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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43666	Ravillac redivivus, being a narrative of the late tryal of Mr. James Mitchel, a conventicle-preacher, who was executed the 18th of January last, for an attempt which he made on the sacred person of the Archbishop of St. Andrews to which is annexed, an account of the tryal of that most wicked pharisee Major Thomas Weir, who was executed for adultery, incest and bestiality : in which are many observable passages, especially relating to the present affairs of church and state / in a letter from a Scottish to an English gentleman.	Mitchel, James, d. 1678, defendant.; Hickes, George, 1642-1715.; Weir, Thomas, 1600?-1670, defendant.	1678 (1678)	Wing H1860; ESTC R10945	57,651	80

with many more and that in such an Extraordinary dreadful and terrible manner for my engaging to Prelacy and a Lordly Government over the Church of Christ contrary to which there lie so many ties and obligations on this Land that with the Grace of God I would not adventure to abide the terror of the Lord for all the stipends and preferments in Europe And truly the worst I wish to you or any Prelate in Britain or Ireland or their adherents is that they may have as sound a yokeing with their Consciences as I have had if they be not incorrigible Enemies of Christ Next upon serious search of the word of God and of Antiquity I am the more confirm'd in my Resolution Blondellus Salmatius Gerson Bucer yea the whole current of Primitive Fathers especially Smectymnuus have vindicated Presbytery against the whole World I want not many more solid Reasons to add only I suppose I could never be satisfied in them and therefore I forbear To conclude I do here before God and the whole World profess my disowning of Lordly Prelacy as it is now Established in our Land which I was once most fully engag'd into and my firm and resolute adherence to the Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government of the Church of Scotland as it was professed in this Nation from the year of our Lord 205. and downward for the space of 230 years and then since the year 1580. till the year 1610. and then from the year 1638. till the year 1661. and from thence downwards by many Godly in these three Lands till this very day is and more particularly to the point that Government of Christs Church by an equality and parity of Pastors and Ministers all of them with one shoulder carrying on the work of the Lord and exercising the Keyes of Order and Jurisdiction Doctrine and Discipline in Communi according to due Order and feeding the flock of God not as being Lords of Gods Heritage but ensamples to the flock yea I do here with all the Lords faithful Servants and Witnesses in these three Lands both in the present and some former Generations and with all the Lords Witnessing and Suffering Servants and people that have heen or now are in this Land or present Generation confess and bear my Witness and Testimony the cause of God and work of Reformation so much as was attained thereof how afflicted and born down now soever and to the confessions of Faith of the Church of Scotland and of the three Kingdoms and to the rational and trinational Covenant and that I do rather choose to suffer affliction with the poor suffering people of God then to enjoy the pleasures of Sin for a season esteeming the reproaches for Christ greater riches than all the pleasures and preferments in the World I desire you with your Brethren to consider those Scriptures and take them home to you Isa 66. 5. Zachary 11. 5. John 16. 2 3. John 9. 1 10. Remember your worthy Bedfellow that is this day I hope in glory shall bear Witness against you Farewell for ever Lordly Prelacy for I had never a joyful hour since I engaged therein and welcome welcome my dear Lord Jesus Christ I embrace thee with the arms of my Soul and thy Cross I profess this confess thee bearing my Testimony to thee and thy persecuted Truth and by thy blood and the word of thy Testimony and not loving my life unto the death I hope to overcome Cambre-Ile August 6. 1677. Sic subscribit Alex. Symer Minister of the Gospel at Cambre Unless you are vers'd in our Historian Buchanan you will wonder why this Learned Antiquarian should assert That the Government of our Church was Presbyterian from the first Plantation of the Gospel in 205. or rather 203. till the arrival of Palladius in the middle of the Fifth Century You must know therefore that all the Authority our Presbyterians have for this assertion is from Buchanan that furious Enemy of Bishops who in the Fifth Book of his History writes that the Church in the aforesaid time was not governed by Bishops but by the Monks or Culdees which were it true as it is false would prove that the Government of the Church in that interval was not Presbyteterian but perfectly Laical seeing it was long after that time that Monks were admitted among the Clergy and permitted to meddle with Church affairs But you may find a larger confutation of this groundless assertion of Buchanan in Archbishop Spotswoods History in the seven first Pages of the First Book But to continue my Narrative of Mr. Mitchel I proceed to acquaint you with other memorable things that happen'd between his Condemnation and Execution which was on Friday the 18. of January last in the Grass-market about Three of the Clock in the Afternoon Some time before the execution the Reverend Mr. Annand Dean of Edinburgh not discourag'd with the unthankful returns one of his Brethren had receiv'd from the Malefactor before out of his tender compassion to his Soul wrote him a very affectionate and pious Letter wherein he endeavour'd to shew him from the Gospel how contrary his Principles and Practices were to the Doctrine of Christianity and exhorted him to Repentance for that Un-christian attempt by which he design'd to take away the Life of one Sacred Person and grievously wounded another c. to all which he return'd this Answer SIR I Received yours and since my time is very short and so very pretious I can only thank you for your Civility and Affection whether real or pretended and I tell you I truly close with all the precepts of the Gospel to Love and Peace and therefore pray I both for Mr. Sharp and you But knowing both Mr. Sharp's Wickedness and my own sincerity and the Lord 's Holy Soveraignty to use his Creatures as he pleases I can only refer the manifestation of my Fact to the day of God's Righteous and Universal Judgement praying heartily that God may have mercy on you and open your eyes to see both the wickedness of all your ways and of your Godless insulting over an unjustly condemn'd dying Man and grant unto you repentance and remission of your sins I am in this your well-wisher James Mitchel The Dean in his Letter urged an excellent argument to convince him that the impulse which was upon him so many years to assassin the Primate could not come from God like the Impulse of Phineas and the Zealots because he fail'd in the attempt which never any person did or could do that was moved by God to do an Heroick Act. But you see the blind Pseudo-Zealot takes no notice of this Argument in his Answer wherein to shew what an implacable enemy he was to the Office as well as the Person of the Archbishop he mentions his Grace not by his Character but by his Name Having been told in the Prison that he would not be permitted to speak to the People before his Execution he transcribed

