all the Ministers of the Province of London forthwith to put in Execution the Ordinances concerning Church-Government we thought it requisite humbly and faithfully as in the sight of God to shew our judgments and resolutions about this weighty matter for clearing of our integrity and preserving our Consciences void of offence both towards God and man We have secondly pondered the state of things and find our selves whether we act as is required or act not in a very great strait On the one side Prelacy being justly pulled down and the Church miserably groaning under discord and confusion many things cry aloud upon us in our places to put Church-Government into actual Execution the Glory of God the edification of his Church the duty of our Functions the engagement of our solemn Covenant with God the command of the Civil Magistrate which so far as we can with a good Conscience we are resolved and hold it our duty to obey and the present unspeakable miseries of the Church by woful Divisions Blasphemies Heresies abominable Laziness Libertinism Atheism the spiritual ruines of many Congregations through false Teachers for want of faithful Pastors for lack of Ordination On the other hand upon consideration of all the Ordinances of Parliament about Church-Government we find many necessary things not yet established and some things wherein our Consciences are not fully satisfied and therefore in our beginning to act we cannot but see how sinisterly we are like to be interpreted by many who are prone to misconstruct all our actions of this nature We hereupon hold it necessary to express upon what grounds we may proceed to act upon the Ordinances already established by Authority although that we conceive the power of Church-Censures and particularly the Lords Supper to be in the Church Officers by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ and from him they receive their Office and Authority yet we acknowledg it belongs to the Magistrate to have his Conscience satisfied in the truth of the Government of the Church which he will set up by his Authority from whom the Church-Officers do receive Authority of the publick exercise of their Offices in his Dominions and in case the Magistrate be not fully informed as to set up a right and perfect rule in every particular the Church-Officers may act under that rule provided they do not subscribe to nor otherwise acknowledg that rule to be intire and right in all points and therefore for these particular Ordinances although we humbly conceive they do not hold forth a compleat rule nor are in all points satisfactory to our Consciences yet because we find many things established in them agreeable to the word of God for which we desire heartily to bless God and to be thankful to the Honourable House provision being made for enabling of the Elderships by their Authority to keep away from the Lords Supper all ignorant persons and many scandalous persons with a Declaration of their resolution that all notorious and scandalous persons shall be keeped from the Sacrament and that there shall be an addition to the scandalous offences formerly enumerated We conceive it is our duty to begin to act in reference to Church-Government by Congregational Classical Provincial and National Assemblies resolving by the grace of God to walk in all things according to the Word and according to the Ordinances so far as we conceive them correspondent to it and to be countable to the Magistrate wheresoever he shall call us thereto hoping so to carry our selves as not only to enjoy his concurrence with us on all occasions but also that he will supply what is lacking to make the Government entire and likewise to make alterations in all things that shall happen to be amiss In this doing we trust we shall not grieve the Spirits of the truly godly either at home or abroad nor give any just occasion to them who are contrary-minded to blame our Proceedings By which Paper we may see how respectfully and courteously these worthy and godly men walked towards the Magistrate how much they give him as his due even when he was exercising Erastianism in a great height giving Rules and Directions to regulate them in admission to the Lords Supper limiting them as to scandal with divers other things which they here but generally hint and yet having given this sober salvo for quieting their Consciences and guarding against offences they do not refuse to go the length they have access for doing their duty And thus I have shewed you that they are much mistaken who imagine that our zealous Ancestors were of that humour that they would take nothing except they got all which they thought due and that they would do nothing except they got leave to do all without any restriction put upon them by the Magistrate That Calderwood in his History p. 381. relates That the Synod of Fife Anno 1597. instructs their Commissioners to travel with the Ministers Barons and Noblemen that a supplication may be given in for the Ministers of Edenburgh and Mr. David Black that they may be restored again to their Flocks and to behave themselves therein in the fear of God and love of Christ and his Kingdom faithfully and providently with all dutiful reverence to the Kings Majesty And p. 470. That Anno 1603. Mr. Robert Bruce desired his Majesties warrant of his re-entry to his calling or reposition to his place And in that same Page in his Letter to the Council of Edenburgh he says And to this effect I craved that the Act of Council which stood against me which closeth up my mouth might be deleted and that also I might have a warrant from his Majesty to testifie his Majesties good will to my free and full Reposition That passage of Scripture Exod. 10.26 Not an hoof shall be left behind is frequently used and very often abused and misapplyed as in the present case Moses would not leave a hoof and therefore Ministers should not preach the Gospel when the Magistrate permits it except he permit Presbyteries Synods General Assemblies and restore Peesbyterial Government entirely as it was But there is so great disparity in the cases that there it no ground for the inference of the one from the other For Moses was made a God to Pharaoh Exod. 7.1 He was King in Jesurun as he was extraordinarily raised up by God so he was backed by the miraculous power of God which plagued Pharaoh and the Egyptians Again Moses and Israel were in possession of their Beasts and had the extraordinary warrant and protection of God to secure their possessions Further Moses had also a reason for his refusal to leave a beast for says he Thereof we must take to serve the Lord and we know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come thither If Moses had been a meer Subject of Pharaoh and if Pharaoh had taken away all the Israelites Beasts and had them in his possession if Moses being
proper means to convince them of their Wichedness I am so far from being of his Opinion that I think it were a very proper Way to provoke them to use all Violence against such who would neither hear them nor speak to them who would neither seek nor take any thing from them this would appear to them a great height of Insolence and Contempt and Insolence and Contempt in Inferiours towards their Superiours is no proper means to make Superiours better but hath a native tendency to tempt and provoke them to be worse Secondly he saith That this is the alone expedient to preserve our selves free of all compliances with them and in good terms with Jesus Christ and this says he is best Policy to beware of sinning him out of Soul or sight by touching with that which his Soul hates Ans As we must not sin against Christ by complying with Rulers in any thing that is sinful so we must not sin against him by despising Dignities and by carrying our selves insolently towards those whom he hath commanded us to honour but we should both honour them and forbear to comply with them in any evil We should not refuse to hear their Proposals if they make any to us but we should hear them and if they be good entertain them and if they be evil we should with meekness of Wisdom shew the evil of them and give our Reasons why we cannot comply with them Thus we both keep our selves free from the sin of contempt of lawful Authority and from the Contagion of any sinful Proposal and what know we but solid Reasons given to the Magistrate may instruct and edifie him and divert him from pressing that which is not right Thirdly saith he this is the way to preserve Unity among the Remnant Ans This is none of the means of Unity prescribed in the Scripture and if it be not among the means of Union which God hath appointed I know not what ground we have to expect that it will be effectual for that Union which God hath appointed to be among his People 2. This was not the way that our godly and learned Ancestors took new ways are ordinarily dividing ways This way would quite cast out the Magistrates and the Nonconformists and this is the thing which the Papists have been driving this long time and it would certainly break the Nonconformists for if this Motion should take with some it would not take with Judicious and Sober Persons for they would perceive that this were the High-way to render the whole Nonconformists hateful to Magistrates as a pack of sullen humorous People who would neither seek nor take any thing from them nor hear them nor answer any thing to them except it were that they would neither make nor meddle with them and that they would make no Address to them except it were to tell them that they could make none to them Yet I perceive that the Author pag. 42. though he is for abstaining from seeking and receiving any thing from them yet he thinks we may make use of what liberty is given by them When I read this it put me in mind of some petted Children and of some Persons under deep Melancholly who will not seek meat nor receive it from those who would give it to them yet if it be set down beside them they will eat it it 's hard enough to make any considerable rational difference betwixt receiving liberty and making use of liberty given And I can see no reason why we may not receive and seek that which we may take and make use of when it is given there is more Humor than Reason in this distinction Yea I perceive that the Author is not against all seeking for in that same page he allows of one Petition to be put up to them and that is to beseech them to forbear to persecute the Mediators Embassadors if we may beseech them to forbear one evil why may we not beseech them to forbear other evils and if we may beseech them to forbear to do evil why may we not beseech them to do good The Prophet Isaiah when he is speaking to a very wicked Generation whom he calls Rulers of Sodom and People of Gomorrha he puts these together Cease to do evil learn to do well In that same page the Author limits this keeping aloof as to Addresses to the Magistrate to Addresses in Church-matters he hath foreseen the Objection which would be made if we may make no Addresses to them then how shall Wrongs be righted Justice administred c. For it is not to be supposed that Rulers will right those who are wronged except the Wrong be represented to them and recourse be had to them for Redress But if we may make Addresses to them for righting Wrongs done to us in our Persons or Estates why may we not make Addresses to them for righting the Wrongs that are done to Christ and his Church If Erastian Supremacy doth not bar us from making Address to them from making and medling with them in seeking what is due to us from them and receiving it when they give it why should it hinder us to make and meddle with them in seeking that they would do right to the Church and Servants of Christ and when they do any thing right in taking off any undue Restraints which they had laid formerly upon the Church or Ministers why may not that right be received For the Magistrate as a Magistrate is bound to do right to the Church as well as to the Common-wealth and his encroachment upon Church-privileges does no more make void that power which he hath from God for doing good to the Church than it makes void the power that he hath for doing good to the Common-wealth The Author of the Cup of cold Water charges them very high as having passed all bounds of Civil Authority p. 4. and yet condemns not Addresses to them in civil matters why then should he condemn Addresses to them in Church-matters because of their passing the bounds of that civil Power about Church-matters which they have from God The main ground upon which he would infer that there should be no making nor medling with the Magistrate is the Supremacy and other sins which are mentioned in his Preface and in the Cup of cold Water and in the History of the Indulgence It should be our earnest Prayer that the Lord would open the Eyes and convince the Consciences and soften the Hearts of our Rulers that they may in time repent of their sins and it 's our duty to be humbled weighted and ashamed not only because of our own sins but also because of the sins of our Rulers and we have the greater reason to take confusion of face to our selves because of their sins because it is the sins of Subjects which ordinarily provokes God to leave their Rulers to their own Lusts and the temptation of Flatterers and Devils to bring on Judgment upon
themselves and their People We may see our sins in the sins of Rulers if Christ had been in Truth as he was in Word acknowledged alone Head and Lord of his own house if his Divine Wisdom and Sovereign Will had been only observed and followed in the matters of God and if mens wills and humours and conceits and interests had not been mixed in these things and if those to whom the Lord had given the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven had keeped close to their Spiritual Function it might have prevented all encroachments upon the Spiritual Power of the Church O that the Lord himself would teach Rulers with a strong hand that no other power is good but that which is of God and to God and no other power but that which is of God by whom Kings reign is for their honour and interest all other power is vanity nothing and worse than nothing and will be to their loss shame and sorrow Darius found that that Decree which seemed to confer too much honour upon him in pretending to make him God alone for thirty days was but a miserable cheating snare as Flatterers are a great plague to Rulers so wise and faithful Instructors Counsellors and Reprovers who out of pure Zeal for God and true love to Rulers shew them what is right and wrong in the sight of God are great blessings to them It is not every one that is fit to reprove equals far less any Superiors and least of all Rulers and it is not every one that hath some fitness that is called of God to this work They who are called to it must manage this difficil work with all Wisdom Faithfulness love to the person of the Ruler and respect to his Authority that in discovering his sin his Authority be not brought into Contempt As they must not lessen their sin so they must not make it worse than it is If we must not lye upon the Devil far less upon those whom the Lord hath called Gods it were also good to say nothing of them behind their backs but what we could say to them if we were called to it and had access for to vent things of Rulers behind their backs and when called to an account to deny or mince and extenuate and put another face upon it than it had at first is not ingenuous dealing It is found in sad experience that bitter invectives against Rulers published by uncertain Authors and which overlashes and passes the bounds of verity irritates and provokes Rulers and makes them think that such invectives flow from hatred to their persons and contempt of their Authority and tempts them to reject the truths which are mixt with these falshoods and thus many by overdoing undo all that they intended to do I wish the Author of the Preface and Cup of cold Water and of the Letters had not overlashed and passed the bounds of Truth in their exagerations of the Magistrates sins and in uttering things derogatory to their Authority as for example that no Magistrate either Heathen Turk or Christian ever arrogated such a Supremacy Some have arrogated to themselves the Deity and to be God alone as Darius did by signing the Decree Herod arrogated to himself to be God and not man And that allegiance that they have delete the apprehension of that eternal God who is above them would fasten that upon them which many think the greatest profest Atheists though they intend it yet can never attain unto it to get the apprehension of a Deity rased out It 's also said that they have the purity of enmity at and implacability against all who desire to be faithful and loyal to Christ And elsewhere it is said If it be not an abuse of language to call them Rulers whose Goverment is pure Tyranny They have much real guilt why should we make our selves guilty in alledging upon them that which we cannot prove The Lord hath forbidden to speak evil of any man and in a special manner he hath forbidden to revile Rulers as we should beware of idolizing Rulers so we should beware of despising Dignities if the pains and time that hath been spent in telling how our Rulers had been taken up in earnest Prayers and Endeavours to make them better it might have been better both for them and us The exaggerating of their sins to scare us from all Addresses to them from all seekings and receivings hath a direct tendency to put them and us in a state of hostility and render us hateful to Rulers as Persons who are utterly alienate from them and will have nothing to do with them It may seem a very cleanly-like conceit to well-meaning people to forbear all making and medling with Rulers who have highly provoked the Lord and vexed his People but this is but a conceited cleanliness The first Magistrate that Israel had to do with was a grievous Oppressor of the Lords People and an Idolater and an insolent despiser of God who makes nothing of God Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go I know not the Lord neither will I let Israel go And yet the Lord sends Moses and Aaron to him to desire him to let Israel go to serve him in the Wilderness and after he hath given that blasphemous insolent answer full of tempting of God they insist humbly to pray him to let them go Exod. 5.1 2 3. And they are many times after sent by the Lord to Pharoah with the same desire It were easie to multiply instances of this nature but this one is sufficient here are frequent Addresses made by the Lords servants to a most Godless Atheistical Blasphemer and Persecutor of the Lords people and that in a religious matter It 's for liberty to go and worship God If a company of Christians were taken at Sea by a company of profligate godless Pyrates who were stronger than they might not the Christians desire of them Liberty to worship God together who will question it And if an address may be made to such Ruffians who neither fear God nor regard man and who have no Authority over the Christians but keep them Prisoners by strong hand how much more may Addresses be made to the Magistrate who whatever be his sins hath Authority from God to do good and the same Authority that a godly Magistrate hath and to draw out this power by Petitions and to take the benefit of the exercise of it When the Magistrate doth any good to the Church and undoeth any ill formerly done it is not a touching of any unclean thing but a making use of that Authority which is the excellent Ordinance of God I shall shut up this with a Testimony of precious Mr. Rutherford in his Divine Right of Church-Government and Excommunication Chap. 24. Quest 20. pag. 539 541. Now the Magistrate Heathen as Magistrate even Nero when the Church of God is in his Court and Dominions hath the same Jus the same
