exhibited in open Assembly The short Paper was read with the Overtures of the Committee concerning the Large one The matter coming to a vote Some proposed the State of it thus Read the Large Paper or not Others thus Approve the Overtures concerning it or not It s commonly believed the Vote went so which hath stumbled many we being removed knew not how it was expressed but when some of us challenged it afterwards as being very illegal to vote a Paper should not be read for reasons giving a Character and Condemning the Paper when the Assembly knew not what was in the Paper a Reverend Minister and Member of the Assembly assured us that the vote did not go so but that it was proposed in the last place and Condescended to that it should be voted thus Approve the first Overture touching our being received and the other that the Paper should not be read or not without mentioning of the reasons The whole Assemblie voted Approve Nemine contradicente We being again called before them the Moderator exhorted us to Order and Vnion To which one of our number made a short Reply wishing the Venerable Assembly had thought it fit to read the Paper but seeing it could not be obtained such was our love to Peace and Vnion that we would submit but as to the reasons given for the not reading it because of the Mistakes and Reflections in it we were not conscious of any such thing And desiring that it might be on Record that such a Paper was exhibited which accordingly was Minuted There was only one more of us then present who after his Brother had concluded in a few words offered to speak and at greater length to enlarge his Reply to some things expressed by the Reverend Moderator in his Exhortation But it seems that some of the Assembly had a suspition that possibly he might in his accustomed fervor bring forth something that might have been irritating which yet he was so far from designing that he had resolved and premeditate to say nothing but what might corroborate justifie the Vnion and to shew what were his Inducements to it and how consistent it was with his former Principles and Practises For when he offered to speak the Moderator and others also requested him to forbear Whereunto he yeilded not at all suspecting or foreseing that any would stumble at this ordinary piece of Discretion at which we understand since that some Friends have been offended interpreting this Silence to have been a receeding from our Testimony But Truly as he had intended not to have been silent and if he had thought this could have been stumbling to any would rather have ventured upon the censure of his Discourse then to be so misconstructed for his silence So considering the Assemblies reiterate urging him to forbear by way of Request not of Command and how necessarie Condescention is in these Circumstantials of Vnion what his Brother also had said before him and how there was no other Testimony ever designed by us but that in the Larger Paper exhibited in write he did not think he was called to contend for speaking any more at that time This is the true short and yet full Narrative of the whole Transaction which we thought needful to publish in all the particulars of it to discover the falshood of the various misreports industriously spread of it by those that envy the Vnion of Presbyterians reflecting upon the Assembly as well as reproaching us and imposing upon the People who are informed sometimes that the Assembly carried very imperiously in imposing upon us as the condition of our being received to confess on our knees many Errors and Extravagances in witnessing against these Courses we called Corruptions and to condemn and renounce all our Testimonies And that we resiled and receded from every point for which we could contend with a great deal of clamor on the Hills but had nothing to say when we came before the Assembly And sometimes again that we carried very insolently before them and in our Paper upbraided the whole Assembly And yet others interpret our condescending to the Assemblies disposing of the Paper as abovesaid to be a betraying and burying of it and the Testimony that 's in it against the sins of the Land To confute all which Calumnies and to submit our Papers to the censure of all that will take notice of them as we have offered them to the censure of the Church Representative we shall here subjoin the Papers themselves The SHORT PAPER To the Moderator and Remanent Members of the General Assembly of this CHVRCH WIth the greatest earnestness of longing we have desired and yet with a patience perhaps to excess we have waited for an Opportunity to bring our unhappy Differences of which all Parties concerned are wearie to a happy and holy close And for this end to have access to apply our selves to a full and free General Assembly of this Church invested with Authority and Power in foro Divino Humano to determine and cognose upon them The want of which an Assembly constitute in that Vigor to which through the Mercy of GOD this Venerable National Synod hath arrived hath been the great let and impediment of our composing the said Differences in a way wherein not only we but all of the same Sentiments would Acquiesce Now having obtained this much longed and long prayed for