that, the people of God are become a scorn to their foes, and a fear to their friends, and especially reproached of those who are their nearest neighbours,' as the Psalmist complains. 3dly, I leave my testimony against all that make peace with the stated enemies of God, these Christ-despisers, these heaven-contemners, and non-such fighters against God,-whether by bonds, oaths, or promises; they being persons worthy of no credit nor trust, who will not keep faith nor trust upon any account, but where it may contribute to fulfilling their lusts, and prosecuting their wicked designs and hell-batched enterprises. If they were brought to straits, possibly they might feign themselves; but, he is unwise that will give them so much trust as a dog as Solomon says, when he speaks fair, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart;' which I have a proof of in my taking, by a poor wretch who hath sold soul and conscience to the lust and arbitrement of a faithless apostate wretch like himself. And, if ye will not be persuaded to leave off seeking their peace, and covenanting with them by bonds, oaths, and promises,—well, see what David the king of Israel says, by the Spirit of God, when he is making his testament, 2 Sam. xxiii. 6, 7. But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands: but the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron, and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burnt with fire,' But are much more seeking peace that ye with enemies than with God, think with yourselves to which of them are ye most beholden, and which of them have done you most good; which of them have most power over you; which of the two hath the best quarrel by the end; which of the two is the most precious and lovely; and which of the two will be your judge at the last day. Well, if you have done well in seeking the peace of enemies, with the loss of the peace of God; then, rejoice ye in them and with them, and let them do so with you: and if otherwise, the Lord, no doubt, will reward you, as the cause requires,-for what ye have done to God's work, cause, covenant, and people. 4thly, I leave my testimony againt all that contribute of their means, for the downbearing of God's works and people, and upholding his and their enemies, -seeing it is so expressly against the Covenant, and they in that case being called to suffer, and not to sin, (to which practice is annexed a gracious promise; He that loseth life, lands, goods, or relations, for Christ's sake, and the gospel's, shall receive an hundred fold in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting,')—and against all that otherwise waste and abuse them to God's dishonour, but only using this world, as not abusing it: for, all within the nation being dedicated and given away by covenant to God, and this being often renewed, calls all men to be tender of the oath of God, and see how they administer their stewardship; for to him they must be accountable. But, alas! for that account, which many of them have to make. I leave my testimony against the rendering up the power of the kirk and state into the hands of malignants. I do really think they have been all dreaming, or wilfully or wickedly sinning against the light of their own consciences. Well, God hath discovered them

since, in an ugly manner; and now they sin more and more: they hold fast deceit, they refuse to let it go, and will not return. It is the old professors and ministers, I mean, in a special manner; but more particularly the ministers: for when the time was to speak, they held their peace, and slipped from their Master's back, without so much as testifying against the horrid sins then committed; and did never to this day make up the hedge, and build that which they brake down: and, as I am informed, a great part have been dreadful compliers with, and conformers to the sinful courses of this apostatizing generation;-yea open persecutors of their more godly and faithful brethren, ministers and professors; and now, they are the greatest opposers of the work, and persecutors of the godly, both under hand, and to their faces; and instead of edifying and binding up the weak, strive to break all they can, especially when they are among the enemies' hands. In the last place, I bear my testimony to the cross of Christ, as the only desirable up-making and rich lot of the people of God this day in Scotland. O it is the portion of poor things, who desire to seek God, and design honestly in the land! I think, they want a good bargain of it that want it; and I think they want nothing that have it, and get leave to carry it heartsomely, and His presence under it. I would advise you all to take it on; I dare say thus much for your encouragement, that it is easy and sweet. There is no better way 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 the matter, and speak what he bids us, and obey his voice in all things. Now, I declare I hate all ungodliness. Now, farewell all things, wherein I have been troubled with a wicked world, and evil heart of misbelief,— -a subtile, powerful, and malicious devil, and tempted with a company of men, who have shaken off the fear of God. Now, welcome, Lord Jesus, into thy hand I commit my spirit.

