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

by Alexander Shields

2. From the fountain and conveyance whence they proceed, the iniquity of these payments might be concluded; which is nothing else than the arbitrary power domineering over us, and oppressing and overpressing the kingdoms with intolerable exactions which to pay is all the consent and concurrence required of us to entail slavery on the posterity. I mean, to pay it out of submission only to the moral force of its imposition, which is all the justification required of that absolute tyranny imposing it. For we have the testimony of a king for it, (King James' speech to the parliament, in 1609.) That a king degenerateth into a tyrant, when he leaveth to rule by law, much more when he begins—to set up an arbitrary power, impose unlawful taxes, &c. It can be denied by none, that know either religion or liberty, and are not enemies to both, that these impositions under consideration, upon such accounts, for such ends, are as unlawful taxes, and as illegally and arbitrarily imposed, as ever could demonstrate the most despotical absoluteness, paramount to all law, or precedent, but that of Benhadad, of a very tyrannical strain. Thus saith Benhadad, "thy silver and thy gold is mine—yet I will send my servants, and they shall search thine house, and it shall be that whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes, they shall put in their hand, and take it away," 1 Kings, xx. 3. 6. which even as Ahab and his elders would not hearken to nor consent. But from an extoic dominator this were not so intolerable, as from such as pretend an hereditary right to govern, who should remove violence and spoil, and take away their exactions from the Lord's people, as the Lord saith, Ezek. xlv. 9. But instead of that, That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward: and the great man uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up, Mic. vii 3, the easy compliance with which, makes Zion as the grape gleanings of the vintage. If those exactions be wicked, then compliance with them must be iniquity: for it justifies the court that enacts and exacts them, a packed juncto of a prevalent faction, made up of perjured traitors, in a course of enmity against God and the country, who, to prosecute the war against the Almighty, and root out all his people out of the land, condescend upon these cesses, fines, &c. as a fit and adapted medium thereunto. Wherefore, of necessity, all that would not own that conclusion, as their own deed, in these representatives, and own them as their representatives in that deed, must bear witness against the same, by a refusal to own the debt, or pay the same. But I shall conclude this, with observing. (1.) The holy and remarkable righteousness of the Lord, that we, who would not contend earnestly for the liberty of the gospel, who would not acquit ourselves like men, in witnessing our loyalty to Christ, were not fixed in our engagements, nor steadfast in holding the liberties wherewith Christ hath made us free, did not reclaim nor reluctate, when we saw our royal master's prerogative invaded; should be trod upon in all civils, and treated as slaves, even by these, whom we had gratified with a base and sinful forbearance to plead for God, and preserve from their violence these things, these precious and valuable things, which we should have kept more tenderly than the apple of our eye. O the relucency of this righteousness, in making the gods whom we have served smite us, and in making them whose interest we minded, with a misregard and perjury involving neglect of the interest of Christ, thus to destroy our pitiful interests! And thus having taught them to be captains over us, we must now sit in the house of bondage in our land. (2.) Who will not adore and admire the righteousness of the Lord, particularly in leaving some of these to be designedly trod upon, who not only were involved in the common guilt of not withstanding these encroachments, but first went a great way in concurring to the making of these wicked laws; and now have been made to ly under the load, laid upon their loins by the hand of such, to whom they gave the hand in overturning the work of God? Why should not they be spoiled? Why should not the young lions roar upon them, and make their land waste? Why should not men of the same metal and soul with the children of Noph and Tahapenes, break the crown off their head (or feed upon their crown) who have sold, and set the crown of Christ upon another's head, and concurred to crush his faithful remnant? O let us learn to read and revere! Let us not be wheedled with we know not what, out of our good old principles, into the espousing the interest, or embarking into the same bottom with men of such principles and practices. And whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. Great loving kindness, that he hath shewed to his poor remnant, in delivering us from deliverances by such deliverers, whereby the work had been more really and more shamefully ruined and the hope of the posterity more certainly razed.

