186 AIE;IIOIR,á Or PERIOD lY. :nee to eat, the which alto the elders urged : but, though we did need it, I peremptorily refufed to eat ; fo the elders ate not either, and the meat was fit up again untafted. As I was about to go away, being alone'with him, I told him, it was religion to we, not to eat there, where I bad come with my mafter's meffage, and he had turned his back on it ; and that I caufid his meat to be fit up again, wi hoot being tatted, for a teftimony : and fo I left him. The man returned afterwards, to wait on theordinances ; and lbme timeafter, occafionally told me, that that had (tuck with him. This is the only inftance I remember,r!of a conviction ua that point of deferting the ordinances, made by means (f ally thing faid or done by me for that end, where the party was not force way inclining, before, to return. After the woman was brought to a confeffion, the adulterer ftiffly denied. Dealing with his confcience, I took one of the twins thehad brought forth, and holding it before his face, pored hirn with his being the father of it. Neverthelefs he.per(ilted in the denial, though evidently under éonfternation, his moitture being vifibly dried up in the struggle with his confcience. He being removed, I went out, and dealt withhim privately : and having obferved, that two of his children he had by his wife, lkid been removed.bydeath, foots after, or about the tithe, in which, as was alledged, he begot thofe two adulterous ones, I told him, that it feemed to me, God had written his fin in that his punifh- rnent. To which he anfwered, That indeed he himfelf thought to ;. and fo confef e . Being called in agaiq, he judicially con- feffed bis guilt of adultery with that woman, and that he was the father of her twins. That fpring, being the firft I had in the place, the change of the air appeared, on my body's breaking ,out in fore boils. For great was-the cold and moiftneff of the air in Etterick, in cona- parifon of that at Simprin. r4 In April I was a member of the General Afembly. And the oath of abjuration being then impoled by law -on thofe in office in thecivil government, there wereapplications macft tominiftcrs, by feveral perfons whom it reached, for their judgment in the point of the lawfulnefs or unlawfulnef5 thereof: and minifters on that occafion coming in to Edinburgh to the al embly, it was earneftly defired, that the ofembly might confider that matter, and give their refolutionof the cafe. But it was waved, and men were left to their own light. This was heavy to me ;: and there- upon I could not but oblerve thejuftice of the difpenfation, where- by about four years after, it was brought to minifters own doors. While I was yet at Simprin, I had converted with a minister from Ireland, who had left- that country upon his fcrupling to take it: and whereas a neighbouring minifter in the Englì(h border, ha- ving miffed the time of taking that oath, and therefore fhifting to preach inhis own congregation till another ,,,cation of it fhould óflèr, wrote to me to preach a day for him, I had no freedom to
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