Church of Scotland. General Assembly

“ You have called for a Free General Assembly: His Majesty hath granted you one, most Free on his part, and in his intentions; but as you have handled and marred the matter, let God and the World judge, whether the least shadow or footstep of Freedom can be discerned in this Assembly, by any man who hath not given a Bill of Divorce both to his Understanding and Conscience. With what wresting and wringing your last Protestation charges His Majesties last Gracious Proclamation in the point of Prelimitations, is both known and misliked by many even of your own pretended Covenant ”

“ There is none hath cause to distrust the Lords word to his people; It hath often to our experience been tryed in the fire, and hath ever come forth with a more glorious lustre. Let not therefore these that suffer in England cast away their confidence, they are not the first who have needed patience after that they had done the Lords will. But let them strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees, and say to the fearfull in heart, be strong, fear not, behold your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence, he will come and save you. ”

“ The God of glory thundereth, and the Highest uttereth his voice, hailstones and coales of fire, who will not fall down and fear before him? The fire waxeth hot, and burneth round about us, and shall any sit still and be secure? ”

“ You may pretend Religion to be the sole Cause of your Grievance; but we believe it a woful Religion here, that hath thus devested itself of all Moral Duty and Civility. Nay, you go further, you threaten and fear us with a Mischief that will not end in our days; and boldly make it your own Act, to have declined it hitherto without Obligation to the Kings Mercy at all. You tell us of Plenty, and Ease, and Happiness for many years enjoyed, and wonder we should expose all those to hazard for the pleasure of some few Prelates. ”

“ My Lord gave in his commission to Mr Thomas Sandilands, as deputed by his father, Mr J. Sandilands, commissar of Aberdeen, clerk to the last General Assembly. His Grace harangued none at all, as we expected he would. We found him oft, thereafter, as able to have spoken well what he pleased, as any in the house. I take the man to be of a sharp, ready, solid, clear wit; of a brave and masterly expression; loud, distinct, slow, full, yet concise, modest, courtly, yet simple and natural language. If the King have many such men, he is a well-served Prince. ”

“ In the expectation and confidence whereof we do rejoyce, beseeching the Lord to preserve these Kingdomes from Heresies, Schismes, Offences, Prophanesse, and whatsoever is contrary to sound Doctrine, and the power of Godlinesse, and to continue with us and the generations following, these his pure and purged Ordinances, together with an increase of the power and life thereof, To the glory of his great Name, the enlargement of the Kingdom of his Son, the corroboration of Peace and Love between the Kingdoms, the unity and content of all his People, and our edifying one another in love. ”

“ It is now high time, under the feeling of so great a burden both of sinne and wrath, to humble our uncircumcised hearts, to put our mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope, to wallow our selves in ashes, to clothe our selves with our shame as with a garment, to justifie Gods righteous judgements, to acknowledge our iniquitie, to make our supplication to our Judge, and to seek his face, that he may pardon our sinne, and heal our Land. ”

“ But the highest of honours and heaviest of burdens is put upon you, to declare out of the sacred records of Divine Truth, what is the prerogitive of the Crown and extent of the Scepter of Jesus Christ, what bounds are to be set between Him ruling in his House, and powers established by God on Earth, how and by whom his House is to be governed, and by what wayes a restraint is to be put on those who would pervert his Truth, and subvert the faith of many. No doubt mountains of oppositions arise, and gulfs of difficulties open up themselves in this your way ”

“ We know that there is a generation of men who retard the work of Uniformity, and foment Jealousies betwixt the Nations, studying if it were possible, to break our bands asunder; But we trust, that he that sits in the Heavens will Laugh, and that the Lord shall have them in derision, that he shall speak to them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure, and notwithstanding of all that they can do, set his King upon his holy hill of Sion, and make these Nations happy in the sweet fruits of Unity in Truth and Peace. ”

“ It is no good use of the Lords mercy for such men under pretext of Liberty to make both themselves and others slaves to corruption, and to make all men both in Church and State like the fishes of the Sea, or the creeping things that have no ruler over them. Are these things according to the Word of God, and the pattern of the best Reformed Churches? Or is that the endeavour to bring the three Kingdoms to the nearest uniformity that may be in Doctrine, Worship, Government, and Discipline ”

“ Surely if ever a poor Nation were upon the edge of a most desperate precipice, if ever a poor Church were ready to be swallowed up by Satan and his Instruments, we are that Nation, we are that Church. ”

