handle a matter controverted, I have taken it as evidence of what the Church thought upon the subject in that day. I grieve over the bondage and dishonesty of my brethren in these times; their bondage in declaring that a man's preaching should be guided by the Confession, as if he were a preacher of man's word, and not of God's word; as if the Westminster Confession were to say to the Holy Ghost in the preacher, 'Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther; their hypocrisy, in that, saying thus, not one of them hath ever acted on, or ever doth act upon it; forasmuch, I believe, that no book in the English language hath been more out of the mind of preachers in the pulpit or in the closet than the Westminster Confession of Faith, whereof, till it became a convenient weapon for dashing out the brains of faithful ministers, far more than half of the clergy were ignorant despisers or hearty haters. Oh, the hypocrisy, the seven-fold hypocrisy, of this generation of church

I abhor the hypocrisy with which they perpetrate their wickedness far more than the wickedness itself. They lovers of the Westminster Confession of Faith, forsooth! A great part of them know nothing about it, and a still greater part heartily dislike it. Oh, I know Scotland too well, and have looked into the bosom of the priesthood too narrowly, to be taken with that cant about the Confession! But what, it may be said, hath this to do with the matter in hand? It is the spontaneous boiling up of my indignation against the mummery which they have set up in order to catch the honest-minded people of this land into their snares, and carry their verdict along with them in the persecution of the most worthy men which the Church of Scotland hath for long ages produced; yea, men in some of whom the primitive gifts of the prophet and the evangelist have been revived. My heart boileth, and fury cometh into my face, when I think of the way in which the people have been hounded on to the slaughter of the most famous men in the congregation. But a higher end than the expression of my indignation moveth me in what I have said concerning the treasonable doctrine advanced to you respecting confessions of faith. It is my firm and rooted conviction that by these acts of setting up the book of men in judgment over Christ's ministers, as they have done, and by insisting that no evidence should be grounded upon the Scriptures, as ye have done, both ye and they have sealed yourselves Babylon, and have set up the abomination which maketh desolate in the holy place. For what is your Confession, taken at the best, but the skilful device of man's wit? With all its doctrines and its canons, with all its distinctions and divisions, what is it but the device of man? And when ye set it in the pulpit, and in the place of judgment, in the house of God, and in the meetings of elders, what VOL. II.

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is it but your idol, the image of jealousy, your drag and net to which you sacrifice your sons and daughters, yea, the rulers and chief men of the Lord's congregation? I believe, by the way in which you have set up that book of about two hundred years' standing, in the place of and above God's word, ye have done an act which, if not repented of, will seal you up in darkness and in deadness, in apostasy, and the worship of Antichrist. And being myself the head of a congregation, and a standard-bearer in the Church, I do solemnly denounce you as in arms against the King, and lead forth my squadron from the midst of you, to do battle no longer by your side, but against you, until you do change your ensign, and fight under the banner of the Word of God.

"Do I therefore secede or separate myself and my church from the Church of Scotland? Verily no: but from a degenerate race of her rulers, who are unworthy of the name, and have sold themselves to do iniquity with greediness, and to draw sin as with a cart rope. The Church of Christ, within the realms of Scotland, is now of at least 1600 years standing, and subsisted in great glory before the stream of the Reformation, in times when her children went forth and planted the Gospel in the dark regions of the world, amidst the fierce and unconquered nations who overwhelmed the Roman empire; when her ministers went forth into the court of Christian Emperors, and warned them against the Bishop of Rome, and watched and exposed him, and denounced him the enemy of Christ in all the nations of Christendom. I am a minister of that Church which received into its bosom the persecuted Britons, fleeing from the murderous decrees of Diocletian, which received the Culdees from Ireland, and maintained her independence of Rome for centuries after the other Churches had sold themselves into bondage. Nor do I disparage the work of Knox and the Reformers, when I set it down as but the brazen age of the Church, now degenerated into the age of iron. And this age of iron was, I think, introduced by that same Westminster Confession, which received royal authority at the revolution. Knox, and the men of his time, raised up a noble protestation against the Papacy, and ordered the Church according to righteousness in her discipline, and in her doctrine coming behind none of the reformed Churches. But the Reformers were too intent upon the mere negation of Popery, and upon the emancipation of the civil estate of Kings and peoples, upon leagues and covenants constructed for the preservation of what they had made good. They lacked discernment in the truth of God; they digged not deep enough in the Holy Scriptures; they saw not the glorious privileges of the Church, her spiritual gifts and supernatural endowments, the coming and kingdom of the

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Lord, and the blessed offices of the ever-present Comforter. in no wise fettered by their shortcomings, I have no homage to offer at their shrines, but in my liberty of Christ's free-man, in my prerogative of Christ's minister, I am intent upon the knowledge and faith of all the truth written in His holy word, and do perceive a work arising into view which will far surpass the work of Reformation, and bring back the best days of the Church. I make no doubt that the Lord is hearing the prayers and rewarding the labours of his servants, and bringing to pass all the promises of the glory of the latter day. Ye are this day either to exert yourselves for or against this blessed work; either to stand with it and prosper, or to stand against it and be overwhelmed. Small are its beginnings, but faith apprehendeth its great and glorious ending. The cloud, like a man's hand, hath appeared; and the heavens shall soon be black with clouds, the earth moistened with rain, and all her fields clothed with plenty.

