A Short Memorial of the Sufferings of Presbyterians in Scotland, Title page – To the reader

A Short Memorial of the Sufferings of Presbyterians in Scotland · Title page – To the reader

A SHORT MEMORIAL OF THE Sufferings AND Grievances, PAST and PRESENT OF THE PRESBYTERIANS IN SCOTLAND: Particularly of those of them called by Nick-name Cameronians.

Printed in the Year, 1690.

TO THE READER.

IT is not needful in the entry to give a Deduction, either of the Excellent Establishments of Religion and Civil Liberties, and Provisions made for security of both, that our Fathers obtained and Enjoyed, by the Mercy of GOD, under the Patrociny of Righteous Rulers; Or of the deplorable Demolishments of these Invaluable Intersts, since the unhappy Re-introduction of Prelacy and Tyranny, which brought Poperie to the very Birth in this Land, had it not pleased the Most High GOD, by the interposition of the present King, as an Instrument, to make it abortive. But it is very useful and pleasant, to remember that the Reformation of the Church of Scotland, was sometimes as far Celebrated among all the Churches, as now it is Depreciated incontempt and Obscurity: Among other peculiar Eminencies of it above many other Churches, she had this very early for the subject of her Gloriation, through Grace; that at once and from the Beginning, both, Doctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government were Reformed, according to the Pattern of the Institutions of Christ, to that degree of Purity, that our very first Reformers could assert, to the praise of Grace, that no Corruption was left in this Church, that ever flowed from the Man of Sin. Which, through the Blessing of GOD upon the Faithful and earnest Labours and Wrestling of His Servants in the Ministry, made such progress in a short time; that not only the Doctrine was perfectly purged of the Leaven of Popery, Arminianisme, Socinianisme &c. and all other Heresies; the Worship, of all Idolatry and Superstition: but the Discipline was impartially exercised, and the Government Reformed from Diocesan Prelacy, Sectarian Confusions, and Erastian Supremacy of the Civil Powers, and framed in the nearest Conformity to the Primitive Apostolick Pattern, according to the Word of GOD, and example of the best Reformed Churches, in the Presbyterial Order, of Congregational, Classical, Synodical, and National Assemblies. In the Preservation and Observation of which Beautiful Order, making our Church Beautiful as Tirzah, Comely as Jerufalem, Terrible as an Army with Banners. This was also her Priviledge and Praise, which is the Fruit of this Government wheresoever it hath Place, that she was Once and for a long time, as much admired for Union, as of late for Divisions since these Corruptions made a Breach upon VsUs: Her Name was once called Philadelphia among all the Reformed Churches; and twas long since attested at that unhappy Convention at Perth, which attempted the Introduction of some Popish Novations, in the Year 1618. That from that backward, to the Year 1558. there had been neither Schisme nor Heresie in this Church; as also from thence forward, the same might have been said, excepting the Contentions which the Prelates and Malignants occasioned, until the fatal Catastrophe. No Church on Earth had more Purity, Order, or Vnity, and was freer of Corruption, Defection and Division, that this Church. This our Renowned Reformation in Doctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government, as it was Founded on the Law and the Testimony of the GOD of Heaven; so it was Confirmed by all the Sanctions, Ratifications and Securities, that any Right can be capable of among Men: Not only by many Laws, penal, and Statutory, Established as Bulworks, for Preserving and Defending it against all the forementioned Adversaries; by many Constitutions and Acts of General Assemblies, ratified by Parliaments: But by many, again and again Renewed National and Solemn Covenants, sworn to the most High GOD by all Ranks, from the King to the Beggar, in all Capacities and Conditions. This Testimony, for this Covenanted Reformation, so Confirmed and Established; as it hath been Transmitted to VsUs, through a long continued Tract of many Wrestling and Sufferings, from our worthy Ancestors, and sealed by much Precious Blood and the Bonds and Bondage of many Faithful Martyrs and Confessors of Christ, adhering to the same in our day; so, as it was then and now Stated and Sealed, hath been and is thought by all the Asserters of our Reformation, to have such a near and clear Connexion with the great Concern of the Crown-Prerogatives, and Imperial Dignities of the Prince of the Kings of the Earth, as Head of His visible Kingdom, whose incommunicable Glory it is, without Competitoor Co-partner, either Coordinate or Subordinate, to Institute his own Government, prescribe His own Laws, appoint his own Ordinances (which He will have observed without addition, dimunition or alteration, until His second coming) and to constitute His own Officers, Cloathed only with His Authority, and to be regulated only by His Instructions in their Ministerial Function without any Dependence on, Subordination to, or Indulgence from any Man or Angel, in the exercise thereof, under their Master Christ alone; to whom it belongs as properly to Rule the Church his own free Kingdom, according to the good pleasure of His own Will, as it belongs to Him to save his Church by the Merit of his own Sufferings; that our Famous Fathers, and such of their Children as have been faithful in following their footsteps, have judged it a Testimony worthy to Sacrifice all their Interests upon, in opposing and contending against all the Invasions and Vsurpations made upon these Prerogatives of Christ, and Priviledges of His Church, by Poperie Prelacy, and Erastian Supremacy, all condemned in the Law of GOD, diseharged by the Laws of the Land, and Abjured in our Covenants National and Solemn League; As being highly derogatorie to the Glory of Christ, contradictory to His revealed will, offensive to His People, obstructive to the Power, and destructive to the peace, purity and Liberty of His precious Gospel.

Now for adbering to this complex Testimony, what have been the Sufferings and Grievances of Presbyterians in general, and ours in particular since Anno 1660: from the Popish; Prelatical and Malignant Party, is more fully demonstrated, (with the Principles and Testimonie contended for by us, vindicated) in Naphtali, Jus populi, the Hind let loose, our Informatory Vindication, & the Testimony against the Toleration, given in by that faithful & zealous Minister of Christ, Mr. James Renwick; and here summarly Remonstrated. We had once a Resolution, at the first appearance of the Prince of Orange; who, under GOD, was the Honoured Instrument of our begun enlargement from them, To have Addressed his Highness with this same Memorial: But that failing, after this long suspence in expectation of some Redress of Grievances, whereof we and many others have been in a great measure disappointed; We have been induced to publish it in this Iuncture, with an Appendix of our present complaints of somethings that we understand to be wrong in the Church, State, Army and Country, at the time of the writing thereof; which was in the time, and upon occasion of the many Adjournments of Parliament: Wherein perhaps something will occur, which may seem obliquely to reflect upon the Government, when we complain of the ill Administrations of many Malignants in power: But as they are sad Truths which cannot be denyed, and tho we may be charged with Imprudence in speaking so freely what many Thousands, and those of the surest Friends the Government hath, do think: So, however we be neither Politicians nor Flatterers, we think Conscience and Loyalty both, doth oblige us to speak what concerns the King and Country both to hear. We do not blame the King for delaying the satisfaction that his People have long waited for, further than for permitting some into Trust, who have abused him with misinformations of what they waited for, and with counsels to delay their satisfaction. Nor are we jealous of his Majesties sincere intentions to perform what he hath promised, and the Estates Demanded, as necessary for settling the Church, securing Laws, restoring Liberties, and Redressing Grievances; Albeit many here complained of, have laboured to suggest grounds of such Iealousie. We have got already so much Advantage by the success of his Heroick Expedition; And so many repeated Assurances of his Royal Resolutions to fulfill his Declaration and Promises to our satisfaction; none of which we can charge him with the breach of tho many of them are not yet accomplished; that we should be very unworthy to Iealouse his Integrity. We consider his Majestie, stated in very Difficult and Dangerous Circumstances, since he interposed himself in our Gap, between an angry God and a sinful Provocking People; Wherein he hath to do with a potent Enemy without, and many undermyning Enemies about his Hand, seeking to ensnare him in sin and expose him to ruine; and hath in his two Kingdoms of Britain People of different Interests and Inclination, whom to Govern will require great deliberation, and consequently occasion delayes: But we lay the blame where it should lye, on the Malignants at Court, Council and Parliament, who are seeking to betray him and us both. If some of these be exposed, and their old pranks discovered, and the Grievous effects of their being so much in Power hinted at; We hope the Candid Reader will think it no ill service either to King or Country.

ERRATA

Reader before thou peruse these Sheets be pleased to help these Escapes of the PRESS (omitting these of less Note) Page 15. Line 34. Read encouraged. P. 17. 19. R. superadded by L. 25. R. equaling P. 34. Col. 1. 9. R. 21 Men and 5 Women. P. 35 Col. 2. L. 11. for Douglas R. Dundass. P. 36. Col. 1. L 5 for Mouat R. Mewae. Col. 2. L. 20 R. Dundass, and L. 26. R. Dundass. P. 39. L. 36. for Orders R. Order P. 48. L. 18. R. flowing.

p. 1A SHORT MEMORIAL OF THE GRIEVANCES and SUFFERINGS Of the PRESBYTERIANS in SCOTLAND, Since the Year 1660.

Particularly of those of them called CAMERONIANS.

