A HIND LET LOOSE;
OR,
AN HISTORICAL REPRESENTATION
OF THE
TESTIMONIES
OF THE
CHURCH OF SCOTLAND,
FOR THE
INTEREST OF CHRIST.
WITH THE TRUE STATE THEREOF IN ALL ITS PERIODS.
TOGETHER WITH A Vindication of the present TESTIMONY against the Popish, Prelatical, and malignant Enemies of that Church, as it is now stated, for the Prerogatives of CHRIST, Privileges of the Church, and Liberties of Mankind; and sealed by the sufferings of a reproached Remnant of Presbyterians there, witnessing against the Corruptions of the Time:
WHEREIN Several Controversies of greatest Consequence are enquired into, and in some measure cleared; concerning hearing of the Curates, owning of the present Tyranny, taking of ensnaring Oaths and Bonds, frequenting of Field-meetings, defensive Resistance of tyrannical Violence, with several other subordinate Questions useful for these Times.
* * * * *
BY MR. ALEXANDER SHIELS, LATE MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL IN ST. ANDREW'S.
Psal. xciv. 20. _Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?_
Rev. xii. 11. _And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death._
Glasgow
_PRINTED BY WILLIAM PATON_, FOR JOHN KIRK, CALTON, THE PUBLISHER. 1797.
PREFACE.
CHRISTIAN READER,
Presuming it is thy desire to answer the holy and honourable designation I accost thee with, I shall take the confidence to assure thee, it is my design to answer, in some measure, the expectation which the title of this treatise would offer, in the hope that, wherein I come short (as I indeed confess not only my jealous fears, but my sensible conviction of my insufficiency for such a great undertaking) thy Christian tenderness will impute it to my weakness, and not to any want of worth in the cause I manage, which is truly worthy, weighty, noble and honourable, in the esteem of all the lovers of Christ, that have zeal for his honour in exercise; and therefore as it gives me all the encouragement I have, in dependence on his furniture whose cause it is, to make such an essay, so it animates my ambition, albeit I cannot manage it with any proportion to its merit, yet to move the Christian reader to make enquiry about it, and then sure I am he will find it is truth I plead for, though my plea be weak. All I shall further say by way of preface, is to declare the reason of the title, and the design of the work.
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: A Hind Let Loose by Alexander Shields
- 2: That this character of Naphtali
- 3: And the goodliness of the words of their testimony
- 4: A vindication of the present state of it
- 5: And under this invincible disadvantage also
- 6: By which odious and and invidious obloquies
- 7: Speaketh it of his own he hath not done it this long time
- 8: And the word of their testimony
- 9: A tyrant who oppresses his people
- 10: Are killed for their testimony
- 11: Some upon the account of persecution
- 12: And hath still undoubted right
- 13: And was long promoted by the ancient Culdees
- 14: They disowned the relation of a magistrate
- 15: That popery and prelacy came in by Palladius
- 16: They rejected and craved reformation of exorbitant prelacy
- 17: The Cardinal Prelate of Scotland
- 18: And hanged him with a horse halter over the bridge of Lauder
- 19: Began to abhor the tyranny of the bishops yea
- 20: According to the tenor of them
- 21: Ought to be suffered so tyrannically to domineer over them
- 22: But abolish antichristian popery
- 23: Fighting on the one hand against idolatry
- 24: He gave the example of Elias 'reproving Ahab and Jezebel
- 25: Their worship was also reformed from all dregs of popery
- 26: By which all approved iniquity
- 27: Knox had not learned that then
- 28: That the father may be stricken with a phrensy
- 29: For disowning the authority of both the Queens
- 30: Ought to be promoted to any public regimen
- 31: And would the greatest disowners of tyranny
- 32: Lethington doubted whether they did well or not he answered
- 33: He feared some would let the papists understand
- 34: Provoking the people to idolatry
- 35: But formally and explicitly to contend for this very head
- 36: By reintroducing the antichristian hierarchy of prelacy
- 37: But also Erastian prelacy might be set up
- 38: After which he added a second declinature 'Declaring
- 39: To whom it belongeth as properly to rule the church
- 40: Prelacy was again restored in parliament
- 41: Which no Christian king should controul
- 42: Totally deprived of our judicatories
- 43: But rather it is slanderous to resort
- 44: And when the Earl of Gowrie accepted of a remission
- 45: As he inveighs against it in the Assembly 1582
- 46: The fourth Prelacy and Supremacy
- 47: The zeal against the English popish ceremonies
- 48: By compound presbyteries and synods
- 49: And avouching himself to be their God
- 50: In the hands of these apostates
