which they were betraying and overturning." But night drawing on, they were dismissed. Another instance of his resolution is, that, when called before the Council for having made a Latin epigram, upon seeing the King and Queen making an offering at the altar, (whereon were two books, two basons, and two candlesticks, with two unlighted candles, it being a day kept in honour of St. Michael,, when he compeared, he avowed the verses, and said, "He was much moved with indignation at such vanity and superstition in a Christian church, under a Christian King, born and brought up under the pure light of the gospel, and especially before idolators, to confirm them in idolatry, and grieve the hearts of true profes sors." The Bishop of Canterbury began to speak, but Mr. Melvill charged him with breach of the Lord's day, with imprisoning, silencing, and bearing down of faithful ministers, and with upholding Antichristian hierarchy and Popish ceremonies; and, shaking the white sleeve of his rochet, he called them Romish rags; and told him, that he was an avowed enemy to all the reformed churches in Europe; and therefore he (Mr. Melvill) would profess himself an enemy to him in all such proceedings, to the effusion of the last drop of his blood; and said, he was grieved to the heart to see such a man have the King's ear, and sit so high in that honourable Council. He also charged Bishop Barlow with having said, after the conference at Hampton Court, that the King had said he was in the church of Scotland, but not of it; and wondered that he was suf fered to go unpunished, for making the King of no religion. He refuted his sermon, which had been preached before, and was at last removed; and order was given to Dr. Overwall, Dean of St. Paul's, to receive him to his house, there to remain, with injunctions not to let any have access to him, till his Majesty's pleasure was signified. Next year he was ordered from the Dean's house to the Bishop of Winchester's, where, not being so strictly guarded, he sometimes kept company with his brethren; but was at last committed to the Tower of London, where he remained for the space of four years. While he was in the Tower, a gentleman of his acquaintance got ac cess to him, and found him very pensive and melancholy concerning the prevailing defections among many of the ministers of Scotland; and, having lately got account of their proceedings at the General Assembly held at Glasgow, in 1610, where the Earl of Dunbar had an active hand in corrupting many with money, the gentleman, desiring to know what word he had to send to his native country, got no answer at first; but upon a second inquiry, he said, "I have no word to send, but am heavily grieved, that the glorious government of the church of Scotland should be so defaced, and a Popish tyrannical one set up; and thou, Manderston, (for out of that family Dunbar had sprung,) hadst thou no other thing to do, but to carry such commissions down to Scotland, whereby the poor church is wrecked? the Lord shall be avenged on thee; thou shalt never have that grace to set thy foot in that kingdom again." The epigram is as follows. Cur stant clausi Anglis libri duo, regia in arca, Num sensum, cultumque Dei tenet Anglia clausum Lumine cæca suo, sorde sepulta suo? Romano et ritu, dum regalem instruit aram Purpuream pingit religiosa lupam These last words impressed the gentleman to that degree, that he desired some who attended the Court, to get some business, which was managing through Dunbar's interest, expeded without any delay, being persuaded that the word of that servant of Christ should not fall to the ground; which was the case, for that Earl died at Whitehall a short time after, while he was building an elegant house at Berwick, and making grand preparations for his daughter's marriage with Lord Walden. In 1611, after four years confinement, Mr. Melvill was, by the interest of the Duke of Bolloigne, released, on condition that he would go with him to the university of Sedan; where he continued, enjoying that calm repose denied him in his own country, but maintaining his usual constancy and faithfulness in the service of Christ, which he had done thro' the whole of his life. The reader will readily observe, that a high degree of fortitude and boldness appeared in all his actions; where the honour of his Lord and Master was concerned, the fear of man made no part of his character." He is by Spottiswood styled the Principal Agent, or Apostle of the Presbyterians in Scotland. He did indeed assert the rights of Presbytery to the utmost of his power against diocesan Episcopacy; he possessed great presence of mind, and was superior to all the arts of flattery that were sometimes tried with him: he was once blamed, as being too fiery in his temper, and replied, If you see my fire go downward, set your foot upon it; but if it goes upward, let it go to its own place." He died at Sedan in France, in a few years after. 