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16th day of August 1650, he hath, notwithstanding of all this, gone on more avowedly in these sins than all that went before him.

"2. For his great perjury, after he had twice at least solemnly subscribed that Covenant, he did so presumptuously renounce, disown, and command it to be burned by the hand of the hangman.

"3. Because he hath rescinded all laws for establishing of that religion and reformation engaged to in that Covenant, and enacted laws for establishing its contrary; and is still working for the introducing of Popery into these lands.

"4. For commanding of armies to destroy the Lord's people, who were standing in their own just defence, and for their privileges and rights, against tyrannies, oppressions, and injuries of men; and for the blood he hath shed, in fields, on scaffolds, and in seas, of the people of God, upon account of religion and righteousness (they being most willing in all other things, to render him obedience, if he had reigned and ruled them according to his Covenant and oath, more than all the kings that have been before him in Scotland).

"5. That he hath been still an enemy to, a persecutor of, the true Protestants, a favourer and helper of the Papists, both at home and abroad, and hath hindered to the utmost of his power, the due execution of just laws against them.

"6. For his relaxing of the kingdom, by his frequent grant of remissions and pardons for murderers (which is in the power of no king to do, being expressly contrary to the law of God), which was the ready way to embolden men in committing of murders, to the defiling of the land with blood.

"Lastly, To pass by all other things, his great and dreadful uncleanness of adultery and incest, his drunkenness, his dissembling with God and man; and performing his promises where his engagements were sinful.

"Next, by the same authority, and in the same name, I excommunicate, cast out of the true Church, and deliver up to Satan, James Duke of York. And that for his idolatry (for I shall not speak of any other sins, but what have been perpetrated by him in Scotland), and for setting up idolatry in Scotland, to defile the Lord's land, and his enticing and encouraging others to do so.

"Next, In the same name, and by the same authority, I excommunicate, and cast out of the true Church, and deliver up to Satan, James Duke of Monmouth, for coming into Scotland, upon his father's unjust command, and leading armies against the Lord's

people, who were constrained to rise, being killed in and for the right worshipping of the true God and for his refusing that morning at Bothwell Bridge a cessation of arms, for hearing and redressing their injuries, wrongs, and oppressions.

"Next, I do by virtue of the same authority, and in the same name, excommunicate, cast out of the true Church, and deliver up to Satan, John Duke of Lauderdale, for his dreadful blasphemy, especially that word to the prelate of St Andrews :-"Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool:" his atheistical drolling on the Scriptures of God, scoffing at religion, and religious persons: his apostacy from the Covenant and work of reformation; and his persecuting thereof, after he had been a professor, pleader and presser thereof: for his perjury in the business of Mr James Mitchell, who, being in Council, gave public faith, that he should be indemnified, and that to life and limb, if he should confess his attempt on the prelate, and notwithstanding of this, before the Justiciary Court, did give oath that there was no such act in Council: for his adulteries and uncleanness for his counselling and assisting the king, in all his tyrannies, overturning and plotting against the true religion: for his gaming on the Lord's day; and lastly, for his usual and ordinary cursing.

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'Next, I do, by virtue of the same authority, and in the same name, cast out of the true Church, and deliver up to Satan, John Duke of Rothes, for his perjury, in the matter of Mr James Mitchell; and for his adulteries and uncleanness; for allotting the Lord's day for his drunkenness: for his professing and avowing his readiness and willingness to set up Popery in this land at the king's command; and for the heathenish, barbarous, and unheard of cruelty (whereof he was the chief author, contriver, and commander, notwithstanding that he had otherwise engaged lately) to that worthy gentleman David Hackston of Rathillet; and lastly, for his ordinary cursing, swearing, and drunkenness.

"Next, I do, by virtue of the same authority, and in the same name, excommunicate, cast out of the true Church, and deliver up to Satan, Sir George Mackenzie, the king's advocate; for his apostacy, in turning into a profligateness of conversation, after he had begun a profession of holiness: for his constant pleading against, and persecuting to death, the people of God, and alleging and laying to their charge, things, which in his conscience he knew to be against the Word of God, truth, reason, and the ancient laws of this kingdom:

and his pleading for sorcerers, murderers, and other criminals, that before God, and by the laws of the land, ought to die; for his ungodly, erroneous, phantastic and blasphemous tenets, printed to the world in his pamphlets and pasquils.

"And lastly, I do, by virtue of the same authority, and in the same name, excommunicate, cast out of the true Church, and deliver up to Satan, Thomas Dalziel of Binns, etc.; for his leading armies, and commanding the killing, robbing, pillaging, and oppressing of the Lord's people, and free subjects of this kingdom; and for executing of lawless tyrannies and lustful laws; for his commanding to shoot at a post one Finlay at Newmilns, without any form of law, civil or military, he not being guilty of anything that they themselves counted a crime: for his lewd and impious life, led in adultery and uncleanness from his youth, with a contempt of marriage, which is the ordinance of God; for all his other atheistical and irreligious conversation; and lastly, for his, unjust usurping and retaining of the estate of that worthy gentleman William Mure of Caldwell, and his other injurious deeds in the exercise of his power.

