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ing of ourselves by arms, yet know that the cause was not ours, but the Lord's; for we suffered all our grievous oppressions, not for evildoing, but because we could not in conscience acknowledge, comply with, and obey prelacy, and submit unto the ministry of ignorant, light, and profane men, who were irregularly and violently thrust upon us; neither did we only or mainly design our civil liberties, but the liberty of the gospel, the extirpation of prelacy, the restoration of our faithful pastors, the suppression of profanity, promoving of piety, the saving of ourselves from unjust violence, until we had presented our grievances and desires; and, in a word, the recovering of the once glorious, but now ruined work of reformation, in doctrine, worship discipline, and government, according to the national covenant and solemn league and covenant, to which I declare my adherence; and through grace shall seal the same with my blood.

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My advocate drew up a supplication for me, wherein was acknowledged, that I had been with the rebels; but let none offend thereat: for I do hereby declare, that I was so far from accounting that course rebellion, that I judged, and still do judge, it was my duty to join therein, and my honour to suffer therefore; otherwise, I should have counted myself accessary to the blood of the Lord's people which is shed and cannot but regret that others of the Lord's people, when they heard of us, did not come forth with speed to help the Lord against the mighty; much more let all mourn, that not only many have appeared as enemies, but also conjured themselves against the Lord, and the same covenant which they so solemnly sware; and as for the petition itself, I knew not that expression was in it.

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Being conscious myself of so much weakness, and so many heinous sins which predominate in me, and of unfruitfulness under the gospel, and unsuitable walking thereto, I confess myself the vilest of sinners, and desire to mourn for the same, and pray that the Lord for Christ's sake may freely forgive me, as I have forgiven them that have wronged me, and hope through the righteousness of Jesus Christ to obtain the same; and I do exhort all and every one of my friends to more holiness, prayer, and stedfastness, always abounding in the work of the Lord; and above all things, to detest and shun

Scots, and free quarters besides to man and horse; which moderately computing at fifteen pence a day, amounts to £408: 10s. Next year Sir James Turner sent six foot soldiers to quarter upon him, from March to the middle of June. These had each of them twelve-pence a day, besides free quarters; which amounts to £756. By those hardships Corsack was obliged to leave his house and wander up and down; and upon his hiding, he lost his horse, worth £100, and was seized himself and imprisoned for some time. The loss of his household stuff, victual, and most part of his sheep, cannot be well reckoned. When they had turned his lady and children out of doors, they fell next upon his tenants, and obliged them to bring them in sheep, lambs, meal, and malt, till they were well nigh ruined. And last of all, they drove all his oxen and black cattle to Glasgow, and sold them.—And all this for nothing else but precise nonconformity!! After all this oppression, of which I have before me an attested account, the reader can scarce wonder that he and many others in like circumstances took hold on the first opportunity that offered to complain of, and re lieve themselves from these calamities."-Wodrow, vol. i. p. 258.

that wicked declaration against the covenant, the apparent temptation of the time, and the very mark of antichristian prelacy.

"All that I have is but litlle, but if I had many worlds, I would lay them all down, as now I do my life, for Christ and his cause, nothing doubting but the Lord will abundantly provide for my wife and my six children, whom I commit to the Lord's care, and recommend to the kindness and prayers of the faithful;* and do lay an express charge on my wife that she show all my children, that I have bound them all to the covenant, for which now I lay down my life, and that she lay it upon them as my last command, that they adhere to every article thereof.

"The work and people of God are brought very low; it may be, because they were not ripe for a deliverance; and for the greater trial, and filling up of the cup of the adversaries: or, because there was little, or less prayer than should have been amongst those who appeared at this time, that the Lord hath made this late breach. But, dear friends, be not therefore tempted to call in question the work of reformation; or to think the worse of Christ and his cause, because of sufferings; nor bo discouraged because these few who took their lives in their hands, fell before the adversary; for as sufferings are often sweetened by the Spirit of God and glory that resteth upon the sufferers, and afterward bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby; so the Lord will arise in due time, and have mercy upon Zion, and plead the cause which is

