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pretty space, though he uttered no audible words, yet continued in a praying posture; and after a little space told the magistrates, They would do well to discharge these travellers their town, affirming, with great asseveration, the plague was in these packs, so the magistrates commanded them to be gone, and they went to Cumnock, a town about twenty miles distant, and there sold their goods, which kindled such an infection in that place, that the living were hardly able to bury their dead. This made the people begin to think of Mr. Welch as an oracle: Yet, as he walked with God, and kept close with him, so he forgot not man, for he used frequently to dine abroad with such of his friends as he thought were persons with whom he might maintain the communion of the saints; and once in the year, he used always to invite all his familiar acquaintances in the town, to a treat in his house, where there was a banquet of holiness and sobriety. He continued the course of his ministry in Ayr, till king James's purpose of destroying the church of Scotland, by establishing bishops was ripe, and then it became his duty to edify the church by his sufferings, as formerly he had done by his doctrine. The reason why king James was so violent for bishops, was neither their divine institution, which he denied they had, nor yet the profit the church should reap by them, for he knew well both the men and their communications, but merely because he believed they were useful instruments to turn a limited monarchy into absolute dominion, and subjects into slaves; the design in the world he minded most. Always in the pursuit of his design, he followed this method; in the first place, he resolved to destroy general assemblies, knowing well that so long as assemblies might convene in freedom, bishops could never get their designed authority in Scotland; and the dissolution of assemblies he brought about in this manner. The general assembly at Holyrood-house, _anno_ 1602, with the king's consent, indict their next meeting to be kept at Aberdeen, the last tuesday of July _anno_ 1604, and before that day came, the king by his commissioner the laird of Laureston, and Mr. Patrick Galloway moderator of the last general assembly, in a letter directed to the several presbyteries, prorogued the meeting till the first tuesday of July 1605, at the same place; last of all, in June 1605, the expected meeting to have been kept in July following, is by a
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