Page:Life of the martyr, John Brown, of Priesthill, in the parish of Muirkirk, Ayrshire (3).pdf/3

3 It was like King Saul’s change, a bad spirit after a good. It is something remarkable, that every time that Prelacy was established in Scotland, it was accompanied with persecution of the Church, taking away the rights of the people, and degeneracy in the moral character of the nation. The. discipline of the Presbyterians was too strict for the king and his counsellors.. The bishops were ambitious, and their curates were the dregs of society, ignorant and wicked. Many of the bishops had sworn, along with the king and his nobles, to support the church they had overturned. “ It was no wonder though they were regarded as coming in with perjury written on their foreheads ; where holiness to the Lord had formerly been.” The consequence was, that the churches were deserted, and the ministers taught them from house to house. This the bishops could not bear, and re-enacted laws against them. The laws against non conformity, says a writer of that age, were so extraordinary, and savoured so much of a spirit of persecution, were in themselves so unjust, and in some things so unnatural, that none can wonder though they sometimes drove the poor people to desperation. “ They suffered extremities that cannot be described, from hunger, nakedness, and the severity of the weather, lying in damp caves, without covering, fire or food. None durst harbour or relieve them upon the pain of death.” The heathen may rage, and princes may combine, to plot against the Lord and his annointed, saying. Let us asunder break their bands, and cast their cords from us. He that sitteth in toe heavens shall laugh : The Lord shall have them in derision. The wrath of men shall praise him. The whirlwind of persecution carried the seeds of salvation where the influence of the Reformation had not reached. The Scottish border, proverbial for freebooters or robbers, felt the divine effects of