I Have good information from several Persons of known integrity here at London, that you are the Author of two abusive Pamphlets by which you endeavour to defame our Kings, Parliaments, and Nobles, such as we had in Scotland before the Revolution. Our Kings were perjured Tyrants, and K. Charles II. knew that he himself had forfeited his Title to the Crown Conti­nuat.. Our Parliaments were but pack'd Clubs, a company of slavish Parasites, that contributed all they could to the ruin of our Liberties, Civil and Religious; and consequently our No­bility can deserve no better Character, who made so great a Figure in all our Parliaments. As for the Episcopal Clergy whether Bishops or Presbyters, you give them so many names, that it is a wonder you did not think such a despicable company of men below your Notice.

The Book which you call your Continuation, most of it is levelled against one particular man; and when I undertake his Defence (if that be necessary) I find that the reading over your book, and transcri­bing so many parts of it was all the toil I was likely to undergo, and tho you call him whom you fancy to be your Adversary a man of un­governable passion; yet I must tell you that he could not but be mad to the last degree, if he were angry at the names you give him, since they of the first quality in Europe, have no fairer quarter at your hands; A Scribler. a Pedant, a Hawker, a Villain, an Ass, an Ignoramus, a Blun­derer, are all of them words that he can hear with patience, when his Superiours are not better treated. One may modestly conclude that you are very angry, and that's a greater punishment than any of your Adversaries can inflict upon you. The Author of the Postscript to the Apology for the Clergy of Scotland, told you already, that he was not at all concerned in that Scuffle between you and your Antagonist, nor is he likely to offer his mediation to end your Debate; and he is still of the opinion, that he can employ his time better than to read again your An­swer, or the Book that occasioned it. His Postscript is a short Episto­lary account of the first, or rather a Character of the present methods of Presbytery, in imitation of their Predecessors, than any particular view of your Book, and I am content that you impute this to his ig­norance or weakness or what else you please to call it. It is very odd that you should think that you have power to summon any body to the Press when you please, even when you lurk behind the Curtains. You [Page 2] take it for granted that Dr. M.— was the Author of that Postscript, and it may be you hit right enough; yet tho your Party be lashed in it with some severity, he takes no great pleasure in medling with parti­cular men further than necessity constrains.

He said, that there was not a good consequence in your Book from the beginning to the end; this could not but provoke a man of your courage and mettle. By a Consequence, I humbly think he understood a truth de­duced from true and solid Principles that overthrows the common cause of Episcopacy, or the reputation of those men whom you asperse, I mean such of the Clergy who were never under any publick censure of the Church. He told you likewise that he had no inclination par­ticularly to examine the imaginary contradictions that you charge your Enemy with, and now I give you the reason, partly because the Theme, as you manage it, yields no edification, partly because the publick is not at all concerned to read such Libels and altercations, and he gives you liberty to triumph as much as you please upon this Head: but if your honour and credit is at stake, and that you find your self con­cerned more particularly to run him down than any other, he is con­tent to meet you before any competent number of grave witnesses, who by their authority may mitigate such excursions of rudeness as may be feared, if your blood should boil to its usual fervor: and to reason the matter calmly, and (without either huffing, or the terrible language of an Almanzor) to demonstrate that there is not a good consequence in your Book from the beginning to the end. And indeed you may excuse me to tell you, that in your last Pamphlet you seem not to understand the very first Elements of Logick.

Moreover, the Author of the Postscript incurr'd your high displea­sure, by saying, that there were abusive Metaphors in Mr. Rutherford's Letters, and some dark and unintelligible passages in his Scholastical Essays: and is this the unpardonable Crime for which there can be no atonement? Mr. Ridpath, this was no reflection upon his Morals, but a plain matter of Fact to be seen by every body that peruseth the Books that are cited. And therefore this could not at all justifie your accusing Sir George Mackenzie to have suborned Witnesses; a practice so infamous and so wicked, that I am confident no man of honour will ever say any such thing of the truly Just, and Learned Advocate. A previous examination of Witnesses in criminal Cases is not Subornation, but precognition, practised at all times in Scot­land before they deponed judicially; and Sir George Mackenzie want­ed not many clear evidences to prove that C. of C. was plotting an insurrection against the King and Government about the time of Argyle's rebellion. You may read the elegant History of that insur­rection [Page 3] written by the A true Account of the horrid Conspiracy a­gainst the King, &c. printed by Tho. New­comb. Edit. 2. 1685. Bishop of Rochester, and there you may see with your own Eyes several authentick E­vidences, upon record, against C. of C. and I must tell you that Sir George Mackenzie needed not that Gentle­man's Assistance to re commend him to the present Court, if he had been ambitious to have been a Favorite; and if he told C. of C. that he had done him an Injury, and begg'd him par­don, how came this Confession to be made publick? if he to whom it was first revealed, under trust, spread it abroad, he is guilty of something that no Gentleman will readily own; but the plain truth is Sir George Mackenzie never told him any such thing, after the manner you represent it; and he had very good reason to expect that the Witnesses against C. of C. would judicially depone in pub­lick, the very same things that they asserted in private; and if you please you may remember that there is a greater difference between Sir George Mackenzie and your self, than between Mr. Rutherford and those of our Clergy you trample upon.

Your Advices and Threatnings to the Ministers of State in En­gland are idle, and of no use at all; for Ministers of State will ad­vise according to their Light and Conviction, without any regard to the short-liv'd Pamphlets that fly about the City; nor are they likely to receive their Measures either from you, or any of us who see so little in their Sphere. The Presbyterians in England are not yet ripe for a Rebellion, and they in Scotland can do little to disturb England, without their Assistance, and therefore you had best forbear your Threatnings, for I am apt to think that your Influence in either Na­tion goes but a little way.

You treat King William no better than other Kings, since, you say, he is prevailed upon to write Letters to the General Assembly that they are not obliged in Law to comply with; but better Lawyers are of another Opinion, and if King William venture upon such Essays of Arbitrary Power, in a little time (according to your Hypothesis) he Contin. p. 4. may forfeit his Title, since he has none but such as is twisted with the Divine Right of Presbytery. But indeed, Mr. Ridpath, I think we had Kings in Scotland, before we had either Covenants, or Presbytery, or the Claim of Right; and that our fundamental Constitution does not depend upon an Act of the General Assembly, tho the General Assembly sometimes venture, in terminis, to make an Act against an Act of Parliament.

It is a gentile Compliment that you bestow upon Queen Mary, when you allow the Jacobites to invite her Father to keep the Solon-Geese in the Bass; and I think none is permitted to speak so but [Page 4] Mr. Ridpath. It is not safe for any Government to suffer Buffoons to treat crowned Heads so familiarly; whatever be the Quarrel between Princes, this Language is intolerable; yet some Animals are privi­leged to bark at this rate. The Clazomenians, coming to Sparta, ful­lied Aeli. Hist. Var. the Thrones on which the Ephori sat; when the Ephori came to know this Indignity, they bore it patiently, and called for a publick Herald, and ordered him to proclaim through the City, that it was lawful for the Clazomenians to do things that were unbecoming and undecent, that is to say, such barbarous Rascals were below Reproof and Revenge.

Two of our Archbishops you treat in the same Language that Dr. Pater­son, Dr. Caincross. Dr. Bastwick, the famous Presbyterian Buffoon, used towards the Arch­bishop of Canterbury and his Collegues, when he tells them that the Hie­rarchy came from the Pope and the Devil, Diabolus caccavit illos; Nals. Coll. 1 Vol. pag. 499. Vid. p. 500, & 501. They forsooth must be called Magnates Ecclesiae, and the Verity of the matter is, They are Magnae Nates Ecclesiae. It is tedious to transcribe his Civilities to Archbishop Laud, and his Venerable Brethren, and therefore I refer you to the Book cited in the Margin: only there is one of his Complements which I set down, because it hath in it the mean and scurrillous Spirit of the Party; which you copy so exactly Ib. p. 503. that one would have thought Dr. Bastwick had been your Father; thus he goes on (speaking of the Priests of the Church of England) They Ib. p. 502. are secundum Ordinem Diaboli, a Generation of Vipers, proud, ungrateful, illiterate Asses: the Church is as full of Ceremonies as a Dog is full of Fleas. And again, One would think that Hell were broke loose, and that the Devils in Surplices, in Hoods, in Capes, and Rochets, and in four-squared Cow-turds upon their Heads, were come among us, and had beshit us all. Pho! how they stink! This is the Wit and Civility of an enraged Presbyterian; these are the Flights of a Zealot, when inspired to the heighth. You treat Archbishop Sharp and the Archbishop of Glasgow, in the same Language that Archbishop Laud, and Archbishop Spotswood were complemented by your Predecessors.

There is a Letter here, which I have seen, from the Archbishop of Glasgow to one of his Friends; which, some time or other may see the light in a larger Treatise. It was occasioned by your obscene Libels against him; I must tell you one thing that is in it, and it may provoke your Curiosity to see it; He promises two hundred pound sterl. to any Man that will prove, by Witnesses of known Probity, any one Particular that is maliciously vented against him by your self or any of your Informers. Why then do not ye appear openly above-board, for the Bishop declines no competent Judge in Scotland? 'Tis true, He thought that the Book that treated him so barbarously had [Page 5] been writ by some of the fluttering Damme's about the City, whose most compendious Method to destroy Religion, is, at any rate, to run down the Clergy; but if he had known his Accuser, 'tis more than proba­ble he would forbear any Vindication. He was sometimes opposed by Persons of the first Quality in the Nation, and if he had been so wicked a Wretch as you represent him, he had certainly forfeited his Life to Justice, and his Name to Infamy, as he expresses it himself in his Letter. Mr. Ridpath, do not take it ill that I do not go through the Particulars of your Libel against the Bishop, for I have made you a fair Offer already; and besides, when you are better informed, you will find your self that you name some Persons in your Libel, who are lasting Monuments of the Disgrace of your Faction; so that you have as little of the Wisdom of the Serpent, as of the Innocence of the Dove. You may go on and accuse the Bishop and his Collegues of all the Crimes that your Predecessors charged the former Bishops with, in the year 1638; nay, which is more, you may accuse him of all the Villainies which your own Major Wier actually committed, when he ran about with so many of the Sisters, from one Commu­nion to another: and I assure you that neither he nor any of his Friends will take notice of you. We know very well that you are at extraordinary pains to gather Intelligence against the Clergy, but all your Evidences hitherto are of no Authority at all.

You think that if Mr. Rule's Book provoked the Author of the Contin. p. 10. Postscript to Undecencies of Passion, the reading of yours would make him stark mad. Not so, Mr. Ridpath, we may sometimes get a more deadly Wound by an Arrow that flies near the Earth, than by the Thunder that goes over our Heads. He begins, you say, with downright Nonsense and a notorious Lie; but one and the same Proposi­tion cannot be both Nonsense and a Lie; one cannot tell what to make of the first, and therefore it is neither a Lie nor a Truth: he continues still in the same Opinion, that the Principles and Practices of the Covenanters occasioned the Laws that you complain of, whe­ther you mean their Practices from the Year 1637, to the Year 1650; or their Behaviour after the Restoration of King Charles II, all is one to me; they overthrew the Monarchy under King Charles I, distur­bed it by frequent Insurrections under King Charles II, and are ready to do so still, if at any time their boundless Tyranny and Ambition be restrained.

The rest of that Paragraph is a Declamation against Prelacy, and the Clergy of England must be lashed with the same Severity, where­with pag. 12. you chastise those of Scotland; and in your first Book you re­present those of England as a Company of treacherous Prevaricators: Ans. Scot. Eloq. p. 4. [Page 6] that the Crown set them up by a daring Perjury, and that the same Party hath thrust that Family from the Throne, by a Copy exactly answering the Original. They are obliged very much to your Civilities, if the Fa­mily be thrust from the Throne, you are the Author of a new Discovery; but I leave this to their consideration who are more concerned.

You are diffident of your Arguments against the Author of the Postscript, and therefore you will take more effectual and compen­dious Pag. 14. methods to ruin him: for you tell us that upon the taking of Na­mure, he was heard in St. James's Park to salute Mr. Shields by the title of a Bishop, no doubt in view of a Revolution which was likely to fol­low. There is one thing that I thank you heartily for, viz. that this accusation is express, particular, and circumstantiated, for when accu­sations are loose, general, and indefinite, nothing can be fixt up­on that can lead us unto the Truth, and therefore Mr. Ridpath, here I plainly give you the Lye; I know a man of your honour will resent this affront. The affirmative part is your own, and therefore com­mon sense obliges you to prove it if you can, you are here upon the place, so are they whom you accuse; the Dr. declines no competent Judge in England, and if you can prove that ever he spoke with Mr Shields in St. Jame's Park, he'll acknowledg all the Libels against him to be true, and the only method to save your Reputation in this par­ticular, is to put it to a fair Trial. But I perceive that you are as un­fortunate in the informations that you receive against the Clergy, as you are hasty and unadvised in publishing of them.

Whether the error in Scotch Grammar with which you charge the Ibid. Dr. be an omission of the Printer or his inadvertence, is not material to enquire, he had rather commit a thousand such, than one Latin So­lecism in a publick Harangue ex Cathedra. It is uneasie to live next door to a Grammarian. Read over again the 2d. page of your Conti­nuation, l. 21. or the 5th. p. of your Preface, l. 30. and tell me if it be ex­act Grammar. It is impudence beyond comparison, to say, that the Dr. charged Mr. Rule falsly with speaking wrong Latin; 'tis a wonder to me, why he himself or any of his Friends should be so zea­lous to defend him upon that Head, and if you would be so wise as to let those stories alone, I know none would be so idle as to revive them; and because you will not suffer us to forget his Latine, I will give you one instance more of the purity of his Stile. Asking one of the Stu­dents what was his Name, the Youth told him so and so, but not ad­ding his Sirname; He asked again, quid est totum nomen? At another time missing the Key of a certain Box which is kept in the Library, when he would have opened it, he told them that were about him, Nescio quid factum est de iis, habui mox. Now the Affirmative is mine, [Page 7] I am obliged to prove it when ever you put me to it. You are all of you so tender upon the point of Honour, that you let nothing pass without present Revenge, and Mr. Rule himself may know the Witnesses when he pleases, tho it be not decent to print their Names.

The next accusation against the Dr. is, that he cannot forbear Swearing. Mr Ridpath, I hope it is otherwise; and this is but an Ar­ticle of the original Libel, answered already in the Presbyterian In­quisition. You was advised by the Author of the Postscript, rather to insist on the old Libel than to trust to your own invention. More­over you say that it can be proved, that he said to a certain Minister, that if the Episcopal party had not the Government, he cared not if the Devil had it. By other accusers this Calumny is otherwise repre­sented, viz. that if the Episcopal party had not the Govern­ment, he cared not if the Papists had it; but both are beat out upon the same Anvil This is glanced at in a late Letter written by a Presbyterian Minister to a member of Par­liament, p. 11.. I wish you had named the Minister to whom this was said; the Devil has but too much of the Government of the World already, and I am affraid that they who publish such malicious and in­definite reports, are more governed by him than they are aware of.

You charge him again, that he hindered the printing of Mr. Jame­son's P. 15. Book, against Quakerism; he had no authority to do so, nor was it possible for him to treat Mr. Jameson with greater civility than he did. As for the Oath imposed on the Scholars in King James his time, that is sufficiently accounted for in another Presb. Inquisit. Treatise, and whether you are satisfied or not, it matters not much. The Obje­jections started against it, were but the Whimsies of a malicious Pedant who knew not well what he said.

It must be confessed that He preferred the French Refugies to the Scotch Presbyterians, when both petitioned the Town-Council for the use of the publick Hall to preach in upon the Sundays. I am not obliged to believe, upon your authority, that he had any undecent expressions upon that occasion. I incline to think that if the Presbyterians had the publick Hall of the College, very many naughty persons would resort unto it, though the Presbyterian Ministers should endeaviour to hinder it. Now I would gladly ask you one Question, whether ever you had a Scholar, that answered you with greater submission and obedience than I do.

You name a Person at the foot of the 15 pag. whom you say, the Dr. was careful to vindicate, that he never so much as mentioned his Name; but Newsmongers have a greater priviledge than their Neigh­bours.