Priviledge We cannot forbear any longer humbly to Accost and Address this Venerable Assembly with a free and ingenuous Representation of our Minds and Desires The scope of which is to Represent those things which have been most stumbling to us for the Exoneration of our Consciences And to declare our Design after we have exhibited our Testimony against these Courses which we understand to have been Corruptions and Defections in this Church and laid it down at the Assemblies feet to be disposed of as their wisdom shall think fit That we shall in all required Submission subject our Selves our Lives and Doctrine to the Cognizance of the Judicatories of this Church and shall equally oppose Schism and Defection in any Capacity that we shall be found capable of And here by these Presents we bind and obliege our Selves faithfully to live in Vnion and Communion intire subjection and due Obedience in the LORD to the Authority of this Church in her Respective Judicatories As witness our hands at Edinburgh Tho. Lining Al. Sheilds Will. Boyd The LARGER PAPER To the Moderator and Remanent Members of the General Assembly now Conveened at EDINBURGH The Humble Proposals of Mr. Thomas Lining Mr. Alexander Sheilds and Mr. William Boyd IF our Eye could sutably affect our Hearts this day Right Reverend we might find much matter both of Rejoycing and Mourning in the wounderful Commencement and Advancement of this Work of Reformation As at the Jews return from Babylon to Jerusalem the Priests and Levites and all the People shouted with a great shout when they praised
privatively by withholding other necessary Instructions and Warnings Murdering their Souls 6. Because they were and are upon all these Accounts Scandalous and the Objects of the Churches Censure And thô through the iniquity of the times their deserved Censure hitherto hath not been inflicted yet they stand upon the matter convict by clear Scripture Grounds and by the standing Acts and judicial Decision of this Church in her Supreme Judicatories 7. Because this hearing and sumitting to them was required as a Badge Test and Evidence of Due Acknowledgement of and hearty Compylance with Erastianism and Prelacy or His Majesties Government Ecclesiastick Act. Parl. 1. Char. 2. July 10. 1663. which made it a case of Confession to withstand it 8. Because by our Covenants we are obliged to stand at a distance from such courses of Defection and to extirpate them yet in contradiction hereunto we were commanded by the Rescinders of the Covenants to bear the Prelatick Curats as a Badge of our yeilding to the rescinding of the Govenants 9. Because this Course was Offensive and Stumbling both in hardening those that complyed with Prelacy and weakening the Hands of those that opposed it and inferred a condemning of their Sufferings upon this Head Especially 10. When Communion with them was so stated that therein was not only a Case of Controversie among the Godly in which alwayes Abstinence is the surest side nor only in the judgement of many a Case of Confession which is alwayes dangerous to contradict and condemn but undenyably a Case of Competition between the true Church of Scotland her Ministers and Professors owning and adhering to her Holy Establishments claiming a Divine Right to their Offices and Priviledges contending for the Churches Reformation and a Schismatical Party setting up a new Church in a new Order under a new Head robbing them of their Offices and Priviledges and overturning the Reformation We must presume to Plead also That Enquiry be made unto the Heinous and Heaven-daring Affront done to the Holiness of GOD in the horrid Violations of our Holy Covenants National and Solemn League not only how the Popish Prelatical and Malignant Party have broken them enacted the Breaches of them by Law Burnt them and endeavoured to Bury them by making it a Capital Crime to owne their Obligation and by bringing in and substituting in their room Conscience ensnaring Anti-covenants Oaths Bonds and Engagements renouncing the former and obliging to Courses contradictory thereunto But that it may be considered how many wayes Ministers and Professors in this time of tentation and tribulation have been guilty of breach of these holy Covenants particularly by consenting unto subscribing swearing and taking any of the new multiplied mischievously contrived captiously conceived and Tyrannically imposed Oaths Tests or Bonds in matters of Religion since the overturning of the Covenanted Reformation and establishment of Prelacy and by perswading People to take them and forbearing a necessary warning of the danger of them and leaving People in the dark to determine themselves in the midst of these snares All which we Plead and Protest against as sinful and scandalous 1 Because all of them did infer import and imply a sinful unitive conjunction Incorporation Association and Confederacy with the People of these Abominations that were promoting a course of Apostasie from GOD. 2 Because all of them were incapable of the Qualifications required in Sacred Engagements to be taken in Truth Righteousness and Judgement 3 Because all of them in the sense of the Imposers interpreted by their Acts and Actings were condemnatory of and contradictory unto the Covenants some part of the Covenanted Reformation 4 Because by the Ancient Acts of Assembly all publick Oaths imposed by the Malignant Party without consent of the Church are condemned July 28. 