Relation of the Sufferings of Ministers in Scotland Since 1660, Section 6
SECTION VI.
The sufferings of some other Ministers related.
AMong other acts of the Committy of Estates there was a proclamation, which they caused be read, at all the church doores of the Kingdome upon the Lord's day; in which they discharged ministers to speak or preach any thing against them, or their proceedings: & this was to command them to handle the word of the Lord deceitfully, to become false prophets, & to preach smooth things and to prophecy deceits: wherby the malicious & ill affected people who did not love their ministers were encouraged to give in delations of such & such things as they thought good to allaidge against them as uttered in their sermones & bring in any prophane persones they pleased for witnesses. By which meanes, some (though many were in no hazard thinking it commendable prudence to be silent at such a time) were brought to trouble both by the Committe of Estates & by the Parliament, being imprisoned or confined and other wayes hardly used though litle of what was allaidged, could be proved against them. More over ther was one minister, who after the Parliament had annulled the covenant, & passed many other acts against the work of reformation, thought himself bound in conscience to give faithfull & free warning, & to shew the greatnesse of the sin of backslideing & defection from the cause and truth of God; & to protest publikely in a Ministeriall way for his own exoneration, after the example of Samuel at the comandement of God, against the course of defection carryed on, & all acts made, in prejudice of the covenanted worke of reformation: for which cause he was summoned before the Parliament and at length condemned of treason & sedition onelyonly upon that acount, & therafter was banished out of all his Maj. dominions. And if any say that ministers should have been silent & not meddled with state affairs let the answers which famous doct. Voet: giveth in his Politia Eccles. pag. 982. 983. &c. be considered, which are these. 1. It is the duty of Ministers to give faithfull warning unto people, Ezek. 3: 17, 22. 2. This was not to meddle with the politie, but with the abuse of it by men in power. 3. Rulers no lesse then others must be touched when they provoke God to wrath by their carriage, 1 Thes. 5: 11. Iam. 5: 20. 1 Sam. 15: 14. Isa. 58. 1. 4. Then they should never speake to a hundered places of scripture, which do speake so directly against Magistrats abuseing their power. See what he sayeth furder to this purpose there: in answering therest of the objections, & how he cleareth it from Act. 7: 51. Hos. 2: 1. Dan. 3. & 6. Act. 4. & 5. & 6. Hos. 4. 15. Iud. v. 23.
About this same time there is another minister banished indictâ causà for while he was going towards Irland upon some particular occasion he was brought back By the command of the committee of Estates & committed to prisone untill the meeting of Parliament, & then receiveth summones of treason, to which when he had desired some time to answere, he is sent back to prisone, & when he expecteth to be called upon to give in his defences, he was sentenced with banishment out of his Maj. dominions.
And which is more to be wondered at. Neither these two ministers nor any other who were afterward banished, as shall be showne, could ever to this day, get an extract of their sentence, which no judicature in the world could ever have refuised in equity & justice: yea because the power of the Parliament & Councell of Scotland could reach no furder then their own bounds, & so could banish none any further then out of Scotland; they devise another way & draw up a bonde where in the subscriber bindeth himself under the paine of death, to remove out of all his Maj. dominions betwixt & such a day & not to returne without license under the paine of death, & this bond, they caused the banished ministers subcribe, before witnesses; which they were all necessitated to do to save themselves from worse. Judge reader if this was not both cruell & unreasonable.