[Page 8] 'Tis certain that the Scheme of the Presbyterian Religion, as far as they pag. 16. differ from the Episcopalians, is nothing else but ungovernable Humour and Rebellion. Now is it necessary to strike off the Doctor's Head for this one Expression. The Presbyterian Opinions, as such, are new and lately started, and peculiar to themselves, nor is there any of the Refor­med Churches that ever asserted Presbyterian government to be foun­ded upon such Divine Right as is exclusive of all other Ecclesiastical Polities. The Church of Scotland, which, you say, was Presbyterian from the beginning of the Reformation, declares positively, in her Confession of Faith, that Church Polity is variable, and the Order of Bishops was never condemned by our Reformers; and Buchanan tells us expresly, that our first Reformers were so far from being Presbyterians, that Scoti ante aliquot annos Anglorum auxiliis è servitute Buchan. Hist. lib. 19. Gallica liberati Religionis cultui & ritibus cum Anglis communibus sub­scripserunt.

To say that the Church of Scotland should be governed by Presby­tery, because Presbyters were most active in the first Reformation, is an unpardonable Impertinence. If all the Bishops in the Church of Scotland had been as zealous to promote the Reformation as the Bishops of Galloway and Argyle, would it therefore follow, that if the Bishops had reformed the Church without the assistance of Presbyters, there ought to be no Presbyters in the Church when it was fully reformed. No, I think this could not follow; and therefore when the Bishops own the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches, they must be obeyed, and our Reformers never declaimed against their Order; and if they would adhere to the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches, Calvin de­termines positively in that Case, that nullo non anathemate digni sunt, who stubbornly oppose their Authority; but Calvin. Inst. lib. 4. And again, Lib. 4. c. 10. § 6. Sane si veri Episcopi essent, aliquid eis in hac parte Aucto­ritatis tribuerem, non quantum sibi postulant, sed quantum ad Politi­am Ecclesiae ritè ordi­nandam requiritur. we had no such thing as Presbytery in Scotland, settled by Authority in all its Pretences, until the Rebellion brake out in the Year 1638. Presbyterians we had, Tumults, Combinations and Factions in abundance, and Inter­ruptions of the legal Government, and Parliamentary Concessions to pacify the Faction; but a total abolishing of the Order of Bishops, before the Rebellion in King Charles I. his time, was never heard, and to say otherwise contradicts the Series of all our Records. Vid. Nals. Coll. 1. Vol. and the K's large Ma­nifesto.

If the places of Scripture that you cite, prove that the names of those Clergy-men that were above Deacons were not distinguished; yet this cannot infer an Equality among them, for the Apostles them­selves were called sometimes Presbyters, and the Church was never go­verned by a perfect Equality of Presbyters. The Ecclesiastical Senate [Page 9] had its constant Praeses, without whose Authority nothing of any moment was transacted. How often do you meet, in the Old Testa­ment, the Jewish Clergy dichotomized into Priests and Levites? Will it therefore follow, that there was no High-priest among them to go­vern the whole Society? you seem to have no other Notion of a Pres­byter than what you meet with in your late Pamphlets; but it was an honourable Appellative, bestowed, in the Apostolick times upon all Orders of Ecclesiasticks above a Deacon. Let us know where this Superiority and Jurisdiction of one Presbyter above another is forbid­den. It was established by God himself in the Old Testament, let us see it repealed in the New. I think we may leave this Dispute to other Combatants, who may have occasion to discourse of it more fully, when the Mortar pieces are shot that you threaten us with. Only be mindful to let us see those Epistles of St. Augustine to St. Jerom, wherein you say that Episcopacy is proved to be of humane Appointment.

Your next contains a lamentable Catalogue of Crueltiess that you say the Presbyterians in the West did undergo under the former pag. 17. Reigns, viz. that some were roasted before Fires, &c. I thank God I never heard any such thing before, and if it had been true all Chri­stendom would have heard of it, and tho you had the Aauthority of the General Assembly to vouch it, you must excuse me if I continue in my former Unbelief.

All your Bauble about the Cameronians is neither to your Purpose pag. 18. nor mine, their Practices can never be condemned by Presbyterian Principles, and they may be the Standard of Presbytery as much as the Ministers you name in that Paragraph. The Protesters were not so numerous as the Resolutioners, yet you must acknowledge they were the only orthodox Presbyterians; for the Resolutioners were rotten­hearted Malignants, and the Protesters are the present visible Church of the Presbyterians; and if they had stood upon the Plurality of Votes, they had yielded to the General Assembly against whom they protested. And this is the fatal and fundamental Error of your Party, that they have no principles of Unity, but such as a plausible Protestation seconded by the Rabble can shake your Ecclesiastical Authority upon all occasions, according to the Original Maxim of Mr. Andrew Melvil, Vota sunt ponderanda, non numeranda.

Your Argumentum ad hominem taken from the Viscount of Dundee's Practices, proves no more than your thick and palpable Ignorance in the first Principles of Logick. Nothing can be improved as an Argumen­tum ad hominem against any Man, but such Practices as naturally over­throw his own Principles; and do you think that my Lord Dundee own'd any true and indisputable Right in them against whom he sought? [Page 10] and if upon his Hypothesis there was no Title, pray what becomes of your Argumentum ad hominem? My humble Advice is, that some one or other of your Friends may teach you the Vocabula Artis, before you write so magisterially: and you'll find this to be but a friendly Ad­vice before I have done with you, and whatever Proficiency you have made in Grammar, your Logicks are but of about two Months standing.

Your Parallel between the Practices of the Church of England to­wards King James and those of the Scotch Presbyterians towards King Charles 11. is a true Specimen of your Skill. We know no such Pra­ctices of the Church of England, nor are we to learn her Doctrines from Scurrilous Pamphlets, but from her Articles, Homilies, Liturgy, and Canons.

That the Presbyterian Cruelty towards the Episcopalians after the Year 1637. were unparallel'd in History, remains still a Truth, be­cause they suffered from Men who declared themselves to be of the same Religion with their Neighbours; the Cruelties of Papists towards Protestants, and of Infidels towards Christians, and of Pagans towards them who worship one God, cannot make up an exact parallel, be­cause the Rebels by whom our people were persecuted, pretended to be of the same Communion. But since you name the Massacre at Paris, you may call to mind that in the Year 1645 the Presbyteri­ans Pag. 19. under the Command of General Leslie, cut in pieces some hun­dreds of the Marquess of Montross his Infantry, in cold blood, after quarter given; when the Marquess was betrayed, and that he was forc'd to retire, a considerable body of his Army surrendred their Arms upon Articles, and stood, as they were directed by the Covenanters, in a plain open Field, having nothing to defend themselves with but their Nails; then it was time for the Presbyterians to discover their true Intentions, and to let the world see that no Promises; no Capitula­tions could bind up the hands of Covenanters, when it was in their power to do Mischief, and you are to remember that this horrid Tra­gedy was acted at the special Instigation of the godly Ministers in the Army, for Souldiers know no such Villanies. But the Enthusiastick Vid. Hist. Obs. MSS. by Guth. Zealot who preached, thought that the Blood of so many innocent people was a good beginning of a through Reformation. He chose his Text 1 Sam. 15. 14. What meaneth then this bleating, &c. infinuating that they could not be said to obey God, as long as they left any a­livethat were not Covenanters, and when General Leslie, contrary to Montross def. at Phi­liphaugh. his own Inclination, Honour, and Authority, yielded to their Fury, he asked this Sanguinary Enthusiast, Mas John ha not you Blood enough now? Compare all Circumstances, and match this in History if you can; not to mention now the throwing so many Women and Chil­dren [Page 11] over the Bridge of Lithgow, without either Form or Process, for no other Crime, but that they followed their Husbands and Relations to Montrose his Army. And the former instance is by so much the more remarkable that the poor people who were murdered in cold bloud, contrary to the Laws of Nations, the faith of mankind, and the ancient honour of the Scots, were all of them Protestants, and laid down their Arms upon capitulation for their full freedom and safety: to embrew their hands in the bloud of their Countrymen, contrary to the solemnity of Pro­mises, was a thing that could only be acted by Covenanters; so that your instances of the Massacre at Paris, and the Duke of Alva's butchery in the Netherlands, are indeed sad abuses of Supreme Authority, and lasting Monuments of cruelty: but that which I just now named, adds to cruelty perfidious treachery, such as blows up the foundations of humane Society.

But Mr. Ridpath, you ask if ever you put the Prelatists in Dun­geons Pag 20. to be eaten up of Toads and Serpents and if not, you think you may conclude that you fall short of the cruelty of the In­quisitors. I answer, whether there are Toads and Serpents in the lower Vaults of the Tolbooth of Edinburg, I cannot tell, but I am very sure the Reverend Bishop Wiseheart was almost eaten up of Vermin in that Dungeon, and bore the marks of the Covenanters cruelty, as well as the evidences of his own in­vincible patience to his dying hour; and if your Covenanters at that time were not so ingenious in inventing instruments of bo­dily torture as the Fathers of the Inquisition were, yet you can­not deny but that they were equally fierce and bloudy: the Pres­byterians were only acted by a lower order of Daemons, who had not so much light and art, (yet altogether as furious and as opposite to true goodness) as those by whom the Inquisitors were guided.

But you think that though the Dr's Conscience be prostituted to a Ibid. Prodigy, yet it flies in his face, when such and such things are said of the Covenanters. Mr. Ridpath, I am now pretty well acquaint­ed with this Noise, and you see that I meet your loudest Thunder without any disturbance, and all that I return to this Civility is no more, than to advise you to distinguish between a little fluttering Rhetorick and common Sense; when ones Consci­ence is prostituted, as you say, to a Prodigy, he feels no remorse at all; and therefore his Conscience cannot fly in his face, 'tis seared with a hot Iron, he is proof against all light and conviction, alto­gether blinded and stupified under the power of his Error. And [Page 12] if the Dr's Conscience fly in his face, he is still within the possibili­ties of being recovered, but you must treat him a little more softly if you intend to make him a Proselyte.

But you tell us next, that the Dr. learnt the art of Equivooation Ibid. as well as if he had been at Rome; for he says, that the Covenant was rigorously imposed upon all, Children at the Schools not excepted. To this you answer, that you believe it was required of little Children that offered to take the degree of Masters of Art about the age of thirty years, and then you hoise all your Sails, and leave the poor Dr. exposed to all the contempt that a silly So­phister deserves. Now Mr. Ridpath, we are again closely engaged, and if I do not get the Dr. out of this mire, I must run for it. If you was your self near thirty years old when you went to the U­niversity, as you seem to insinuate, one might reasonably presume, that your bloud had been colder before now; and that you would not vapour at this rate, when you had no reserve to defend you, but your ignorance in a plain matter of Fact; and therefore all that know Scotland, know very well, that the Children in our Country ordinarily go to the University at the age of twelve, thir­teen, or fourteen years; and such may in the strictest sense be called Children, and of such it was required to take the Covenant: for my part I never knew one amongst them that arrived to the age of thirty before he received his degrees. There was no Equi­vocation in the case, when the Author of the Postscript told you, that the Covenant was imposed upon Children at the Schools, for he meant it of no other Children than those younger ones who entered the University, and who were not allowed to delay their swearing the Covenant until they left it, but were forced as soon as they entred, to take it upon implicite Faith; if this is made evident, you must acknowledg that there was no Equivocation used by the Author of the Postscript. If you set up for a Patron of Presbyterian practices, and must needs hector the World into a belief of your blustering Romances, if you intend to be succes­ful, you ought to read more and write less; and because the Affir­mative is now mine, I am obliged to prove it, and if you desire better proof, I'll make you amends; it is the following Act of the General Assembly.

Now Mr. Ridpath, I hope you are satisfied, that by Children were meant those young ones who are but newly come from Country Schools.

The word Equivocation brings to my mind some practices of the Presbyterians, still upon Record; I mean publick and Solemn Deeds, which seem to justifie Equivocation, if it be for the glory of God, i. e. if it promote the ends of the Covenant. It is no­thing to see you or me equivocate; these are the failings of us two private, obscure, and particular Persons, but to see the General As­sembly, the true and only supreme Representative of the Kirk of Scotland, shift, double, and equivocate, is treachery and hypocrisie with a witness. To make you sensible of this, you are to remem­ber as an introduction to what follows, that the Covenanters who went to Aberdeen to recommend the Covenant to the Clergy and An. 1638. Professors of Divinity there, told them, that notwithstanding they should swear the Covenant, yet they were left at liberty to Vote for Episcopacy when the General Assembly met; but when the General Assembly met, they concluded primâ instantiâ, that E­piscopacy was abjured in the Covenant: This prevarication is complained of by the Marquess of Hamilton, His Majesties Com­missioner, in a printed Declaration, Anno 1639. To this they Nals Hist Col. 1. Vol. p. 128. answer, that they did not expresly and Specificè abjure Episcopacy, [Page 14] but only generally and virtually, by abjuring whatsoever was abjured in the Confession 1580. Now the meaning of this is, by their Cove­nant they abjured Episcopacy virtually, but not specificè. But how could the Members of the Assembly be left at liberty to vote free­ly for Episcopacy after they took the Covenant, if Episcopacy was virtually and generally abjured in the Covenant? this is as much to say, as, tho I am obliged by the Christian Religion virtually and generally against all degrees of Theft, yet I am not obliged specificè by my Baptismal Vow against picking a Man's Pocket of his Watch. What a juggle was it to say, that Men might vote freely for that Go­vernment which was, for the matter, abjured? These are the Me­taphysical Lectures that are to be learned in Presbyterian Schools, who think nothing to dally with Mens Consciences, by the jingle of a distinction, which, at bottom, is but Hypocrisie and Imper­tinence.

But would you have another sample of their Casuistical Theology? V. King's large Ma­nifesto. & Nals. Hist. Coll. 1 vol. pag. 151. read what follows, Nal. Hist. Coll. 1 vol. Ans. to the 3 Reasons. pag. 152. in their Answer to the third Reason, Albeit by the meaning of the Prescriber of an Oath, the Swearer were tacitly bound to maintain Episcopacy, five Articles of Perth, and such like; yet according to the premitted Considerations he is more obliged to the reality rei juratae, which is now declared and found to abjure Episcopacy, than. nor to the meaning of the Prescriber, or his own either, being contrary to the Explanation of the sovereign Judge competent. Thus far the Cove­nanters.

Now Mr. Ridpath, name any one Proposition more knavish, hypocritical and damnable than this is, that the Swearer is neither bound to the meaning of the Imposer, nor to his own meaning who takes the Oath, but to the reality of the thing sworn, as it shall be afterwards explained by the competent Judge; which, in their meaning, was none else than the General Assembly. Did you ever read any thing worse in the Casuistick Writings of the Jesuits? But it may be that your Curiosity reaches not so far as the moral Theology of Esco­bar, Filiucius, or Emanuel Sa. Did ever the transcendent Power of Rome go higher? If Oaths neither oblige sensu dant is nor jurant is, but in the sense of the Kirk, then we are obliged, without any fur­ther Enquiries, to submit our Necks to the infallible Decrees of the Assembly, tho we neither know what is in them, nor never intended to oblige our selves by them. I cite a very authentick Paper, be­ing under the hand of Mr. Archibald Johnston, Clerk of the As­sembly. So that the Mother Kirk can evacuate the force of all Oaths, Promises and Subscriptions, to the End of the World: for they do not oblige in the sense of the first Imposer, nor accor­ding [Page 15] to the meaning of him that swore, but according to the Commentary and Interpretation of the General Assembly; and so the next General Assembly may pronounce, that by the Test (against which they objected so many sad Stories) we are obliged to main­tain and support Presbytery, tho we swore it with quite contrary. Intentions; and indeed there is not any thing to be met amongst the Jesuits, more subversive of all Religion and true Morality, than that memorable Position that I named from the Authentick Records of the Covenanters.