3. From the declared ends of all of them, declared either verbally or virtually, and indisputable and universally known; to wit, that by such exaction, they might be enabled to maintain and prosecute the national rebellion against Christ, and root out his gospel and all the faithful preachers and professors thereof. These designs being notour, and the impositions demanded being the best expedients, and most adapted means to attain them, it cannot but be manifest, that whosoever complies with the means, do co-operate with the ends: which, if any thing, will involve the compliers in the contriver's sin, and make the payers obnoxious to the enacters judgment. If they that take rewards to slay innocents, be liable to a curse, Deut. xxvii. 25. they cannot say Amen to it, who so co-operate to the effectuating the slaughter. If any thing make Zion liable to be plowed as a field, when the heads thereof judge for reward, Mic. iii. 11, 12. it must be, when they demand such rewards, and the demands are complied with. But some may pretend, and under that pretence think to shut the shower of suffering, and command the serenity and sun shine of a good conscience too, and to shelter their soul under that shadow; that these exactions may be necessary for other ends: Can any state be without exactions? Is it not necessary that forces be maintained, and such as are in public office in the kingdom? Wherewithal shall the nation be guarded against foreign invasion? Alas! the pretence is so false and frivolous as he could not escape the censure of foolish, who in answering it appeared serious, save in a just indignation at its empty vanity. What are these forces and public officers for? What are they employed about, but to promote the dragon's designs, and serve his drudgery? Shall these guard the nation, who, together with religion, tread upon the poor remaining shadow of liberty? Do they indeed fear a foreign invasion? No; it doth not hold us here: these called rulers hide not their designs, but hold them to our eye that we may not pretend ignorance. They will do the greatest haste first: Christ and his interest is their great eye-sore. This one Jesus, who calls himself a king, (yea, and he will be so to their cost,) and his subjects as the most dangerous party, are to be discussed in the first place: and thereafter, when they are liberate from that fear of returning to his throne, whom they have exauctorate, (for, if ever he do, they are ruined, make haste, O Lord!) and have eaten the flesh and drunk the blood of his people, then they will be in a better case to defend the land, by shewing the enemy those teeth and tusks wherewith they have killed the people of the Lord. But will men put out their own eyes, that they may be taken with the more tameness to grind in their mill, and make them merry at our madness? Have we lost our senses, that we may with confidence jeopard our souls? Have they not invaded the Mediator's kingdom, and taken to themselves his house in possession? And because reavers may not be ruers, they will destroy all in the land, who seem faithful to Christ, and resolute to follow the captain of the host of Israel. But it is not enough that they menace heaven? Will they mock us into the same rebellion with themselves? He will not be mocked, but turn their jest into earnest. I cannot here shift the transcribing some of the very words of that author, whose reasonings I am but gleaning on this subject. 'Oh Britain! O Scotland! bent into, and bold in backsliding, the wrath of God and thy wo seems to be upon the wing. And alas! I am afraid, that by this crowning and crimson wickedness, the Lord God Almighty is making a way to his anger, and preparing the nation for a sacrifice, to expiate in the sight of the world our perjury, defection and heaven daring provocations. Alas! I am afraid, that the sword of the Lord, which shall avenge the quarrel of his covenant, is near to be drawn,—that the contributers, as well as the stated party of contrivers, decreers and cruel executioners of these decrees, may fall under the blow of the furbished sword of the Lord God: and that the land of such abominations may be swept of its inhabitants with the besom of destruction, and soaked with the blood of those, who instead of contending for Christ, have by this payment associate with his stated, his declared, and implacable enemies, whose rage is come up before him, and will bring him down to take revenge. Alas! my fears, my fears are multiplied upon me, that the war shall not only at last land in Britain: but that he hath been all this while training up a militia abroad, breeding them in blood, and teaching them how to destroy, against the time he gave them order to march, and put the flaming sword in their hand, to be bathed in the blood of backsliding Britain! Oh, if our turning unto him, that he might turn away from the fierceness of his anger, might prevent this woful day! But since, instead of any turning unto him, we surpass the deeds of the heathen, and outdo in wickedness all that went before us, and proceed, with a petulancy reaching heaven, from evil to worse; I am afraid, that all the blood shed since the sword was drawn in the nations about, all the sacked cities, all the burnt crops and villages, all the wasted countries, all the slain of the Lord by sea or land, all the pillagings, rapes, murders, outrages, (which rage itself could hardly outdo,) all the horrid and inhuman cruelties, that hath been committed during this bloody war (wherein the sea hath been dyed, and the land as it were drowned with the blood of the slain) all the truculent and treacherous murders of that monster Alva in the low countries, all the incredible cruelties of the Guises, and the bloodshed in the massacres of France, all the tortures that the people of the Lord have been put to in the vallies of Piedmont, by that little fierce tyger the Duke of Savoy, all the savage and barbarous butcheries of the Irish massacre: shall be forgotten, or seem things not to be mentioned in one day, when what shall be done in Britain comes to be remembered. O Britain, O Britain: of all nations under the cope of heaven, most ripe for the sickle of vengeance! shall this throne of iniquity, which hath framed so many mischiefs into laws, and all that are accomplices in this wicked conspiracy, who now are gathering themselves against the souls of the righteous, and condemning the innocent blood, be able to save its subjects, when he comes to make inquisition for that blood? Or shall the subjects, calling in all from 60 to 16, be able to support the throne? Alas! in vain shall they offer to draw up, and draw the sword and defend, when the Lord God of Hosts draws his sword, to accomplish upon them the vengeance written, and wrapt up in these words. He shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness, yea the Lord our God shall cut them off. And, if it come to this, then in that day, escape who will, professing gentlemen and others, who, in this, have complied with the rulers, shall not escape: then shall they be paid for this payment. The storm of his displeasure, (even though they get their souls for a prey, yea so much the more as he will not suffer them to perish eternally) shalt be observed to fall particularly upon their houses, interests and estates. Who can think upon the wickedness of Britain, with its just aggravations, and imagine the righteous Lord will not proportion his judgments to the heinousness of our guilt, and his revenge to the rage, whereby he and his Christ hath been, and is opposed, and take other measures?'

