Cloud of Witnesses
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
1 CLOUD OF WITNESSES FOR THE ROYAL PREROGATIVES OF JESUS CHRIST BEING THE LAST SPEECHES AND TESTIMONIES OF THOSE WHO HAVE SUFFERED FOR THE TRUTH IN SCOTLAND. SINCE THE YEAR 1680. In het Engels beschreven door N.N. With historical and explanatory notes by John H. Thomson, 1871 STICHTING DE GIHONBRON MIDDELBURG 2007 2 Conclusions of the General Meeting at Crawfordjohn, April 21, 1697. "That a true and exact account of all the persecutors within the several quarters; of the remarkable judgments and deaths, or what hath befallen to their families or estates; be made up and brought to the next general meeting.” CRAWFORDJOHN, April 5, 1699. "That all the respective Societies send an index of all the late martyrs' testimonies, not in 'Naphtali,' to the next general meeting.” CRAWFORDJOHN, Oct. 29, 1701. "First concluded, that all the correspondences provide and make ready stones as signs of honor to be set upon the graves of our late martyrs has soon as possible; and all the names of the foresaid martyrs, with their speeches and testimonies, and by whom they were martyred or killed in house or fields, country or city, as far as possible to be brought to the next general meeting, in order for the epitaphs; and likewise an account of those martyrs' carriage and behavior in the time of their martyrdom.” "Secondly concluded, a review of the former conclusions concerning the remarkable judgments of the persecutors, and the diligence of the correspondences and Societies to be diligently brought to the next general meeting.” CRAWFORDJOHN, Oct. 21, 1710. "That an index of all the martyrs' testimonies that are not in 'Naphtali,' who were martyred in Scotland, be had from all quarters against the next general meeting; likewise an account of all the martyrs' names that suffered in this kingdom.” CRAWFORDJOHN, February 23, 1711 "The martyrs' testimonies were given into Mr. Alexander Marshall and Hugh Clark their hands, to be by them compared, and the correctest transcribed for the general meeting, and the copies to be returned to the several correspondences from whom they were collected, and the said persons were appointed to go to the [Rev.] Mr. Linning [of Lesmahagow], and require a sight of the testimonies that he had from Mr. Alexander Shields, belonging to the general meeting, and their diligence to be returned to the next general meeting.” CRAWFORDJOHN, Oct. 6, 1711 "The several correspondences were appointed to take a copy of the epitaphs engraven upon the martyrs' gravestones in their several bounds, to be brought to the next General meeting, and that they be inquisitive what account can be had of any remarkable instances of God's judgments upon persecutors in their several bounds, and to have an account as well warranted as can be.” CRAWFORDJOHN, June, 1713. "It is enjoined to the several correspondences to be careful to see what money may be advanced for printing the martyrs' testimonies, and an account, to be brought from each, of the quotas they think they can advance.” CRAWFORDJOHN, Oct. 26, 1713. "The several correspondences are appointed to take care to get a true list of the martyrs who were shot or otherwise killed without process of law, their names, abodes, time and place of their deaths, who killed them, and any other particulars about them, with a true duplicate of the elegies on all the gravestones, against the 1st of January, to be sent to Edinburgh.” 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE An Econium on the Following Martyrs 1. Donald Cargill 2. Walter Smith 3. James Boig 4. David Hackston 5. Archibald Alison 6. John Malcolm 7. James Skene 8. Archibald Stewart 9. John Potter 10. Isabel Alison 11. Marion Harvie 12. William Gouger, Christopher Miller, and Robert Sangster 13. Laurence Hay 14. Andrew Pittilloch 15. William Thomson 16. William Cuthill 17. Robert Garnock 18. Patrick Forman 19. David Farrie 20. James Stuart 21. Robert Gray 22. James Robertson 23. John Finlay 24. William Cochran 25. Andrew Guilline 26. John Cochran 27. John Wharry 28. James Smith 29. John Nibet, the younger 30. John Wilson 31. George Martin 32. John Main 33. John Richmond 34. Archibald Stewart 35. Captain John Paton 36. James Nisbet 37. Arthur Tacket 38. Thomas Robertson 39. James Nicol 40. John Dick 41. Thomas Harkness, Andrew Clark, Samuel M'Ewen 42. James Lawson, Alexander Wood 43. George Jackson 44. John Watt, John Semple 4 45. James Graham 46. Robert Pollock 47. Robert Miller 48. Margaret Lauchlane and Margaret Wilson 49. Thomas Stodart 50. Edward Marshall 51. John Nisbet 52. James Renwick Appendix, containing some particulars relating to the foregoing testimonies, and other sufferings of that time: Richard Cameron Donald Cargill Henry Hall A [partial] list of the banished A [partial] list of those