Some grave Men have been displeased that the Presbyterian Fooleries have been exposed to laughter; and for my part I was not of their Council who first assaulted them in that manner, yet those Gentlemen who accuse the Episcopal Clergy of Scotland, as if they had exposed Religion it self, by publishing some of the imper­tinent and ridiculons Bauble of Presbyterians, must consider, that the learnedest and gravest Divines, in this as well as other Nations, have treated Enthusiasts in no other manner. I have no room to insert Monsieur Paschal's excellent Letter to the Jesuits, wherein he proves, from the Example of God himself, I. Theologie Mora­le des Jesuites, pag. mihi 149, 150. A Co­logne, An. 1666. En verite, mes Peres, il ya bien de la difference entre rire de la Reli­gion, & rire de ceux qui la profanent par leurs opinions extra­vagantes. Ce seroit une impietè de man­quer de respect pour les veritesque l' esprit de Dieu à revelées: mais ce seroit une autre im­pietè de manquer de me pris pour les faus­setez que l' esprit de l' homme leur oppose. our Saviour Jesus Christ, the Prophets, the Fathers of the Christian Church, and the holy Men of all Ages, that it is ordinary, just and lawful, to ridicule such as profane and pervert Religion by visionary and fanta­stick Glosses, or such as deprave its Morals by loose and scandalous Interpretations of God's most holy Law. Must we be said to laugh at Religion, if we smile when we hear a Man gravely telling us, that Abraham left the Land of Chaldea for Debt? No; we are as far removed from that profane humour, as this Commentary is from the Gravity and Authority of the Holy Scriptures; 'tis one thing to laugh at Religion, and another thing to laugh at them who profane it by their extravagant O­pinions; and they ought to remember, that the Friend­ly Debate treated them in as familiar a manner as some of our Party have done; nay the most leading Men a­mong the Presbyterians, in their most publick Appearances had always something or other to provoke the People to laughter, I instance in Dr. Burgess's Sermon before the House of Commons, 1640. the fifth Motive by which he persuaded them to take the Covenant was, that Nals. Hist. Coll. 1 vol. pag. 532. the Devil himself will have a Covenant from all his Vassals that expect any extraordinary Matters from him; there is not a Witch that hath the Devil at her beek, but she must seal a Covenant with him some­times with her Blood.

[Page 16] Mr. Ridpath, you are very angry when we charge the Presbyte­terians with the odd and extravagant practices of the Cameronians, as if such things were unagreeable to their Sentiments: to tell you the truth, I think the Cameronians are the most active and ingenuous Subdivision of the Presbyterians; they are the Pioneers in your Camp, whom you hug and embrace as your dearest Brethren, when the roughest part of your Work is to be performed. Upon the late Revolution they drove the Clergy out of the West, and guarded the Convention, and many other considerable Services (they'll tell you themselves) they have done you; and yet forsooth they must not be allowed to be Presbyterians. The Act of the West-Kirk, and the Remonstrance in the Year 1650. are better Evi­dences of Presbyterian Principles, than all your little whiffling Ex­cuses and Evasions. Our People took care to publish an Epitome of the Hind let loose, not because it was written by any of the Ca­meronians; but rather because he that wrote it, gathered together the Publick Papers, Remonstrances, Declarations, and Wrestlings of that Party against the State, in which they lived since the Reformati­on; and therefore if any suffered hard things under the late Reigns, they were the high-flown Presbyterians; such of them as lived peaceably and modestly, suffered nothing at all: for our Laws ne­ver forbad any man to think but that Presbytery was preferable to Episcopacy, if his Opinions and Education led him to think so; but our Governours took care that the Principles of Presbyterians might not break out into Tumults and Insurrections; such as for­merly pulled down the Monarchy, overthrew the Fundamental Constitution, and turned our Nation into a Field of Blood.

We are very much obliged to your Wit and Invention for your Pag. 23. Derivation of the word Enthusiasm; you prove us Enthusiasts from two Arguments, first because we are Drunkards, and next because we use unscriptural Ceremonies. I cannot deny but I was refresh­ed a little with this extraordinary Flight of your Fancy, and I leave it to all impartial Men to judge whether this Witticism of yours, or another which I am going to tell you, be more coherent, raptu­rous and gentile; nay, I think I may leave it to your own decision, if you are but a little recovered from the career of your Passion: the Story is this, One of my Friends once persuaded me to go along with him to see that sad sight of Bethlehem Hospital; as we entred the lower Apartments, we drew near to the Cell of a little grave Man, whom we found reading Ovid de Tristibus with great Application. My Friend and I asked him several Questions, all which he answered very pertinently, so that we could not discover for a good while where [Page 17] his Madness lay: at last I asked him if he understood the Book he read, he told me he did, and convinced me that what he said was true. I asked him again, how he came to have such a kindness for that Book beyond other Books; at which he smiled with some ap­pearance of Disdain, pitying my Ignorance, that I did not know a thing that he thought was known all the World over: why (said he) Ovid is of our Family; and do not you know, (said he) that Ovidius is from Ovis a Sheep, and the Butchers take Ovis by the Neck, and therefore he began his Book de Tristibus, with Parve nec invidio; from all this he concluded that Ovid was of his Family; and, I think, he argued as wisely as you do to prove us Enthu­siasts.

It is true, the Author of the Postscript said, that the Acts of the General Assembly did sufficiently vindicate King Charles II. and his Ministers of State from any Shadow of Rigour or Cruelty; but I must tell you that he meant other Acts than those you guess, and it is a sad thing to have to do with such an Adversary as you; it appears that you have a very good Opinion of your self, and there is not a Quality more essential to a Presbyterian than Pride and Vanity, you have not read the Books you are concerned to read, if you set up for the publick Advocate of the Kirk; how came you to guess what Acts your Adversary meant, unless he had cited those Acts particu­larly: and therefore I advise you to read the Acts of the General Assembly more narrowly, and see if you can name any of the Papal Enchroachments upon the Civil Magistrate more daring and ambitious than that one Act which is cited in the Margine, and July 28. 1648. ante mer. Sess. 18. p. mili 7. Act and Declar. a­gainst the Act of P. pag. 17. which is recorded to the Honour of Presbytery. Mr. Ridpath, you see that I have a great desire to court your Friendship, since I cite the Books exactly, that you look upon as Oracles.

You tell us, after a long Declamation against King Charles II. his Government and the Doctrine of Passive Obedience, that Sir George Mackenzie's Arguments in the defence of his Reign, are all of them built upon a false Narrative of Matter of Fact; as if the Re­bellions against King Charles I, and II. were not notorious, and known all Europe over. The Scotch Rebels laid King Charles I. up­on the Altar, and the English Rebels sacrificed him; and this is no other Censure than what is obvious to every Man's Observation. Must we sit down and transcribe all the Presbyterian Protestations, Re­monstrances, seasonable Warnings, and Declarations, when every little Pamphlet is answered? Must we prove that Presbyterians are Re­bels? that is as needless as to prove first Principles: for since the Covenant is the Magna Charta of your Religion, as you are distin­guished [Page 18] from other Christians, why should you think the Imputati­on of Rebellion to be any Reproach? Sir George Mackenzie gave the World a true Narrative of the first Rise and Occasion of those Laws that you complain of. And we are very glad how much you write against it, you but wound your own head, and kick against the pricks: for his Narrative remains true, and founded upon the Records of Parliament, and Progress of your Rebellion, and still unanswered, as it is unanswerable. I know that one of your Club wrote a Pamphlet against his Defence of King Charles II' s Govern­ment, entituled, a Vindication of the Presbyterians in Scotland, &c. It peeped out, as if it were afraid to see the light, but no body knows where to find it, and in a few days it evanished. 'Tis said to be printed for Edward Golding, 1692. I got one Copy acciden­tally, but all my Industry could not procure another. The Au­thor is a very accomplish'd Gentleman, no doubt of it; he tells you, in the very first page of his Pamphlet, that he left the Law part unanswered. And this one Expression is enough to proclaim him a Fool, that he who had no knowledge in the Laws, should venture to answer Sir George Mackenzie's Book; just as if one should censure the Works of Tully and Quintilian, without any knowledge of the Rules of Oratory and Rhetorick; and, to let you see how grosly ignorant this poor Creature is, he tells us, that King Ch. I. when the Earl of Traquair sat at the Helm of Affairs, imposed on Pag 3. the Subjects an Oath, commonly called the Tender, with great Severity, and that, it is not improbable but that the Covenant was a Counter-Oath to that. Now Mr. Ridpath, I ask you how any Man can for­bear smiling to see how such a little Shuttle-cock can assault the Me­mory and Writings of Sir George Mackenzie? Was the Covenant no older than the Tender? and was the Tender, (by which Men were made to part with all degrees of Loyalty; and to renounce the Family of the Stewarts) imposed with great Severity by King Charles I. and is this the Book that you think confutes Sir George Mackenzie's Vindication, better than the Doctor can defend it? But your learned Author goes on, and tells us that the General As­sembly (I suppose he means that in 1638.) did not throw out the Pag. 4. Bishops without the Authority of Parliament, since they had their allow­ance for it; as if the General Assembly that threw out the Bishops had waited for the determination of a Parliament: and when Sir George pleads, that the Ecclesiastick State were always the first of the three Estates of Parliament, your little Man tells us, in opposition to this, some Stories of Monks and Culdees, by which the Church was governed from the beginning of Christianity in Scotland. [Page 19] But is this any thing to our purpose, when we plead, that by so many Laws and Parliamentary Constitutions, our Bishops make up the first of the Three Estates of Parliament; and which is more, those very Laws are not yet repealed, by which the Ecclesiastick State is declared to be the first. And tho in the days of the Cove­nant, when the Bishops were expelled by Tumult and Violence, one of the three Estates was split into two, contrary to the funda­mental Constitution of Parliaments, yet by unrepealed Laws and immemorial Possession, they remain the first of the three Estates of Ibid Parliament. He tells us next, that there were no Bishops during King James' s Residence, and consequently none sat in Parliament; and must we be put to the drudgery of confuting such a sad Creature as this is, when the Records of Parliament give him the lie? And I speak it sincerely, I never saw any thing in Print more ignorantly writ than that Pamphlet is: for he tells us again, that he knew of no Per­sons Pag. 5. of Quality put to death by Covenanters, save the Earl of Montross. And if you please to defend your learned Brother, you may; for my part, if I am not constrained to it, I am resolved never to look into his Pamphlet; nor do I know how to excuse my self at the Reader's hands, for inserting so many of his lamentable Im­pertinencies.

In another place of your Book, you accuse Sir George Mackenzie of having persecuted Hallside; but this Gentleman is here also, and no Man can speak more to the advantage of Sir George Mac­kenzie, in all Companies, and upon all occasions, than he does; and he flatly denies all the malicious Fictions that you have heaped together on that Subject.

If Laws have been made under the Reign of King Charles II, to restrain the Fury of Madmen and Incendiaries; neither the State, nor such as advised those Laws to be made are to be blamed; for there were no Laws made against the Speculations of Presbyterians, but against the Practices of such of them, whose Principles and Endeavours were equally destructive to humane Society, as they were pernicious to the particular Settlement of our Nation.

The Paragraph that follows is a true sample of your way of rea­soning, Ibid. when you say that Nero and Julian the Apostate had the Advantage of the Primitive Christians, in regard of Quality, Sense, and Interest. But I still think that the Apostles and Primitive Chri­stians were Men of the best Sense, and far beyond all their Perse­cutors. Mr. Ridpath, to do you no piece of Injustice (for I dis­dain it, and one needs not take any Advantage of you) I let the Reader know, that in the Correction of your Errata's, you advise [Page 20] to dash out the word Sense out of lin. 32. of pag. 27. but then when the word Sense is dashed out, you do not repeat faithfully the Doctor's Argument: for you know very well that he reckons the Quality, Sense and Interest of the Nobility that are for Episcopacy, as things that bear down the noise and clamour of all their Antagonists; you may raise Monsters as many as you please, and then fight with your own Dreams and Imaginations; but since you do not repeat an argument faithfully, you should let it alone. And what followed in the same Paragraph of the Postscript, viz. That the Episcopal Nobility were men of parts, honour and integrity, was to be considered in conjunction with the former; the Characters last named you do not deny to be true, and if so, how can men of ho­nour and integrity be perjured oppressors? For my part, I never thought that Honour in its true notion could be separated from a good Conscience: and the Author of the Postscript intended to baffle the Calumnies of their opposers, by a compendious enume­ration of the outward and inward advantages that the Patrons of Episcopacy possessed; so that if you was at the pains to answer this Argument, you ought not fraudulently to suppress such words, as contained its frame and energy: and I am content that you call me as well as the Author of the Postscript, a Pedant, an Ass, a Blun­derer, a Villain, a Lyar, and a Papist; if I tell you that you seem to have nothing in your view than to raise a little Dust, when you repeat an argument but not in the Authors words, it is no more his but yours; you may be taught your mistake by that of the Poet,

You tell us next, that Sir George Mackenzie owns, that Presby­terian Ministers, and Presbyterian Jurors who were summoned to the Pag 28. tryal of Malefactors of their own persuasion, seldom failed to condemn them; From this you conclude, that Sir George gives himself and the Dr. both the Lye, when they charge those Principles upon the Presbyterians in general: and this you say, discovers the falshood of that necessity, that the Episcopalians pretend the Government was under to make such Laws against the Presbyterians in its own defence. Your argument may be reduced into form thus: Some Presby­terian Ministers who lived peaceably at Edinburgh, blamed and condemned the practices and rebellions of the Cameronian Presbyterians: Ergo, the principles of Rebellion are not to be charged upon the Scotch Presbyterians in general. But Mr. Rid­path, [Page 21] here I deny your Consequence. For when we charge the Presbyterians in general with rebellious principles and practices, we do not intend to include every individual of that persuasion; for many of them do not see the just consequences of their own Principles, many of them have not courage enough to put them in execution: many of them may be naturally of so sweet a tem­per, that the felicity of their complexion resists the malignity of their Tenents; yet notwithstanding of all this, the Presbyterians for the most part are guided by a Spirit of rebellion and ill nature. When one says such a thing is true of such a Sect or Fraternity; generally speaking, he does not intend that it should be understood in a strict universality, but with that latitude that the subject mat­ter will allow; and if you say, that the severe Laws that you com­plain of were made against such Malefactors, as Presbyterian Mi­nisters themselves condemned; then I infer, that the Laws were not made against Presbyterians as such, but against those Rebels who improved their Covenants and Associations into Seditions, Tumults, and Insurrections.

'Tis very true, that those Presbyterian Ministers who were of a calmer temper, were sometimes employed to reclaim the Ma­lefactors Ibid. to their Duty, yet they could not prevail with them, be­cause the Western Enthusiasts had a higher opinion of their own Preachers, who were Remonstrators and through paced Covenanters, than they had of the more peaceable and sober Presbyterians; why then are our Laws and Governours blamed for restraining the mad­ness of such who were thought intolerable by Presbyterians as well as by the King and Parliament, and your reasonings in this Pa­ragraph plainly infer, that the King had nothing in his view but to preserve his hereditary Right, and the peace of his Subjects, when such and such Laws were made against illegal and tumultuous meetings, as men of all persuasions were necessitated to condemn.

But you add further, that this concession of Sir George Macken­zie's, discovers the falshood of that necessity which the Episcopalians Ibid. pretend the Government was under, to make such Laws against Presbyterians in their own defence. Mr. Ridpath, if the Govern­ment was assaulted, and the peace openly disturbed, there was a plain necessity to make such Laws as were thought proper to re­strain the fury of such Zealots, whether they were Presbyterians or Anabaptists, all is one to me; and if you say that Presbyterians were not guilty of such practices, then I say there were no Laws made against the Presbyterians: for the King and Parliament did not con­sider them as Presbyterians but as heady, incorrigible, and stubborn [Page 22] Rebels, who were restless in their nature, and gave them perpetual disturbance.

What follows is of the same nature with the former; You Ibid. tell us that Sir George says, that the hereditary Sheriffs refused to put the Laws in execution against Conventicles, by which they became formidable. This you pretend destroys two other Assertions pro­pagated by our Party, viz. That Presbyterianism is not popular, and that none but the Rabble are their friends. But Mr. Ridpath, all this proceeds from your incurable precipitancy and ignorance. For some heritable Sheriffs might be inclined to favour Presbytery, and yet 'tis very true, that the most of their friends are among the Rabble; and when we say so, we do not intend to say, but that here and there an heritable Sheriff, or a Gentleman, may be a stiff Covenanter, and may differ very little in his Education and principles, from the inferiour sort of people, and if at any time we say that the Rabble only favours the Presbyterians, we under­stand that Proposition in a limited sense, as all such Propositions must be understood, for generally speaking (except it be in the West of Scotland) the Presbyterians have very few Friends among the Nobility or Gentry; and though they had not the majority of the Nation, yet they might prove formidable, and when Sir George says that they were formidable, can you infer from it that they were more numerous than their opposites. At this rate you may prove, that High-waymen, and Robbers are more numerous than honest Citizens and Subjects, because a very few of them are able to frighten a whole County.

