is cause. And, O lay to heart and mourn for what
has been done to provoke him to anger, in not seeking the truth to
execute judgment, and therefore he has not pardoned. _Behold! for your
iniquities have you sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your
mother put away_, Isa. l. 1.; &c."

_The Life of Mr. ALEXANDER PEDEN._

Mr. Alexander Peden was born in the parish of Sorn in the shire of Air.
After he had past his courses of learning at the university, he was, for
some time, employed to be schoolmaster, precentor and session clerk to
Mr. John Guthrie, minister of the gospel then at Tarbolton[218]. When he
was about to enter into the ministry, he was accused by a young woman,
as being the father of a child, which she was with. But of this
aspersion he was fully cleared, by the confession of the real father.
The woman, after suffering many calamities, put an end to her own life,
in the very same place where Mr. Peden had spent 24 hours seeking the
divine direction, while he was embarrassed with that affair.

A little before the restoration, he was settled minister at New Glenluce
in Galloway, where he continued for about the space of three years,
until he was among others thrust out by the violence and tyranny of
these times. When he was about to depart from that parish, he lectured
upon Acts xx. from the seventh verse to the end, and preached in the
forenoon from these words in the 31st verse, _Therefore watch, and
remember, that for the space of three years I ceased not to warn every
man_, &c. asserting that he had declared unto them the whole counsel of
God, and had kept back nothing, professing he was free from the blood of
all souls. In the afternoon, he preached from the 32d verse, _And now,
brethren, I commend you to the word of his grace_, &c. which occasioned
a weeping day in that church. He many times requested them to be silent,
but they sorrowed most of all when he told them, they should never see
his face in that pulpit again. He continued till night, and when he
closed the pulpit door, he knocked three times very hard on it, with his
Bible, saying three times over, I arrest thee, in my Master's name, that
none ever, enter thee, but such as come in by the door, as I have done.
Accordingly never did curate or indulged enter that pulpit, until the
revolution, that one of the presbyterian persuasion opened it.

About the beginning of the year 1666, a proclamation was emitted by the
council aga