more influential of the party, concerning the testimonies of some of the martyrs lately executed ; when, it is said, he refreshed them much, by showing them how much he was grieved to hear these martyrs disdainfully spoken of; how much he was offended with some that attended the curates, pled for the paying of cess, and for owning and defending the authority of the tyrant, and how much he longed to see a formal testimony lifted up against all those, with their attendant defections. On the 15th of December, in the same year in which Mr Cargill suffered, his adherents held their first general meeting, at which was drawn up the paper, known by the name of The Lanark Declaration, from the place where it was proclaimed, on the 12th day of January, 1682. Mr Renwick was not the writer of this document, some parts of which he always allowed to be "inconsiderately worded;" but he was one of the party who proclaimed it, and at the same time burnt the test, and the act of succession of the duke of York to the crown.
The boldness of this declaration, which embraced both the Rutherglen and Sanquhar declarations, emitted in the years 1679 and 1680, and declared the whole acts of the government of Charles Stuart, from his restoration in 1660, down to that day, to be utterly illegal, as emanating from a pure usurpation upon the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and many of them, in their own nature, tyrannical, and cruel in the highest degree, astonished their enemies, and astounded not a few of their best friends, who, to correct the unfavourable reports concerning them, which, through the malice of their enemies, were circulated among the churches of the low countries, found it necessary to commission Gordon of Earlston to the United Provinces, to state their case as it actually stood, and to solicit that compassion and sympathy which was denied them by their own countrymen. Earlston met with a very favourable reception; and it was proposed, seeing the universities in Scotland were closed against all such as were desirous of maintaining a clear conscience, to hare students educated under the eye of these churches at their universities, who might be ordained to the work of the ministry, and that there should thus be a succession of faithful labourers kept up for the benefit of the present and of future generations. This proposal was at once embraced by the societies, as the only probable method of being supplied with a dispensation of gospel ordinances; and Mr Renwick, along with some others, was accordingly sent over, and admitted into the university of Groningen. After he had attended six months, the progress he had made was such, together with the urgency of the case, (for the societies had not so much as one preacher all this time,) that it was thought proper he should be ordained, and sent back to his native land. He was, accordingly, after no little trouble, through the interest of Mr Robert Hamilton, who was well known there, ordained by the classes of Groningen; when, longing to employ any little talent he possessed for the advancement of the cause of Christ, and the benefit of his suffering people, he proceeded to Rotterdam, intending to avail himself of the first opportunity of a ship going for Scotland. Finding a ship ready to sail, Mr Renwick embarked at the Brill for his native country; but, after being some time on board, he was so much annoyed by some profane passengers, that he left the vessel, and entered another that was going to Ireland. In consequence of a violent storm, the vessel put into tle harbour of Rye, in England, where he was in no small danger from the noise and disturbance created at the time by the Rye-house plot He, however, got safely off, and, after a tedious and stormy passage, was landed at Dublin. In a short time he embarked for Scotland, and with no little difficulty and danger, succeeded in landing on the west coast of that kingdom, where he commenced those weary wanderings which were to