true this Hypothesis will never be able to solve those Diabolical Phaenomena in the Air. Some again think that the words and expressions of his Prayer were represented by the Devil upon the Stage of his Fancy after the same manner as when a man dreams he reads such a Letter or Book But he never was affected with any Consternations Tremblings or Abreptions of mind which both in true and false Prophets were the constant effects of such strong and violent impressions as were required to exhibit such unwonted representations upon the Imagination nor after his long Prayers were ended were his natural strength or Spirits exhausted as if his Devotion had been Visionary they must have been Others therefore considering him as an Apostate from God and as a Vassal and Apostle of the Devil think it very agreeable to Divinity to assert that he was immediately but yet without much violence inspired by the Devil and helped by him both in the Conception and utterance of his Prayers This they conceive the Evil Spirit might do like an assistant form by impregnating his Fancy with Enthusiastical conceptions and thereby rendring his Imagination very turgent and ready to swell above its banks which being done by the immediate Operation of the Evil Spirit the wretched 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could not fail to burst forth in flumine Orationis or a full Torrent of Prayer and likewise be affected with such moderate Raptures as yet left him in a condition to understand what he said Furthermore to prevent all possible objections they say That if God suffered the Devil to counterfeit Prophetical Visions or the true Spirit of Prophecy under the Law then they know no reason why it should be thought inconsistent with his goodness or disagreable to his infinite wisdom to permit him under the Gospel to counterfeit Inspiration or the true Spirit of Prayer But for my own part had not the Monster himself ascribed his fluency in Devotion to the assistance of the Devil I should have wholly ascribed it to the vigour of his own Enthusiastical Imagination without any Foreign Force For not only his fluency in Prayer but the moderate Raptures and little extatic fits into which he was Transported are explicable by the natural power of unassisted Imagination as I could make it out by many examples and where a natural cause alone is sufficient to account for any effect I am always sparing to joyn with it a supernatural Cause All the while he was in Prison he lay under violent apprehension of the heavy Wrath of God which put him into that which is properly called Despair a Despair which made him hate God and desist from Duty to him and with which the Damned Souls in Hell are reasonably supposed to be constantly affected In this sence he was desperate and therefore would admit neither Church nor Conventicle-ministers to pray for him or discourse with him about the infinite mercy of God and the possibility of the forgiveness of his Sins Much less could he endure to be exhorted to repent or be brought to entertain any thoughts of Repentance telling all the World that he had sinned himself beyond all possibility of Repentance and Pardon that he was already damn'd that he was sure his Condemnation to Eternal burnings was already pronounced in Heaven and that the united Prayers of all the Saints in Heaven and Earth would be vain and insignificant if they were offered to God in his behalf So that when some charitable Ministers of the City by name the present Bishop of Galloway and present Dean of Edinburgh were resolved to Pray before him for his Repentance and Pardon against his consent he was with much difficulty withheld from interrupting of them in their devotions and the posture he put himself in when they began to pray was to lye upon his Bed in a most stupid manner with his Mouth wide open and when Prayers were ended being ask'd if he had heard them and attended to them he told them They were very troublesome and cruel to him and that he neither heard their devotion nor cared for it nor could be the better for all the Prayers that Men or Angels could offer up to Heaven upon his account It was his Interest to believe there was no God and therefore to ease the torments of his mind he attempted now and then to comfort and flatter up himself into this absurd belief For he was sometimes observ'd to speak very doubtfully about his existence in particular to say that if it were not for the terrors which he found tormenting him within he should scarce believe there was a God Being with great tenderness and compassion besought by one of the City-Ministers that he would not so resolvedly destroy himself by despairing of God's Mercy which upon Repentance had been granted to Murtherers Adulterers Sodomists Bestialists nay to those that had denyed Christ he replyed in anger Trouble me no more with your beseeching of me to Repent for I know my sentence of damnation is already seal'd in Heaven and I feel my self so hardned within that if I might obtain Pardon of God and all the Glories of Heaven for a single wish that I had not committed the sins with the sence whereof I am so tormented yet I could not prevail with my self to make that single wish And were your Soul in my Soul's stead you would find your exhortations impertinent and troublesome for I find nothing within me but blackness and darkness Brimstone and burning to the bottom of Hell I have been told by very credible Persons that the Body of this unclean Beast gave manifest tokens of its impurity as soon as it began to be heated by the Flames and certain it is that after it was burnt a report was presently sent from hence to the Brethren in the West that the Malefactor who was burnt for such execrable crimes was not Major Weir but another Person who exactly resembled him and whom the wicked Prelates and Curates had bribed to personate the Godly Major who was said to be gone with a contribution to the exiled Brethren in Holland and call himself by his name This report was believed in the West for several Months till time discover'd that the Major was no more As for Jane this incarnate Devils Sister she was very insensible of her great sins and was so far from remorse of conscience for them and despairing of the mercy of God as she did that she presum'd too much upon it placing a great deal of confidence in her constant adherence to the Covenant which she call'd in her Brother Mitchel's style the Cause and Interest of Christ She confessed indeed as he did that her sins deserv'd a worse death than she was condemn'd to dye but she never shewed her self in the least concern'd for what might ensue after death When she was upon the Ladder she bespoke the people in the following words I see a great croud of People come hither to day to