make confcience of what ye do. Remember that you will count and reckon for all that you have done, and will be reckoned as guilty of the blood of the faints, as the worst enemies amongst them all. Therefore as dying men we charge you to take with guilt, or else it will be worfe for you. O Sirs! fear the Lord's wrath, and fall to and mourn for what you have done. O cry mightily for repentance, or else you will get Judas's reward. For you are the perfons that have betrayed the Son of God, and expelled him out of your coafts. You were thinking that he was like to prove a coftly Christ, and therefore you of that fhire would give confent to banish him away from among you. You would not hear tell of a field preaching for fear of hazard. O Sirs! take it to confideration, and lay it to heart what a hand you have in banishing Chrift and the gospel out of Scotland, and we are fure, it was not your parts to have done fo. No, no, it was not your part to have given Chrift fuch an affront; the fweet days that you have had long fince might have made you give royal Jefus better quarters, though you fhould go to the gibbet for it, and lofe your gear. For your doing as you have done is a denying of him before men. Take it as ye will, we must tell you, as in the fight of a living God, before whom we are now to appear, and get our fentence for all that we have done; you are the only fhire that has denied lovely Chrift quarters, for he fent an offer to you to the Torwood, and ye would not .hear it. Well, it is likely that there are many of you that will never get another; there are fome of you that would not go to hear, but forbade others to go, and thought it was duty not to go; and fome of you were at that preaching and made a bad ufe of it. O'rememqer, Sirs, you have rejected Chrift. We tell you it, as dying men, you will count for it ere it be long, for our Lord did not fend the gofpel to the Torwood for nought, but it will accomplish that for which it was fent. O Sirs, be afraid and tremble, for judgment is at the door, and indeed your fentence will be fore to abide, it will be. more tolerable for open enemies in the day of judgment than for you. We are afraid, when we think, what judgments will be on you fhortly, for confidering what pains has been taken on you of that fhire, and how tender the Lord has been of you, in training you up for. fuffering

fuffering, and has given you trials, and you have endured them, and he has taken them off again, and given you forer trials, and he has delivered you out of thefe.

O what of his kindness have you met with at fuch places! You dare not fay, That he hath been a barren wilderness, or a land of drought to you. Teftify against him if he was not kind to you, fo long as ye abode by him he abode by you, and he was tender of you fo long as ye kept faithful to him; but after ye turned into the enemies camp, then he turned to be your enemy, and fought against you, and in all you do God will be seen to be against you. You may thrive in the world, but it will be a dear thriving to you, you will get the wrath of God with it. But ye have done with thriving in the worship of God. Indeed there are many of you that hold your life no more of God. Remember we tell you of it, who are within a few hours of eternity. Now it is like you will not notice what the like of us fay, but will alledge that we are dying as fools, and have no Prefbyterian principles, but notions: but we fay the contrary; We fay, we are not fools as to that, however the world may think and look on us as fuch: We fay, we have Prefbyterian principles, and are Prefbyterians in our judgments, and will make it appear that we die as chriftians, and as thofe that own the truths of God, and are ftanding to what minsters once taught us, although this day, they are turned to the contrary, and condemning us, and faying, that we have nothing but notions of our own heads, that makes us do fuch things, but they will not find it fo in the day of accounts.

And first you may fay, That it is not a prefbyterian principle to caft off magiftrates. We grant with you; but where are the magiftrates? Indeed they were once placed fuch; but they caft out themfelves when they brake the covenant, and fet up a curfed fupremacy, infulting over the Lord's inheritance; and when they have done that, we think they are no more to be owned as magiftrates by prefbyterians: but to be caft of and witneffed againft; and when it comes to that part of the play, do ye not think that it was our part to contend for truth? O Sirs! do ye not belief Jefus Chrift to be the eternal Son of God, and that all things were made. for him and by him, whether they be thrones or domi

nions, or principalities or powers? What is not his? and that by free gift and donation, by an eternal decree intimate to us in the ii. Pfalm, where, in a more particular manner, he is declared to be king in Zion, and all the Heathen promifed to the enlargement of his kingdom.