Sic sub. WILLIAM THOMSON."*

XV. WILLIAM CUTHIL.

[William Cuthil was by profession a seaman, and belonged to the town of Borrowstounness, in Linlithgowshire. He was condemned like the others, chiefly if not wholly, on his own confession. He was apprehended, it seems, by some of the Earl of Mar's men, armed with a dirk and a pair of pistols. This was enough to create suspicion against him-and having, when examined, stated it as his opinion, that the king deserved death for breaking the covenant, and that those who killed the primate, had the fear of God before their eyes he was found guilty, condemned, and executed, with the four preceding witnesses, on the 27th of July, 1681. It may just be added, that the five individuals who were

• Cloud of Witnesses, pp. 174-179.

thus in one day brought to the scaffold, suffered in the order in which we have here arranged their Testimonies, and that the heads of the three first were placed on the Netherbow, and those of Cuthil and Thomson, on the West Port of Edinburgh.]

"I here, as one ready to step into eternity, and one of the subjects of a kingdom covenanted to God, and one of Christ's sufferers, enter my protestation, and give in my testimony against all that hath been done against Christ's reigning, and the thriving of his kingdom in Scotland, since the beginning of the work of reformation. And more particularly, against all the several steps of backsliding: as,

"1st, 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 prosecuting of his wickedness; which is recorded in the Causes of Wrath, and the Remonstrances of the gentlemen, ministers, and commanders attending the forces in the West, in the year 1650.

"2dly, Against the unfaithfulness, connivance and compliance of ministers, and others, at the wickedness perpetrated in the land during the time of Cromwell's usurpation; for, as I am informed, few testified against him, for trampling all the interests of Jesus Christ under his feet, in giving a toleration to all sectaries (whereof the abominable and blasphemous quakers are a witness, whose religion is nothing but refined paganism at the best, yea, I think it is much worse) which was to set up their thresholds beside Christ's, and their altars beside the Lord's, in a land covenanted to God, never to suffer the like, and lying under the same bonds.

3dly, Against the Public Resolutions, for the bringing in malignants to the places of power and trust; which have been the rod in God's hand above the heads and upon the backs of God's people, ever since they lusted after them; and now, I suppose, they are convinced (at least some of them) that God hath given them on the finger-ends for it: but we have not seen them confessing before God and his people, in public, (for it should be as public as the sin

This Testimony having a large preamble, wherein he gives his private opinion concerning some things then in debate, which do not relate to the causes of his suffering, and which are of no use now-these vain janglings and unprofitable strifes of words being ceased,—and his opinion about them not being a testimony for the truth, nor espoused by any of the godly as a head of suffering or contending for; the encouragers of this work have thought fit that the preamble be past by, and the testimony itself only published.-Cloud of Witnesses.

+ This ought not to be understood of the manner of his coronation, which is owned by all Presbyterians to have been most consonant to God's word, and the national constitution of Scotland, but of his disposition and practice, which was too evidently contradictory to the sacred engagements he came under.— Cloud of Witnesses.

was) that they have added this sin to all their other sins, in asking them a king, whereas the Lord was their King.'

"4thly, I bear my testimony 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, neither in that, nor yet in civil things; for they he had unkinged himself; and their going away without almost ever a testimony who should have been the main men that should have told the people what to do. Oh and aas, for that practice! Yet they were put away without being convicted of any crime done against him; but is it not against presbyterian principles, that a king should depose ministers of the gospel, tho' he had a just right, all that time, to rule the civil state? For it was without controversy that he had imprisoned some of Christ's ministers, without being ever summoned, or treated by any legal procedure, (as Naphtali records,) and usurped the ecclesiastic officers' seat to depose the rest of them.

"5thly, I hold it as one of the causes of God's wrath against the land, and one of the causes of God's breaking and scattering that poor handful of men at Pentland, that renewed the covenant at Lanark, and did not keep his interest out of it; for it only binds us to its maintainers, not to its destroyers.

