Now comes the last catastrophe of the deformation of the church of Scotland, which now renders her to all nations as infamously despicable, as her reformation formerly made her admired and envied; which in a retrograde motion hath gradually been growing these 27 years, going back through all the steps by which the reformation ascended, till now she is returned to the very border of that Babylon, from whence she took her departure, and reduced through defection, and division, and persecutious to a confused chaos of almost irreparable dissolution, and unavoidable desolation. Through all which steps notwithstanding, to this day, Scotland hath never wanted a witness for Christ, against all the various steps of the enemy's advancings, and of professed friends declinings: though the testimony hath had some singularities, some way discriminating it from that of former periods; in that it hath been more difficult by reason of more desperate and dreadful assaults of more enraged enemies, more expert and experienced in the accursed art of overturning than any formerly; in that it hath been attended with more disadvantages, by reason of the enemies greater prevalency, and friends deficency, and greater want of significant asserters, than any formerly; in that it hath been intangled in more multifarious intricacies of questions, and debates, and divisions among the assertors themselves, making it more dark, and yet in the end contributing to clear it more than any formerly; in that it hath been intended and extended to a greater measure, both as to matter and manner of contendings against the adversaries, and stated upon nicer points; more enixly prosecuted and tenaciously maintained, and sealed with more sufferings, than any formerly; in that it hath had more opposition and contradiction, and less countenance from professed friends to the reformation, either at home or abroad, than any formerly. And yet it hath had all these several speciallties together, which were peculiar to the former testimonies, in their respective periods: being both active and passive, both against enemies and friends; and _in cumulis_ stated against atheism, popery, prelacy, and erastian supremacy, which were the successive heads of the former testimonies, and also now extended in a particular manner against tyranny. And not only against the substance and circumstance, abstract and concret root and branch, head and tail of them, and all complying with them, conforming to them, or deduced from them, any manner of way, directly or indirectly, formally or interpretatively. This is that extensive and very comprehensive testimony of the present period, as it is now stated and sealed with the blood of many: which in all its parts, points and pendicles is most directly relative, and dilucidly reducible, to a complex witness for the declarative glory of Christ's kingship and headship over all, as he is Mediator, which is the greatest concern that