And afterwards its
known, what a peculiar vengeance fell upon that City,
where this deed was done beyond all the Cities of the Nation.
Next, an Army being raised, according to these
unhallowed
Resolutions,
and the Lord puting remarkable
Discountinance upon them in their attemptings at home,
as was manifest in their attemptings at
Torewood
&c. They
march into
England;
and there did the Lord continue, by
His leaving our Army to the Sword, to preach that Doctrine
to the world
Josh.
7. 10, 11, 12. [
Israel hath sinned
and transgressed the Covenant—have taken the accursed thing
—and dissembled also, and have put it even amongst their own
stuff, therefore the Children of Israel could not stand before their
enemies, but turned their backs before their Enemies, because they
were accursed: Neither will I be with yow anymore, except ye destroy
the accersed thing from among yow
] An army of near 30000
was totally routed at
Worcester;
and the
Achan,
the Cause
of the overthrow, was forced to hide himself in the
Oak,
and thence to transport himself beyond sea, where he continued
a wandering fugitive in
Exile,
till the year 1660. In
the mean time the
Sectarian
Army here prevailed, till,
after the usurper
Cromwell
his death, the false
Monk
then
General, with a Combination of
Malignants
and Public
Resolutioners,
did machinate our misery, and effectuated
it by bringing home the King to
England
from his banishment:
Wherein he was habituate into an implacable hatred
against the Work of God. Yet, though since the Kings
first reception into
Scotland,
our declensions were still
growing until they produced this fearful Revolt from God,
wherein the Nation is now involved; there was still a faithful
Remnant of Ministers & Professors, zealous for the
Cause, keeping their Integrity; who in their Remonstrances
& Testimonies witnessed against both their Malignant
Enemies and their backsliding Brethren the Resolutioners,
and also against the Sectarians their Invaders;
whose vast
Toleration
&
Liberty of Conscience,
which they
brought in to invade our Religion as they had invaded our
Land, and infect it with their multifarious Errors, was
particularly by the Synod of
Fife,
and other Brethren in the
Ministry that joined themselves to them, Testified against,
and demonstrated to be wicked & intolerable. Now to
see how far the present Testimony is Con
•
irmed by the
witnesses of this Period, we may resume some Reflections
on it.
I. They impartially carried on the Testimony against
Prelacy, and the
Popish Prelatical
&
Malignant
faction on
the one hand, and the
Sectarians
on the other, without
ever waving the Testimony against either, or at the least
winking at the one to weaken the other: both which Testimonies
they though of so great importance, that they could
not dispense with but faithfully maintain both, in their
witnessings & warnings. In that
seasonable & necessary Warning
& Declaration concerning present & imminent dangers,
given at
Edinb. July 27. sess
27. They say first of the
S
•
ctaries
That
prevailing Party of Sectaries in
England,
who have broken
the Covenant, and despised the Oath of God, corrupted
the Truth, subverted the fundamental Government,
Look upon us with an evil eye, as upon these
who stand in the way of their Monstrous & new fangled
devices in Religion & Government; and though there
were no Cause to fear anything from that party, but the
Gangrene & infection of those many damnable & abominable
errors which have taken hold on them; yet our vicinity
unto and daily Commerce with that Nation, may
justly make us afraid, that the Lord may give up many
in this Land into a spirit of delusion to believe Lies,
because
they have not received the Love of the Truth. In
that same
warning
they say
we are not so to have the one
of our eyes upon the
Sectaries,
as not to have the other
upon
Malignants,
they being an Enemy more numerous
& more dangerous than the other; not only because experience
hath proven, that there is a greater aptitude &
inclination in these of our Land to comply with Malignants,
than Sectaries, in that they carry on their wicked
design, under a pretext of being for the King, but also
because there be many of them in our own bowels.
By
which we may see, how impartially they opposed both;
and that this cannot be condemned in the Testimonies of
the present Sufferers, except the Assembly be condemned.
And because many now a days have extenuating notions
of those debates, against
Prelacy
&
Sectarianisme,
about the
Government of the Church &c. and condemn these that
would adhere to & suffer for the
Punctilio's
of it, as rigid
nicetie: I shall, for seeing what account the Assembly
had of them, cite their words in a
Letter to the Assembly of
divines at
Westminster, Dated
Edin. June
18. 1646.
