IV. There was little occasion for the question about the King's authority in this period, but generally all acknowledged it; because they were not sensible of his usurpation, and his cowardice made him incapable of attempting any thing that might raise commotions in civil things. Yet we remark, that whatsoever authority he usurped beyond his sphere, that was disowned and declined by all the faithful, as the supremacy. Next that they resented, and represented very harshly, any aspiring to absoluteness; as Mr. Andrew Melvin could give it no better name, nor entertain no better notion of it, than to term it, the bloody gully, as he inveighs against it in the Assembly 1582. And next, in this same period, we have a very good description of that authority, which the King himself allows not to be owned, which out of a King's mouth abundantly justifies the disowning of the present tyranny: this same King James, in a speech to the parliament, in the year 1609, saith, 'A king degenerateth into a tyrant, when he leaveth to rule by law, much more when he beginneth to invade his subjects persons, rights and liberties, to set up an arbitrary power, impose unlawful taxes, raise forces, make war upon his subjects, to pillage, plunder, waste, and spoil his kingdoms.' PERIOD V. _Containing the Testimony for the last Reformation from Prelacy, in all its steps, from the year 1638. to 1660._ The following period, from the year 1638, to 1660, continues and advances the testimony, to the greatest height of purity and power, that either this church, or any other did ever arrive unto, with a gradation, succession, and complication of wonders, of divine wisdom, power, justice and mercy, signally and singularly owning and sealing it, to the confusion of his enemies, comfort of his people, conviction of indifferent neutrals, and consternation of all. Now after a long winter, and night of deadness and darkness, the sun returns with an amiable approach of light and life; now the winter was past, the rain was over and gone, the flowers appear on earth, and the time of singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. Now the second time, the testimony comes to be managed in an active manner, as before it was passive: as the one hath been always observed to follow interchangeably upon the other, especially in Scotland, and the last always the greatest; which gives ground to hope, though it be now our turn to suffer, that when the summer comes again after this winter, and the day after this night, the next active testimony shall be more notable than any that went before. The matter of the testimony was the same as before, for the concerns of Christ's kingly prerogative, but with some more increase as to its opposites: for these grew successively in every period, the last always including all that went before. The first period had Gentilism principally to deal with; the second Popery;