The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Hind Let Loose, by Alexander Shields

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Title: A Hind Let Loose Or, An Historical Representation of the Testimonies of the Church of Scotland for the Interest of Christ. With the True State Thereof in All Its Periods

Author: Alexander Shields

Release Date: August 20, 2011 [eBook #37137] [Last updated: October 13, 2011]

Language: English

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A HIND LET LOOSE;

OR,

AN HISTORICAL REPRESENTATION

OF THE

TESTIMONIES

OF THE

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND,

FOR THE

INTEREST OF CHRIST.

WITH THE TRUE STATE THEREOF IN ALL ITS PERIODS.

TOGETHER WITH A Vindication of the present TESTIMONY against the Popish, Prelatical, and malignant Enemies of that Church, as it is now stated, for the Prerogatives of CHRIST, Privileges of the Church, and Liberties of Mankind; and sealed by the sufferings of a reproached Remnant of Presbyterians there, witnessing against the Corruptions of the Time:

WHEREIN Several Controversies of greatest Consequence are enquired into, and in some measure cleared; concerning hearing of the Curates, owning of the present Tyranny, taking of ensnaring Oaths and Bonds, frequenting of Field-meetings, defensive Resistance of tyrannical Violence, with several other subordinate Questions useful for these Times.

* * * * *

BY MR. ALEXANDER SHIELS, LATE MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL IN ST. ANDREW'S.

Psal. xciv. 20. Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?

Rev. xii. 11. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

Glasgow

           PRINTED BY WILLIAM PATON,
      FOR JOHN KIRK, CALTON, THE PUBLISHER.
                     1797.

PREFACE.

CHRISTIAN READER,

Presuming it is thy desire to answer the holy and honourable designation I accost thee with, I shall take the confidence to assure thee, it is my design to answer, in some measure, the expectation which the title of this treatise would offer, in the hope that, wherein I come short (as I indeed confess not only my jealous fears, but my sensible conviction of my insufficiency for such a great undertaking) thy Christian tenderness will impute it to my weakness, and not to any want of worth in the cause I manage, which is truly worthy, weighty, noble and honourable, in the esteem of all the lovers of Christ, that have zeal for his honour in exercise; and therefore as it gives me all the encouragement I have, in dependence on his furniture whose cause it is, to make such an essay, so it animates my ambition, albeit I cannot manage it with any proportion to its merit, yet to move the Christian reader to make enquiry about it, and then sure I am he will find it is truth I plead for, though my plea be weak. All I shall further say by way of preface, is to declare the reason of the title, and the design of the work.

Though books use not to be required to render a reason of their names, which often are arbitrarily imposed more for the author's fancy and the time's fashion, than for the reader's instruction: yet, seeing the time's injuries do oblige the author to conceal his name, the title will not obscurely notify it to some for whose satisfaction this is mainly intended, and signify also the scope of the subject; which aims at giving goodly words, not sugared with parasitic sweetness, nor painted with affected pedantry, but fairly brought forth in an unhampered freedom, for the beauty of the blessing of human and Christian liberty, in its due and true boundaries. This was the subject of a discourse, as some may remember, on that text whence this title is taken, Gen. xlix. 21. "Naphtali is a Hind let loose." In prosecuting of which, the speaker, with several others, falling at the same time into the hands of the hunters, (to learn the worth of that interrupted subject from the experience of the want of it) an occasion was given, and interpreted by the author to be a call to study more the preciousness of that privilege predicated of Naphtali, which is the right and property of the wrestling tribe of Israel, the persecuted witnesses of Christ now every where preyed upon. And now, providence having opened a door for "delivering himself as a roe from the hand of the hunter," he thought it his duty, and as necessary a piece of service as he could do to the generation, to bring to light his lucubrations thereupon; with an endeavour to discover to all that are free born, and are not contented slaves, mancipated to a stupid subjection to tyrants absoluteness, that this character of Naphtali, "satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord," that he is a "hind let loose" from the yoke of tyrannical slavery, is far preferable, in the account of all that understand to be Christians or men, to that infamous stigma of Issachar (the sin, shame, and misery of this age) to be "a strong ass, couching under two burdens; and he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant, and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute." But to all that are not altogether strangers in our Israel, it will appear, that this title is not inaptly applied to the subject and design of this treatise. The party whose case and cause, and contendings are here treated of, being known to have the same situation of residence in Scotland that Naphtali had in Israel, viz. the west and the south (Deut. xxxiii. 23.) will be found, among all our tribes, most appositely to bear the signature of Naphtali, who, in their wrestlings for the interest of Christ and the liberties of his Israel, have mostly jeoparded their lives in the high places of the fields; and chiefly to deserve his elogy, being a "hind", (called wild by nickname in the scorn of them that are at ease, but) truly weak in their present wilderness condition, to wrestle against the force and fraud of their cruel and cunning hunters, who cease not (when they have now got the rest of the roes and hinds of the field made fast asleep, under the bondage of the lions dens and mountains of leopards, by a pretence of a falsely so called liberty of conscience) to seek and pursue the chace of them for a prey; yet really they are "let loose," and not only suffered to run loose, as a prey to the hunters, by the unwatchfulness of their keepers, but made to escape loose, by the mercy of the Mighty One of Jacob, from the nets of the hunters and snares of the fowlers, and from the yoke of the bondage of these beasts of prey, to whose authority they will not own a willing subjection; and being such "hinds," so "let loose," they make it their work to give goodly words, for the worth and honour, and royalties of their princely master, and for the precious liberties wherewith he hath endoted and entrusted his spouse and children, and to keep the goodly words of his patience, until he return "as a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether." This being the party who are represented as the wild folk of Scotland, the design of this treatise is to hold forth the history of their manifold chaces, the craft, keeness, and cruelty of their hunters, and the goodliness of the words of their testimony, which, by reason of the likeness of the testimony of former periods with the present, and that the latter may be vindicated by the former, is resumed from the beginning of the Church of Scotland's wrestlings against the enemies of Christ, and deduced through all the most signal steps of this long propagated and hereditary war. And, lest my words should not be goodly enough, nor my notions grateful to the critics of this age, who cast every thing as new and nice, which is someway singular, and not suited to their sentiments; that it may appear the cause here cleared and vindicated is not of yesterday, but older than their grandfathers who oppose it, I dare avouch, without vanity, there is nothing here but what is confirmed by authors of greatest note and repute in our church, both ancient and modern, namely, Buchanan, Knox, Calderwood, Acts of General Assemblies, Causes of Wrath, Lex Rex, Apologetical Relation, Naphtali, Jus Populi, History of the Indulgence, Banders Disbanded, Rectius Instruendum, and some other authors much respected, whose authority, more always repelled by rage than ever yet refitted by reason; though I value more than all the vain oblatrations of the opposers of this testimony, and think it sufficient to confute all imputations of its novelty, and to counterbalance the weight that may be laid on the contradictions of the greatest that treat on this subject, yet I do not lay so much stress on the reason of their authority as on the authority of their reason, which is here represented with that candour and care, that, lest any should cavil that they are wrested or wronged when made to speak so patly to the present controversies, I have chosen rather to transcribe their words, than to borrow their matter dressed up in my own, except where the prolixity and multiplicity of their arguments, as clearly demonstrating that which I adduce them for, as that for which they were primarily intended, did impose the necessity of abridging them, which yet is mostly in their own words, though reduced into a sollogistical form. But this obloquy of novelty being anticipated, when I reflect on the helps I have collected from so many hands, I am rather afraid the truths here delivered be contemned as obsolete and antiquate, than cast at for new speculations. However, I am content; yea it is my ambition, that nothing here be looked upon as mine, but that it may appear this is an old plea, and that the party here pleaded for, who are stigmatized with many singularities, are a people who ask the old paths, and the good way, that they may walk therein; and though their paths be not now much paved, by the frequency of passengers, and multitude of professors walking therein, and albeit it must indeed be confessed the word of their testimony is someway singular, that the same things were never the word of Christ's patience, stated as heads of suffering before, yet they are not untrodden paths, but the same way of truth which hath been maintained by the witnesses of Christ in all the periods of our church, and asserted by the greatest confessors, though never before sealed by martyrs. As for the arguments I bring to clear and confirm them, whether they be accounted mine, or borrowed from others, I am very indifferent, if they prove the point they are brought for, which I hope they will be found to do; but of this I am confident, there is nothing here can be condemned until some one or more of these grave authors be confuted; and, when that is done, (which will be never, or against the thirtieth of February), there is something besides here, which will challenge consideration.