• His "wife and children," alas! were for long exposed to a continuance of the distresses in which he himself had so largely participated. "His lady," says Wodrow, "being in Edinburgh, after her husband's death. Maxwell of Milton came to the house of Corsack with thirty men, and took away every thing that was portable, and destroyed the rest, and turned the family, and a nurse with a sucking child, into the fields." "Sometime after, Sir William Bannatyne came and inventured any thing that was in the house, seized that year's crop, and arrested the rest in the tenants' hands. The same Sir William, a little after, came and took lodging, with 30 horse, in Corsack, till the lady gave him a bond, with two neighbour gentlemen cautioners, for 300 merks. The said gentlewoman had all her moveables seized for her converse with her own son, who had been intercommuned, and paid near a hundred pounds In the year 1680, her son was forfeited merely for noncompearance; and in a year or two, by Claverhouse's troop and others, she lost and expended, on vexatious suits, upwards of £400. Her eldest son, for three years, was forced to wander and hide in Ireland. In the year 1684, she and her son being cited to account for not hearing the curate, her son was imprisoned for some months, and fined in 200 merks. And still forward, until the liberty in 1687, this excellent gentlewoman was vexed with parties of soldiers, and compearance before courts, which put her to grea trouble and much charges."-[Wodrow, vol. i. pp. 258, 259.] And is it therefore to be supposed that the prayers of Neilson were unheard, or that his confidence on her account, and on that of his children, in the kindness and care of Providence, was unfounded or misplaced? No. Amidst all these distresses, it may be that they inherited the choicest blessings of heaven; that the peace of God, which passeth understanding, kept their hearts-that in the midst of their thoughts within them, his spiritual consolations delighted their souls, and that all those calamities, severe as they were, were felt to be preparing thein for that better world, "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at

his own and this testimony, as I am this day to seal with my blood, so I subscribe with my hand :

JOHN NEILSON of Corsack."

XV. GEORGE CRAWFORD.

[Of the five prisoners who were condemned on the 14th of December, one, namely, John Lindsay, belonging to Edinburgh, was for the time respited, and eventually obtained a reprieve. The remaining four were,

Robertson and Neilson, the authors of the foregoing testimonies, John Gordon of Irongray parish, who does not seem to have left one; and George Crawford from the parish of Cumnock, where it it is probable he joined the insurgents in their march to Lanark ; whose testimony is as follows. It seems to be the production of a plain but respectable man, who understood and had weighed the principles which he owned and acted upon.]

"Seeing I am to die after this manner, I lay before you this testimony, which I avow before God, and leave behind me to the world.

"That which moved me to come along with these men, was their persuasion, and my desire to help them (which, with a safe conscience, I could not well refuse,) who, being tyrannically oppressed by the prelates and their dependants and upholders, and seeing no other way was left to be taken, took up arms for their own defence; and if this be rebellion, I leave it to the great God, the supreme Judge, to decern for in my weak judgment, I found it warrantable from the word of God, and without prejudice of the king's authority (whom I pray God to direct and guide in the right ways of the Lord, and to make him prosper therein, so that he may be surely set in his kingdom, having him whom no enemy can resist, to defend him,) seeing there was nothing intended by us, against his, or any other's, just and lawful authority.

"But that which was my principal and chief design, was giving my poor assistance to the rooting out of the prelates and prelacy, and all such as are come into God's vineyard without the Master's commission, these hirelings who came not in at the true door, Jesus Christ, but bave climbed up some other way, as thieves and robbers, whose voice the sheep know not; (all which is too sadly confirmed by the dreadful and horrid sins that are risen in the land, and the curses and plagues that have followed thereupon,) that so, by taking away these, the abuses, which proceed from them, and the sad consequences which follow their standing or falling with them, the covenant of God might be re-established, and true pastors that were silenced, might be set at liberty, their mouths opened, and they themselves put to the keeping of their flocks, and all other such persons, who were banished, or any other way under suffering, relieved.

"And I do adhere to the way of church government sworn to in the covenant, which I think and assert to be conform to God's word; Naphtali, pp. 322-325.

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which, with his Spirit directing, is the only pattern and judge in all controversies: and however our endeavours at this time have not been successful, it is of the Lord, who will come in his own time, for he can do as well with a few as with many; but it is like, the cup of the adversaries is not full: and who knoweth, but the Lord God of hosts will hiss for the bee of Egypt, and the fly of Assyria, who will be more cruel and bloodthirsty than we were, to avenge the quarrel of his own people, and to make way for the establishing of his own cause. I say no more, but as I was willing to hazard my life for this cause, so I am ready to lay it down at my Master's feet, seeing he calls for it and I pray the Almighty, to send his Spirit of consolation promised by his Son to his own people to strengthen them and bear them through, till the appointed time of the Lord's coming with deliverance: for he will come for his own cause, and for his people's sake, and will not tarry.