“ From our own bowels he hath called forth, and strengthened an adversarie against us, a generation of brutish hellish men, the rod of his anger, and the staff of his indignation, under whose cruelties we bleed, and if present mercy step not in, we die. Righteous art thou, O LORD, and just are all thy Judgements! But O the more then barbarous carriages of our enemies, where ever GOD gives any of his hidden ones up into their hands, we need not expresse it unto you, who knows the inveterate and deadly malice of the Antichristian faction against the Members of our Lord Jesus. ”

“ The heavens themselves, as if conspiring against that unhappy people, were armed with cold and tempest unusual to the climate, and executed what the merciless sword had left unfinished. The roads were covered with crowds of naked English, hastening towards Dublin and the other cities which yet remained in the hands of their countrymen: the feeble age of children, the tender sex of women, soon sunk under the multiplied rigours of cold and hunger. ”

“ But death was the slightest punishment inflicted by those rebels: all the tortures which wanton cruelty could devise, all the lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited without injury, and cruelty derived from no cause. To enter into particulars would shock the least delicate humanity: such enormities, though attested by undoubted evidence, appear almost incredible: depraved nature, even perverted religion, encouraged by the utmost license, reach not to such a pitch of ferocity ”

“ We dare not be too much exalted, only we bless God from our heart, who is beginning to shine on our army, and make it, after very long expectance and beating down of our pride, to be a fountain of joy and hope to these who love the welfare of religion. We hope things in the assembly and parliament may go more after our mind. Our army oft signified to us, they conceived their want of success flowed most from God’s anger at the parliament and assembly, for their neglect of establishing of religion. ”

“ Always if the finger of God in their spirits should so far dement them as to disagree, I would think there were yet some life in the play; for I know the body of England are overweary long ago of the parliament, and ever hated the sectaries, but much more now for this their unexpected treachery and oppression. On the other part, the King is much pitied and desired; so if they give him not contentment, he will overthrow them. If he and they agree, our hands are bound: we will be able, in our present posture, and humour of our highly distracted people, to do nothing. ”

“ To both classes we say, that what they reprobate in Charles can only be the subject of censure when hypocrisy becomes a virtue, when dissimulation adds lustre to the human character, and when prostitution of principle and personal honour shall be raised to the rank of a Christian virtue—an acme of perfection which, it must be allowed, was fully exemplified by blustering patriots, who remorselessly filled their country with rapine, anarchy, and oppression, as the champions of civil and religious liberty, both of which they trampled in the dust. ”

“ Now, in the midst of this deep tranquility, as soon as the certainty of the king’s return arrived in Scotland, I believe there was never accident in the world altered the disposition of a people more than that did the Scottish nation. Sober men observed, it not only inebriat but really intoxicate, and made people not only drunk but frantick; men did not think they could handsomely express their joy, except they turned brutes for debauch, rebels and pugeants; yea, many a sober man was tempted to exceed, lest he should be condemned as unnatural, disloyal, and insensible. ”

“ If no man were wiser than I am, we should not make many scruples to settle the throne, and pull down the sectaries. Never more high and dangerous questions in Scots hands. What the conclusion will be, a few days will declare.
While we are sticking in these labyrinths, one of our number, none of the most rigid, falls on the overture to propone the commission of the general assembly’s desires all together immediately to the parliament, wherein, if we got satisfaction, we were to go on as they desired us, to state a question. ”

“ For the People: And truly I desire their Liberty and Freedom, as much as any Body whomsoever; but I must tell you, That their Liberty and Freedom consists in having of Government, those Laws by which their Life and their Goods may be most their own. ”

“ None in the assembly has any doubt of this truth but one Colman, a professed Erastian; a man reasonably learned, but stupid and inconsiderate, half a pleasant, and of small estimation. But the lawyers in the parliament, making it their work to spoil our presbytery, not so much upon conscience, as upon fear that the presbytery spoil their market, and take up the most of the country-pleas without law, did blow up the poor man with much vanity; so he is become their champion, to bring out, in the best way he can, Erastian arguments against the proposition, for the contentment of the parliament. ”

“ Always Manchester has declared himself abundantly in the House of Lords and there has recriminated Cromwell, as one who has avowed his desire to abolish the nobility of England; who has spoken contumeliously of the Scots intention of coming into England to establish their church-government, in which Cromwell said he would draw his sword against them; also against the assembly of divines, and has threatened to make an army of sectaries, to extort by force, both from King and parliament, what conditions they thought meet. ”

“ If his Majesty may be moved to join with us in this one point, he will have all Scotland ready to sacrifice their lives for his service. If he refuse, or shift this duty, his best and most useful friends both here and elsewhere, will be cast into inextricable labyrinths, we fear, for the ruin of us all. We know Satan will not be wanting to stir up ill instruments to keep him off from a timeous yielding to this our most earnest and necessary desire; but as it is, and will be, one of all Scotland’s strong petitions to God, to dispose his heart to do his duty without delay ”