4. From the nature of this payment, it is notour they are sinful compliances and transactions with Christ's declared enemies, and do partake of unitive confederacies with them; which are demonstrated to be sinful, Head 3. Arg. 1. in gen. pag. Certainly such bargains cannot be discretive, exacted and complied with by persons no ways incorporate together, being only overcome by mere force: since they are not only demanded and granted acknowledgments of that power that imposes them, as legally lording over them, but obediential submissions to these wicked laws that enact them; which is a formal justifying of these laws: for laws cannot be obeyed, except they be justified, seeing laws unjust and unjustifiable cannot be obeyed. Therefore, seeing the payment of the cess, locality, fines, stipends, fees, &c. is an obediential compliance with the laws that enjoin them, that obedience can no more be justified, than the laws enacting such payments; which none can justify but he that is an enemy to those things for opposing which they are enacted. If then compliances with the wicked impositions and exactions of arbitrary dominators, enemies to the work and people of God, be in scripture condemned, then such payments cannot be justified: but such compliances are condemned, and cannot be approven. This was Issachar's brand, that being a strong ass, he couched between burdens, and bowed his shoulders to bear and become a servant to tribute, Gen. xlix. 14. This was Afa's folly, that he so far complied with Benhadad, as to give money to take his help, 1 Kings xv. 18. Condemned by the prophet Hanani, 2 Chron. xvi. 7, &c. much more if he had given it to help him. It is one of the instances of the evil that Menahem did in the sight of the Lord, 2 Kings xv. 18,—20, that when Pul the king of Assyria came against the land, he gave him a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him, which he enacted of Israel; this was certainly evil in the sight of the Lord; for if the confederacy was evil, then this price to procure it was evil also: and if Menahem's exaction was evil, then Israel's compliance was evil also; for thus Ephraim was oppressed and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked after the commandment, Hos. v. 11. It was also a part and proof of Ahaz's confederacy with Tiglath Pileser King of Assyria, that he sent money to him, 2 Kings xvi. 8. Which to all the fearers of the Lord is condemned and discharged, Isa. viii. 13, 14. Which, if it was evil, then also Hezekiah's compliance with Sennacherib, giving him money, and offering to bear that which was put upon him, 2 Kings xviii. 14, 15. was evil: and also Jehoiakim's taxing the land, to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh, 2 Kings xxiii. 35. was sinful to the exacter, and likewise to the compliers. These were all sinful compliances and confederacies with the wicked, making their peace with them to whom they paid them; therefore all peace-making payments, by way of unitive agreement with the wicked must be sinful. And accordingly in the time of Montrose, the general assembly made an act for censuring the compliers with the public enemies of this church and kingdom, June 17. 1646, Sess. 14. See part 1. Per. 5.