The
smallest (say they) of Christ's Truths (if it be Lawfull to
call any of them small) is of greater moment than all the
other businesses, that ever have been debated since the beginning
of the world to this day: but the highest of honors
and heaviest of burdens is put upon yow; to declare, out
of the Sacred Records of Divine Truth, what is the
Prerogative of the Croun & extent of the Scepter of Jesus
Christ; what bounds are to be set between Him Ruling
in His House, and powers established by God on Earth;
how & by whom His House is to be Governed; and by
what ways a restraint is to be put on these, who would
pervert His Truth and subvert the faith of many.
II. In the manner of maintaining this Testimony, these
famous Fathers while faithful for God gave us a perfect
pattern of purity & strictness, in opposition to all degrees
of conformity & compliance with the Corruptions of the
time; and laid down such Rules & Constitutions, as might
regulate us in our Contendings about present Defections,
and teach us what account to make of them, and how to
carry towards them: which if adverted unto, would evince
how manifest & manifold the declinings of many have been
from the late Reformation, that yet pretend to adhere
unto it, and how Justifieable the aversation & abstraction
of the present reproached suffering party is, from all these
defections and the daubings of them, because so much
deviating & declining from the attained Reformation. I
need not repeat, how Prelacy, and all the parts & pendicles
of that Antichristian Hierarchy, were abjured in the
National Covenant, and condemned in the Acts of Assemblies,
and reabjured in the solemn League & Covenant,
and in the solemn Acknowledgment of
•
ins & Engagment
to duties, where also we came under Sacred & Inviolable
Engagments, to endeavor the extirpation thereof: Which
doth clearly file the present Countenancing & submitting
to the Prelatic
Curates,
in receiving ordinances from them,
among the grossest of defections; being altogether inconsistent
with these Acts and Constitutions & Covenant-obligations
to extirpate them, as much as the countenancing
of Popish Priests were inconsistent therewith, being both
equally Covenanted to be extirpated. Next, though in this
Period, Tyrannie being in its Retrograde Motion, Erastian
Supremacy was not so much contended for, and therefore
not so much questioned as formerly, being held exploded
with exsecration out of doors & out of doubt; yet the
Testimony was still continued against it, in the uninterupted
maintaining of the Churches Privileges and freedom
of Assemblies, against all Encroachings of Adversaries.
And therefore the embracing of the late detestable
Indulgences,
were as Contrary to the Actings of this as to
the Testimonies of the former
Period,
against the Supremacy
from which they flow. Yea many Particulars, might
be instanced, wherein the Accepters had declined from
the Covenanted Reformation then prosecuted; not only
in their Confederating with Malignant Usurpers, for the
pretended benefit of them (by which, if there had been
no more, they are obnoxious to the Censure of the
Church, standing registered in an Act of Assembly, ordaining
all persons in Ecclesiastic office, for the like or
lesser degrees of Complyance, yea even for procuring protections
from Malignant Enemies, to be suspended from
their office & all exercise thereof At
Edinb. 1646. Sess,
14)
Nor only in their taking sinful Instructions from them,
restricting them in the exercise of their Ministry; but in
admitting themselves, by their
patronage,
to be by them
presented to their prelimited & preimposed Congregations:
which involves them in the iniquity of the Abolished
Patronages,
condemned by the Assembly; for that the Ministry
of such so presented, is made too much to depend
upon the will & pleasure of man, and such an imposition
is Destructive of the Church & people's Liberties, obstructive
of the Gospels freedom & faithful plainness, and occasion
of much base flattery & partiality; And in subjecting
to, homologating, & fortifying a Sacrilegions Supremacy,
overturning the Intrinsic power of the Church, contrary
to the Covenant obliging to the Preservation of the Government,
as well as to the Doctrine of the Church, in the
first Article thereof; And in their suffering themselves,
either directly or indirectly, either by Combination, persuasion,
or terror, to be divided & withdrawn from that
blessed Union & Conjunction, which they were obliged
to maintain & promove, according to the
6th
Art. of the
Solemn League & Covenant; And in their strengthening
the Erastian Usurpations of Enemies encroaching upon
the Churches Liberties and Christ's prerogatives, against
which wer are engaged expressly in the Solemn Acknowledgment
of sins and Engagment to duties, where also we
have these words
Art. 2. Because many have of late labored
to supplant the Liberties of the Church, we shall maintain & defend
the Church of Scotland, in all her Liberties & Privileges, against
all who shall oppose or undermine the same, or encroach thereupon
under any pretext whatsomever,
Next, we have many Demonstrations
of the zeal & strictness of these Servants of
Christ, in their Synodical determinations of Censures, to
be past upon many Ministerial Corruptions; which will
condemn the present course of covering & countenancing
them, and commend the Contendings of a poor reproached
party against them, in their conscientious abstracting from
them. Of which determinations, I shall rehearse some.
