Page:Brief historical relation of the life of Mr. John Livingston Minister of the Gospel.pdf/40

( 40 ) Caſſils, Brody, and Alexander Jaffray I had no exception againſt. The other three I ſuſpected would be more ready to condeſcend to an agreement upon unſafe terms. Lothian I had found two years before Anno 164S. when the Weſt roſe againſt the Engagers returning home from England, that he was very diſſatſfied with their riſing, and he was many ways involved, with the marquis of Argyle, who of a long time had been, very entire with William Murray, and Sir Robert Murray, negotiators for the king, and who, 'tis thought, put him in hope, that the king might marry his daughter. Libertoun had been long with the king at Jerſay and brought the overture of the treaty, and in all his diſcourſes gave evidence of a moſt earneſt deſire, upon any terms to have the king brought home; whereupon it is like, he thought he would have a chief ſhare of the thanks, Sir John Smith had tampered with James Graham 1645, and was a man of no great ability; and what ability he had, I ſuſpected would not be well employed. The third reaſon was, when I looked upon the whole busineſs, the terms whereupon the king was to be admitted to his government, upon his bare ſubſeribing and ſwearing ſome words, without any evidence that it was done from the heart, I ſuſpected it might prove a deſign for promoting a malignant intered, to the prejudice of the work of God, and that our nobles who had power in their hands, fearing if matters went on as formerly, that they might be levelled, and knowing that many in the kingdom would be ready to receive the king upon any terms, whom poſſibly, the malignants might bring home without them, and knowing that after ſo many backſlidings, the well affected were but few, and many of them simple, and all of them deſirous to give the king all his due, religion and liberty being ſecured, they thought it ſafeſt to have the king, not looking much what might have been the conſequence. For theſe reaſons I was fully reſolved to have gone home, and taken my hazard of any cenſure of the kirk for my diſobedience; eſpecially when I perceived that ſundry well affected, whoſe judgment I much reverenced, had great fears of the iſſue of the treaty; but according as my nature is blunt, and ready to yield, chiefly to thoſe whom