is fatal Union with England, in
terms and upon conditions inconsistent with our covenanted Union,
engaged to in the League and Covenant; the nation's sovereignty and
independency are given up, the rights of Parliament entirely lost, or
vanished into a shadow, little preferable to no Parliament; so few
being to represent this nation in the Parliament of Great Britain, as
can never be able to prevent, by their number of voices, any act which
it shall please the English to make, how destructive soever the same be
to our sacred or civil concerns. Which treaty of Union was concluded in
a Parliament as manifestly prelimited, as any which ever was seen in
Scotland; the members were corrupted with bribes and preferment, and so
engaged to act contrary to the will and mind of those whome they did
represent, and to comply with that stratagem hatched by the English, for
enslaving this poor nation, and denuded it of its privileges, as well
sacred as civil. And alas! how insignificant were the endeavours then
used to prevent that course, and preserve the privileges of the
Parliament and liberties of this kingdom? only some faint addresses, all
other attempts being laid aside at their Queen's command, by her
proclamation, as _treasonable convocation of the lieges_.

Again, the subject's liberties, both as men and as Christian, which the
scriptures allow, we should preserve,

I Sam. xiv. 25; Acts xxii. 25,28; xxv. 11,16,27; Gal. v. 1.

Have been miserably encroached upon by arbitrary government, whereby the
subjects have been oppressed in their consciences, persons and estates,
by all the oaths and bonds pressing conformity with the corruptions,
novations, and usurpations the government of church and state, and
persecutions for recusancy, and by impositions of the freedom of secret
thoughts, which no law of men can reach, which yet in the time of the
late persecution were extorted, by threatening of death and manifold
tortures; the church's liberties have also been invaded by the
ecclesiastical supremacy, declared by a blasphemous law inherent to the
crown, which law, though it be not now in force, is yet still kept up in
practice by the indiction, prorogation, and dissolution of Assemblies,
and prescribing diets and causes of fasting and thanksgiving in the
magistrate's name and authority, to which ecclesiastical supremacy,
usurped by the magistrate, this backslidden church hath always
subjected, and now to discover to the world tha