We are ever and anon told by you and the rest of your Party, that the Majority of Scotland is for Presbytery; but the wiser men of your Faction think otherwise, and therefore they took care to se­cure their inclosure (into which they stumbled by a fortuitous con­course of many accidents) by several Laws and barricadoes not to be named in this place.

When you recollect your self a little, perhaps you may ac­knowledge Ibid. that it is not wisely done of you to abuse so many of the Nobility of Scotland, by such infamous Lyes and Forgeries as you are pleased to print, particularly when you tell us, That the Court employed bloody, cut-throat Papists to ruine the Country. You name the Earl of Airlie, and the Laird of Meldrum; 'tis true, this may pass in a Coffee house at London where the Earl of Air­gile is not known; but there is not a Scots-man alive that ever heard that either of these Gentlemen were Papists. Now this is very sad stuff Mr. Ridpath, and any man that undergoes the toil [Page 23] of considering your Books, if he knew not whence they came, must be guarded by extraordinary patience, when truth and innocence are almost in every line so boldly invaded.

What you mean when you tell the Dr. that he has wounded Pag. 29. his pretences to Loyalty by defending Sir George Macknzie's Book, is to me a Mystery; for I am confident that you are but very little acquainted with him or his pretences either. But you com­plain that he did not answer your argument taken from the con­sequences Ibid. of Passive Obedience, and that he turns his back and takes no notice of you. Well, Mr. Ridpath, it is but just that a person of your valour should be met in open Field; but you must not conclude that a man is pusillanimous when he retires, unless you have him so much under your authority that he dare not move a step without your order, nor answer any thing unless in the method that you appoint him.

You impute all the direful effects of Arbitrary Power, to the Episcopal Party and the Doctrine of Passive Obedience; yet I am apt to believe, that there is no people in the World loves Arbi­trary Power so much as the Presbyterians do, and that they hate it only when it is not in their own keeping. If by Arbitrary Power the Presbyterians mean some such power as is unaccountable to any earthly Tribunal, such a power there must be in every Government, and if it be not managed by a true Christian pub­lick Spirit, it may be as grievous and intolerable in the hands of a Parliament, as in the hands of a King. To declaim against arbitrary power, is to declaim against all Government; for there is no Government upon Earth but exercises in its Supreme Judi­catories arbitrary power and jurisdiction. for which it is not ac­countable to any but to God alone, where this finally decisive and Supreme power ought to be lodged, is a Question that I leave to Lawyers and Statesmen; they know our municipal Laws and Con­stitutions. When the sins of a Nation provoke God, then he pu­nishes them by foolish, extravagant; and cruel Magistrates; when it is otherwise, and that God is pleased with them, they enjoy good Laws, peace and protection under wise Governours; and this is all the remedy that is left in humane affairs, against publick calamities and disasters. There was no Meeting since the World began that declaimed against arbitrary power so much as the long Parliament did, nor was ever England so miserable as under their Tyranny and Oppressions; as long as the administration of publick affairs is left to the disposal of men, so long we may [Page 24] be exposed to arbitrary power; and the former must be as long as the World continues: a Parliament may be as tyrannical as any King; and when they are thus pack'd together to serve a parti­cular design, we must truckle under them until those Laws are repealed by another; so that Passive Obedience thus stated, is ne­cessary under all Forms and Models of Government; it is all one thing to me whether I am oppressed by the King, or by King and Parliament; there is no Judicatory allows the remedy of a Re­bellion, and what all Judges determine in all Nations, and at all times, must be the Voice of God.

They who plead for the Supreme and decisive Authority of the General Assembly in Ecclesiastical affairs, ought to be more friend­ly to Arbitrary power; for though their sentence against any par­ticular Clergyman were never so unjust and oppressive, yet he must strike Sail and hold his peace, and practice Non Resistance to a greater heighth, than ever the Episcopal Clergy preached it, if he would not incur the highest Censures of the Kirk. And this Spiritual Tyranny is more insupportable, than that which reaches only our temporal concerns; and I am content without any blustering or foaming to reason this modestly with your self, or any other that you can name, but still with this proviso, that there be many more present than you and I, for I am afraid that we do not well understand one another, and therefore, if ever we meet we must have a Moderator to keep the peace.

You say that the Dr. contradicts himself, because he thought that pag. 30. there was no injury done to the Presbyterians, in publishing a Book that exposed their Fooleries; and yet he grants, that the Author of that Book was perhaps unwary as to some instances. Good Mr. Rid­path, I see no contradiction here at all, for a Book may serve the end for which it was published, though perhaps the Author mi­stakes himself in some single instances. There is no Author now adays sets up for an infallible Dictator; and you tell us in another place of your last Pamphlet, that it is not possible to publish so many particular stories without committing some faults; there is no doubt but you have a very good opinion of your own Book that you last printed, yet I hope you are convinced before now, that the Covenant was imposed upon Children when they entred the Univer­sity. Whether the Author of that Book mistook himself or not, is not positively affirmed by the Dr. so your contradiction vanishes into air and noise. You raise more dust than a Coach and six Horses, when you are about to kill a Fly.

[Page 25] It is probable that the Author of the Postscript may be chastised for having said that Mr. Rutherford's Writings, in some places were past all human understanding. I have no commission from him or any of his Friends to return your Language in Specie. You tell us, that if Mr. Ruhterford were alive, he would have scorned to have fouled his Fingers with such an Episcopal Hawker; but indeed, Mr. Ridpath, I do not think that Mr. Rutherford was so proud, but that some time or other, he fouled his Fingers with meaner Creatures than the Doctor. But what was it that he said of Mr. Rutherford's Writings? that, in some places they were very dark and obscure; and was this any such extraordinary Crime? Mr. Ridpath, I love to say very little of Men that are dead, if you think that his Writings are so clear, pray give us your Commentaries upon his second Chapter of his second Exercitation Pro divina Gratia. 2. Resp. Distinguo vocem (verum) quod unusquisque tenetur credere, id est, verum, metaphysicè & fundamentaliter, in se & quoad eventum, concedo majorem & tum minorem pernego. But still he left us to guess what the other Mem­ber of the Distinction may be. Therefore take it thus, Quod unus­quisque tenetur credere, id est, verum, logicè, formaliter, extra se, & quoad non eventum; nego Majorem. And then both the one and the other are good strong Nonsense in all its formalities. But he goes on, Christum enim pro unoquoque mortuum esse in se fundamentaliter & metaphysicè, non est verum sed falsum. Christum pro unoquoque Mor­tuum esse metaphysicè falsum, is a Phrase I am not acquainted with; and if one durst speak it, the Author seems not, (notwithstanding of all the Flights of his Metaphysicks) to advert to the trite distin­ction between the Veritas Metaphysica and the Veritas Logica. For Veritas Metaphysica numeratur inter proprietates Entis, & consequenter non objectum fidei sed simplicis apprehensionis; at propositionibus logicè ve­ris assentimur vel propter testantis auctoritatem, vel propter rei evidenti­am: And the Question is not de Metaphysica veritate hujus proposi­tionis, pag. 31. sed de veritate Logica. This is not the only Instance that may be pick'd out of this Paragraph to prove it obscure and unintelli­gible; that other Phrase in se & quoad eventum concedo Majorem, is as dark as any thing can be; nor do I remark here the Solecism of his Latin, quoad Eventum; but I name this Exercitation as unintelli­gible from the beginning to the end. And because you are a Man of honour, and cannot endure Contradiction with any Patience, it were a more gallant Exercise for you to prove that this Exercita­tion of his, is plain and solid Theology, than to blot so much Paper with your imaginary Libels against the Clergy. You fight much at the rate that the Tartars do, when they are driven before their [Page 26] Enemies; or rather like the Dutch, who are mounted on Horse­back that they may flie with greater Convenience: but if you have as much Courage and Honour, as you have Bawling and Impu­dence, come to a close Engagement, and prove that Mr. Ruther­ford's Answers to the forementioned Argument are solid, plain and intelligible. What miraculous Feats other Presbyterians can do, is no­thing to your purpose. Add to the former Instance Mr. Rutherford's Argument in his 22. Chapter of his Disputatio Scholastica de divina Providentia, to prove that there is no opposition between Sin and the Divine Nature, which I cannot now transcribe, and yet still I have the Confidence to say that it is foolish, childish and frivolous, and of the most pernicious consequence upon the Morals of Mankind. For if there is no opposition between the Divine Nature and Sin, antecedenter ad liberum D E I decretum, Men may be brought to think that Sin is not so odious in it self, nor at so great a distance from true Perfection, as the Scriptures represent it. But if you would see many more passages that are unintelligible, read his Dis­quisitiones de Ente possibili, and the former Exercitation, and if any thing can convince you, you may be then forced to acknow­ledge that his Writings are obscure, and consequently the Doctor's Pag. 32. saying so did not furnish you with the least umbrage of charging Sir George Mackenzie with the grossest Immoralities of Life, for such I think the subornation of Witnesses is.

The next Blow is for his Incivility to Mr. Rule, that he does not allow him the Title of Doctor. Truly, Mr. Ridpath, if he wilfully made use of any other Complement towards him, than what is just, there is no Man alive more ready to retract his Error than he; he thought there was no rudeness in bestowing upon him the Title by which he was ordinarily known; and if the Doctor knew not the several steps of his Promotion, I see no reason why you can accuse him of Incivility, and the thing being purely indifferent; if he had been better informed, he would not deny any thing that he knew to be so easie and innocent.

Next you tell us that you do not believe the two instances that are cited in that Postscript against Mr. Rule upon the Doctor's Au­thority. But why, Mr. Ridpath, did the Author say so of him barely upon his own Authority, or are they not to be seen both of them in his Printed Books; and are not you much more uncivil to him, who revive Stories when perhaps they are entirely forgotten by others? The decretum praedamnatum was not the Fiction of my Friend, nor yet his new and unnaccountable Criticism of the word Ordinatio; and now you may add another, which is decretum prae­teritum. [Page 27] And you may see these new Decrees (never mentioned before by any Class of Divines) in page 66 of his Vindication of the Church of Scotland. And now I think one is sufficiently provoked to call you impudent, that you bring above-board things that you neither understand nor defend.

You complained, in your former Pamphlet of the Injuries done to Mr. Urqhuart and Mr. Kirkton; because the first was said to have spoken contemptuously of our Blessed Saviour and the Lord's Prayer, and the other alledged, that Abraham run out of the Land of Chal­dea for debt. The Author of the Postscript told you that both these Stories (which you your self thought unpardonable) could be pro­ved; and I am confident many more of that nature. But you tell us that you are sufficiently satisfied, by those who have lately made enquiry into the Affair, that the whole is a malicious Calumny. So we must take it upon your Word and theirs, it might be reason­ably expected from you, that, at least, you would have procured under their own hands solemn Attestations that they never said any such thing; and that was all that you could do to prove your Ne­gative: and this might have been easily had, especially from Mr. J. K. who lives at Edinburgh; nor is there any of us so far exaspe­rated against him as not to believe his own Testimony solemnly and seriously delivered. And this is more Civility on our part, than any of them will allow us at any time, or upon any occasi­on. If I were at Edinburgh I could prove the Affirmative; and you must excuse me to continue just where I was, notwithstanding of all the Informations you have received.

The following Paragraph hath in it more Impertinencies than there are Lines, and yet it is probable that many of your Sect may think it seraphically witty. The Author of the Postscript said, that the absurd and ludicrous Sect metamorphos'd Religion and its solemn Ex­cercises into Theatrical Scenes. Another of the same Fraternity says, that your Preachers were whining Fellows that drivelled at Mouth and Eyes. And thus you make them contradicct one another, and then you run away with a loud holla'a, as if you were at the Head of the Rabble pulling down a Cathedral, to see so many Curates slain with the Jaw bone of an Ass. The word Theatrical Scenes does not determine whether your Preachers acted Comedies or Tragedies, and a whining Scaramouchi may act his part in either; and if so, the many Words, which you have gathered to no purpose, discover your Ignorance, and not any Contradiction amongst them whom you hate. But, Mr. Ridpath, are you not in a strange Career when you can never hit upon the true nature of a Contradiction; [Page 28] I am not surpriz'd that you do not know the Nature of a Comedy and Tragedy, for you never read Aristotle [...], nor none of the Commentators upon him, either ancient or modern; yet you might, in two months time (for so long I am told you was at the University) have learned what a strict and formal Contra­diction is.

That the Presbyterians were better at Libelling than their Neigh­bours, is evident from all Records; and therefore the Author of the Postscript had good Reason to say, that Libelling was their Cha­racteristick, as that which they most practised, and excelled all o­thers in; that, in which they placed most of their Strength and Confidence, and which they will never forbear, if they happen to live where there is any to be accused. But you say that your Ene­mies were the first Aggressors, and their bold Attempts against the Godly, justifies all the rough Treatment that they have met with. Mr. Ridpath, there is one thing that I would entreat you to con­descend to, and it is, in itself, very just and reasonable, and unless you yield to it, we may fight to our last breath without satisfying one another or serving any good Design, the thing is this, when you accuse Persons and Parties, you must be more express, definite and particular in your Libels. I am of the Opinion that it is not pos­sible for Presbyterians to forbear Libelling, especially upon all pub­lick Turns and Revolutions; their Libels against the Clergy both in England and in Scotland, are still upon Record. Did you never see the Centuries of scandalous Ministers accused before the Long-Parliament. The General Libel against the Bishops of Scotland may be seen, when you please, in the King's Large Manifesto, and in the first Volume of Nalson's Collections, and if you believe neither of these Books, since they were both written by Malignants, read the Acts of the General Assembly, 1638, and there you have the very same Libels mentioned; and there is no Presbyterian but knows, that the Libels against the Bishops, in the Year 1638, were read from all the Pulpits of the Nation where the Assembly's Authority was obeyed: and what is said, by the Author of the Postscript, of their Behaviour towards Archbishop Spotswood, is commonly at­tested by the oldest Men in that corner of the Country, near St. Andrews. Particularly this is more carefully preserved in the Fami­ly of Ballfour. And the Bishop of O. and Mr. Sage of Glasgow, had this very Story from the Laird of Ballfour's own mouth. 'Tis true that there is an Act of the General Assembly, mentioning the Libels against the Bishops, but there are also among the unprinted Acts, Acts of Excommunication and Deposition against some Prelates; and [Page 29] when those Acts are produced, I offer to prove, from their own Authentick Records, many more steps of their Fraud and Artifice. That there are such Acts as I last named unprinted, vid. Index of the principal unprinted Acts of the Assembly at Glasgow, 1638. And if they were not afraid of being discovered and exposed, upon this very Head, those Acts had been printed as well as the other Principal Acts; nay, the Act against Episcopacy it self was not printed, because it could not but alarm all the Protestant Churches abroad against them, when the Order of Episcopacy was condem­ned as simpliciter unlawful; a thing unheard in the Christian Church, until the mungrel Conventicle at Glasgow sat: therefore the Act against Episcopacy was left unprinted as well as the Acts of Excommunication and Deposition against some Prelates. And this is ei­ther altogether unknown to, or dissembled by Mr. Gilb. Rule, when he denies the Truth of that Story, as related by the Author of the Five Letters. And you are a Fool to think, that, in those days, when Rebellion and Hypocrisie were triumphant, they would have stuck at such little Punctilio's, and not practise all Arts to delude the Populace. I hope you do not deny what use they made of Margaret Mitchelson's Visions, Raptures and Revelations, by which they persuaded the People that the Covenant was authorised by im­mediate Revelations from Heaven, as well as by the Popular Tu­mults at Edinburgh. The Knavery against Archbishop Spotswood was an Injury done to him and the Church; but the counterfeit Raptures of Margaret Mitchelson (countenanced by your Party) mocked and defied God's Justice and Providence, no less than it ridicul'd and prophan'd all Religion. [Vid. King's large Declarati­on.] Nay, they procured Libels against the Clergy from most Counties in England; and in those Counties where they had none to work upon of their own Gang, they forged Libels, and presented such counterfeit Petitions in the name of such Counties, and dis­persed their Forgeries for real Truths, to make their Party appear numerous, and the Nals. Coll. 1. Vol. pag. 795. Clergy odious. And Sir Thomas Aston pe­titioned the House of Lords against this villanous Practice; but this was not welcome to those Lords who favoured the Faction, and therefore Sir Thomas Aston was reprehended, and the Forgerers gently rebuked. And my Author truly observes, that this was like to prove aglorious Reformation, which was built upon such Foundations, and advanced by such Arts and Methods. So that if you mean the former Presbyte­rians, they were the first Aggressors; and if you mean the modern, they practised this Trade of Libelling ever since the beginning [Page 30] of the Revolution, and long before the Book appeared that provoked your displeasure, and they are much better at it than their opposites; their curiosity reaches to the meanest concerns. There are no people in the World can give such exact account of their Neigh­bours, when they rise, and when they go to bed, what they eat, and what they drink, what they say, and with whom they con­verse; and this is the reason why they so often blow up the neigh­bourhood into flames of Contention and Calumny. Name me but one Man since the name of Presbyterians was known to the World, that ever gave them any sensible provocation, whom they have not persecuted with their Tongues and Libels to the utmost of their power.

