A DECLARATION FROM THE COMMISSIONERS OF THE General Assembly OF THE KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND, CONCERNING The King's Majesties Royal Person, and His due Rights and Privileges. With their sense and resolution touching the lawfulness of Sovereignty, and the proceed of a disloyal and perfidious Party, who formerly pretended to light for the KING.  
THis Declaration from the Commissioners of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, was ordained to be forthwith Printed and Published, and to be read in all Churches and Chapels throughout the said Kingdom.  
Signed, A. KER.  
Imprinted at Edinburgh by Evan Tyler, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majesty. And reprinted at London, MDCXLVIII.   

A DECLARATION FROM The Commissioners of the General Assembly of the Kingdom of Scotland.  
WHereas it hath been our constant custom and continual care, from the sense of the trust committed unto us, to give warning unto this Kirk and Kingdom of their condition and duty; so it cannot be but very seasonable and necessary at this time, to declare and make known our judgement of the carriage of the People of the Land, in the day of darkness, and hour of temptation that they who have stood may find matter of encouragement and praise, and such as have fallen may recover themselves and repent.  
We were void of understanding, if we should not observe, and more than ungrate, if we should not acknowledge the loving kindness of the Lord towards us, in the midst of our confusions and fears: Temptations were many and fierce, because of the power and pride of an insolent enemy [both to God and out dread Sovereign the King] whose proceed is matter of abomination unto us, & shall be a wonder unto the following Generation; yet did the body of the Kingdom keep their integrity, entertaining all thoughts of backsliding and complying with the King's enemies, with indignation and detest, patiently suffering the blood that hath been spilt, & firmly standing to the Cause of God in the midst of difficulties and straits, neither fearing the threats, nor regarding the promises of such as oppose the same.  
These, as they be for a name of praise and joy unto the most high, the excellency of whose power is perfected in weakness; so for a witness unto the truth, and to the work of Reformation, and for a shame and reproach unto the haters of Zion, whose subtlety & violence is more than conquered by the faith and patience of the Saints.  
Yet is it the matter of much sorrow and astonishment unto us, that in the Land of uprightness so many should have done foolishly; and notwithstanding of all that work and power which their eyes have seen, and of their own vows and Protestations, fallen from their excellency, and turned aside unto corrupt and crooked ways with the workers of iniquity. The bond of the Covenant is such, as every religious heart cannot but remember the violation thereof with horror and trembling; yet hath the Oath of God been forgotten and despised by many.  
It is the admirable way of the working of the wisdom of God, to over rule all the purposes and actions of the sons of men unto his own ends. He whose ways towards us have all been mercy and truth, meant a discovery of those whose indifferency or treachery would ere long have procured a sure and sensible ruin unto us, and now hath he brought his purpose to pass. This is a mercy which bring rightly managed, may countervail all our sufferings and p●●os, and prove very wholesome unto the Land, and advantageous unto the Cause of God.  
It is not any strength of reason on the side of our adversaries that could have shaken so many; their pretexts of the King's service, our Rebellion, and such like as th●●● are poor and void of truth in themselves, so do they easily vanish before every discerning and rational man.  
The service of Kings is not to cut down thousands of their faithful and loyal Subjects whose multitude is their glory & strength; but to do those things which the Laws of the Kingdom prescribe, and that are consonant unto the will of God and unto the wealth of the people, whose safety is the Supreme Law, and main study of every King ruling in righteousness and judgement. Our souls are not privy unto, and our actions plead us innocent from the guilt of disloyalty; our witness is in heaven, and our record is on high, that it was never our purpose or intention to subvert lawful Sovereignty, nor to encroach upon the due rights and privileges of the same; and we trust, that whilst we live, nothing shall escape us to the contrary.  
We are able to justify our union with England, as an undeniable testimony of our duty unto our Brethren in the times of their straits by the Prelatical Party, and of the preservation of Religion in its purity ane power in this, and of its Reformation in the neighbour Lands, and surest Bulwark of a stable and continuing peace betwixt the Kingdoms.  
The League and Covenant with England, as it was studied and set on foot in the days of our Fathers at Barwick in the year 1586. so was it from the beginning of this glorious Work of Reformation endeavoured by ourselves, as stands upon record in the Articles of the large Treaty, unto which some of those who have now fallen to oppose it, were then neither strangers nor adversaries. Both Covenants, in regard of the principals whence they issue, the heads which they contain, and the ends which they pursue, are one and the same: And that the extent of the last unto our dear Brethren in England should procure enmity, to the intentions and substance of the first, seems to us to be a riddle, which none can resolve but perfidious persons, who have made shipwreck of a good conscience.  
Who can but be amazed to hear the treacherous designs and bloody practices of perjured men, palliate under pretence of the prosecution of the ends of our Nationall Covenant, as appeareth by divers who have lifted up their hands to Heaven, swearing unto the high God in the public Assembly of his people, to build those things which they now destroy, and to destroy those things which they have lately set up; [meaning the dissenting party of Scotland] though the King's Majesty, of whose Authority they pretended to be zealous of had not then given his royal consent and approbation of our affairs.  