Authority and Official Power to be Keeper of both Tables of the Law and to defend the Gospel and to command the Preachers and Synods to fulfil their charge and to see that the Officers do their Duty and to punish dumb Dogs Idolaters Excommunicate persons to drive away with the Sword false Teachers from the flock He hath I say the same Magistratical Power while he is a Heathen as when he is converted to the Christian Faith and he is equally head of men when Heathenish as when Christian I shall add no more of this but that as the Magistrate hath retracted the Act of Intercommuning made against several of the Subjects so I wish that the Author of this new Act of Intercommuning against the Magistrate may retract it also In the 4th page of the Preface he says of the Indulged Ministers That they were men in as ill case to have made or medled in the concerns of Christ and his Church with the men with whom they had to do in their circumstances as ever any godly men in our Church were Answ I see this Author hath a way of judging the inward Frames and Cases of others and even of those who live at a great distance from him not only in regard of place but also of time By what Evidence he knows the ill case of these indulged Ministers at the time of the Indulgence and by what Evidence he knows the cases of all the godly men which have been in this Church for this he must know or else he could not determine that the Indulged were in as ill case as ever any godly men in this Church were I cannot conjecture He should either have held his peace of their ill case or else he should have instanced it for as he hath left it in this uncharitable time some people may suspect much worse than any thing he hath to say It may be his Informations and Reasons may be false or not concludent and it may be his Reasons if he have any conclude only against some of the indulged whereas he hath now left it upon them all that they were in as ill case as ever any godly men in this Church were But suppose they were in an ill case will that prove that it was unlawful for them to go and preach in these Parishes which were either their own or else being destitute invited them The exercise of their Ministry might be through the Blessing of God an excellent means to better their case I have heard it of some who could well judge that he had heard some of these Ministers before affirm that they Preached much better since their return than they did before they were put out If he knew his Brethren to be in an ill case he should have told them of it and have heard them what they had to say and then have considered whether it were fit to have Printed their Case and Published it to the world Whatever truth may appear in his dilating this further there is no great appearance of Charity in this Method that he hath taken as we should think on the things that are true so on the things that are lovely and speak the truth in Love What ground the Author hath for this Faith by which he believes that the smothering of what he hath said concerning the ill case of his Brethren would have met him at the Lord's Tribunal he knows best himself but I hope he doth not intend to obtrude his belief upon others as an evidence of the truth of what he believes The belief of appearing before the Tribunal should keep us from rash judging of our Brethren Rom. 14.10 But why dost thou judge thy Brother or why dost thou set at naught thy Brother We shall all stand before the Judgment-Seat of Christ And vers 4. Who art thou that judgest another mans Servant to his own Master he standeth or falleth Matth. 7.1 Judge not that ye be not judged Jam. 3.1 My Brethren be not many Masters knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation Jam. 4.11 Speak not evil one of another Brethren he that speaks evil of his Brother and judgeth his Brother speaketh evil of the Law and judgeth the Law but if thou judge the Law thou art not a doer of the Law but a judge I do not see how he can clear himself of rash judging except he knew certainly the case of all the Godly men that have been in the Church and because Godly men may be sometimes in a better and sometimes in a worse case he must know their case when it was at the worst or else he cannot make a parallel of their Case and the Case of the Indulged Ministers Or else he must know that the Case of these Indulged Ministers was so ill that no Godly men could be in a worse case and how he can certainly know the one or the other except he have it by Revelation which I think he will not pretend unto I cannot imagine I think it would not be rashness to say that his confidence in this matter hath gone further than his evidence could carry it for as fearless and untender as he thinks these Indulged Ministers I suppose they would have been afraid to have intruded so far in the comparative judging of the illness of the case of any one godly Minister let be of so many In this next Section he charges the Indulged Ministers with this new step of defection and says That it hath had most deplorable effects and that it 's like to be more fatal to the poor languishing remnant than any step of defection to which ever any godly men were left in the Church of Scotland If it be found that the Indulged Ministers have not made defection in their going to exercise their Ministry in the places to which they are indulged nor in their Acts that were previous to their going to these Congregations his charge will be found false and he must find out some other causes of these deplorable effects of which he speaks than the practice of these Indulged Ministers There are many good effects of the exercise of their Ministry in these Congregations several have been converted many edified and built up in their most holy Faith The renting and ruine of the Church which he speaks of afterward will be found to have proceeded from other causes which I love not to name and not from the Ministry of these Ministers in these places or from their practices which went before their Preaching in these Congregations The first degree of their defection as we heard before was this That they made or medled with the Rulers at all He is against all Addresses to them and therefore according to his opinion when the Magistrate called for these Ministers whom they intended to indulge they should have sent them word We will neither make nor meddle with you nor can we make any Address to you except it be to tell you we can make none Now
that right whom he had wronged before and besides is obliged to make reparation for the wrong done but much less could he be obliged by his silence or could his silence be interpreted to be a consent to it But the Indulged Ministers need not this Answer for they witnessed a good Confession before the Rulers If he had formed his similitude thus A Father restrains his Son from some external duty in Religion which the Son is called to of God and when he takes off the restraint takes upon him to give Rules of worshipping God to his Son which the Lord hath not given the similitude would have been more to the purpose And if the Son had accepted of the freedom from the former restraint and withal had told his Father he had full Prescriptions from God how to worship and that the matters of Divine worship are not to be ordered by the will and pleasure of Parents but by the Will of God none would imagine that the Son had accepted of these Instructions Pag. 90. He undertakes to shew how contrary the acceptance of the Indulgence is to Presbyterian Principles If he would have disputed against what the Indulged Ministers did he should have disputed against their use-making of the relaxation of the civil restraint as was said before But he still mistakes the question and plays in the general confused words of accepting of the Indulgence Veterator ludit in generalibus He hath wasted much time and Paper in vain in fighting against an imaginary accepting of the Indulgence which is a man of straw of his own making and he may use it as he pleaseth We have already spoken of the qualifications which he speaks of in his first Section and are not to weary our selves or the Reader with needless Repetitions In that same pag. Sect. 2. He alledgeth That the Magistrate did all which belongs to Church Judicatories in conveying Ministerially the Office and Power to persons qualified and in granting a potestative mission in sending the Indulged to such and such places and that the Council only clothed them with Authority for that effect An. 1. These are still his own fancies and dictates for he cannot prove from the words that the Council used that they did assume any such thing as a Power of potestative mission In the first Indulgence they appoint Ministers to preach and exercise the other Functions of the Ministry at such and such Kirks as he relates pag. 19. In the second Indulgence they appoint the Ministers to repair to such and such Parishes and to remain therein confined permitting and allowing them to preach and exercise the other parts of their Ministerial Function in the Parishes to which they are confined Now the words of appointing allowing permitting to preach import no potestative mission The Magistrate may in some cases not only permit allow appoint but compel Ministers to preach yea they may place them which is much more than appointing them to preach If any please to read the Book of the Discipline of the Church of Scotland they will find in the first Book of Discipline in the 4th head of that Book concerning Ministers and their lawful Election and under the title of Admission and toward the end of that title these words That their Honours they mean the great Council of Scotland to whom the Book was directed were bound by their Authority to compel such men as had gifts and graces able to edifie the Church of God to bestow them where there was greatest necessity And after we cannot prescribe unto your Honours how that ye shall distribute the Ministers and learned men which God hath already sent unto you And after they say and therefore of your Honours we require in Gods Name that by your Authority ye compel all men to whom God hath given any Talent to perswade by wholesome Doctrine to bestow the same if they be called by the Church to the advancement of Christs Glory And afterward they desire them to assign unto their chief workmen nâ—â— only Towns but Provinces And in the head of Superintendents they think it expedient in that necessity that their Honours by themselves nominate so many as may serve the forewritten Provinces and that the same Ministers being called in your presence shall be by you and such as your Honours pleases to call unto you for consultation in that case appointed to their Provinces And in the last Title of that Section they say Of one thing we must admonish your Lordships that in the appointing of the Superintendents for this present ye disappoint not your chief Towns and where Learning is exercised This first Book of Discipline was approven by the Assembly met at Edenburgh July 30. An. 1562. And in the second Book of Discipline which was often examined in several Assemblies and appointed by the Assembly at Glasgow April 24. 1581. to be registred among the Acts of the Assembly and to remain there ad perpetuam rei memoriam and the Copies thereof taken out by every Presbytery and every Minister was by the Assembly August 4th 1590. appointed to subscribe the said Book of Discipline in the first Chapter of that Book it 's said The Civil Power should command the Spiritual to exercise And Chap. 10. which is the Office of the Christian Magistrate it 's said That it pertains to the Office of the Christian Magistrate to see that the Kirk be not invaded nor hurt by false Teachers nor the rooms thereof occupied by dumb Dogs or idle Bellies and to make Laws and Constitutions agreeable to Gods Word for the Advancement of the Kirk and Polity thereof without usurping any thing that pertains not to the Civil Sword but belongs to the Offices that are meerly Ecclesiastical as is the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments using Ecclesiastick Discipline and the Spiritual Execution thereof or any part of the Power of the Spiritual Keys which our Master gave to the Apostles and their true Successors And although Kings and Princes that be godly sometimes by their own Authority when the Kâ—râ— is corrupted and all things out of order place Mâ—nisters and restore the true Service of the Lord after the example of some godly Kings of Judah and divers godly Kings and Emperours also in the light of the New Testament yet where the Ministry of the Kirk is once lawfully instituted and they that are placed do their Office faithfully all godly Princes and Magistrates ought to hear and obey their voice and reverence the Majesty of the Son of God speaking in them I shall but subjoyn one other Testimony which may be instead of many and that is the Testimony of that man of God Mr. Welsh who was very tender of Church-priviledges in his Epistle Dedicatory to King James prefixed to his Book against Mr. Gilbert Brown Priest he says to the King Follow these examples Sir send Pastors throughout all the Borders of your Kingdom to teach your Subjects the Law of the Lord and the
ought to command the Ministers to observe the Rule commanded in the word and punish the Transgressors by civil means if he ascribe no more to our Magistrates but this That they should meerly permit or not molest or as the Cup of cold Water hath it pag. 42. forbear to persecute the Mediators Ambassadors he gives no more to the Magistrate than is given to a strong Captain of Robbers who hath Ministers under his power and at his disposal which were most absurd But even upon this absurd supposition That the Magistrate might not command or appoint Ministers to preach and that appointing were an overstretch yet even upon this supposition the Ministers might lawfully after this appointment of the Magistrate have gone to those Parishes to which they were appointed to go upon the earnest desire of those destitute people I clear it by this similitude Suppose a Captain of Robbers hath by force subdued an Island in which there are two Ministers and four distinct Parishes this Usurper commands these Ministers to be brought before him and tells them he will not suffer them to return to their former Charges but appoints them to preach at the two vacant Churches though he have no Authority to appoint them to preach in these two other Parishes yet these Ministers having no access to their own Parishes being debarred by strong hand might upon the earnest desire of the two vacant Congregations go and help them till they might have regress to their own Parishes and their doing so would be no owning of the Authority of the Captain of Robbers to appoint and it were but folly to say to that Captain If ye only suffer us to go it may be we will go but if ye appoint us we will not go at all for that were but the way to hinder themselves from all exercise of their Office and deprive the whole Island of the benefit of the Gospel or if that Captain should appoint or command a Physitian to make his residence in such a Town of the Island or else he would not suffer him to exercise his Calling in the Island the Physitians going would be no acknowledgment that the Captain had a lawful Authority to command or appoint him the exercise of the Ministry and of Medicine are works of necessity and mercy and so necessary in order to the Glory of God and the good of man that whenever and wherever they who are called and fitted of God to exercise their Offices have lawful access to do these works of necessity and mercy they should not neglect the occasion and it 's a Phantastick and Childish Conceit to think that if men who have no Authority over Ministers or Physitians or they who have lawful Authority but claim more in reference to Ministers c. than God hath given them if they take upon them a power in reference to Ministers which they have not and in a way not competent to them appoint Ministers or Physitians to do the work of the Ministry or Medicine which God antecedently to any thing that those who usurp upon them do in reference to them hath called them to I say it 's a Phantastick and Childish Conceit to think That such Usurpations can make void the call which they have from God to do those works of necessity and mercy when they have access thereunto without doing Injury to any His 2 3 4. Answers about the Magistrates discharging Ministers to preach are in answer to what he was pleased impertinently to object to himself That the Magistrate may for ends known to himself discharge Ministers to preach and so though the purpose in his Answers be good yet they are nothing to the purpose in this place I have only one question anent somewhat he saith In the end of his 4th Answer he grants in the beginning of it That the Magistrate may indirectly and consequently silence a Minister for a civil Crime as Solomon did Abiathar but he says For an Ecclesiastick Transgression the Magistrate cannot indirectly or consequently remove any Minister from the exercise of his Ministry where the Church is setled in his power except only causative by commanding the Church-Judicatories to do their work First that is first to judge for in prima instantia he may not do it or corroboratively by backing the Service of the Church-Judicatory with his Civil Sanction and Authority Now my question is Suppose a Magistrate hath commanded a Church-Judicatory to take course with a Minister who preaches Heresie or Doctrine tending to Idolatry or preaches Schismatick-Doctrine and rents the Church and yet the Church-Judicatory through Ignorance or being themselves tainted or through want of Zeal take no effectual course to remedy these evils this is a case supposable for we see the Church-Judicatory of Pergamus suffered them that held the Doctrine of Balaam and that held the Doctrine of the Nicclatians and the Church-Judicatory of Thyatria suffered the Woman Jezabel that called her self a Prophetess to teach and seduce the Servants of God to commit Fornication and to eat things sacrificed to Idols in this case shall the Magistrate do no more but command the Church-Judicatory to their work He hath done that and yet the Judicatory does nothing or nothing to purpose and the Church is like to be undone through these Doctrines that fret like a Gangreen And the other member of his distinction makes no help for the Church-Judicatory I suppose passes no right sentence which the Magistrate may corroborate shall he who is Gods Vicegerent suffer the people of God and his Subjects to be poisoned with damnable Doctrine may he do nothing indirectly to restrain these Hereticks from preaching such damnable Doctrines and therefore it seems that though the Magistrate cannot depose an Heretick that 's a Minister yet he may do more to restrain a Heritick from destroying the people of God than is comprehended within the members of his distinction of causatively and corroboratively and he himself seems to grant with Voetius in his Answer to the second Objection That the Magistrate may hinder an Heretick from preaching Heresie either publickly or from house to house As for his second Objection if he had formed it thus When the Magistrate granteth the peaceable publick exercise of the Ministry Ministers should thankfully accept of this grant he would have had no Answer but he kept out peaceable out of the Objection and then he answers that the Magistrate should not discharge the publick exercise of the Ministry well but what is that to the purpose will he infer from thence that therefore he should not allow to Ministers the publick peaceable exercise of their Ministry The third Objection he proponeth thus Our second Book of Discipline granteth That Magistrates may place Ministers when the Kirk is corrupted and all things out of order and so it is now with us The Argument may be framed thus if the Magistrate when the Church is corrupted and all things out of order may place Ministers
