LETTER XXVII
The Rev. Z. Pringle, D.D., to Mr. Micklewham, Schoolmaster and
Session-Clerk of Garnock DEAR SIR--I had a great satisfaction in hearing that Mr. Snodgrass, in my
place, prays for the queen on the Lord's Day, which liberty, to do in our
national church, is a thing to be upholden with a fearless spirit, even
with the spirit of martyrdom, that we may not bow down in Scotland to the
prelatic Baal of an order in Council, whereof the Archbishop of
Canterbury, that is cousin-german to the Pope of Rome, is art and part.
Verily, the sending forth of that order to the General Assembly was
treachery to the solemn oath of the new king, whereby he took the vows
upon him, conform to the Articles of the Union, to maintain the Church of
Scotland as by law established, so that for the Archbishop of Canterbury
to meddle therein was a shooting out of the horns of aggressive
domination.
I think it is right of me to testify thus much, through you, to the
Session, that the elders may stand on their posts to bar all such
breaking in of the Episcopalian boar into our corner of the vineyard.
Anent the queen's case and condition, I say nothing; for be she guilty,
or be she innocent, we all know that she was born in sin, and brought
forth in iniquity--prone to evil, as the sparks fly upwards--and
desperately wicked, like you and me, or any other poor Christian sinner,
which is reason enough to make us think of her in the remembering prayer.
Since she came over, there has been a wonderful work doing here; and it
is thought that the crown will be taken off her head by a strong handling
of the Parliament; and really, when I think of the bishops sitting high
in the peerage, like owls and rooks in the bartisans of an old tower, I
have my fears that they can bode her no good. I have seen them in the
House of Lords, clothed in their idolatrous robes; and when I looked at
them so proudly placed at the right hand of the king's throne, and on the
side of the powerful, egging on, as I saw one of them doing in a whisper,
the Lord Liverpool, before he rose to speak against the queen, the blood
ran cold in my veins, and I thought of their woeful persecutions of our
national church, and prayed inwardly that I might be keepit in the
humility of a zealous presbyter, and that the corruption of the frail
human nature within me might never be tempted by the pampered whoredoms
of prelacy.