killed in the fields A [partial] short account of oppresive exactions Some epitaphs and inscriptions related to the presbyterian martyr graves of that era 5 PREFACE CHRISTIAN READER, the glorious frame and contrivance of religion, revealed by the ever-blessed Jehovah in the face or person of Jesus Christ, for the recovery of lost mankind into a state of favor and reconcilement with Himself, is so excellently ordered in the counsels of Infinite Wisdom, and exactly adjusted to the real delight, contentment, and happiness of the rational world; that it might justly be wondered why so many men in all ages, otherwise of good intellectuals, have not only had a secret disgust thereat themselves, but labored to rob others of the comfort and benefit of it, and make the world a chaos of confusion by persecutions raised against it; had not the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures laid open the hidden springs of this malice and enmity, which exerts itself in so many of the children of men. We are told in these Divinely inspired writings, that the first source of this opposition that the true religion meets with in the world, flows originally from Satan, that inveterate enemy of God's glow and man's happiness; who, having himself left his original state of obedience to, and enjoyment of God his creator, hath no other levamen of his inevitable miseries, but to draw the race of mankind into the like ruin, which is the only satisfaction that malicious spirit is capable of. This restless adversary perceiving that, through the grace and love of God manifested in Christ, a great number of these whom he thought he bad secured to his slavery are redeemed, and called by the Gospel out of that intolerable servitude into a glorious liberty, and secured by faith to salvation, labors, by two great engines, open force and secret fraud, to keep them in, or regain them to his obedience; hence the sacred Scriptures describe him both as a dragon for cruelty and a serpent for subtlety. But because he either cannot, or thinks not fit, to do this visibly in person; therefore he does it more invisibly, and so more successfully, by his agents in whom he works, who, because of their unreasonable unbelief, are called children of impersuasion. These he acts and animates, as it were so many machines, to endeavor by crafty seduction, or violent persecution, to draw or drive the followers of the Lamb from their subjection, obedience, and loyalty to the Captain of their salvation, that he may drown them in perdition and destruction. This is the latent origin of all persecution, the mint where all the other more visible causes of the bloody violence which the people of God meet withal, are struck and framed. This is the grand design to which they tend to root out the obedience of faith out of the world, and deprive the Son of God of His rightful dominion over His subjects, whom He hath chosen, redeemed, and sanctified for Himself. As this holds true of all the persecutions raised against the Church and truths of God, whether in the persons of the Jews or Christians, by whatever hands, Pagan or Anti-Christian, so it is eminently verified of the persecutions of the Church of Scotland, prosecuted by a profane, wicked generation of malignant Prelatists, during the reigns of the late King Charles II and James VII. For, as the other persecutions were all leveled against some point of truth or other wherein the obedience of faith was concerned, respecting either the existence and worship of the true God, or the person, natures, or offices of Jesus Christ, etc.; so this persecution was directly bended against that office and authority of Jesus Christ, whereupon His formal claim to the obedience of His Church is founded, viz., His headship over His Church. This was the peculiar depositum concredited to the Church of Christ in Scotland, and her distinguishing dignity, to have the royal supremacy of the King of Zion to defend against the kings of the earth, who, not content with the princely authority of ruling the persons of their subjects, according to the laws of God and the 6 realm, would needs usurp a blasphemous sacrilegious prerogative of ruling the Church and consciences of men in room of the Mediator, by what laws and statutes they pleased, and found most subservient to their lust, for advancement of Popery and arbitrary government. JESUS CHRIST, the only begotten of the Father, having received the Church of Scotland, as one of the utmost isles of the earth, for His possession, by solemn grant from Jehovah, was pleased, as to call her from the deplorable state of Pagan, and reform her from the ruinous condition of anti-Christian darkness, so to dignify her, in a peculiar manner, to contend and suffer for that truth, "that He is a King and Lawgiver to His Church;" having power to institute her form of