Among the
Enormities & Corruptions of the Ministry,
in their
Callings,
this is one, §. 4. 5. Silenee in the public Cause
—Some accounting it a point of wisdom to speak ambiguously
—whereof the remedy is §. 15.
That beside
all other scandals,
Silence
or
Ambiguous speaking
in the public
Cause—be seasonably Censured,
Gen. Ass.
at
Edinb. Iunij
13. 1646.
There is indeed an Act against
withdrawers from Ministers: but in the self same Act,
they are charged to be diligent in fulfilling their Ministry,
to be faithful in Preaching, declaring
the whole Counsel
of God, and as they have occasion from the Text of
Scripture to reprove the sins & errors, and press the duties
of the time, And in all these to observe the Rules
prescribed by the Acts of Assembly, wherein if they be
negligent, they are to be Censured,
Gen, Ass. Edinb.
Aug. 24. 1647. Sess.
19. Then there is that Act,
August
3. 1648. Sess.
26. for Censuring Ministers for their silence,
and not speaking to the Corruptions of the time;
Calling
it, a great Scandal, through some Ministers their reserving
& not declaring themselves against the prevalent sins
of the times; appointing, that all that do not apply their
Doctrine to these Corruptions, which is the Pastoral
Gift, and that are cold or wanting of Spiritual zeal,
Dissembling of Public sins, that all such be Censured
even to deprivation; for forbearing or passing in silence
the Errors & Exorbitancies of Sectaries in
England,
or
the defections current at home, the plots & Practises of
Malignants, the Principles & Tenants of
Erastianism;
And if they be found too sparing, general, or ambiguous
in their applications & reproofs, and continuing so, they
are to be deposed, for being pleasers of men rather than
servers of Christ, for giving themselves to a detestable
indifferency or Neutrality in the Cause of God, for defrauding
the souls of people, yea for being highly guilty
of the blood of Souls, in not giving them warning.
And
in that
seasonable & necessary warning
of the
Gen. Ass. Edinb.
Iuij 27. 1649. Sess.
27. we are taught how they resented
the unfaithfulness of Ministers continuing in defections,
and how we are to look upon them & carry to them: where
they say;
It is undeniably true, that many of the evils,
wherewith this Church & Kingdom hath been afflicted in
our age, have come to pass because of the negligence of
some and corruptions of others of the Ministry; And
the course of backsliding was carried on, until it pleased
God to stir up the spirits of these few, who stood in
the Gap, to oppose & resist the same, and to begin the
work of Reformation in the Land; since which time, the
silence of some Ministers, & the compliance of others,
hath had great influence upon the backslidings of many
amongst the people, who, upon the discovery of the evil
of their way, complain that they got not warning, or
that if they were warned by some, others held their peace,
or did justify them in the course of their backsliding:
we can look upon such Ministers no otherwise, than
upon these that are guilty of the blood of the Lord's people,
and with whom the Lord will reckon, for all the
breach of Covenant & defection that hath been in the
Land; The Priests lips should preserve knowledge, and
they should seek the Law at his mouth, for he is the
Messenger of the Lord of Hosts, but such as are departed
out of the way, and have caused many to stumble at the
Law, therefore hath the Lord made them contemptible
before all the people, according as they have not kept
His ways, but have been partial in His Law, because
they have lost their savor, He hath cast out many of
them as unsavory salt.
Further more, to evidence the
Purity & power of zeal burning & blazing in these days,
in their Contendings against Public Enemies on all hands,
I shall instance some of their Acts & Testimonies, clearly
condemning the manifold Complyances of this Generation,
and which may contribute somewhat to Justify the
reproached preciseness of a Remnant, standing at the
furthest distance from them. There is an Act
for Censuring
the Complyers with the public Enemies of this Church & Kingdom,
Gen. Ass. Edinb. Iunij 17. 1646. Sess.
14. where,
they
judge it a great & scandalous provocation, & grievous defection
from the public cause, to comply with these
Malignants (such as
James Graham
then was) in any degree,
even to procure Protections from them, or to
have invited them to their houses, or to have drunk
James
Graham
his health, or to be guilty of any other such Gross
degrees of Complyance; censured to be suspended from
the communions, ay & while they acknowledge their
offense.
