Page:Cry from the dead, or, The ghost of the famous Mr James Guthrie appearing.pdf/6

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To the Reader.

the alter,or his dying teſtimony again ſtaring them openly in the face.

I make no doubt to ſay, it was the teſtimony of Jeſus for which this faithful martyr Mr James Guthrie ſuffered. What that teſtimony was will partly call up from the following papers, both of them compiled by him, when drawing nigh to eternity. The ſermon was preached, Auguſt 19th, 1660. and he impriſoned the Thurſday thereafter. The other paper is his ſpeech upon the ſcaffold the year following. By theſe and his other papers and contending, contained in Mr Wodrow's hiſtory, 'he being dead, yet ſpeaketh' unto the living. And it will be eaſy for the judicious and ſerious reader to diſcern who are in our day bearing up, and who are bearing down, and burying the cauſe for which he contended unto blood.

There is a loud cry raiſed again a few miniſters, who are aſſociated together for reformation as if they were ſchiſmatics and ſeparatiſts, though they were at firſt ſhut out and ſeparate from their brethren, becauſe they could not abandon the word of their teſtimony, emmitted for the covenanted reformation of Scotland, ſealed with the blood of this and many other worthies. But, in my humble opinion, theſe only are the deemed ſeparatiſts, be they few or many, who ſeparate from the truth and who do not hold the Head Chriſt Jeſus, and the order he hath eſtabliſhed in his houſe. It has been made evident in a printed act and teſtimony wherein the preſent judicatories, and the whole land, have departed from that truth and order. The only thing demanded by theſe brethren, in order to a harmonious coalition, is the reformation of theſe corruptions, and a purging out of theſe ſcandals by which the whole lump is in hazard of being leavened. Inſtead of a compliance with ſo juſt and reaſonable a demand,