then the Magistrate may appoint permit allow Ministers to preach in such and such Kirks For if the Magistrate may do what is more then they may do what is less in the corrupt state of the Church But the state of the Church is such and therefore if the Magistrate may in this case place c. he may much more permit c. He grants all the major is evident from the place cited and he grants it to the minor which was as he proponed it but so it is now with us he answers that our Church was a constituted and well-ordered Church but that now Confusion is come and so in effect he yields all but I remember he spoke to this before What he says of the Magistrates bringing on this Confusion is no evasion for the Book of Discipline does speak generally of a Church corrupted whatever way it hath been corrupted whether by Magistrates or Ministers that 's neither up nor down A Magistrate that hath disordered the Church is so much the more obliged to right those disorders and if a Magistrate hath disordered the Church by thrusting Ministers from the peaceable exercise of their Ministry he ought to retract what he hath done by allowing them the peaceable exercise of their Ministry if he did wrong in thrusting them out it 's right to let them in and the Church of Scotland in that place cited hath declared That in that case Ministers should not refuse to preach in any place because the Magistrate hath interposed his Authority for setling them He insinuates in the end of this Answer That this Concession gives the Magistrate all Church-power but this is a groundless and injurious alledgance the Authors of that Book and the General Assemblie's which after exact examination of every part of it concluded it to be subscribed by every Minister of the Church of Scotland understood the Nature of church-Church-power much better than he did and they were so far from thinking That the Magistrates who in the corrupt and disordered state of the Church interposes their Civil Authority for setling Ministers does in so doing assume unto themselves and exercise all church-Church-power that they commend what they did in that case as a practice well-becoming godly Kings and Princes and Emperors This Insinuation is highly injurious to those wise and godly men who compiled and approved subscribed that second Book of Discipline for if this Concession did yield all Church-power to the Magistrate then those who compiled and subscribed it do quite subvert what they had immediately asserted viz. That the Magistrate may not usurp any thing which belongs not to the civil Sword but belongs to the Offices which are meerly Ecclesiastical as is the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments using Ecclesiastical Discipline and the Spiritual Execution thereof or any part of the power of the Spiritual Keys which our Master gave to the Apostles and their Successors As it cannot be supposed that so wise men would so quickly contradict themselves in a Book so deliberately and after so many Debates concluded so it cannot be imagined that they would design Kings and Princes godly for doing that which would quite swallow up and subvert the holy Calling of the Ministry This one passage in the second Book of Discipline does quite ruine the cause of the Author of the History of the Indulgence and approves the practice of the Indulged Ministers so that what they have done they have done it according to the mind of the Church of Scotland expressed in the second Book of Discipline The Book says That godly Kings both in the old and in the light of the New Testament have placed Ministers when the Kirk was corrupted c. This not only may be but it hath been and the Author denies not that the Church was corrupted at the time of the Indulgence and all things out of order and in confusion and thus he really yields the cause and concedes all when the Church is corrupted and all things out of order the Magistrate may place Ministers and Ministers may be placed by Magistrates but at the time of the Indulgence as the Author grants the Church was corrupted and all things out of order and therefore at the time of the Indulgence the Magistrate might place Ministers and Ministers might be placed by Magistrates according to the 10th Chapter of the second Book of Discipline It 's true that the Magistrate should not have broken the order of the Church â—ut to conclude that the Magistrate cannot place Ministers because he thrusts them out or that he cannot do them right in granting to them the peaceable exercise of their Ministry because he did them wrong in restraining them â—rom the exercise of it or to conclude That â—he Magistrate by breaking the order of the Church loses all Authority to do any good to â—he Church afterward or that we may make â—o use of any good that the Magistrate does â—ecause he hath done evil or because at the â—me time he does some things right and some â—ings wrong that we cannot chuse the good because we must refuse the evil is a most unreasonable way of reasoning and at this rate a man may conclude quidlibet ex quolibet any thing he pleases from whatsoever he pleases any Conclusion he pleases from any premisses Neither doth the acceptance of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry from the Magistrate who had formerly restrained Ministers by penal Statutes that they could not without molestation exercise their Ministry teach Magistrates a way how to usurp all Church-power for the taking off of Restraints was a doing of right and no Usurpation He might as well alledge That if one by strong hand wound a man and put him out of his own house and take his Goods and afterward be willing to cure the wound and admit the man to return to his House and Goods that the injured man by admitting the Cure and returning to his own House and Goods teaches the man who injured him to wound intrude and spoil To the 4th Objection taken from the examples of Hezekiah and Josiah who commanded the Priests and Levites to do the work of their Calling he answers nothing to the purpose If Hezekiah and Josiah did right in setting the Priests in their Charges and the Levites in their Courses and in commanding them to do the work of their Calling and if the Priests and Levites did right in obeying those Commands then Magistrates may not only permit and allow but also command when there is need Ministers to do the work of their Ministerial Calling and Ministers may and should obey such Commands but the former is true for these Kings are commended for doing so 2 Chron. 35.2 c. 2 Chron. 29.2 3 4 5. c. 2 Chron. 31.2 and therefore the latter is true also He answers That our Rulers have done many evil things which these Kings did not but will he conclude that because they have done evil which these Kings
it if such youths blown up with the wind of popular applause fall into many snares and take courses that tend to bring all things sacred and civil into confusion They add For which together with other causes c. we may say God hath left them to do worse things This is among their rash sayings it was the duty of Presbyterians to censure such unruly youths They add But also have voted in that meeting which they are pleased to call an Assembly of Ministers but how justly let men judg an acceptation of that liberty founded upon and given by virtue of that blasphemously arrogated and usurped power Their alledgance that that meeting is not to be called an Assembly of Ministers will beget no prejudice against it in the minds of men who have any sound judgment in matters of that nature And sober and judicious men would have suspected that meeting if it had pleased their banders or any of such principles as they maintain And none except ignorants or persons blinded with prejudice will say that the liberty of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry granted by the Magistrate is founded upon any unlawful powor or supremacy The Magistrates granting liberty of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry is the exercise of that power which the Magistrate hath from God That which the Magistrate ought to do doth not flow from any unlawful power but the Magistrate ought to grant to the Ministers of the Gospel liberty to exercise their Ministry peaceably and therefore such a grant of liberty c. or such liberty granted doth not flow from nor is founded upon any unlawful or usurped power or supremacy They add And hath appeared before their Courts to accept of that liberty and to be Enacted and authorized there as Ministers and so hath willingly for this is an elicite act of the will and not an act of force and constraint translated the power of sending out ordering censuring for as they accept of their liberty from them so they submit to their censures and restraints at least all of them who were yet tried with it and others of them appeared and acknowledged before their Courts that they would not have done these things that they were charged with if they had thought it would have offended them Ministers departing from the Court of Christ and subjection to the Ministry to the Courts of men and subjection to the Magistrate which had been impious and injurious to Christ and his Church though they had been righteous and lawful rulers and by their changing of Courts according to common Law hath changed their masters and of the Ministers of Christ are become the Ministers of men and bound to answer to them as oft as they will and as by the acceptation of this liberty in such manner they have translated the power so they have given up and utterly quit the Government and a succession of a Presbyterian Ministry for as these were not granted them of their masters so they exercise their Ministry without them and so by this as the Ecclesiastical Government is swallowed up in the Civil if the rest had followed them the Ministry should have also been extinct with themselves and the whole work of Reformation had been buried in oblivion not so much as the remembrance of it kept up Ans If the Magistrates will see these Ministers for whom the people supplicate why should they refuse to appear what solid reason can be given for such a refusal and what ill is there in the Councils recording in their Act that upon such a day such a Minister for whom such a Parish had supplicated was allowed to Preach in such a Parish That they appeared to be authorized as Ministers if they mean as it seems they do that they appeared to receive their Ministerial authority from the Council or that they appeared to be made Ministers of the Gospel it is a manifest slander for as they had their Ministerial authority before their appearance before the Council so the Council did not pretend to make them Ministers but presupposed that they were Ministers by enquiring where they were Ordained Ministers and the Council cannot well be blamed to inform themselves concerning the persons whom they permit to Preach that they may not allow they know not whom but may be assured that they are Ministers and that they are not seditious turbulent persons But if by authorizing they mean the Magistrates Civil allowance maintetenance protection it 's the Magistrates duty thus to authorize those who are Ordained Ministers of the Gospel in the publick exercise of the Spiritual power and authority of their Office as all Orthodox Anti-Erastian Divines grant And because the Authors of this Band seem to have been unacquainted with the judgment of Presbyterian Divines in these matters I shall for their information and the information of others who are bold to speak of things which they do not understand set down the judgment of Presbyterian Divines in this matter as it is holden forth in that famous Book The Divine right of Church-Government Chap. 6. Pag. 55. 2. The power or authority of Church-Government is a derived power for clearing of this note there is a Magisterial primitive supreme power which is peculiar to Jesus Christ our Mediator as hath been proved Chap. 3. 5 and there is a Ministerial derivative subordinate power which the Scripture declares to be in Church-guides Mat. 16.19 18.18 Joh. 20 21 23. Mat. 28.19 20. 2 Cor. 10.8 13.10 and often elsewhere this is abundantly testified but whence is this power originally derived to them here we are carefully to consider and distinguish three things touching this power and authority from one another viz. 1. The Donation of the authority it self and of the Offices whereunto this power doth properly belong 2. The designation of particular persons unto such Offices as are vested with such power 3. The publick protection countenancing authorizing defending maintaining of such Officers in the publick exercise of such power within such and such Realms and Dominions this being premised we may clearly thus resolve according to Scripture-warrant viz. the designation or setting apart of particular individual persons to those Offices in the Church that have power and authority engraven upon them is from the Church nominating electing and ordaining of such persons thereunto See Act. 13.1 2 3. 1 Tim. 4.4 5.22 Tit. 1.5 Act. 4.22 The publick defence maintenance c. of such Officers in the publick exercise of the power and authority of their Office in such and such Dominions is from the Civil Magistrate as the nursing Father of the Church Isa 49.23 For it is by his authority and sanction that such publick places shall be set apart for publick Ministry that such maintenance and reward shall be legally performed for such Ministry that all such persons of such and such Congregations shall be in case they neglect their duty to such Ministry punished with such Political penalties
Indeed the engaging not to take up Arms against the Kings Person and Authority and any lawful Oath of Allegiance could not consist with such Arms as the Contrivers of this Band and Sanchar Declaration would be at for their Arms are designed to destroy the Magistrates person without mercy and their Authority and the established Civil Goverment which hath no parallel that I know of except that of the Boors in Germany under Thomas Munster and after under John of Leyden which Usurpation being not only of private persons but also being against the Magistrates person and Authority was justly condemned as a fury by all the Reformed Churches At length after this long Inditement they come to give sentence against these Ministers who have accepted of the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and all who voted for that acceptance all who have heard and pleaded for them trafficked for union with them all that do not testifie against them and deport themselves suitably to their testimony all who do not join publickly with the Brethren who testifie against them The sentence is in effect deposition as far as their power reaches they say indeed that they have not nor assume to themselves authoritative sentences of deposition and suspension against these Ministers there is some modesty here yet they specifie the censures which should be inflicted upon these Ministers no less will serve than deposition or suspension It 's somewhat strange that they who had the confidence to depose the Magistrate as formally as they could did not formally depose these Ministers also but though they do not formally depose them yet they do it materially and effectually in that they will neither hear them nor receive Sacraments from them And no wonder seeing they had before declared them to be the Ministers of men not of Christ the ground of this sentence is a Scripture 2 Thes 3.6 but misunderstood and so misapplied for the Apostle is not there directing to withdraw from the Lords Ordinances from the hearing of the Word or Administration of the Sacraments or from fellowship with the Church in the Worship of God but he forbids ordinary familiar private converse with disorderly persons it 's a metaphor taken from Soldiers who keep not their rank idle and yet busie-bodies busie about that which did not belong to them such as are spoken of 1 Tim. 5.13 who were idle wandering about from house to house tatlers busie-bodies speaking things which they ought not The authors of this Band have made such a breach upon all order both in speaking and engaging to do things which they ought not and which tend to all confusion that if they had understood this Scripture and their own way they would have seen their way condemned in this Scripture from which they would condemn others 2. Orthodox Interpreters think that the withdrawing which is enjoined in this Scripture is to be after the Church hath taken due notice of the disorder of such persons and they after admonition continue disobedient see the Dutch Annotations which cite Mat. 18.15 1 Cor. 5.11 as parallel places and Diodate Mr. Dickson and Mr. Ferguson upon the place If private persons were left to Excommunicate all whom they thought disorderly it would breed great confusion and if private persons be not to be thus withdrawn from till the Church hath noted them and proceeded by lesser censures to the censure of Excommunication How insolent an act is this for a few inconsiderable persons who as they confess themselves have no capacity to inflict any censure to declare that they will carry themselves towards so many ministers who have never been convened or heard much less censured by any Church-Judicatory and others who adhere to them and all who testifie not against them and do not publickly join with those who testifie against them as if they were deposed and Excommunicate and the insolency was the greater because they knew that the ministers who were not indulged did think these young men who had not come to this height of Schism censurable I am certainly informed that this spirit of Schism hath prevailed so far in some that they will not have private Christian fellowship with any who hear Indulged ministers though they be persons of so blameless and Christian conversation that they have nothing to cast at them for but this that they have clearness to hear Indulged ministers This joining in the Worship of God where these ministers preach they account a joining with the people of these abominations ignorantly perverting that place Ezra 9.14 as if joining in the commanded Worship of God were like the Israelites joyning in forbidden marriages with the cursed Nations But as the fool thinks the bell clinks The least that they require of these deposed and Excommunicate ministers is that they stand in judgment before these ministers and be judged by them who have followed the Lord and kept themselves free of these defections The least I perceive that they will accept of is no less than an acknowledging of Prelates and setting up Prelacy Pr. Sir ye seem now to be jesting and not in earnest Min. No Sir I am in good earnest and if ye will consider what Prelacy is I suppose ye will not deny what I say Ye know your self that these Ministers whom they mean and who fall not in one of the Classes mentioned were never for any thing known above four and some say they were but three and a little after this Band one of them was laid aside from Preaching And a Gentleman told me that he was credibly informed that he went hence to Ireland and joined with the Conformists there But suppose that they were four yea fourteen that would not make them the Plurality in a capacity to judg to suspend or depose the Indulged and not Indulged Ministers of the Church of Scotland and yet we see they have a jurisdiction over all the rest of the Ministers who must stand before them and be judged by them and stand and fall in judgment as these judges shall determine And as they engross the power of suspension and deposition so consequently the power of Ordination and in their last Article they talk of a Gospel-ministry rightly chosen and rightly Ordained and they promise to rectifie what was amiss in former Ordinations Now two or three or four persons engrossing the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction over all the Presbyterian Ministers of the Church of Scotland are Prelates Doctor Gauden defines the Office of a Bishop thus Episcopal presidency and authority is a Soveraign power and Spiritual jurisdiction in Ordination Confirmation Censures rebuking silencing Excommunication Absolution and other exercises of Ecclesiastick power without above and against Presbyters and people This description if ye will take Confirmation out of it seems to agree much better to these new Prelates than to the old They arrogate a Soveraign power a power above all Presbyterian Ministers who must stand before them when they set to judg
