“I being a minister of Jesus Christ,
and having authority and power from Him, do in His name,
and by His spirit, excommunicate Charles the Second, King,
etc., and that upon the account of these wickednesses :
“1. For his high mocking of God, in that after he had
acknowledged his own sins, his father’s sins, his mother’s
idolatry, and had solemnly engaged against them, in a
declaration at Dunfermline, the 15th day of August 1650 he
hath, notwithstanding of all this gone on more avowedly in
these sins than all that went before him.”
“2. For his great perjury, after he had twice at least
solemnly subscribed that Covenant, he did so
presumptuously renounce, disown, and command it to be
burned by the hand of the hangman.”
“3. Because he hath rescinded all laws for establishing of
that religion and reformation engaged to in that Covenant,
and enacted, laws for establishing its contrary; and is
still working for the introducing of Popery into these
lands.”
“4. For commanding of armies to destroy the Lord’s people,
who were standing in their own just defence, and for their
privileges and rights, against tyrannies, oppressions, and
injuries of men; and for the blood he hath shed, in
fields, on scaffolds, and in seas, of the people of God,
upon account of religion and righteousness (they being
most willing in all other things, to render him obedience,
if he had reigned and ruled them according to his Covenant
and oath, more than all the kings that have been before
him in Scotland).”
“5. That he hath been still an enemy to, a persecutor of,
the true Protestants, a favourer and helper of the
Papists, both at home and abroad, and hath hindered to the
utmost of his power, the due execution of just laws
against them.”
“6. For his relaxing of the kingdom, by his frequent grant
of remissions and pardons for murderers (which is in the
power of no king to do being expressly contrary to the law
of God), which was the ready way to embolden men in
committing of murders, to the defiling of the land with
blood.”
“Lastly, To pass by all other things, his great and
dreadful uncleanness of adultery and incest, his
drunkenness, his dissembling with God and man; and
performing his promises where his engagements were
sinful.”

“Next, by the same authority and in the
same name, I excommunicate, cast out of the true Church.
and deliver up to Satan, James Duke of York. And that for
his idolatry (for I shall not speak of any other sins, but
what have been perpetrated by him in Scotland), and for
setting up idolatry in Scotland, to defile the Lord’s
land, and his enticing and encouraging others to do so.”

“Next, In the same name and by the same
authority, I excommunicate, and cast out of the true
Church, and deliver up to Satan, James Duke of Monmouth,
for coming into Scotland, upon his father’s unjust
command, and leading armies against the Lords people who
were constrained to rise, being killed and for the right
worshipping of the true God: and for his refusing that
morning at BothweII Bridge a cessation of arms, for
hearing and redressing their injuries, wrongs, and
oppressions.

“Next, I do by virtue of the same
authority, and in the same name, excommunicate, cast our
of the true Church, and deliver up to Satan, John Duke of
Lauderdale, for his dreadful blasphemy, especially that
word to the prelate of St Andrews :—“ Sit thou at my right
hand

“Next, I do, by virtue of the same
authority, and in the same name, cast out of the true
Church, and deliver up to Satan, John Duke of Rothes, for
his perjury, in the matter of Mr James Mitchell and for
his adulteries and uncleanness; for allotting the Lord’s
day for his drunkenness : for his professing and avowing
his readiness and willingness to set up Popery in this
land at the king’s command; and for the heathenish,
barbarous, and unheard of cruelty (whereof he was the
chief author, contriver, and commander, notwithstanding
that he had otherwise engaged lately) to that worthy
gentleman David Hackston of Rathillet; and lastly, for his
ordinary cursing, swearing, and drunkenness.”

“Next, I do, by virtue of the same
authority, and in the same name, excommunicate, cast our
of the true Church, and deliver up to Satan,
Sir George
Mackenzie, the king’s advocate; for his apostacy, In
turning into a profligateness of conversation, after he
had begun a profession of holiness : for his constant
pleading against, and persecuting to death, the people of
God, and alleging and laying to their charge, things,
which in his conscience he knew to be against the Word of
God, truth, reason, and the ancient laws of this kingdom:
and his pleading for sorcerers, murderers, and other
criminals, that before God, and by the laws of the land,
ought to die; for his ungodly, erroneous, phantastic and
blasphemous tenets, printed to the world in his pamphlets
and pasquils.”

“And lastly, I do, by virtue of the
same authority, and in the same name, excommunicate, cast
out of the the Church and deliver up to Satan. Thomas
Dalziel of Binns, etc.; for his leading armies, and
commanding the killing, robbing, pillaging, and oppressing
of the Lords people, and free subjects of this kingdom;
and for executing of lawless tyrannies and lustful laws;
for his commanding to shoot at a post one Finlay at
Newmilns, without any form of law, civil or military, he
not being guilty of anything that they themselves counted
a crime for his lewd and impious life, led in adultery and
uncleanness from his youth, with a contempt of marriage,
which is the ordinance of God; for all his other
atheistical and irreligious conversation and lastly, for
his unjust usurping and retaining of the estate of that
worthy gentleman William Mure of Caldwell, and his

“I think, none that acknowledge the
Word, can judge their sentences to be unjust; yet some, it
may be, to flatter the powers, will call them unorderly
and unformal, there not being warning given, nor probation
led. But for answer, there has been warning given, if not
of all these things, at least of a great part of them: and
for probation, there needs none, the deeds being notour
and public, and the most of them, such as they themselves
do avow and boast of. And as the causes are just, so,
being done by a minister of the Gospel, and in such a way
as the present persecution would admit of, the sentence is
just and there are no kings nor ministers on earth, who,
without repentance of the persons, can reverse these
sentences upon any (such) account: God, who is the Author
of that ordinance, Is the more engaged to the ratifying of
them ; and all that acknowledge the Scriptures, ought to
acknowledge them. Yet some, perchance will think, that
though they be not unjust, yet that they are foolishly
rigorous. We shall answer nothing to this but that Word,
which We may speak with much more reason than they did who
used it,