enjoy that estate, unless he had owned the title of the Prince and Princess of Orange as King and Queen of these three covenanted nations, and, in consequence of that, the Prelatical government as then established upon the ruins of the cause and work of God in these nations, he never entered or intermeddled with his brother's estate in any manner of way. With Moses he made that noble choice, rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; and did esteem a steadfast adherence to the cause of Christ, with all the reproaches that followed thereon, greater riches than all his brother's estate. Out of true love to Jesus Christ, His covenanted cause, interest, and people, he laid his worldly Donour in the dust, continuing still a companion in the faith, patience, action and tribulation, of that poor, mean, and despised handful of the Lord's witnesses in these lands, who still owned and adhered to the state of the Lord's covenanted cause in Scotland.

A Stle after his return from Holland, when Messrs Linning, Sheds and Boyd were drawing and enticing those who had formerly Non tuthful to, and owning and suffering for the Lord's covenanted cause, into a conformity and compliance with the defection of that time, at a general meeting held at Douglas, 6th November 1689, Sir Robert Hamilton gave a faithful protestation against these pro

ceedings, and particularly their owning the government, while sworn to Prelacy, in opposition to our laudable establishment and covenanted work of reformation. He also protested against the raising of the Angus regiment, which he took to be a sinful association with malignants and likewise, against joining with Erastian ministers at that time (from whom they had formerly most justly withdrawn) without any evidence of repentance for the many gross sins and defections they were guilty of. And after these three ministers aforesaid had yielded up the noble cause, and drawn many of the owners thereof into the same state of compliance with themselves, he had the honour to be the chief instrument, in the Lord's hand, of gathering together out of their dispersion such of the old sufferers as had escaped these defections, and in bringing them again into a united party and general correspondence, upon the former laudable and honest state of the Testimony.

Sir Robert Hamilton had also a principal hand in drawing up and publishing a faithful Declaration at Sanquhar, August 10, 1692, for which he was apprehended by some of the old persecuting soldiers at Earlstoun, upon the 10th of September following, and by them carried to Edinburgh, and there and elsewhere kept prisoner till the 5th of May 1693. When he was brought before the Council, September 15th, 1692, there were present the Viscount of Tarbet, president Lothian, Ker, General Livingston, Lord Linlithgow, Lord Breadalbane, and Sir William Lockhart, solicitor. He was examined concerning the Declaration, but he declined them, and all

upon whom they depended, as incompetent judges, because they were not qualified according to the word of God and our solemn Covenants. Being interrogated, if he would take the oath of allegiance? he answered, "No, it being an unlimited oath, not founded upon our covenants." If he would own the authority of King William and Queen Mary? he answered, "I wish them well." But being asked again, if he would own them and their government, live peaceably, and not rise against them? he replied, "When they are admitted according to the laws of the Crown, and the Acts of Parlia ment 1648 and 1649, founded upon our sacred Covenants, then I shall give my answer;" whereupon some of them turned hot, and Lothian said, that they were pursuing the ends of the Covenant. Sir Robert replied, "How can that be, when joining with, and exalting the greatest of its enemies, whom by covenant we are bound to extirpate ?" Another answered that the King had taken the coronationoath. Sir Robert asked, "What religion was established when that oath was taken ?" They said Prelacy was abolished; but he returned, "Presbytery was not established, so that the King is not bound in religion, save to Prelacy, in Scotland." Being urged to the last question, he adhered to his former answers: at which some of them raged and said, that he would give no security for obedience and peaceable living. To this he made answer, "I marvel why such questions are asked at me, who have lived so retired hitherto, neither plotting with York, France, or Monmouth, or any such, as the rumour was; nor acting anything contrary to the laws of the nation enacted in the time of the purity of Presbytery." Lothian said, "We are ashamed of you." He replied, "Better you be ashamed of me, than I be ashamed of the laws of the Church and nation, whereof you seem to be ashamed." Lothian said, "You desire to be involved in troubles." Sir Robert answered, "I am not so lavish of either life or liberty; but if the asserting of truth is an evidence thereof, it might be thought more strange."

