was the death of James Sharp, Archbishop of St Andrews, which they reckoned a cruel murder, and therefore hoped that, if the sufferers should approve of the same, they would have a colour to destroy them, as being men of assassinating and bloody principles, deserving to be exterminated out of any well-governed commonwealth; and therefore it was still one of their questions-"Was the Bishop's death murder?" To which question some answered directly that it was a just and lawful execution of God's law upon him, for his perjurious treachery and bloody cruelty; others were silent, or refused to answer anything directly to the point, as, conceiving that it being no deed of theirs, they were not obliged by any law, Divine or human, to give their judgment thereupon, especially when they could not exactly know the circumstances of the matter of fact, and saw that the question was proposed with a design to ensnare them, or take away their life. Yet was their very silence or refusal to give their opinion made a cause of their indictment, and ground of their sentence, and some were put to torture to make them give their sentiments anent it. If any would be further satisfied on this head,

let him see "Hind let Loose," head vi. page 633. [Edition 1744, page 646.-ED.]

But however these murderers of the servants and people of God made use of such questions as these to entangle them, yet still the grand state of the quarrel was, "Whether Christ alone or King Charles should be owned as head and lawgiver to the Church; and whether the Divine form of government and discipline which Christ had instituted should continue in her; or if an usurper should have leave to mould it, as he pleased, and conform it to the pompous dress of the Romish whore ?"

And hence it is also evident, that the state of the sufferings before the engagement at Bothwell was really one and the same with that which was after it (as to the main, though things came to be clearer after it), concerning the civil authority, when by that and many other instances it was made evident, that the pretended rulers were setting themselves directly to ruin the whole interests of the subjects, as well civil as sacred, and that it was in vain to be any longer in suspense, waiting for a satisfactory redress of grievances, or opportunity to represent the same.

So that the charge of rebellion, laid against them not only by our Episcopal passive-obedience men, but also by the Indulged and such as tread their steps, is a most groundless imputation; for King

Charles had violated all the conditions of government, and manifestly degenerated into a tyrant, long before they rejected his authority; and had refused all claim to the subjects' allegiance, upon the account of the contract which he entered into at his coronation, and had no other pretence to authority but hereditary right, and bloody force, with the consent of such profligate noblemen and gentlemen as sat in these packed and pretended Parliaments; which could never, in law or reason, oblige the honest and faithful subjects of the kingdom to comply with these tyrannical courses, and submit to him, who had as really forfeited his right to be king of Britain, as did his brother afterwards by his abdication.

But it is no new thing for the followers of Christ to meet with this charge of rebellion. If a Jezebel wants a Naboth's vineyard, and he stands up for his property, she will not want sons of Belial to bear witness that he "blasphemed God and the king." Do the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin intend to stop the building of Jerusalem, they'll not want a Rehum the chancellor, and Shimshai the scribe to write, "That this city is a rebellious city, and hurtful unto kings and provinces, and that they have moved sedition within the same of old time." Would Haman have all the Jews destroyed, because Mordecai will not honour him, this is the charge he lays against them, as most likely to effectuate his purpose, that "their laws are diverse from all people, neither keep they the king's laws." Have the presidents a purpose to be rid of Daniel, this is the engine, "that Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king! nor the decree that thou hast signed." Is a Tertullus to employ his eloquence against Paul, here's the artifice-"We have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among the Jews." Were the Romans desirous to have the Christians exterminated out of the empire, what shift took they? Why, truly this was it, "The Christians are rebellious and seditious; they won't swear by the life of Cæsar, nor adore his image!" and therefore Christianos ad Leones. If we look through the whole ecclesiastic history, we shall scarce find a persecution raised, but this is an article of the charge. But it is no paradox, "the servant is not greater than his Lord;" even Christ himself was accused and condemned as an enemy to Cæsar, and a mover of sedition. But I shall not enter into this argument; the sufferers for Christ in Scotland have been frequently vindicated from the charge of rebellion by more learned pens, and yet still we have a generation of absurd men, who will not

fail to renew it; nor can the strength of argument silence them, while they have brow enough to return railing in the room of reason.

HE reader having thus briefly seen the causes upon which they laid down their lives, it were necessary to proceed to a short delineation, both of the cruelty of the persecutors inflicting, and of the courage, patience, and cheerfulness of the martyrs suffering these severities; but as for the former, what tongue can express, what pen can describe the barbarous cruelty and hellish rage of these sons of wickedness? One might write a volume upon their cruelties, and after all fall short of drawing them to the life, or giving any just idea of them; they were so extremely inhuman and brutish. At first they began with noblemen, gentlemen, and ministers, who had been eminent for the cause of God; beheading some, and placing their heads on the ports [i.e., gateways] of Edinburgh, in token of the highest contempt; banishing others, ejecting all from their charges, but such as would subject to Prelacy, and the blasphemous Supremacy; and vitiating all the springs and seminaries of learning. Next, they fell to compel the common people to hear curates, by vast and exorbitant fines, extorted by troops of soldiers, plundering, quartering, beating, wounding, binding men like beasts; chasing them away from their houses; compelling them, though sick, to go to church; consuming and wasting their provisions with dogs; and promiscuously abusing, as well those that conformed, as them that refused; and if any testified their resentment at these vermin of ignorant and scandalous curates, or refused to give them their titles, they were imprisoned, scourged, stigmatised [i.e., branded with a hot iron], and banished to Barbadoes or other foreign parts. Any that were hearing their own ministers in private houses were seized, dragged to prisons, and close kept there in great hardship; and that of every age and sex.