“ Neither yet are we so to understand the voice of the rod which lyeth heavy upon us, as if the Lords meaning were to pluck up what he hath planted, and to pull down what he hath builded in this Kingdom, to have no more pleasure in us, to remove our Candlestick, and to take his Kingdom from us: nay, before that our GOD cast us off, and the glory depart from Israel, let him rather consume us by the Sword, and the Famine, and the Pestilence, so that he will but keep his own great Name from reproach and blasphemy, and own us as his people in Covenant with him. ”

“ Since that time we have had no meeting for the whole church, not so much as for counsel, though the remonstrants have met oft, and are like to set up a commission and assembly of their own for very ill purposes. They are most bitter against those who adhere to their covenant in the matter of the King and assembly. They are as bent as ever to purge the church. To punish men truly deserving censure, we are as willing as they; but their purging is, for common, a very injurious oppression. ”

“ Some few of the most active men of the House of Commons and army are for too general a liberty for all consciences; but the most of both Houses are right and sound, and the body of the city are zealous against all errors and confusions, as the world will see in their new petition yet before this week end. Generally the ministers over all the kingdom are orthodox; and the sectaries except a very few, are but heady, illiterate persons. If peace were settled, and the army down, all here think that the noise of heresies, which now is very loud, would evanish. ”

“ After their report to the Houses, we fear sad votes. It will be our endeavour to keep them from sudden conclusions. They take very long time to the smallest affairs: I fear they be too quick in deposing the King, and setting a day to the Prince. We are at a great nonplus, in very great grief and perplexity. We know not what either to say or do. There is before us a thick cloud of confusion. Many of the King’s greatest friends think his obstinacy judicial, as if, in God’s justice, he were destroying himself. I fear he will down with him all his posterity, and monarchy. ”

“ While this fear be secured, by appearance this people will be one. Divers, from whom least I expected it, are for the putting away of the whole royal race. The natural respect I have to all great families, and the great love and reverence that I ever carried to the King’s person, makes me grieve and fear much at this time. When I look upon the disposition of all men I know, I see nothing but ruin for poor Scotland, except the God of heaven help you there to save that poor prince from destroying of himself and his posterity. ”

“ We know no more, but with passion are expecting good news. We wonder your ambassadors should be dreaming of any treaty; since every other day after their coming from Oxford, this parliament there, with vote upon vote, with declaration after declaration, are made traitors, rebels, and all evil can be imagined. The parliament here, to put off them that very groundless scandal which they at Oxford strove to put upon them, have put out a declaration of their great desire of peace, and of the invincible obstacles laid in their way to it. ”

“ The leaders of the people seem to be inclined to have no shadow of a king; to have liberty for all religions; to have but a lame Erastian presbytery; to be so injurious to us, as to chase us home with the sword. ”

“ The assembly is much discouraged; they find their advice altogether slighted; a kind of presbytery set up; sects daily spreading over all the land, without any care at all to restrain them; a clear aim in the prevailing party to have a liberty universal; an utter dislike of our nation for opposing their designs, and driving it so high, that ways are studied, if no better may be, to break the union of the nations, and have us, for the carriage of our army, declared the first breakers to them, and dealt with us as such. We do what we are able to prevent mischief. ”

“ Wee All and every one of us underwritten, Protest, That, after long and due examination of our owne Consciences in matters of true and false Religion, are now throughly resolved of the Truth, by the Word and Spirit of God, and, therefore, we beleeve with our hearts, confesse with our mouths, subscribe with our hands, and constantly affirm, before God and the whole World, that this only is the true Christian Faith and Religion, pleasing God, and bringing Salvation to man, which now is, by the mercy of God, revealed to the world by the preaching of the blessed Evangel. ”

“ Our great men are not like to pack up their differences. Duke Hamilton and his friends would have been thought men composed of peace on any terms, and to have cast on other designs of embroiling Scotland in a new war. But when all were weary of jangling debates, the conclusion whereto the committee was brought, was so far to espouse the King’s quarrel on any terms, that Argyle and Wariston behoved to protest against our engagement on any such terms. ”

“ As yet we are not satisfied by words, and some of our leaders are likely never to be satisfied, and resolve to trust to nothing that their opposites can do or say, so long as this parliament, which they call unsound, is in being. The danger of this rigidity is like to be fatal to the King, to the whole isle, both churches and states. We mourn for it to God. Though it proceed from two or three men at most, yet it seems remediless. If we be kept from a present civil war, it is God, and not the wisdom of our most wise and best men, which will save us. ”