as it did formerly in King Charles the First 's time when one of the Bishops began to read the Common-Prayer which she called Popery Pag. 28. Is it not as lawful for the Scots Presbyterians to pray against the English Hierarchy as Antichristian As for the English Clergy and Prelates too to Plot drink and plead in their Sessions at the Devil against the Scots Presbyterie And I believe they would pray against it also but that they have not a Form for it To suppose that the banihing the Prelatical Scots Clergy was not encouraged by Authority is Ignorance and Sawciness for it 's plain Authority in Scotland has done what was proper for a Civil Government to do viz. They have declared the Hierarchy Antihumane that is contrary to the peoples Inclination and I suppose are so good natur'd to wish their Neighbours were rid of it too and so much the rather that they have so often found and do still find them imposing Sawcy Intrigues against the Kingdom of Scotland wherein if they persist it may perhaps and let them blame themselves for it prove as fatal to them as it did in the days of Dr. Laud. Well here 's a severe and open threatning England then look to it The Scots Presbyterians are sworn in their Holy Covenant to reform Britain and Ireland though it be by Club Law and let them but have Power according to their Will and they will soon visit you once more for all your Goods Pag. 29. The Bishops are generally found to be against that which is for the Nations good and howsoever the late opposition which they made to the late King may be magnified they seem quickly to have repented of it But supposing they had continued stedfast yet whatever good Nature might have done I am sure Justice would not have awarded them any thanks which will appear undeniably true if we consider among many other things which he instances how most of the Bishops opposed the reversing of the Judgment of Perjury given against Dr. Oates who did the Nation more service than Seven Idolized Stars so many of whom are now turned dark Lanthorns Nor can it ever be forgot how many of the inferior Clergy following the Conduct of their Tripple-headed Guide advanced the Interest of the Tripple-Crown and some of them topping ones too at the hour of death grated with their slavish nonsensical Doctrine of Resistance upon the Consciences of the Noble Hero's and Darlings of the People the Lord Russel and Duke of Monmouth upon the very Scaffolds and if the contrary Doctrine be damnable as they alledged then I am sure their Church hath been guilty of damnable Practices since This is the Charity that the New Gospel Professors have to the Church of England which the whole Christian World besides them doth so justly honour and esteem upon the account of their Government Worship Doctrine and Practice which their Phanatical Neighbours so maliciously censure and blaspheme Well but say they the Church of England is still labouring under much Romish Superstition and Idolatry and which is worse she is Papaprelatical nay she is Archipapaprelatical and that 's Antihumane in the New Gospel phrase But I hope they will be kind at least to their Brethren of the Presbyterian Church beyond Sea Are not the Dutch and French Presbyterians Is not the Mother Church of Geneva throughly reformed No no they have never set up the Solemn League and Covenant for their Standard Or to speak in the Authors own words pag. 27. They are strangers to the power of Godliness because not knowing how to pray without they must have recourse to a Form which is as unreasonable and unnatural an imposition upon the Strong especially on Ministers as would be the imposing of Crutches upon the adult and able part of Mankind who can walk better without them Well Christ prescribed a Form of Prayer to his Disciples the first and all the succeeding Ages of the Church thought it not only convenient but necessary to use Forms in Publick Worship but alas the Disciples themselves and all preceding Christians are but weak unable Infants in respect of the adult strong and covenanted Professors of the new Gospel in the West of Scotland The next famous Author is Mr. Rule who calls himself a Doctor of Medicine for they never pretended to have any in Divinity in his Second Vindication of the Kirk of Scotland he says pag. 113. That it is an unfair injurious and false Imputation to charge the severity of the Stile of this Author upon the Presbyterians who he says disown that Stile it being written by a Cameronian while they stood at a distance from the sober Presbyterians however those whom he calls Sober Presbyterians have never yet by any publick deed condemned that Book nor any other of the Barbarities of these unsober Cameronian Presbyterians but have on the contrary received them into their Communion without the least acknowledgment of any such Crimes and Dr. Rule that I may not offend him calls them the Zealous Party and represents them as pretty gentle in that they made it their work only to deprive and not to Murther the Episcopal Ministers pag. 125. Altho' the Doctor knows that Instances can be given of some Ministers that were even Murthered by that Zealous Party not long ago and himself owns in the beginning of his Post-script that five Men and six Women Presbyterians came to the House of William Ferguson Minister of Kilpatrick and because he would not alter his manner of Praying and come out of his House as they had charged him they therefore invaded his House tore off his Cloaths and beat him on the Head and Legs which lookt but too