And yet now, for refusing these degrees of
compliance, for not having the protectior of a
Pass
from
the wicked courts of malignant enemies, by taking a wicked
oath, and for refusing to drink the
Kings health,
a greater
Enemy then ever
James Graham
was, some poor conscientious
people have not only been murdere
•
by Enemies,
but mocked & condemned by professores. There is an Act
likewise, &
declaration against all new oaths or bonds in the
common cause imposed without consent of the Church Gen. Ass.
Edinb. July 28. 1648. Sess.
18.
Enjoining all the members
of the Church to forbear the swearing or subscribing any
new oaths or bonds, in this Cause, without Advice &
concurrence of the Church, especially any
negative
oaths
or bonds, which may any way limit or restrain them in
the duties whereunto they are obliged, by National or
Solemn League & Covenant.
Yet now, for refusing
Oaths, not only limiting in Covenanted duties, but contradicting
& condemning many material Principles of the
Covenanted Reformation, many have not only lost their
Lives, but also have been condemned, by them that are
at ease having a wider conscience to swallow such baits.
It is known how pertinacious the most faithful in those
days were, in their contendings against
Associations,
in
any undertaking for the cause, with persons disaffected to
the true state thereof. I need not give any account of this,
were it not that now that Principle is quite inverted; and
poor Adherers to it, for their abstracting & subtracting
their concurrence with such promiscuous Associations,
are much hated & flouted; therefore I shall give some hints
of their sentiments of them.
In their
Answer to the Committee
of Estates, Iulij 25. 1648. Sess.
14. the
Gen. Assembly
says,
It was represented to the Parliament, that for securing of
Religion it was necessary, that the Popish, Prelatical,
& Malignant party, be declared Enemies to the cause
upon the one hand, as well as Sectaries upon the other,
and that all Associations either in forces or counsels,
with the former as well as with the latter, be avoided.
And in their
declaration concerning the Present dangers of Religion,
especially
the unlawful Engagment
in War,
Iulij,
ult. 1648. Sess.
21. They say, suppose the ends of that
Engagment be good (as they are not) yet the means &
ways of Prosecution are unlawful; because there is not
an equal avoiding of rocks on both hands, but a joining
with Malignants to suppress Sectaries, a joining hands
with a black devil to beat a white devil; They are bad
Physicians who would so cure one disease, as to breed
another as evil or worse—we find in the Scriptures
condemned, all Confederacies & Associations with the
Enemies of true Religion, whether
Canaanites Exod.
23.
32. and 24. 12, 15.
Deut.
7. 2. or other heathens 1.
King.
11. 1, 2.
More Arguments against
Associations
may be seen
in that excellent
discussion
of this
useful Case, Concerning
Associations & Confederacies with Idolaters Infidels Heretics
or any other known enemy of Truth or Godliness,
by famous
Mr G. Gillespie,
published at that same time: whereunto is
appended his Letter to the commission of the General
Assembly, having these golden words in it, words fitly
spoken in that season, when he was a dying, at the beginning
of the
Public Resolutions
Having heard of some motions
& beginnings of compliance, with these who have been
so deeply engaged in a war destructive to Religion & the
Kingdoms Liberties, I cannot but discharge my conscience,
in giving a Testimony against all such compliance.
I know & am persuaded, that all the faithful
witnesses that gave Testimony to the
Thesis,
that the late
Engagment was contrary & destructive to the Covenant,
will also give Testimony to the
Appendix,
that compliance
with any who have been active in that Engagment
is most sinful & unlawful. I am not able to express all the
evils of that compliance, they are so many—But above
all, that which would heighten this sin even to the Heavens
is, that it were not only a horrid backsliding, but a backsliding
into that very sin, which was specially pointed at
& punished by the prevailency of the Malignant party,
God justly making them thorns & scourges who were
taken in as friends. Alas! shall we split twice upon the
same rock? yea run upon it, when God hath set a beacon
on it? yea I may say, shall we thus out face & out dare
the Almighty, by protecting His & our Enemies, by
making peace & friendship with them, when the anger
of the Lord is burning against them. I mus
•
here apply to
our present condition, the words of
Ezrah.
9. 14—O
happy
Scotland,
if thow canst now improve & not abuse
this Golden opportunity? but if thou help the ungodly,
& love them that hate the Lord, wrath upon wrath,
and woe upon woe, shall be upon thee from the Lord.
Whereunto is subjoined his dying Testimony to the same
purpose; wherein are these words,, But if there shall be a
falling back, to the sin of compliance with Malignant
ungodly men, then I look for the breaking out of the
wrath of the Lord, till there be no remedy.
