hat would you do if this were proponed to you? Why may
not you suffer the enemy to abide within the town? We shall take all
their weapons from them, they shall never hurt you any more. Would ye
not think it far better to put them out of the town altogether; both
because the inhabitants would be in fear, so long as they were in the
town, and because the town would never be sure: for there might be
traitors among yourselves, who would steal in weapons for their hands;
and so they would bring you under the former tyranny, yea under a
greater. Even so it is in this case; the crudest and greatest enemies
that ever the kirk of Scotland saw are those prelates; they have spoiled
us of all our liberties, and exercised intolerable tyranny over us. Now
the Lord is shewing a way how to be quit of them: consider the condition
offered. What ails you? May ye not let them abide within the kirk: we
shall take all their weapons from them; as admission of ministers,
excommunication, and that terrible high commission; they shall never
hurt you again. This is but the counsel of man; the counsel of God is,
to put them out of the kirk altogether, otherwise the kirk can never be
secure; yea, I assure you, there are as many traitors among ourselves,
as would steal in the weapons again in their hands; then shall our
latter estate be worse than our first: if our yoke be heavy under them
now, it shall be heavier then; if they chastise us now with whips, they
shall chastise us then with scorpions. I think I hear men speak like
that word, "Hew down the tree, cut down his branches, shake off his
leaves, scatter his fruits; nevertheless leave the stump of his roots
with a band of iron and brass." The interpretation of that part of the
vision is set down in the 26th verse; "Thy kingdom shall be sure unto
thee, after that thou hast known that the heavens bear rule." I hear men
say, Hew down the tree, cut off his branches, shake off his leaves,
scatter his fruits; ye shall be quit of all that; but the stump must be
left banded with iron. (If it were till they knew God, it were
something, but there is no appearance of that.) Consider, O man, who
saith that. "No man, but the watcher, and the holy One, even He that
made Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom sure to him." If God had made this estate
sure to them, it would and should stand; and if God would bind down the
stump of it with iron bands, we would never fear the growth of it, nor
the fruit of it; but seeing they