5. Where these exactions are extorted only as badges of bondage, without consent unto the law imposing them, it is a case more suitable for lamentation than censure, that she that was princess among the provinces should become tributary, Lam. i. 1. But when they are acknowledgments of the lawgivers, and an exact obedience to the law, and voluntary agreement and bargain with them, strengthening them to the prosecution of their mischiefs, they cannot be free of the imposer's sin. It was the sin of the men of Shechem, and a proof of their heart's inclination to follow Abimelech, that they gave him threescore and ten pieces of silver, enabling him to kill threescore and ten persons, and to hire vain and light persons to follow him, which they paid as an acknowledgment of his usurped power, Judg. ix. 3,——5. for which afterwards fire came out of the house of Abimelech and devoured them. Certainly a voluntary consent unto a mischief is a partaking with the sin of it, a consent unto theft is a partaking with it, Psal. 1. 18. But if there be any consent unto a mischief, it must be when the person agrees it be done against himself, and voluntarily subjects himself to the force of the law imposing it, and not only does not oppose or witness against the doing of it against others, but yields to its reaching himself, and gives what is demanded to strengthen the robbers to exercise robbery over all.

As the payer of the cess, fines and fees, &c. gives all the consent required of him to these mischiefs framed into law, not only to rob himself, but the church and nation of its dearest treasure, the gospel, for the punishment of owning which, and as means to remove it, these payments are exacted. But the plea of the payers is, That they are constrained to it, and they do it against their will. Ans. 1. He who says he understands this, that the payer of these exactions can purge himself of the guilt of them, is like to buy an after-wit at a dear rate. Can it be thought by any man of knowledge and conscience, that so remote a force makes the deed involuntary, whereby the payer is purged from the guilt of accession to the imposers deeds, whom hereby, in this very imposition, he owns as his representatives! 2. The payment cannot be involuntary; for the law enjoining it, being the public and declared will of the nation, requires no other voluntariness but obedience, and judgeth no other thing involuntariness but disobedience. So that the law being satisfied, it absolves the satisfier from all transgression, and looks upon all who yield obedience as equally willing, and equally out of the reach of its appended penalty, in case of disobedience. Neither are we to please ourselves with other fancies and fictitious unwillingness, when real obedience is yielded, whereby the law is satisfied, and the lawmaker capacitated thereby to act all his intended mischiefs. For to be unwilling to part with money in the case, as it is no virtue in itself, so I suppose there are few who will be solicitous to purge themselves of this. And to be unwilling from some strugglings of light and conscience, is such unwillingness as aggravates the guilt of the giver, and makes it more heinous in the sight of God, and hateful in the eyes of all tender men; the law enjoining such payments, takes no notice of such reluctances, only requireth obedience; and when that is yielded, the law is satisfied, as to the voluntariness of the action, and must construe the agent a willing walker after the command, and a voluntary complier with the public will of the nation. 3. It must be simply, really, and truly a voluntary deed, when there is deliberation and election. The law requiring these payments being promulgate, every man must be supposed to put the question to himself, What shall I do in the case? Shall I obey and be free? or disobey and suffer? Here is election and choice upon mature deliberation; and so the deed becomes voluntary. This will be confirmed, if we consider the law of God, Deut. xxii. 25. concerning rapes. Where, to make the unvoluntariness of the betrothed virgin, she must not only be supposed to struggle and resist the attempt made upon her chastity and honour by the villain; but she must cry for assistance in that resistance, without which she was held in law willingly to consent to the committing of that wickedness. And moreover, if we consider the law, ver. 13. it will be manifest, in order to her escaping of death, that when violated, and the villain hath committed this villany, she is to carry as Tamar (when defiled of that beast, though of the blood royal) did, 2 Sam. xiii. 19. that is, to complain and cry, and crave justice against him, and be wanting in nothing, that may bring him to condign punishment. This doth aptly correspond to our case. Scotland is the betrothed virgin: we were espoused to Jesus Christ, and joined to him, by a marriage covenant, never to be forgotten; but, the rulers, and with them the body of the land have treacherously broken it; yet there is a remnant that adhere to him as head and husband, because of which, these called rulers incensed against him, will violently commit a rape upon them, and have them prostitute their bodies, their fortunes, yea their souls and consciences to their lusts, and thus they will needs ravish the queen in the king's presence. And so, while with displayed banner they will drive our covenanted husband out of the nation, and destroy all who will own him as such, they call for our assistance and compliance, to enable them to accomplish this wickedness. Now either must we make all the resistance that is in our power; or the law judgeth us willingly to consent, and because of that we fall into the hands of the righteous Judge, and have neither the evidence of our resisting, nor crying, nor pursuing the wicked for this violent rape, to produce and plead upon, why sentence should not pass, and the law's just severity be executed upon us. What? alas! do they declare they will stone our husband? (Ah! for which of his good deeds is this done) and shall they make a law, whereby we shall be obliged to furnish them with stones to do it? And shall they be obeyed? Is this our struggling? Is this our crying? Is this our endeavour that the wicked may be brought to condign punishment? Oh! let us meditate terror, lest we be brought forth as willing consenters; for whatever vengeance the jealous and just God shall execute upon them, who have committed the rape, shall equally, in its crushing and everlastingly confounding weight, fall upon them who do not by their refusing, and their resisting make their unwillingness manifest; which in the present case is their struggling, their crying, and calling God and man to witness, they are not consenters, but continue constant and loyal in their love to their betrothed husband.

