on, and in end dictate a minute requiring the Presbytery to give in their charge against him altogether in write, before he would answer any; and left them.

The Presbytery appointed a Committy, Mr Gray, Hamiltoun, M'Lauren, Rob,* to form a paper of Condescendences of the References of their Queries to Mr Simson's Letter and the Confession, to follou forth the advice of the Committy; and they soon made their report and brought it in, and the Presbytery approved it. Mr Simson being absent, it was sent to him, with the Presbitry's mind, that he should bring in Answers in write to the Queries next Presbytery day. This fell to be December 8 or 9, and he came to them, signifyed that he had received their paper, that the time was so short he could not return an Answer in write; but insisted they would give him all they had to say in write, which was a litle too ridiculous to insist on. He was told they had given Queries, and at the Committy's advice Condescendences, and it was not his work to prescribe rules to them; his answering those would prevent further trouble, if not, they behoved to act as they wer answerable. Then he desired they might rectify their former minutes, and insert Mr Charles Coats as the person who first gave in a complaint against him to the Presbytery, which was the occasion of their sending some of their number first to speak with him on this head. The Presbytery told him there was no need of rectifying that; whither Mr Coats moved first or not was a trifle. Many others spoke of the offence given by his teaching beside him, and the Committy was appointed by the Presbitry, and their deed not his. After some conversation, Mr Simson told them he was resolved to give in his Answers in write next Presbitry day, which he hoped would satisfy them and the whole Church.

Thus it stands. But then, I am too well informed by one who has it from himself, that he has declared he will never answer their Queries; and he added, they should burst at both ends before he would answer one of their Queries! But he will, in his paper, sheu the inconsequentialnes of his Letter in the places pointed at, and the Confession, to their

Queries. In short, he still rages against what he calls the inquisitory method, and alledges the bulk of the Commity, my Lord Grange, and I, are against inquiry into any man's privat sentiments, and is extremly outragious and passionat. His teaching, and varying in teaching as to the numericall onnes* of the Trinity, see Letters, November and December.

About the midle of this moneth, old Mr Ritchy of Kirkpatrick dyed after a long trouble. He was aged, and a very worthy man, a scholastick witt, [whence he had the byname of Aristotle,] and a keeper of order and Judicatorys.

Our Presbytery are obliged to referr Mr Fork's refusing our Letters, and his not taking a person under discipline, a quadrilapse in fornication, to referr his case to the Synod for advice. That poor man will ruin himself.

• Oneness, unity.

M.DCC.XXVII.

January, 1727.-What passed in Mr Simson's affair, this moneth and the follouing, I do not insert here, because it is in my Letters, wher all I have heard anent it is set doun.

Mr John Ritchy, Minister of West Kilpatrick, dyed last moneth. He hath been long tender, and was a very faithfull and usefull Minister. He had a great regard to Judicatorys, and keeped them while in health. He was a person well seen in Scholastick learning, and we used in jest to call him Aristotle, because he was a good philosopher. He was pitched on, as on of the purity of doctrine of 1717, on Mr Simson's first process. He was of a pleasant temper, and a solid preacher, and is a considerable loss to the Presbytery of Dumbartan. He was turned seventy, I think, some years. See a remarkable passage as to his first mariage, and some other things he told me, in the First Volume of this Work.

Mr Kemp, a preacher, told me that when he was at London, three or four years ago, he joyned in a privat fellouship-meeting, who conveened every Munday, about six of the clock, and spent some hours in prayer and conference, where he was much refreshed. He adds, that ther are multitudes of these meetings, both of young men and elder persons, in London. Many of the members of that meeting belonged to Mr S. Wright's Congregation. That severall of them began to intertean a jealousy of their Minister, as favouring Arrians. He is a violent Nonsubscriber, and they deputed three of their number to wait on Mr Wright, and to propose some queries to him for their satisfaction. The first was, whither he belived 1st Joh. v. 7, to be part of inspired and canonical

Scripture? Mr Wright told them he did firmly belive it to be a part of inspiration, and likewise belived that the Father was greater than Christ, and cut them short, and told them they needed not give themselves the trouble of any farther enquiryes, for that would but raise heats. This way of procedure confirmed their jealousys, and some of them left his Congregation, and joyned themselves elsewhere.

This moneth, in the end of it, the Parliament meets. See the King's Speech, which is a compend of the book published by Mr Walpool's direction, as is belived, and write by the Bishop of Bangor,* nou of Saurum, a vindication of the conduct of the Ministry. And, indeed, it's a very allarming speech, though our Jacobites pretend all is Mr Walpool's doing to lay on neu taxes, and they pretend a tax is to be laid upon meal, and other vile storys, to sour the country more and more against the King. See Letters.

February, 1727.-This moneth we are in considerable fears of attempts from abroad, in favour of the Pretender, and the King in his Speech seems to insinuat that fears of this nature are not without ground. I oun that, humanely speaking, considering our fleets, and the want of ships in Spain, and what a number we have upon that coast, this seems a pretty impracticable scheme to invade Brittain. But, considering that the Emperor, who seems nou embarked in the Pretender's quarrell, can easily waft him over from Ostend, and wer he personally in Brittain, ther are too many ready to appear, and a very feu forces and armes sent in at once to the three Kingdomes, would hearten his adherents, who are very soon roused, and bold and daring. I cannot say a designe of this nature is at that distance some would have us to belive, and ther seem to be severall things at present that make some attempt from abroad the more feazible, and strengthen our apprehensions of hazard.

It's the observation of some, that Sir Robert Walpool and the Ministry these three or four years have acted as if they had designed to strenthen the disaffection of the country, and pave the way for the Pre

• Dr Benjamin Hoadley.

tender, though it seems inconceivable hou they could designe this, since it's impossible they can be greater and easier then they are. But so it's every publick step hath encreased ill humours, at least in Scotland. The disarming the Highlands; the alterations in Commissions for the Peace; the lodging many pouers in the hand of the officers of the army, we never kneu used before; the affair of the malt-tax, wherby the country is like to be ruined, and the King and the toun of Glasgou has in tax the full value of the boll of grain; above all, the strange procedure of the Ministry with the toun of Glasgou, which hath soured the whole west of Scotland, former[ly] the part of Scotland that was most to be depended on in case of confusions; and the pardon granted to Bushell, who in so barbarous a manner murdered so many innocents at Glasgow. All the softnings that have been offered for these things, as to the King's part in them, land with the greater weight upon the Ministry, who puts him on such measures, and do not knou, or dispise the resentments of the King's best freinds.

ap

Nou, the Jacobites have got such handles for insinuations, at which they are very good, as it's very hard for the freinds of the Government to answer, and plainly say matters are just in the situation they have long wished to see them in. I knou, and I belive it's marked before in thir Analecta, that in a close caball of the Jacobites, after the last Rebellion at Paisley, the most sensible of the Jacobites wer so dashed with the pearance made by Glasgou and the West, in the 1715, that they resolved by all means to have that city, the key of the West, divided and broken; and for that end laboured to break the Magistrates and Ministers, by proposing and pushing Mr Anderson's affair, which, indeed, graduallly divided the freinds of the Government, and nou that place is perfectly crumbled into peices; and what by the invasion and cloggs upon their trade, the affront on their Magistrates, and the running them in debt by the arbitrary fine for the rable, they are in such circumstances as the Jacobites plainly tell they have little to fear from them. I belive there is too much discontent in other places of these three nations as well as these bounds which I knou best.

I remember a remark made in the time of the Rebellion, 1715, by the