[8] We should like to know what threatenings the gospel requires ministers to make use of to such impenitent sinners as will not confess sins they could not commit. ED.
The author of the letter tells us, 'she was put in a low prison, out of which it was obvious that any body could make an escape, and accordingly she made her escape that night.' Here are but two assertions, and both of them false, for the prison was the second story, and her escape was by breaking an old iron grate in the window; nor was it that night after that she broke the prison, for it was on Friday these gentlemen discoursed her, and on the Lord's day at night she broke the prison.[9]
[9] This just reprover begins very fairly by wilfully perverting his opponent's language, 'a prison with a low window,' he makes 'a low prison.' We very much suspect the minister himself had a hand in this pamphlet.
Here follows the author of the 'Just Reproofs' way of telling the story of the barbarous and cruel murder of Janet Corphat. She came to town under cloud of night with two men, and went straight to an inn where her daughter was serving. After some stay there, the two men brought her to the minister's house, who was visiting a sick child of one James Cook, a present bailie, where his servant came to him with Mr Gordon's letter; and, as soon as he had perused it, he bid his servant go tell them, he would have nothing to do with her, but since they had brought her to the town, let them take her to the magistrates; which answer, two men then present, have attested under their hands. On this, the men brought her to Bailie Cook's house, where the minister was, and the men meeting him coming down stairs, pressed him to take her off their hands, which he refused to do, but called the two next magistrates, and advised them instantly to set her off safe out of the town. On which the two bailies sent for their officer immediately, and the minister went off straight to his own house, and saw no appearance of a rabble, nor did hear of it, till the rabble had gone a considerable length; and after a little, he heard that the woman was got safe out of their hands, and the rabble dissipate, and he knew nothing of her death till the next morning.