, all the seeming distribution
of the population universally into Resolutioners and Protesters, with
interspersed Independents, Baptists, Quakers, and other vehement
Christians. Bead, from the Scottish correspondence of Needham's
_Mercurius Politicus_, in the number for June 26-July 3, 1656, the
following account of one of the cases that had come before Judge
Smith and Judge Lawrence in their Dumfriesshire circuit of the
previous May:--

"Alexander Agnew, commonly called Jock of Broad Scotland,"
[apparently an itinerant beggar, or Edie Ochiltree, of
Dumfriesshire] was tried on this indictment.--"_First_, the said
Alexander, being desired to go to church, answered 'Hang God: God
was hanged long since; what had _he_ to do with God? he had nothing
to do with God'. _Secondly_, He answered he was nothing in God's
common; God gave him nothing, and he was no more obliged to God
than to the Devil; and God was very greedy. _Thirdly_, When he was
desired to seek anything in God's name, he said he would never seek
anything for God's sake, and that it was neither God nor the Devil
that gave the fruits of the land: the wives of the country gave
_him_ his meat. _Fourthly_, Being asked how many persons were in
the Godhead, answered there was only one person in the Godhead, who
made all; but, for Christ, he was not God, because he was made, and
came into the world after it was made, and died as other men, being
nothing but a mere man. _Sixthly_, He declared that he knew not
whether God or the Devil had the greater power; but he thought the
Devil had the greatest; and 'When I die,' said he, 'let God and the
Devil strive for my soul, and let him that is strongest take it.'
_Seventhly_, He denied there was a Holy Ghost, or knew there was a
Spirit, and denied he was a sinner or needed mercy. _Eighthly_, He
denied he was a sinner, and [said] that he scorned to seek God's
mercy. _Ninthly_, He ordinarily mocked all exercise of God's
worship and convocation in His name, in derision saying 'Pray you
to your God, and I will pray to mine when I think time.' And, when
he was desired by some to give thanks for his meat, he said, 'Take
a sackful of prayers to the mill, and shill them, and grind them,
and take your breakfast off them.' To others he said, 'I will give
you a twopence, and [if ye] pray until a boll of meal and one stone
of butter fall down from heaven through the house-rigging