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tion and livelihood restrained them from giving a testimony 1." In short, God had sent a spirit of delusion and selfish fear upon the greater part of the clergy and on all the ministers; and on those who had escaped the fearful sins of the times, He had not vouchsafed to give them the spirit of martyrdom, to take up their cross, and cheerfully to suffer for Christ.

In his prison meditations, the royal martyr says of this most infamous transaction, "Yet may I justify those Scots to all the world in this, that they have not deceived me, for I never trusted to them farther than to men: if I am sold by them, I am only sorry they should do it; and that my price should be so much above my Saviour's..... God sees it fit to deprive me of my wife, children, army, friends, and freedom, that I may be wholly his, who alone is all. I care not much to be reckoned among the unfortunate, if I be not in the black list of the irreligious and sacrilegious princes. . . . . What they call obstinacy, I know God accounts honest constancy, from which reason, and religion as well as honour, forbid me to recede. It is evident now that it was not evil councillors with me, but a good conscience in me, which hath been fought against; nor did they ever intend to bring me to my parliament, till they had brought my mind to their obedience. The laws

will, by God's blessing, revive with the love and loyalty of my subjects, if I bury them not by my consent, and cover them in that grave of dishonour and injustice which some men's violence hath digged for them. If my captivity or death must be the price of their redemption, I grudge not to pay it. No condition can make a king miserable which carries not with it his soul's, his people's, and posterity's thraldom. After times may see what the blindess of this age will not; and God may at length show my subjects that I chose rather to suffer for them than with them. Haply I might redeem myself to some shew of liberty, if I would consent to enslave them. I had rather hazard the ruin of one king, than to confirm many tyrants over them; from whom, I pray God, to deliver them, whatever becomes of me, whose solitude hath not left me alone 2."

As soon as the army was withdrawn to the left bank of the Tweed, the farce of disbanding it took place; but in reality it was merely what they called a purging of the malignants out of it. The presbyterian ministers from their pulpits proclaimed this measure as one of the most devoted patriotism and loyalty; whereas, in reality, it was entirely an act of selfish security, in

1 Guthry's Memoirs, 195.

2 Eikon Basilike, 117, 119.

order to put out all those who were favourable to the king, and to reconstruct an army of partizans devoted to the covenant, and its synonym-rebellion. The number both of officers and men who were what they called "tainted with malignancy,” was so great, that they could not be trusted to act against the royalists, who were still giving them annoyance in the north. Of the money which they had received as the price of the king's blood, Argyle secured £30,000, and £15,000 more was divided among his partizans. Warriston received £3000; and the double-dealing deceitful duke of Hamilton also received £30,000, under pretence of remuneration for the losses which he sustained under Montrose; but, in reality, as the reward of betraying his sovereign, and advancing the Cause. To repay the tenantry on the Argyle estates, the ministers were compelled to preach up the collection of a voluntary contribution. The leading ministers in the commission, Dick, Blair, Cant, and some others, also received liberal allowances of the bloodmoney: the sums were not made public, but it was remarked that they became suddenly rich, and lived very sumptuously afterwards1.

The committee of estates sent general David Leslie northward to subdue the marquis of Huntly's dependents, who had made a miserable effort after Montrose was compelled to go abroad, instead of joining heartily with him, when he might have changed the whole fortune of the war, and restored the king to his throne. He hanged all the Irishmen that he found among the Gordons, and then marched towards the county of Argyle against sir Alexander Macdonald, who, after deserting Montrose, devastated the highlands at the head of 1400 infantry and two troops of horse. On the appearance of Leslie, Macdonald found means to transport his soldiers to Ireland, and such of the country-people as he had constrained to join him submitted, on quarter being promised them by general Leslie. But Argyle, a lay-elder, and Mr. John Nevay, a minister, whom the commission of the kirk had appointed as Leslie's chaplain, prevailed with him to break his word, and the covenanting army, which was now purged of malignants, killed them all, amounting to about two hundred men, without mercy. "Whereat," says Guthry, " David Leslie seemed to have some inward check; for while the marquis and he, with Mr. Nevay, were walking over the ancles in blood, he turned about and said, 'Now, Mr. John, have you not for once got your fill of blood? This was reported by many that heard it 2." After

'Guthry's Memoirs, 196, 197.

2 Ibid. 199.

this christian-like fruit of the covenant, Leslie transported his army to the island of Islay, where Macdonald had left a garrison in the castle of Duniveg, or Dunaverti, which was a place of considerable strength. On the capture of this castle, the garrison was put to the sword at the instigation of this infamous Nevay, who seems to have been deeply embued with the spirit of the covenant. Sir James Turner, who was present, relates, in his memoirs, the fact of these two massacres; where "three hundred men, after they were comed out of the castle, were put to the sword everie mother's sonne, with a hundredth country fellows, whom we had smoked out of a cave as we doe foxes." Nevay never ceased to tempt Leslie to this massacre, "yea, and threatened him with the curses that befel Saul for sparing the Amalekites, for with them his theologie taught him to compare the Dunaverti men; and I verilie believe this prevailed most with general Leslie, who looked upon Nevay as the representative of the kirk of Scotland'." This most infamous massacre reflects indelible disgrace on the clerical and lay representatives of the kirk, the kirk itself, and on general Leslie, who could authorise such a massacre under any circumstances, but especially after he had solemnly pledged his word for the lives and safety of the prisoners. Such is the fruit of the covenant, and by its fruits must a tree be judged; for these massacres would not have been perpetrated had not the representative of the kirk and a minister of the covenant threatened the general with spiritual thunders if he had spared the lives of the unfortunate prisoners. "The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel."