6. A formal consent to the wickedness of these impositions were the less matter, if the payment of them were not also a concurrence to assist them, and a strengthening their hands in it. But this is so manifest, that the paying of the cess, locality, fines, fees, &c. is a concurrence with, and contributing towards the promoving the wicked designs for which they are imposed, that he must have a conscience of brass, and in a great measure feared who will run upon such a formal engagement against the Lord and his anointed King in Zion. If it was Aaron's sin which made the people naked, and which brought so great a sin upon them, to take, and the people's sin and shame to give, that contribution of golden ear-rings for making a calf, Exod. xxii. 3. &c. And if it was Gideon's sin to take and Israel's to give, that contribution of the ear-rings of their prey, to make an ephod, Judg. viii. 25. Then, as it is our oppressors sin to take, so it must be our sin and shame to give, their demanded exaction to help them in erecting such idols of jealousy, as they have set up, and are commanding all to bow to, to provoke the Lord to jealousy, especially when they affrontedly require such contributions to be paid, both as punishments for not assisting, and as means to assist in their establishment. Should we thus help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? 2 Chron. xix. 2. Alas! instead of arguing, it were more fit to fall a weeping, when it is come to be a question amongst us, whether, instead of coming to the help of the Lord against the mighty, we shall really help the mighty against the Lord, and that while they call for our assistance formally upon this declared account. As the very inscription of their acts, does carry it in their front, requiring a supply to his majesty, &c. If this be not a casting in a lot among them, who can tell what it is? Sure it is a preparing a table for that troop, and a furnishing a drink offering unto that number, Isa. lxv. 31. Seeing it is a supplying them with necessaries, to solemnize their idolatrous festivities, who forsake the Lord, and not only forget but lay waste his holy mountain, for which all that have any occasion to it, are threatened to be numbered to the sword. If any thing be a strengthening the hands of evil doers, Jer. xxiii. 14. certainly this is. For as they cannot accomplish their cursed ends without these exactions, so the payment of them is all the present, personal and public concurrence in waging this war with heaven, that is required of the nation, to wit, such a sum to furnish them with all necessaries, and maintain the executioners of their hell-hatched and heaven-daring decrees and orders: and the law requiring no more but contributing what is appointed, looks equally upon the givers, as followers of the command, and active concurrers in complying with its end, and carrying on and promoving its design, and so affoils them from all the statute severities, in case of deficiency.