AFTER King Charles returned from his Exile, the first Device, which the Malignants then advanced to the highest places of Trust fell upon,Grievance 1. for overturning our Religion, Laws, and Liberties, was to prevent and obstruct all access either to Justice or Mercy for such as they had a mind to destroy, and preclude all Applications for a Redress of Grievances. Hence, when some faithful Ministers were drawing up a Monitory Supplication to the King, congratulating his Return, and minding him of his Covenant Engagements and promises to promote and preserve the work of Reformation; the Committee of States then siting, caused apprehend, and without hearing incarcerate them, for no other cause but that Supplication: against which at that time there was no Law; and which all Law and Reason of the World will justifie, as the most innocent expedient of getting their just complaints heard and redressed, and the common priviledge of all men, which slavery it self cannot take away. Yet as all Men, and they themselves, could not but, see this a manifest subverting of the Subjects Liberty: So, in procureing a Law to approve it afterwards, they made it worse and more illegal, in declaring Petitions to be unlawful and seditious, Carol. 2. Parl. 2. Sess. 2. Act 2. Hence no Petition or Remostrance of publick Grievances, Oppressing, and enslaving Church or Nation, either p. 2durst be offered, or could find Access or Acceptance, being interdicted and also punished very severely; as in the instance of the Grievances given in against Lauderdale. Nor durst Prisoners tender the most innocent Supplication, even for release or a more easie Confinement, in any terms that seemed either to reflect on their severity, or represent the illegality of their prosecutions, or in the least to vindicate the cause they were suffering for; which caused many afterwards to decline all petitioning, and choose rather to ly under the most unsupportable bondage, for fear of having it made more miserable.

The next succeeding Devices, to undermine and overturn our Religion and Liberty,Grievance 2. were the Mischiefs framed into Law by the first Session of the first Parl: Charles 2. held by the Earl of Middletoun 1661. Wherein by the very first Act thereof, all the Members were involved in a Conscience Ensnaring and Enslaving Oath of Absolute and Implieite Allegiance and Supremacy, (without the former usual Limitations then standing unrepealed) not only wronging Parliaments in their Priviledges, and the Church in her Liberties, but the Lord Jesus Christ in his Prerogative of Supremacy, and Headship over the Church; making the King a Pope, and not only a Church Member (as a Magistrate) or Church Officer, but the Supreme Architectonick Head of the Church. For refusing this afterwards, many Ministers and others were banished; several of them made to subscribe a Bond to remove out of all his Majesties Dominions within a monethmonth, not to return under the pain of Death; And many kept in prison by the Arbittary Power of the Council, beside the tenor and extent of their own wicked Act thereupon.

In the following Acts of that same Session of Parliament, they advanced the Kings Prerogative to the highest pitch of Absoluteness: Grievance 3.and the acknowledgement of this vast and unlimited prerogative, in all particulars, was formed and imposed, Charl: 2: Parl: 1. Sess. 1. Act 2, 3, 4, 5, 11. This was the foundation of all the succeeding Tyranny, and source of the Nations slavery; and in it self a head of sufferings to several Gentlemen and others, who could not in Conscience subscribe or make that acknowledgement of such a prerogative; which would manifestly have imported an approving of the first audacious and presumptuous effect and attempt of its power, exerted in rescinding and annulling at one blow all the Righteous and Legal Establishments of the Covenanted Reformation, and all the Acts made in favours p. 3thereof in all the Parliaments and Conventions of Estates from the year 1640. to 1650. even those that the then King Charles 1. approved, owned, and called.

They rested not here, in a general or gradual unhinging of Legal Constitutions,Grievance 4. made for security of our Religion and Liberty; but then took advantage of the universal silent Submission of the Nation, to break down at once the carved work of the whole Fabrick of the Reformation as with Axes and Hammers, in that insolent effrontry and indignity against Heaven, in making void the National and Solemn League and Covenants: which the Church and State both in their Representatives and Members, did most solemnly Swear and Subscrive, for themselves and Posterity: which, for the matter of them perpetually obliging, for the manner so Religiously engaged into, and for their ends so Glorious, no power on Earth can dispense with, disannull, or disable: which not only the Lord from Heaven did ratify, by the Conversion of many Thousands, and vouchsafing his presence gracious in Ordinances and propitious in Providences at the subscriving of them; But in this Land, at the Inauguration of the King Charles 2. (being the condition upon which he was admitted to the Government) the latter of these Covenants was Ratified and Established, as the great fundamental Law of the Kingdom, whereon all the Rights and Priviledges either of King or People are principally bottomed and secured, and as the very Magna Charta of our Reformation. Yet this not only they did break in Heaven-daring boldness; but to flatter the King in making way for Prelacy, Tyranny, and Popery, and to indulge the licentiousness of some debauched Nobles, who could not endure the Yoke of Christs Government according to his Institutions there Covenanted to be preserved; they enacted and declared, it should have no Obligation or binding Force any farther; and that none should henceforth require the renewing of it Carol. 2. Parl. 1. Sess. 1. Act. 7. And afterwards, that the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant were in themselves Unlawful Oaths: and therefore annulled all Acts and Constitutions Ecclesiastical or Civil approving them, Parl. 1. Sess. 2. Act. 2. And not only so but in contempt of Heaven, they caused burn them by the hand of the Hangman. For adhering unto these Sacred, Inviolable, and Indispensible Engagements, the sufferings of Presbyterians have in a great measure been stated since that time.

The next wicked project was,Grievance 5. to remove out of the way all who p. 4were eminent Instruments, in promoting that work of Reformation now about to be razed, and whom they feared would obstruct their Antichristian and Tyrannical designs, both in the State and in the Church. Accordingly the Noble Marquess of Argyle was beheaded for no other alledged cause but for his complyance with the English, when they had made a Conquest of our Land, Wherein also the Judges that condemned him were Socii Criminis. And afterwards, the Lord Wariston upon the same pretence: And for the same pretended cause, many other Gentlemen, above 800 were Arbitrarly and Exorbitantly fined; some under divers stiles twice over. Such of the Ministry also as had been most faithful & servent for the interests of their Master and of his Church were cruelly and most illegally removed; some by Death, as famous Mr. Guthrie, for asserting the Kingly Prerogative of Christ in opposition to the Erastian Supremacy encroaching thereupon; others by Banishment, for giving faithful warning, and protesting against the defection of that time, thereby only contraveening a wicked Proclamation discharging them to speak against the Proceedings of the State; others Indicta causa, without access to give in their defences, or to get so much as an extract of their sentence.

After they had thus prepared their way,Grievance 6. by the very first Act of the second Sess of the first Parl. anno 1662. They reestablished and redintegrated their Dagon of Episcopal Prelacy, with all its inseparably concomitant retinue of Pride, Perjury, Simony, Sacriledge, and intollerable Usurpations and Corruptions; And wreathed again about our Neck that Yoke which neither our Fathers, who wrestled much against it, nor we were nor ever shall be able to bear: which as it is insupportable to, and hated of all the Godly (and desirable to none, but dissolute & debauched Persons, who cannot endure Christs discipline impartially exercised, and do find incouragement under the wings of Prelacy) being in its original both the Mother and Daughter, Root and Off-spring, Cause and Effect of Popery; a device which advanced the Man of Sin to his hight in the World, and the only remaining support of his hopes of recovering these Kingdoms, by Christs conquest rescued from his Tyranny; in its nature, evidently eversive of the very nature of Gospel Church Government; in its ends only adapted to bring the Church into a slavish dependence on & subordination to an usurped Supremacy of the Magistrate, which is a change only of the Pope not of the Popedom; And in its effects, alwayes found to be p. 5most deplorably destructive to the purity and power of Religion, and peace of its sincere profession, and that which hath introduced and encouraged Impiety, Error, Schism, and Persecution in these Lands: So by all the sober and judicious that have known the Case of this Church and Kingdom it hath been acknowledged to be the source and spring of all our Sorrows and Grievances, under which we have groaned these 28 Years. This abjured Prelacy, as it was introduced by manifest Perjury and Persidy, so it was at first erected and hitherto advanced and supported on such a Foundation, as might bear out and justify the Contrivers and Promoters of it, as well in all attemprs to set up Popery it self: the Act establishing it Declaring, the disposal of the Government of the Church doth properly belong to his Majesty as an inherent Right of the Crown, by vertue of his Royal Prerogative and Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastick; An usurpation upon the Kingdom of Christ equivalent to any that ever the Papacy it self durst aspire unto over the Government of the Church. The first effect whereof was by another Act 1 Sess. 2 Parl. Carol. 2. the restoring the old exploded bondage of Parronages; another old Relict of Popish Slavery, depriving the Church of the freedom of Calling and Choosing their own Pastors: And dispossessing all the Ministers, who entered since the Year 1640. of their Churches and Benefices, possessed without the presentations of Patrons After which, by the instigation of the Prelates, the Council passed an Act October 1662, whereby above 300 Ministers were violently put out of their Charges, and their Congregations laid desolate, without all Legal Procedure, without either Accusation or Citation, Conviction or Sentence, or a hearing allowed to them. And therefore for simple Nonconformity, and refusing subjection to and taking Collations from the Prelates, the rest of the Ministers, in great numbers, were, with cruelty more beseeming Turks, thrust from their Labours and banished, with a nice and strange confinement; 20. Miles from their own Parish Church, Six Miles from a Cathedral, and three Miles from a Burgh. In whose room succeded, a swarm of Ignorant and Scandalous Apostates, the Prelates and their Mercenary Substitutes the Curats: against whom such Charges might alwayes have been adduced, and to this day such Accusations are in readiness to be produced, to any competent ludicatories, that shall be called to cognosce upon them, of the pernicious Errors of Popery, Socinianisme, and Arminianisme maintained by many of them, Abominable Adulteries committed by others of them, the Profanity, Sensuality, p. 6and Debauchery, Oppression and Persecution of Godliness and good Men chargeable on the generallity of them, and Perjury in breach of Covenant, and Schismatical intrusion without consent of the Church owned of all of them, and Ungodliness by them transfused over all the Land; as could not but make them detested of all, as the greatest stain to be suffered in a Reformed Church.

