_Thirdly_, As to the motives leading us to this publication. Can it be supposed that there was ever an age, since reformation commenced in Scotland, that stood in more need of useful holy and exemplary lives being set before them; and that both in respect to the actions and memories of these worthies, and with regard to our present circumstances. For in respect to the memories and transactions of these worthies, it is now a long time since bishops Spotiswood, Guthry and Burnet (not to mention some English historians) in their writings, clothed the actions and proceedings of those our ancestors (both in this reforming and suffering period) in a most grotesque and frantic dress, whereby their names and noble attainments have been loaded with reproach, sarcasms and scurrility; but as if this had not been enough, to expose them in rendering them, and their most faithful contendings, odious, some modern writers, under the character of monthly reviewers, have set their engines again at work, to misrepresent some of them, and set them in such a dishonourable light, by giving them a character that even the above-mentioned historians, yea their most avowed enemies, of their own day, would scarcely have subscribed[6]: to such a length is poor degenerate Scotland arrived.--And is it not high time to follow the wise man's advice, _Open thy mouth for the dumb, in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction?_ Prov. xxxi. 8. Again, with regard to our present circumstances, there needs little more to prove the necessity of this collection at present, than to shew how many degrees we have descended from the worthy deeds or merit of our _Renowned forefathers_, by running a parallel betwixt their contendings and attainments, and our present national defections and backsliding, courses, in these few particulars following.