7. If it were only a concurrence in their wickedness to pay those their exacted supplies, it were more easily comported with: but I fear it shall be found a hire and reward for their wicked service. At first they were only enacted and exacted, as helps to capacitate this popish, prelatical and malignant faction, to prosecute the war they had undertaken and declared against Christ: but now, having thereby been enabled to carry it through this length, that they have almost got all visible appearances for Christ, in owning his gospel, and propagating his testimony, quite suppressed by means of these impositions, and having got the fields cleared or those that formerly opposed their course and career, and all obstacles removed that might stand in the way of the reception they have prepared for their mistress the Babylonish lady, the mother of harlots; they now demand these payments, as their wages and hire for their labour; which to pay now, is more than a justifying, seeing it is a rewarding them for their work. And to pay these pimps, and to purchase their peace thereby, is worse than to bring the hire of a whore into the house of the Lord, (Deut. xxiii. 18.) since it is a hiring them to bring the whore into the house of the Lord. O how hath Scotland played the harlot with many lovers! is this the zeal we should have had to our covenanted husband, and the honour of his house, that we have not only suffered his enemies to come in and take possession of it, but consented to their invasion; and not only consented, but invited them to come in; and not only invited them, but prostitute our estates and consciences also to their arbitrary lusts; and not only played the harlot with them, but hired them also when they had done! and for this the Lord may say to Scotland, as he said to his people of old, 'They give gifts to all whores, but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side, for thy whoredom. And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms—in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee; therefore thou art contrary,' Ezek xvi. 33, 34. There Israel is taxed for hiring the Assyrians: but let it be considered and enquired into in the history, how this was. What evidence can be given of this in their transactions with them? Was it only that they were enticed, or did entice them into a communion with their idolatry, It is true, Ahaz may be an instance of that, in his sending the pattern of the altar he saw at Damascus, 2 Kings xvi. 10. And it cannot be denied, but in several respects they did partake with the Assyrians in their idolatry, which was their adultery. But what could be their hire they gave them for it, if it was not their taxations they paid, and money they sent unto them? as Ahaz did, verse 8. and Hezekiah also, though a good man, 2 Kings xviii. 14, 15. which can no more be justified, than Asa's paying to Benhadad. It was then their confederacies, and the hire of them the Lord calls the hire they gave unto their lovers. With this also Ephraim is charged, that he hired lovers, Hos. viii. 9, 10. of this we have instances, in Menahem's giving to Pul a thousand talents of silver, and exacting it of the people, 2 Kings xv. 19, 20. And in Hoshea's becoming servant to Shalmanesar king of Assyria, and giving him presents, 2 Kings xvii. 3. If then hiring wicked men in confederacies to help the Lord's people, be a hiring of lovers so much condemned in scripture, what must a hiring of them to hurt them, and rewarding them after they have done, and when they formally seek it for such work, be? but a giving the reward, they seek to slay the innocent (Deut. xxvii. 25.) and a voluntary yielding that which they take, (Ezek. xxii. 12.) which if it be sin in the takers, cannot be justified in the givers, but will render both obnoxious to the indignation of a provoked God, in the day when he shall begin to contend for the wrongs he hath got, both by the work and the wages. Now let all the acts for the cess and continuation thereof, and other acts and edicts for fines and forfeitures, be considered in their just import, according to the true meaning of the enacters, and the causes for which they exact them, and will have them complied with; it will be found they were both declared, intended and improved, and accordingly approved by the compliers, not only as helps, but as hires for our oppressors and destroyers, and for such as have been, and are more destructive and explicitly declared enemies to Christ's interests and people in Scotland, than ever the Assyrians were to the church in the old testament. The cess was not only a help, but a hire to the tyrant and his accomplices, for suppressing meetings for gospel ordinances; especially the continuation of it, from time to time, was humbly, unanimously, chearfully and heartily offered, for themselves, and in name of, and as representing this kingdom, as a hire for the doing of it, and an encouragement to suppress what remained of these conventicles. The locality was intended as a help to the soldiers in their quarterings upon this account; but afterwards, being expressly discharged to be furnished, without payment according to the current rates of the country, Act 3. par. 3. X. Charles II. Aug. 20, 1681. The contribution of it for nought must be interpreted for a reward of their service, fines are appointed, not only for a punishment of contraveeners of their wicked laws, but for a hire to their most violent executors. Stipends for a hire to their hireling curates. And fees, as a hire to jailors, to keep the Lord's people in bondage. By which hires these destroyers have been rewarded, by them whom they have destroyed, and for which the righteous Lord will reward both.

8. Let it be considered, how far these submissions are short of, and how clearly these compliances are inconsistent with, that duty which lies upon us with reference to them. Our obligation to God and our brethren doth indispensibly bind us to a contrary carriage. If it bind us in our station and capacity to an active renitency, it doth much more bind us up from such compliances. Neither is it imaginable, how moral force can ever justify our doing that deed, we are obliged, by all imaginable bonds, yea, if in any probable capacity, by the utmost of real force, to counteract. Can we give them that which they require, and by which they are enabled to murder our brethren, when we are so indispensibly obliged to rescue our brethren, Prov. xxiv. 11, 12. to relieve the oppressed, Isa. i. 27, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke, Isa. lviii. 6. What do we owe to these enemies, but seeing they have constitute themselves by these acts implacable enemies to Christ, his people and interest in babite, not only plainly and importunely to pray that he would overturn them, but to oppose their course, to the uttermost of our power, and to concur to wrath that power out of their hands? And since they will needs make the whole nation a curse, they are so far from being to be complied with, that for these exactings and exactions they are to be looked upon, and carried unto, not only as these who have sold themselves to work wickedness, but endeavour also to engage with themselves all in the same guilt, and expose them to the same curse. And therefore, that the anger of the Lord may be turned away from his people, every one in his station is obliged to endeavour to bring these Achans to condign punishment.