It is our hearts desire and hope, that all this course of providence thus abused by men void of understanding, may be improved by ourselves, as a means of sound and serious humiliation, that we may search and try our ways, and turn again unto the Lord, who will do good unto us, because of the disloyal actions of his Majesty's enemies; Notwithstanding of all calumnies and reproaches, the righteousness of our cause shall be accounted of us our glory, and in regard of it, We will not remove our integrity from us, our righteousness we will still hold fast, and not let it go and our heart shall not remove us so long as we live.  
The true and real causes of our backsliding are to be sought amongst ourselves. If all the Watchmen of the house of Israel had been faithful and zealous in discharge of their trust, than had the Lords people better known the excellency of the Gospel, and stuck closer to the profession of the same, because of the negligence and perverseness of some of those, many have halted for want of instruction, and lack of knowledge; but from the corruption which men have harboured in their own breasts, hath mainly issued all the degrees of their Declnation.  
There be amongst us many rotten and hollow hearts, who though though the joined wit us through subtlety, or fear did still abide in the gall of bitterness, and bond of iniquity, and wished nothing more than the subversion of our cause: What wonder though such took advantage of a prevailing party, to disclose their envy, wherewith they were now grown big, almost unto bursting: And there is a generation whose ignorance and sloth hath detained them, that they have not sufficiently examined, nor rightly considered Zions' controversy with those that plead against her, because of her love to the truth: They conceive the debate to be about things Civil, at least, not to go so high, as the hazard of any thing important in Religion.  
And such is the negligence of those, that they despise the means of instruction, largely offered and holden forth in many Warnings and Declarations, etc.  
What though it be lawful in some cases to capitulate, yea with Turks and Pagans, shall it therefore be lawful to do that which may argue subjection, and imply submission unto a perfidious enemy, who are going about to drive the People of the Land from their former duty, etc. In this case, all and every one are called unto the asserting of the Confession of their Faith, and of their own innocency and righteousness touching the Realm of England. Neither can we judge any better of protections from such an enemy, because they do employ the authority of one who is forfeit by the State, & excommunicate by the Kirk, and do either expressly of tacitly engage the Receivers, if not to join, yet to resist: they lay a stumbling block before all the Inhabitants of the Land, to make them forbear action, or decline suffering, by following such a course: If all had done so, it may soon be fore-seen what should have been the end: though happily they who were the doers, were not so apprehensive, as to reach the depth of the evil, yet the end of the work in itself, and in the intention of enemies, was to make them Masters of all the lives and estates within the Land.  
Capitulations and protections, howsoever accounted of by those who walk after the wisdom of the flesh, are destructive to our Covenant, almost in all the heads and Articles thereof: They tend unto the corrupting of Religion in this Land, and obstructing the Work of Reformation in England unto the countenancing and strengthening of the Popish and Prelatical party, unto the subversion of the due rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and diminishing of his Majesty's just greatness and authority unto the withdrawing of Incendiaries and Malignants from condign punishment unto the overthrow of the Union betwixt the Kingdoms, unto the deserting of our brethren, following of divisive motions, and denying to hazard or suffer the loss either of lives or estates in the defence of the cause, and them that adhere thereunto. We see not not any strength of reason in that seeming necessity, unto which many pretend themselves to be redacted: If men could not have retired from the fury and violence of the Enemy, or had not some probable way of resistance and defence against the same, they should have taken it as an evidence of the will of God calling them to suffer and give a testimony unto this Truth. Our Covenant doth no less oblige us to suffering, then to doing; and it is the ignorance or ineffectual consideration of our duty that makes us thus to wipe our mouths as if we had done nothing worthy of rebuke: Neither yet doth it excuse, that some were not active to ob ain protections the receiving of them was to prostitute the chastity of that affection which we own unto the cause of God, and could be no better than a bribe that blinds the eyes of the wise, & hinders from doing judgement unto to afflicted.  
The deep apprehension of their souls danger, moves us seriously and in the bowels of Jesus Christ, to entreat all Temporizers and Backsliders to remember whence they are fallen and to repent: Let it not be a light thing unto such that they have despised the Oath of God, undervalved the precious Truth of the Gospel, and drawn upon themselves the guilt of their Brethrens-bloud by forsaking them in their just de●ence. If the due sense of their sin shall bring them to lament after the Lord, they may hope to find him gracious and merciful, to forgive their iniquity and heal their back-slidings: But if they shall harden themselves, and continue in their provocation, they have cause of fear, that the Lord of Hosts shall avenge the quarrel of his Covenant upon them who have sworn falsely by his Name.   

THe Estates of Parliament convened in the first Session of the triennall Parliament of Scotland, having heard the Declaration presented unto them by the Commissioners of the General Assembly read in their audience, received the same cheerfully, and Ordered the same to be forthwith printed and published.  
SIGNED, Alex. Gibsone Cler. Registri.  
FINIS.