deserve Excommunication but also whether they have authority over the person or persons who are scandalous and withal as Mr. Durham upon the Commands saith they would consider when censures by reason of some circumstances prove not edifying but hurtful to the Church and persons concerned For saith he that which warranteth debarring and censures of all sorts is edification and when that end cannot be gained to a people or person such censures may be omitted Or upon the censure would probably miss its end which is edification and would weaken the authority of the Ordinance of Discipline if not hazard the liberty of the Gospel in that case he thinks that exclusion from the Sacrament by a sentence may be forborn But as for this late Excommunication judicious sober persons are grieved and much ashamed to hear of it and it 's matter of sport and derision to others and it 's more than probable that Jesuits take advantage of the distempers of weak persons to drive them under pretext of zeal to such Pope-like pranks to make the Popes Excommunications of Princes less odious and to render Presbyterians odious to Rulers but any who will not shut their eyes may see that such extravagancies are inconsistent with Presbyterian principles and practices Dr. Gauden adds That this Soveraign Jurisdiction is without above against Presbyters and people In all these their new Prelates have the pre-eminency For the first it is indeed true that Prelates need not if they please desire the presence or advice of Presbyters for they claim the sole authority of Ordination and Jurisdiction and the Presbyters have no concurrence in authoritative acts The Author of the seasonable case speaking of the Bishops nomination of the Moderators of the Meetings of Exercise has written that the Bishop did it with the Synod this seemed to give the Synod a concurrence in the nomination of the Moderators and therefore all the Printed Copies which I saw were mended with a Pen and the with was turned to in which turned the Synods concurrence into a meer presence A Diocesan Synod saith Mr. William Scot is only an Episcopal Visitation and not a Council properly so called and cites Bellar. de Concil lib. 1. cap. 4. Diocesana concilia sunt in quibus conveniunt tantum Presbyteri unius Episcopâ—â—us tis Episcopus praeest cujus geâ—eris paricissima exstant nec immerito nam vix dici possunt concilia cum in iis nullus sit qui jurisdictionem habet praeter unum Episcopum qui praeest A Council is wherein those who are assembled have every one of them a part of the joint-power and jurisdiction belonging to that Council as every Senator hath in the Senate The comparing of the Act of Glasgow June 3. 1610 anent Visitations with the Act of Parliament relating to it sheweth that Diocesan Synods are Episcopal Visitations the Bishop summons to them in his own name makes the Clerk appoint a Substitute or Vicegerent when he pleases he only sententiates deposes suspends if he at any time number votes and conclude according to the plurality that is not done by vertue of the Act of Glasgow but by tolerance of the Bishop who does it to settle himself in possession But when they please they will not so much as suffer a matter to come to voicing and therefore they who cannot come to a Bishops particular Visitation when he or his Substitute visits the Kirks of his Diocess severally which was wont to be called Visitatio plena he cannot go to the Diocesan Synod which is nothing but a superficial shuffled Visitation devised to hold in the Bishops travel in going through the Diocess to make a full Visitation But suppose they were Councils yet they are not fre for the Bishop by his negative whether in the Synod or out of the Synod even in a Court inferiour to the Synod may dash all done in the Synod yea he may do it by his Affirmatives in the very Synod so that the Presbyters are only in the nature of Counsellors Thus far he From which we see the Bishop claims the sole authority and he might act without Presbyters if he pleased yet they use not to act without their Presbyters and use to seek their advice and counsel but their new Prelates do not desire the advice or presence of Presbyters the old Prelates are so discreet that they suffer the Presbyters to sit beside them as Counsellors but these new ones do neither admit them to sit or stand as Counsellors but require them to stand as guilty to be judged And so Dr. Gauden's definition is more verified in them than in the former Bishops As for the next Clause in the Doctors description viz. above Presbyters it agrees also to their new Prelates and their superiority over Presbyters is the more intollerable that there is no kind of pretext for it for they are designed only Ministers now a Minister as a Minister to be above Ministers is an usurpation the more intollerable that it is not colourable with any pretext either Divine or humane The old Prelates plead a superiority Jure Regio which King James they say thought their surest title and that they had best to hold them by Jure Jacobi Some plead from Analogy that as the high Priest was over the Priests so the Bishop may be over the Presbyters But to let pass the answer of the Typicalness of the Office of the high Priest I have not yet seen any argument to prove that the high Priest had a Soveraign Jurisdiction over the rest of the Priests he might do several things which the rest of the Priests might not do as some servants have more eminent service in a family and yet no masterly or Soveraign power over other servants who have not so eminent service allotted to them They have a pretext also from the Asian Angels because there one Angel in the singular number is written to it 's true that reason taken from the singular number to prove that it must needs be a single person is no solid argument especially in a mystical Book such as the Revelation is in which sometimes one is spoken of in the Plural number as in the first Chapter the one Spirit of God is called seven Spirits The four Beasts the four and twenty Elders are not four individual persons or four and twenty single Elders The seven Angels Rev. 8.2 6. 15.1 are not to be restricted to seven individual Angels The Woman clothed with the Sun the Whore the Beast the Dragon are names of the singular number and yet signifie a collection of many Individuals When the Angel of the Lord is said to incamp about them who fear the Lord it 's expounded of Angels because one Angel cannot be properly said to incamp Again they have a pretext of Superiority as Bishops over Presbyters It 's true Presbyterians make it evident from Scipture that Bishop and Presbyter are one there And Dr. Hammond to evite the dint of
prescriptions and that they could receive no other prescriptions besides Christs prescriptions to regulate them in the exercise of their Ministry 4. They declare how desirable and refreshing the exercise of this their Ministry was to them 5. They declare what power they acknowledged in the Magistrate it 's not a lawless but lawfuâ— Authority which they acknowledge they acknowledge no other power in the Magistrate but what is the Ordinance of God for so they describe lawful Authority the excellent Ordinance of God They declare it 's the work of Magistrates to protect the Ministers of Christ in the exercise of their Ministry 6. That they purposed and resolved to behave themselves in the discharge of their Ministry with that wisdom and prudence which became faithful Ministers of Jesus Christ 7. They declare that they continued in their known judgment in Church-affairs they did let the Magistrates know that they had not altered their Judgement in Church-affairs that they were still Presbyterians Their judgment is known from the Confession of faith chap. 23. Art 3. ch 25. Art 6. ch 30. Art 1. ch 31. Art 3. and all who have any knowledge of the Judgment of Presbyterians know that they own Christ for the alone head of the Church and fountain of church-Church-authority and that they are as opposite to Erastianism as they are to Prelacy That they are so far from ascribing a Supremacy of spiritual power to the Magistrate that they profess that the Magistrate hath not any power of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven committed to him and that it doth not belong to the Magistrate to ordain or depose suspend excommunicate or to exercise any Church-censures and that it doth not belong to him to form Church-Canons or to prescribe Instructions for regulating Ministers in the exercise of their Ministry and that they are of that Judgment that no Magistrate nay nor all the powers on earth though they were united can dispose of Ecclesiastical matters according to their Wisdom or pleasure seeing the things of the house of the God of Heaven must be done according to the wisdom and pleasure of the Lord and not according to the wisdom and pleasure of Creatures These and many other Tenets are known by all who know what Presbyterians are to be their known and professed Judgement Now seeing they declared their continuance in their known Judgement and adherence to their former principles and that to the Magistrate and had declared before their resolutions to behave as faithful Ministers of Christ and that they believed the account they were to give of their Ministry to Jesus Christ They did shew to the Magistrate that they did not nor could not approve of power or acts of the Magistrate which were contrary to their Judgements for that had been so far from becoming the faithfulness of the Ministers of Jesus Christ that it could not consist with common Ingenuity 8. And they clearly enough insinuate that there was an opposition betwixt their known Judgements and the actings of the Magistrate in subverting Presbyterial Government and setting up of Prelacy and other actings contrary to Presbyterial Principles some whereof I mentioned before This opposition is clearly insinuated and imported while they say And to demain our selves towards lawful Authority notwithstanding of our known Judgment in Church-affairs as well becometh Loyal Subjects for if the Affairs of the Church had been then according to their known Judgment that notwithstanding had been impertinent and could have had no sufferable sence But Church-affairs being setled by the Magistrate contrary to the known Judgment of Presbyterians some might have alledged that Presbyterian Ministers would not be Loyal towards lawful Authority to obviate this they say That notwithstanding their known Judgements they would behave as Loyal Subjects 9. And hence they declare to the Magistrate that there was no disloyalty in their Principles or practice of their Principles that their known judgement in Church-affairs and the faithful discharge of their Ministry according to their known Judgement did well consist with loyalty and with that respect which from a principle of Conscience they did owe to lawful Authority though it did not consist with some of the actings of those who were in Authority 10. They modestly declare the low esteem they they had of themselves in saying they were the unworthiest of many of their Brethren and they so far from selfishness in desiring to partake of this liberty alone that they express their desire that others of their Brethren may be sharers of the liberty which they enjoyed It appears from what is said that these Brethren witnessed a good Confession before the Council and the Author of the History of the-Indulgence hath in this respect done right to these Brethren and good service to the Church in Printing the Speech which Mr. Hutcheson spoke in their name before the Council If any object that their Testimony is not good because they do not expresly and in terminis testifie against the Invasions made upon the Church I would desire these to consider that in saying so they condemn the Testimonies of many Martyrs who in their Confessions only expressed the truths which they did believe and some of them only in the general asserted that they were Christians They condemn also our Confession of Faith which doth not so expresly and in so many words refute and reject many dangerous and damnable errors but doth only assert the truths opposite to these errors yea they condemn the Testimony of the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures which is good and perfect and yet doth not in terminis and expresly mention every error which is contrary to the truth but leaves the refutation of many of these errors to be gathered by good consequence from what is said in the Holy Scriptures and they condemn also that good Confession which Christ witnessed before Pontius Pilate in asserting himself to be a King for he doth not expresly mention and reject all the errors which are contrary to his Spiritual Kingdom And seeing I am speaking of Testimonies I shall mention what the Indulged Ministers who were called before the Council for not keeping the 29. of May declared in the face of the Council As they had agreed that Mr. Hutcheson should declare that the Magistrate had not a power formally Ecclesiastical and that they could not receive Rules intrinsecally Ecclesiastical from the Magistrate So Mr. Hutcheson to prevent the Councils giving them any such instructions desired that their Lordships would be pleased not to burden them with impositions in the matter of their Ministry wherein they were the Servants of Christ And after Mr. Alexander Blare who was called before Mr. Hutcheson had shewed that he could not receive such instructions to regulate him in his Ministry Mr. Hutcheson before he was called spoke against their L. L. imposing Rules intrinsecally Ecclesiastical for regulating Ministers in the exercise of their Ministry who were the Servants of Christ in these matters
answer its Reason but by clamour as unanswerable I answer If he had been pleased to have read what the Indulged Ministers and others have written in answer to what the Author of this History sent before this History in Letters and Questions he might have seen any thing that this Author hath said against the practise of the Indulged Ministers very rationally and solidly answered As for his first reason for the seasonableness of this I answer The evil which is in the Magistrates actings which relate to the Indulgence have been more solidly discovered than this Author doth but this Authors great design is to fasten all the Magistrates faults in this matter upon the Indulged Ministers And if this last be the Testimony which the Author means in his second Reason it 's a false Testimony and of no value and worth and worse than nothing In his third he is mistaken for several who are dissatisfied with the Indulgence are much more dissatisfied with this History as a Book which they think will do much mischief among ignorant and profane people in hardning them in a careless neglect of the Lords Ordinances and profaning of the Sabbath and jumble many weak and well-meaning people and confound them with things that they do not understand His fourth Reason for the seasonableness of it is because the Indulged Brethren had been threatning and boasting with a Vindication of the lawfulness of their acceptance I answer The Author either saw these Vindications for there were many of them or not if he saw them not might he not have had patience till he had seen what they had to say for themselves it was injustice to condemn men unheard who were offering a Vindication of their Practice but it seemed he had a mind to give them Couper Justice But it may be he thought he could imagine all that they had to say but this was rashness and too much self-confidence he should have heard them before he had answered seeing he knew they had spoken for themselves If he saw any of these Vindications as some think he did why did he not examine them it may be he found them too hot for his handling If he had sent this History to the Indulged Ministers privately that they might have given him a return this had been fairly done but to print it and publish it to the World at the very first was not fair non amice factum ab amico His first Reason for the seasonableness of it is because the Non-indulged Ministers had done somewhat to strengthen the hands of the Indulged by giving them new confidence in their course in obliquo covering all aid carrying towards them as if they had done nothing amiss but upon the the matter by a direct Homologatry of the Indulgence for now silence as to all speaking against this evil is made the very door and porch through which all entrance to the Ministry must pass And therefore saith he it 's now simply necessary and more than high time to discover and detect the blackness of its Defection when the Church is thus brought in bondage by it Ans I did not think that the Author though he be very confident upon small evidence had so far passed the bounds of modesty as that he durst in Print have avowed and justified the deed of two young men who contrary to Presbyterian Principles did set themselves to counteract the judgment and sentence of the suffering Ministers of the Church of Scotland for their way did manifestly tend to the subversion of the very foundation of all Government and Order It 's a strange Reason that because the Non indulged Ministers endeavoured to strengthen the hands of the Indulged Ministers that therefore it was seasonable to put out a Book condemning all together and what else was this but for two men living at a distance to take upon them to condemn the whole Presbyterian Ministers of the Church of Scotland and to encourage two unruly youths in their contempt of any remnant of Authority that that poor remnant had What sober person who hath any Judgment in matters of that nature can but commend the Practice of these Non-indulged Ministers who laboured to prevent the breaking of the Church by that Question about the Indulgence by restraining these young men who made it their great work to cry out against the Indulged Ministers and the hearing of them and yet this Author is so far from having that reverence that he ought to have had to the Judgment of the generality of the Ministers of the Church of Scotland that he thinks because they agreed together to endeavour to prevent the renting of the Church therefore it was seasonable to cast in a new fire-ball of Contention among the people and so render all their endeavours of Unity ineffectual and what more effectual way would he have taken to render all the suffering Ministers of the Church of Scotland contemptible in the eyes of all who will believe him than to charge all the Indulged Ministers with so black and fearful a defection and all the rest of the Ministers with a direct homologating of the Indulgence In this he hath done service very acceptable to Prelatists Papists and Quakers though I believe he designed no such thing His sixth taken from the severe insulting over some of the poor remnant who could not forbear to witness their abhorrency of it flows from misinformation the insulting was among some of those who quarrelled with the Indulged Ministers and who took occasion from the Indulged Ministers forbearance to meddle with that matter in their Sermons to say that they had nothing to say for themselves and thus their silence for peace sake was turned into a prejudice against them They who live in these parts where Indulged Ministers are can bear witness how much forbearance and tenderness hath been used towards the poor people who were confounded with these doubtful Disputations and frighted with unknown words of Homologations and Homologatings and imposed upon by strong alledgencies and parables and allegories without Scripture or solid Reasons This way of witnessing which he means the withdrawing from the Lords Ordinances to which they formerly resorted and in the use of which they profited is a way of witnessing that if they who take it have little cause to be ashamed of it as he says I am sure they have as little cause to glory in it for there needs no more to qualifie folk for giving this Testimony but laziness and gross profanity and contempt of Ordinances There can be no great matter in that which any profane man as he is profane and because he is profane can do As for his seventh neither this Author nor he hath proven that the Indulged Ministers entring into these Parishes was a coming in not by the door but a climbing up another way His last consists of hopes That some of these godly men Indulged may be by this History taken off and that the Non-indulged will