Upon the back of this, by the instigation of the Prelates, who scorned to be and one,Grievance 7. no not by Iulian the Apostate, in surpressing Religion, they proceeded to poyson all the Seminaries of Learning: Ordaining, in Act. 9. Sess. 2. Parl. 1. Carol. 2. That none be Masters in any University, except they both take the Oath of Supremacy, and submit to and own Prelacy; or be so much as a Pedagogue to Children, without the Prelates Licence. By which course Honest and Learned Men were brought to considerable Straits and Sufferings; and Ungodly and Unsound Masters had access and encouragement, to corrupt the Youth with perverse and Malignant Principles, to the great and observable Detriment and Decrement of Religion, Learning, Sobriety, and Morality in the Nation.

The next Contrivance was, to corrupt all the Fountains of Judicature. And for this End it was enacted,Grievance 8. Act 5. Sess. 2. Parl. 1. Carol. 2. That all Persons, in any publick Trust or Office whatsoever, should subscribe the Declaration, renouncing and abjuring the Covenants; And that not only under the Certified penalty of Forefaulting the Priviledges of Magistrates; But also of all the Priviledges of Merchandizing, Trading, and others, belonging to a Burgess, Act 3. Sess. 3. Parl 1. Carol. 2. Whereby Perjury was made the chief and indispensable Qualification, and Conditio sine qua non of all that were capable of Exercising any power in Church or State; contrate to known Laws yet unrepealed, which make them that are guilty of Perjury, incapable of being intrusted with any publick Administration in the Kingdom.

The Parliaments thus corrupted, and instigated by the Bishops and Curates, Grievance 9.Establish wicked Laws pressing Conformity. And in the very first of them, made such a streach, beyond all bounds of Charity, Justice, Reason, or Humanity, that they made all Addresses to God or Man, remonstrating such Grievances and reflecting on such proceedings to be Criminal; Declaring Petitions to be Seditious, And discharging all Writing, Printing, Remonstrating, Praying, or Preaching, shewing any dislike of the Kings Absolute Prerogative and Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastick, p. 7or of the Government of the Church by Bishops, Act 2. Sess. 2. Par. 1. Carol. 2. And Act 4 ibid. They not only prohibited any to Preach in publick, or so much as in Families without the Prelates Licences but Discharged all Private Meetings in Houses for Religious Exercise, of such as could not in Conscience give their Countenance to the Curats Service in Churches.

Then in the 3 Sess. Act. 2.Grieance 10. They Declare, that all Non conformed Ministers, that shall presume to Exercise their Ministry, shall be punished as Seditious Persons: And Require of all, in acknowledgement of and Complyance with his Majesties Government Ecclesiastical, that they give their concurrence and countenance to the Curates, and attend their Meetings for Worship: Ordaining, that whosoever shall withdraw, shall incur, each Nobleman, Gentleman, or Heretor, the loss of a fourth part of their Years rent, every Yeoman the loss of a fourth or under of his Moveables, each Burgess the loss of his Burge-ship, with the fourth of his Moveables, with a reference to the Council, for farther punishment, and more effectual Execution: Which the Council very vigorously Prosecuted, in emitting most rigorous Proclamations after that: Some requiring all to keep their Parioch Churches under the pain of 20. shil. toties quoties; Some discharging all Preaching, Praying, or Hearing in Families, where three or some more then the Domesticks were found, as unlawful Conventicles; Others Certifying, that all such Meetings, not Authorised, shall be punished by Pecunial and Corporal pains, at the Arbittement of the Council; Other Commanding all Masters of Families, Heretors, Landlords, and Magistrates of Burghs, ro cause their Servants, Dependents, Tennents, Taxmen, Cottars, and all under their Charge, to submit and conform to the Curates their Ministry.

For putting these Laws in Execution,Grievance 11. the King erected a High Commission Court; consisting of some Prelates, Noblemen, Magistrates of Burghs, and some Souldiers, impowered, by vertue of his Prerogative Royal and Supremacy, to suspend, deprive, and Excommunicat, As also to punish by Fining, Confining, and Incarcerating, all keepers of Conventicles, and all Non Conformists: A Hotch-potch mongrel Monster of a Judicatory, Authorized by the Prerogative against the Laws of GOD and Man, meddling with Causes and Censures Ecclesiastick and Civil, most Illegal and Arbitrary, both for its p. 8Constitution and Procedure: Whereby persons brought before them were made to answer super inquirendis, contrare to express standing Law Ioc. 6. Parl. 10. Act. 13. Anno. 1585. without either Libel or Accuser, or admitting Legal Defences except they take the Oaths; and sentenced with Stigmatizing, Scourging, Banishment, Deportation and Slaverie to Barbados, &c. By orders from this Court, especially from the Prelates, whose country sides were in a great measure Depopulate for Non-conformity, by Souldiers; Sometimes besetting the Churches, where honest Ministers were not yet ejected, and forcing all within to pay fines; Sometimes going to the Curates Churches, and Amerciating all the Absents in such fines as they pleased; Sometimes by force driving all to Church, beating, wounding, and binding the Reousants; Sometimes exacting exorbitant fines by Plunder, to the Harassing and making Havock of whole Country sides; sparing sometimes Complyers no more then Recusants; And punishing Husbands for their Wives, Parents for their Children; Yea doubling and tripling the same exactions after payment; yet compelling them sometimes, to subscribe an acknowledgement that the Captain had used them civilly and discreetly; Then after all, Apprehending, Imprisoning, Scourging some, Stigmatizing others, and sending them to Forreign parts, that would not for all this conform.

Hereupon, being outwearied with intollerable oppressions, a small party of Dissenters were partly compelled, and party by a surprise of Providence engaged,Grievance 12. to run together for their own defence, at Pentland Anno 1666. Where, after the defeat, The Prisoners that were taken upon Quarter and solemn parol to have their life spared, were treacherously given up to be Condemned, the very manner of their Execution being first determined and described before Arraigment, and cruelly hanged; their Heads being set up at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Air, Dumsreis, and at Hamiltoun; Turks would have blushed to have seen the like. Among the rest one eminent Minister, Mr. Hugh Mckail, for having but a Sword tho not present at the Fight, was first cruelly tortured with the Iron boots, and afterwards execute to the death. At their Executions Drums were beat that they might not be heard; a Barbarity never known in Scotland before; and rarely heard of except in the Duke d' Alvas murdering the Protestants in the Netherlands; But frequently used almost at all the Executions since of our Martyred Brethren in this Land. Immediatly hereafter Souldiers were sent out on free Quarter, to examine p. 9men by Tortures, threatning to kill or rost alive all that would not delate all they knew Accessary to that rising: Who accordingly, by fire Matches and other tortures, forced Women to discover their Husbands and other Relations, although they knew not it they were there; stripped them who Reset the Fugitives, and thrusted them in crouds to Prisons in cold and nakedness; And some they murdered without Process, that would not, because they could not, discover those persecuted people; Yea and drove away the Goods of the Country, without respect to Guilt or Innocency. In the mean time, such as were in Armes, and some that were not, were Intercommuned, and interdicted of all Reset, Harbour, Hiding, Corresponding, or Comfort, under pain of Rebellion and of being counted guilty of the same Crimes, wherewith the Intercommuned were charged. And many Gentlemen, Ministers, and others, were Forfeited of their whole Estates very illegally: Yea some that were not present at that Appearance in Armes, nor Legally Convict, nor cited to answer according to Law, were yet Forfaulted before the Act of Parl. 2. Act 11. Carol. 2. contrate to express standing Statutes. And further all Dissenters, and such as did not joyn in suppressing that Expedition, were by order from the Council robbed of their Armes and Horses fit for service; their guilty Consciences puting them in Fears, and dictating their desert of greater opposition.

