it would have cost any of them their head at that time, to have asserted, that he did upon deliberation and choice mock God and man, and entered into these engagements, only with a purpose to be thereby in better capacity to destroy what he swore to maintain, only because he could not have the crown without this way, which, in the confession of the objectors themselves, was only deliberate and premeditate perjury. 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. Gillespie 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 and state were resolute, and ready to go away in a fixedness, to leave out the putting of his interest in the state of the quarrel) and being afraid of the said consequences of it, spoke his mind plainly to the king: 'That if he was not satisfied in his soul and conscience, beyond all hesitation of the righteousness of the subscription, he was so far from over-driving him to run upon that, for which he had no light, as he obtested him, yea, he charged him in his master's name, and in the name of these who sent him, not to subscribe this declararation, 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 interest; 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 and solemn league and covenant; whereunto he gave his apparently cordial consent (the words are in the form and order of the coronation with the whole action.) Then next, a sermon being preached upon 2 Kings xi. 12 and 17. the action commenceth, with his most solemn renewing of the national and solemn league and 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 engagements, from 1 Chron. xxix. 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 and severe exhortation from several instances, Neh. v. 13. Jer. xxxiv. 18, 19, 20. &c. Thereafter in the year 1651, followed the ratification of all these preceeding treaties, transactions, and engagements, concluded and enacted by the king, and the parliament then fully and freely conveened; whereby the same did pass into a perpetual law. And this covenant, which from the beginning was and is the most sure and 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 and secured. This might seem security sufficient, but considering the former discoveries and experiences they had of his treachery, and the visible appearances (in the mean time) of his refusals, visible reluctances, manifest refilings, open counter actings, and continued prejudices against the covenant, and his following unprecedented avowed perjury, every thing doth indelibly fasten upon them the weakness at least of an overweening credulity, and upon him the wickedness of a perfidious policy, in all these condescensions. 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 and resolved against, did notwithstanding bring in notorious malignants, into places of power and trust, in judicatories and armies, in a more politic than pious way of requiring of them a constrained and dissembled repentance, to the mocking of the God of truth, and scorn of all our holy engagements. 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 assemblies, stopped and hindered by the yoke of the sectarian usurpation; but also was the spring and source of all our defections since, all flowing from and fomented by that same spirit that fostered that: and for that, since that time, the Lord hath been contending with this church and nation, bringing us under the bondage of these malignant enemies, whom we suffered them then to encourage and introduce. And both at that time, and since that time, the Lord never countenanced an expedition where that malignant interest was taken in unto the state of that quarrel. Upon this our land was invaded by Oliver Cromwel, who defeated our army at Dunbar, 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 wherein the public resolutions were concluded in the assembly at St. Andrew's, the Lord then shed the blood of his people at Inverkeithing; so as that the assembly, having in great haste hurried through this approbation, were all made to run for it, and adjourn themselves to Dundee, where they met and completed that step of defection. And afterwards it is known, what a peculiar vengeance fell upon that city, where this deed was done, beyond all other cities of the nation. Next, an army being raised, according to these unhallowed resolutions, and the Lord putting remarkable discountenance upon them in their attemptings at home, as was manifest in their attemptings at Torwood, &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. vii. 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 you any more, except ye destroy the accursed thing from among you.') An army of near 30,000 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 Cromwel's 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 king's first reception into Scotland, our declensions were still growing, until they produced this dreadful revolt from God, wherein the nation is now involved; there was still a faithful remnant of ministers and professors, zealous for the cause, keeping their integrity; who in their remonstrances and testimonies witnessed against both their malignant enemies, and their backsliding brethren the revolutioners, and also against the sectarians their invaders; whose vast toleration and liberty of conscience, which they brought in to invade our religion as they had invaded our land, and infected 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 and intolerable. Now to see how far the present testimony is confirmed 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 and malignant factions 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 thought of so great importance, that they could not dispense with but faithfully maintain both, in their witnessings and warnings. In that seasonable and necessary warning and declaration, concerning present and imminent dangers, given at Edinburgh July 27. sess. 27. they first say of the sectaries, '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 and new fangled devices in religion and government; and though there were no cause to fear any thing from that party, but the gangrene and infection of those many damnable and abominable errors which have taken hold on them; yet our vicinity unto and daily commerce with that