1648. Ante merid Sess 18. And Those Ministers are Ordained to be Censured who subscribe any Bonds or take any Oaths not approven by the General Assembly or by their Counsel Countenance or Approbation make themselves accessary to the taking of such Bonds and Oaths In like manner we dare not forbear to Cry and Crave that it may be considered what wrongs Christ hath received from the Erastian and Antichristian Usurpation of the Supremacy encroaching upon the Prerogative of the Lord Jesus Christ his incommunicable Headship and Kingship as Mediator giving to a Man a Magisterial and Architectonick power to alter and innovate Authorise and Exauctorate allow or restrain and dispose of the Government and Governours of the Church according to his pleasure invading the liberties of the Gospel Church introducing a civil Dominion upon her Government contrare to its nature being only a Ministerial-Stewardship distinct from the Civil Government in its Nature Causes Ends Officers and Actings and giving to the Magistrate the power of the keyes without and against Christs Donation and Authority even the Dogmatick Critick and Diatactick Decisive Suffrage and Power in Causes Ecclesiastick which Christ hath intrusted to the Church Representatives and denying to the Church the Exercise of these Keyes and Powers without the Magistrates warrand and Indulgence We crave also that it may be inquired into how far this encroachment hath been connived at submitted unto complyed with homologate strengthened and established by receiving and accepting without consent of the Church yea against the express dissent and testimony of some faithfull Ministers to the contrare the Indulgences anno 1669 and 1679 And by the silence of others not witnessing against the same and others censuring the Faithful for discovering the sinfulness thereof Which we Remonstrate upon these grounds complexly considered 1 Because as the contrivance and end of the grant thereof was to advance and establish the Supremacy to engage Presbyterians either to co-operate towards the settling and strengthening thereof or to surcease from opposing the peaceable possession of the Granters Vsurpation and to extort from them at least an indirect Recognizance of acknowledged Subordination in Ministerial Exercises to his usurped power in a way which would he best acquiesced in To suppress the Preaching and Propagation of the Gospel in persecuted Meetins in houses and fields so necessary at that time and to divide and increase differences and animosities among Presbyterians by insinuating upon these called the more Moderate to commend the Indulger his Clemency while other Non-Conformists adhering to interdicted duties were justly complaining of the Effects of his Severity And as the woful effects of it strengthening the Supremacy weakening the hands of these that witnessed against it extinguishing Zeal and increasing many divisions did correspond with these wretched designs So these could not be counteracted but very much strengthened and promotted by the Acceptance of the Indulgence which in its own nature was so palpably subservient thereto even thô there had been a Testimonie against these designs and ends yet when the means adapted to these ends were complied with it was rendered irrite and contra factam 2 Because as the Supremacie received
AN ACCOUNT OF THE METHODS AND MOTIVES Of the late UNION AND SUBMISSION to the ASSEMBLY Offered and Subscribed BY Mr. THOMAS LINING Mr. ALL EXANDER SHEILDS Mr. WILLIAM BOYD. Philip. 3.15.16 Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded And if in any thing ye be otherwise minded God shall reveal even this unto you Nevertheless whereto we have already attained let us walk by the same rule let us mind the same thing Printed in the Year MDCXCI An Account of the Methods and Motives of the late Union and Submission to the Assembly offered and Subscribed by Mr. Thomas Lining Mr. Alexander Sheilds and Mr. William Boyd AMONG other Characters that Commend Presbyterial Government as the only Order and Plat form of Government which Christ Jesus the only Head and Lawgiver hath instituted in His Church above all other Forms introduced by the Inventions and Usurpations of Men This is one that it is the best Antidote for Schism that ever was found And where ever it is erected and exerted in its full Freedom and Power it brings all that acknowledge Subjection to it unto Vnion and Harmony keeps them in it and reduces them into it when it hath been broken The Impression of its Divine Authority being so Authentick that it enforces a Conviction upon all that have regard To the Law and the Testimony and extorts a Confession from all that have a Conscience that there is nothing in it when established in its due Dimensions which may not and must not be subjected unto nay the greatest of its Enemies even the Papists and Prelatists themselves thô they plead for many Additions are forced to acknowledge that there is little or nothing in Presbytery which is not of Divine Institution and which is not