neither left hand declensions, nor right hand extremes, and left him and all the ministers; not only disowning all communion with those that were not of their way, but execrating and cursing them; and kept themselves in desert places from all company; where they persisted prodigiously in fastings and singing psalms, pretending to wonderful raptures and enthusiasms: and in fine, J. Gib, with four more of them came to that height of blasphemy, that they burnt the Bible and Confession of Faith. These were the 'sweet singers,' as they were called, led away into these delusions by that impostor and sorcerer, John Gib, who never encreased to such a number, as was then feared and reported, being within thirty, and most part women: all which for the most part have been through mercy reclaimed from that destructive way, which through grace the reproached remnant, adhering to the foresaid testimony, had always an abhorrence of. Wherefore that ignorant and impudent calumny, of their consortship with Gib's followers, is only the vent of viperous envy. For they were the first that discovered them, and whose pains the Lord blessed in reclaiming them, and were always so far from partaking with them, that to this day these that have come off from that way, and have offered the confession of their scandal, do still complain of their over rigid severity, in not admitting them to their select fellowships. To which may be added this undeniable demonstration, that whereas the persecuting courts of inquisition did always extend the utmost severity against the owners of this testimony, yet they spared them: And the duke of York, then in Scotland, was so well pleased with Gib's blasphemies, that he favoured him extraordinarily, and freely dismissed him. This was a cloudy and dark day, but not without a burning and shining light as long as that faithful minister of Christ, Mr. Donald Cargil, was following the work of the Lord; who shortly after this finished his testimony, being apprehended with other two faithful and zealous witnesses of Christ, Mr. Walter Smith, and Mr. James Boog, who with two more were altogether, at Edinburgh, 27 July, 1681, crowned with the glory of martyrdom. Then came the day of the remnant's vexation, trouble, darkness and dimness of anguish, wherein whoso looked unto the land could see nothing but darkness and sorrow, and the light darkened in the heavens thereof, wherein neither star nor sun appeared for many days, and poor people were made to grope for the wall like the blind, and to stumble in noon-day as in the night. While the persecution advanced on the one hand, a violent spait of defection carried down the most part of ministers and professors before it, driving them to courses of sinful and scandalous conformings with the time's corruptions, compearings before their courts, complyings with their commands, paying of their cesses and other exactions, taking of their oaths and bonds, and