"Having thus followed the reply of the complainers, topic by topic, I trust you will permit me to add one word in conclusion, in order to express what I feel towards them, the prosecutors, and towards you, the judges in this cause. Though they know it not, and are far from thinking it, I know, and feel, and declare that they are enemies of the cross of Christ in that which they have done; and if they persist in it, they must draw down upon themselves the wrath and indignation of Almighty God. My counsel to them, therefore, is instantly to withdraw their suit out of court, as they wish to prosper in this world, and that which is to come. And this request I make of them the more earnestly, because I do not feel that I am personally much concerned in it. They have impeached me of nothing, but have spoken both courteously and honourably of me, in the hearing of this court, and on all other occasions. It is the work of the Holy Ghost which they have set themselves against, whereof I am but a poor instrument to justify and defend it; and against the rights and dignity of the Christian ministry, in my person represented, they have conspired together, under the pretended sanction of a trust-deed. Enemies they are in this act of the Lord Jesus and of the Holy Ghost; whose enemies I may not take for my friends, but as enemies must henceforth regard them. For I hold it to be the sacrifice of God's honour upon the altar of worldly prudence, or personal courtesy, for any servant of the Lord to call one who is actively setting himself against God, by any other name than his enemy, and as such to entreat him. I cannot any more give to these men the right hand of fellowship, or go forward in company with them to any work. Until they repent of their sin, and turn themselves unto the Lord, with confession and contrition, I must

hold them for my enemies, because they are risen up against my King. And thus also must I carry myself to all those ministers and elders of the Church, who have risen up against God's truth in my native land, and smitten from the altar where they ministered, the chosen ones of God's priesthood. It is a vain thing, and a wicked, to make distinctions between my personal friends and God's ; neither will I do it any more, being mindful of the example of Christ, and of the words spoken of him by the Holy Ghost, in the Book of Psalms: 'Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee; and am I not grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies" (Psalm cxxxix. 21, 22). I would that the trustees, my brethren, heretofore my friends, and most of them of my flock, might not be offended in this, because I love them not the less; for my enemies I have learned to love, and for them I desire at all times to be willing to die. But whatever offence it may cause them, it is better to offend man than to offend God. I bear them no malice, but contrariwise love; and the first act in which that love doth show itself, is an act of honest testimony that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, and are entered on a course of withstanding the Holy Ghost, which will bring them to perdition, if they return not from it to serve the living and true God, whose voice in His Church they are this day combined to suppress. I could fall down before them, and beseech them; yea, I could weep before them, and wash their feet with my tears, for the love I bear their souls, and their wives, and their little ones, if only I might thereby prevail to turn them back from their pernicious ways. If, by anything which I have spoken, I have caused them grief and sorrow, I rejoice if their grief be for the sin they have done in moving for authority to cast out the Spirit and minister of the Lord Jesus Christ; but if, which I rather fear, it be only the natural shame of having their evil deeds exposed, which grieveth them, I pray them to look away from the eye of man, to the eye of God, which is this day bended upon them with looks of mingled anger and mercy. In no way could they have so grieved and offended Him as in this which they have taken; but still there is mercy, if they will repent of their sins, and lie low in the dust before Him. I am much troubled in spirit for you, oh, my brethren! who have now become my enemies, though you all joyfully and plentifully partook of the spiritual bread which I have long broken in the midst of you. Oh, ye have grievously offended me, ye have grievously offended your God! Seek repentance, and withdraw this evil suit from the court of the Presbytery. I will not cease to pray that God will grant you repentance unto the acknowledgment of the truth; otherwise, ye will surely perish in

your sins. I say it again, ye know it not, but surely ye are the enemies of the Lord your God in this matter.

"And now, to you, O ministers and elders of the Presbytery, before whom God hath condescended to take witness, and to plead in this cause, bringing before you four of the orders of His Church, a minister, a prophet, an elder, and a deacon, and through their lips testifying in your ears that He hath returned in grace and mercy to His Church, and is speaking in the midst thereof by the mouth of the Holy Ghost! reckon ye that He hath put upon you an honour, and shown you a love, whereof ye are altogether unworthy; because He is gracious, and His mercy endureth for ever. You have wearied him in times past with your iniquities, whereof I stand here a witness, rejected from amongst you for holding, and publishing abroad, the most glorious truths of His incarnation in this our fallen flesh; and ye have this day added a still greater provocation, in that ye have refused, with one voice, to permit a question of the most awful importance from being judged according to His most Holy Word. Fain would I that you might revoke with shame and sorrow that unprecedented act of contempt towards the Word of your God, which He doth magnify above all His name, in order that you might enter with pure hands and a clean heart into the judgment of this mighty issue. Do not gloze it over to the eye of your conscience by saying, as your Moderator did, that it was for the honour of the standards, and not against the Word of God, ye stood up. There was no mention of the standards in my lips, nor thought of them in my mind; no one was calling them into question. I did but ask whether the thing manifested in our Church answered to the thing written of in the Scriptures, when, lion-like, ye rushed with one mouth upon me, as if I had appealed to Satan's oracles. It was a fearful deed, and being gravely deliberate, for you submitted it as a question to the court, and heard their opinions seriatim, it is the most black record of wickedness which this day the eye of Heaven doth look upon a gratuitous insult to the Word of our God, and a planting in the stead thereof the abomination that maketh desolate. For the most excellent work of men, yea, and of God himself, when planted in the place and stead of His Word—in the holy place of judgment and ecclesiastical government - becometh straightway the abomination which maketh desolate. I cannot suffer you to pass on to judgment without beseeching you to revoke that gratuitous insult to your God. How else can you expect the Holy Ghost to sit in council with you, without whom you are no Presbytery of the Church of Christ? And how can we expect, in the thing which is questioned, ye will give impartial justice, if ye, in the thing that is unquestioned, do offer deliberate insult unto your God? There may be a question, even