vered himself had a
powerful effect, and many thought as he did, and several rose and said
that it was not Christian to bar the door on peace, and to shut out even
the chance of contrition on the part of the King and his ministers.

I heard what they said--I listened to what they argued--and I allowed
them to tell that they were willing to agree to more moderate counsels;
but I could abide no more.

"Moderation!--You, Mr Renwick," said I, "counsel moderation--you
recommend the door of peace to be still kept open--you doubt if the
Scriptures warrant us to undertake revenge; and you hope that our
forbearance may work to repentance among our enemies. Mr Renwick, you
have hitherto been a preacher, not a sufferer; with you the resistance
to Charles Stuart's government has been a thing of doctrine--of no more
than doctrine, Mr Renwick--with us it is a consideration of facts. Judge
ye therefore between yourself and us,--I say between yourself and us;
for I ask no other judge to decide, whether we are not, by all the laws
of God and man, justified in avowing, that we mean to do as we are done
by.

"And, Mr Renwick, you will call to mind, that in this sore controversy,
the cause of debate came not from us. We were peaceable Christians,
enjoying the shade of the vine and fig-tree of the Gospel, planted by
the care and cherished by the blood of our forefathers, protected by the
laws, and gladdened in our protection by the oaths and the covenants
which the King had sworn to maintain. The presbyterian freedom of
worship was our property,--we were in possession and enjoyment, no man
could call our right to it in question,--the King had vowed, as a
condition before he was allowed to receive the crown, that he would
preserve it. Yet, for more than twenty years, there has been a most
cruel, fraudulent, and outrageous endeavour instituted, and carried on,
to deprive us of that freedom and birthright. We were asking no new
thing from Government, we were taking no step to disturb Government, we
were in peace with all men, when Government, with the principles of a
robber and the cruelty of a tyrant, demanded of us to surrender those
immunities of conscience which our fathers had earned and defended; to
deny the Gospel as it is written in the Evangelists, and to accept the
commentary of Charles Stuart, a man who has had no respect to the most
solemn oaths, and of James Sharp, the apostate of St Andrews, whose
crimes provoked a deed, that