executioners; Pilate also
ended his own wretched life; Herod Agrippa was eaten up of worms: Nero
and all the succeeding emperors, authors of the ten persecutions; Philip
II. of Spain, Charles IX. Henry III. and IV. kings of France, Dukes of
Guise, Anjou, Austria, &c. the cardinals Wolsey and Pool, bloody Mary
of England, bishop Gardiner, with an immense number more both of this
and inferior ranks, too tedious here to mention, came all to deserved
wretched deaths suitable to such wicked and bloody lives.--Nay, God will
have such reverence paid to what bears the name of deity and religion,
that even amongst the very heathens, who had not the knowledge of the
true God, those who blasphemed or affronted the gods, robbed their
temples, or mal-treated and persecuted their priests, did not pass
without some public mark of divine displeasure, (of which I might give a
number of instances from history, were it needful). And should such as
are favoured with an objective revelation of the true God and way of
salvation in and by him, who destroy his heritage, persecute his people,
blaspheme his name, and make a mock of religion, go unpunished? Nor,

_2ndly_, Is the collecting or recording such exemplary instances without
precept or precedent? Moses, by the Lord's direction, commanded the
centers of those who were burnt up when offering strange fire to be made
broad plates for a covering to the altar, for a memorial to the children
of Israel.--And, passing other instances in scripture, historians and
martyrologers, we find the reformed church of the Netherlands at the
famous synod of Embden 1571, amongst other things, enacted and ordered
the Lord St. Atergonde to write the history of the persecution by the
Duke de Alva, with the visible judgments that befel the persecutors at
that time. The same thing was agitated and concluded upon by the united
societies in Scotland, both before and after the Revolution, which, had
their resolutions been accomplished, had either anticipated this
publication, or rendered it more complete than what it can otherwise be
expected.[266] Nor,

_3dly_, Can it be expected, that all our Scots apostates and persecutors
are here narrated. No; there have many of God's eminent saints and dear
children made their exit out of this world without any note or
observation: in like manner, every wicked and notorious offender has not
been made a Magor Missabib, a wonder unto themselves and others. We can
ascribe this t