"I said, sir, that my son and my brother were covenanted Christians."
This I delivered with a firm voice, which seemed to produce some effect on the Lord Kelburne, who threw himself back in his chair, and crossing his arms over his breast, looked still more eagerly towards me.
"Do you mean then to deny," said Murray, "that the late rebellion was not a rebellion?"
"It would be hard, sir, to say what it was; for the causes thereto leading," replied I, "were provocations concerning things of God, and to those who were for that reason religiously there, I do not think, in a right sense, it can be called rebellion. Those who were there for carnal motives, and I doubt not there were many such, I fancy every honest man may say it was with them rebellion."
"I must deal more closely with him," said Murray to his Lordship; but his Lordship, before allowing him to put any more questions, said himself to me,—
"But you know, to state the thing plainly, that the misguided people who were at Bothwell had banded themselves against the laws of the realm, whether from religious or carnal motives is not the business we are here to sift, that point is necessarily remitted to God and their consciences."
Murray added, "It is most unreasonable to suppose that every subject is free to determine of what is lawful to be obeyed. The thought is ridiculous. It would destroy the end of all laws which are for the advantage of communities, and which speak the sense of the generality, touching the matter and things to which they refer."
"My Lord," said I, addressing myself to Lord Kelburne, "it surely will ne'er be denied that every subject is free to exercise his discretion with respek to his ain conduct; and your Lordship kens vera weel that it is the duty of subjects to know the laws of the land; and your Lordship likewise knows that God has given laws to all rulers as well as subjects, and both may and ought to know His laws. Now if I, knowing both the laws of God and the laws of the land, find the one contrary to the other, undoubtedly God's laws ought to hae the preference in my obedience."
His Lordship looked somewhat satisfied with this answer; but Murray said to him,—
"I will pose him with this question. If presbyterian government were established, as it was in the year 1648, and some ministers were not free to comply with it, and a law were made that none should hear them out o' doors, would you judge it reasonable that such ministers or their people should be at liberty to act in contempt of that law."