uld have done, and jeeringly said, looking to me, When they
have done, then they distribute their collections. I held my peace all
the time. (6.) Where keep ye these meetings? _A._ In the wildest muirs
we can think off. (7.) Will ye own the king's authority? _A._ No. (8.)
What is your reason? you own the scriptures and your own confession of
faith? _A._ That I do with all my heart. (9.) Why do ye not own the
king's authority (naming several passages of scripture, and that in the
23d chapter of the confession)? _A._ There is a vast difference, for he
being a Roman catholic, and I being not only brought up in the
presbyterian principles from my youth, but also sworn against popery.
(10.) What is that to you though he be popish, he is not bidding you be
a papist, nor hindring you to live in your own religion? _A._ The
contrary does appear, for we have not liberty to hear a
gospel-preaching, but we are taken, killed and put to the hardest of
sufferings. They said, It was not so, for we might have the gospel, if
our wild principles would suffer us to hear it. I said, They might say
so, but the contrary was well known through the land, for ye banished
away our faithful ministers, and thrust in such as live rather like
profligates than like ministers; so that poor things neither can nor
dare join with them. (11.) Are ye clear to join with Argyle? _A._ No.
Then one of them said, Ye will have no king but Mr. James Renwick; and
asked, If I conversed with any other minister upon the field than Mr.
Renwick? I told them, I conversed with no other:----And a number of
other things that were to little purpose.

"Sirs, this is a true hint of any material thing that passed betwixt
them and me. As for their drinking of healths, never one of them spoke
of it to me, neither did ever any of them bid me pray for their king;
but they said, That they knew I was that much of a christian, that I
would pray for all men. I told them, I was bound to pray for all; but
prayer being instituted by a holy God, who was the hearer of prayer, no
christian could pray when every profligate did bid them, and it was no
advantage to their cause to suffer such a thing.

"How it may be afterwards with me, I cannot positively say, for he is a
free Sovereign, and may come and go as he pleaseth. But this I say and
can affirm, that he has not quarreled with me since I was prisoner; but
has always waited on to supply me with all consolation and strength, as
my necessi