Macward understood that what had given offence was the use he had
made, in his sermon, of the words "protest" and "dissent," he did
not hesitate to explain he did not mean thereby a legal impugning of
the acts, or authority of parliament, but "a mere ministerial
testimony" against what he conceived to be sin. Macward retired to
Holland.

After repeated applications from Charles the Second, the States
General, on the 6th of February, 1677, ordered Mr. Macward, and
other two Scottish exiles, to withdraw from the Seven Provinces of
the Netherlands (Dr. M'Crie's Mem. of Veitch and Brysson, p. 367).
That the States came to this determination with very great
reluctance, will appear from the following passage in one of Sir
William Temple's Letters: "I will only say that the business of the
three Scotch ministers hath been the hardest piece of negotiation
that I ever yet entered upon here, both from the particular interest
of the towns and provinces of Holland, and the general esteem they
have of Mackand [Macward] being a very quiet and pious man" (Vol. i.
p. 291). It is creditable to the good feeling, though not certainly
to the firmness of the States General that at the time they
determined to require Macward and his two friends to leave the Seven
Provinces, they voluntarily furnished them with a certificate
bearing that each of them had lived among them "highly esteemed for
his probity, submission to the laws, and integrity of manners" (Dr.
M'Crie's Mem. of Veitch and Brysson, p. 368). He was afterwards
permitted to return to Rotterdam, where he had been officiating as
minister of the Scottish Church at the time he was ordered to remove
out of the country. He died there in the month of December, 1681.
Dr. Steven's "History of the Scottish Church, at Rotterdam", p.
336.--_Ed._]

88 [In his very interesting "History of the Scottish Church,
Rotterdam," Dr. Steven mentions (p. 72) that Mr. James Koelman was
deprived of his charge at Sluys in Flanders, for refusing to observe
the festival days and to comply with the formularies of the Dutch
church. He appears to have been a very conscientious and pious man.
Among the Wodrow MSS in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates
Edinburgh (Vol. ix., Numb. 28) there is a copy of "A R