like a design to Murther him Several other things of this Nature were so notorious that his ridiculous way of disguising when he cannot deny them must needs satisfie the World of the certain truth of the Accounts that have been given by the Eye-witnesses and Sufferers in that Persecution Upon which Consideration Mr. Pitcarne a better Writer and as it appears a much honester Man declined the vindicating of these late Proceedings of the Presbyterians not that he did not like the Presbyterian Cause for he is through-paced that way but because after he had examined the matters of Fact for several Months as he had been enjoyned by the Fraternity he found it impossible to speak any thing in their Vindication but what the greatest part of Scotland would know to be notoriously false wherefore as Dr. Rule himself informs us Preface to his Second Vindication parag 5 7. in the end of the same Book Pag. 190. When this Affair was committed to him after many Months he returned the Papers to be answered without any Reply to them But passing this I wonder that the Worthy Doctor should in his late Book now cited exactly imitate that severe Stile which he and his Sober Party pretend to disown but perhaps he sees not this
preaching in Linton in Teviotdale said Our Bishops thought they were very secure this long time Like Willie Willie Wastel I am in my Castle A the Dogs in the Town Dare not ding me down Yea but there is a doggie in Heaven that has dung them all down Another preaching of the Dialogue betwixt God and Adam after his Fall Adam said he went to hide himself God comes to him and said where art thou man I am courring here Lord I 'le hazard twa and a plack saith God there is a whap in the Kape Ede has thou been at Barne-breaking Ede come out of thy holes and thy bores here Ede Mr. James Kirkson told several times in his Sermons at Edenling That the Devil had his Kirk-Government as well as God and would ye ken what a Government it is indeed it is a Presbyterian Government for he has his Minister and his Ruling Elder his Minister is the Pope and his Ruling-Elder is the King of France The same man once speaking of the Evils of the tongue said Your tongues Sirs are as foul as a dog's tongue when he licks Skitter before God it 's true But do not take this out of the House with you Sirs Mr. Matthew Selkirk preaching against keeping of days said They that keep †Yule-day Sirs deny that Christ came in the flesh and are rank Jews they keep that day in commemoration of J. Caesar the chief of the Jews Mr. Hugh Kennedy Moderator of the General Assembly being about to Christen a Child in the Colledg-Kirk looked about him and said Look Sirs and see the Devil painted in that Bairns face but we shall do the best we can to conjure him out I shall shortly nail his lug to Christ's trone till from a Calf he grow up to an Ox to draw in Christ's Plow Mr. Arskine in the Tron-Church said That the work of the Lord is like to be ruin'd for there are two sorts of people that have taken their hands from the work of the Lord. First the Malignants that never laid their hands to it 2ly The Court-party but you Lasses and Lads put your shoulders to that work take a good lift of it for it will not break your backs and ye can never use your backs in a better work One Mr. Robert Gourly preaching on the Woman of Canaan how our Saviour called her a Dog told Sirs some of you may think that our Saviour spake very improperly for he should have called her a Bitch but to this I answer a Dog is the Masculine or Feminine Gender there is a He-dog and a She-dog But you will ask why did he miscall the poor Woman and call her a Dog There are God's Dogs and the Devils Dogs she was God's Dog not the Devil's Dog Mr. Sheilds in a Sermon at Aberdeen told the people the only way to hold a fast grip of Christ was to entertain him with three Liquors in three sundry Bickers you must have a pint of hope three pints of faith and nine pints of hot hot hot burning zeal One Mr. Strange preaching on Act 2. 37 38. before several Ladies of the best Quality of our Kingdom They were pricked at their hearts said Some of you are come hither the day to get a prick I fear few of you have gotten a prick but some of you may get a prick within a short time And seeing some laugh he said Do not mistake me Sirs It is not a natural prick I mean but a prick at the heart I mean not the pricks of the flesh but the pricks of the spirit the sweet prick of Conscience One Mr. James Wilson now in Kirkmeddon in Galloway told That Faith had wonderful effects For by faith Noah saw the deluge before it came But I will tell you a far more wonderful effect of Faith than that John the Baptist saw Christ through twa wymbs was not that a clear-ey'd little one 〈…〉 One Mr. Melvin being sent by the Presbytery to the Parish of Monzie in Struthern to prepare the people by a Sermon for receiving a Presbyterian Minister in the place of Mr. Drammond a person of great Learning who was deprived at the false suggestions of a Weaver in that Parish whom he saved from the Gibbet in King Charles 2d's time the said Mr. Melvin Lecturing on this Text Touch not mine Anointed and do my Prophets no harm said The Kings and the great folks and the cursed Bishops for sooth were seeking to destroy God's own people but as sturk as they were God is starker and bad them bide back bide back pointing with his finger this is my folk they are none of your folks and so God keeped his own poor people Sirs except some few that were hanged but Oh Sirs it 's a sweet sweet denth