Cargill had nobly kept the field, after all his brethren had retired to safer stations, and his ministry had been greatly blessed. In consequence, he had become an object of more eager pursuit; but the Torwood excommunication had raised the malignant passions of the persecutors to a degree of virulent animosity beyond what can be imagined or accounted for by those who consider the transaction an object of contempt; and a reward of five thousand merks was offered for his apprehension. He delivered his last sermon upon Dunsyre Common, from Isaiah xxvi. 20. “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.” That night, through the persuasion of Messrs Smith and Boig, he went to Covington-mill, where he was seized, together with his two companions, by James Irvine of Bonshaw, who exclaimed with satanic glee—“O blessed Bonshaw! and blessed day that ever I was born! that has found such a prize this morning.” At Lanark, they procured horses, and placing the prisoners on their bare backs, Bonshaw with his own hands tied Mr Cargill’s feet below the animal’s belly, painfully hard. “Why do you tie me so hard?” said the venerable saint; “your wickedness is great; you will not long escape the just judgment of God.”[[135]] Fearing a rescue, they pushed on for Glasgow as fast as they could. When near the city, they turned him on his horse, and led him in backward. They halted at the tolbooth till the magistrates came to receive them. Multitudes flocked to gaze; and while many stood weeping to see their late revered minister in such a situation, John Nisbet, a dissolute character, the bishop’s factor, addressed him tauntingly—‘Mr Donald, will you give us one word more?’ alluding to an expression Mr Cargill sometimes used in preaching. The prisoner, looking sorrowfully on him, replied—‘Mock not, lest your bands be made strong; the day is coming, when you shall not have one word to say though you would.’ This natural and serious reproof was received as a prophecy; and Wodrow adds—“This came very shortly to pass. Not many days after, the Lord was pleased to lay his hand on that ill man. At Glasgow, where he lived, he fell suddenly ill, and for three days his tongue swelled; and though he seemed very earnest to speak, yet he could not command one word, and died in great torment and seeming terror. Some yet alive know the truth of this passage.”[[136]]
[135]. Crookshanks adds, “‘And if I be not mistaken, it will seize you in this place.’ And this was verified, for soon after he got the price of his blood; he was killed in a duel near Lanark. His last words were—‘God damn my soul eternally, for I am gone.’” Vol. ii. p. 85.
[136]. Crookshanks says, “Robert Godwin and John Hodge, two Glasgow men who were witnesses to this, went to visit him. Godwin desired him to write what kept him from speaking. He wrote that it was a just judgment from the Lord, and the sayings of the minister verified upon him for his mocking at him; and if he had the whole world, he would give it for the use of his tongue again. But he died in great torment and seeming terror.” Vol. ii. p. 86.
Mr Cargill and his fellow-prisoners were brought to the capital, and on the 15th July examined before the council. Being asked if he owned the king’s authority and the king as his lawful prince, he answered, as the magistrates’ authority is now established by the act of parliament anent supremacy and the explanatory act, he denied the same. When pressed to say explicitly if he owned the king as his lawful prince, yes or no; he refused to give any other answer than he had already given, and declined their interference respecting the excommunication, that being entirely an ecclesiastical matter. He acknowledged having seen Balfour, Henderson, and Russell, within the last two years, but knew nothing of their intentions before the deed—i. e. the archbishop’s death—was done. A copy of the sermon alleged to have been preached by him at the Torwood, was produced—so vigilant were their spies in procuring information—and he was asked if it was a true copy. He desired time to consider before he answered. He owned the lawfulness of defensive arms in case of necessity, and did not consider those who were at Bothwell rebels, but oppressed men; and refused to say whether he was there or at Airs-moss. He did not see the Sanquhar declaration till after it was proclaimed, but refused to say whether he had any hand in advising it or not; and with regard to the principles it contained, would give no opinion rashly. He further declared he could not give his sense respecting the archbishop’s death, but that the Scripture says that the Lord giving a call to a private man to kill, he might do it lawfully, and instanced Jael and Phineas—thinks he is not obliged to obey the king’s government as it is now established by the act of supremacy. He was repeatedly before the council, but varied nothing in his declarations.