We are informed by his biographer, that "Mr. John Nevay was licensed and ordained a minister in the time of Scotland's purest reformation, and settled at Newmills, in the parish of Loudon; and was, besides his soundness in the faith, shining piety in conversation, and great diligence in attending all the parts of his ministerial function, particularly church judicatories, one who was always very zealous in contending against several steps of defection, which were contrary to the work of reformation carried on in that period 2."

The information that Cromwell had seized the person of the king alarmed the faction in Scotland. The committee of the estates and the commission of the kirk met in consequence on the 22d of June, but adjourned till July, to wait the issue of further intelligence. On the 17th of July, George Winram arrived from London, and informed them that the power of the army under Cromwell increased-that the establishment

Cited in note to Kirkton's History, p. 44. 2 Scots Worthies, p. 287.

of liberty of conscience, with universal toleration, was thought to be one of their objects-that general Poins, one of the parliament's officers, was imprisoned by Cromwell in Pontefract castle-and that," upon July the 12th, the army had sent to the parliament and city some proposals of an odd strain. What the proposals might be was not well understood, until that, at the end of July, the Scotch commissioners residing in London gave an account, that, upon the receipt of these proposals, the city of London, with the apprentices and watermen, did all join in a new bond for the ends of the covenant, and presented the same to the parliament." Cromwell now marched through London, when the Tower and the city militia were delivered up to him. This revolution, says Guthry, "put our great ones to a non-plus,1" but they could do nothing: they had now to deal with a man who would make no concessions, and could fight them with their own weapons, both carnal and spiritual.

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY met, according to the appointment of the last meeting, at Edinburgh, on the 4th of August, and chose Robert Douglas, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, to be their moderator. There is no record of their proceedings till the 16th, when an act was passed allowing only one half of the ministers in the presbytery of Shetland, with their rulingelders, to attend the provincial assembly2. And nothing farther is recorded till the 20th, which was their fifteenth session, when a declaration and brotherly exhortation was drawn up and approved to be sent to their brethren in England; which was found necessary, from the backwardness of their English brethren in promoting the cause of presbytery, and from the decided Erastianism which was avowed and acted on in England under the tyrannical rule of the parliament, and which made the Scottish covenanters "sympathise with them in their danger and affliction as their own, both kingdoms being united as one entire body in one covenant, for pursuing the common cause and ends therein expressed;" namely, of extirpating the church of the three kingdoms, and prostrating the monarchy under the foot of presbytery. In their brotherly exhortation they proceed to say,

"First of all, whatsoever the present discouragements, difficulties, or dangers, are, or whatsoever for the future they may be, we cannot but commemorate to the glory of God, and we doubt not it shall be remembered to his glory in the church throughout all ages, how great a salvation his mighty hand

1 Guthry's Memoirs, 200.-Neal's Puritans, ii. 444, 445.
2 Johnston's Collections, 328.

and outstretched arm hath wrought for these three kingdoms. How he stirred up the spirits of his people in this kingdom, ten years ago, to shake off the yoke of prelatical tyranny and of popish ceremonies, obtruded upon us, contrary to the laws of God and men; how he led us from so small beginnings, and from one degree to another, till we were united in a national covenant; how he gave us a banner to be displayed for the truth, and so blessed us in the prosecution of that covenant, that the king's majesty was graciously pleased, upon the humble petitions of his loyal subjects in this nation, to indict a general assembly and parliament for healing the grievances of church and state respectively, as likewise to grant his royal consent for confirming and ratifying, by acts of parliament, our national covenant, and the government and liberties of this church. After which, the new troubles raised against us by the malice and treachery of our enemies, did occasion the first expedition of this nation into England, (upon which followed the calling of the parliament there, and the large treaty); and, in the issue, the return of that army was with an olive-branch of peace, and not without the beginning of a reformation in England. In which work, whilst the parliament was interrupted and opposed, and a bloody war begun, with great success on that side which opposed the parliament and the begun. reformation, from whence also did accrue great advantage to the popish party, (whereof the cessation of arms concluded in Ireland may be instead of many testimonies); commissioners were sent hither from both Houses, earnestly inviting and persuading to a nearer union of the kingdoms, and desiring assistance from this nation to their brethren in that their great distress; and this, by the good hand of God, produced the solemn league and covenant of the three kingdoms, to the terror of the popish and prelatical parties, our common enemies, and to the great comfort of such as were wishing and waiting for the reformation of religion, and the recovery of just liberties. . Nevertheless, we are also very sensible of the great and imminent dangers into which this common cause of religion is now brought, by the growing and spreading of most dangerous errors in England, to the obstructing and hindering of the begun reformation, as, namely, (besides many others), Socinianism, Arminianism, Anabaptism, Antinomianism, Brownism, Erastianism, Independency, and that which is called (by abuse of the word) Liberty of Conscience; being, indeed, Liberty of Error, scandal, schism, heresy !-dishonouring God, opposing the truth, hindering reformation, and seducing others; whereunto we add those Nullifidians, or men of no religion, commonly

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