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APPENDIX.

ORIGINAL

PAPER S.

No 1. Note on p. 255. l.4. at small

THE fituation of the people of Etterick at this time, with regard to their entertainment of the gospel, their divifive temper, and the author's vexation and difquiet thereby occafioned, may be learned from the following extracts of fermons preached this year, 1710.

On the 25th of June he had begun an ordinary preparatory to the facrament, viz. Jer. 1. 4. 5. On the faft-day, July 13. he preached from that claufe, "Going and weeping." The doctrine obferved from which was, That the frame and exercife fuitable to a covenanting time is going and weeping.' Having fhewed that fuch a time fhould be a going-time; he proceeded alfo to fhew, that it fhould be a weeping-time. Here he exhorted the people to drop a tear for the cafe of the land; branching it out into feveral particulars of great importance, which want of room obliges us to omit. He then added as follows.

'Go, weeping over the cafe of the congregation. Weep over,

1. Our barrennefs under the means of grace. Ah! how many fermons are loft, for any benefit the most part get of them! How dead, ftupid, and unconcerned are we for the most part! Generally, he that was filthy is filthy ftill. It is an observe of fome on Luke xiii. 7. that if a minister do any good in a place, it is ordinarily in the first three years of his miniftry. God forbid it hold true in our cafe. If the gospel meet with no better entertainment after, than for thete three years paft, it would be telling many of you, that ye had never feen my face, nor I yours. I had fome experience that way elsewhere, and it was not fo in my cafe.

2. The flight and contempt of gofpel-ordinances among us. Our parish is not great, but our congregation is lefs, by reafon of the principles, paffions, and prejudices, of not a few. But yet smallest of all is the company of ordinary hearers; when thofe are taken off that come once in twenty days, a month, or fix weeks; who are taken up with their beafts all the fummer in the fields, and fleep at home with them all the winter; yet fome whose faces I feldom if ever can discern, but when I furprife them at their houfes, though I tell publicly in the congregation that I am to be that way. Weep over the flighting of the preaching of the word among us. Some that have not far to come, will loiter away Lord's days at home; though, if they would

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would come little further than half-way from their own houses, they might poffibly fometimes hear the found of my voice. When I come in to the church, and the worthip is begun, I will fee fome of you fitting or standing in the church-yard in pairs, as clofe at your difcourfe, that fometimes I think we would not have feen your faces that day, if you have had not had bufinefs with fome body ye would fee at the church: in which I am the more confirmed, when I will fee they have staid all the time between fermons, and when the congregration is affembling again, they will go away home. Some will spend a good part of fermons about the dikes; ay and go out of the church in the very time thereof, and lie about the dikes, and crack. I cannot get you pleased with fhort enough preaching; though fome of you make it fhort enough, what with your fleeping, what with your leaving it, even when there is no milking; and fome will fit at the door all the afternoon, that they may get away when they think they have got enough of it.

3. Weep over the flighting of the facraments. That of baptifm is dolefully flighted. If the child be like to die, then, without any regard to the congregation, or the ftrugglings of this church against private baptifin, the minifter must come and give the child a name, without any more. But if not, Sabbath hall go over after Sabbath, one opportunity after another; and they never trouble themselves about the baptizing of their children, even when neither weakness nor the weather hinders. As to the facrament of the fupper, go weeping, Sirs, that there are fo few in this congregation to go with you. They need Chrift as well as you; the blood they flight, is the blood they must be faved by, if ever; the covenant they prepare not themselves to feal, is that they must enter into, if they would enter into heaven. It is long fince Chrift made fuch a vifit to Etterick. O weep that they are so few to receive him, fo few fit to be admitted, and fo few going out to meet the bridegroom. This flighting of ordinances, as it is fomething more than ordinary, is a very fad fign.

4. Weep over the loofe lives of many of us; the abounding fin of fwearing, that devil-like fin, by which there is neither profit nor pleaiure; lying and backbiting, fupplanting of one another, the lack of common h nefty in many, to the difgrace of the fociety they live in, and the reproach of those that entertain them; the brutith ignorance of many, even of fome who pretend to be high-flown profeflors, fee inftances above, P. 224. & 226.); the contentious fpirit of thofe who live like fire-brands in the place. Let none fuch prefume to approach the Lord's table in that their wickednets.

5. Weep over the woful divifions among us, that have prevailed to the breaking of us fo far, that we are among the moit broken and fhattered congregations in the country. Weep over

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that rent that was fo early made amongst us, in which Satan hotly pursued me, ere I knew well where I was. Ye are but too little affected with it. It has been an engine of Satan againft the kingdom of Chrift in people's hearts, under a pretence of zeal for his kingdom in the land; and a notable hinderance of the fuccefs of the gospel among us. For, 1. Some are thereby turned afide from the ordinary means of grace and knowledge, that know not the right hand by the left in religion, being fpecially ignorant of God in Chrift. 2. Many that remain are thereby made to hear with prejudices; and are fo fickle and loofed at the root, that they cannot take on growth by the preached word. And I know not what infuence it may have on the flighting of the ordinance before us; I am apprehenfive it has had fome influence If it have, I defire to lament the cafe of fuch: and for the confirmation of you that are to join, I promife you, in my Mafter's name, that if you honeftly content to the marriage-covenant, and come with longing defires after him, he will not refufe to keep communion with you, Rev iii. 20. Your own defections lie nearer you than the defections of the land do: but if ye be mourning over them, they fhall not mar your communion with him. I think they may look with bafhful faces before the Lord, that are fo feared at their mother's deformities, that they will not come into her house, when yet her Hufband is there feeding his children whom the has brought forth to him.

