Tyrants & their Emissaries, by Emoluments which they
require & exact, and that professedly, for promoting their
accursed projects; And will justify Consciencious suffe∣rers,
for refuseing to pay these impositions. And this will
the more appear, if we adde some more of his pithie ex∣pressions
in the same place, clearing the subject he is upon,
and answering an objection, what poor people might do,
when compelled to give obedience to all their Rulers de∣manded?
Ye may saith that Author, without sedition
withhold the fruits & profits, which your false Bishops &
Clergy most unjustly received of yow: Upon which he
subjoins the preceeding Arguments.
Yet now a dayes
these have no weight, but such as refuse either to pay Op∣pressors
exactions, or
Curats stipends, are condemned
for giddy fools. Again we find, that when they were
challenged for duty, they would never decline a declara∣tion
of its righteousness, nor do any thing directly or in∣directly
which might seem a condemning of it. And there∣fore
they wold receive no
pardons for these things which
they could not confess to be
offences. Iohn Knox, chal∣lenged
for offending the Queen, had her promise, that
if he would confess an offence, his greatest punishment
should be, but to go within the Castle of
Edinburgh,
and immediatly to return to his own house; he re∣fused
absolutely. But now, if our
Pardon-mongers & pru∣dent
men had been so circumstantiate, surely they could
have helped themselves with their distinctions, they might
confess & be pardoned for offending the Queen, thô not
confess it to be a fault in their Conscience: But
Mr Knox
had not learned that then. When they were pursuing the
Murder of King
Henry of
Darnely, the Queen finding her
self not strong enough, offers to forgive & pardon that
insurection: The Earle of
Morton, in name of all the rest,
did not only refuse a Cessation, but told her they would
not ask a pardon. But now sufferers, for refusing of these
base & unmanly aswell as unchristian Complyances, are
much condemned. Finally, because this strictness, espe∣cially
in their severity against their Enemies, may be ac∣cused
of
Iewish rigidity, inconsistent with a Gospel Spirit