Information for one of these Brethren relates that the Brother who was chosen to make use of the paper that was drawn as a Directory for what he was to say in their name upon supposition the paper with Instructions were offered did in the face of the Council declare that it was not in the Magistrates Power to make Rules intrinsecally Ecclesiastical to Regulate Ministers in the exercise of their Ministry and that their Lordships knew our Divines say so To which my L. Chancellour answered Sir we know what belongs to our Office as well as you what belongs to your And as to my Lord Chancellours Answer which contained a threatning to punish I related before from the Answer of this History written by a Minister who was present that it was in these words and no other Then Sir we will punish you Unto which Mr. H. did not reply in words but onely in gesture hence says he it 's needless to debate upon things that were not spoken Onely 1. It 's clear by my L. Chancellours reply that he understood these Ministers as refusing Obedience to these Injunctions otherwise he would not have uttered these words 2. That the Historians alledgeance that the punishment threatned by my L. Chancellour might comprehend Ecclesiastical punishment as he calls it is groundless and irrational The Kings Letter grants not to the Council the Power of inflicting Church censures if the King had given them that Power to inflict Censures they would also have had Power to take them off but as he shews in his Answer to the first Remark of the Historian on the Kings Letter they sisted to Indulge some whom they intended to Indulge till the Bishop had taken off the Sentence of Deposition So that the Council did not pretend by virtue of the Kings Letter to impose or remove Church-censures And the Council knew that the Indulged Ministers would not submit to the Bishops Censures and therefore it 's a groundless dream that by punishment Church-censure is meant He adds That the Magistrate might have commanded the Indulged Ministers to inflict Censures upon themselves as they used to do formerly in Presbyterial Courts Page 80. We heard saith the Historian of Rules intrinsecally c. but we heard of no assumption that such were the Rules contained in the paper tendred unto them nor of a conclusion that therefore they could not they might not in Conscience accept of them Answ The Historian hath not considered 1. Who these Ministers were they were not School-boys tyed to the formalities of Arguing Categoricè in modo figura Nor 2. Where they were they were not in the School ingaged in a School-dispute but before the secret Council where formal Syllogisms are accounted pedantry Nor 3. Hath he considered the part they sustained there for they were Defendants and if the Defendant deny and distinguish he does enough and if he give also a reason of his denial he does abundantly Now these Ministers acted all these parts very distinctly and rationally as we have seen already When the Apostles are brought before the Council Acts 4. they get another manner of Injunction than any in the Act of Instructions for they are commanded not to speak at all nor teach in the Name of Jesus This was an Instruction which tended to the destruction not only of the Gospel-Ministry but of all Christianity This was one of the worst Councils and this one of the worst Instructions that ever was for this Council was gathered directly against Christ and this Instruction was for the total destruction of Christianity root and branch and for the total Subversion of the Kingdom of Christ of the Church the Ministry the Gospel and of all private Conference about Christ c. This was worse than any Sect of Erastianism we have yet heard of let be seen and yet the Apostles enter not in debate with that Council about the Councils Authority to meddle in such matters they do not make Syllogisms against the Councils capacity of Acting nor against the Act they had made yea they do not in terminis say they will not obey the Councils command Nor say they in terminis that they would speak and teach in the name of Jesus They forbear a direct and formal Contradiction in terminis but they do that which was less irritating but much better and more for the Advantage of their Cause Their Answer which is in these words Acts 4.19 20. Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard is a real and rational refusal to do what the Council commanded and the Council understood it so and therefore threatned them further and such rational qualified Answers which are real refusals of wrong commands are much more to the Conviction and Edification of all that hear them than flat Contradictions not qualified with solid Reasons When the Apostles come to their Company they relate the matter and they are well satisfied with their behaviour they say not why entred ye not a Protestation against that Anti-christian Council that was not gathered in the Name of Christ but against Christ c Why did ye not in express terms say that ye would receive no commands from them Why said ye not in express terms that ye would speak at all occasions and teach in the name of Jesus and so flatly and in terminis contradicted the Councils Injunction Why spoke ye in such general terms of speaking the things that ye had heard and seen Why said ye not in terminis that ye would obey God and that ye would not obey the Council and that the command of the Council was contrary to the command of God Testimonies cannot be too plain ye should have been more particular Why did ye not frame an Argument against them thus When the command of men is contrary to the command of God then it is not to be obeyed but your command that ye have given to us at this time is contrary to the command of God And therefore we will not obey this your command But these good honest Primitive Christians who were Acted by the Spirit of Love were not so captious nor censorious In the 5th Chap. After they had beaten them they commanded that they should not speak in the Name of Jesus and let them go We do not hear that the Apostles said any thing after they were beaten against that new Injunction but they had not a mind to Obey it and they make that clear by their practice for they ceased not to Preach Jesus Christ daily in the Temple and in every House The Disciples do not refuse to hear them because they had given no verbal Testimony against that last Injunction or because they had not the last word seeing they did really disobey that Injunction in Preaching the Gospel they made no quarrel either at their speaking or at their silence when beaten they
claim as much Power over Kings to whom he is not Subject as their own private Subjects claim Again it 's one of the Popes pranks to interdict Countries or Cities that he hath a quarrel at in discharging all publick Worship of God in them these Banders have done the same upon the matter in going about to hinder as far as their Power reaches all publick Worship of God except in these parts where their Preachers come We are by Covenant obliged to extirpate Schism this Bond engages these who take it in one of the vilest Schisms that hath been heard of in the Church as appears Article 6. The Covenant is for the extirpation of Prelacy but these Banders though in words they engage to do so yet they really make these Ministers of theirs who are far from the number of fourteen in effect Prelates and will have all the Ministers of the Church to stand in Judgment before these Judges and to be no Ministers except these Ministers of theirs will And thus they really overturn Presbyterial Government which the Covenant obliges to preserve The Covenant obliges to preserve the Priviledges of Parliament Liberties of the Kingdoms and the Kings Majesties Person and Authority This Bond engageth to destroy the King and his Authority and to alter the very form of Government so that if it should take effect there would be no King nor Parliament nor Kingdom in the Nation And contrary to the 4th Article of the Covenant they make Factions among the People and go about to divide the King from the People by a most destructive Division in destroying the King The Covenant keeps every man in his own place and Calling but all who take this Band bind themselves in this 3d. Article to execute Righteous Judgment impartially according to the Word of God and degree of wickedness upon the committers of Blasphemy c. So that all who take this Band Ministers and People Man and Woman engage themselves to Act the part of Judges in executing Righteous Judgment But who made them Judges They should have staid till they had gotten a call to Judge and had been in a capacity of Judging before they had sworn to execute Righteous Judgment Again if all of them had been Judges executing Righteous Judgment then all would have been Rulers and so there would have been none of them to be Ruled and Judged and thus not onely their Ministers but also all their Men old and young and their Women are engaged to pass the bounds of their Calling and to perform that which would have been impractical and impossible Preacher But Sir are not the Saints to have a sharp Sword in their hand to execute vengeance upon the Heathen and punishment upon the People to bind their Kings with Chains and their Nobles with Fetters of Iron To execute upon them the Judgment written Psal 149.6 7 8 9. And is it not promised to him that overcometh and keepeth the words of Christ unto the end that Christ will give him Power over the Nations and that he shall Rule them with a Rod of Iron Rev. 2.26 27. Minist You might have learned from the Orthodox Interpreters of the Scripture that the word there is not a Carnal Sword but the sharp two-edged Sword of the Word of God which binds and looses Persons of all Ranks according as they Repent or are obstinate and contains in it the Sentence of God which will be in due time executed it 's by the Word by Spiritual Weapons that the Saints overcome the World the Flesh and the Devil And for that place in the 2d of Rev. Mr. Durham sheweth that it is no Earthly Dominion which is there meant for 1. It 's to be performed after the full Victory 2. All overcomers are not capable of Temporal Power over the Nations It imports then these two 1. An excellent Dominion that the Believer may expect 2. A joynt sharing in Christs Conquest over the Nation 1 Cor. 6. They shall judge Angels and all the Wicked in the day of Judgment Though often Believers are now oppressed by the Wicked of the World yet the day is coming when it shall be otherways Believers shall not onely be free from their oppressions but shall be as absolute Kings having Dominion over them in the morning as it is in the 49 Psalm 14. When the condition of the Wicked in Gods Justice shall be most miserable I have heard of late that some of the People are so far deluded as to imagine that the place of Scripture which ye first mentioned warrants every private Saint to take the Sword and execute Judgment upon all evil doers But ye may easily perceive that this is contrary to the Analogy of Faith and the Confessions of Faith of all the Reformed Churches and is the dregs of that Dream that the Saints shall have a Temporal Earthly Monarchy and we who profess our selves to be Teachers of the People should be so far from pleasing People in such Delusions that we should faithfully discover their Errors unto them and reprove them sharply and not suffer sin to be upon their Souls and especially Errors of this nature that tends to the Ruine of all Humane Societies and to utter Confusion and Desolation And you will have little Peace if you see them by their practising these Erroneous Principles brought unto bonds and under the lash of the Civil Sword Preach Proceed in your Observations Min. 8. The formers of this Bond seem to have been unacquainted with the judgment of Presbyterians concerning the National Covenant for in this Band they speak as if Prelacy were not excluded by the National Covenant but onely by the League and Covenant They who engrossed to themselves the Title of the true Presbyterian Party should not have been so ignorant of the sentiments of Presbyterians 9. They who take this Band and adhere to it cannot subscribe the Covenants And I heard of one of this way who said if the subscribing of the Covenant were to do again his hand should rather be cut off than subscribe it This shews that this Band is inconsistent with these Covenants 10. In the 4th Article there are many horrid things vented of the Magistrates as for Example That their Government cannot be called a Government but a lustful rage and that they can be no more called Governours but Publick Grassators that is High-way Robbers and publick Judgments as Sword Famine Pestilence raging among us and for a Conclusion they say that none can judge us bound in Allegiance to them unless they say also we are bound in Allegiance to the Devil they being his Vicegerents and not Gods If this be not an instance of speaking evil of Dignities and of railing accusation against them it will be hard to find an instance of such railing elsewhere 11. It 's very strange that they say that it cannot be thought that there is hope of the Magistrates Repentance Was it not enough to them to exaggerate the Magistrates
Councils ministerially to determine controversies of Faith and cases of Conscience to set down Rules and Directions for the better ordering of the publick Worship of God and government of his Church Art 5. Synods and Councils are to conclude nothing but that which is Ecclesiastical and are not to meddle with Civil affairs which concern the Commonwealth unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary or by way of advice for satisfaction of conscience if they be thereto required by the Civil Magistrate Chap. 23. Art 3. The Civil Magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of word and Sacraments as the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven yet he hath authority and it is his duty to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church that the truth of God be kept pure and intire that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed all corruptions and abuses in worship or discipline prevented or reformed and all Ordinances of God duly setled administred and observed for the better effecting whereof he hath power to call Synods to be present at them and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the word of God These Articles and the Scripture-proofs do clearly hold out and confirm That Christ not the Magistrate is the Head King Lord of the Church which is the Body House and Kingdom of Christ that Church and not the Magistrate is the Fountain of the Spiritual Power of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven that the Offices in the Church are of divine institution given by Christ and that these Offices which Christ hath given are sufficient for gathering and perfecting the Church seeing he hath given them for that end and that they are Ministerial and not Lordly and hence it follows that the Office of a Prelate who claims a majority of Directive and Coercive power over Ministers who not only takes upon him without election to moderate Synods but also is above the censure of the Synod and who can hinder the Synod from concluding any thing how necessary soever they find it and without whose Authority the Synod is no Synod who imposes Moderators upon the meetings for exercise and to whom these meetings are countable for their actings without whom there can be no ordination deposition excommunication relaxation from it who exacteth an Oath of Canonical obedience from Ministers not being in the Rolls of the Offices and Officers given by Christ and being a Lordly and so more than a Ministerial Office Presbyterians cannot own it nor judg it useful for gathering or perfecting of the Church They shew also that the Magistrate to whom God hath given the Lordly power of the sword is so far from having a spiritual Supreme power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven that he hath not the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven given to him at all for the power of the keys which Christ hath given is Ministerial and makes those who are invested with it Ministers of the Church but the power of the Sword is Magistratical and a Lordly Dominion and that it belongs to Synods and Councils and not to Magistrates to make Ecclesiastical Rules c. and that none neither Magistrates nor Ministers may order Ecclesiastical matters according to their mind and pleasure but those things must be ordered according to the mind and will of God revealed in his word And all true Presbyterians believe That seeing both the Lordly Power of the Magistrate in general and in special the Kingly Power and the Ministerial Power of Church-Officers are of God and his Ordinances that they are not contrary to one another for the Ordinances of God do not justle one against another but sweetly agree and any justling or clashing which hath proceeded from the corruptions of Magistrates or Ministers are not to be imputed to the Lords Ordinances and it 's the earnest desire of all truly godly and loyal subjects who seek the glory of God and the Magistrates true honour and interest That whatsoever in the actings of their rightful Magistrates hath exceeded the bounds which the Lord hath set to them may be in mercy discovered to them and in time reformed That all occasions of grief and stumbling may be taken out of the way of truly loyal subjects and all occasion of doing mischief may be cut off from those who take advantage from those excesses to render the Magistrate contemptible and to overthrow that Power which they have from God As for what they say of Ministers hindering those who would have given a testimony and censuring others who did give it the truth is Presbyterian Ministers endeavoured to restrain some young men who instead of preaching the Gospel made it their work to revile the Magistrate and Ministers who made use of the liberty granted by the Magistrate but these youths discovered themselves not to be of Presbyterian Principles by their refusing to be subordinate to the Ministers and by reproaching them who would have reclaimed them from their disorderly and Schismatick practices By this the Magistrate may perceive if the Presbyterian Ministers who are Presbyterians indeed had by allowance of the Magistrate the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and liberty of meeting for regulating their own actings and the actings of those who profess themselves to be Presbyterians such unruly persons who stir up the people to Schism and Sedition would not be admitted to the Ministry or if they after their admission discovered themselves to be of pernicious principles they would be put from the Ministry and so the people who are true to Presbyterian Principles would not own them and so they would not have access to pervert the people with Seditious and Schismatick doctrine this would be found the most proper Remedy for these distempers But what wonder is it if young men who are ordinarily rash being but Novices who have not studied the Body of Divinity and who have no experience and know not the Principles and Practices of Presbyterial Government who are not put ro Presbyterial Exercises for their trial and instruction and who it may be have never seen any thing of the Exercise of Presbyterial Government in Presbyteries or Synods and who are not under the iâ—spection of meetings of Presbyterians but wander to and fro at random not thinking themselves accountable to any meeting of Ministers nor censurable by any What wonder is it if such persons when they are blown up with the vain applause of some ignorant and humorous people who under their sad sufferings have taken up such prejudice against the Magistrate and all to whom the Magistrate shews any favour that they think what is most cross to the Magistrate is most right and any thing which the Magistrate allows they think it wrong and so they cry up those Preachers most who speak most invectively against the Magistrate and against those Ministers to whom the Magistrate shews any favour I say what wonder is
no magistrate's sending ministers to preach c. doth make them no ministers of Christ Did Ezra cease to be a Scribe and minister of the Lord because Artaxerxes and his seven Councellers sent him to do the work of a Scribe in Judah and Jerusalem Ezr. 7.13 14. For as much as thou art sent of the King and of his seven Councellors Pr. If Artaxerxes had destroyed the Temple and the Worship of God Ezra would not have taken any benefit of such a Decree and Commission Min. What warrant have you for that if Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed the Temple had made a Decree That the Priests and Levites and people should return and worship God at Jerusalem would they have been such fools to refuse to return till Nebuchadnezzar were dead and some other King made such a Decree Did Jeremiah reject the favour which was appointed by Nebuchadnezzar Jer. 39.11 12. and conferred upon him by Nebuzaradan Jer. 40.4 who had burnt the House of the Lord 2 King 25.9 Pr. But these were Heathens who had never professed the true Religion and so had not backslidden Min. The backsliding of Rulers makes them not incapable of doing good afterward Manasseh had been Religiously educated and became monstrously wicked and yet was an instrument of Reformation afterward and Judah did not refuse to serve the Lord because Manasseh who had so fearfully fallen away did command them to serve the Lord 2 Chron. 33.16 Pr. Manasseh repented Minist But do ye think that if he had commanded Judah to serve God or the Lords Priests to sacrifice to the Lord before he repented that these commands should have been rejected because he was not truly penitent It 's the duty of all Kings whether they be penitent or not to command the Lords ministers and people to serve God The Orthodox ministers who had been banished in the time of the Arrian Persecution and Athanasius among the rest did not refuse to return to the exercise of their ministry upon the Edict of Julian the Apostate who had been a professed Christian and turned Pagan and a despiteful enemy and mocker of Christ and tho' he made that Edict for ill ends yet these godly zealous Servants of God made use of it Ye may read the History in Zozomens Church-History Book 5. Chap. 5. where he shews that he afflicted the Church in all things most bitterly and grievously except that he recalled the Bishops and Priests which were banished in the time of Constantius and that it was said he gave not that command out of mercy or pity but that either they by their mutual contentions might fight against the Church by an intestine War and so fall away from their own Laws and Institutions or that he might wrong the Estimation of Constantius and might raise up hatred against him through the whole Empire c. And Georgius Horsnius in his Ecclesiastick History Pag. 93. saith That Julian recalled Athanasius from Banishment to the place of one George an Arrian a most naughty man who had been slain a little before Athanasius's return There is no man more famous for Learning and Zeal and stedfastness in the Church-History than Athanasius and I am sure if ye have read the History of Julian the Apostate ye will be ashamed to say that any of our Rulers are so ill as he was and yet none of these holy and Learned ministers made any scruple to obey his command when he called them to the work of their ministry If many would compare their practices with the Scripture-rule and examples in Scripture and in Church-History they would find that what they take for light and zeal is but ignorance and an humourous peevishness who would have thought that ever any who had been members of the Church of Scotland that besides the obligation common to them with other Protestant Churches are by solemn Covenants obliged to extirpate Schism and maintain the Kings person and authority would have so far degenerate as to place their zeal and Religion in scarring at the Preaching and Hearing of the Gospel because the ministers who preach it are permitted and allowed to preach it by the magistrates who are bound as magistrates as Christians as Protestants to permit allow countenance protect by their authority the Preaching of the Gospel in this Kingdom Farm Sir I desire ye would return to answer what is said against the Ministers in that sixth Article of the Band. Min. As for what they say of Ministers submitting to the Magistrates censures and saying they would not have done the things they were charged with if they had thought it would have offended them it 's a confused charge and it is not easie to guess what they mean they cannot prove that any of those Ministers have done any thing that will import an acknowledgment that the Magistrate hath power of inflicting Ecclesiastick Censures or of making Ecclesiastick Canons And as for Civil Restraints of Imprisonment and Banishment if they condemn submission to these they will condemn all who have been imprisoned and banished and among the rest the Ministers who went to Holland who did not only passively submit to Banishment but also by their Subscription engaged not to return If any Minister hath done any thing which warrantably might have been forborn or which might have been done as conveniently or more conveniently at another time in another place in a way that would not have irritated or provoked the magistrate if such a person hath made the foresaid acknowledgment who can with reason condemn it for we owe thus much even to any private person whom we should not needlesly provoke to anger if we can conveniently help it but the contrivers of this bond and those who go their way are for needless provocations of the magistrate and if there be many ways of doing what is right upon the matter they will chuse the way that is irritating to the Rulers because it is irritating and shun that way which will not provoke the magistrate as if it were a duty to provoke the magistrate to wrath And if any have needlesly provoked them they will not allow him to give an innocent soft answer to turn away their wrath But it is no wonder that they who are for overthrowing the magistrate and the Government be against all things that make for peace with them or may tend to pacifie them when they are angry and be for grievous words and things which may stir up strife and put evil betwixt the magistrate and subjects What they add That these ministers have departed from the Courts of Christ and subjection to the ministry are meer calumnies Do they think that ministers appearing before the magistrate when called that by the magistrates Civil allowance of the peaceable exercise of the ministry they might without disturbance preach the Gospel in such or such places will prove that these ministers have departed from the Courts of Christ and have changed their Courts and so by common Law have changed