They were not only the first Aggressors, but they continued their practices under the Reign of Charles II. and since the Re­volution the Libels against the Clergy have employed their Pres­byteries, Synods, and Assemblies, not to mention the Libels a­gainst Masters of Universities, where there was no Accuser. I have insisted the longer upon this, to let you see the vanity of a common topick that runs through both your Pamphlets; Libel­ling is so peculiar to the Presbyterians, that they cannot think of reforming it; in all their conversations their discourse runs most upon them that are absent. It is an idle thing to deny plain mat­ter of Fact, especially when it is supported by publick Records, Practices, and the unanimous Suffrages of a whole Nation. I think it enough to prove by the most undeniable evidence, that in this art of Libelling you are the first aggressors, and the only experienced practitioners, without putting my self to the pains of calling you Rogue, Villain, Rascal, impudent Lyar, and such like gentile names as you bestow upon your Adversaries.

You add, That it is natural for a Cadet of Dumbarton's Regiment, which used to plunder people of their goods, to rob Men of their good Names, and therefore ought not to be believed. This is a new Ar­ticle Pag. 33. which we have not heard of before, that he plundered people of their goods, and it supplies the defects of the Original Libel in the Inquisition; and it is very ordinary for the Presbyterians to re­present such as they Libel, actually guilty of the breach of the Ten Commandments: Now Your Woman amongst the Corn, and the plundering people of their goods, added to the former Libel makes him actually guilty of the breach of all. For in the first Libel, He is accused of having no Religion, and of Swearing, so at one stroke he transgresses the first four; and the two Articles added in [Page 31] your Continuation, together with his Reflections against the Pres­byterians make him guilty of the rest, either expresly or by neces­sary consequence. But Mr. Ridpath, you do not know the di­scipline of the French Army, and if he had inclinations to rob and plunder, this is a more proper time to practise it; when He is turned out of all his Possessions, and allowed no other employ­ment under this Reformation than to answer Libels. And indeed I think if you were a Soldier, you have no principle to restrain you from plundering when you might venture with safety, espe­cially in a Popish Country, the true Israelites, and Covenanters might take the Egyptian goods without scruple or remorse; as they formerly did at New-Castle, contrary to Articles and Capitula­tions.

Your Grammatical Lecture of the Literae Mutabiles, you may Ibid. recommend to your Scholars, and whatever proficiency you have made in Grammar, you seem to me to reason much like the Gentleman that I formerly named, who thought himself of Ovid's Family.

You had better let fall the mention of Archbishop Sharp, than bring him so often upon the Stage to the disgrace of your Party. Ibid. He was certainly murdered, not by an accidental effort of fury and passion as you alleadge; but in a most deliberate manner, af­ter many Cabals and consultations kept for that very end; and the Author of the Postscript did not reason from Shields his au­thority so much as from the Principles he went upon, his Book being an accurate Collection of several authentick Papers, and avowed practices of his Party since the Reformation; nor was it ever said, that sober Presbyterians did allow of his Murder: but how few of them are sober? and I can tell you more, that the Presbyterian Ladies in Fife at that very time, did industriously shun in all conversation to call this bloody Act, a Murder; but gravely said, that indeed the Man was slain, but they could not think that any thing that was performed by so great a Saint as Rathillat and his religious Cut-throats, could be called a Murder. And when such practises are charged upon the Presbyterians in ge­neral, it is not intended (as I told you once already) to involve every individual; it is not possible to deprave the nature of some particular men to that degree, though they seem to maintain prin­ciples that yield pernicious Consequences.

[Page 32] But, Mr. Ridpath, by conversing with your self I am become a little more bold, and I offer to prove from Presbyterian prin­ciples, that Archbishop Sharp ought to have been murdered, are not all the Covenanters obliged to bring their Enemies to condign punishment? and when the Magistrates are open and avowed Ene­mies to the cause of God, is it not lawful for some to interpose? especially when acted by Heroical impulse to stop the universal deluge of Impiety, that was likely to drown the whole Nation, to recover the freedom of the Church that was run down by Ty­ranny and Perjury, contrary to all National Obligations, former Laws and Liberties. Did not King Charles II. himself know Conti­nuat., that he had forfeited his Title to the Crown? and was it necessary according to you to delay the execution of Justice in this calami­tous posture of publick affairs, unless it could be procured in due form? when it was not possible for honest men to be heard: especially since the Covenanters struck off the heads of Montrose, Huntley, Haddo, Spotswood, for acting by a Commission from the very King, by whose Commission they themselves pretended to hold their places. What is there in the Murder of Archbishop Sharp that may not be justified by your Principles? Did not He deserve death? No doubt you think he did; and if it be only the Forms that you stand upon, must the seasonable execution of Ju­stice be delayed, because it cannot be had in all its regular steps and formalities, when the Magistrates openly tyrannize and op­press our Liberties Civil and Religious? At this rate you dis­own the most publick acts of the Covenanters. By what form of Law then in being, did the Tables of your Govenanters sit at Edin­burgh, when they were forbidden by open Proclamation to continue any longer their Consultations and Cabals. If you pretend the necessity of their affairs, was there ever any state of things more lamentable in it self, than you represent the Reign of King Charles II. to be? and if so, why might not some resolute and gallant Heroes, some true Sons of the Covenant, venture, without the ordinary forms, to do justice speedily upon such an eminent opposer of Religion as Archbishop Sharp was? The Laws of self­defence and preservation, as you explain them, dispence with Forms, when the thing is for the matter right in itself, and the Magistrate not only neglects, but avowedly opposes Truth, Ju­stice, and Innocence; then 'tis time for men of Courage and Resolution to step forth and assert their Religion and Liberties, [Page 33] not by the tedious method of Law, Order and Process, when Covenants and Original Contracts are turned topsie turvy, but speedi­ly and by open Force pull Antichrist from the Throne. Mr. Rid­path, be advised by me, do not stand so much upon Forms; else you must part with your best beloved Principle and Covenanted Reformation.

And if the Murder of Archbishop Sharp be sincerely disowned by the Presbyterians, since they are so often upbraided and re­proached with it; why do not they by some solemn Act of their Assembly declare, that the killing of Cardinal Beaton and Arch­bishop Sharp were villainous Murders? tho the first was usheredin by Prayer, and the other by singing of Psalms.

You oppose your own Authority to Mr. Shields, and this I am sure many of your own party will laugh at; whether you have the Ascendent of the Doctor in the point of Philosophy, I will give you my Thoughts of that before I end this Letter.

The Doctrine of Passive Obedience comes again in your way, and nothing is more odious to so brisk and daring a Spirit as the Pag. 34. very thought of so tame and silly a Discipline; and you refer us to the incomparable Argument lately published by Mr. John­son. Mr. Ridpath, I agree with you, that the Preface of Mr. Johnson's Book hath in it very pleasant Stroaks of Wit and Fancy; but as to the argumentative part of his Book, it proves the Do­ctrine of Passive Obedience to be Heterodox, by an Argument of equal Strength with that of your own, by which you prove the Episcopal Clergy to be Enthusiasts.

You tell us next, that his Defences of Mr. Brown and Mr. Cant, are so like a Pedantick Doctor, that they deserve no regard, and what you said of them you can bring the Authors to avow it to their Fa­ces. Now we fall upon the Common-place of Pedantry; and, Mr. Ridpath, you must understand that there are Pedants in all Employments. If the vanity of appearing learned and knowing where there is no solid Foundation to support the Character de­serve that Name, perhaps the citing so many Logical Axioms in your Pamphlet, which you do not at all understand, may, in the Opinion of some, make you pass for a Pedant. But, to let this go, tho the Doctor's being a Cadet in Dumbarton's Regiment, was not, in your Opinion, an auspicious Omen of Piety and Huma­nity, yet one might think it a good Presage of his Freedom from Pedantry, at least as good as any of your most remarkable Adven­tures in my Lord Wh—ton's Kitchin.

[Page 34] The Doctor said, that Mr. George Brown, Minister of Drys­dale, processed Andrew Johnston of Lockerby, vigorously before the Ecclesiastical Court for his Crime of Adultery, and therefore his al­ledged connivance was a Presbyterian Fogery. And here the Affie­mative was his, which I prove by the following Certificate un­der the hands of four Witnesses; two in the Parish of St. Marga­ret's Westminster, another in Cornhill near the Exchange, and the fourth without Aldersgate.

Now, Mr. Ridpath, where lies the Pedantry in saying so and so of Mr. Brown; is not your Accusation against him proved to be a Lie. And as for your Charge against Mr. Andrew Cant, that he was suspended, &c. it is purely a Fiction from top to bottom we cannot prove a Negative otherwise than by informing the World that we who are his most intimate Acquaintances never heard of any such thing; he was never suspended, and consequently never used any mean Arts to ingratiate himself with his Superiours, the first is a Romance, and therefore the Superstructed must be a Forgery. And when you charge the Doctor with Pedantry, read over your own learned Book of the Sufferings of Presbyterians from the Episcopalians, especially your nasty and fulsome Epithets [Page 35] that you bestow upon such as you bark at, viz. that they are Tyranno-Papa-Prelatical, and then let any impartial Reader judge whether you do not deserve a place ante omnem circulum amongst the Pedants. There is nothing in all the Athenian Flexions and Compositions, like that High and Majestick Word, Tyranno-Papa-Prelatical. 'Tis worthy of the noble Mr. Ridpath's high flown Genius; and if you were on the top of a Hill in Galloway, preach­ing to a Field-Meeting, this one single World would confound your Auditors into a belief that you were a precious, gracious, convin­cing Man.

Who could stand before so much Eloquence and Acuteness, Bombabamachides, Clunenstaridesarchides in Campis Gurgustidoniis.

The Author of the Postscript said, that you charged our Superi­ours Pag. 35. with such as were deposed for their Immoralities, ad Dean Ha­milton, and Cockburn of St. Bothens. To this you say, that you charged them only with having protected those Men from the Punishment due to their Impieties. But did they protect them when they were deposed? And how can you say that ever they were protected? If their Superiors waited for full and clear Evidences against them before they pronounced Sentence, here was no protection of Cri­minals, but Obedience to the Laws; and tho your Party be not tied to Forms, yet we think our selves obliged to act as we are directed by the Laws.

You fall next upon Archbishop Paterson, and the Lies that you Pag. 36. have published formerly of Archbishop Cairncross, which are plainly refuted in his own printed Letter, to the Conviction of all men, shews what credit you deserve when you accuse either of them.

Mr. Ridpath, you think it a palpable Blunder to say, that some who complyed with Episcopacy after the Restoration of King Charles II. Ibid. were Presbyterians; and this is another sad Instance of your Igno­rance; for they were required to do nothing inconsistent with the Principles of moderate Presbyterians; and all the Ringleaders of the Covenanters, had their Mission from the Bishops of the Church of Scotland, and do you think that they did not then conform to Episcopacy, or that they were not Presbyterians? I am afraid that the little Club, whereof you are Moderator, does not throughly understand the Principles of Presbytery. Had we no Presbyterian Ministers in Scotland, but such as deserted their Chur­ches in the West after the Restoration? was it ever required of [Page 36] any of them that conformed to Episcopacy, to assert that Episcopacy, was preferable to a Parity of Presbyters? No; they still enjoyed their own liberty of thinking what they pleased, if they obeyed their Superiours in licitis & honestis. Were not Mr. Meldrum and Mr. Wilkie, and many others that I could name, Presbyterians, tho they conformed to Episcopacy? They themselves think that they were so still; to my certain knowledge the last was, and I know him to be so honest a Man, that he never endeavoured to hide his Principles, and he thought that he did nothing in conforming to Episcopacy, inconsistent with his own Opinions, and he would have continued still in the Communion of the Episcopal Church if a later Test had not removed him. You must not think that all the Presbyterians are warmed to an equal degree of Heat: there are some, tho very few, more calm and solid than their younger Brethren. Read Mr. Rutherford's due right of Pres­bytery (and I cannot name a Book more acceptable) perhaps you may meet with some Notions there that are not so agreeable to the late Model of Presbytery; the last Edition of a Book is still au­ctior & emendatior. And if it was a Blunder to say, that some who continued Presbyterian in their Principles, conformed to the external Order of the Church under Episcopacy, they who did so conform are obliged to defend him.

You still oblige your Adversaries to prove Negatives; when you libel Dr. Canaries, you tell us, that tho the Ministers and Judi­catories Ibid. declared, that they could make nothing of the Accusation brought against him, yet that will not amount to prove it false; and because a Negative in matter of Fact is not demonstrated (a thing in it self absolutely impossible) you therefore conclude, that still you may accuse him as guilty; but if nothing could be made of it why should you propagate or continue the Slander? for not only are you destitute of true and solid Proofs, but all your Evidences when they are aggravated by Presbyterian Malice, could never be heightned into a plausible Presumption of his Fault. If I should accuse you of having committed Incest with your Mother, you could not prove it to be false otherwise than by letting the World know, that nothing could be made of it; and if so, no honest Man will defame you upon that head.

But you tell us, that there is unexceptionable Evidence of the Wo­man's Ibid. having declared the thing her self. What thing her self decla­red I know not; but for the unexceptionable Evidence, 'tis only [Page 37] upon Record in the World of the Moon, else we had seen it in le­gible Characters long e'er now. But you tell us, that the repu­tation of your Informer is fairer than that of either of the two Dr's. Mr Ridpath, I do not know who this Gentleman is, and therefore in modesty I must forbear to make comparisons; but if he will preserve his Reputation, he must smother his Evidence.

What you drive at towards the close of this Section, is past my skill to find out; when you say, That we have a very pregnant in­stance of a Person of no mean Note, whose accusation, most in England are satisfied is true, and yet we see nothing can be made out, neither before the Judges nor the Lords. Mr. Ridpath, You leave it uncer­tain whether the Person of no mean Note be the Accuser or the Ac­cused. But to demonstrate the impertinence of this Instance, and that you understand Law as little as you do the Rules of Logick. I put the case, that Titius accuses his wise Moevia of Adul­tery; the Judges may be persuaded that the accusation of Ti­tius is true, though the evidences be not so full as the Law re­quires; yet being plain and positive in their nature, and but a degree removed from full proof; such presumptions of guilt which the Civilians call praesumptiones juris & de jure, leave deep impressions upon all, when duly conveyed to our knowledge: because they are as near as can be to that which is plena probatio in foro. But pray, have you any such presumptions against the Dr? Is there any plain evidence against him? and if nothing can be made of it as the Judicatories declare, then 'tis many de­grees below a Presumption; much less that higher presumption which is the ground of a reasonable Suspicion.