66 MR. PATRICK SIMPSON. MR. SIMPSON, after having finished his academical course, spent some considerable time in retirement, which he employed in reading the Greek and Latin classics, the ancient Christian fathers, and the history of the primitive church. Being blamed by one of his friends, for wasting so much time in the study of Pagan writers, he replied, That he intended to adorn the house of God with these Egyptian jewels. He was first ordained minister at Cramond, but was afterwards transported to Stirling, where he continued until his death. He was a faithful contender against the lordly encroachments of Prelacy. In 1584, when there was an express charge, given by the King to the ministers, either to acknowledge Mr. Patrick Adamson as Archbishop of St. Andrews, or else to lose their benefices, Mr. Simpson opposed that order with all his power, although Mr. Adamson was his uncle by the mother's side; and when some of his brethren seemed willing to acquiesce in the King's mandate, and subscribe their submission to Adamson, so far as it was agreeable to the word of God, he rebuked them sharply, saying, It would be no salvo to their consciences, seeing it was altogether absurd to subscribe an agreement with any human invention, when it was condemned by the word of God. A bishoprick was offered him, and an yearly pension * Spottiswood doth not ascribe any thing of the form of Presbyterian church-goverament to Mr. Knox, because they admitted of superintendents in the church in his time, which he thinks was Episcopacy; but says, Fhat Mr Andrew Melvill brought this innovation (as he is picascu te call it) from Geneva, about the year 1575. Hist. p. 275, &c 1 besides, from the King, in order to bring him into his designs; but he positively refused all, saying, That he regarded that perferment and profit as a bribe to enslave his conscience, which was dearer to him than any thing whatever. He did not stop with this; but having occasion, in 1598, to preach before the King, he publicly exhorted him to beware that he drew not the wrath of God upon himself, in patronizing a mani. fest breach of divine laws. Immediately after sermon, the King stood up, and charged him not to intermeddle in these matters. When the Assembly, which was held at Aberdeen in 1604, was con demned by the state, he, in a very solemn manner, denounced the judg ment of God against all such as had been concerned in distressing and imprisoning the ministers of Linlithgow, who maintained the lawfulness, and justified the conduct of that Assembly, and the protestation given in to the parliament in 1606; which parliament did many things to the further establishment of Prelacy. The following protestation was wrote by him, and delivered out of his own hands to the Earl of Dunbar. Protestation offered to the Estates convened in Parliament at Perth, in the be ginning of July, anno 1606. "THE earnest desire of our hearts is to be faithful; and in case we would have been silent and unfaithful at this time, when the undermined estate of Christ's kirk craveth a duty at our hands, we should have locked up our hearts with patience, and our mouths with taciturnity, rather than to have impeached any with our admonition. But that which Christ commandeth, necessity urgeth, and duty wringeth out of us, to be faithful office-bearers in the kirk of God, no man can justly blame us, providing we hold ourselves within the bounds of that Christian modera tion, which followeth God, without injury done to any man, especially these whom God hath lapped up within the skirts of his own honourable styles and names, calling them gods upon earth. "Now therefore, my Lords, convened in this present parliament, under the most high and excellent Majesty of our dread Sovereign, to your Honours is our exhortation, that ye would endeavour, with all singleness of heart, love and zeal, to advance the building of the house of God; reserving always unto the Lord's own hand, that glory which he will communicate neither with man nor angel, viz. to prescribe from his holy mountain, a lively pattern, according to which his own tabernacle should be formed. Remembering always, that there is no absolute and undoubted authority in this world, excepting the sovereign authority of Christ, the king, to whom it belongeth as properly to rule the kirk, ac cording to the good pleasure of his own will, as it belongeth to him to save his kirk, by the merit of his own sufferings. All other authority is so intrenched within the marches of divine commandment, that the least overpassing of the bounds set by God himself, bringeth men under the fearful expectation of temporal and eternal judgments. For this cause, my Lords, let that authority of your meeting in this present parliament, be like the ocean, which, as it is greatest of all other waters, so it containeth itself better within the coasts and limits appointed by God, than any rivers of fresh running water have done. "Next, remember that God hath sent you to be nursing fathers to the kirk, craving of your hands, that ye would maintain and advance, by your authority, that kirk. which the Lord hath fashioned, by the uncoun made erfeited work of his own new creation, as the prophet speaketh, He haib and not we ourselves; but that ye should presume to fashion and shape a new portraiture of a kirk, and a new form of divine service, which God in his word hath not before allowed; because, that were you to extend your authority farther than the calling ye have of God doth permit, as namely, if ye should (as God forbid) authorize the authority of bishops, and their pre-eminence above their brethren, ye should bring into the kirk of God the ordinance of man, and that thing which the experience of preceding ages hath testified to be the ground of great idleness, palpable ignorance, insufferable pride, pitiless tyranny, and shameless ambition, in the kirk of God. And, finally, to have been the ground of that Antichristian hierarchy, which mounteth up on the steps of preeminence of bishops, until that man of sin came forth, as the ripe fruit of man's wisdom, whom God shall consume with the breath of his own mouth. Let the sword of God pierce that belly, which brought forth such a monster; and let the staff of God crush that egg, which hath hatched such a cockatrice; and let not only that Roman Antichrist be thrown down from the high bench of his usurped authority, but also let all the steps, whereby he mounted up to that unlawful pre-eminence, be cut down, and utterly abolished in this land.. Above all things, my Lords, beware to strive against