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