- 51: In their answers to the estates that year 1648
- 52: And concluded a treaty with him at Breda
- 53: Gillespie declares of the case
- 54: And continued prejudices against the covenant
- 55: And also against the sectarians their invaders
- 56: Against prelacy and sectarianism
- 57: And covenant obligations to extirpate them
- 58: Ambiguously whereof the remedy is sect
- 59: And the course of backsliding was carried on
- 60: As well as sectaries upon the other
- 61: To the sin of compliance with malignant ungodly men
- 62: Contrary to the hope of the covenanters
- 63: Yet from the ground of their ordinary procedure
- 64: It were a manifest breach of covenant
- 65: Which he was required to subscribe
- 66: Which were peculiar to the former testimonies
- 67: We not only at first tempted him to perjury
- 68: Wilful and deliberate apostasy
- 69: And for which he will rescind the rescinders
- 70: And so settled its harbinger diocesan and erastian prelacy
- 71: Were and are in themselves unlawful oaths
- 72: From a vermin of vile schismatical apostates
- 73: And compliance with the present government
- 74: Cruel impositions on the conscience
- 75: People slaves to the subverters thereof
- 76: Be enjoined to keep presbyteries
- 77: All pretences for conventicles were taken away
- 78: Liberty for the exercise of their ministry
- 79: Whereby the usurper's supremacy was homologated
- 80: ' While by the forementioned device
- 81: And prelacy came under universal contempt
- 82: And palpable breach of covenant engagements
- 83: An arbitrary power domineering over us
- 84: And bow down to the idol of his supremacy
- 85: And make havock of the righteous for their duty
- 86: And adhered to the Rutherglen testimony
- 87: Which before espoused her testimony
- 88: The pretended benefit of that indemnity
- 89: Either to declare himself papist
- 90: And its apparent unfeasibleness
- 91: And the thraldom of erastianism on the other
- 92: When once brought under tyranny
- 93: Destitute of his brethren's concurrence
- 94: He excommunicated James duke of York
- 95: Was so well pleased with Gib's blasphemies
- 96: Taking of their oaths and bonds
- 97: Or any other he thinks fit to commissionate
- 98: But to pursue the ends of their covenants
- 99: But drunk his death in a popish potion
- 100: Whereby the country was alarmed
- 101: Approving and ratifying the foresaid proclamation
- 102: For taking off the statutes against papists
- 103: Under the foresaid restrictions
- 104: In another proclamation dated at Windsor
- 105: And equal the wishes of the most zealously concerned
- 106: That enjoins kings 'to destroy and extirpate 'hereticks
- 107: He is then a servant of antichrist
- 108: The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus
- 109: And disables all penal laws against papists
- 110: And by peace to overturn truth
- 111: And countenanced and encouraged as religion
- 112: As Artaxerxes is approven for that statute
- 113: That only moderate presbyterians
- 114: And other spies and flies their delations
- 115: Given forth in the name of all the presbyterian ministers
- 116: So for their dissemblings with dissemblers
- 117: Nor antichristian idolatry introduced by this liberty
- 118: Against antichrist and all his supporters
- 119: The stopping all penal laws against papists
- 120: A more particular relation thereof
- 121: His testimony against the supremacy
- 122: And offending the prelates by the same fault
- 123: With inhibition to all to reset
- 124: Having encouragement to apprehend some ministers
- 125: That whosoever refuseth to subscribe that hell hatched bond
- 126: Where about 300 were killed on the field
- 127: Whereby many were grievously oppressed
- 128: Cameron with several worthies were slain at Airsmoss
- 129: And because the incorporation of Lanark did not
- 130: Signifying they had taken that oath
- 131: And surprized with their execution
- 132: And being found to be Scotsmen
- 133: They have frequently suborned witnesses
- 134: And bring in the pannel guilty
- 135: Whereby they found this advantage
- 136: And is invaded by erastian prelacy
- 137: And our illustrious predecessors Pharaoh
- 138: To reduce our kingdoms to antichrist
- 139: To assist our forces to apprehend
- 140: Whose kingdom is everlasting and universal
- 141: In appointing ordinances immutable
- 142: Nor the many lesser antichrists
- 143: Vindicating this cause of suffering
- 144: And like the precious ointment upon the head
- 145: We may have yet a stricter congregational communion
- 146: Enjoying her privileges and judicatories
- 147: That we must discountenance him
- 148: They cannot be counted separatists
- 149: And only essay to prove this thesis we cannot
- 150: But such are the curates Ergo 2
- 151: The qualification of aptness to teach is wanting
- 152: Collations from prelates cannot give a lawful call for 1
- 153: A prelate's depute is no minister