After all these Cruelties,Grievance 13. murdering the Persons and oppressing the Estates of poor Dissenters; what they could not do by Law, nor Force, nor Futy, they contrived to effectuate by Craft, under the notion of Clemency; but such a Clemency, as was a greater Cruelty then any former Persecution. The poor People that had nothing left them but a good Conscience, must have that robbed from them likewise: Therefore these wicked Councellers and Prelates, still stirred up by the Curates, having none or a seared Conscience of their own, contrived to take away from People all Remainders of Conscience, or to make them pliable to comply with every corruption they should introduce, by imposing Conscience-debauching and ensnaring Oaths and Bands most Deceitfully and Ambiguously framed, most Illegally imposed, and Insolently pressed▪ and more numerous since that time than ever was heard of in any Nation in one Age: there being scarce one year since that time, wherein several of these Oaths and Bonds have not been vented and imposed, contradictory to one another, contrary to p. 10our sworn Covenants and work of Reformation, impossible to keep, and unlawful to take.

Yet finding they could not yet suppress the persecuted Meetings for Gospel Ordinances,Grievance 14. but that the more violence was used the greater and more frequent they grew; They fell upon a more crafty device, to divide and destroy the Remnant, to overturn what remained of the Churches Priviledges undestroyed, and to settle Ministers and People into a silent and stupid Submission to all the Kings Usurpations upon the same, by giving an Indulgence, Anno 1669. to some outed Ministers, with Restrictions and Instructions, clearly homologatory of the Supremacy whence it flowed, establishing the height of Erastianism, prejudicial to the freedom of the Ministry, injurious to the Priviledges of the Church, contrary to Presbyterian Principles, and contradictory to the Covenants: The Grant and Acceptance whereof hath been the bane of the Church of Scotland, and a Bone of Contention rending and ruining the Remnant of Ministers and People Unite before. The end of it was to advance the Supremacy; as upon this occasion they enlarged and explained it: And because it was against Law, therefore, that the Kings Letter might be made the Supreme Law afterwards, at least Law enough for the Council to proceed, enact, and execute what the King pleased in matters Ecclesiastick, The Parl. 2. Act 1. Carol. 2. held by Lauderdale, Asserts and Declares, That, by vertue of the Supremacy, the ordering of the Government of the Church doth properly belong to his Majesty and Successors, as an Inherent Right to the Crown; and that he may enact and emitt such Constitutions, Acts, and Orders, concerning Church Administrations, Persons, Meetings, Matters, as he in his Royal Wisdom shall think fit, Which Acts, Orders, &c. Are to be observed and obeyed by all Subjects, any Law, Act or Custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.

But now as before,Grievance 15. faithful Ministers that were not thus Indulged, sensible of the indispensable necessity of Preaching the Gospel, and of the Peoples great necessity calling them to it from several quarters, after they had undergone and endured many hazards and hardships of Villany and Violence, Imprisonment and Banishment, for meeting in the Houses, where they were easily Intraped, Interrupted, and Insulted over, were forced to go to the Fields, and Preach in places most convenient, secret and safe; whither the People, being tyred of their p. 11cold and dead Curates, and wanting long the Ministry of their old Pastors, resorted in great numbers, on the greatest of hazards: the Council then, at the instigation of the Bishops and Curates, raised Troops of Horse and Dragoons to pursue them as Traitors and Rebells, for their following that Necessary and Signally blessed Duty; Impowred and Encouraged to apprehend, and bring Dead or Alive, some Ministers, with prices put upon their Heads, and to incarcerate all they could find, either at the Meetings, or suspected to be coming to or from them. Hence Prisons were filled; some were sent to the Bass; some Banished; and many hundreds driven from their Dwellings, Outlawed, and Intercommuned.

For Legalizing such Mischiess,Grievance 16. the second Sess. of the second Parliament, Anno 1670. held by Lauderdale, made many wicked Laws, causes of many Grievances following. As Act 2. Ordaining all of every quality or sex, called to depone upon Oath their knowledge of such Meetings and Persons therein, to declare the same in all particulars interrogate, under the pains of Fining, Imprisonment, or Banishment, and Deportaion to the Indies, as the Council shall think fit: oblidging People thereby to betray their own Neighbours. Act 5. Declaring all outed Ministers, found Preaching or Praying, in any House except in and to their own Family, shall be Imprisoned, till they find Caution under the pain of 5000 Marks, not to do the like again; and every Hearer shall be toties quoties fined, each Tennant in 25 Pounds Scots, each Cottar in 12 Pounds, &c. And that all that Preach in the Fields, or in any House where any of the People are without Doors, shall be punished with DEATH; and any that shall seise and secure any of them, dead or alive, shall have 500 Marks reward. Act 6. Imposing most I yrannically exorbitant and grievous. Fines, upon any that shall offer their Children to be Baptized by any but Curats and Indulged Ministers; which were afterwards, by Act 11. Sess. 3. Parl. 2. laid upon all who shall keep their Children Unbaptized, for Thirty dayes together. Act 9. Imposing intolerable Fines on all that shall three Sabbath dayes together withdraw themselves from their own Paroch Churches. Act 9. Sess▪ 3. Declaring all Ordinations of Ministers, since the Year 1661. which have not been by Bishops, to be Null and Invalid; and that they are no Ministers that are otherwise Ordained: encroaching hereby on the most Intrinsick and formally Ecclesiastick Powers of the Officers p. 12of Christs Kingdom. These wicked Acts were followed with cruel Executions, whereby many were made to endure such Havock, as harder could not be found in the Reign of Caligula or Nero, both in their own Houses, in Prisons, and at Sea in Deportations.

Hereafter, thinking the ordinary Forces not cruel enough in executing these enacted Mischiefs,Grievance 17. they brought from the wild Highlands a Host of 10 or 11000 Barbarous Savages, and poured them in upon the Westeren Shires (all peaceable at the time, none so much as moving a Finger against them) on design, as would seem, utterly to lay them desolate: with Orders to press a Bond of Conformity, wherein every Subscriber was bound, for himself and all under him, to frequent the Paroch Church, and never go to House or Field Meetings, nor reset any that went to them, but to informe against, pursue, and deliver up all outed Preachers to Judgement. Many Houses and Families were then left desolate. the Inhabitants being made to flee in the Winter Season: many left their Cattel, and in seeking to recover them lost their Lives.

Yet the Innocent Country was made to pay for all this Service, and hire them to do more,Grievance 18. by paying the imposed Cess, enacted and exacted professedly, by the Act of the Convention of Estates holden by Lauderdale, anno 1678. to raise and maintain more Forces, and to maintain the Supremacy as now Asserted and Established, and to suppress Field Meetings called Rendezvouses of Rebelion And, for the same Causes, and to suppress the Propagation of the Principles then suffered for, continued by Act 3. Parl. 3. held by the DUKE of York Commissioner. And by Act 12. Parl. 1. Iac. 7. holden by Queensberry, continued and prorogued, during all the Terms of his Lifetime: which, because of the Illegality of its imposition, the nature of its Exaction, being an Obedience to a wicked Law, a help to the Ungodly to make Havock of the Church, a hire to the Souldiers to destroy what remained of Religion and Liberty, and because of its ends so expresly Declared in the Narratives of the Acts, to suppress the persecuted Gospel and destroy its Followers, many Presbyterians durst not justify by Obedience, in paying the required Moyetie; but chose rather to suffer joyfully the spoyling of their Goods, and all the force and fury they could exert against them. Whereby many tho' poor yet honest and honestly provided Families, were laid waste, and exposed to the Miseries of uncertain Wanderings.

p. 13At length, upon occasion of Graham of Claverhouse, his assaulting a meeting near Loudoun-hill, Grievance 19.carrying about with him a Minister and several Countrey men bound as Beasts, and getting a repulse in the rancounter with the meeting; Another Insurrection, for our Lives, Liberties, and Religion, was undertaken, and discomfited at Bothwelbridge, anno 1679: and at the defeat several hundreds were killed on the Field, and 10. or 1100. were taken Prisoners, stript, and carried to Edinburgh, where, after two of our Ministers were martyred for that Appearance, Mr. Iohn King and Mr. Iohn Kid: And after the rest of the Prisoners were kept several weeks in a Church yard without a covert either from cold or heat in the open Air; a bond was tendered, seeming to offer Life and Liberty, on terms that clearly condemned the cause, never to rise in Arms against the King, on any pretence whatsoever, &c. Which many took, and the rest of us that refused, and even many that did take it, were sent away in a Ship bound for America, between 2 and 300 in all: who were all murdered in the Ship, being shut up under the hatches, when it split upon a Rock in the North of Scotland, excepting 50: some of which are yet alive to give this account.

After this, the grand Design of subverting and utter everting our Reformation,Grievance 20. tho' from the beginning of this Fatal Catastrophe projected, and by all the forementioned Methods prosecuted hitherto, was more and more discovered, and beyond all denial demonstrated, that nothing less was intended then the gradual introduction of Popery and Slavery, and that by all the ordinat Iesuitical Rules, observed in the seduction of Churches into the Roman Tyrannie: The chiefest of which have alwayes been to foment all Quarrels among Protestants, and to strengthen the Party readiest to comply, to make and execme rigorous Laws against the most tenacious, and to load the Protestant Opinions that are more obnoxious with all odious constructions. Accordingly in the first place, to propagate Defection and promote Division, a Proclamation was emitted anno 1679 inveighing against and resolutely interdicting all Field-meetings; and granting Liberty to Preach in Houses upon terms of a cautionary Bond, binding and oblieging the People for their Ministers living peaceably, and in Order thereto to present him before his Majesties Privy Council, when they should be called so to do; And in caise of falizie in not presenting him, to be lyable to the sum of 6000 merks. Yet excluding all these Ministers, who were suspect to have been at that insurrection of Bothwel; And p. 14all those who should afterwards be admitted by Non conformed Ministers: Whereby those that durst not comply were exceedingly divided, and more easily destroyed.