their masters and are become of the ministers of Christ the ministers of men These are meer forgeries that have no foundation but in their own fancy nor any consonancy with common Law but are against common sense and reason Although these ministers had bound themselves to answer when the magistrate would it had been no more than men who compear before the magistrate use to do when required that till they be called they may in the mean time have their freedom Now the peaceable exercise of the ministry is in many respects preferable to Civil liberty But it was the people and not the minister who gave bond to the Council to present the minister when called under such a penalty It 's another groundless slander that they have given up and utterly quit the Government and a succession of a Presbyterian Ministry for they have not by their making use of this liberty bound up themselves from doing any thing in their places and stations which they might have done before for the Government of the Church and succession of a Presbyterian Ministry and it 's but a melancholly dream to imagine that the setled fixed peaceable exercise of the Ministry of the Gospel under the protection of lawful authority does swallow up the Government of the Church extinguish the Ministry and bury the work of Reformation Is not the Preaching of the Gospel a part of the exercise of Christs visible Kingdom Does the exercise of the Ministry destroy the Ministry Or does the Preaching of the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches bury the work of Reformation Next they charge these Ministers with Preaching the lawfulness of paying that tribute declared to be imposed for the bearing down of the true Worship of God which they falsely termed seditious Conventicles Pr. Sir before ye speak any thing as to the paying of that tribute I desire that ye would consider that there were several Ministers who Preached against the paying of it and I hope ye will not be rash in giving your opinion in that matter Min. I wish those who Preached against the paying of it had made less haste and had conferred with their Brethren and heard what they had to say from Scripture and Reason e're they had adventured to preach such a new Doctrine That subjects should not pay a tribute which was concluded by a meeting of the Estates of the Nation and for an end which is unquestionably good the resisting of foreign Invasion It 's I suppose a new Doctrine That subjects should not pay tribute and the preaching of new Doctrines is dangerous it hath been the rashness of some that they were too hasty to preach their own private and very singular opinions it were good Ministers of the Gospel would forbear to say any thing to the people in preaching but that of which they might say Thus saith the Lord. They should have considered what danger they exposed the people to by this Doctrine for either those who believed this Doctrine would persist in refusing to pay and this would expose them to be eaten up by Soldiers or they being distressed would at length pay it though they thought it unlawful and this would debosh and waste their Consciences and prepare them to do other things which they thought unlawful and this would encourage those who differed from them in other things to take the same method in pressing them to conform to them and some of the poor people who have stood out long and at length yielded to pay have exposed themselves to the scorn and derision of those who uplifted that Sess Pr. Seeing they declared that this Sess was imposed to bear down the true Worship of God how could any with a good Conscience pay it Min. Any who reads this part of the Band and had not seen the Act of the Convention of Estates would think that they had declared that it was for bearing down the true Worship of God now there are no such words in the Act of Convention Again any who had not seen the Act might think that if their words were true that then the Convention of States were for bearing down whatsoever was the true Worship of God or that there was no true worship of God but in these meetings which the Magistrate calls seditious Conventicles We should not make either words or things worse than they really are and we should at least deal as fairly with the Magistrate as with other men It hath been reported by persons of Honour and of great candor that the motion of setting up Prelacy which hath been the cause of the sad suffering of Presbyterians in Scotland did not come of the Kings Majesty but was repelled by the King when first moved by some Scots men and if they who moved it had not vehemently insisted and strongly alledged that it would be easily effectuate and would be acceptable to the people of Scoland the King would never have set up Prelacy in Scotland And any favour that hath been shewed to Non-conformists hath principally flowed from the King himself as Dr. Owen in his Answer to Dr. Stillingfleets Sermon declareth And in some places of his Majesties Dominions Presbyterians have the publick worship of God without any disturbance which shews that the King doth not look upon all the Meetings of Presbyterians for the worship of God as seditious Conventicles so that suppose that were said which yet no judicious person will alledge that there were no true worship of God except in these Meetings which are called Conventicles it would not be alledged that it were the Magistrates design to bear down the true worship of God seeing these Meetings in several places of these Kingdoms are not suppressed and if some Preachers had not vented Doctrines which were really seditious at some of those Conventicles Presbyterian Ministers and people who designed nothing but the preaching and hearing of the Gospel of peace would not have been molested as they were but the seditious turbulent Doctrine of some did breed much trouble to others who were innocent It cannot be denied that there were some Meetings where such Doctrine was taught by the Preachers and applauded and practised by hearers that it was no wonder that the Magistrate called them seditious And if the Contrivers of this Bond had set themselves to devise a way to confirm the Magistrate in calling Conventicles seditious they could not have fallen upon a more effectual way than this Contrivance which is indeed seditious and will readily be imputed to many who abhor the seditious designs and principles which are in this Bond. As for the reason why this Sess should not be paid viz. because it 's declared to be imposed for an ill end they who are free to pay it will retort It 's imposed for a good end viz. to put the Kingdom in a posture of defence against Invasion and therefore it should be payed I know a judicious Gentleman who said he would pay his Sess for that end which was
would not be eligible though we are obliged to nothing jussu ejus or upon the intuition of his Command yet we may do many things eo jubente he commanding and should do eo premente he inforcing them and we have many things to do ipso seu volente seu nolente whether he will or forbid the doing of them c. By which passages it appears That those godly learned Presbyterians in those Treatises which they wrote of purpose to maintain the Kings Authority when he was thrust from it and to shew that the Subject might do nothing which might prejudge his right or which might be interpreted to be an owning of the title of the then Usurpers who had forced the King out of his Dominions yet they shew that Taxes might be paid to the Usurpers and that they who payed it were not accountable for the abuse that the Usurpers made of it which lets us see how far they would have been from refusig to pay Tribute to the rightful Magistrate though imposed for some wrong end And I cannot but here take notice how constantly and courageously Presbyterians owned the Kings Authority when he was thrust from the exercise of it and how careful they were that Subjects might do nothing which might be prejudicial to his Title when he was violently disposessed of his Kingdoms I shall not speak of the Testimonies they gave in preaching and in print against the Usurpers upon the account of their usurpation and for asserting of the Kings Title I wish their Loyalty had been better remembred but any suffering they have met with since will not make them repent of their constant adherence from a principle of Conscience to their Allegiance and covenanted Duty to their rightful Sovereign If any will but look to the frontispiece of Mr. Gee's Book where there is an empty Chair of State and the Scepter and Crown lying upon the ground and below the King standing and above his head non est potestas nisi a Deo Rom. 13. and under his feet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and opposite to him upon the other side an Armed-Soldier with his hand in the handle of his Sword meaning the Parliament and under his feet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and below Absolom hanging upon a tree and Joab darting him 2 Sam. 18. and the Woman of Abel casting Sheba's head over the wall 2 Sam. 20. They may see Presbyterians Loyalty and courage in a time of hazard when others who afterward would have engrossed all Loyalty to themselves were very calm and some of them speaking in another Dialect Mr. Rutherford used to keep Family-fasts to pray for the King in his distress There is no Loyalty comparable to that which is founded upon the word and Covenant and the Principle of Conscience bound by the Word and Oath of God The late King advised those who were desirous to befriend him in his straits to preach the Obligation of the Covenant which binds to maintain his Person and Authority The new Principles of Confusion which are opposite to the Magistrates Authority and to the paying of Tribute to Rulers are directly opposite to and inconsistent with the Principles and Practices of Presbyterians and seem to have been devised by Jesuits and then craftily conveyed into the heads of weak people distmepered with sad suffering or having Zeal without Knowledge that they might at once render those people ridiculous and expose their possessions as a prey and their lives to the Sword and their profession of Religion to contempt and scorn as if it made men frantick and deprived them of the use of common Reason and sense I heard from a godly and learned Minister That he heard a great Zealot against the paying of the Sess say That whatever was unlawful for a man to do voluntarily was unlawful for him to do upon Legal or Physical constraint and another said If men on constraint might pay Sess which they should not voluntarily do without Legal and Physical constraint feared to follow then the three Children might have worshipped Nebuchadnezars Image because they were under constraint And when it was answered that there were some actions in the substance of the fact sinful that no constraint could make lawful such as Idolatry and some which outward Circumstances made lawful or unlawful that distinction was denied such is the ignorance of some of those Teachers Another made the paying of the Sess like the offering of Children to Moloch It 's a great pity that well-meaning people who from a Principle of Conscience are willing rather to suffer than to sin should be misguided by ignorant men and drawn into needless calamities to the ruin of their Families and the reproach of Religion They add That these Ministers advised the Prisoners to take the Bond c. Ans Those Prisoners being taken at Bothwel-bridge were pressed to bind themselves not to take up Arms against the Kings Person and Authority under the Certification of no less punishment than Death Now as we heard from the larger Catechism It 's the duty of inferiors to defend and maintain the Persons and Authority of their Superiors which imports much more than the not taking up Arms against them and their Authority 2. Though they had not been Subjects but only Prisoners of war in the victors power to deprive them of life or liberty for ever I suppose they could not have been blamed for the preservation of their life to have given in such a Bond some who were taken Prisoners by Cromwel for their liberty engaged not to carry Arms against him and I do not remember that any censured them for it what they say in a Parenthesis that hazard will not make a moral change in actions is a palpable error if there were twenty with drawn-swords waiting at the Church-door to kill a Minister if he should come to preach it were rash furious self-destroying self-murdering Zeal for a Minister to venture to go to preach at that time in despite of the hazard so certain visible and unavoidable and yet it were his duty at another time to preach where there were no such hazard for a Merchant to cast his Wares in the Sea in a calm were wicked folly contrary to the 8th Command a stealing from his Family and himself and yet in a storm Paul and the Passengers and Mariners thought it their duty to cast out both Goods and Tackling of the Ship This Subscription would have no ways condemned innocent self-defence against the unjust violence of Papists which the Reformed Churches made use of when they did cast off the yoke of the Whore David and his men had Arms but they were not taken up against Sauls Person and Authority as appears by Davids practice who would neither himself kill nor suffer his men to kill Saul and that upon the account of his Authority being the Lords Anointed and though Saul in his distemper calls David his enemy yet in his lucide intervals he calls him his Son
them and they must stand and fall as they are pleased to determine Their Soveraignty is the more absolute that their Dignity proceeds of themselves and men use not to limit their own power when they have it at their own making or taking the old Prelates depend upon the King and they are sent from Court It 's true Athanasius * Epist ad Solitariam vitam Agentes finds fault with that ubi ille Canon ut è palatio mittaturis qui futurus est Episcopus Yet any thing that is in its nature excessive and inclined to pass bounds is less dangerous when it is limited by some other thing on which it depends than when it is left to its own indefinite appetite or inclination Their new Prelates depend neither upon King nor Kesar but are independent their Prelacy proceeds of themselves this makes it very dreadful like the Dominion of the Chaldeans Hab. 1.7 They are terrible and dreadful their judgment and dignity shall proceed of themselves They were terrible because as Mr. Hutcheson upon the place saith They would be their own carvers in all matters of advantage and honour standing to no law either of Nature or Nations in dealing with a terrified and subdued people but meerly following their own will armed with power If ye say they are not designed Lords nor a Soveraign power ascribed to them in the Bond but they are designed Ministers that is Servants I answer if folk will be beguiled with names the Pope will call himself Servus servorum a Servant of Servants but there is a real Soveraignty given to them when a Jurisdiction over all Presbyterian Ministers to suspend depose and dispose of their Ministry as they please is ascribed to them And the other Prelates deal more candidly in taking the name of Soveraignty and Lordship seeing they have the thing Is it not a strange arrogance that a Presbyter or two or three Presbyters shall claim a stated Jurisdiction over a great multitude of Presbyters who have the same office with themselves they either have that power over their Brethren by vertue of their Ministerial Office as they are Presbyters or by vertue of some other Office not by vertue of the Office of a Presbyter or Minister for then one and the same Office should make one Presbyter a Soveraign and Lord and another Presbyter his subject a Presbyter as a Presbyter cannot have dominion over a Presbyter for one and the same Office cannot make a man Soveraign over another who hath the same Office that he hath If they have this Soveraign power over their Brethren by vertue of some other Office than the Office of a Minister or Presbyter then let them tell us what Office this is if it be not the Office of a Prelate 2. It hath not yet been proven that the Lord gave a Soveraign power and Spiritual jurisdiction to any one of his Ministers no not to the Apostles over the rest Paul Bains in his Diocesan Trial Pag. 73 77. shews that a majority of directive and corrective power such a power as Bishops claim is more than Ministerial And Mr. Rutherford in his Divine Right of Church-Government saith Nor do we find that the Apostles had jurisdiction over Pastors in the Scripture nor in any Ecclesiastick Records but where Papacy was working See Pag. 21. There is but one Lord in the Church Ephes 4. and Christ hath forbidden Lordship and enjoined ministry and serving Luk. 22.24 1 Pet. 5.3 Non requiritur in dominatione humilitas sed ipsa Dominatio prohibetur saith Whitaker Christus de re dominantur non autem de modo dominandi hoc vel illo modo dominantur saith Junius The work of all Church-Officers is a Ministerial work not only Doctors and Pastors but Apostles Prophets and Evangelists were appointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the work of the Ministry Ephes 4.12 2 Cor. 4.5 Paul calls himself a fellow-servant with Epaphras Col. 1.7 with Tychicus Col. 4.7 Paul's dignity consisted not in Lording over other Ministers but in labouring more abundantly than others the Apostles claimed no Mastery or stated jurisdiction over other Ministers but they did draw with them as yoke-fellows and fought with them in their Spiritual warfare as fellow Soldiers and wrought with them as fellow-labourers Phil. 4.3 Phil. 2.25 Phil. 2. Rom. 16.3 they engrossed not the power of Jurisdiction in the Synod of Jerusalem to themselves for the Presbyters judged with them the Decrees of the Council Act. 16.4 were Ordained by the Apostles and Elders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church at Antioch sends Paul to Jerusalem Act. 15. the Officers of the Church at Antioch lay hands on Paul and Barnabas Act. 13.1 2 3. Paul and Barnabas are sent with a Collection Act. 11.29 30. the Apostles claimed no negative in Presbyteries or Synods in Ordination Excommunication c. The Apostles were extraordinary Ambassadors had infallible instructions by their Doctrine and practice did shew the Platform of the Church were not limited to any fixed charge and so might exercise their Ministerial authority in all places where they came they were to lay the foundations of Churches But that they had any such stated Jurisdiction over other Ministers as Prelates claim over Presbyters is yet to be proven for any thing I know their instructing Ministers and Churches in their duty and reproving their sins will not prove it for the Prophets did so and yet they had no stated Jurisdiction over the Priests Paul reproved Peter but had not jurisdiction over him That Timothy or Titus had such a stated Jurisdiction over the Ministers of Ephesus and Creet is yet to be proven that they had the sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction and that the Ministers of Ephesus and Creet had no power of Ordination and Jurisdiction is not yet proven The Apostle directs them to Ordain but that they are directed to do it alone and not in conjunction with other Ministers is yet to be proven Lay hands suddenly on no man is a Direction applicable to every Minister there are multitudes of Directions given them that cannot be denied to be given to all Ministers and that some Directions are given to them as Prelates and some as Presbyters is as easily denied as affirmed But though it were granted that those extraordinary Officers in founding Churches at first might do some things which ordinary Ministers might not do this would be no warrant for these two or three who were but very ordinary persons to claim a Jurisdicton over the rest Whence have they their power No man can receive any thing of this nature except it be given him from Heaven Joh. 3.27 Let us see their Patent that we may know if it be leill come They must first shew a Warrant from the word for such a Prelatical Sovereignty and then let ut see how they came by it no man should take any Honour in the Church to himself at his own hand he must be called of God