6. Laftly, Forget not when ye are going, to weep over the frequent fin of uncleannefs that has fallen out among us within thefe few years. If ever the devil raged in a parifh at the coming of the gospel among them, he has done it here one way and another. What with fornications, what with adulterics, the place of repentance has been feldom empty fince the planting of this parish. I may fay to you as the apoftle did to the church of Corinth, I fpeak not this to fhame you." But well may I fay with him, I have reafon to bewail those who have finned already, and have not repented of the uncleannefs, and fornication, and lafcivioufnefs which they have committed, 2 Cor. xii. 21. feeing we fo much refemble that church in her three grand evils, felf-conceit, a divifive temper, and fins of uncleanneís.'

The author had alfo, in a fermon from 2 Cor. vi. 1. preached at Etterick, on the national fast-day, March 29. in the fame year, 1710, cenfured with fome freedom the people's itch for public things, their contempt of the gofpel, their unfettled and giddy humour, &c. This fermon is printed in his Body of Divinity, vol. 3. p. 322. & feqq. and deferves a ferious per

ufal.

Notwithstanding thefe repeated warnings, many of the people were fo giddy and inconftant, that, Sept. 3. the very

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Lord's

Lord's day that the author began his ordinary on Mark x. 21. 22. they deferted his miniftry, and went off to hear Mr Mac, millan preaching, in the neighbourhood: which gave occafion to the following reflection and awful rebuke, publicly given from the pulpit on the 10th.

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An unstable mind and judgement is very prejudicial. No wonder the tree wither that is never faft at the root, Eph. iv. 14. This was the one thing that ruined the Galatians: for though they had received the Spirit by the hearing of faith, yet when Satan broke in on them with that, they quickly loft all the favoury impreffions they had of the hearing of faith. The wavering temper among us, I am confident, is no small hinderance in the way of the fuccefs of the gofpel. And as I blefs God for what ftability any of you have attained to, fo as for you that deferted the meffage I had from the Lord to you this day eight days, whether there were many of you or few, and joined yourselves to those whofe work it is to break down what we build up, and that after that folemn reproof of and lamentation over that practice, and of other heart-breaking pieces of your contempt of the gospel, which was given on the faft-day, and after what ye heard and faw on the facramentday, I do, as the meffenger of the Lord, in his name, rebuke you here as obftinate contemners of the meffage fent of God unto you; and proteft, as the meffenger of God to you, that this rebuke ftand before the Lord that fent me, till it be wiped out by repentance, and fleeing to the blood of Chrift for pardon; and fo I leave it before him, who confirms the word of his fervants.'

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No 2. Note on p. 308. 1. 37. at p. 72.

THIS doctrine reproves those who at this time are secure, careless, and unconcerned fpectators of the present confusions, which is the prevailing plague among us at this day. Ah! Sirs, "Shall a trumpet be blown in the day, and the people "not be afraid?" Amos iii. 6. Yes, we fee there are fuch people. “The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophefy?" verf. 8. Why, fome will fleep full found amidst all the roarings of the Lord in his anger this day. Ah! Sirs, our fleeping fo found in the fhip of this church and nation, while the form is blowing, and the waves are like to fink it, if there were no more, is enough to prove the deep hand we have, like another Jonah, in raifing the ftorm.

I know fome still fay, to cloak their loathfome indifferency, that it is not religion, but crowns and kingdoms they are fighting for. If it were fo, is there not a right and a wrong even in that? and why do not ye take part with the right, accord

ing to the fifth commandment? Is not even that enough to make the land a field of blood? and may not yours go among the reft? But pray you, Sirs, is religion no wife concerned, whether a Proteftant king or a Papift be on the throne? whether an army of Papifts and malignants, avowed enemies to the church of Scotland, carry the day, or an army employed to break them? Do the rebels fo much as pretend any favour to this church? Are congregations laid defolate, mafs faid, and the English service fet up, where they come, and yet religion not concerned in the matter? It were telling religion that fuch people pretended not to it, for the way of God is ill fpoken of through their unreasonablenefs. If ye believe what ye fay, I think ye lie pretty fair for embracing Popery if it were come, feeing ye can already believe things over the belly of fenfe and reafon.

I tell you, that your fecurity and unconcernednefs at this time is more dangerous than ye are aware of: Píal. xxviii. 5. "Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the o"peration of his hands, he fhall deftroy them, and not build "them up." They do not lie most fafe that lie moft fecure, when the caufe of God is at ftake. I mind what word Mordecai fent to Efther, chap. iv. 14. "If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then fhall there enlargement and de"liverance arife to the Jews from another quarter; but thou "and thy father's houfe fhall be destroyed." I remember

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that he was burnt in his own houfe, that faid he could not burn for Chrift: Matth. xvi. 25. "For whofoever will fave his

life, fhall lofe it; and whofoever will lofe his life for my "fake, thall find it." We have made ourselves fingular in our backwardness and unconcernednefs in the cause of God at this time, beyond all our neighbours: take heed God make not our ftroke as remarkable, as our backwardness and unconcernedness has been, ere all be done."

No 3. Note on p. 351. l. 33." at papers.

As thefe overtures, Of admission to the Lord's table, and debarring from it, are excellent in themfelves, were crowned with fuccefs in the author's own practice, and feem to be peculiarly feasonable at this day, it has been judged proper to give the following exact copy of them, taken from the author's original.

1. Admiffion to the Lord's table, and debarring from it, being acts of church difcipline and government in a particular congregation, belong to the feffion of the congregation, and are not to be exercised by any minifter or elder by themselves, nor

any

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