This was the
warning of a worthy dying Man. Notwithstanding of which
& many other warnings & witnessings, a course of compliance
was commenced by the
pulick Resolutioners,
and
continued in to this day; wherein that faithful warning of
a dying servant of Christ is verified. But before I leave this
purpose, I must obviate an objection that some make use
of for strengthening themselves in their incorporations &
joinings at least in Worship, with the corruptions of the
time, and for condemning conscientious withdrawers;
That the Godly in those days did not separate from the
men of these complyances & defections, as many do now,
to wit the
protesting party
did not withdraw from the
public
Resolutioners
& Associators with Malignants. I answer,
first, many & these the most Godly & tender did withdraw,
even from their own Ministers, and would have gone 40.
or 50 miles to hear a faithful Minister at that time: yea
Ministers themselves, in the case of
intrusion
of the unfaithful,
would have supplied the Paroch, as if the Church
had been vacant, and when they could not get access to
the pulpit, they preached in the fields, on purpose to witness
against, and professedly to withdraw the people from
such an unfaithful Intruder; as might be instanced particularly
for time & place, if need were. But next, The
Church then, though broken by division, and under the
subjection of strangers deprived of her General Assemblies,
yet was in a
constitut Case,
enjoying the privilege, power
& order of Synods & Presbyteries, to whom the people offended
with their Ministers might address themselves, for an
orderly redress, and removal of these Scandals in an ordinary
way; and so they needed not assume to themselves that
power to regulate their communion, that in a
broken State,
as now is, must be allowed to them. And besides, both the
Ministers at that time who were faithful, though they
might have proceeded to censure & silence the corrupt party
as they were obliged, yet not only found it difficult by
reason of the injury of the times; but also thought it best to
spare them, And the people to bear them, as burdens;
until, as they were still in hopes, they should obtain a
General Assembly to take order with them but now it is
not so. And then the defection was but beginning, and
people did not know and could not expect it would go such
a length, and therefore could not fall upon the rigor of
that duty, which such disorders call for at first: but if they
had seen where these beginnings would Land them at length,
I doubt not but they would have resisted those beginnings,
in such a way as would have precluded this imputation of
novelty upon our necessitated with drawings.
III. We have in this Period, not only an Illustrious
Testimony for the Principle, but a continued and unintermitted
putting into practice the duty of
defensive Arms,
in
resisting the Sovereign power, malversing & abusing Authority
to the destruction of the ends of it; which resistence
was avowed, encouraged, & furthered by the General
Assembly, both for the defense of themselves, and for
the help of their Brethren in
England.
Take one expression
in their
Solemn & seasonable Warning to all ranks Feb.
12.
1645.
Sess
18. Unless men will blot out of their
hearts the love of Religion & cause of God, and cast off
all care of their Country, Laws, Liberties &c. (all
being in visible danger of present ruin & destruction) they
must now or never appear actively, each one stretching
himself to, yea beyond his power. It is no time to dally,
or to go about the business by halfs, nor be almost but
altogether zealous: Cursed is he that doeth the work of
the Lord negligently. If we have been forward to assist
our Neighbor Kingdoms, shall we neglect to
defend our own? Or shall the Enemies of God be more
active against His cause, than His people for it? God
forbid. In another
seasonable & necessary warning July
27.
1649.
Sess.
27. They say, But if his Maj. or any having
or pretending power & commission from him, shall invade
this Kingdom, upon pretext of establishing him in
the exercise of his royal power; as it will be an high provocation
against God, to be accessory or assisting there
to, so it will be a necessary duty to resist & oppose the
same.
These Fathers could well distinguish, between
Authority
and the
person
abusing it: And were not so Loyal,
as now their degenerate Children are ambitious to show
themselves, stupidly stouping to the shadow thereof,
and yet will be called the only Asserters of Presbyterian
principles. But we find, they put it among the Characters
of
Malignants,
to confound the Kings honor & Authority
with the abuse & pretence thereof, and with Commissions,
warrants, & Letters, procured from the King
by the Enemies of the cause & Covenant, as if we could
not oppose the Latter, without increaching upon the former.
But here, an
Objection
or two must be removed out
of the way, before we go forward. One is, from the
Third Atticle
of the
Covinant;
where there seems to be a
great deal of Loyaltie, obliging to defend the Kings Maj.
his person & Authority, in the preservation & defense of
the true Religion & Liberties of the Kingdoms,
that the
world may bear witness with our consciences of our Loyaltie, And
that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesty's just
power & greatness.
