The Scots Worthies - Their Lives and Testimonies, Including Many Additional Notes, and Lives of Eminent Worthies Not Contained in the Original Collection #260766

The primate was gone, but the evil he did lived after him; for the edict he had drafted only a few days before his death, ratified by the king, was added to the already long list of cruel and oppressive statutes under which the country groaned. That edict ern powered judges, officers, and even sergeants, to put to instant death as traitors all whom they found going with arms to field meetings. After this field meetings, if held at all, could be held only in thousands. The assembly must be a camp as well as a congregation, and its members must come prepared not only to wor ship, but, if need were, to fight. In short, the field preaching now developed into the armed conventicle, and thus were the Covenanters forced by the government into a state of incipient war.