affirmed, that the religious aspect
of the country had undergone an unhappy change, in the course of the
two preceding years. "If we look back," it is said, p. 3 "to that
which we have already attained of the work of Reformation,
(notwithstanding our short-coming in the power and practice of
godliness,) what purity was there of worship, what soundness of
doctrine, unity of faithful pastors, order and authority of
assemblies, what endeavours for promoting the power of godliness,
for purging of the ministry, judicatories and armies, and for
employing such in places of power and trust as were of constant
integrity and good affection to the cause, and of blameless
conversation? And again, if we consider how in place of these,
within these two years, have succeeded, for unity, division, for
order, confusion, for purity of worship, outward contempt; for the
power of godliness, atheism and profaneness; for purging of the
ministry, judicatories and armies, sinful mixtures; for zeal,
lukewarmness and toleration,--it is too palpable that we are far gone
on in the way of declining, having lost much of that which we had
attained, and that which remains being ready to die."--_Ed._]

272 [The author and the other protesters disapproved not only of the
proceedings of the civil and ecclesiastical judicatures, but of the
composition of these courts, after the act of classes had been
rescinded on the 30th of May, 1651. In consequence of the repeal of
this act, they who, on account of what was in the language of the
times called malignancy, had formerly been excluded from their
places in the Scottish parliament, were allowed to take possession
of their seats, by signing a bond, the terms of which the parliament
prescribed. This the protesters considered to be wrong as a matter
both of policy and principle. They likewise declared the assembly,
which in July, 1651, met at St. Andrews, and afterwards adjourned to
Dundee, and also that which was held in Edinburgh, in July, 1652, to
be "unlawful and corrupt," adding, that "although with the renewing
of the national covenant, and with the casting out of prelates, and
the corruptions introduced by them, the Lord was graciously pleased
to give repentance to not a few who were involved in that defectio