CCCXLVI.--_To_ SIMEON ASHE.
[MR. ASHE was a Puritan minister in London during the time of the
civil wars. He died in 1662.]
(_VIEWS OF THE PRESBYTERIANS AS TO ALLEGIANCE TO THE PROTECTOR._)
REVEREND WORTHY SIR,--I would recommend to you the bearer, Mr. James
Simpson,[505] a faithful preacher of the Gospel. Be pleased to hear
him. I trust he shall give you a true and faithful relation of our
affairs. You may be pleased to believe me, that men who have borrowed
your ear to blacken the godly in the land, and who have now both
deserted us and the Covenant, and joined feet with the Malignant
party, and now have owned the present powers, and brought the intrants
to the ministry to give under their hand a subscription, an engagement
(the writ calls it, a resolution to live peaceably and unoffensively
under the present Government), so that no holy man can get any
maintenance in the land but such as will sinfully comply (and such as
cannot, what an entry they have to that holy calling to embrace it!),
these men seek more their own things, than the things of Jesus Christ.
And being backed by the whole multitude of the promiscuous generality,
throughout the land, who are for their way, as of old the prelatic
conformists did, they do persecute the godly, and in pulpits and
presbyteries declaim against us as implacable and separatists. You
may, Sir, by this, and what the bearer will make known to you,
perceive what wrong the compliance of these men hath done to the cause
of God. But I spare, and do beg the favour of your other care. The
grace of God be with you.
[505] Mr. James Simpson was minister of Airth. He subscribed the
protestation which Rutherford gave in against the lawfulness of the
Assembly held at St. Andrews in July 1651; for which he was deposed
from the ministry by the adjourned meeting at Dundee. After the
Restoration he was accused in Parliament, by the King's advocate, of
seditious practices, and banished by Parliament, without being heard.
He removed to Holland, where he died. Simpson at this time had been
sent up to London by the Protesters, to represent their cause to
Cromwell and the ministers of the city, in opposition to the notorious
James Sharp, afterwards Archbishop of St. Andrews, who had been sent
up by the Resolutioners.