For their Courts of cruel Inquisition went by Circuit through the Country,Grievance 21. pressing the Bond of Peace, denying the Principle and renouncing the Priviledge of Defensive Arms; And taking up Portuous Rolls of all that were suspect to have been at Bothwel insurrection; whereof they reputed all to be convict, who being summoned did not appear, or were delated by Oath super inquirendis to have been seen or heard to be in Armes, or did not go to the Kings Camp, about that time. Whereby, not only upon the account of that Appearance were many executed to the Death, by packing bloody Juries and Assises, as might conduce and be for their murdering ends, besides more than can be reckoned that were kept to perish in Prisons, or Deportations to Banishment; But many Gentlemen and others were Indyted, Imprisoned, and some condemned to Death, others Forefaulted or Fyned above the value of their Estates, for having seen or spoken with some of those called Rebels; or because they did not discover or apprehend them, even when they did not and could not know whether they were called or counted Rebels or not.

And some poor People, when they could not be reached any way for this insurrection at Bothwell, Grievance 22.nor any other overt Act or Transgression against even their wicked Laws, were condemned for their simple declared Opinion of it: Which the Council, and Court of Justiciarie, particularly Sir George Mackenzie Advocate, did extort from them by terrible menacings of Death and Torture. For, being interrogate, Whether the rysing at Bothwel-bridge was Rebellion, and a sin against GOD: Many, for saying it was not, yea, for not saying it was, and waving the Question, as reckoning themselves not oblieged to Answer, were cruelly condemned and executed, tho they declared and were known to be as free as the Child unborn of these Actions they were examined upon.

In Fine, After our Patience had been long outwearied with insupportable Slavery, and under such intollerable Oppressions in our Consciences, Persons and Estates; so universaly extended, that in the present circumstances we had more reason to hope, that past miseries, present Pressures, and future Dangers of greater Encroachments, then foreseen by all men that did not willingly shut their Eyes, should p. 15have incited and invited all, that had any regard to the great Interests of Religion and Liberty, to concur in an Essay to emancipate themselves and posterity from that Yoke of grassant & growing Tyrannie, Than to fear the condemnation of any under these Oppressions, or the clamour and out cry of those that were at ease against the Informality, Illegalily, Unseasonableness, or Unfealableness of such Revolt: We were Enduced and Enforced at length, when we could do no more to preserve what remained of these Interests, or save our Consciences innocent from all participation of the sin of the destroyer of them; To declare for our parts a Revolt from, and disown Alleagiance to King Charles the Second, as being no longer to be accounted our Supreme Magistrate, but ipso jure devested of that Office and Trust, Reposed and Devolved on him by express Compact and Covenant: When he broke all these conditions, whereupon his Authority and our Alleagiance were founded; in his utter violating and making void the Covenant and Coronation Oath, whereby our Subjection to him, limited to those provisions, was explicitely disingaged and remitted; when he did unhinge and insringe all the Legal Establishments of our Religion; and subverted all our Religious Liberties, by usurping a Blasphemous Sacrilegious Supremacy over Ecclesiastical Ordinances instituted by Christ; And when now he had overturned all Fundamental constitutions of the State as well as the Church, subverting the Peoples Rights, Liberties, Laws, and all securities of our Life and Enjoyments whatsoever, by claiming and taking an Absolute Tyrannical Civil Prerogative, paramount to all Law, inconsistent either with the Freedom or Safety of the People: Whereby no shadow of Government was left, but Arbitrary Absoluteness, making the Kings Letter the Supreme Law of Scotland; while Innocent and Honest People for Conscience were grievously oppressed, and Perjuries, Adulteries, Idolatries, and all Impieries, were not only Indemnified and past without punishment, but encouraged as Badges of Loyalty. For which causes, we openly proclaimed our Revolt from the Government as it was then Administrate. And in the same Declaration, we reckoned our selves oblieged to protest against the Reception of the Duke of York in Scotland; And against his succeeding to the Crown, who was then declared incapable of Succession of the Government, by a Vote of the two Honourable Houses of the Parliament of England. For p. 16For owning,Grievance 22. and not daring to disown, which Revolt, it is impossible to enumerate our Kinds and Degrees of Sufferings: for this we had our Ministers and Brethren Murdered, both in the Fields, and Scaffolds, and Prisons, and Seas; Besides those that were slain at Airdsmoss, where Bruce of Earleshall attacked us, and slew Mr. Richard Cameron a Faithful and Zealous Minister with many of our Brethren. After this it was generally imposed on Prisoners, even such as could not be charged with any Accession to the forementioned Declaration, to give an account of their Thoughts and Consciences about the Lawfulness of the Kings Authority: which if they could not own, or declined to declare their Thoughts, as judging it the common Interest of Mankind to plead for the Freedom of Thoughts from all humane Jurisdiction, or if any answered with such innocent Qualifications, as that they owned all Lawful Authority In the Lord, or, According to the Word of God; then they were punished as Traitors, executed to the Death, and some at their first apprehending Tormented with Fire-matches, then laid in Irons, afterwards Tortured with the Boots or Thumbkins, and after all executed in a most Barbarous manner without suffering them to speak their dying Words for beating of Drums. Thus a great number of innocent People have been destroyed, without respect to Age or Sexe; some meer Boyes have been for this hanged; some stouping for Age; some Women also hanged, and some Drowned, because they could not satisfy the Council, Justitiary Court, and the Souldiers, with their thoughts about the Goverment.

In the Year 1681. the Duke of York, as Commissioner from his Brother,Grievance 23. held a Parliament, (Auspicated with the Blood of Mr. Donald Cargil a Godly and Faithful Minister, which was shed at the Cross of EDINBURGH, the day before the sitting down of the Parliament) wherein he not only presided against all our Righteous Laws, that Make a Papist incapable of such a Trust, and against their own Laws, without taking the Oaths of Administration, but procured an Act to be made recognizing his Succession to the Crown notwithstanding all standing unrepealed Laws against papists: wherein also many Acts were contrived that have been great causes of the desolation and depopulation of the Country that ensued: As Act 4. dowbling the Fines imposed by former Laws for Fieid Conventicles; And ordering Heretors and Masters to put away their Tennants, Cottars, or Servants, at any time of the Year without any warning or p. 17process of removing, notwithstanding of any Tacks or Terms to run; And to retain their goods, &c. Act 18. Declaring, that all Jurisdiction doth so reside in his Majestie, that his Majesty may, by himself or any Commissionated by him, take Cognizance and Decision of any cases or causes he pleases. Hereby a foundation was laid for overturning all Civil and Criminal Justice, and for erecting the Tyranny of the Popish Inquisition, whensoever matters were ripe for it, and for commissionating Souldiers to take away the lives of Innocents, without all Process of Law, as was frequently exemplified afterward And Act 6. and 25. Framing and Imposing on all in Trust a detestable and self contradictory Test, which turned out of all places of Trust any that retained any measure of common Honesty. For explaining which, the late Earl of Argyle was arfaigned and condemned; and escaping prison, forced to flee to forraign Lands: As many others, both Gentlemen and Commons were constrained to leave the Land; where for multiplied, illegal, and ensnaring impositions, they could neither live like Men nor like Christians, but as Asses couching under all burdens.

These and the like Acts, with many others Arbitrarly superadded Proclamations (which have been multiplied every year beyond all reckoning, and stretching the designs of the Court beyond all Measures, no only of Legality, but of Humanity, expecting at the next Parliament to have them either justified or Indemnified and pardoned)Grievance 24. were with Tyrannous Rigor executed by Circuit Courts of Inquisition (some way equally if not exceeding the Spanish, for illegality and inhumanity) pressing Conformity, submission to Prelacy, Impossing, enslaving and ensnaring Oaths and Bonds, contradictory to Reason, and contrary to Religion; and Oppressing of all Ranks, Qualities, and Vocations, with such Arbitrary Acts of Intercommunings, Finings, and other intollerable Impossitions, that they seemed to drive at no less than the overturning what remained undestroyed of Religion, Liberty, Law; or Conscience in the Nation. For not only the Poorer sort were many wayes Oppressed, Plundered, Pillaged, Impoverished, and Destroyed; but Gentlemen also were extremely vexed, for alledged converse with Intercommuned Sufferers, being Fore faulted, Fined, and incarcerate, till they should pay Summs, which neither they were obliged nor able to pay. And not only were the formerly persecuted Ministers, lurking in the Land, p. 18forced to leave it; or Cited and Compeared at their Courts were Imprisoned: But even the Indulged Ministers, who by the Kings Supremacy were Authorized to Preach in Churches alloted to them, were as Arbitrarly Discharged, Summoned to their Circuits, and Imprisoned. Especially we, who durst not comply in less or more with any of their Impositions, nor own their Usurpations and Tyranny, whom therefore they represented in all their Edicts, as Enemies to all Government and Humane Society, were exposed to, and made to endure the utmost of their rage.

