Of his works we have only seen his synod sermon, and the foresaid letters, in print. If there be any other, it is more than is known at present, except the foresaid warning to the indulged in the shire of Fife, which was some time ago also published: All which shew him to have been a most pathetical writer, his writings (tho' but few) making as striking and lively an impression upon the mind, as any man's of his time.
The Life of Sir Robt. Hamilton of Preston.
Mr. Hamilton (afterwards Sir Robert Hamilton) brother to Sir William Hamilton of Preston, was born about 1650, and probably a son to Sir Walter Hamilton the reformer, and lineally descended from that famous Sir John Hamilton of Preston, who was commissioner for east Lothian at that black parliament held at Edinburgh, 1621, where he most boldly voted against the ratification of the five articles of Perth; for which, and because he would not recall his vote, the king's commissioner, the marquis of Hamilton, and the secretary, thought to have disgraced him, but found themselves utterly disappointed: For although they sent the bishop of Dumblane, and after him lord Scone for that purpose, he would not; and when by the secretary desired to absent, he told him, he would stay and bear witness to the truth, and would render his life and all he had, before he would recall one word he had spoke; and that they should find him as true to his word as any Hamilton in Scotland[254].
Mr. Hamilton having received a liberal education (as is usual for men in such circumstances) before he was twenty-six years of age or thereby, the Lord, in his free and sovereign mercy, and by the efficacious working of the Holy Spirit, inclined his heart to fall in love with his service; and for that purpose he made him attend the free and faithful, (though persecuted) gospel, at that time preached in the fields; whereby in a short time he came to espouse the true covenanted testimony of the church of Christ in Scotland, for which he was, through divine grace, enabled to be a true and faithful witness to his life's end.
The first of his public appearances, we find he made in defence of that noble cause wherein he had embarked, was in the year 1679; when (after consulting with faithful Mr. Cargil) he, with Mr. Thomas Douglas and faithful Rathillet, drew up that declaration (afterward called the Rutherglen declaration) which they published upon the 27th of May, at the market-cross of that burgh, after they had extinguished the bone-fires; that day being kept as a holy anniversary-day for the birth and restoration of Charles II. After this he returned with that little handful to Evandale, where he was by them appointed to command in chief June 1st, at the skirmish of Drumclog, wherein he shewed much bravery in putting Claverhouse and that bloody crew to light, killing 36 or 40 of them, Claverhouse himself narrowly escaping. But the Erastian party coming up to that little army shortly after this, created them and Mr. Hamilton their general no small disturbance, they being to them a snare upon Mispah, and a net spread upon Tabor.——And though he most strenuously opposed them in all their sinful courses of defection and compliance, yet he was by them treacherously betrayed, in giving his consent to their publishing the Hamilton declaration;—they promising to be faithful in all time coming in preaching against the indulgence and all the land's defections; and that what was ambiguous in that declaration should be, at the honest party's desire, explained, what was wrong should be left out, and what was wanting should be supplied, before it was printed, or otherwise published, save the reading of it that day:—one word of which they never fulfilled or kept.
But it were a task too tedious here to enumerate all the struggles and contendings among them at that time; only it is to be remarked, that it was through Mr. Hamilton's great (I may say deserved) confidence in Mr. Cargil's faithfulness (who was the principal minister among those called the protesting party) that Mr. Hamilton was again by the corrupt party so pitifully ensnared in subscribing their declaration to the duke of Monmouth, when they were about to engage with the enemy: For they being intent upon supplicating, the honest party consented only that an information should be drawn up by Mr. Cargil and Mr. Morton, and sent to him, of his own and his father's rebellion against God, by their blasphemy, persecution and usurpation in church and state, &c. but the corrupt party drawing up their own supplication, sent one of their party with it in the one hand, and pen and ink in the other, to Mr. Hamilton to subscribe, just as they were going to engage the enemy. Mr. Hamilton asked, If it was Mr. Cargil's work? He answered, Yes, (whereas Mr. Cargil knew nothing of it). Whereupon, being in haste, and having no doubt of Mr. Cargil's veracity therein, he did that which was still matter of great grief to him afterwards, as he himself, in a letter from Holland dated 1685, doth fully testify.
After their defeat at Bothwel-bridge, Mr. Hamilton was by the Erastian party and their accomplices, most horridly stigmatized and reproached, as that he should have betrayed them to the enemy, sold them for money, swept the priming off the cannon at the bridge, &c. But from all these he has been by one (whom we must take to have been a very impartial writer on that affair) some time ago sufficiently vindicated; unto whom, for brevity's sake, the reader must at present be referred[255].
Shortly after Bothwel, he went over to Holland; upon which his estate was forfeited 1684, and he sentenced to be executed whenever apprehended. During his stay here he was of great service and use to his own countrymen, and had the honour to be employed by them as commissioner of the persecuted true Presbyterian church of Christ in Scotland, having received commission from them to represent their case, and crave the sympathy of foreign churches; and it was by his skill, industry and faithfulness in prosecuting this commission, that he prevailed with the presbytery of Groningen anno 1683, to ordain the famous and faithful Mr. James Renwick, a minister of the gospel, for the persecuted true Presbyterian church of Christ in Scotland. And afterwards, as their delegate with the presbytery of Embden, to ordain Mr. Thomas Lining a minister of the gospel for the same church.
Mr Hamilton, by virtue of his commissions which about that time he had received from the united societies[256], went through several places of Germany in the end of the year 1686: For an old manuscript (given under his own hand dated March 10th, 1687) bears, that through many hazards and difficulties, he arrived about the 10th of Oct. at Basil in Switzerland, from whence he went to Geneva about the 16th of Nov. and so into Bern, Zurich, and other places in Batavia and the Helvetian Cantons, not without many imminent hazards and dangers. In which places he conferred with the most part of their professors and other learned men, craving their judgment and sympathy toward his mother church, and the poor persecuted people in the kingdom of Scotland[257].