Mr Walter Smith, though young in years, was an eminent Christian and an excellent scholar. He had studied abroad under Leusden, who highly esteemed him; and when he heard of his martyrdom, burst into weeping, and said in broken English—“O! Smit, great, brave, Smit; b’yond all as ever I taut.”[[137]] He declared he did not think it lawful to rise in arms against lawful authority, but could not acknowledge the present authority the king is invested with, as being clothed with a supremacy over the church. The Sanquhar declaration being read, he owned it, with this explication, that he did not look on those who composed it as the regular representatives of the Presbyterian church; he thought what the king had done, justified the people in revolting against him, but as to declaring war, he did not know if they were called or in a capacity to declare war; and thinks that they thereby intended only to justify the killing of any of the king’s forces in their own defence, when assaulted, otherwise it might have been esteemed murder. As to these words where the king is called an usurper and a tyrant, he knows certainly the king is an usurper, and wishes he were not a tyrant.
[137]. He wrote several tracts; one on Fellowship Meetings, and another on the Defections of the Times, which were highly esteemed; neither of which have I seen.
James Boig, also a student of divinity, a young man of talent and piety, was examined upon the same points, and bore testimony to the same truths.
William Thomson, a farm-servant in Fife, apprehended when coming from hearing sermon at Alloa, in a testimony, most admirably written, considering his situation in life, coincided with his minister—“I was before the year 1679,” said he, in that paper, “running away with the rest of this generation to God-provoking courses.” “Now I do with all my heart bless the Lord for his wonderful workings with me, since he began with me. I think when I look on his dealings since that time till now, I must say that I am a brand pluckt out of the fire. O! that my heart and soul could praise him for all that he has done for me; and now I am content to die a debtor to free grace!” He then declared his adherence to the Scriptures, to the Covenants, National and Solemn League, and to the Directory for Worship; and, “in the last place, bore his testimony to the cross of Christ, as the only desirable upmaking and rich lot of the people of God this day in Scotland.” “There is no better way,” he added, “to carry the cross right, than to cast all our care upon Christ, and trust him for all things, and use our single endeavours in this matter; speak what he bids us, and obey his voice in all things.”
William Cuthil—a seaman belonging to Borrowstounness, who suffered at the same time—struck fairly at the root of the mischief—the recalling of the Stuarts, which indeed was the first grand step of backsliding by the honest people in Scotland, and not more inconsistent in a religious than totally unaccountable in a rational or political point of view—“The admitting Charles Stuart to the exercise of kingly power, and crowning him while they knew he carried heart enmity against the work and people of God, and while in the mean time there was so much of his treachery made known to the parliament by his commissionating James Graham, Earl of Montrose, to burn and slay the subjects of this kingdom, that would not side with, or would withstand, him in the prosecution of his wickedness.” Another point in his testimony was equally just; it was “against that unparalleled practice of ministers in quitting their charges; and that which doth more aggravate their guilt, at his command who had no power to act, nor right to be obeyed, either in that or civil things, seeing he hath unkinged himself.”
Had the whole ministers in Scotland and England individually refused to move till the people themselves had desired them, it is more than probable that they never would have been ejected. It was the great anxiety evinced, during their primary negotiations with Charles, by each party and separate section to engross the whole of the royal favour for themselves, that laid the foundation of his tyranny, and cast into his hands a power which enabled him to overthrow the constitution of this country;[[138]] and their at once yielding to their own illegal ejectment confirmed it. If there be primary principles of government, founded upon the constitution of our nature, and, like the doctrines of revelation, suited to the necessities and the existence of society, no power on earth has a right to uproot or destroy them, more especially if planted with the genera] consent of a nation; and such were the principles acknowledged, avowed, legalized, and acted upon by the estates of Scotland at Glasgow, which were said to be set aside by the act rescissory, but which were afterwards at the Revolution acknowledged as inalienable; for these the humblest of the martyrs shed their blood, and their sufferings have only been decried by those who allege that Christian privileges and civil privileges can be separated, or who suppose that a man can enjoy rational freedom, while he is not allowed to worship God, except in the manner prescribed by the state.