Do ye think, we would without perjury and treachery to God, own Charles Stuart's authority any longer, when he held not his authority of God? but it being manifeft, that in Middleton's parliament, he difclaimed that title to authority, we think, we were bonnd to witness our loyalty to another, and that we were freely abfolved from obedience and fidelity to him then, and could not own his authority without grofs perjury, he declaring, he would have no homage upon account of the covenant: Would ye not count him a distracted man that would cleave to him upon that account whether he would or not? Yea, and whoever does it, we know they will find themselves fools. Do you believe, that in the day that that Covenant was taken, any within the nation was not bound to perform and profecute it, and that God, will punish the deftroyers of that covenant? Do ye think that' act explanatory of the fupremacy is not a plain renunciation of the word of God, the law of nature, the covenant,. and human fociety, and setting up devilism and confufion, without a full, free and direct teftimony to the contrary? We are fure that every public breach of covenant requires public repentance. We think, there can none be abfolved without this: For in exprefs terms our Lord `fays, Whofoever denies me before men, him will I deny before my Father which is in heaven. Now there fhould not only be a teftimony given, but a walking according to it afterwards. O Sirs, would ye have none to witness against the abominations of this day? Indeed you are all mistaken, for our Lord will not want witneffes to witnefs for him, however few and feckless they be; yet He will make the things that are not, confound the things O Sirs think ye not a fin to join with them that have rejected the living God, and will not have him to reign over them? Do ye not think it duty to protest against them that are trampling our Lord's glory under foot? O Sirs, do not you think yourfelves guilty of breach of covenant, that have connived at thefe men, that have their hands reeking in the blood of the faints, when you are ftrengthening their hands in the doing of it? We

that are.

think you guiltier nor these wretches; because ye join with them in fin, whereas you fhould have protested against them in the committing of fuch facts. We wot well, if ye read the Bible, ye will count yourselves as guilty as they are, and the guiltieft of the two; for it was your part to have contended for the truth, and itood in defence thereof, unto the lofing of lives and liberties, and all that you had. The Lord has caft them off, and yet you will do what in you lies to hold them up, who fhed the blood of thofe, who were once in a day your dear brethren. It may be, you will fay, that Samuel knew that Saul was rejected of God, and yet he did not caft him off? We anfwer, he did what lay in his power to get him caft off; for he went and anointed David in his ftead, and durft not do it publicly, but fecretly for fear of Saul, neither did Samuel converfe much with Saul after that. Next you fay, that David's heart fmote him, for taking, and cutting off the lap of Saul's garment, and faid, that he would not ftir the Lord's anointed. Now we fay, he had two reasons that we have not. t, He had that reafon, that he was the Lord's anointed. 2dly, It was his own particular quarrel; because he was to reign in his ftead. So we fay, that Charles Stuart is not the Lord's anointed, neither is it our particular quarrel, but in defence of the gofpel; and in fo far as he is an enemy to God and the way of falvation, which is fufficient ground to caft out any perfon out of the church, and witness against him in defence of the gofpel, unto the lofing of life, liberty and all other things. And believe us as ye will, we do not think them Christians, that will not contend for lovely Chrift and his fweet truths, in witneffing against this bloody excommunicate traitor, and not owning them as rulers, seeing they have disowned the Juft and Holy One, and are trampling on his fweet truths, and would never have them to rife again; but would have the stone fealed, that there might be no more mention made of the honour of God. And you have a deep hand in this, because ye are not faithful and free in witneffing for his defpifed glory and if ye will not do it, Delivery to the church fhall come from another airth, and you fhall be destroyed; for he will be \up again in spite of all your hearts, and he will make your fears and theirs both come on you; for he will make inquifition for all his truths; and when he comes,

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indeed we would not abide the reproof that you the profeffors of Stirling fhire will get, for all the gold in Europe; there will be no excufe heard then; for he hath told in exprefs terms, that whofoever will not forfake all, and follow him, cannot be his difciple. Wife and children, houfes and lands, muft all go for him; and you must take up his crofs daily, and wander through at his back, it may be, hard befted, with a borrowed bed, and a borrowed fire fide, and live upon providence: We wot well, there are fome of you that can fay to your sweet experience, that you never lived betrer than on God's providence, although now ye have rejected and betaken yourselves to the world. Have you done fo: Well you may be doing; but ere long ye will rue it. Remember we told you it when we were going into eternity, that you would meet with much wo and forrow, for what you have done against the honour of God, if you repent not.

2dly, You fay, it is not a prefbyterian principle to own that party that is jeoparding their lives for the honour of God, and witneffing for his defpifed truths, that this day is so abused and nick-named by you and others; but we fay, it is, and maintain it to be a prefbyterian principle, to own that defpifed party, for they are the party that are only defigning the glory and honour of God, and have no other view before them but his fweet truths, which are dear to them; and they will quit with life and liberty, before they quit with an-hoof of truth; which has been made out by their valiant fufferings. O but truth has been fweet and dear to them! They have not counted their lives dear unto them on the account of it. They have cheerfully gone to the fcaffold for truth, and have been honourably carried through, and the Lord's prefence feen in their through-bearing; as we hope, fhall be made out on us, ere it be long: also they study to spend their time and ftrength for God. When all other means have failed them, they fudy to keep up that mean of reading, finging, and praying, as, the Lord will affift and help them, although the indulged and their conforts have a great envy at them, and do what they can to get them off the earth; for they are the main actors in taking of that poor party; and all is, because their practices condemn theirs, although they take the fcriptures for their rule, and study to walk fo,

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