to go off the Gallows to God for the holy Covenant But for these cursed Bishops and Curates Sirs that were leading many poor souls to Hell this long time Sirs ye see they are now put out they are put out yea they are e'en trampled under our feet This is attested by a person that then lived within two miles of the place and heard him Mr. Areskine in the Trone-Church proposed in a Sermon What is the new man He made this learned Answer in a Melancholy long tone It is the new man Mr. Kirton lately in the Church he possesses at Edinburgh began his Sermon thus Devil tuke me soul and body The people startling at the expression he anticipates their wonder with this correction You think Sirs this a strange word in the Pulpit out you think nothing of it out of Pulpit but what if the Devil should tuke many of you when ye utter such Language Another time preaching against Cockupps he told I have been this year of God preaching against the vanity of Women yet I see my own Daughter in the Kirk even now have as high a Cockupp as any of you all Another time giving the Sacramens of the Lord's Supper in Crummond at the breaking of the Bread he told the Participants Take eat Sirs your Bread is baken And that was all the form he used as one of the Communicabsts told me the day after A Presbyterian Preacher in the Parish of Killpatrick Easter above Glasgow in whose Parish there is one Captain Sanderson a Church of England man who is looked on there by them as a rank Papist he once went to Church to see their way The Preacher seeing him in Church took a Fourteen our of his Pocket and held it up before the Congregation expressing these words Here I take instrument in the hand of God that tho a man be pardoned of all his original and actual sins yet if he neglect to 〈◊〉 our Fasts he shall never go to Heaven The Preacher owns what he said and did And the Captain desires the thing to be published in his name he being ready to justifie it upon any occasion Mr. William
reputation ready to attest by their Oaths and Subscriptions as shall be made appear in a 2d Edition of this Book if the clamors of the Party extort it and very many are willing to join in this who were not long ago their great friends and have many of their Sermons and Prayers in writing which they are now willing to expose having fully discovered the vile hypocrisie and Pharasaick professions of that Faction but this trouble we can hardly suppose that the Presbyterians will put us or themselves to because it 's not probable that they will deny what they so much glory in viz. this extraordinary way of Preaching and Praying which they think an excellency and perfection and call it a holy familiarity with God a peculiar priviledg of the most refined Saints Some may perhaps think this Collection was publish'd meerly to render these Puritans ridiculous but it 's plain enough to such as know them that we have not made but found them so we hope that our discovering their snares may prevent some mens being intangled with them they compass Sea and Land and are fully as zealous as their Predecessours to make proselytes to their Party and new Gospel Now the general intent of the Collectors of these Notes was that they might stand like Beacons to fright unwary Strangers from these Rocks upon which so many have formerly made shipwrack both of faith and good conscience Alas it 's but too too evident what havock and desolation these pretended Reformers have made in the Church and State Gods Name Honour and Worship is profan'd the Gospel exposed to the scorn and contempt of its enemies the more modest and honest Heathens and Turks the Flood-gates of Impiety and Atheism are set open the foundations of all true piety or policy are overturned and all regard to things either Sacred or Civil quite destroyed by these who as the Royal Martyr speaks seeking to gain reputation with the vulgar for their extraordinary Parts and Piety must needs undo whatever was formerly setled never so well and wisely I wish as the same Royal Author did that their Repentance may be their only punishment that seeing the mischiefs which the disuse of publick Liturgies hath already produced they may restore that credit use and reverence to them which by the Ancient Churches were given to set forms of sound and wholsome words And thou O Lord which art the same God Blessed for ever whose mercies are full of variety and yet of constancy Thou deniest us not a new and fresh sense of our old and daily wants nor despisest renewed affections joined to constant expressions Let us not want the benefit of thy Churches united and well-advised Devotions Keep men in that pious Moderation of their Judgments in matters of Religion that their ignorance may not offend others not their opinion of their own abilities tempt them to deprive others of what they may lawfully and devountly use to help their infirmities And since the advantage of Error consists in novelty and variety as Truth 's in unity and constancy suffer not thy Church to be pestred with Erros and deformed with undecencies in thy Service under the pretence of variety and novelty 〈◊〉 nor to be deprived of truth unity and order under this fallacy that constancy is the cause of formality Lord keep us from formal Hypocrisie in our hearts and then we know that praying to thee or praising of thee with David and other holy men in the same forms cannot hurt us Evermore defend and deliver thy Church from the effects of blind zeal and over-bold Devotion Amen FINIS Me was but last Year sent to Agent their