These were their tender mercies, and but the beginnings of sorrows; for, after the defeat at Pentland Hills, beside what were killed upon the spot, such as surrendered upon quarter and solemn parole to have their life, were, contrary to the law of nature and nations, treacherously and bloodily murdered, to the number of forty; one of them, a much reverenced young minister [Hugh M'Kail] had his leg squeezed to pieces in the Boot, and was afterwards hanged, though he was not in the fight, but had only a sword about him. Soldiers were ordered to take free quarters in the country to examine men by tortures; to compel women and children to discover

their husbands and fathers, by threatening death, wounding, stripping, torturing by fire-matches, etc.; crowding into prisons so thick that they could scarce stand together, in cold, hunger, and nakedness; and all this, because they would not or could not discover who were at that expedition. Likewise many ensnaring bonds, oaths, and tests were framed, and imposed with rigour and horrid severity; people obliged to have passes declaring they had taken them, or swear before common soldiers, under pain of being presently shot dead. Severe laws were made against ministers that came to Edinburgh for shelter; they and their wives were searched for, by public search, crowded into prisons, and sent to foreign plantations to be sold as slaves. Dragoons were sent to pursue people that attended fieldpreachings, to search them out in mosses, moors, mountains and dens of the earth. Savage hosts of Highlanders were sent down to depopulate the western shires, to the number of ten or eleven. thousand, who acted most outrageous barbarities, even almost to the laying some countries desolate.

After the overthrow of the Lord's people at Bothwell they doubled their severities; issued out more soldiers, imposed cess, localities, and other new exactions, forced people to swear super inquirendis, and delate upon oath all that went to field-preachings; they set up extraordinary circuit courts, enlarged their Porteous rolls, [i.e., lists of persons summoned to appear before the Justiciary Courts], pressed bonds of compearance to keep the peace, to attend the church, refrain from field-meetings, etc.; examining country people upon several questions which they had no occasion to understand, concerning the death of King Charles I. and the Archbishop of St. Andrews, and condemning them to death for not answering; quartering some alive, cropping their ears, cutting off the hands of some, and then hanging them, cutting their bodies in pieces after they were dead, and fixing them upon poles in chains, and upon steeples and ports of cities, beating drums at their executions, that they might not be heard speak; detaining others long in prison, laden with chains and fetters of iron, and exposed to greater tortures than death itself, and, after all, sent to be sold as slaves, to empty the prisons; exercising all these bloody deaths and cruelties upon poor country people, which had no influence to do hurt to their government, though they had been willing; yea, upon women of tender age, whom they hanged and drowned, for refusing their oaths and bonds, and resetting the Lord's suffering people.

It would be endless to enumerate all the barbarities exercised upon particular persons, only for a swatch [i.e., specimen], take these inflicted upon that excellent gentleman, David Hackston of Rathillet. He was taken out from the place of judgment to his execution, and his body, which was already wounded, was tortured while he was alive, by cutting off both his hands, which was done upon a high scaffold prepared for the purpose; thereafter being drawn up by a pulley to the top of the high gallows by the rope which was about his neck, and suffered to fall down a considerable way upon the lower scaffold three times with his whole weight; then he was fixed at the top of the gallows, and the executioner, with a big knife, cutting open his breast, pulled out his heart while he was yet alive (as appeared both by the body contracting itself, when it was pulled out, and by the violent motion of the heart when it dropped upon the scaffold), which the executioner, taking up upon the knife, showed to the people upon the several corners of the stage, crying, "Here is the heart of a traitor!" and then threw it in a fire prepared for the purpose upon the stage, together also with his other inward and noble parts; and having quartered his body, fixed his head and hands on a port at Edinburgh, and the other quarters at Leith, Cupar of Fife, and other places. Such was the size and proportion of their persecutions, while yet they pretended to bring them to the knowledge of assizes and colour of law.

But being now weary with these persecutions, according to the tenor of their own laws, the Councillors, to rid themselves of this trouble, gave out an edict for killing them, wherever they might be found, immediately upon the spot, unless they would take the oaths, and show their pass (which they behoved to swear that it was not forged), and if they found any arms or ammunition upon them of any sort. By means of which edict, many were suddenly surprised and shot dead by the brutish and merciless soldiers, who were either peaceably living at home, following their lawful employments, or wandering in mountains to hide themselves from their bloody enemies, not being allowed time to recommend their souls to God; and the country was engaged by oath to raise the hue and cry against them, in order to deliver them up to the hands of these burriors [i.e., executioners.] The chief contrivers and framers of this horrid murdering edict, were the Earl of Perth, chancellor, Duke of Queensberry, Marquis of Athole, and, particularly, the Viscount of Tarbat, now Earl of Cromarty, who invented this murdering device, wherein