God, with an open and displayed banner, by building up again the walls of Jericho, which the Lord hath not only cast down, but hath also laid them under a horrible interdiction and execration; so that the building of them again must needs stand to greater charges to the builders, than the re-edifying of Jericho to Hiel the Bethelite, in the days of Ahab: for he had nothing but the interdiction of Joshua, and the curse pronounced by him, to stay him from the building again of Jericho; but the noblemen and states of this realm have the reverence of the oath of God, made by themselves, and subscribed with their own hands, in the Confession of Faith, called the King's Majesty's, published oftener than once or twice, subscribed and sworn by his most excellent Majesty, and by his Highness, the nobility, estates, and whole subjects of this realm, to hold them back from setting up the dominion of bishops: because it is of verity, that they subscribed and swore the said confession, containing, not only the maintenance of the doctrine, but also of the discipline' professed within the realm of Scotland. "Consider also, that this work cannot be set forward, without the great slander of the gospel, defamation of many preachers, and evident hurt and loss of the people's souls, committed to our charge. For the people are brought almost to the like case, as they were in Syria, Arabia, and Egypt, about the 600dth year of our Lord, when the people were so shaken and brangled with contrary doctrines; some affirming, and others denying, the opinion of Eutyches, that in the end they lost all assured persuasion of true religion; and within short time thereafter, did cast the gates of their hearts open to the peril, to receive that vile and blasphemous doctrine of Mahomet; even so the people in this land are cast into such admiration, to hear the preachers, who damned so openly this stately preeminence of bishops, and then, within a few years after, accept the same dignity, pomp, and superiority, in their own persons, which they before had damned in others, that the people know not what way to incline, and in the end will become so doubtful, in matters of religion and doctrine, H that their hearts will be like an open tavern, patent to every guest that chooses to come in. "We beseech your Honours to ponder this in the balance of a godly and prudent mind, and suffer not the gospel to be slandered by the behaviour of a few preachers, of whom we are bold to affirm, that, if they go forward in this defection, not only abusing and appropriating the name of bishops to themselves, which is common to all the pastors of God's kirk; but also taking upon themselves such offices, that carry with them the ordinary charge of governing the civil affairs of the country, neglecting their flocks, and seeking to subordinate their brethren to their jurisdiction; if any of them, we say, be found to step forward in this cause of defection, they are more worthy, as rotten members of Christ, than to have superiority and dominion over their brethren within the kirk of God. "This pre-eminence of bishops is that Dagon, which once already fell before the ark of God in this land, and no band of iron shall be able to hold him up again. This is that pattern of that altar brought from Da mascus, but not shewed to Moses in the mountain; and therefore it shall fare with it, as it did with that altar of Damascus; it came last into the temple, and went first out. Likewise the institution of Christ was an terior to this pre-eminence of bishops, and shall consist and stand within the house of God, when this new fashion of the altar shall go to the door. "Remember, my Lords, that in times past your authority was for Christ, and not against him. Ye followed the light of God, and strived not against it; and, like a child in the mother's hand, ye said to Christ, draw us after thee. God forbid that ye should now leave off, and fall away from your former reverence borne to Christ, in presuming to lead him whom the Father hath appointed to be leader of you; and far less to trail the holy ordinances of Christ by the cords of your authority, a the heels of the ordinances of men. "And albeit your Honours have no such intention to do any thing which may impair the honour of Christ's kingdom; yet remember, that spiritual darkness, flowing from a very small beginning, doth so insinuate, and thrust itself into the house of God, as men can hardly discern by what secret means the light was dimmed, and darkness creeping in, get the upper hand; and in the end, at unawares, all was involved in a misty cloud of horrible apostasy. "And lest any should think this our admonition out of time, in so far -as it is statute and ordained already by his Majesty, with advice of his estates in parliament, that all ministers, provided to prelacies, should have vote in parliament; as likewise, the General Assembly (his Majesty being present thereat) hath found the same lawful and expedient, we humbly and earnestly beseech all such to consider, would inven "First, That the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the office-bearers and laws thereof, neither should nor can suffer any derogation, addition, diminu tion, or alteration, besides the prescript of his holy word, by any tions or doings of men, civil or ecclesiastical. And we are able, by the grace of God, and will offer ourselves to prove, that this bishoprick to be erected, is against the word of God, the ancient fathers, and canons the kirk, the modern most learned and godly divines, the doctrine and constitution of the kirk of Scotland, since the first reformation of religion within the same country, the laws of the realm, ratifying the govern ment of the kirk by the general and provincial assemblies, pres of |