- 154: But by conveyance of the prelate
- 155: But is to be reckoned an usurping Diotrephes
- 156: From a new architectonic usurped power in the church
- 157: Which comprehends all the power they have Matth
- 158: It confounds the mediatory kingdom of Christ with
- 159: Strengthening the prelates hands
- 160: For bringing of prelates into this church
- 161: They consent to the extrusion and intrusion
- 162: They are obliged to maintain prelacy
- 163: But seduce them by daubing their wickedness
- 164: 'Seeing edification is God's gift
- 165: And are separate from unlawful communions
- 166: Extirpating and overthrowing all pieces of idolatry
- 167: That if to eat of things consecrated to idols be idolatry
- 168: When they see how they are countenanced by all
- 169: If they be scandalous brethren
- 170: And not to hear papists and schismatics
- 171: Therefore they are the schismatics to be withdrawn from
- 172: Everting the ordinances of the magistracy
- 173: Whether it be magistracy or tyranny
- 174: This hath a supereminent influence upon all
- 175: Conscience is much concerned in the ends of magistracy
- 176: And can no more be owned to be magistracy
- 177: In an absolute disowning of their pretended authority
- 178: And contradictory unto our testimony
- 179: Resisteth the ordinance of God
- 180: And be ground of disowning him as such
- 181: The kingly government is according to nature
- 182: ' The learned Althusius likewise in his politics
- 183: Althusius in the place above quoted
- 184: And intrude themselves upon it
- 185: Hence we have not disowned the pretended authority
- 186: Nor can any obedience be merely passive
- 187: Or profitableness of a compliance
- 188: Which was all that Jeremiah did
- 189: Yet it may incapacitate a person
- 190: Who have justly forfeited their liberties
- 191: And owning Caesar as their king
- 192: Let be determination of the species or kind of magistracy
- 193: That the primores or representatives can claim
- 194: The bond thereof being dissolved
- 195: That that which is in its own nature mutable
- 196: It is turned inept for answering the ends of its erection
- 197: By burning and rescinding these covenants
- 198: To the uttermost of their power
- 199: For the coronation in concrete
- 200: Distinguishing it always from allegiance
- 201: May disown all allegiance to their pretended authority
- 202: That though we cannot formally exauctorate a tyrant
- 203: Use to escape the animadversion of men
- 204: For their oppressions and tyranny
- 205: Successively usurped the empire
- 206: Contested against Maximus the tyrant
- 207: That tyrants and usurpers have been disowned
- 208: They are called gods among whom the Lord judgeth
- 209: Have no other ordination of God impowering them to be rulers
- 210: All acknowledge that magistracy hath God's institution
- 211: With application to tyrants or usurpers
- 212: Both immediately and mediately
- 213: And all other tyrants and usurpers
- 214: He behoved to be their political father
- 215: Till the men of Judah came and anointed him
- 216: As shall be proven at more length
- 217: He was no king before this covenant
- 218: By right he falleth from his sovereignty and pag
- 219: Remitted and would not have that allegiance
- 220: He only made the covenant with God
- 221: If thou be surety for thy friend
- 222: Or their positive disowning him however
- 223: Thereby all the ends of government being subverted
- 224: Is an engagement into contradictories
- 225: A prerogative to dispense with laws
- 226: May also unmake him by the same law
- 227: To expone or execute the law as he would
- 228: He doth whatsoever pleaseth him
- 229: Where therefore there is no lawful investiture
- 230: Cannot be owned but a possessory occupation giving right
- 231: That which would justify a damnable sin
- 232: What is objected from the Lord's people conquering Canaan
- 233: It is by a right of primogeniture
- 234: Fetters their choice to one destructive to these
- 235: Than the Lord's providential disposal
- 236: And be subject to Nebuchadnezzar
- 237: In whose eyes a vile person is contemned
- 238: So this general moral of contemning the vile
- 239: They will never choose a tyrant
- 240: The hired servant bargains only for a time
- 241: But the kingdom is not weaker than the king
- 242: But that he must be a fiduciary servant
- 243: The inferior is accountable to the superior
- 244: For the fancied character of royalty
- 245: Appointed to defend the poor and fatherless
- 246: But as to the demerit of blood
- 247: They had power to cognosce whom to admit into
- 248: They conveen and make David king
- 249: Moral to illicitness or unlawfulness
- 250: A lawful title and investiture
- 251: No man taketh his honour unto himself
- 252: But usurpation and tyranny is not an orderly power
- 253: For the sins of Manasseh according to all that he did
