A Hind Let Loose. Shields Alexander

aggregated, described as to their kinds, and vindicated as to their causes: the particular deduction of their number, weight, and measure, of their names that have been martyred and murdered, both by formality of law, and without all formality of law, by sea and land, city and country, on scaffolds, and in the fields; of the manner of their sufferings; and of the form of their trials and testimonies, being intended shortly (if the Lord will) to be emitted and published in a book by itself; which will discover to the world as rare instances of the injustice, illegality, and inhumanity of the Scottish inquisition, and of the innocency, zeal, ingenuity, and patience of the witnesses of Christ, as readily can be instanced in these latter ages. Only here is a taste till more come; which if the Lord bless for its designed end, the glory of God, the vindication of truth, the information and satisfaction of all serious sympathisers with Zion's sorrows, and the conviction or confutation of reproachers, so far, at least, as to make them surcease from their invidious charge of things whereof the innocency is here vindicated, I have obtained all my design, and shall desire to give the Lord the praise.

       It will not be unprofitable for the Reader to cast his eye upon these sentences of great Authors, which relate to some heads of the following discourse.

      (Translated from their Originals.)

      Erasmus. As a woodcock, otherwise loud, being taken, becomes dumb; so slavery renders some men speechless, who, if they were free, would tell their minds freely.

      Nazianzen. Discord is better for the advantage of piety, than dissembled concord.

      Bernard. But if scandal arise for the truth, it is better to suffer scandal than relinquish the truth.

      Bracton. He is a king who rightly governs, a tyrant who oppresses his people.

      Cicero. He loses all right to government, who, by that government, overturns the common-weal.

      Aristotle. He who obeys the law, obeys both God and the law; who obeys the king, a man and a beast.

      Sueton. They are not bound to be loyal to a wicked king, under the pains of perjury.

      Ambrose. He that does not keep off injury from his neighbour, if he can do it, is as much in the fault as he who does it.

      Chamier. But all subjects have right of resisting tyrants, who by open force acquire dominion.

      Barclay. Against contenders for Monarchy. All antiquity agrees, that tyrants can, most justly, be attacked and slain as public enemies, not only by the public, but also by individual persons.

A

       Table of Contents

      HIND LET LOOSE;

      OR,

      AN HISTORICAL REPRESENTATION

      OF THE

      TESTIMONIES

      OF THE

      CHURCH OF SCOTLAND,

      FOR THE

      INTEREST OF CHRIST.

      WITH THE TRUE STATE THEREOF IN ALL ITS PERIODS.

      WITH

      A VINDICATION OF THE PRESENT TESTIMONY.

      The church of Christ, in the impression of all that have the least spark of the day's spirit is now brought to such a doleful and dreadful case and crisis, that if it be not reckoned the killing of the witnesses, yet all that have or desire the knowledge of the times, will judge it no impeachment to the prophecy to say, it is either very like, or near unto it. When now the devil is come down in great wrath, and knowing his time is but short, and therefore exerting all the energy of the venom and violence, craft and cruelty of the dragon, and antichrist, alias pope, his captain-general, is now universally prevailing, and plying all his hellish engines to batter down, and bury under the rubbish of everlasting darkness, what is left to be destroyed of the work of reformation; and the crowned heads, or horns of the beast, the tyrants, alias kings of Europe, his council of war, are advancing their prerogatives upon the ruins of the nations and churches privileges, to such a pitch of absoluteness, and improving and employing their power for promoting their masters (the devil and antichrists) interests, to whom they have gifted the churches, mancipated their own, and sacrificed the nations interest; and that with such combination of counsels, and countenance of providential success, that all the powers of hell, the principalities of earth, and the providence of heaven, over-ruling all things for the accomplishment of the divine purpose, and purchase, and prediction, seem to conspire to produce that prodigious period, and last attempt of the church's enemy. And the commencement is so far advanced, that now in all the churches of Europe either the witnesses of Christ are a killing, or the witness for Christ is in a great measure killed; either the followers of the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful, are killed for their testimony, or fainting in their zeal, and falling from their first love, they are cooled or cajoled from their testimony. Some are indulging themselves in their ease, settling on their lees, and sleeping in a stupid security; and, while the Lord is roaring from above, and his, and their enemies raging about them, and designing to raze them after they have ruined their neighbours, they are rotting away under the destructive distempers of detestable neutrality, loathsome lukewarmness, declining, and decaying in corruptions, defections, divisions, distractions, confusions; and so judicially infatuated with darkness and delusions, that they forget and forego the necessary testimony of the day. Others again, outwearied with the length and weight of the trial, under the temptation of antichrist's formidable strength on the one hand, and a deceitful prospect of an insnaring liberty on the other, are overcome either to be hectored or flattered from their testimony. And so, in these churches, comprehending all that are free from persecution at this time, the witness for Christ is in a great measure killed. Other churches, which are keeping and contending for the word of Christ's patience, are so wasted, and almost worn out, with persecutions, afflictions, and calamities, that, after they have been, and are (so much) daily killed for the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus, it may well be said, there hath been, and is, a great slaughter of the witnesses. And it were hard to determine, which of them can give the largest and most lamentable account of their sufferings, or which of them have had the greatest and most grievous experiences of the treachery and truculency, violence and villany of atheistical and papistical enemies: whether the reformed church of France, howling under the paw of that devouring lion, the French tyrant; or the protestants of Hungary under the tearing claws of that ravenous eagle, the tyrant of Austria; or those of Piedmont, under the grassant tyranny of that little tyger of Savoy. The accounts they give in print, the reports they bring with them in their flight from their respective countries, and the little hints we have in gazettes and news-letters, must needs enforce a conviction, if not extort a compassion of the greatness of their pressures; and that with such a parity, that it is doubtful which preponderates. I shall not make comparisons, nor aggravate nor extenuate the sufferings of any of the churches of Christ, beyond or below their due measures; but will presume to plead, that Scotland, another ancient, and sometimes famous reformed church, be inrolled in the catalogue of suffering churches, besides these mentioned; and crave, that she may have a share of that charity and sympathy which is the demand and desire of afflicted churches of Christ, from all the fellow members of that same body: and so much the rather is this her due, that, whereas, among all the rest of the churches, Christ's witnesses are killed in some particular respect, and each of them have their own proper complaint of it; some upon the account of persecution, some of defection, division, &c. of this it may be said, in all respects, both the witnesses of Christ, and a witness for Christ, are killed with a witness. This is the case of the sometimes renowned, famous, faithful, and fruitful, reformed, covenanted church of Scotland, famous for unity, faithful for verity, fruitful in the purity of doctrine, worship, discipline, and government; which now, for these twenty-seven years past, under the domination of the late tyrant, and present usurper of Britain, hath been so wasted with oppression, wounded with persecution, rent with division, ruined