But you add, that, Suppose the accusation against the Dr. to be false, yet it argues a great want of cleanly Men amongst the E­piscopalians, Ibid. that they should choose a Man for Agent who lay un­der a flagrant Scandal. The Apostle's Rule is clear, that a Bishop ought to be blameless. A surmise magnified by Presbyterian ma­lice illustrates rather than darkens a man's Reputation, and clears his innocence; not to be evil spoken of by such whose Ele­ment is Calumny, is an argument of no great Spirit, and far less activity. But you say, that the Apostle's Rule is clear; I say so too, but your Head is not clear because the Apostle says, that a Bishop ought to be blameless; therefore you conclude, that if Bishops at any time are evil spoken of and traduced, they must be no longer Bishops. At this rate the most innocent and de­serving [Page 38] men must be disowned, and the greatest Luminaries of the Church must expect to be cashier'd. Athanasius was accused of abominable immoralities; and St. John the Baptist was said to have a Devil; and the Great Bishop of our Souls was accused of being a friend to Publicans and Sinners; he went to Feasts and entertainments which the Puritanical Pharisee could not behold without grumbling and censuring; they would quietly whisper in their Neighbours Ears, that though he said many good things, and wrought many Miracles, yet he was still a stranger to the power of Godliness; he kept ill Company, and the Modern Phanaticks would add, that he was for forms of Prayer; and a great many other things he did, that the Spirit of detraction took by the wrong handle. If your Commentary upon these words, A Bishop ought to be blameless, had appear'd before the Scotch Eloquence came abroad, it ought to have had its own room in that Book, Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, raised many Scandals, and they were Scan­dals of Prelacy and Priest-craft too, against Moses and Aaron; and by your argument they ought both of them to have been deprived of their Honour and Government.

The next mistake is as foolish and impertinent, though not Pag. 37. so dangerous as your wresting the Holy Scriptures to serve the heats of your deluded Fancy. You tell us, that Dr. M —o was very angry that you said of him, [commonly called Dr.] but I assure you, you mistook his meaning: he could not but remark a Quaker expression [commonly called] and so much the rather, that there are many Presbyterians who industriously shun the giving any such Title; for those Academick distincti­ons look so near the Whore of Babylon, that it is not safe for the Saints to use such words; and if the Dr. has any grains of Pride (which perhaps might be allowed in a Cadet of Dumbar­ton's Regiment) yet his ambition runs in another Channel than to affect empty sounds and big words. I thought (and I think I know him better than you do) that a careless easiness rather than reserve, distance or singularity, made up his Character; the affectation of Titles at this time is very unsuitable to the Scotch Clergy, yet it is not in the power of might or malice to make some of them fawn upon the Presbyterians: and though we are ob­liged to forgive our Enemies heartily and sincerely, we must not be so abject as to encourage them to continue their Hostilities, but there is a greater impertinence in your Censure of the Dr; [Page 39] for when you made him to ride in the Popes Guards with a— [...]o insinuate the many Crimes that he was guilty of at Rome, you conclude thus, which methinks looks somewhat strange that such kind of men should be the greatest sticklers for the Party. If you represent the Party as odious and irreligious, and him of the same temper with his Party; what is there strange in this, that an ill man should defend an ill cause: but the most ordinary things ap­pear to you in your Dreams and Visions, Monsters, Miracles and Contradictions.

You are so sharpsighted in discovering Contradictions, that Ibid. you see them almost in every line; and because the Author of the Postscript said, that Dr. Canaries was treated with special Ho­nour by a Presbyterians Judicature; therefore this is made a contradiction to what others say of them, that they are a proud, soure, unconversible Tribe. But this is your everlasting mistake, that you do not understand what a Contradiction is. That they are a proud, soure, unconversible Tribe, is true in the sense, that all such pro­positions are understood; not in a Logical universal sense, but gene­rally speaking; the proudest Man upon Earth is not soure and uncon­versible in all the intervals of his life; Mad men have their lucid intervals, and a wise Man may sometimes act foolishly: Solo­mon says, that a wise Man's heart is at his right hand; yet the presence of his mind may sometimes forsake him, and he him­self was a sad instance of this Truth; His Proverbs, that are livinely inspired, many of them are true in no other sense than [...] and is it not sad that the poor Curates should have no other employment now adays, than to dispute with [...]uch as know not the nature of a Contradiction; yet for your [...]ncouragement, I believe George Stirling, and Harry Ferguson [...]ay think you one of the learnedest men this last age has pro­duced, and perhaps there is none beyond you in their Opinion already.

Your quarrel against the Dr. is never at an end, and he ex­pects Ibid. no fairer quarter at your hands. You are angry it seems [...]hat he denied that ever be rode in the Pope's Guards; He denies [...]t still, and he offers to prove this Negative as far as any thing [...]f that nature can be proved, and he is still of the Opinion, [...]hat, none knew him to have ridden in the Pope's Guards: but Presbyterians who discover plots in the World of the Moon. This [...]st expression raises your indignation higher, because you say, [Page 40] it hath in it an impudent hint of denying the late Prelatical Plots against the Government. And must he be impudent because he does not know the Plots against the Government? and how came you to know that there are no Plots in the World of the Moon? are you so well acquainted with the Inhabitants that you know exactly their times of Peace and War, the several Revolutions and Designs in that Country? for my part I know of no Plots against this or any other Government, and I never read your News-Letters, and I think that the great and dangerous Plots of which no man is found guilty, are all of them in the World in the Moon. Presbyterians are so well acquain­ted with plotting, that some of them cannot forget it no more than a Jew can forget his Religion; they speak of Plots and Designs, they dream of them, they talk of them in all Companies; and if an innocent man steps aside to ask his Neighbour what a clock it is, he is immediately found in a Plot by some Presbyterian Informer.

But now, Mr. Ridpath, you fall into a fit of Devotion, and you wish that the Falshoods which have been mutually charged on one another, may oblige both to be more tender of publishing Reports upon trust. Alas! Mr. Ridpath, is it come to this, that you acknowledge that there have been Falshoods charged upon the Episcopal Party by the Presbyterians; no doubt a Man of your Tenderness and Sin­cerity regrets this infamous Practice; yet in the next Breath you tell us, that when the Doctor was Parson of —he was accused of Ibid. Villany with a Woman amongst the Corn. Such Stories are the very things that confirm me in the Opinion that your Tribe is so very well acquainted in the World of the Moon. Where was he Parson when he was accused? by whom was he accused? who heard of this Accusation before your scurrilous Pamphlet appeared? You do not say positively that he was guilty. No; you let it sneakingly drop thro your Fingers: so that the Question now between you and me is not whether he was guilty or not guilty; but whether accus'd or not accus'd. The Affirmative part is yours, and if an honest Man had it by the end he would either prove it or retract it; the Negative is mine that he was never accused, and if none of them amongst whom he lived, in the most eminent places of the Nation ever heard that he was thus accused, none but an impudent Liar will affirm it.

But if you were to speak your last, you can freely declare, that you do not know one Syllable of what you write to be false. At this rate, you may accuse him of all the Crimes that the Presbyteri­ans invented against the Bishops in the Year 1638, as I have told you before when I mentioned the Archbishop of Glasgow; and of [Page 41] all the Crimes which your own Major Wier actually committed with Mares, Cows and Cats; not to name the Sisters that run with him from one Communion to another, for his extraordinary Gift of extempore Prayer; for after all, you may safely say, that you do not know them to be false; and if any should accuse Mr. Ridpath to have committed Incest with his Mother at Cock­burnspeth, before he went to the College of Edinburgh; I may safely say, that if I were to speak my last I do not know it to be false. And how should one know such Negatives in matter of Fact without Omniscience? and because you do not know such things to be false, you think you have liberty to spread and pro­pagate romantick Lies, pure and unmixt Calumnies against par­ticular Persons. Are these the Weapons by which you serve your Party? and do you think to impose upon the World by such Bed­lam Fooleries?

But tho the Dr. was not in the Pope's Guards, yet he was a Cadet Ibid. in Dumbarton's Regiment in France, and there is no such odds, you think, between being a Cadet in Dumbarton's Regiment, which guard­ed Popery and contributed so much to enslave Europe, and riding in the Pope's Guards. Yes, Mr. Ridpath, there is very great odds, tho you do not see it, as much as there is between the Liberties of the Gallican Church, and the unlimited Supremacy of the Pope: and do you think that the King of France was fighting for Popery, when he wrested the antient Rights of the Regale out of the possession of the Roman Bishop? But Mr. Ridpath, the Dr. was certainly in Dumbarton's Regiment, I assure you of it, and, which is much worse, he never thought shame of it. The strict Alliance between the liberal Sciences and Arms is a Common-place too well known, and he is very sure, that neither Scholar nor Gentleman will ever reproach him upon this head; and his passing some of his time in France (the great The­atre of Breeding and Civility) was a more auspicious Omen of Piety and Humanity than the most remarkable Gallantries of your Life. Aelian. Var. Hist. Plato had strong Inclinations to follow the Camp when he was young, until he was diverted by the Advice of So­crates. I hear you sometimes teach Grammar (a Study in it self very commendable) why then do not you read our Buchanan, Ad Illu­striss. Vir. Car. Coss. Franciae Maresch. in Jephth. Tragoed. Praef. Absurdam fortasse; rem facere quibus­dam videbor: qui ad te, hominem ab ineunte aetate militaribus imbutum studiis & inter arma Tubasque semper versatum munusculum hoc literarium mittam: sed ii fere hoc absur­dum existimaturi sunt qui aut harum rerum inter se consensionem non salts animadvertunt [Page 42] aut ingenium tuum parum habent perspectum. Neque enim inter rei Militaris & litera­rum studium ea est quam plerique falso purant discordia, sed summa potius concordia & occulta quaedam naturae conspiratio; quanquam enim superioribus aliquot saeculis sive homi­num inertia sive falsâ quâdam persuasione divisae fuerunt hae professiones, nunquam tamen perversa imperitorum opinio tantum potuit ut ipsae inter se veterem illam & naturalem (ut it a loquar) cognationem obliviscerentur. not to name any of the Antients; and if nothing else must please you but the Example of a Presbyterian of the latest Edition, why may not I justifie the Dr's Practice, when he was very young, from the Example of your Mr. Williamson, when he was old. I mean the ce­lebrated Mr. Williamson whom all the Ladies flock'd to see from all the corners of the Court, when he delivered his Harangue be­fore Queen Mary; for he was a Captain of Horse in the Rebelli­on at Hist. of the Consp. against K. Ch. II pag. 118. Bothwel bridge. And I think any Cadet in Dumbarton's Regiment may, without Vanity, be compared to a Captain of the Rebellion at Bothwell bridge.

And now that I mention Mr. David Williamson, I intreat him not to take it ill if I recommend the Censure of one part of your Preface to the Parliament, to himself; for amongst many other things with which you asperse the Clergy of Scotland that sojourn in England, this is one, that they troop about the Country with their Continuat. Pref. p. 10. stoln Sermons. Truly Mr. Ridpath, I do not know any one of them that preaches, except such as are provided with some Benefice in the Country, and I think that is no small part of their Disaster and Infelicity, so you cannot tell whether their Sermons are stoln or not. In some cases it is not only allow able to borrow but expe­dient, and if your Curiosity would engage you to read St. Cyprian de Idolorum vanitate, you would find that he hath several Senten­ces, nay the very turnings of Phrases from Minutius Faelix; and this argues his Love to the Author and to the thing rather than any Indigence of his own. If the Curates read good and solid Books and preach them to the People, why may not they be allow­ed to bring out of their Treasure things new and old. If the sparkish Daw in the Fable had only filled up the vacant places of her Wings with Feathers of her own kind, she had never been ridicu­lous; for we all of us acknowledge heartily that we borrow; but still it is from Birds of our own colour.

But Mr. Ridpath, I am to give an instance of an impudent Plagiary, who lately before the Presbyterian Parliament, in a Sermon designed to abuse the whole Order of Bishops, borrows [Page 43] from Bishop Brownr. Serm. Lon. Printed, 1664. Ser. 1. pag. 10 compared with Wil­liamson's Serm. Jun. 15. 1690. pag 20. Bishop Brownrig, no less than about 16. or 17. Lines. I do not at all find fault with Mr. Williamson for reading Bishop Brownrig's Sermons, nor yet do I blame him for preaching them to the People; would to God he would preach none else, but to borrow so much from a superstitious Sermon preached at the Inaugu­ration of King Charles I, a Martyr for Prelacy, and before my Lord Melvil, in a Discourse calculated to incense the Meeting against Prelacy, was truly becoming Mr. Williamson's Genorisity: I do not declaim against his Stealing, for I am as much obliged to Bi­shop Brownrig as to any Book of that kind that ever I read. And this very Observation I have from another R. B. Curate who read Mr. Williamson's Sermon, and compared it with the place in Bi­shop Brownrig, whence he stole his most beautiful Feathers: and if the Members of Parliament had known, when they groaned under Mr. Williamson's powerful Preaching, that his smooth and nervous Conclusion, full of Laconick Majesty and Solidity, had been borrowed from a Bishop, they might think that such a Man as Brownrig was, was not altogether unworthy of Mr. Williamson's Conversation; and the plain truth is, it was a very hard thing to treat a Bishop as a Limb of Antichrist, when his own Jewels were borrowed to make such a Figure before the Parliament.

Next comes your Compliment to the Memory of my Lord Dumbarton, as an Evidence of your extraordinary Prudence and Caution. You knew, that when your Book appeared my Lord Duke Hamilton was Commissioner to the Parliament, and then you expected the thorough Settlement of Presbytery, which now you have in Folio, by the late Act; and therefore it was not safe to re­flect upon my Lord Dumbarton or his Regiment. But good Mr. Ridpath, speak out plainly, do you truly think that Persons of my Lord Duke Hamilton's Quality and Sence read such Pamphlets as yours; certainly you cannot be so mad, your Books are calcula­ted for a lower order of Men, and tho you sent some of them beyond Seas, yet they are only considered by such who never read any thing but nasty Pamphlets, and who now and then dream of Plots, and reason about them with the same profound Sense that you do when you cite your Logical Aocioms.

Now when you draw near to a Conclusion, you give the Dr. such a Blow, that he is not able to recover: for the Author of the Postscript said, that you began your Title page with a Lie, that your Book might be all of a piece. And this again provokes your [Page 44] Heroick Passion, and you load your Antagonist with some of the most odious Reproaches that your Dictionary could furnish you with. But, Mr. Ridpath, what was it that he said? why, he said that your Book, was not printed for Tho. Anderson near Charing-Cross, and you charge him upon credit, to prove that it was not printed for him. And must you never be cured of this imperti­nence, that you oblige your Adversary to prove a Negative in a matter of Fact? and then to make your ignorance the more con­spicuous, you guard your desire with a Logical Axiom, Affirmanti incumbit probatio. I am ashamed of you, that you do not know the difference between an Affirmative and a Negative Proposition; when he said that it was not printed for Tho. Anderson near Cha­ring-Cross, he affirmed nothing; and if he called you a Lyar, though such a Proposition sounded like an Affirmative, yet it was no affirmative Proposition, but finally resolved into a Negative, and can no otherwise be proved than as a Negative may; and since he could meet with no Bookseller near Charing-Cross, who knew any such man of their Trade, might not he reasonably presume that your Title-page had a Lye in the bosom of it; notwithstand­ing all this it may be true that your Book was printed for him, and that he lives in some dark Vault near Charing-Cross. Such a thing is possible, though it be not very probable that a Booksel­seller should hide himself under ground; for that is not their ordinary way of selling Books. I insist on this only to chastise your ignorance, and vanity, when you darken the whole Hemi­sphere with Dust, out comes your affirmanti incumbit probatio, as if your Adversary had the Affirmative that ought to be proved.