GEORGE CRAWFORD."*

XVI. HUGH M'KAIL

It is scarcely possible to conceive a case more deeply affecting than that of this youthful martyr. Having finished his education, he was taken on trials, and licensed as a preacher in 1661, when only twenty years of age. After officiating several times, much to the benefit and gratification of those who heard him, he was called to preach in the great church of Edinburgh on the Sabbath immediately preceding the day fixed for the arbitrary removal of its ministers. And having in his sermon been led to remark, that "the people of God had been persecuted by a Pharaoh on the throne, a Haman in the state, and a Judas in the church," he was thought to have alluded to the then rulers; and a party was sent next day to apprehend him. He escaped, however; and concealed himself for about four years. The people in the south and west being at length roused in defence of their rights, he joined them so early as the 18th November. But at last worn out, and rendered useless through fatigue, he was in the act of leaving them in the neigh bourhood of Edinburgh, on the 27th of that month, when, unhappily, he was taken and lodged in prison. After being again and again examined, he was, along with Neilson of Corsack, subjected to the torture of the boots, on the 4th of December. On the 18th he was arraigned with other eight for the crime of rebellion, and, being found guilty, was executed on the 22d of that month, in company with five of these, the others being reprieved.]

1. HIS SAYINGS IN PRISON.

During his abode in prison, the Lord was very graciously present with him, both to sustain him against the fear of death, and to dispei all these overcloudings of terror, unto which the frailty of flesh and blood hath sometimes exposed the best of men; anl also in assisting him in

· Naphtali, P. 325-327.

prayer and praises, to the admiration of all his hearers, especially on the Thursday's night, December 20th, whereon being set at supper with his fellow-prisoners and his father, and one or two besides, he requested his fellow-prisoners, saying merrily," Eat to the full, and cherish your bodies, that we may all be a fat Christimas-pye to the prelates." After supper, in thanksgiving, he burst forth in blessing God, that had made him such a fool as to come to that prison; and after many gracious words, continued saying, Many crosses have come in our way, and wrought but weakly upon us, but here is a cross that hath done more good than all the many that befell us before.' Then lamenting the condition of the church of God, with much earnestness, he used that exclamation in the last of Daniel," What, Lord, shall be the end of these wonders!"

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The last night of his life, being Friday, December 21st, he proposed and answered himself several questions, to the strengthening of his fellow-prisoners, and great refreshing of all his hearers. As,

1. He inquired, "How should he, going from the tolbooth through a multitude of gazing people and guards of soldiers, to a scaffold and gibbet, overcome the impression of all these?" To which he answered, "By conceiving a deeper impression of a multitude of angels, who are also on-lookers; according to that, 'We are a gazing-stock to the world, angels, and men' for the angels rejoicing at our good confession, are present to convey and carry our souls, as the soul of Lazarus, unto Abraham's bosom; not to receive them, for that is Jesus Christ's work alone, who will welcome them to heaven himself, with the songs of angels and blessed spirits; but the angels are ministering spirits, always ready to serve and strengthen all dying believers and as Stephen saw the heavens opened, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, who then said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;' so," said he, " do I believe that Jesus Christ is also ready to receive the souls of his dying sufferers."

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2. He inquired, "What is the way for us to conceive of heaven, who are hasting unto it, seeing the word saith, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him ?" Whereunto he ans wered, "That the scripture helps us two ways to conceive of heaven. The first is, by way of similitude, as in Rev. xxi. where heaven is held forth, by the representation of a glorious city, there les cribed; and, in the same place, it is also termed the bride; but O how unlike are these two, a bride and a city! which doth clearly evidence the insufficiency and vast disproportion of all such similitudes; and therefore," he added, "the scripture furnishes yet a more excellent way to conceive of heaven; and that is, 1st, By conceiving the love of Christ to us, even what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and immenseness of that love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, which is also the highest and sweetest motive of praise:- Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God, and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever, Amen.'

By holding forth the love of the saints to Jesus Christ, and teaching

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