The design then of this work is of great importance, even no less than to essay the discussing the difficulties of all our conflicts with open enemies, about the present state of the testimony; the vindicating of all the heads of sufferings sustained thereupon these twenty-seven years past; the proposing of the right state of the testimony for the interest of Christ, not only of this, but of all former periods, with an account of the propagation and prosecution of the witnesses, wrestlings, and sufferings of it from time to time, to the end it may appear, not only how great the sufferings have been, since this fatal catastrophe and overturning of the covenanted reformation, and unhappy restoration of tyranny and prelacy; but that the grounds upon which they have been stated, are not niceties and novelties, (as they are reproached and reprobated by many), but worthy and weighty truths of great value and validity, and of near affinity unto, and conformity with the continued series and succession of the testimonies in all former periods. So that in this little treatise must be contained a compendious history of the Church of Scotland, her testimony in all ages, a vindication of the present state of it; yea, in effect, a short epitome of the substance of those famous forecited authors, as far as we need to consult them, concerning the controversies of the present time with adversaries; which is much, and perhaps too much, to be undertaken in so small a volume. But considering that many who are concerned in this cause, yea the most part who concern themselves about, are such who have neither access, nor time, nor capacity to revolve the voluminous labours of these learned men for light in this case, I have done best to bring them into one body of portable bulk with as great brevity as could consist well with any my measure of perspicuity, not meddling with any thing but what I thought might some way conduce to clear some part of the present testimony.

Every undertaking of this nature cannot but be liable to several disadvantages that are unavoidable: this hath many discouraging and difficult. One is, that it shall be exposed to the common fate of such representations, to be stigmatized as a seditious libel, and so may be sent to the flames to be confuted; and, to inflame the fury of these fire brands, already hell-hot, into the utmost extremity of rage against the author, that ever cruelty itself at its fullest freedom did exert against truth and reason arraigned, and cast for sedition and treason: the only sanctuary in such a case, is, in prospect of this, to have the greater care that nothing be spoken, but what the speaker may dare to affirm in the face of cruelty itself. A second common disadvantage is obvious from the consideration of the humour of the age; wherein fancy hath greater force than faith, and nothing is pleasing but what is parasitical, or attempered to the palate of the greatest, not of the best; and naked truth, without the fairdings of flattery, or paintings of that pakiness which is commonly applauded as prudence now a days, is either boggled at, or exposed to scorn and contempt; and reason, if roundly written, except it meet with an honest heart, is commonly read with a stammering mouth, which puts a T before it, and then it is stumbled at as Treason. This essay does expect no entertainment from any, but such who resolve to harbour truth, be the hazard what will, even when the world raises the Hue and Cry after it, and from such who are really groaning, either by suffering or sympathy, under the same grievances here represented. There is a third, which makes it not a little difficult, the quality, quantity, and intricacy of the matter, here to be confined to such a compend. All which, together considered, do infer a fourth difficulty, that hardly can it get a pass through