You are so foolishly vain, that if all the particular Paragraphs of your first Book have not been considered, you conclude that your Adversary was convinced of their truth and solidity. The Error that I just now named brings to my mind another piece of fulsome ignorance of the same nature with the former. You may meet with it in the place cited on the Answ. to the Scotch Eloq. pag. 53 Margin. Your Antagonist loaded the Presbyterians with in­consistencies, and particularly he exposed your dorage and foo­leries concerning anniversary Days, and he might do it with the greater safety, because you still retain something in your pra­ctice which overthrows your Principles: for you celebrate the great Charities of George Herriot by an Anniversary commemora­tion: [Page 45] Ergo (says he) you are not against anniversary Solem­nities. But you confute this argument very learnedly, and you prove from clear Scripture that Anniversaries are unlawful, because the fourth Commandment says positively, Six days shalt thou work: Ergo, you conclude, that all Anniversary Solemnities are unlaw­ful. Now Mr. Ridpath, let us calmly consider the strength of your argument. All men are obliged by this Precept in the sense that you put upon it, or they are not; if all are obliged (as no doubt they are) by what dispensation are they of Heriot's foun­dation exempted? and if particular Societies be exempted, why may not the whole Nation pretend an exemption? for one So­ciety is no more privileg'd than another, and if all Societies may equally pretend an exemption, why may it not be granted to the whole Kingdom, which is but the political aggregate of so many Societies? For, if they of Herriot's Hospital may celebrate an An­niversary, why may not all the Inhabitants of Edinburgh do it? But you fortifie your Opinion by a Logical Axiom, Ex particulari non licet Syllogisare, which you think signifies, that we must not draw precedents from the allowable practice of particular Socie­ties; and this is the Philosophy that you make such a noise with, whereas every Boy in the second Class that does not deserve whipping, can tell you that the meaning of that Logical Rule is, that either of the premisses at least must be an universal Propo­sition, whether affirmative or negative: for two particular propo­sitions cannot bear the weight of a conclusion, no more than two Negatives. Now tell me sincerely, whether the making such a noise with Logical Rules, when you do not understand what they mean be not Nonsense and pedantry, in all their pomps and for­malities. If the practice of Herriot's Hospital were to be defended by argument, the patrons of it would reason from the religious practice of all other Societies, the rules of gratitude, and the con­stitutions of the place, and a conclusion regularly deduced from such principles is not I hope ex particulari, as you ignorantly fancy. But not to trifle with you any more, the answer to your argu­ment is contain'd in that short, but undeniable Axiom received by all Divines, Praecepta affirmativa obligant semper, sed non ad semper; and we may work six days, nisi interveniat feriationis causa legitima, auctoritate divinâ vel humanâ stabilita. Pray Mr. Ridpath, forgive all this Latine; for I do not think that the speak­ing of Latine is at all times pedantry, and many are apt to let [Page 46] that pass for pedantick which they do not understand; but if the phrase, of your infectious Breath, be the Word that provoked the Severity of your Censure, the Dr. in all Humility retracts it; for tho your Breath be putrid, yet the Contagion spreads no further than People of your own Complexion, Men sufficiently infected before you breath'd upon them.

Mr. Ridpath, I do not pretend that this Treatise is methodical, and therefore I take no other Care to methodize my Animadver­sions on your Book, than as they tumble into my Fancy, I lie open to the censure of your Histeron-Proteron as oft as you please. Your Dedication to the Scotch Parliament is as considerable as the Book it self, for being the only Book that was dedicated to them, it con­tains your own grave and serious Advice how to manage the publick Affairs. Next you fall upon the poor Dr. and he must be lash'd and chastis'd for his Rashness and Precipitancy, because he presumed to give such an account of your first Book: but since you paint him as an Ass at the very beginning, why was you at so much pains with him? so mean a Creature was below a Man of your Elevation; and since you can defame and expose Crowned Heads, Dukes, Earls, and Prelates, why all this Noise to run down a poor Hermite. Your very first Blow hath in it so much Life and Wit, that one of his cold and phleg­matick Temper can never reach it, As Postscript in Answer to the First.

In the second Page of your Continuation there is a Catalogue of the most tragical Stories, made up to justifie all the Bitterness and Buffoonry of your former Pamphlet. You justifie the Seve­rity of your Stile by the Answer of a Tinker. And truly if all the Parts of your Book had been equally pertinent, it had been the best Presbyterian Farce that appeared since its late Erection: but because I would let you understand that our Registers of Fana­tick Cruelties, Rebellions and Perjuries are as exact as the Le­gends of your imaginary Grievances, I will set down eight Par­ticulars in an opposite Column to your eight, and then we have sixteen.

Before I take leave of you, I must put the Reader in mind of one Argument by which you endeavour to fully the Reputation of such of the Bishops as voted in the late Convention, before the King's Letter to them was opened, that They were a free and lawful Meeting, notwithstanding of any Order that might be contained in that Letter to dissolve them; from this you conclude, that they were in­consistent with their own Principles and after Practices. And the truth is, if they intended by that Vote nothing less than what the Presbyterian Party advanced, they were inconsistent with their Prin­ciples; but tho they concurred in that Vote, they took the Words a free and lawful meeting, not to signifie any Meeting of the People contrary to the King's Prerogative, Authority, and standing Laws; but rather a Meeting to support all the three, and they were to sit notwithstanding of a Prohibition, until such time as they could duly inform the King of the Straits and Difficulties that they were involved in: Necessity made them bow under the Weight of that Opposition that they wrestled with; and they hoped that a Vote might be forgiven, which their Practices would have vindicated from any suspicion of lessening the Royal Authority. But Mr. Ridpath, did you never hear of a Merchant throwing overboard his Goods in a Storm, his Principle is (no doubt) to preserve, and improve his Stock, yet when Life, and Ship, and all is in hazard, Silver and Gold, and the best Cargo that he is Master of, must be flung over. Men some­times, in the Simplicity of their Hearts, may yield to some publick Acts in a time of Danger and Confusion, which, in their own Nature and Tendency are inconsistent with their Principles: the wisest Men may sometimes mistake their mea­sures, and the presence of ones Mind does not perpetually attend [Page 52] him. A great many of the Presbyterians of Scotland took the Covenant as it was enjoin'd by King Charles I. in the sense in­tended by King and Parliament, in the Reign of King James VI. yet this act of their duty and obedience was by the Leading-Co­venanters thought inconsistent with their principles and pra­ctices, and therefore they were forced to disown it afterwards, and to adhere to the Covenant it its true and genuine sense of Sedition and Rebellion. All the Presbyterians of Scotland after the Restoration of King Charles II. both Ministers and People came to Church without scruple or hesitation, yet afterwards they be­gan to think that this practice could not be reconciled to their mutinous Associations and Covenants; and therefore for the most part all of them left the Church and publick Worship of the E­piscopalians. There is a Protestation upon record in the Year 1641. in the journal of the House of Commons, May 3. which in its na­ture was but a Prologue to the Solemn League and Covenant, and very derogatory to the King's prerogative, and the ancient settle­ment of the Nation; and yet I find that several of the Loyal No­bility, and six Bishops, signed this Protestation. Things may ap­pear Vid. Nals. Coll. 1 Vol. from pag. 811, to 817. very plausible in the beginning, that are introductiory to the saddest consequences. The Nobility and Bishops that signed the Protestation that I just now named, had reason to repent of their precipitancy, when the Faction owned above board, that no Re­formation woul satisfie but the extirpation of Root and Branch, ac­cording to the phrase that then was in vogue. We are to take an estimate of mens principles, not from their indeliberate and casual stumblings in time of darkness, uncertainty and danger; but rather from their constant Doctrine, their habitual Byass, their more calm and sedate reasonings, their Books, Homilies, and Sermons. I could name later instances than any that I have touched, which might reasonably be presum'd to be inconsistent with their Principles who were actors, and yet I am so far from thinking them disingenuous, or treacherous, that I know them to be men of the greatest Candor upon Earth. All this I have said upon the supposition that the Bishops who concurred with that Vote of the Convention intended it in its full extent and latitude; but I know that they intended no more by the words, free and lawful meeting, than what they are capable of in the lowest sense that they can be taken in, and as Privy Councellours some of the Bishops might suspend the execution of the King's Orders con­tained [Page 53] in his Letters, until he should be better informed of the state of affairs, and until he should reiterate his Commands: in that case I am apt to think that all who own his authority would leave the Convention.

Mr. Ridpath, I would gladly know whether you think that a Libel against Dr. Monro was a Book worthy to be dedicated to the Parliament of Scotland? and whether your returning to Scotland was such an extraordinary advantage to the Nation, that you thought they would upon this consideration go forward to the through settlement of Presbytery? for no doubt you are a­mong the first of those Students who promise to return, if your Model be established in its height. The Books that you have writ­ten against our Kings, Dukes, and Parliaments, may make atone­ment for the former Gallantries of your Life. I despise the knowledge of your particular History, and unless you are as stupid as you are petulant, you may guess by some dark hints in this Letter, (which I took care that no other should understand but your self) that I am not altogether a stranger to your Ad­ventures. I had your Life sent me, written by one of your Ac­quaintances, but though I may have many faults, yet I never loved personal Reproaches and altercations. When you are in the heighth of your humour and passion, I think you still be­low Revenge: It may be that the Lay-Gentleman who is next to take you to task, may handle you more briskly; notwithstand­ing that Presbytery is now triumphant, and setled by an Act of Exclusion of the Episcopal Clergy: Mr. Ridpath, I sincerely wish you more sense and modesty, and I enter my Protestation before all reasonable men, that I am not obliged to answer in­definite Libels. If you think that you are so extraordinarily qua­lified to manage the Debates that are on foot: chuse one of the Questions that are toss'd between both the parties, ei­the the divine Right of Presbytery, or the unlawfulness of Anni­versary Days, or significant Ceremonies in the worship of God: I name these, because you offer to vindicate your own Opinions concerning them in your Books; and since you cite the Epistles of S. Augustine to S. Jerome, from which you say, the antiquity of Presbytery may be demonstrated, pray do not forget to name that Epistle; but I am affraid you will be forced to go to the Booksellers in the World of the Moon, before you can meet with it; and to make you amends, I offer to prove positively that there [Page 54] is not one of your party in Scotland, that truly and sincerely re­presents the Opinions of St. Jerom: nay more expresly I offer to make evident from the writings of St. Jerome, that Eiscopacy was established by the Apostles, and that he never dream'd of any such period of the Church wherein the parity of Presby­ters prevailed after the death of the Apostles. And if you must write Books, you ought to come out from behind the Curtains, and let us know where your Bookseller may be found, and by whom they are Licensed, and take the assistance of all your Fra­ternity, read all the Books that you think defend your Cause to the best advantage, and let us plainly hear what grounds you have to assert, that your new and upstart Discipline is founded upon devine Right; and why the Ministers of the Episcopal per­suasion are turned out, if they do not solemnly pro­mise never directly nor indirectly Vid. Act of Parl. for settling the peace of the Church, Edin­bugh, June 12. 1693. to alter an Ecclesia­stical Government, which can no more be reconciled to the former constitution of Presbytery, than to the Word of God, the Canons of the Universal Church, and the practice of the first Ages of Christianity. And let us know if e­ver Clergymen were turned out of their Livings upon their denying to make any such promise, since the name of Christian was heard in the World: and do not run up and down, and make a noise as if I opposed and Act of Parliament, I only dispute against the Opi­nions of blind Zealots, who have no more regard to the peace of the Nation, than they have to the Order of Episcopacy.

Mr. Ridpath, If you are as resolute as you are clamorous, you cannot but think it reasonable to appear, for no man is obliged to consider fulsome Lampoons, no accusations ought to be heard a­gainst any man (far less against Kings, Dukes, and Prelates) unless the accuser openly pawn his reputation to prove the Crimes fairly before a competent Judicature. There are many things in both your Books that I have not mentioned, yet I am ready to prove that they are less material and more ridiculous than those I have named; for I know no man so pusillanimous as to turn his back upon you for fear of any harm that you can do him, and therefore I set down the initial Letters of name and sirname, and that in Mr. Rule's Latine, makes up Totum Nomen: and there are a great many here who know me, though at present I neither wear the Doctoral Scarf or Canonical Habit. I have hitherto treated you with all Civility, though there be none alive has fewer Engage­ments or Obligations to continue,

I Had not yours till last Night, which lets you see that it hath been a month by the way, and this is the true Reason your return is so late.

As to that silly Varlet Ridpath, all I can say of him more than yours to me contains, which I know to be most exact Truth, is, that being apprehended and made Prisoner here about Christmas 1680, for contriving and writing a Bond of Combination, or kind of Association, for burning the Pope in Effigie, which you know was a folly never before that time attempted here, and was de­sign'd then by the Rogues of this City, particularly the Presbyterians, as an indignity to his (then) Royal Highness. This Bond being found in the custody of this Villain, by the diligence of the Learned and Reverend Dr. Cant (then) Principal of King James his University of Edinburg, (who, though he was a Celebrated Champion for the Protestant Church, yet had he a just indignation a­gainst all Rabbling and Tumults.) This Bond, I say, is now in the Council Office, and I have often seen and read it. 'Tis indeed a young League and Covenant, containing a Clause of Mutual Defence, not excepting the King, or any in Au­thority under him; and an invitation to Prentices, and all others to joyn in this their Association. Now a Bond of this Nature is by many Laws and Acts of Parliament de­clared Treason; and that, not only since the dreadful ef­fects of the Infamous League and Covenant, but even [Page 65] by very old Acts in the Reigns of King James the First, and Second, So much for this. This Scoundrel was com­mitted, who was not then a Boy, but a Fellow come to Years, and then a Servant to two Sons of one Gray, a person living on the English Border, and of the same Gang with his Man Ridpath.

The Fellow confess'd before the Committee of Council, that he had drawn this Bond, but would not own that he had been prompted to it, or assisted in it by others, though the Council well knew, that many of the Ringleaders of the Party were the promoters of this Trick, which was design'd as a Prologue to a Rebellion against the (then) Go­vernment. For this Villany the Law here might have justly sent him to the Gibbet, and perhaps the Council had put him in the hands of the Judges Criminal, had he not been preserv'd by the unparallel'd Clemency of the Prince that (then) sate at the Helm here, which you know is so natural to that Sacred Race. I remember the Duke of Rothes the Chancellour, and several other great Lords having examin'd him, and finding him very false and ob­stinate in his Answers, ordered him to be committed Close Prisoner till he were further examin'd. And as he was going to Prison, seeing a Crowd about him, and consider­ing them as a Rabble, he cry'd out aloud, that he was suffering for the Protestant Religion, the ordinary, but false pretence of all Seditions and Rebellions here. For which he was for some days put in Irons, and a little after by the Goodness of his (then) Royal Highness, who was always too compassionate to that Generation of Vipers, he was dismissed. This is all I can remember or learn of this Creature.

I hear in his late Pamphlet, which I have not yet seen, he has the Impudence to say, that one Margaret Pater­son (a Prostitute sufficiently infamous) should have con­fess'd somewhat before the Criminal Court relating to the [Page 66] Archbishop of Glasgow and me; I am satisfied that all that that Villain has scribled of the Bishop be believed, if ever she named either the Bishop or me in her Confessions, ei­ther before that Court, or any Confessions else, whether publick or private. Nor did the Bishop hear of such a Creature, till the noise was made at her being taken na­ked in the Bed with the late Presbyterian Moderator Ken­nedy his two Sons, for which they stand declared Fu­gitives in the Justice Court Books, for the horrid Crime of Incest.

As to what relates to the C—ks, I make you this di­stinct Return. In the year 1684, Sir Hugh and Sir George Campbels of C—k, with Baylie of Jerviswood, Commissar Monro, Mr. William Spence, Mr. William Car­stairs, and some others were sent down Prisoners here by Sea, and were kept close for some Weeks; during which time I had occasion to be often with them, for the Coun­cil ordered any of their Friends to converse with them, and see them, in presence of any of the Clerks of Coun­cil; and such of them as are yet alive, and their Rela­tions will bear me witness, that I was as easie to them that way as they could desire. For, the truth is, they all professed so much Innocence in the matter they were ac­cused of, (which was for being in a Conspiracy with the late Monmouth and Argyle for raising a Rebellion in both Nations at the same time, and which fell out the next year accordingly) and that with all the circumstantiated Imprecations to them and their Families, that I began to believe the Government had been imposed upon in this matter, and contracted such a compassion for them, as made some of our then Statesmen angry with me: and yet Carstairs upon the first application of the Thumb-Screw, even the first touch of it, confessed all, as may be seen in his Printed Confession in the Tryal of Jerviswood; and then Monro, and afterwards the two C—ks themselves; [Page 67] which two Campbels were upon their Judicial Confession forefaulted in plain Parliament 1685, and their Estates annex'd to the Crown: tho the King gave them not only both Remissions for their Lives, but even ordered their Estates to be returned to them, upon their paying a very inconsiderable Composition to some of the then Statesmen. That which the Rascal Ridpath aims at, I suppose, is a Process which was commenced some time before that, a­gainst old C—k: the undisguised matter of Fact was truly this, which you may rely upon for certain and re­corded Truth.

