For these I am thoroughly convinc'd are doctrines founded upon the best maxims of civil government and on the Word of God; and besides the very essence of our own Constitution and municipal laws. And therefore I could never view that Convention which pretended to depose King James the Seventh, our King's royal father, and dispose of his crown; I could never, I say, view that unlawful and pack'd Assembly in any other light but as traitors to their country and rebels to their King. And as our then injured King and his undoubted heirs have from time to time uninterruptedly claim'd their right and asserted their dominion, I am so far from thinking that the [Sidenote: _fol._ 20.] royal misfortunes loose the subjects from their obedience, that I rather apprehend they loudly call for a steadier allegiance and more faithful duty. In which sentiments I have been still more and more confirm'd by the lamentable consequences of the opposite opinion, and by that sad affliction and load of misery, which a long usurpation has brought upon my country and which it is needless for me here to insist upon, as our numerous grievances, too heavy to be born, have been strongly, but alas! in vain, represented and loudly proclaimed even in some late pretended parliaments. But what more naturally falls to my share to consider, and what I fear has been still less regarded in the long persecuted state of my dear mother, the Church of Scotland, that Church of which it is my greatest honour to be a member and a priest, tho' very undeserving of either; a Church, national and independent of any other and of every power upon earth, happily govern'd by her own truly primitive bishops, as so many spiritual princes, presiding in their different districts, and in them, accountable to none but God for the administration of her [Sidenote: _fol._ 21.] discipline; a church, whose creeds demonstrate her soundness in the faith, and who is blest with a liturgy (I mean the Scots Liturgy,[21] compil'd by her own bishops) nigher to the primitive model than any other church this day can boast of (excepting, perhaps, a small but I believe a very pure church in England[22] who, I am told, has lately reformed herself in concert with the forementioned and infallible rule)--in one word a church very nearly resembling the purest ages, and who (after more than half a century groaning under persecutions and mourning in her own ashes, but all the while distinguishing herself no less by forbearance and charity to her bitterest enemies than by her steadiness to principle and Catholick unity) is now at last, alas! devoted, in the intention of her adversaries to utter destruction; which I fervently pray God to prevent.