Religion & morality > Cloud of witnesses, for the royal prerogatives of Jesus Christ, or, The last speeches and testimonies of those who suffered for the truth in Scotland, in the years 1681-1688, with an appendix, containing the Queensferry paper, Torwood excommunications, &c

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PREFACE.
much as once beat me, how then may I speak evil of my
king and sovereign, who hath thus preserved me V They
were under a lively sense of their vows and obligations to
Christ, personal and national, and therefore durst not, could
not, deny his name, nor break his bonds, and cast away his
cords, as the wicked hath done ; they were of the resolute
disposition of Victorianus, who being solicited by the empe¬
ror to turn Arian, told him; ‘ You may try all extremities,
torture me, expose me to wild beasts, burn me to ashes, I
had rather suffer any thing than falsify my promise made
to Christ my Saviour, in baptism.’ And as Christ had been
very kind to them, so they trusted much to him, and
depended on him for strengthening influence, being very
sensible of their own weakness; and they durst promise
much on Christ’s head; they could say as Yincentius to the
tyrant Darius, ‘ Rage, and do the utmost that the spirit of
malignity can set you on work to do, you shall see God’s
spirit strengthen the tormented more than the devil can do
the tormentors.’ And as Zuinglius to the bishop of Con¬
stance, ‘ Truth is a thing invincible and cannot be resisted.’
As they were well instructed in the necessity, so in the
usefulness and benefit of the cross; they knew, that, as the
church and nation had deserved to be chastened and pun¬
ished of God, so it was far more eligible to be chastened by
sore adversities, inflicted by a loving Father, than by severe
impunities of an incensed and just Judge. They knew that
the grief they suffered was medicinal, not penal: the correc¬
tion of a father, not the indignation of an enemy : and that
they needed such merciful files and furnaces of adversity, to
scour off the rust they had contracted in prosperity. Nay,
they were not only content to undergo these fatherly cor¬
rections, but accounted it a singular kindness and condescen¬
sion, that what they deserved should be their punishment,
was made their glory, crown, and honour; that they who
had merited to be scattered into corners, and have their
remembrance made to cease from among men, for their
lightly prizing the precious and glorious gospel, should be
gathered into such a cloud of witnesses, and have their
remembrance made everlasting, as honoured martyrs for
Christ, and the defence of the gospel; that when they had
provoked God by their sinful lusting after a malignant to be
their king, they should be dignified to contend for the king-