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years' study of the Doctor for? I answer, Doubtless, it had its end: but it will be a hard task for any one to prove his end was good in seeking to pervert the word of God, and the constitution of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and to bring a yoke upon the necks of Presbyterians that neither we, nor our fathers, were able to bear. Every one who reads God's word with understanding, knows, the giving of alms is there provided for, and is as particularly stated as any precept of God's worship in the Mediator's ordinance, or church upon earth, that people when giving to the poor might thereby lend to the Lord, and was always considered as such in the Church of Scotland, till this Reverend Doctor began his study to throw out of the Church of Scotland that part of God's worship, that the people, like the Doctor, in place of studying God's word, how to lend to the Lord by giving to the poor, according to the divine institution of God, and the constitution of our Church, must study how to give in to their vice-gerent an account of their property and income, that he may make of non-effect the divine precept concerning them, and so make involuntary that which should be voluntary, and that twenty shillings that should be one shilling, and those to neglect the poor that would be kind to the poor. Such are the effects of the Doctor's twenty years' study, as both rich and poor in this place can testify, from what they have experienced of the Doctor's new plan. Before this, no man in Scotland, when Presbyterian principles reigned, was ever called to give to the poor what he could not spare from himself and depending connections, nor to rob shops and houses of merchandize, by giving for the poor what should have paid the merchant; nor were any forced unwillingly to that part of God's worship, for the fear of confiscation of goods or imprisonment.