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"I think, none that acknowledge the Word, can judge their sentences to be unjust; yet some, it may be, to flatter the powers, will call them unorderly and unformal, there not being warning given, nor probation led. But for answer, there has been warning given, if not of all these things, at least of a great part of them and for probation, there needs none, the deeds being notour and public, and the most of them, such as they themselves do avow and boast of. And as the causes are just, so, being done by a minister of the Gospel, and in such a way as the present persecution would admit of, the sentence is just; and there are no kings nor ministers on earth, who, without repentance of the persons, can reverse these sentences upon any (such) account: God, who is the Author of that ordinance, is the more engaged to the ratifying of them; and all that acknowledge the Scriptures, ought to acknowledge them. Yet some, perchance, will think, that though they be not unjust, yet that they are foolishly rigorous. We shall answer nothing to this but that Word, which we may speak with much more reason than they did who used it, 'Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?' Should they deal with our God as with an idol? Should they deal with His people as murderers and malefactors, and we not draw out His sword against them ?"

Henry Hall.

BRIEF relation of the Persecutions and Death of that worthy gentleman, HENRY HALL of Haughhead, who suffered martyrdom at Queensferry, June 3d, 1680. [For a further account of the Queensferry paper found upon Henry Hall, see page 35. In the following Relation it is abridged to about a fifth of its original size, and like most abridgments, it gives but an imperfect idea of the document itself, or of the power with which it states rights and liberties then denied to the subject, but now regarded as a heritage which no ruler can take away.-ED.]

Henry Hall of Haughhead, having had religious education, began early to mind a life of holiness; and was of a pious conversation from his youth. He was a zealous opposer of the Public Resolutions, insomuch that when the minister of the parish where he lived complied with that course, he refused to hear him, and went to Ancrum, to hear Mr John Livingstone. Being oppressed with the malicious prosecutions of the curates and other malignants for his nonconformity with the profane courses of abomination that commenced at the unhappy restoration of that most wicked tyrant Charles the Second, [he] was obliged to depart his native country, and go over the border into England in the year 1665, where he was much renowned for his singular zeal in propagating the Gospel among that people, who, before his coming among them, were very rude and barbarous; but many of them became famous for piety after.

In the year 1666, he was taken on his way to Pentland, coming to the assistance of his covenanted brethren, and was imprisoned with some others in Cessford Castle; but by the Divine goodness he soon escaped thence, through the favour of the Earl of Roxburgh, to whom the castle pertained, the said Earl being his friend and relation, from which time till about the year 1679 he lived in England, much

beloved of all that knew him, for his concern in propagating the knowledge of Christ in that country; insomuch that his blameless and shining Christian conversation drew reverence and esteem from his very enemies.

But about the year 1678, the heat of the persecution in Scotland obliging many to wander up and down through Northumberland and other places, one Colonel Struthers, intending to seize any Scotsman he could find in those parts, and meeting with Thomas Ker of Hayhope, one of Henry Hall's nearest intimates, he was engaged in that encounter upon the account of the said Thomas Ker, who was killed there; upon which account he was forced to return to Scotland, and wandered up and down during the hottest time of the persecution, mostly with Mr Richard Cameron and Mr. Donald Cargill; during which time, besides his many other Christian virtues, he signalised himself for a real zeal in defence of the persecuted Gospel preached in the fields, and gave several proofs of his valour and courage, particularly at Rutherglen, Drumclog, Glasgow and Bothwell Bridge; whereupon, being forfeited and violently pursued, to eschew the violent hands of his indefatigable persecutors, he was forced to go over to Holland; where he had not stayed long when his zeal for the persecuted interest of Christ, and his tender sympathy with the afflicted remnant of his covenanted brethren in Scotland, then wandering through the desolate caves and dens of the earth, drew him home, choosing rather to undergo the utmost efforts of persecuting furies than to live at ease, when Joseph was in affliction; making Moses' generous choice, rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, that he might be partaker of the fellowship of Christ's sufferings, than to enjoy what momentary pleasure the ease of the world could afford; nor was he much concerned with the riches of the world, for he stood not to give his ground to hold the prohibited field-preachings upon, when none else would do it. He was a lover and follower of the faithfully-preached Gospel, and was always against the Indulgence; he was with Mr Richard Cameron at these meetings where he was censured.

About a quarter of a year after his return from Holland, being in company with the reverend Mr Donald Cargill, they were taken notice of by two bloodhounds, the curates of Borrowstounness and Carriden, who went to Middleton, governor of Blackness Castle, and informed him of them; who, having consulted with these bloodthirsty ruffians, ordered his soldiers to follow him at a distance by

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