- 254: In repressing and restraining such wickedness
- 255: Because they thought it most conducible for their good
- 256: If we are obliged to extirpate popery
- 257: Be brought to condign punishment
- 258: Many characters of a magistrate
- 259: Or retract his threatning against him
- 260: Resisteth the ordinance of God
- 261: He beareth not the sword in vain
- 262: And villainy of tyrants and usurpers
- 263: And that such a tyrannical government
- 264: To take their fields and vineyards is mere robbery
- 265: Tyrants and usurpers have none
- 266: Shall even he that hateth right govern
- 267: Shall even he that hateth right govern
- 268: Or that their erecting of Jeroboam was materially their sin
- 269: It is my father that honoureth me
- 270: And those that are rulers of Belial
- 271: For expressly they are threatned to die like common men
- 272: As the reason of that punishment of Zedekiah
- 273: The first hereditary successor was likewise disowned
- 274: When Rehoboam was preparing to pursue his pretended right
- 275: That Elisha was an extraordinary man
- 276: She was an incurable idolatress
- 277: But they sent after him to Lachish
- 278: And that he offended in disowning him
- 279: And restitution of good rulers
- 280: Coniah with a life without prosperity
- 281: There are many threatnings against illimited loyalty
- 282: Whereof there are many against tyrants
- 283: And imprecating against his enemies
- 284: Shall the inhabitant of Zion say
- 285: The first as it is extorted most illegally
- 286: So far as might consist with that prayer of the same Darius
- 287: There is an affirmative precept
- 288: And of breaking the yoke of tyrants
- 289: Whom he calls Cush the Benjamite in the title of Psal
- 290: Overturn this throne of tyranny
- 291: The consideration of which woful apostasy
- 292: Than that cunningly contrived oath of abjuration
- 293: He expresly refused to disown that declaration
- 294: That oaths both assertory and promissory are lawful
- 295: A confederation which is necessary and unavoidable
- 296: All solemn securities of oaths or bonds
- 297: When the case materially altereth
- 298: And the swearers and promisers shall deal deceitfully
- 299: Compliance and incorporation with them
- 300: As Ahab's covenant with Benhadad
- 301: These scriptures disprove all covenants
- 302: Every such compact is voluntary
- 303: It is a covenanted and bonded obedience to a wicked law
- 304: And cast themselves into many tentations unavoidably
- 305: Which is so much harped upon by these bonders
- 306: Because they are all ambiguous
- 307: Which is either unlawful or hurtful
- 308: As it ought to be refused for its ambiguity
- 309: Or future establishment of popery and arbitrary power
- 310: Did oblige all their posterity
- 311: So likewise that covenant mentioned Jer
- 312: Though they be rescinded by a wicked law
- 313: And condemned by the covenants
- 314: As a pretence and trouble unlawful and seditious
- 315: And maintain his majesty's jurisdiction foresaid
- 316: Of whatsoever quality or function to convocate themselves
- 317: But an arbitrary imposition of true allegiance and defence
- 318: That the church judicatories be prelimited
- 319: And living peaceably with them
- 320: And by heritors upon their tenants
- 321: In terms abjuring all war against the king
- 322: And disown the declarers of that abjured declaration
- 323: Are abjured and renounced in that oath of abjuration
- 324: Which are these 'I do abjure
- 325: The takers of this oath must have formally
- 326: That the taking of this imposed oath of abjuration
- 327: Lay to heart the doom of false swearers
- 328: Or formal reason of disowning it
- 329: That ever they declared war against the king expresly
- 330: Whom they threaten to bring to condign punishment
- 331: An execrable and damnable paper
- 332: Whereupon they are to have a testificate
- 333: And so rigorously enjoined to be abjured
- 334: And abhorred in the presence of God
- 335: Abjuring it in so far as it declares
- 336: In their testimony for the preached gospel
- 337: Set up in a schismatical competition with public churches
- 338: A christian cannot possibly live without gospel ordinances
- 339: Sanctify the congregation assemble the elders
- 340: As it is expounded in Pool's Synop
- 341: To promote the kingdom or Christ
- 342: But this we cannot contend for publicly
- 343: And the abominations of their fathers
- 344: Seeing then faithful ministers must preach
- 345: The servant's ministerial authority cannot be denied
- 346: Found that verified in their experience
- 347: That such meetings in fields or houses are conventicles
- 348: And confederacy with idolaters
- 349: Mordecai would not give him one bow
- 350: When worldly wisdom thinks it unseasonable
- 351: Where we are bound to extirpate popery
- 352: Or licence and warrant from his usurping enemies