Our Families were harassed, pillaged and laid waste, our Persons were intercommuned,Grievance. 25. driven out of our own and all other habitarions into the Wilderness, being interdicted of all Harbour, Supply, Comfort or Converse, by barbarous Edicts; and incestantly pursued by numerous Forces, Horse, Foot, and Dragons powered into all parts of the Country, Impowered and Commissioned to plunder and pillage all houses where they heard we were seen; And not only to search, hunt, & chase us through all Towns, Villages, Cottages, Woods, Moors, Mosses, and Mountains, forcing us us to flee to the remotest Recesses in the wildest Deserts; But to Shoot, Hang, Drown, Murder, and make Havock of us, where ever they could apprehend us, without Tryal or Sentence. Proclamations one after another were Emitted, commanding all to raise the Hue and Cry after us, and not only to advertise the Souldiers, but to concur with them in pursuing us, and to seek us out of all our Dens and Caves in the most retired places of the Mountains, which we digged under ground, when we could not find a hiding place above the face of the Earth: Whence we were redacted to many incredible hardships and hazards, being exposed to the cold blasts of Winter, and the pinching straits of Hunger, when we could neither have Sustenance with us, nor durst we go abroad to seek it but in the peril of our Lives, and being forced to hide from Country People as well as Souldiers: Whence many of us could not escape falling into their bloody hands, who, in obedience to their murdering Mandates killed many instantly in the Fields; And such as obtained the favour of being spared for execution upon Scaffolds, tho without any colourable shadow of a formal procedure, or were imprisoned, Tortured, or Banished to be Slaves, were thought to have been very mercifully dealt with. Whereupon, being driven to such a paraxisme of Danger and Despair, that p. 19neither, were we able to endure the extremities of inexpressible miseries then lying and growing upon us, nor had hope to escape in Humane probability the utter destruction intended, enacted, declared, and indefatigably pursued against us by our Enemies, the Popish, Prelatieal and Malignant faction; When so many of us were daily taken and murdered, and the rest of us could neither escape by flight out of the Land, (Orders being given to stop all passages by Sea and Land, and catch us wheresoever we could be deprehended making any such Essay) nor by lurking and hiding in the Land, through the Vigilance and Diligence of Intelligencers, who were suborned and encouraged to use all endeavours to intrap and inform of us, wheresoever we could be heard of; No other expedient was left under our Deliberation to try for preventing our utter extermination, than to publish, by affixing on the Church-doors in the night season, an Apologetick Declaration, avowing our Adherence to former Principles and Testimonies, and warning our Enemies to surcease from their wickedness and severity against us, under certifications that it should be revenged: Designing hereby mainly to restrain and deter these insolent Intelligencers.

Hereupon followed a most violent Proclamation,Grievance 26. Ordaining all that owned or refused to disown the Declaration, and the principles therein specified, should be execute to the Death; Commanding all the Subjects to concur in the pursute of us; And for their encouragement, offering 500 Merks for each of us; Requiring also, that none presume to offer to travel in the Country without Testificates of their Loyalty, by taking the Oath of Abjuration, otherwise they should be holden as concurrers with us, and therefore that none shall be lodged without these Certificates. Hence the Trade and Commerce of the Countrey was much interrupted and prejudged, by prohibiting all to travel without a Pass in time of Peace. And to the reproach of all Order and Government: Hostlers and common Inn-keepers were made Judges impowered to impose Oaths upon all Passengers & Travellers, that their Passes were not forged and seigned. This Oath of Abjuration was pressed universally, on pain of Death, (in some places from house to house) upon Men and Women, Young and Old; who were pressed upon the penalty of Death, without time to advise upon it, to give their judgement of the said Declaration, and of the Kings Authority; which contributed very much to make it more and p. 20more questioned by many, and rediculous to all. Hence many of us that stood out and aloof from this complyance, were shot in the Fields; some brought in Prisoners, Sentenced, and Executed all in one day; and some early in the morning, that People might not be affected with the pitiful sight of such bloody severities; Yea, sometimes the Spectators were commanded by Captain Graham in Edinburgh, to give their judgement, and declare their Opinion, whether they were justly put to Death or not.

In process of time, the late King dying, and the Duke of York ascending the Throne;Grievance 27. It would have been thought, that such Revolutions then occurring would have required and produced some Cessation, Relaxation, or Relentment of our persecution: being in our selves, and in our persecutors esteem, persons of so mean a Figure in the World, scarce worthy to be the Object of the indignation of a new installed Prince; And his late Proclamations would make the World believe, that the beginning of his Government had put an end to all these troubles upon the account of Conscience. But on the contrare, the Acts and Executions against us in a manner did then but begin to be cruel; And all the power of the Forces was imployed to destroy us, so much already destroyed. For then, more cruelly than ever, not only the standing Forces, but another Host of savage Highlanders, inured to Rapine and Murder, brought from the North, were ordered and impowered to Act against us the greatest Barbarities, in butchering and slaughtering us in the Fields where ever we could be found, without all colour of Justice, only for not satisfying them in their impertinent as well as wicked impositions on the Conscience, or form of Law, even the worst of their own Laws. Accordingly some of us at Labour, same traveling in the Road, were cut off without pity; Some surprised in Caves, and Murdered there; without time given to Pray to God for Mercy; some were taken first to Prison, then surprised with execution, without a Triall or definite sentence, not knowing when or if at all they should be execute; Some had their Ears cutt, & then sentenced to be transported to Iamaica, and yet some of these were kept, and again sentenced with Death, and Executed: others were sent to an old ruinous Castle Denotter, and kept in Vaults, in such crouds and Numbers, that they had no room either to sit or lie, and so cruelly treated, as would make Savages blush to hear of it, and then banished to America, and in the Voyage about 60 died.

p. 21But as those cruelties were Monstrnous for Illegality and Inhumanity; so the ensuing Laws made in the first Parliament, Iames 7th. 1685. held by Queensberry Commissioner, Approving and Ratifying the same, do far exceed all former for unparalelled Attrociousness: As Act 3. Allowing Pannals already in prison, and indicted for Treason, to be cited on 24 houres. Act 4. Statuting, That such as being cited to be witnesses as in cases of Treason, Field or House Conventicles, do refuse to depone, they shall be lyable to be punished as guilty of these Crimes respectively, in which they refuse to be witnesses. Act 5. Declaring, That the giving or taking the National Covenant or the Solemn League and Covenant, or writing in Defence thereof, or owning of them as Lawful, or Obligatory on themselves or others, shall infer the crime and pains of Treason. Act 6. Declaring the usual procedure of Fyning Husbands for their Wives withdrawing from the Church, to have been Legal. Act 7. Statuting, That the concealing and not revealing of any supply given to such, as are Forefaulted for Treason (to wit, the most innocent contending for the Covenants and Work of Reformation, against Popery, Prelacy, or Tyranny, and tho the supply should be given to their nearest Relations so foresaulted) is Treason, and to be judged accordingly. Act 8 Statuting, That all that shall hereafter Preach at House or Field Conventicles, and all Hearers also at Field Conventicles shall be punished by Death and Confiscation. Act 13. Reinjoyning, and further extending the Imposition of the Self-contradictory Test. Act 17. Ratifying, Confirming, and Approving what hath been done by the Privy Council, Justiciary, or those commissionated by them, in Banishing, Imprisoning, and Fyning such as refused to take the Oath of Allegiance, (which includes the blasphemous Supremacy) with asserting the Prerogatives; And under the same pains, Ordaining all Subjects so to take the said Oath when required. Act 23. Ratifying and Approving the Opinion of the Lords of Council and Session, adjudging it Treason to refuse the Oath of Abjuration, confirming all the illegality of procedure thereupon. Act 24. Statuting, That all Masters, Heretors, Liferenters, &c. shall insert in all Tacks to be set by them to their Tennants, in Burgh or Landwart, an express clause, oblieging the Tennant for his Wife and Family to Conformity, under exorbitant penalties. Act 25. Ratifying a Proclamation against us, as bearing the effect of an Act of Parliament; Requiring all the p. 22Subjects, upon knowledge or information of any one or two or moe of us in any place, to give information thereof to the Chancellour, and to the nearest Commanders of the Forces, within the space of an hour at most for every three Miles distance, and all Sheriffs, &c. To call the Subjects to search and apprehend us; And on our flight, to acquaint the Magistrates of the next Shire, and so from Shire of Shire, till we be apprehended, or expelled from the Realm; with Certification, that whosoever fails in pursuing us whether Magistrats or Subjects, or in not giving timeous Information within the space forsaid, shall be held as Art and Part, and undergo the same Punishment with us. In which Act and Proclamation, we are called only 80 Runnagats, Traitors and Fugitives, tho` in pursuance of this cruel Edict, they have Multiplied that Number many times over and over, in imprisoning, banishing, and butchering our Dear Brethren; And yet all the Prisons they could fill, and Shipt they could fraught with us, and Gibbets they could hang us on, could never either exhaust or lesson our Number: For the more we were afflicted the more we grew; And the design to destroy us, by the mercy of our GOD counteracting it, proved alwayes a burdensome Stone to the Destroyers, and an help to the Destroyed. Yet tho they pretended to have us expelled out of the Realm, they shut up all possible access to attempting to depart out of it: For, as Forces were lying on each side the Borders to catch us if we should escape by Land, so they prevented all probability of going by Sea, by Act 27. of this same Parliament, Forbidding and Prohibiting all Masters of Ships to export any Passenger till he be brought before the next Magistrates: which none of us durst venture upon for fear of our Lives.