9. As it must be taken for granted, that these wicked oppressions by law are perjury avouched in the sight of God; yea in a peculiar manner, our covenanted subjection unto him is turned into an open war against him; so we cannot but believe, that for this height of wickedness, the curse of God (to which in the covenant the nation in case of breach, is liable by their own consent) and the Mediator's malediction shall follow, pursue, overtake, and fall upon the head of these, who have made the decrees, and upon all who concur in the execution, and carry on this course: Oh! it is impossible to keep them company, and not fall with them into the hands of the living God. Well then, seeing every one for whom these exactions are required, is under an anterior obligation to God and the brethren, to preserve these precious interests, which the imposers have been long essaying to root out and ruin, and his people whom they have been destroying, with the loss of all he hath, life not accepted. (For I suppose none, who acknowledged his soul is still under the bond of the covenant and it is likely to cost him his soul who denies it) but he will own this to be duty; nay, none who hath any sense of religion; but abstracting from the subjective obligation of a sworn covenant, he will own an objective obligation from the law of the great superior, that doth immediately bind the conscience to witness against this course, and to lay down, if it should come to that, his life for his brethren. Then for a man to give his goods to destroy these things and persons, which he is obliged to defend and preserve with the loss of all, is so clear a making himself a transgressor, in paying his proportion, and being at the expense of destroying what he built, and building what he destroyed, that it seems inexplicable how he can dream to be innocent; especially when more lies upon it than the souls of the compliers are worth even the interest of Christ in the land. And to close this, I would put home the question, and pose the confidence of any that took that covenant, if in that day the question had been asked at him, whether he would have judged the paying of a cess for the ends narrated, to suppress a testimony for that covenanted reformation, the paying of fines and fees, (for owning it) to the overturners, breakers and burners of it, to be a plain perjury and palpable counteracting of the ends thereof? And let him speak his soul, and it is beyond debate with me, he will not dare to say he took it in a sense which can subsist with these compliances. Nay, I doubt not, if to any morally serious it had been then said, You will pay money, &c. for destroying this covenant and its ends, and deleting the remnant that shall be found to adhere to it he would have given Hazael's answer. It concerns every man, that would be free of the curse of it, to consider how he is brought to make enquiry after vows; or to dream of consistencies betwixt the performing those engagements, and the plainest concurring in a counteracting thereof.

10. If then these impositions be so wicked, and for such wicked ends and causes; then, in order to my being free of this heinous guilt, there is a necessity of my giving a testimony, and such an one, which when brought to the touchstone, will get God's approbation, and be my acquittance from a concurrence. Now, it is not imaginable that my testimony can be the exact obedience to the law, against the wickedness whereof it is witnessed; but on the contrary, it must be at least a plain and positive refusing to yield obedience to that law, when I am in no other case to counteract these commands; for I must either obey and be guilty, or refuse and be innocent. I shall not here plunge into the labyrinth of these debates and difficulties, wherewith this matter of testimonies hath been perplexed, and mostly by those who have had no great mind to the thing. I shall only propound these few queries. (1.) Whether any thing less than a testimony can free me of this guilt, whereby the nation involved in it is made a curse? (2.) Whether, we believe that the testimony of every one shall be called for, in the day when God shall seek out this wickedness? (3.) Whether, if ever it be necessary, it be not then when Christ is openly opposed, and every one is called either to concur or to testify? (4.) Whether a testimony against a wicked law must not be notour for my testimony must make it evident that the law is not obeyed by me, else it is no testimony. (5.) Whether it be not necessary also, that it be with that plainness and boldness, as it may keep some proportion with the prodigiousness of that wickedness testified against? (6.) Whether to the making it a testimony indeed, it is not only required, that an opposition be made at first, but that this be so persisted in, as by no subsequent deed it be weakened? (7.) Whether we do not take it for granted, that according as a man hath testified, the sentence of the righteous Judge shall pass! For he who hath not purged himself thereby from the guilt of this conspiracy, shall be led forth and punished with these workers of iniquity. It is a saying which would sink in the soul of every one who would be saved, especially in such a day. Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven; but whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny, &c. Oh that men would now judge of things and courses, as in that hour they desire to be judged! and then there would be little difficulty what to determine in that case.