- 353: To maintain and defend the kirk of Scotland
- 354: Are incapable of conceiving any probation of them
- 355: And compliance with that tyranny and apostasy
- 356: So that what is objected from Eccl
- 357: Concerning whom it cannot be proven
- 358: Adduced to prove subjection to tyrants universally
- 359: And have authority more than others to concur
- 360: Than magistrates retaliating private persons
- 361: Resisteth the ordinance of God
- 362: If vendition or alienation of kingdoms
- 363: 'That if the prince proceed extrajudicially
- 364: Notour and complete tyranny against law
- 365: That law which alloweth comparative re offending
- 366: And so become stricto jure no prince
- 367: Overturning religion and liberty
- 368: Were more unlawful than to resist
- 369: And consequently the magistrate
- 370: By mere passive subjection we find in the scriptures
- 371: Without the concurrence of civil authority
- 372: They opposed the intrusion of the heretic Macedonius
- 373: And earl of Remand of Thoulouse
- 374: The rest of the Cantons joined
- 375: We find this principle espoused
- 376: Under the conduct of Deborah and Barak
- 377: Yet we find Jephthah did not much regard it
- 378: Which Saul confirmed with another peremptory oath
- 379: Jehoiada the priest strengthened himself
- 380: Becoming a law irrevocable and irreversible
- 381: When Zebulon and Naphthali jeoparded their lives
- 382: In that threatning against tyrants
- 383: But whensoever the time be of fulfilling the promise
- 384: And their bringing Amaziah unto condign punishment
- 385: That he might be reckoned among transgressors
- 386: And imprecating destruction to Saul and his accomplices
- 387: To execute vengeance upon their enemies
- 388: But if either the oppressors themselves
- 389: And avowed a design to destroy
- 390: And for the impunity of idolaters and murderers
- 391: As Joab murdered Abner and Amasa
- 392: When they abjured the apologetical declaration
- 393: It would make all virtuous actions in the world unimitable
- 394: So Ishbosheth was killed by Baanah and Rechab
- 395: Because the assassins did transgress their vocation
- 396: For want of this David would not kill Saul
- 397: And common public and habitual incendiaries
- 398: If it be so necessary to cleanse the land
- 399: And kill them in the rescue of our innocent brethren
- 400: As may be seen in their Informatory Vindication
- 401: And in this extraordinary execution of justice
- 402: Domitius Corbulo is reprehended by all
- 403: Whosoever killeth them deserves a reward
- 404: For all tyrants will pretend some
- 405: Whether their impunity is necessary
- 406: If this inhibition had not past upon it
- 407: And punishing their destroyers
- 408: So as to make the action unimitable
- 409: Because Phinehas was not a magistrate
- 410: We grant these actions are extraordinary and unimitable
- 411: When the Lord discomfitted the host of Jabin
- 412: Which was that command to cut off the Amalekites
- 413: But they sent to Lachish after him and slew him there
- 414: After the institution of magistrates
- 415: And avenge themselves against them
- 416: Because if the magistrate would not excute judgment
- 417: Enticers to idolatry without waiting for a judge
- 418: Where the king himself was an idolater
- 419: To whose arbitriment it is only subject hath not approven
- 420: Desiring to intice the people to the worship of false gods
- 421: To encourage themselves in their murdering villanies
- 422: And peaceable possession of this land devoted to God
- 423: And hellish projects and practices
- 424: For refusing to pay the wicked Exactions of the Cess
- 425: Beginning the first terms payment at Martinmass
- 426: This is the plain sense of the act for the cess
- 427: That former impositions were peaceably paid
- 428: Whether it belonged to Cesar or not
- 429: The disobedience must be notour
- 430: A manifest chusing of sin to shun suffering
- 431: And fines to be exacted from the recusants
- 432: And made children pass through the fire to Molech
- 433: The concurrence called for from every one
- 434: In his lately printed sermons on Matth
- 435: Perceiving the sin and snare thereof
- 436: Or precise and unwarrantable notion
- 437: That these impositions under consideration
- 438: And concurred to crush his faithful remnant
- 439: Which rage itself could hardly outdo
- 440: Than the laws enacting such payments
- 441: And a proof of their heart's inclination to follow Abimelech
- 442: And judgeth no other thing involuntariness but disobedience
- 443: And carrying on and promoving its design
- 444: Ahaz may be an instance of that
- 445: By which hires these destroyers have been rewarded
- 446: And the plainest concurring in a counteracting thereof
- 447: But whosoever shall deny me before men
- 448: Wo to the world because of offences
- 449: The ct ligature was replaced with ct