This was an unhappy Specimen of the Kings Commenced Government,Grievance 28. and a very unprecedented Policy of his Counselors, to reconcile male contented Subjects to a Loving and Consienciously Loyal Subjection to him, being in effect the same with the Advice of the Young men to Rehoboam, and productive of the same effect with that: When practically in their Acts and Actings it was declared to us, that whereas the former King had made our Yoke heavy; This would add thereto: The former had chastised us with Whips, but he would chastise us with Scorpions: Whereof having felt the smart so sharply, we could not be easily induced to a kindly acknowledgment of Allegiance out of Conscience unto him, who came not in as a Father to rule us, but as a Lyon to devour us. Wherefore, tho much pressed by all the Tyrannical p. 23force, that could be exercised to enslave us under that Yoke, or destroy us for refusing, we could not in Conscience own or acknowledge his Lawful Authority. And in pressing it they gained little, after all the blood they shed on Scaffolds and Fields upon this account, but to ridicule the Government, and make it more contemptible, when they required every poor Lad & Lass in the Country to give their Opinion of the Government, a Question very unusual to be proposed to private Subjects. Men really invested with Authority do think, their Laws and Power to execute them on Offenders may well enough secure the Peoples subjection, and will disdain such a suspicion of the questionablenss of their Authority, as to make it a Question to the Subjects: The more it was made a Question to us, the more it became questioned and suspected: And the more we were made to enquire into it, the further we were from deprehending or recognoscing in him either the Characters or Constitution of a Magistrate to be owned. We considered the many righteous Laws, established by our worthy Ancestors, for the preservation of the True Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom, insert in the National Covenant (which every Soul in the Kingdom under the Bond of that Covenant, is bound, to maintain according to their Capacities;) As Act 8 Parl. 1. King Ia: 6: repeated and ratified in many Acts afterwards, expresly providing and ordaining, that all Kings and Princes, at their Coronation and Reception of their Princely Authority, shall make their faithful promise by Oath, and that they shall profess and maintain the Protestant Religion, and shall abolish and gainstand all false Religion contrary the same, and shall rule according to Law, &c. Which Oath of Coronation he did not take, would not take, could not take, while a Papist; and therefore we could not look on him as our King by Law. We considered likewise, that in our Covenants the Allegiance that we must own to the King is expresly limited and qualified thus, In the preservation and defence of the True Rellgion, Liberties, and Laws of the Kingdom: Of which Qualification, Allegiance to him, a destroyer of Religion and Liberty, is nor capable. We remembred the Principles and Sentiments of our Fathers upon the Admission of King Charles 2. to the exercise of his Royal Power, Declared in their seasonable and necessary Warning, Gen: Assem. Iuly 27: Sess: 27: 1649. Wherein they tell us, That a boundless and illimited Power is to be acknowledged in no King nor Magistrate; that there is a mutual p. 24Stipulation and Obligation between the King and the People, as both of them are tyed to GOD, so each of them are tyed to one another: Accordingly Kings are to take the Oath of Coronation, to abolish Popery and maintain the Protestant Religion: As long therefore as the King refuses to Engage and Obliege himself for security of Religion, and safety; of his People it is consonant to Scripture and Reason and Laws of the Kingdom, that he should be refused: And that in the Covenant, the Duty of owning the King is subordinate to the Duty of preserving Religion and Liberty. And therefore, without security of these, it were a manifest breach of Govenant, and a preferring the Kings Interest to the Interest of Christ, to bring him to the exercise of his power. And consequently, for us to give such a consent to it, as such an owning of him as required would amount to. Accordingly also the Commission of the General Assembly in their Act of the West-Kirk, Declared, They would not own the King nor his Interest, otherwise than with a subordination to GOD, and so far as he should own and prosecute the Cause of GOD, and disclaim his and his Fathers opposition to the Work of GOD and the Covenant. We called to mind likewise, what our Renowned Reformers gave out, as the case of their Revolt from the Government of Mary Qu: Dowager, anno 1559. her persecuting the Professors of the True Religion, and oppressing the Liberties of the True Lieges, her intruding of Magistrates against all Order of Election, her Adultering and Subverting the Old Laws of the Realm, &c. Which all Men know were as applicable to King Iames 7th: as to her: And therefore we had their Reason to obliege us, and their example to encourage us to say with them; We own and promise to our Lawful Soveraign all due Obedience, provided we may have our Religion and Liberty secured, without which we firmely purpose never to be subject to Mortal Man. For which and many other Reasons, we reckoned our selves under Obligations to decline the imposed owning of his Authority; and took the opportunity in the time of the Expedition of the Earl of Argyle against him, to Publish in a Declaration our Reasons why we could not acknowledge it.

In the mean time,Grievance 29. the late Earl of Argyle, with some other Noblemen and Gentlemen, Associating with the Duke of Munmouth, to essay some Diversion and Opposition to the Kings designs, of advancing and establing Tyrannie and Popery: All the Forces, Militia p. 25Troups and Companies, and the whole Army of Heretors were powred in upon those Places of the Kingdom, where most of us were sojourning. Who, besides all the blood shed upon the account of that Expedition, the Blood of the Earle himself, and others of both Nations engaged with him, and many of his Wassalls in the Highlands cruely put to Death by the Marq. of Athol, had in Commission, and put in execution the Bloodiest Orders we think readily Men could ever receive or obey. The greatest employment, that that great Army had in hand and in heart, was to wreck and exert all their fury and force upon the poor Mountain-Men as they called us: Which they did by ranging and spreading themselves many miles in breadth, every one within sight of another, and searching for us through all the Rocks, Woods, Mountains, and Mosses of the Country, where we were hiding, with such Vigore, Violence, and dilligence, as if they had been hunting for Hares or Foxes. And the greatest ambition and emulation of their Leaders and Champions, Graham of Claver-house, & Liev. Gen. Douglas Brother to the Duke of Queensberry, Col. Buchan, with others of their inferiour Officers, Maj. Balfour, Liev. Creightoun, and Liev. Livingstoun, &c. was, who should be most skilful and succesfull in destroying us. And all this, for no other Cause, then because we could not Answer to their satisfaction the Questions they proposed, without any warrant of Law, and against the Common Interest of Mankind, which frees all Men from being obliged to discover their secret thoughts; Namely because we could not obtain of our Consciences to declare that we would own and acknowledge that Authority which enacted, and by which they acted, all these mischiefs. Yet, to the commendation of GODS Clemency, and condemnation of Mens cruelty, we may say, when they had shot all their bolts, after they had hanged, shot, tortured, or banished for slaves, all they could catch of us, they were further from their purpose than when they began; our Numbers and Mettings for Gospel ordinances, Administrated in Purity and power, encreased more and more.Grievance 30.

But at length, tho' our Persecution continued, the King was pleased to change his Methods with other Dissenters. He multiplied many Favours to such of them as he called Moderate: And, by these means intending to advance the Mysterie of iniquity, by stoping the mouths, and binding up the hands of all from whom he might expect Control or Contradiction, and laying them by from all open opposition to p. 26the introduction of Poperie and advancement of Slaverie, he purposed and proposed the repealing of the Penal Statutes against Papists, at the Parliament held by the Earl of Murray: Against which, when afterwards some of the Common sort of people, and of the Souldiers, spoke some what freely, and for shewing their dislike of setting up the Idolatrous Mass, and for speaking against Poperie, and the designs of the King, they were put to Death in a most Despotical and Arbitrary manner. The Persecution the mean while still continuing against us, and growing more dangerous, and worse to bear that we had all the brunt of it to sustain; while the Forces had few other to Persecute but us: which they did in great fury, murdering in Fields and Scaffolds, such as they could catch of us.

