Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/37

Rh close only with his capture and death. His first public sermon was delivered in the moss of Darmead, in the month of September, 1683, where he was cordially and kindly received by a poor and persecuted people, who had Jost, for the gospel's sake, whatever they possessed of temporal enjoyments, and were ready for that consideration to peril their lives. On this occasion, for his own vindication, and for the satisfaction of his hearers, he gave an account of his call to the ministry, and declared his adherence to the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the church of Scotland. He, at the same time, gave them his opinion upon the particular questions which were agitating the minds of men at the time; stating particularly what class of ministers and professors he was willing to hold fellowship with, and also that with which he could not. In this statement, as he studied to be plain and particular, he mentioned several names, which gave great offence to some, and was employed with much assiduity to excite prejudices, and create slanders, against both his person and ministry; and, with all the other hardships of his lot, he was pursued everywhere by misrepresentation and calumny.

Amidst so much clamour of friends and of enemies, he soon attracted the notice of the council, to whom nothing was so terrible as field-preaching. He was speedily denounced as a traitor, and all who followed him were pursued as abettors of rebellion. No house that he entered, if it was known, escaped pillage; and no one who heard him, if he could be found, escaped punishment. Nothing can be conceived more desperate than his situation ; not daring to venture abroad, yet finding no place of rest, except in the most remote and inaccessible retreats. Called upon nightly to confer, to preach, to pray, to baptize, and to catechise, with no better accommodation than the cavern of the rock, an excavation in the moss, or, at the best, a ruined and deserted shepherd's shiel, where a fire of sticks or heath, and a scanty morsel brought from afar by the hands of children, were his greatest luxuries; yet he prosecuted his labours with remarkable success, greatly increasing the number of his followers in the course of a few months.

In the succeeding year, 1684, his difficulties and discouragements were considerably increased. The revilings of those who should have been his helpers, became more bitter, and the vigilance of his persecutors more unremitting. Often was he pursued for days and nights together, and to all appearance left without the possibility of escape; yet he still escaped as if by miracle. Enraged beyond measure at the increase of his followers, and their want of success in so many attempts to apprehend him, the council, in the month of September in this year, issued out letters of intercommuning against him; which, reducing the whole body of the sufferers to the most incredible hardships, drove them, between madness and despair, to publish, in the month of October following, their apologetical declaration; wherein, after stating their abhorrence of the idea of taking the lives of such as differ from them in opinion, they declared their firm persuasion of their right, from the word of God, and fundamental laws of the kingdom, to defend themselves in the exercise of their religion: and, after naming the persons whom they supposed to be their chief persecutors, and whom they threatened with immediate and full retaliation, they add, "Now, let not any think, our God assisting us, we will be so slack-handed in time coming, to put matters in execution as heretofore we have been, seeing we are bound faithfully and valiantly to maintain our covenants and the cause of Christ. Therefore, let all these foresaid persons be admonished of their hazard. And particularly all ye intelligencers, who, by your voluntary informations, endeavour to render us up to the enemies' hands, that our blood may be shed for by such courses ye both endanger your immortal souls, if repentance prevent