first confessors and witnesses of Christ, did wrestle strenuously, according to their strength and light, for the truths and words of Christ's patience, controverted in their day, both against professed enemies, Pagan persecutors and priests, and pretended friends, corrupters of the faith. Their testimony was stated in a peculiar manner, for the verity, value and virtue of Christ's natures and offices, in asserting his truths relative to either, against the malignants and sectaries of their time; particularly for the concerns of his prophetical office. And though we be at a loss, that for the most part their witness is buried in oblivion, through the darkness of the times succeeding; yet the scrapes and fragments that are left, do furnish us with these few remarks. I. They maintained the verity of the Christian doctrine, against both Pagan Persecutors and heretical perverters; and the purity of his instituted worship, without the vanity of human inventions, or conformity with, either the Druids on the one hand, or the heretics on the other, with which, sometime before the end of that period, they were infested; chiefly the Pelagians, with whom the faithful would have no communion; but abstracted themselves in a monastical life, living and exercising their religion in cells, from whence many places in the country yet retain the name, as Kilmarnock, Kilpatrick, &c. that is the cells of these eminent men among the Culdees. And their government also was that of the primitive order, without bishops, with little vanity, but great simplicity and holiness. Many authors do testify, that near about 400 years, the church of Scotland knew nothing of the episcopal Hierarchy, until Palladius brought it in, and not without great opposition.