There was one Wallace a Collector or Surveyor in Air­shire▪ This Man gives Information to the Secret Com­mittee, that there were three Men in that Country who had assured him that old C—k had encouraged several Country People to the Rebellion at Both well Bridge, 1679; and that particularly he had said to themselves whom he rencountred with upon a place, called the Bridge of Gastoun, near his own House, What meant such young lusty Fellows to stay at home, when the People of God were in Arms for their Covenanted Cause; and bid them go on to the rest (the Whig-Army being then at Hamiltoun, within ten Miles or thereby to that place) for he and the rest of the Country would quickly be with them Upon which Information the three Fellows are brought in, and kept some time in the Cannon gate Prison. I heard them examined before the Secret Committee, and all of them both jointly and separately were very positive, clear, and distinct in their Depositions. Upon this an Indictment is raised against C—k, and the same Witnesses are again examined upon Oath before the Justices, which is called by our Law a Precognition, and there they were again very firm, and seemed altogether clear and sincere. But the Day of the Tryal being come, and a disaffected Crowd getting in about these Witnesses, when they came to de­pone [Page 68] they began to waver much, and upon the matter de­ny much of what they had twice clearly made oath of before; so that the Jury brought in C—k not guilty; and so he was acquitted from that Indictment. And the next day the same three Rogues begged to be heard before the Council, where I heard them again upon their Knees, and with all the Solemnities of Truth and Sincerity, Pro­test and Swear, that what they had first Sworn was simple Truth, and that their Carriage the day before in the Court, was occasioned by their being terrified to swear against C—k, so great a Man in that Corner of the Country. But upon the whole Matter, the worthy Sir George Mackenzie had no more hand in all this Affair, but meerly to pursue as the King's Advocate. And in general I can affirm, as in the sight of the God of Justice and Truth, I do believe, after all the Enquiry I have made, that ne­ver a person suffered in Scotland by Subornation or false Witnesses employed by the Government since the Restora­tion of the Royal Family. Tho many of the Rebels have been brought off, and assolzied by the scandalous and bare­faced Perjuries of their own Party: for in the Tryals of those Rebels, the Witnesses for the King being formerly engaged in the saids Rebellions, made use of such strange and uncouth Fetches and Strains of Words, that no Jury could fix any Verdict or Doom upon; for being interro­gated, if they saw the person at the Barr in Arms with the Rebels (as particularly in the case of one Sprewel, an eminent Ringleader and Captain, several of his own Kinsmen as well as Acquaintances, and who had ridden under his Command) they were brought with great diffi­culty to confess, that they thought they had seen a Man there which seemed to be somewhat like the Prisoner at the Bar, but for a World they could not swear, that this Pri­soner was the person they saw there. Being ask'd, if he had a Sword; they answered, they saw that person have [Page 69] something like the end of a Scabbard, hanging from un­der his Cloak, but whether there were a Blade there or not they could not tell; and being question'd on oath all the while if that person had Pistols; they confessed they had seen something like Hulster-Cases at his Saddle, but whether there were Pistols in them or not, they could not swear for a World. And by such Presbyterian Canting Prejuries as these, this Sprewet, and many others were brought off.

ME who may justly call my self less than the least of all Saints, and the chiefest of all Sinners: yet Christ Jesus calleth to be a Witness for his despised Truth, and trampled on Interests and Cause, by the wicked, blasphe­mous and God contemning Generation, and against all their perfidious wickedness. Sir, I say, the Confidence I have in your real Friendship, and Love to Christ's Truth, People, Interest and Cause, hath encouraged me to write to you at this time, hoping you will not misconstruct me, nor take advantage of my Infirmity and weakness. You have heard of my Inditement, which I take up in these two [Page 81] particulars; First, As they term it Rebellion and Trea­son, anent which I answered to My Lord Chancellor in Committee, that it was no Rebellion, but a Duty which every one was bound to have performed in joyn­ing with that party, and I in the Year 1656, Mr. R. L. being then Primar in the Colledge of Edinburg, be­fore our Laureation, tendered to us the National Co­venant and Solemn League and Covenant, upon mature Deliberation, I found nothing in them, but a short compend of the Moral Law, only binding us to our Duty, towards God and towards Men in their several Stations, and I finding, that our banished King's In­terest lay wholly included therein, and both Coro­nation and Allegiance Oaths, &c. and they being the Substance of all Loyalty, and my Lord, it was well known, that many were taking the Tender, and for­swearing Charles Stuart, Parliament, and House of Lords, I then subscribed both, the doing of which, My Lord Chancellour would have stood at no less rate, if as well known, than this my present adhering and prosecuting the Ends thereof doth now, and when I was questioned what then I called Rebellion, I an­swered, it is in Ezra vii. Verse 26. And whosoever will not do the Law of God and of the King, &c. but being questioned before the Commissioner and the Council therea nent, I answered, as I said to my Lord Chan­cellour before, in the Year 1656. Mr. R. L. being then Primar in the Colledge of Edinburg, before our Laureation, he tendered to us the National and So­lemn League and Covenant: He Stopt me, Saying, I'll wad ye are come here to give a Testimony: And then being demanded what I called Rebellion, if it was not Rebellion to oppose his Majesties Forces in the Face: [Page 82] To the which I answered, viz. My Lord Chancellour, if it please your Grace, I humbly conceive they should have been with us, according to the National and So­lemn League and Covenant, at which Answer I per­ceived him to storm. But, saith he, I heard ye have been over Seas, with whom did ye converse there? Answer, with my Merchant: But, saith he, with whom in particular? Answer with one John Mitchel a Cousin of mine own. Saith he, I have heard of him, he is a Factor in Rotterdam, to which I conceded. But, saith he, did ye not converse with Mr. Livingston, and such as he, to which I answered, I conversed with all all our banished Ministers. To which he replyed, ba­nished Traitors, ye will speak Treason at the Bar. Then he answered himself, saying, But they would call the shooting at the Bishop an Heroick Act. To which I answered, that I never told them any such thing, but where did you see James Wallace last? Answer, Towards the Borders of Germany some years a­go. But what alled you at My Lord St. Andrews? (pointing at him with his Finger) Answer, My Lord Commissioner, the grievous Oppression, and horrid Bloodshed of my Brethren, and the eager pursuit after my own, as appeareth this day to your Grace, and to all his Majesties Honourable Privy Council. After which he commanded to take me away, that they might see what to do next with me.

The Second is, the shooting of the Shot intended a­gainst the Bishop of St. Andrews, whereby the Bishop of Orknay was hurt, to which I answered My Lord Chan­cellor in private, viz. that I looked on him to be the main Instigater of all the Oppression and Bloodshed of [Page 83] my Brethren that followed thereupon, and the conti­nual pursuing after my own, and, my Lord, as it was credibly reported to us (the Truth of which your Lordship knows better than we) that he kept up his Majesties Letter inhibiting any more Blood upon that Account, until the last Six was execute: And I being a Soldier, not having Laid down Arms, but being still upon my own Defence, and having no other End nor Quarrel at any Man (but according to my apprehen­sion of him) that as I hope in Sincerity with fixing either my Sense or Action upon the Covenant it self, as it may be understood by the many thousands of the Faithful, besides the Prosecution of the Ends of the same Covenant, which was, and in that point the Over­throw of Prelates and Prelacy, and I being a declared Enemy to him on that account, and he to me in like manner. So I never found my self obliged, either by the Law of God, or Nature, to set a Centry at his Door for his Safety, but as he was always to take his Advantage, as it appeareth, so I of him, to take any Opportunity offered. Moreover, we being in no Terms of Capitulation, but on the contrait, I by his Instigation being excluded from all Grace and Favour, thought it my Duty to pursue him at all occasions: Also My Lord, Sir William Sharp making his Apology, anent his unhandsome and cheating way taken, He took me, under pretence to have spoken with me about some other Matters. I not knowing him until five or six of his Brothers and his Servants were laying fast hold on me, they being armed of purpose, desired I would excuse him, seeing what he had done was upon his Brothers account, which excuse I easily ad­mitted, seeing that he thought himself obliged to do [Page 84] what he did to me, without Law or Order in behalf of his Brother, much more was I obliged to do what I did in behalf of many Brethren, whose Oppression was so great, and whose Blood he caused to be shed in such a­bundance. Moreover, he persisting in his Bloody Mur­thers, as witnesseth the wounding of Mr. Bruce at his taking, by his Emissaries some few days before that fell out concerning himself. Now if by any means in ta­king him away, I could have put a stop to the then currant Persecution. Thus far I have truly resumed what passed.

But this Answer to the second part of the Inditement may be thought by some to be a step out of my ordi­nary way; wherefore I shall offer to your Considerati­on that passage Deut. 23. 9. wherein it is manifest, that the Seducer, or Inticer to worship a false God, is to be put to death, by the Hand of those whom he seeks to turn away from the Lord, especially by the Hand of the Witnesses, whereof I am one, as it appeareth Deut. 13. which Precept I humbly take to be Moral, and not merely Judicial, and that it is not at all Ceremonial, or Levitical; And as every moral Precept is universal, as to the extent of Place, so also as to the extent of Time, and Persons. Upon which Com­mand, Sir, I think that Phinehas acted in taking away the Midianitish Whore, and killed him whom she had seduced, Num. 25. 8. Also Elijah by virtue of that Pre­cept gave Commandment to the People to destroy Baals Priests, contrary to the Command of the seducing Ma­gistrate, who was not only remiss and negligent in exe­cuting Justice, but became a Protector and Defender of the Seducers. Then, and in that Case, I suppose it is the [Page 85] Christians Duty not to be very dark. Moreover, we see that the People of Israel 2 Chron. 31. 1. destroyed Idolatry not only in Judah, wherein the King concurred, but in Israel and in Manasseh, where the King himself was an Idolater. And surely what all the People was bound to do by the Law of God, every one was bound to do it, to the uttermost of their power and capacity: And as it was in Zach. 13. 3. There the Seducer's Fa­ther and Mother shall put them to death: I take this to be meant of the Christian Magistrate; but when he is withdrawn by the Seducer from the Exercise of Office and Duty, and is become utterly remiss and negligent in putting the Seducer to death, according to God's ex­press Law, which is not to be expected of him, for then he should do Justice upon himself, but is become a Protector and Defender of the Idolater; then I doubt not, but that it doth become the Duty of every Chri­stian, to the uttermost of his power and capacity, to destroy and cut off both Idolatry and Idolaters. Yea, these presumptuously murthering Prelates ought to be called so by the Avenger of Blood, when he meeteth them, by the express Commandment of God, seeing the thing is manifestly true, and not to have liberty to flee to such Cities of Refuge, as the vain Pretext of Law­ful Authority: But they should be taken from the Horns of such Altars, and be put to death. Moreover, was it spoken concerning Amalek, upon the account he design­ed and resolved the Extirpation of the Lords People and Truth, which are his Throne, upon which he put forth his Hand, and because he took occasion against them, Exod. 17. 14. Num. 24. 20. he endeavoured God should not have a People to serve him according to his Reveal­ed Will upon Earth: And if he could have effectuate [Page 86] his Design, there should none have lived, who would not have worshiped and served him, and his Idol Gods: And for the better effectuating his Design, he took occa­sion against them, when they were wearied coming out of Aegypt, Deut. 25. 17, 18. and the Reason there an­nexed is, he feared not God. And because I know that the Bishops both will and do say, that what they did against the Lords People, whom they murthered, they did it by Law and Authority, but what I did was contrary to both. I answer, the King himself and all the Estates of the Land, and every individual person of the Land, both were, and are obliged by the Oath of God upon them, to have by Force of Arms extirpated the perjured Prelates and Prelacy, and in doing thereof to have defended their Lives and For­tunes, the Covenants being engaged to on these Terms, viz. after Supplications, Remonstrances, Protestations and all other Lawful Means have been used now for that Effect: As the last Remedy we took up Arms, upon which condition, our Nobility, and all the Re­presentatives of the Nation, according to the National Covenant, and Solemn League and Covenant, gave to the King both the Sword and the Scepter, and set the Crown upon his Head; and he accordingly received them, and promised and sware by the ever living God, to use and approve them for the use aforesaid: And e­specially in order to the performing this Article, viz. the Extirpation and Overthrow of Prelates and Prelacy, and now they vaunt of Authority; of what Authority do they mean or speak of, truly I know not, except it be the Authority of their aggregated Gods, new Gods, Gods of whom they have their Gain, Life and Stand­ing, Chemosh or Bacchus, which drunken Moab delighted [Page 87] to dwell within dark Cells, Ash [...]aroth, or Venus, whom they worship of the female kind, because of their A­dulteries and Whoredoms, as also Malcome, or Molock, which signifies Tyrannical King, or a Devil, if they will have it so, in whose Arms and Power they put their poor Infants and Posterity to be burnt according to his lust and pleasure, Amos 5. vers. 26. Psal. 106. 37. and their Mammon, which they delight to worship daily, to­gether with their own Bellies, whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things, whose end will be destruction, except they repent, which there is little probability of, Ph. 3. vers. 19. to which we may add their abominable Pride, and blasphemous Perjuries, then their Gods will be equal in number to the Whore their Mothers Sacra­ments, from whom they have their Being, Strength and Standing, and from the Devil their Father, who was a Deceiver and Murtherer from the Beginning. And now seeing the Prelates possess whatever their God Chemosh giveth them to possess: Then should we not possess what the Lord our God giveth us to possess, viz. the eternal Truths manifested to us in his Revealed Will, and keep and defend the same from all Innovations and Traditions of his and our Adversaries, defend our Lives and Liber­ties out of the Hands of our usurping Enemies, Judg. 11. 29. for sure I am, that God once dispossessed the Prelates and Malignants of all these; and should they again possess them through our Defect? God for bid, but the like of this Work our murthering Prelates like not, who plead like the Whore their Mother for Passive Obe­dience, and that all the Lord's People, who may not comply with their Idolatries and Persidies, should lay [Page 88] down their Bloody Axe, with whom too many of our hypocritical, time-serving and perfidious Professors do agree, who had rather abide with Reuben among the Sheepfolds, than jeopard Life or Fortune in the Help of the Lord against the Mighty; do not consider the bitter Curse pronounced by the Angel of the Lord a­gainst Meroz, to which immediately he subjoins a Blessing on Jael the Wife of Heber the Kenite. Others excuse themselves thus, Vengeance is mine, and I will repay it, but so the Throne of Judgment is the Lords, and by this they will take away the Use and Office of Magistracy, which erroneous Principles I detest: For God even in the working of Miracles in dividing the Red Sea, Exod. 14. 16. commanded Moses to stretch forth his Rod: And Christ when he opened the Blind Man's Eyes, maketh use of Clay and Spittle, tho indeed I mean not of any who were willing to have helped, but wanted Opportunity, yet there are many peevish time serving Professors, who shall never suffer, so long as they have either Soul or Conscience to mortgage, pro­viding that they may keep them from suffering. And if it will not do their Business, it seemeth before they suffer, they resolve to sell all out at the Ground.

Now, Sir, I have neither misinterpret Scripture, nor misapplyed it, in regard of the persons here hinted at, nor been wrong in the end, which ought to be the Glory of God, the Good of his Church and People. Then I think that some persons ought to forbear to scourge me so sore with their Tongues, while I am not yet condemned by the common Enemy. And my hear­ing of some things reported by some behind my Back, hath occasioned my writing to you at this time. O, Sir, [Page 89] be intreated to pray to the Lord in my behalf, that he would be pleased out of his Mercy and Goodness, to save me from sinning under Suffering in this Hour and Power of Darkness: For my Soul is prest within me in the Search betwixt Sin and Duty, viz. lest I should be niggard and too sparing of my life, when God calleth for it: And on the other hand, too prodigal and lavish of it, in not using all legal Defences in preserving of it, and in any of the like nature; I am in a strait, O Lord, undertake for me. Sir, I hope ye will excuse me in sending you these indistinct and irregular Lines, when you consider my present condition. Sir, believe me, I would many times, when I am before them, think a Scaffold a sweet Retirement, lest they should cheat and deceive me, in making me either to stain the declarative Glory of God, my own Conscience, or his People and Interests, and wronging of them, either by opening the Enemies Mouth against them, or letting loose their Hands upon them; henceforth let the Ad­versaries both say and do what they can, yet the righ­teous shall hold on in his way, and he who hath clean hands will be stronger and stronger, Job 7. v. 9. But he that saith unto the wicked, thou art righteous, him shall the people curse, Nations shall abhor him, Prov. 24. v. 24. Farewel in the Lord.