as was Aaron If they say That such a Sovereign Jurisdiction is hot discharged and therefore it 's lawful I answer 1. The Offices and Officers of the House of God which are in the Scripture are positively instituted and constituted of God 1 Cor. 12.28 God hath set c. Ephes 4.11 God hath given c. Rom. 12.6 7 8. If God hath not set these new Sovereign Judges Ministers should not stand before them as Judges if God hath not given them for Sovereign Judges we should not receive them and if they be not given their Office is not a gift of Grace It 's a graceless thing and we have nothing to do with it 2. It 's not enough that an Office which is exercised in the name of another be not discharged or forbidden it must be charged and commanded if a man should claim to himself some new Office of Justice or should intrude himself into some Office which were setled by Law would that be a sufficient defence for him that such an Office was not discharged nor he forbidden to take such an Office it would be replyed He had no Law nor Command or Warrant for what he did it 's not enough to make a man an Ambassador that he is not discharged to go Ambassador he must have a positive Commission 3. The Lord in forbidding us to add to his word hath discharged to add any Spiritual Offices to those which he hath instituted in the Word and I see not how those who take on them to make new Spiritual Offices in the Church can hold out new Spiritual work for those new Officers and so we shall have new significant Symbols and Sacraments new worship when they made the Office of the Pope they out out new work for him to make new Articles of Faith to dispence with the Laws of God c. or if they do not this they take somewhat from the formerly established Officers and appropriate it to those new ones the Presbyters were first bereaved of the power of Ordination and then of the power of Jurisdiction ut aliquid faceret Episcopus quod non faceret Presbyter If they object That the rest of the Presbyters need not except they please subject themselves to these Ministers and if they consent to subject themselves to them and stand in Judgment before them and submit their ministry to their disposal then they get this Sovereign power by the Ministers voluntary consent and then volenti non fit injuria may not Ministers part with their power and put it in the hand of one or two or three for unity and order I answer 1. They do as much as they can to necessitate and force the Ministers to subject themselves to those new Sovereign Judges for as far as in them lyes they effectually despise them and in effect excommunicate them by withdrawing from them until they stand in Judgment before their new Lords and Sovereigns and come in their will 2. It 's a great and dangerous error to imagine that Ministers of the Gospel may dispose of their ministerial power as a man may dispose of his money and so may either quit all or give part and retain the rest retain the power of preaching and quit the power of governing in conjunction with others for a Minister hath not Dominion over his ministerial Function as a man hath over his money but he is obliged to retain all that Authority that the Lord hath given him for edification and to make full proof of his Ministry as he will be answerable to his Master who will require an account of the Talents he hath given him to occupy with and therefore suppose the Presbyterian Ministers were so demented as to renounce their ministerial Authority in favour of their new Judges this could not make their Sovereign Jurisdiction warrantable because this surrender made to them would be a non habente potestatem for Ministers cannot give away their Authority to another and therefore their new Judges would still be Usurpers both in usurping a Dominion which the Lord hath not given to Ministers and then taking it to themselves without any title The next thing in Dr. Gaudens Definition is the exercise of this Sovereign power and Spiritual Jurisdiction in the several Acts as Ordination Confirmation Censures Rebuking Silencing Excommunication Absolution c. If we may conclude from the practice of these new Prelates how Sovereign high and absolute they will be in their acts of power we have some ground to think they will out-do any Prelates that have been before them for they have really though not formally deposed and excommunicated the Ministers who differ from them before any Process Tryal or hearing granted to these Ministers and one of them hath very summerly excommunicated the King the Duke of York the Duke of Monmouth and several Peers and Officers of State This is pretty high flown at the first flight it 's but now and then that the Bishop of Rome the Pope himself plays such pranks as these Ordinary Bishops use to have formal processes and they allow Presbyters to have some share in the trial and leading of the process against persons to be Excommunicate and they do not use to Excommunicate Kings and Princes Ambrose the Bishop of Millain was somewhat singular in his censure of Theodosius the Emperour in keeping him seven months from entering within the Church-doors I grant saith Hornius in his Church-History this censure of Ambrose is not approved of all but there are none who can or ought to disapprove the humility and repentance of Theodosius who patiently endured the sharp reproofs of Ambrose and did give example to the whole Church But it 's rare to find great ones of Theodosius disposition there are considerable difficulties objected against the Excommunication of Supreme Magistrates And the fault of Theodosius was so singular for in his passion at a popular sedition in Thessalonica in which the President and some Noblemen were killed he sent in Soldiers who killed seven thousand persons of all ages and sexes both guilty and innocent And then the Emperour was a man so holy humble and tender and Ambrose a Bishop of so great authority and so venerable and beloved that if any ordinary Bishop would attempt to imitate Ambrose in this he would readily find that he had mistaken his measures and would not find that he had to do with a Theodosius or that he himself were an Ambrose But as this is certain that the Excommunication of Magistrates Masters and Parents does not make void their Magistratical Masterly and Paternal authority so this is granted that as it is Church-Judicatories and not single persons that should Excommunicate and * Rutherford's Peaceable Plea Pag. 5. saith The Church not one single man hath the power of Discipline if one Pastor himself alone should Excommunicate the Excommunication were null both in the Court of Christ his Church that these Judicatories must not only consider whether the fault
and worse continued contests Our nakedness-discovering writings what have they done but added oyl to the flame For Christs sake my reverend and dear Brethren hearken to this word in season from the Oracles of God and treasures of pure antiquity pointing out the way of a godly and edifying peace It will be no grief of heart but sweet peace and consolation when we are to appear before the Judg of the quick and the deed Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus So heartily prayeth your Brother and fellow-â—ervant ROBERT BLAIR Thus far Reverend Mr. Blair who was both a Son of Thunder â—nd a Son of Peace a Peace maker O with what authority and seriousneâ—s did I hear him press unity in Preaching before a Synod from these words Phil. 2.1 If there be therefore any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the spirit if any bowels mercies fulfil ye my joy that ye be like minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind And I heard him say upon Preaching before a general Assembly That he could be content to be carried from the place in which he was Preaching to his grave to have the rent that then was in the Church cured Ignorant and rash youths who have not experience and consider not what an abominable sin Schism is and what are the mischievous consequences of it and how it ordinarily ends in the ruin desolation of a Church they know little what they are doing when they are blowing up the fire of contention and it 's a sport to some to cast such fire-brands But they who have Heavenly wisdom see that that sporting is mischievous madness that it will be bitter in the latter end It is not for nought that the Spirit of God directed the Apost Paul in writing to the Church of the Corinthians in which there were many things wrong to fall first upon the ill of divisions 1 Cor. 1.10 and when he is shutting up that Epistle he exhorts that all these things be done with charity and to greet one another with an holy kiss And when he is shutting up the 2 Epist he concludes Finally Brethren farewell be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind live in peace and the God of love and peace shall be with you Greet one another with an holy kiss So thus he begins and ends with this unity and peace 9. And because no speaking nor reasoning will prevail against the working of a spirit of error and schism without the effectual working of the pirit of the Lord let us humbly and earnestly pray that the Lord would have mercy upon us for his Sons sake who came to destroy the works of the Devil pour upon us the spirit of grace and of supplications the spirit of faith repentance that we may look on him whom we have pierced mourn the spirit of a sound mind the spirit of love peace And that every one Magistrates Ministers and people may be made sensible of their own sins We should pray that the Lord would send his Spirit that convinces the world of sin to let us see our sins and to let us see them written in our judgments that we may accept of the punishment of our sins justifie the Lord when he judges The Lord often writes the sins of men in so great and legible letters in their judgments that they who run may read them David despised the Lord and occasioned the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme by his adultery and murther incestuous filthiness breaks out in his house the sword departs not from his house his people despise him and follow Absalom Shimei an exasperate Benjamite is let loose upon him to revile and curse him and cast stones at him he disowns him as no King gives him no title of honour but only calls him a man and which was worse a bloody man a man of Belial and does not cry and then flee but goes along in the sight and hearing of the King Courtiers and Soldiers cursing casting stones and dust David sees that tho' Shimei did this contrary to the Law of God which says Thou shalt not revile the Gods nor curse the ruler of thy people Yet that he did it not without the over-ruling Providence of God he saw that the Lord had let Shimei loose upon him is humbled under the hand of God Uzziah will needs go to the Temple exercise the Priests Office the Lord by Leprosie cuts him off from the House of the Lord and from the exercise of his Kingly Office When the Priests did not impartially apply the Law of God to reclaim the people from their sins no doubt they thought thus to keep in with the people but this brought them to be base contemptible before all the people Mal. 2.9 The Jews that remained in the land after the ruin of the Temple though they had but one Prophet yet they despise him they will not hear the word which Jeremiah spoke in the name of the Lord but they would do what went out of their own mouth and therefore the Lord leaves them to live like Pagans swears by his great name that his name should not be named any more in their mouths they should not have so much as the form profession of the worship of the true God Jer. 44.16 26. they would not be reproved by Ezek. ch 3.26 they are plagued with the want of a reprover When people will reject the counsel of the Lord will not hearken to his voice nor take his gracious offer made in the Gospel when they will not endure sound Doctrine nor desire the sincere milk of the word nor receive the truth in love the Lord justly gives them up to their own hearts lusts to walk in their own counsels to strong delusions to believe lyes to be tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine to turn aside to fables When they despise his servants will not receive his mâ—ssengers their message count them enemies for telling the truth the Lord removes his servants from them leaves them to be deluded with teachers which are after their own humours and lusts When people refuse to hear the Lords words and walk after the imaginations of their own heart Jer. 13.10 the Lord fills them with drunkenness that they destroy one another like drunken men who know not what they are doing v. 13. Behold I will fill all the Inhabitants of this Land even the Kings that sit upon Davids Throne and the Priests and the Prophets and all the Inhabitants of Jerusalem with drunkenness And I will dash them one against another even the Fathers and the Sons together saith the Lord I will not pity nor spare nor have mercy but destroy them Hear ye and give car be not proud for the Lord hath spoken Give glory to
prevent Division his heart should have smitten him who hath been so untender and so careless in this matter It 's true light is light but 1. There may be an unseasonable bringing forth of light as if a man would bring a light to a large dark Room where a man fleeing for his Life had hid himself to let the pursuer see to find and murder the lurking man Or if one told what way an innocent man had fled to his Enemy who were pursuing for his Life though Light be Light and Truth Truth yet that Light was unseasonably brought in to the dark Room and that Truth unseasonably brought forth But ye will say that doth not hold as to truths revealed in the Scripture I shall Answer in the words of Mr. Durham whose memory is precious in the Churches in his Treatise concerning Scandal which was his Testament to the Church of Scotland Part 4. Chap. 11. Pag. 358. A second way of composure is when such agreement in judgment cannot be obtained to endeavour a harmony and keep Unity notwithstanding of that difference by a mutual forbearance in things controverted which we will find to be of two sorts The first is to say so total that is when neither side doth so much as Doctrinally in writ word or sentences of Judicatories press any thing that may confirm or propagate their own Opinion or condemn the contrary but do altogether abstract from the same out of respect to the Churches Peace and for the preventing of Scandal and do in things wherein they agree according to the Apostles direction Phil. 3.16 Walk by the same Rule and mind the same things mutually as if there were no such differences and waiting in these till the Lord shall reveal the same unto them This way is safe and where the Doctrine upon which the difference is is such as the forbearing the decision thereof doth neither marr any Duty that the Church in general is called to nor endanger the Salvation of Souls through the want of clearness therein nor in a word infer such inconveniences to the hurt of the Church as such unseasonable awakening and keeping up of differences and divisions may have with it Because the scope of bringing forth every truth or confirming the same by any Authoritative Sanction c. is the Edification of the Church and therefore when the bringing forth thereof doth destroy more than Edifie it is to be forborn Neither can it be ground enough to plead for such decisions in Preaching that the thing they Preach for is Truth and the thing they condemn is Error Because 1. It is not the Lawfulness of the thing simply that is in Question but the necessity and expediency thereof in such a case now many things are lawful that are not expedient 1 Cor. 10.23 2. In these differences that were in the Primitive times concerning Meats Days Genealogies c. there was a truth or an error upon one of the sides as there is a right and a wrong in every contradiction of such a kind yet the Apostle thinketh fitter for the Churches Peace that such be altogether refrained rather than any way at least in publick insisted upon or decided 3. Because no Minister can bring forth every Truth at all times he must then make choice and I suppose some Ministers may die and all do so who have not Preached every truth even which they knew unto the People Beside there are no question many truths hid to the most Learned neither can this be thought inconsistent with a Ministers fidelity who is to reveal the whole Counsel of God because that Counsel is to be understood of things necessary to mens Salvation and is not to be extended to all things whatsoever for we find the great Apostle expounding this in that same Sermon Acts 20.20 I have kept back nothing that was profitable unto you which evidenceth that the whole Counsel of God or the things which he shewed unto them is the whole and all that was profitable for them and that for no by-respect or fear whatsoever he shunned to reveal that unto them Also it 's clear that there are many truths which are not decided by any Judicial Act and among other things sparingness to decide truths which are not fundamental judicially hath been ever thought no little mean of the Churches Peace as the contrary hath been of Division The third way which is the second sort of the former of composure is mixed when there is some medling with such questions yet with such forbearance that though there be a seen difference yet there is no Schism or Division but that is seriously and tenderly prevented as upon the one side some may express their mind in Preaching and Writing on a particular Question one way others may do it differently yet both with that respect and meekness to those they differ from that it doth beget no rent nor give just ground of offence nor marr Union in any other thing or it may possibly come to be decided in a Synod yet with such forbearance upon both sides that it may prove no prejudice to Union Those who have Authority for them not pressing it to the prejudice of the Opinion Names Consciences of the other or to their detriment in any respect but allowing to them a liberty to speak their minds and walk according to their own light in such particulars and on the contrary the other resting satisfied in the Unity of the Church without condemning them or pressing them to condemn themselves because so indeed their Liberty is no less than others who have the decision of a Synod for them And he adds an instance in the Church of Africa where that Question was first debated If Hereticks after their Conversion should be again Baptized And a Synod of 300 Bishops concluded that they should be re-baptized yet that Synod carried so that they did not onely not censure any that dissented nor pressed them to conform in practise to their judgment but also did entertain most intimate respect to them and formality with them And upon the other side we do not find any in that Church making a Schism upon the account of that Judicial erroneous decision though at least by three several Synods it was ratified but contenting themselves to have their Consciences free by retaining their own judgment and following their own practice till time gave more light and more occasion to clear that truth And we will never find in the Writings of any time more affection among Brethren and more respect to Peace than was in that Church at that time amongst those that differed And there is not any practice more commended in all the Church-History and Writings of the Fathers than this practice and partly may be gathered from what was formerly touched out of Augustine And if we will consider the case rationally we will find that it is not impossible to have Union in a Church where there is such a difference and