Affairs at Court * Though Mr. Rule who defends the New Gospellers by denying their Prints and by palpable vntruths seems to disown this in his Second Vindication of his Kirk Yet much honester Presbyterians affirm it and glory in it Vid. Covenants with acknowledgment of Sins and Engagement to Duties renewed at Lesmahago 1688. Et Hind let loose †A Person who was well educated and justly esteemed at St. Andrew's Vniversity †That is in English some other Fish to fry * Charity it self cannot put a better Construction on so foul an Action * The name of a ridiculous and rebellious Book emitted by them in K. Charles the Second's time * Tear Notes of printed Sermons before the Parliament * Spaldin's Discourse to Parliament ‖ The Hill on which they first drew up their Army against K. Ch. 1. * Such the Scoth Phanaticks are indeed * The glorious days of the Covenant * That is true blue Presbytery * Herle 's Tripus †Three notable Rebellions raised by the Presbyterians against K. Charles the Second * Mr. Rule denies this in his late Book altho' himself and every Man acquainted with the Doctrine and Practice of the Kirk knows it to be very true * Compare this with making Presbytery the Foundation of the present Civil Government without which he says it cannot subsist Second Vindication Pag. 9. at the end †Easter Christmas Shrove-Tuesday * Mr. Rule upon the matter affirms the same Second Vindic p. 90. * Compare this with the late Assembly's refusing at the King's desire to admit of any of the Episcopal Clergy with them into the Exercise of the Ministry Compare this with the Presbyterians now denying the Power to the King of dissolving the Assembly * Vpon this consideration the late Assembly refused at K. W.'s desire to receive the Episcopal Party into any terms of Peace or Communion * All that are not true Covenanters * Taxes * Alsop and other London Pesbyterians Address to K. J. * Shields Chaplain to my Lord Angus's Regiment one of their famous Authors and Preachers * That was no doubt in the peaceful and godly days of the Holy Covenant But how seem'd the Devil to be bound then why it was after the New Gospel way he was bound in the Chains of Blood Murther and Rebellion being surfeited with those Sacrifices he seemed to lay himself down to rest leaving all his Drudgery upon Earth to be performed by his Covenanted Agents * The Presbyterians indeed ordinarily prevent the King 's putting forth his hand against them by assaulting him first * The great design of the New Gospel to decry Passive Obedience and to blaspheme the Church of England * The English Clergy who scruple to Swear shew that they can patiently suffer and therefore are not concerned at what Presbyterians threaten the Devil can go no farther than his Chain reaches * And so do all the new Gospellers * By the same argument the Protestant Religion must be Antihumane in France Italy and Spain and the Christian too in all the Grand Seignior's vast Dominions * Every thing that 's not agreeable to the New Gospel must be slavish nonsensical and damnable * Loved and honoured by all but Presbyterians * And yet they own the same Religion with us pag. 1. l 3. * The Authority of their Assemblies above that of King and Parliament * Well Ranted Rule * Preface Parag. 6. at the end and p. 26. c. * This is the Civil Style that he promised to exceed in Pref. par 6. * Where in the sense of the Law the King never dies * 'T is no new thing for Presbyterians to think Power a sufficient Call to act Illegally * As Mr. Rule himself did * Just like the Roman Catholick Church an Vniversal Particular Pag. 167. * Witness their many Covenants and Engagements to that purpose * Rule 's 2d Vindication of the Kirk * Even tho' it be solidly refuted by a Sciolist * Vid Rules 2d Vindication pag. 88. 177. * Honestly come by * A sham * Rent * Strange * Frown * Hugg * Get. * Dish * Accounts * Rent * Spilt †Goods * Engage * Bankrupt debters * Yearn * Noise * Ill manner'd * Foolish Song * Sculk * Give him credite * Empty * A Box. * Sack full of Grains * Streets * Table â—ead * Husband * Rent * Toped over * In the hand of a Notary * Fondled Darling * Foolish Child * Accounts * Longing * Higle * Pampered * Breding * Over and above * Put to Auction * Pag. 80. * Distaff * Beke * Large dish * Great * Hood * Trip. * Knew not * A Course * Nasty * Pulled and haled * Clutches * Sound bang * Kill * Christmass * Gay †Smock * Foolish Wench * Hen-peckt men * Beats * Dwarfie * Rifle a Magpies-Nest * Pettish †Old kindness †Wait not * Intreating ‖ Thin Dung of young Children †Such †Hold. †Two English Quarts * English Pint. †Haste * Childrens Toyes and Rattles * To Flout †Know ‡ Deep Dish †A Strong Porrage * Breeches †Little Children * Puâ—l †Too familiar †Child †Neat or Cattle †Low * Whisper ‖ Letters of Arrestment †Absconding * Nesty †absconding * Two-pence Half-penny †All 's not well * Mischief doing †Thin Dung * Christmass †Hold. * Wooden Cups †Two Wombs †Piece of Money * The name of a great River which washes the Walls of that City * Trifles * Raise on Action before the Judges and Arrest him * Stark mad * Tinkar * Dunghils * Smoke * Brains * Pruins * Weaned * Jump * Little Mouse * Gain * King James was then in Ireland * Ill mannered * When he could not stand without a Supporter * Pretty * Much in need * Troublesome * Encountered * Slipper * Another Cup full of it * Dunghill * Run a Tick with him * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the Ordinance against the Common-Prayer-Book * King Ch. his most pious and pertinent Prayer