"6thly, I bear testimony against the procedure of the ministers, when they came to the fields again after Pentland, because they did not first begin with public and private fasts, and make up the hedge and gap for the church of God in Scotland: and then only preaching to cases of conscience, and not catechising the people, nor informing them in the duty of the day; but did let them pay curates' stipends, and other revenues of that nature. But I think, they were engaged to God under the pain of losing soul and body, in the day of God's fearful judgment, to tell the people to chase them out of the land. Seeing prelacy was abjured and cast out like an abominable branch, as it was,- -were they not worthy to die the death, that would, against so much light, defile God's land with that abjured abomination? But forsooth, to this day, they must be fed like birds in a cage upon the fattest in the land, and the spoils of Christ's crown.

7thly, I bear my testimony against that course carried on by the ministers; their conniving at, countenancing of, and complying with these indulged, that have quit Christ, and taken on with another master. O the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously! Yea, they were open persecutors of the really godly, thereafter for their faithfulness, and were about to stop their mouth, and to make that indulgence the door, by which all the ministers were to enter into their ministry.

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8thly, I bear my testimony against their treachery at Bothwell. bridge, in stopping the drawing up of the Causes of God's Wrath, and keeping a fast day, and changing their declaration; and in hindering the purging of the army and to mend all, they raised the ugliest clamour and report among them that minded and spoke honestly and truly, that could be.

9thly, I bear my testimony, against their treachery at Edinburgh

when a proclamation came out to the view of the world, blaspheming God's true religion, and declaring that all that belonged to God was due to Charles Stuart, which is the plain sense of the act; and they sat in an assembly, and voted for a liberty coming from him to preach by; though the very same day that that was proclaimed, two of their more worthy and faithful brethren were murdered!! I think this people are grown like brute beasts. O how much pomp and jovialty was that day, in rejoicing over the ruins of the work of God and his people, yea, over himself! There was first a scaffold made on the east side of the cross, and a green table set down on it, and two green forms; and then the cross was covered; and about twelve hours of the day, the pursuivants, and lyon-heralds, and lyon king at arms, and eight trumpeters went up to the cross, and fourteen men on the foresaid scaffold, seven of them with red gowns of velvet, and seven with black, and then that act was read, and at night the bells were ringing, and bonfires burning. O I think it was a wonder, that God made not all the town where such wickedness was acted against and in despite of him, to sink to the lowest hell.

"10thly, I leave my testimony against them, for running away and leaving God's flock after Bothwell-bridge, when they had drawn them to the fields: the Lord be judge this day between them and his flock, and let their sentence come out from before his presence, and let his eyes behold those things that are equal. O their skirts are full of the blood of souls! They say, the people hath left them, but it is more evident than that it can be gainsayed, that they have left the people. Does not the Scripture say, that they who are in the watchmen's place, should warn the people when they see the sword come; and have not the ministers of Scotland had the first hand in all these courses of backsliding? Should they be pure with unclean hands, and the unjust balance (so to say) and the bag of deceitful weights? Well, their sins are known to be no more sins of weakness, but sins of wickedness!

"11thly, I bear my testimony against them, because they did not join with their brethren in the work of the day, in preaching to the people in the fields, with Mr. Richard Cameron and Mr. Donald Cargill. And will ye tell me, although there were never one to open their mouth in that thing, does not the work of the one confound them to silence, and the work of the other justify and plead for them? But there is one thing, I have learned from the practice of all this people, and God's dealing with them. They have sought their own, and one another's credit, more than God's, and he hath discovered their wickedness in their ugliness.

12thly, I bear my testimony against their obstinacy, in refusing to return and amend their manners. They hold fast wickedness, and refuse to let it go, and that against the light of God's word, their own consciences, their vows and engagements to God, the cries of bloodshed, the cries of wrong done to God and his work, and against these their former preachings and practices: that they will not come ut and rid the ground, so to speak, and seek out the causes of God's ath and set days of humiliation apart, and see that they be kept,