CLOUD of WITNESSES,

FOR THE

Royal Prerogatives

O F

JESUS CHRIST:

OR, THE LAST

SPEECHES and TESTIMONIES
Of those who have Suffered for the

Together with

An APPENDIX, containing the Queensferry Paper;
Torwood Excommunication; a Relation concerning
Mr. RICHARD CAMERON, Mr. DONALD CARGIL,
and HENRY HALL; and an Account of those who
were killed without Procefs of Law, and banned to
foreign Lands: With a fhort View of fome
oppreffive Exactions.

the

Rev. vii. 14. These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have
wasked their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

The Ninth Edition, corrected, and enlarged with the Teftimonies of
John Nisbet younger, John Nisbet of Hardhill, Robert Miller, Thomas
Harkness, &c. A Letter of John Semple's, and of Archibald Stewart's.
The Paper found upon Mr, Cameron at Airfmofs, and an Acroftick
upon his Name. The Teftimony of John Finlay, in Kilmarnock.
The Epitaphs upon the Grave Stones of Mr. Samuel Rutherford, Mr.
John Welwood, and the noble Patriots who fell at Pentland-hills, &c.

GLASGOW:

Printed by WILLIAM BELL and Company,
For J. GILMOUR and SON, J. TAIT, Glasgow, and
J. REID in Lanark, MDCCLXIX.

茶

THE

PREFACE

TO THE

READER.

Chriftian Reader,

T

HE glorious frame and contrivance of religion, revealed by the ever bleffed JEHOVAH, in the face or perfon of Jefus Chrift, for the recovery of loft mankind into a state of favour and reconcilement with himself, is fo excellently ordered in the councils of infinite wisdom, and exactly adjusted to the real delight, contentment and happiness of the rational world; that it might juftly be wondered, why fo many men in all ages, otherwife of good intellectuals, have not only had a fecret disgust thereat themselves, but laboured to rob others of the comfort and benefit of it, and make the world a chaos of confufion by perfecutions raifed against it; had not the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures laid open the hidden fprings of this malice and enmity, which exerts itself in fo many of the children of men. We are told in thefe divinely infpired writings, that the first source of this oppofition that the true religion meets with in the world, flows originally from Satan, that inveterate enemy of God's glory, and man's happinefs; who having himself left his original state of obedience to, and enjoyment of God his Creator, hath no other alleviament of his inevitable miferies, but to draw the race of mankind into the like ruin, which is the only fatisfaction that malicious fpirit is capable of. This reftlefs adversary perceiving, that thro' the grace and love of God manifefted in Chrift, a great number of thefe whom he thought he had fecured to his flavery, are redeemed, and called by the gospel out of that intolerable fervitude, into a glorious liberty, and fecured by faith to falvation; la

bours by two great engines of open force, and fecret fraud, to keep them in, or regain them to his obedience : hence the facred Scriptures describe him, both as a dragon for cruelty, and a ferpent for fubtilty. But because he either cannot, or thinks not fit to do this visibly in perfon; therefore he does it more invifibly, and fo more fuccefsfully by his agents, in whom he works : who, becaufe of their unreafonable unbelief, are called, children of imperfuafion. These he acts and animates, as it were fo many machines, to endeavour by crafty feduction, or violent perfecution, to draw, or drive the followers of the Lamb, from their fubjection, obedience and loyalty to the Captain of their falvation, that he may drown them in perdition and deftruction. This is the latent origin of all perfecution; the mint where all the other more vifible caufes of the bloody violence the people of God meet withal, are struck and framed. This is the grand defign to which they tend, to root out the obedience of faith out of the world, and deprive the Son of God of his rightful dominion over his fubjects, whom he hath chofen, re deemed and fanctified for himself.

As this holds true of all the perfecutions raised against the church and truths of God, whether in the perfons of Jews or Chriftians, by whatever hands, Pagan or Antichrifian, fo 'tis eminently verified of the perfecutions of the Church of Scotland, profecuted by a profane wicked generation of malignant prelatifs, during the reigns of the late King Charles II. and James VII. For as the other perfecutions were all levelled against fome point of truth or other, wherein the obedience of faith was concerned, refpecting either the existence and worship of the true God, or the perfon, natures or offices of Jefus Chrift, &c. fo this perfecution was directly bended against that office and authority of Jefus Chrift, whereupon his formal claim to the obedience of his church is founded, viz. his headship over his church. This was the peculiar depofitum concredited to the church of Chrift in Scotland, and her diftinguishing dignity to have the royal fupremacy of the king of Zion to defend against the kings of the earth, who not content with the princely authority of ruling the perfons of their fubjects, according to the laws of God and the realm, would needs ufurp a blafphemous facrile gious prerogative of ruling the church and confciences of men in room of the mediator, by what laws and fta

tutes they pleafed, and found moft fubfervient to their lufts, for advancement of Popery and arbitrary govern

ment.

Jefus Chrift, the only begotten of the Father, having received the church of Scotland, as one of the utmost ifles of the earth for his poffeffion, by folemn grant from Jehovah, was pleased, as to call her from the deplorable ftate of Pagan, and reform her from the ruinous condition of Antichriftian darkness; so to dignify her in a peculiar manner, to contend and fuffer for that truth, That he is king and lawgiver to his church, having power to institute her form of government, to give her laws, officers and cenfures, whereby fhe fhould be governed, and hath not left it ambulatory and uncertain, what government he will have in force for the ordering of his house, but hath exprefly determined in his word every neceffary part thereof, and hath not put any power into the hands of any mortal, whether Pope, Prelate, Prince or Potentate, as a vicarious head in his perfonal abfence, whereby they may alter the form of government at their pleasure, and make what kind of officers, canons and cenfures they pleafe; but all the power that this king hath left in his church, concerning her government, is purely and properly ministerial, under the direction and regulation of his fovereign pleasure, revealed in his written word.

This, this is the most radiant pearl in the church of Scotland's garland; that the hath been honoured valiantly to ftand up for the headship and royal prerogative of her king and husband, Jefus Christ, in all the periods of her reformation. For no fooner had the thrown off the yoke of the Pope's pretended jurisdiction and authority, but presently, while fhe was labouring by means of thefe cenfures, that Christ had institute, to root out the damnable herefies which that enemy had fown, all on a fudden king James VI. naturally ambitious, and inftigate by interested and projecting counsellors, attempts a rape upon her chastity and loyalty to her husband and Lord; and by his royal order stops her freedom of fitting, voting and acting in her fupreme courts, imprifons fome of her most zealous and faithful minifters, calls them before his council, indicts them of treafon and leefe majefty, for their making use of the freedom Chrift hath given them; and after their declining his and his council's ufurped authority in fpiritual matters, and fo witnefling a good

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