At length, what could not be obtained by Law, at the formentioned Parliament for taking off the Penal Statutes, was effectuate by Prerogative, in a Proclamation, Feb: 12: 1687. Granting, by the Kings Soveraign Authority,Grievance 31. Prerogative Royal, and Absolute Power, which Subjects are to obey without Reserve; a Toleration, under certain conditions, Restrictions, and Limitations, to all sorts of Perswasions, excepting us who are left to the full vigor and utmost rigor of the Laws made against us: Suspending, Stoping and Disabling all Laws, or Acts of Parliament, customs or constitutions against any Roman Catholick Subjects; giving them freedom in all respects, as much as any Prtoestant Subjects, whatsoever, not only to Exercise their Religion, but to enjoy all Offices, Benefices, &c. which he shall think fit to bestow upon them in all time coming. Hence Papists were put into places of highest Trust, both Civil and Military: And Popish Magistrates without any Election established in Burghs, &c. contrare to the known Laws of the Kingdom, admitting none to be Magistrates, or so much as a Procutator, Notar, or member of Court, who professes not the Protestant Religion, Act 9. Parl: 1. Iames 6. Declaring all Papists infamous, and unable to sit or stand in Judgment, pursue, bear Office, or to be admitted as proves, Witness, or Assisors against Protestants. Act 45: Parl: 3: Iames 6: which is extended to all and whatsomever Office, without any Exception or Restriction in all time coming. Act 5: Parl: 20: Iames 6: Hence also the Idolatrous Mass was set up in the most publick places of the Kingdom; and Popish Seminary Priests suffered and encouraged to preach, and set up Schools, to seduce the People, especially the Youth: contrate to many express standing Laws, Act 3: Parl: 1: Iames 6: and Act 5: ibid: p. 27Ordaining all layers or hearers of Mass to be punished, with imprisonment for the first fault, banishment for the second, and justifying to the Death for the third fault. Act 122: Iarl: 12: K: Iames 6: Decerning, That, in all time coming, the saying of Mass, resetting of Jesuites, Seminary Priests, Traffiquing Papists, shall be just cause to infer the pain and crime of Treason. Act 196: Parl: 14: Iames 6: Ordaining in all time coming, all wilfull hearers of Mass, and concealers of the same, be execute to the Death: Ratified in the 1 Act. Parl. 19. Iac. 6. And in 5. Act. Parl: 20: Iac: 6. Hence Papists have erected Schools, and made, sold, and dispersed their Heretical Books, tending to seduce the People from the true Religion: contrary to express Laws, Act. 106. Parl: 7: Iac: 6: Act 24, and 25: Parl: 11: I: 6. This Popish Toleration, was neither extended to us; all the three Proclamations thereof expresly providing, that Field Conventicles, & all Preachers and Hearers thereat, be prosecuted according to the utmost Severity and Rigor of the Lawes made against them, left in their full Force and Vigor, with a Command to all Judges, Magistrates and Officers of …orces, to pursue us with all Violence; Nor could we in Conscience and Duty, directly or indirectly, suffer our selves to be involved, by any participation therewith or acceptance thereof, in the sin of it against the Laws of GOD and Man: Since it appeared evidently to flow from a Blasphemous fountain of Absolute Power; through a Treasonable Channel of stoping, Suspending, and disabling the Penal Statutes made against the Enemies of GOD, and of the Kingdom; and to be designed for the wicked ends of subverting the Protestant Religion, and the peaceable introduction of Popish Idolatrie and Heresie; And to offer, not the establishment of our Religion, but the Tolerating of it, under the scandalous notion of a thing to be suffered for a while; and with such shameful securities, as robbed the Church of all her Legal Charters of Laws and Covenants establishing her Reformation, leaving her nothing in lieu thereof but a blind precarious promise of One, whose principles oblieged him to keen no Faith with those to whom he promised it. But against all these indignities done to Christ, and injuries to the Church, intended and effected by this Toleration, our Ministers thought themselves oblieged to bear witness and Testimony: And with respect both to necessity and duty, to continue to keep their Meetings in the open Fields, whether the Tyranny of the times had driven them: Since they durst neither seem to Homologate the Toleration, p. 28by coming under the sconce of such a protection; Nor durst they give such advantage to such as were insatiably thirsting after their Blood, and were impowered to shed it, as they were seeking and would have found, if they had shut up themselves within houses, that could neither hold their Friends, nor be hid from their Enemies. This we looked upon as a Testimony, for the interest of the Protestant Religion, for our Covenanted Reformation, for the Laws & Liberties of our Country, all undermined and sought to be subverted by that Toleration.Grievance 32.

In the prosecution of this Device, when others were killed with Popish kindnesses, we were left to feell the sweet effects of Popish Crueltie. Some of our Bretheren were Murdered in Fields and Scaffolds, since that pretended Toleration; Many both Men and Women have been banished and Sold for Slaves in Barbados: Other severe Proclamations were issued against our Ministers, Intercommuning, & seting a pryce upon their Heads, to encourage all to apprehend them Dead or alive: One of them, Mr. Iames Renwick a painful Minister being Feb. 1688. was Executed to the Death in Edinburgh, the Drums beating all the time of his Praying and speaking upon the Scaffold. And after this, not only was the Country oppressed with Souldiers, free quarterings, and frighted with their searches, and Insolences in their ryding up and down the Country, challenging peaceable Travellers upon the Road, about their Opinions of the Kings Authority, and if this and that was Rebellion; and threatning present Death to such as did not satisfie them: But the City of Edinburgh vexed with universal searches, and the impositions of these impertinences, whereby many were taken and examined by Claver-house, who required them to renounce the Covenant, imprisoned the Recusants; Whereby the Prisons were crouded: And yet, notwithstanding of an Indemnity, October 2: 1688 alledged as ample as Absolute Power could make it, tho not expresly excluded, they were detained Prisoners until the Report of his Highness the Prince of Orange, now King of Brittain his prevailing, and fear of his Victorious Arms did move them not to keep any longer any that might be evidences and Witnesses of their Arbitrary cruelty. As the same reason also it seems did constrain them, to take down and bury the heads of those they murdered, for fear lest these monuments of their cruelty standing, might occasion the Question to be moved, by whom and for what they were set up? p. 29Than which nothing shall be more confounding to them, when inquisition shall be made for blood.

Thus these Enemies of the Country, the encroaching Privy Council, and the Prelates in special, now universally contemned since the Toleration, were going on in their Designs to enslave the Nation, and to prevent and suppress all Essayes to retrive or revive any hopes of recovering any Liberty;Grievance 33. Multiplying their searches, not only for us, but for any that were suspected to favour their present Majesties Cause, and undertaking, so soon as it began to be surmised here; and laying up in irons and closs prison some Gentlemen, upon suspicion of their being privy to it. And, as soon as they had certain intelligence of King William his great and generous Resolutions, in order to the Restauration and Preservation of Religion, Laws, and Liberties, in these three Kingdoms, They made such vigorous preparations for opposition, and issued out such virulent Proclamations inveighing against his Highness, under such severities of certifications, requiring all from 60: to 16: to concur under their displayed Banner for Arbitrary Government, as if they had feared an Invasion from Turks or Tartars. Yet in the mean time, tho there were suspicions then, and discoveries since, of an intended Popish Massacre, they disarmed the Western Shires, and sent Orders to the Officers of Forces, especially imploying such as were professedly Popish, to go through the Country, and take all their Armes, leaving them nothing to defend themselves withal, and causing the People to swear that they had no other Armes than such as they got. And in their march, meeting with some of our number, they threatned to shoot them presently if they would not own King Iames, pray for him, and for confusion to all his Enemies: which they refusing at first were appointed to be shot, and had their faces covered with Napkins, and with great difficulty escaped by complying.

By the former Summary and abridged Abstract and compendious Deduction of our many and manifold Grievances (the Truth whereof can be evidenced by many demonstrative Evidences) it may appear what have been our sufferiugs since that fatal Revolution, anno 1660: from the Popish, Prelatical, and Malignant Party; and what have been their Attempts, Machins, and Methods to overturn our Religion, Laws, and Liberties, and subject us to meer Arbitrary and Absolute Tyrannie; At least what have been their capital Devices, p. 30whereby they have ruined and sought to raze us; And what have been the principal causes and kinds of our Sufferings, in their prosecuting the same: The particular Relation of which, so far as can be collected, is intended (GOD willing) afterwards in due season to be published. Only here it may not be inconvenient to subjoyn, by way of specimen, a short Recapitulation in bulk of some instances of our several kinds of Sufferings, with a touch at some of the most principal Instruments thereof in the five Western Shires

First, For Fines, and other Exorbitant and Illegal Exactions of Money, the particular summs cannot be here enumerated; but their vastness, when together calculate, may be easily collected by the scraps already gathered, of some poor Families of Farmers, Cottars, Servants, &c. and many of these omitted, or not known, which would very considerably augment the summ) in some few Shires; viz. Clidsdale, Renfrew, Air, Galloway, Nithsdale, and Annandale, only for but a few years, to wit, since Bothwel bridge insurrection, amounting to above 288000. pounds Scots Money.

Besides the many honest Families, which have been casten out of their houses, harassed and spoiled of their All: Some of their houses being thrown down, some Burnt, some shut up, their goods and moveables seized upon, their Crop and Cattel also disposed of, at the will of their Persecuters, in the forementioned Shires amounting to above 200: of all which we have a particular account in readiness to instruct.

The immediate Authors, Actors, and Instruments of these oppressions, were principally the Curates instigating the Privy Council, which impowered the Forces, and Noblemen and Gentlemen of the Country, to prey upon the poor People. All cannot be here expressed, but some of the most noted in the Western Shires shall be named, who were the greatest Persecuters and Oppressors by Finings and other Exactions.