He was remanded back to prison, where he continued until the 5th of May 1693, when he was liberated. The day before his liberation, he gave in a most faithful protestation and declinature to the Privy Council and Parliament of Scotland, with another letter of the same nature to Sir James Stuart, the Advocate. Upon his coming forth, he was so far from yielding one jot, that he left another protestation in the hands of the keepers of the Tolbooth, showing that, for his adhering to, and appearing for the fun

damental laws and laudable constitution of our Church and covenanted nation, he had been unjustly apprehended and kept for eight months close prisoner; and that for his own exoneration and truth's vindication, he left this protestation, disdaining all engagements to live peaceably, which were a condemning himself of former unpeaceableness, which he positively denies. In coming to any terms respecting oaths or bonds with those who had broken covenants, overturned the Reformation, and destroyed the people of God, or engaging unto a sinful peace with them, or any in confederacy with them, he declared that he came out of prison merely because of finding open doors, and desired his protestation to be inserted in the ordinary register.

From his liberation to the day of his death, he continued most faithful in contending earnestly for "the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3); and did greatly strengthen and encourage the rest of the suffering remnant, with whom he continued in Christian communion, both by his pious and godly example, and seasonable counsel and advice, with respect to principles, and what concerned the salvation of their souls, for the right carrying on of the Testimony for the cause that they were owning. Some years before his death he was taken ill with the stone, by which he endured a very sharp and sore affliction, with a great deal of Christian patience and holy submission to the will of God; and when drawing near his journey's end, he gave a faithful testimony to the Lord's noble and honourable cause, which he had so long owned and suffered for. Sir Robert having been most unjustly branded for running to some extremes in principles, both before and after the Revolution, a copy of his own dying testimony may perhaps be the best vindication that can be produced. It is as follows:

"Though I have many things that might discourage me from showing myself this way at such a time, when the Lord's controverted truths, His covenanted reformation, and the wrestlings of His faithful and slain witnesses, are things so much flouted at, despised and buried, not only by the profane, but, alas! even by the ministers and professors of this generation; yet I could not but leave this short line to you, who of all interests in the world have been my greatest comfort. Being now come to the utmost period of my time, and looking in upon my eternal state, it cannot be readily apprehended by rational men, that I should dare to write anything, but according to what I expect shortly to be judged, having had such a long time to

er in my ways, under a sharp affliction. As for my case, I mess God I is many years since my interest in Him was secured, and by fictions from all airts, He hath been a present help in me of my greatest need. I have been a man of reproach, a man of con; but praise to Him, it was not for my own things, but for te dings of my Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever were my infirmities, Es glory, the rising and flourishing of His kingdom, was still the

I bocred to shoot at. Nor is it now my design to vindicate self from the calumnies that have been cast upon my name; for when His slain witnesses shall be vindicated, and His own glory and baned truths raised up, in that day He will assuredly take away the reproaches of His servants, and will raise and beautify the name of Hs Irving and dead witnesses. Only this I must add; though I cannot but say that reproaches have broken my heart, yet with what I have met with before, and at the time of Bothwell battle, and also smot. I had often more difficulty to carry myself humbly under the gr of His cross, than to bear the burden of it. Oh! peace with Sot, and peace of conscience, is a sweet feast!

Now, as to His public cause, that He hath honoureu you in some mesure to side with, stand fast therein. Let no man take your crown, for it is the road He will take in coming to this poor land; and

use Him for honouring such poor things as you are, as to make you wish well to His cause, when Church, and State, and all ranks have turned their backs upon it. My humble advice to you as a dying brecher, is to stand still, and beware of all tampering with these betrayers of the royal interest and concerns of Christ's kingdom, and hsten to no conferences with the ministers and professors of this generation, till the public defections of this land, the doleful source of all our ruin and misery, that sin of the public Resolutions, the complance with Prelacy, the Church-ruining and dividing Indulgences and Toleration, the present sinful course of vindicating all these desections, and burying all the testimonies against the same; I say,

these be acknowledged, and publicly rejected and disowned So by Church and State.

"I de a true Protestant, and, to my knowledge, a Reformed Peteran, in opposition to Popery, Prelacy, and malignancy, and

acever is contrary to truth, and the power of godliness, as well 4 st Battering pretenders to unwarrantable zeal on the right hand, as against lukewarmness on the left; adhering with my soul to the

sweet Scriptures, which have often comforted me in the house of