Authoritative decision even supposing that side on which the Error lies to be approved For first there is no necessity for such as have Authority for them to press others in their judgment and practice in such things neither can it be thought that such a decision can of it self satisfie all scruples neither yet that men doubtingly may follow Nor lastly that such Controversies can bear the weight of troubling the Church by censuring such as otherways may be faithful seeing sometimes even unfaithful men have been spared with respect to the Churches good as hath been said And Secondly upon the other side such a constitution of the Church doth not involve all that keep Communion therein in the guilt thereof if personally they be free as in the instance of the Jewish Church is clear where no question many corrupt Acts have been established yet did it neither make Communion in Worship or Government to be unlawful where the matter and manner of carriage was Lawful Beside this would infer that no Judicatory could keep Union where there were contrary votes or a Sentence passed without unanimity because that is certainly wrong to them who think otherwise and if so there could be no Judicatory expected either in Church or State for it cannot be expected that they shall be still unanimous or that the greater part shall cede to the lesser and rescind their own Act. And suppose there should be such a Division upon one difference can it be expected that those who unite upon the divided sides respectively shall again have no more difference among themselves and if they have shall there not be a new Division and where shall this end And seeing men must resolve to keep Unity where there are faults of such a nature or to have none at all it is as good to keep it at first as to be necessitated to it afterward The Orthodox urge this Argument against the Donatists who would not keep Union with them because of pretended corruptions in the proceedings of Judicatories and Ordinations yet were constrained to bear with such amongst themselves and particularly to receive and unite with the Maximinianists whose Communion they had once rejected though a branch of their own Faction because they saw no end of Divisions if they did not resolve to dispense with such things amongst themselves And Augustine often asserted that they were never able to Answer this Argument when it was propounded to them to wit why they did not give them that same Latitude in keeping communion with them which they had given to the Maximinianists who were guilty of such things as they imputed to them We conceive then that even in such a case there may be Union for prosecuting the main work of the Gospel notwithstanding of such a Circumstantial difference if men otherwise set themselves to it and the general grounds formerly laid down do confirm this Thus far I have transcribed the words of the Godly Learned Peaceable Mr. Durham I would desire the Reader to read also his 12th Chapter and his whole Book which is a precious Treasure which if the Historian had pondered and practised he and they who follow him might through the Lords Blessing been kept out of these divisive and destructive ways If the Historian would have followed Mr. Durham's Advice first he might have forborn to vent and to press others to vent this which he calls Light thought it had been Light indeed For it is no Fundamental truth that he and they call Light He cannot charge the Indulged Ministers that they maintain Doctrinally any Erastian Error All that he alledges upon them when he explains himself is that they have by their practice Interpretatively homologate the Supremacy Now seeing these Ministers taught no erroneous Doctrine concerning the Magistrates Power about Church-matters but maintain the Principles of all Orthodox Anti-erastian Divines And seeing they are known to be conscientious men and declare upon all occasions that their practice in making use of the Indulgence is not contrary to but consistent with and according to the Principles of these Anti-erastian Divines The most that the Author could make out of this was that they were mistaken in the application of these Principles to that particular Fact of acceptance of the Peaceable exercise of their Ministry from the Magistrate Now what necessity was there in venting this Light This Interpretative homologation of the Supremacy which yet is but confounding darkness to the poor People who know not what he means by these words by which he explains how these Ministers are guilty they cannot Interpret his Interpretative homologation His light is to them darkness He clears these Indulged Ministers of having any Erastian Error in their Head he grants they had no ill intention in their mind and heart when they accepted the Indulgence He grants there was no ill intention in the worker but in the work done by them and that what they did did not formally and explicitly import any approbation of any sinful Supremacy but onely implicitely virtually and interpretatively What necessity was there of telling the People this implicite Error in a matter of Fact seeing when he tells it most distinctly it 's so subtil a kind of fault that the People cannot understand it it 's so wompled up in Latine implicite perplexed words that they cannot get a sight of it And though the Historian did really intend to diminish the sin of the Indulged Ministers when he said they themselves did not intend any ill in their acceptance but it was onely the intention of the work And when he said that the work did not formally and explicitely tend to ill but virtually implicitely and interpretatively Yet the People are not capable of understanding these diminishing terms and so thinking it to be some ill thing these words that are unintelligible by them increases the apprehension of the ilness or evil of it even as when simple People knows that the thing commended is good if ye commend it in words that they do not understand it heightens their conceit of the goodness of it What effect could the Historian think that this dark light could have upon the minds and affections of the poor People but to beget an ill Opinion of and prejudice against and hatred of these honest men who as he grants himself meant no ill Now did this any way tend to the Peoples Edification Did it not upon the contrary tend to their hurt For whereas before they were Edified by the Ministry of these Ministers they are put in an incapacity of getting that good by their Ministry which they were wont formerly to get so that they are no way Edified but prejudged and their Edification hindred But 2. If he would have been Advised by Mr. Durham he might well have forborn to have vented this light because the forbearance of venting it could no way have endangered the Salvation of the Souls of the People nor marred them in any Duty that the Church
Presbytery in Scotland Chap. 10. pag. 124. Consideration 8. Says We Separate not from men but Errors we Separate from Papism kindly properly and totally from Christian Articles in no sort And pag. 123. We have not Separate from Rome's Baptism and Ordination of Pastours according to the Substance of the Act nor from the letter of the twelve Articles of the Creed and Contents of the Old and New Testament as they stand with relation to the mind and intent of the Holy Ghost Howbeit we have left the false Interpretations of the Lords of poor Peoples Faith and Conscience The Historian himself in some cases grants that we should joyn in the Worship of God with these who comply with Prelacy notwithstanding of all they have done as we saw from his concessions in the stating of the Question and yet here he speaks as if all Uniting with them were sinful If the hearing of these who have complyed with Prelacy be at any time a Duty then the hearing of them is no complyance with Prelacy and if the hearing of them who have really complyed with Prelacy be not a complyance with Prelacy then suppose the Indulged Ministers had really complyed with an Erastian Power in the Magistrate yet the hearing of the Indulged Ministers would not have been any complyance with Erastianism How much then is this Historian in the wrong to the poor People who would fright them from hearing the Indulged Ministers who have never complyed with any Erastian Power or sinful Supremacy in the Magistrate as if the hearing of the Word of God Preached by them were sinful a homologating of a sinful Supremacy He adds Alas this our strength will prove our weakness let us remember that of Esay 8.11 12 13 14. He means that Uniting in the Worship of God in these paroches where Indulged Ministers are settled is our weakness and so that it's Peoples strength to withdraw from the Worship of God in these Paroches This must be his meaning or he says nothing to the purpose in hand This is one of the Historians Paradoxes that Union in the true Worship of God is the Churches weakness and that the breaking off that Union is the Churches strength That is to say a Church divided shall stand It seems a Church is not like other Societies for our Saviour says A House and Kingdom divided cannot stand This is a pitiful Paradox for it 's contrary to Scripture Reason Common Sense Experience and the Author brings no shadow of Reason to give it any colour of probability but as he began his last Reason with praying so he Ushers in this pitiful Paradox with lamentation that seeing it had nothing in it nor upon it to plead for it's admission it might be received of meer pity He should have considered that a Printed Book would readily come to the hands of Rational men who regard not Passions that are void of Reason and who will not be prayed or lamented out of their wits Yet this will pass currant among weak People who will be more moved with an Oh or an Alas than with ten solid Reasons or Scripture-Testimonies The Scripture which he exhorts us to remember makes nothing for withdrawing from hearing the Word of God Preached by the Lords Ministers When the Lord Instructed the Prophet That he should not walk in the way of that People nor say a Confederacy to all them to whom that People said a Confederacy He did not discharge the Prophet to hear the Word of God or to joyn with the Lords People in the Worship of God The way of Gods Ordinances is the way of God in which the Lords goings are and in which his People walk with him and in which he hath commanded them to walk but the way of that People was their sinful ways ways of their own which were not Gods ways the Confederacy discharged was not joyning together in the Lords Ordinances for the Lord had commanded his People to Assemble together for his Solemn Worship Deut. 12.11 12 13. Deut. 15.19 20. Deut. 16.7 8.16.17 But the Confederacy discharged is a Confederacy with the King of Assyria He cites Amos 4.12 13. Where the Lord directs his People to prepare to meet their God This Scripture is as little to the Historians purpose as the former for the way to meet with God is not to withdraw from the Worship of God but upon the contrary they who would meet with God must come to his Ordinances for there he meets with them Exod. 25.22 Exod. 29 42 43. He hath said That they who hear his Servants hear himself and hath blessed these who hear him and watch daily at his gates and wait at the Posts of his Doors That 's the way to find him to find Life c. Prov. 8.32 33. He hath promised that where he Records his Name he will come to his People and bless them Separation from the Lords Ordinances is no preparation to meet with God but it is a departing from God And if this Separation from the Lords People and from his Worship be comprehended under the Separating of our selves from every sinful course the Christian complyance which he speaks of is an unchristian mis-application of that word in the 4th of Amos And if he thought that they who have heard the Indulged Ministers must utterly forsake that way as a way provoking the Lord to wrath he was quite out and utterly mistaken about this utter forsaking The Scripture with which he closeth Zeph. 2.1 2 3. is not for his scattering of the Lords People but for the gathering of them together to the Solemn Worship of God If the Author had pondered this Scripture and observed the directions of the Spirit of the Lord which are given in it he would not have endeavoured to scatter the Lords People and if he had made more Conscience of seeking Righteousness he would not have done so many and great wrongs and injuries to his innocent Brethren who had done him no wrong and who were doing right things and if he had made more Conscience of seeking Meekness he would have been more quiet and either altogether been silent or spoken and written of these things with more calmness and composure of Spirit If meekness as they say were lost it would be a hard work to find it in this History in which there is much of the wrath of man which perfects not the Righteousness of God He concludes well with two Petitions of the Lords Prayer Thy Kingdom come thy Will be done If he had looked to the Exposition of the Second Petition of the Lords Prayer in the larger Catechism he would have found that this is a part of the meaning of that Petition that the Church may be countenanced and maintained by the Civil Magistrate and to confirm this the 1 Tim. 2.1 2. is cited I exhort therefore that first of all Supplications Prayers Intercessions and Thanksgivings be made for all men for Kings and for all that are in
Authority That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty Which shews that the Assembly of Divines at Westminster did not think that the Kingdom of Christ is to be set up by ruining earthly Kings and Kingdoms and that they take not the right way to advance Christs Kingdom who reject the Magistrates countenance and maintenance of the Church Or who by despising and provoking Magistrates to wrath tempts them to discountenance the Church And seeing they look on the Church as Christs Kingdom the Historian hath not taken the right way to advance this Kingdom but hath taken the way to ruine it by dividing it For a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand And if he had pondered the explication of the third Petition it might have been a mean to have prevented his giving so much place to his own Humour and Will in this History and helped him to more submission unto the Holy Providence of God than doth appear in this History I wish he had ere he began to write this History put up that Petition And lead us not into temptation Or at the close of it put up that Petition And forgive us our sins We have great need ere we begin Debates and Controversies even when they are necessary to pray that we be not led into temptation And great need to close such Debates even when the cause maintained is right with praying Lord forgive us our sins I have examined all that had any appearance of Reason in this History and refuted many things which needed no refutation if it had not been for the sake of simple People who are often deceived by big words where there is no shew or colour of Reason I have often by Reason refuted the unreasonable clamours both of the Author of the Epistle and of the History whereas I might have opposed clamour to clamour for what is founded upon meer clamour may be as easily cried down as it 's cried up Let none because of the Authors errors in this History cast at other useful Books which he hath published nor reject any thing that is true and right in this History Good men have their failings and we may not take our measures of them from their miscarriages under a fit of temptation Job's Friends had a just hatred against Hypocrisie and they mistake Job and falls foul upon him as a Hypocrite and speaks many things that are not right things in the heat of Debate This Author had a just indignation against Erastianism and a Spiritual Supremacy in Magistrates and he apprehended that his brethren had interpretatively homologate this Erastian and Spiritual Supream power in the Magistrate and having mistaken them he hath fallen foully upon them and spoken much evil of them without cause These things which in the Epistle and History are wrong are things for the most part which several people had drunk in and the printing of these errours hath given occasion to rectifie the mistakes of erring people if they will not shut their eyes against the light The Lord who is excellent in working draws good out of evil and maketh all things work together for good to them who love him and are the called according to his purpose he can over-rule the darkness of error so as it shall be subservient to clear the truth In the worst times the Elect hath obtained and shall obtain The Lord reigneth and ruleth in the midst of Enemies he can when men are scattering the dust of Zion be making way for laying a solid foundation in the deep humiliation of his people for building his house The Church hath been before as dry and scattered bones as bones scattered at the graves mouth and yet he who raiseth the dead hath made these bones to come together and live It 's our best to leave the answering of that Question Can these Bones live To the Lord himself to Jehovah who makes things that are not to be who doeth great things and unsearchable marvellous things and without number If we would take shame and confusion of face to our selves and would humble our selves in the sight and sense of our sins our darkness and stumblings and justlings in the dark and justifie the Lord in his judgments that are come upon us and yet ascribe to him the glory of his Mercy and out of our depths and darkness cry to him that he would cause his face to shine and enlighten our darkness and send out his Light and Truth and pour out the Spirit of a sound mind and that he would quicken us by the Spirit of Life that is in Christ Jesus that we might call on his Name and look on him whom we have pierced and mourn that when mens endeavours to gather the scattered sheep are not effectual that he the great Shepherd would seek out his sheep and deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day And if we would wait on him in the way of his Judgments and hope in his Word his Covenant which he uses to remember for his People and to repent according to the multitude of his Mercies and though we have no ground of hope in our selves yet hope against hope on the Lord who is the hope of Israel and the Saviour thereof in the time of trouble and that because with him there is Mercy and plenteous Redemption And so continue humbly praying hoping waiting for him He could soon redeem us from all our Iniquities and all our Troubles and cure all our distractions and distempers and give Light and Life and Unity and Peace Let us take shame to our selves and give him the glory due to his Name that his Name may endure for ever and be continued as long as the Sun that men may be Blessed in him and all Nations call him Blessed Blessed be the Lord God the God of Israel who onely doeth wondrous things And Blessed be his Glorious Name for ever and ever and let the whole Earth be filled with his Glory Amen and Amen The Conference continued Farmer SIR there are many things considerable in this Answer to the History of the Indulgence which I purpose to consider but there is one thing which not a little troubles me That the withdrawing from hearing the Indulged Ministers is called Schism Now I remember we are by Covenant bound to extirpate Schism and if I have been practising Schism in withdrawing from hearing the Indulged Ministers I have been Acting contrary to the Covenant Minister They who deal truly in the matter of the Covenant will study to fulfill their Vows not onely in some things but in all things Schism is a dissolution of that Union which ought to be among Christians and especially it appears in refusing that Church-fellowship or Ecclesiastical Communion which ought to be observed or in an unwillingness to communicate or to have communion with the true Church in Holy Actions Casuists shew that it is a most grievous