s observe) and yet it had no
effect; for Mr. Sharp and his friends resolved now to be rid, as much as
they could, of the most eminent of the presbyterian minsters; and
therefore he behoved to be banished, which was the highest thing they
could go to, unless they had taken his life. Upon the 5th or 6th of
July, the parliament gave him for answer, "That they pass sentence of
banishment upon the supplicant, allowing him six months to tarry in the
nation; one of which only in Glasgow, with power to him to receive the
following year's stipend at departure."

His Master having work for him elsewhere, he submitted to the sentence,
and transported himself and his family to Rotterdam, where for a while,
upon the death of the reverend Mr. Alexander Petrie (author of the
compendious church history), he was employed as minister of the Scots
congregation there, to the no small edification of many; and that not
only to such as were fled hither from the rage and fury of the bloody
persecutors, but also to those who resorted to him and Mr. Brown, for
their advice in difficult cases, in carrying on and bearing up a
faithful testimony against both right and left-hand extremes, with every
other prevailing corruption, and defection in that day, it being a day
_of treading down in the valley of vision_.

Thither the rage of his persecutors followed him, even in a strange
land; for about the end of the year 1676, the king by the influence of
primate Sharp, wrote to the state-general to cause remove James Wallace,
Robert M'Ward, and John Brown, out of their provinces. But the states,
considering that Messrs. M'Ward and Brown had already submitted unto the
Scots law, and received the sentence of banishment, during life, out of
the king's dominion, and having come under their protection, could not
be imposed on to remove them out of these provinces, or be any further
disquieted; and for this end sent a letter to their ambassador at the
court of England, to signify the same to his majesty.

After this, this famous man was concerned in ordaining worthy and
faithful Mr. Richard Cameron, when in Holland in the year 1679, and
afterwards sent him home with positive instructions to lift and bear up
a free and faithful standard against every defection and encroachment
made upon the church of Christ in these lands, and particularly the
indulgences, against which Mr. M'Ward never failed to give a free and
faithful testimony, as is evident from several