I Ans. There is indeed a deal of Loyaltie
there, and
true Loyaltie,
because Lawfully limited, being
qualified with & subordinate unto the preservation & defense
of the true Religion & Liberties of the Kingdom (as
the makers of the Covenant do expound it, in the Assembles
declaration against the unlawful Eugagment July ult.
1648.
Sess.
21.) not that
Reverse Loyaltie,
which makes duties to
God conditional & limited, and duties to thee King absolute
& unlimited, as our
Loyalists
do now. And I wish
others were free of it, who have sworn Oaths of unlimited
Alledgiances,
to maintain the King in any power unto
which his force aspires; and to justify this their Loyaltie,
will bring in this Article of the Covenant with a distorted
sense, reading it backward,
that we in the preservation & defense
of Religion must preserve & defend the King:
As if Religion
obliged to defend him, do what he will. It were
better such pretended Covenanters, denied the Covenant,
than to be such a reproach to it, in wresting its genuine
sense. But I have adduced the sense of the best Interpreters
of it, the General Assembly. Next when they
entered under the bond of this Covenant, they did it with
a purpose to oppose all his invasions upon Religion & the
Liberty of the people, and to vindicate these precious Interests
from his usurpings, into a state of Liberty: And shall
we imagine, that that very Oath of God did lay upon
them or us an obligation, to defend the person who is a
destroyer of all these, contrary to the very nature of the
Oath, contrary to the scope of the Covenanters, and contrary
to their subsequent practice? But then it will be urged,
why then was that clause cast into the Covenant? I answer
we have not the same cause to keep it, as they had some
cause to put it in, with accommodation to the present possessor
of the Sovereignty. The owning of it in our circumstances
would be as great a reproach to us, as the want of it
was to them in theirs. They put in the words, to prevent
the worlds mistake, and to remove that odium industriously
heaped upon the heads of those, whose hearts
were associate in the defense of Religion & Liberty, therefore
they would profess they would not be disloyal while
he was for God. And a defiance may be given to clamour,
& calumny itself, to give one instance of the defect of
performance hereof, while he went not about to ruin
those things, incomparably more precious then his person
or Authority, and in ruining whereof no person can retain
Authority.
IV. But now two things will chiefly be desiderated,
which now we own in our Testimony, for which many
have died, that seem not to be confirmed by or consistent
with the Testimony of this Period.
One
is, that we not
only maintain defensive resistance, but in some cases vindictive
& punitive force, to be executed upon men that
are bloody
beasts of prey,
and burdens to the earth, in cases
of necessity, when there is no living for them. This principle
of Reason & natural Justice, was not much inquired
into in this time; when the sun was up, whose warmth &
light made these beasts creep into their dens, and when
they, being brought under subjection, could not force
people into such extraordinary violent courses when the
ordinary & orderly course of Law was running in its right
Channel. Yet from the ground of their ordinary Procedure,
Military & Civil, against such Monsters, we may
gather the lawfullness of an ordinary Procedure in a pinch
of necessity, conform to their grounds: I hope to make
this evident, when I come
ex proposito
to vincicate this head.
But there is another thing that we on, which seems not
to have been known in these days,
viz.
That when we
are required to
own the Authority
of the present Dominator,
we hold sinful to own it. Yet we find these Reverend &
renowned Fathers owned King
Charles
I. and did not refuse
the succession of
Charles
II. I shall answer in order.
First, as to King
Charles the first,
there was a great difference
betwixt him and his sons that succeeded; he never
declared Parliamentarely that neither Promises, Contracts,
nor Oaths should bind him, as the first of his
perfidious sons did; It might have been then presumed,
if he had engaged so far for promoving the Work of God,
he would have been a man of his word (for to say a King
of his word, is antiquitate in a good sense, except that it
means he is as absolute in his word as in his sword, and
scorns to be a slave to it) Neither professed he himself
a Papist, as the second Son hath done: Again it must
be granted, that more might have been comported with
in the beginning, when there were some hopes of redress,
than after such process of time; whereby now we see &
feel beyond all debate, that the Throne stands and is
stated, not only in opposition to, but upon the ruins of
the Rights & Privileges both of Religion & Liberty. But
was not the equivalent done by the Church,
anno
1648.
when they refused to concur with that unlawful Engagment,
for restoring of the King, till security be had, by
Solem Oath under his hand & Seal, that he shall for himself
& Successors, give his assent to all Acts & Bills for
enjoining Presbyterial Government, and never make
opposition to it, nor endeavor any change thereof?