The Ayrshire Legatees

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.