It is Thomas Rogers, the earliest opponent of the doctrine of Greenham and Bownd, who sees a deep-laid plot in the publication of their books. "What the brethren wanted in strength they had in wiliness," he says. "For while these worthies of our church were employing their engines and forces partly in defending the present government ecclesiastical, partly in assaulting the presbytery and new discipline, even at that very instant the brethren ... abandoned quite the bulwarks which they had raised and gave out were impregnable: suffering us to beat them down, without any or very small resistance, and yet not careless of affairs, left not the wars for all that, but from an odd corner, and after a new fashion which we little thought of (such was their cunning), set upon us afresh again by dispersing in printed books (which for ten years' space before they had been in hammering among themselves to make them complete) their Sabbath speculations and presbyterian (that is more than kingly or popely) directions for the observance of the Lord's Day." Preface to Thirty-nine Articles, paragraph 20. He also says, with some wit, "They set up a new idol, their Saint Sabbath." [Sidenote: Note 12, page 132.] The doctrine of a strict Sabbath appears to have made no impression in Scotland until the seventeenth century was well advanced. In the printed Burgh Records of Aberdeen from 1570 to 1625 there is no sabbatarian legislation in the proper sense; but there are efforts to compel the people to suspend buying and selling fish and flesh in the market, the playing of outdoor games and ninepins, and the selling of liquors during sermon time only. Take as an example the following ordinance--as curious for its language as its subject--dated 4th October, 1598, twenty-four years after Knox's death: "Item, The prouest, bailleis, and counsall ratefeis and approves the statute maid obefoir, bering that na mercatt, nather of fische nor flesche salbe on the Sabboth day in tyme cumming, in tyme of sermone, vnder the pane of confiscatioun of the same; and lykvayes ratefeis the statute maid aganis the playeris in the linkis, and at the kyillis, during the time of the sermones; ... and that na tavernar sell nor went any wyne nor aill in tyme cumming in tyme of sermone, ather on the Sabboth day or vlk dayes, under the pane of ane vnlaw of fourtie s., to be vpliftit of the contravenar als oft as they be convict." [Sidenote: Note 13, page 132.]