also admitted in their own Government thô depraved and corrupted by their audacious Additaments And a challenge may be given to all of them to instance any thing in its whole Nature Tenour Order Power Rules or Administrations that is not founded upon deduced from consonant unto the New Testament Oracles whereas there are several things in all other Forms of Government which the more consciencious a Man be he will readily be found the more hesitant to submit to The Eutaxie comely Order and Beauty of this Ordinance of Christ making the Church both Comely and Terrible and as Jerusalem compactly built having likewise an attractive Vertue to allure all its Subjects and Members to an amicable Amity and to constrain to Concord as well as an Awful Majesty thô no way Magisterial to restrain from divisive disorders And its course of Administration being in such a Gradation of Subordinations of Inferiour Judicatories to Superior that hardly can any Schism have footing ere it be crushed or rooting ere it be suppressed when the Government is in its Integrity Which was the reason rendered by K. Ja. the 6th why in Scotland there was so litle Heresie or Schism known Hence whatsoever the Patrons of the Prelatick Hierarchy Papists and Prelatists who in this Symbolize say to the contrary in favours of Episcopacy as if it were the best expedient to prevent and remove Schism And to the reproach of Presbytry as if it were a Government that did engender and encrease Division and Schismatick Courses It is so well known in Scotland that Prelacy is the Mother of Schism and Presbytry the Medicine of it that it needs not a laborious Probation The Probatum est of 130 years experience may serve instead of many Proofs Let it be instanced since the Reformation When was there ever Vnion when Prelacy was established When was there ever Schism when Presbytry was redintegrated When was there ever Concord when Presbytry declined When was there ever any thing but Discord when Prelacy was on its ascendant Where or when was there ever a Division which had not Prelacy or the Projects or Practises of those that inclined and declined to it for its cause and occasion rise and spring And how or when was it ever removed and remedied and Vnion restored but by and under Presbytry All the Divisions and Breaches of this Church from the Reformation to the year 1650 were occasioned by stated for and continued only under Prelacy And even that from thence to 1660 about the Publick Resolutions was stated upon and occasioned abetted and continued by the Projects and Practises of Malignants striving to ingyre themselves into places of Power and Trust on design to re-introduce Prelacy Which Division then commenced and at that time not cured because Presbyterial Government then declined and the Authority of General Assemblies was then enervated hath continued to this day as the wretched Rise of all our woful Rents which hath racked and almost ruined the Remnant that adhered to the Reformation who before that were as much feared and envied for Union as since that they have been flouted at and despised for Division and yet want nothing to make them as much admired and respected as before but to recover their former Union by returning to their former Order and repenting for their Deviations from it But since the year 1660 the Rise and Continuance of all our Divisions either with the professed Enemies of the Covenanted Reformation or among the professed Friends thereof hath only flowed from the Usurpations and Impositions of the Popish Prelatical and Malignant Party which some imposed upon complied with and others opposed And the only reason of their incureableness hitherto hath been the want of Presbyterial Government in its full Force and Freedom The happy Restitution whereof in the measure it hath already arrived to since the Arrival and Advancement of King William to the Government of these Nations under whose Patrociny and in whose fight the Lord hath extended this Mercy to give the Church this reviving to set up the House of our God and to repair the Desolations thereof and to give us a Wall in our Judah hath already reduced some who had continued in an abstracted and separate way for several years unto Union and Communion with the rest of their Brethren in the Ministry and hath engaged them into an orderly Submission to the Authority of this Church in all Her respective Judicatories Which may gave ground of hope that as this hath been the fruit of the first Assembly after the Restoration of Presbyterial Government So the re-din tegration thereof is its full Vigor and Authority and recovery of its former Faithfulness and Zeal in Administration in following Assemblies will through the Mercy of GOD heal all remaining Breaches But designing here to give a short Relation of our Methods in prosecuting and our Motives that induced us to endeavour this Vnion It will not be amiss for the better understanding of the same to hint a little more particularly at the Causes Means and Measures of our Divisions They all proceeded as was said before from the Usurpation and impositions of the Popish Prelatical and Malignant faction For when Prelacy came in
Advantageous for the Cause And if our Brethren and we between whom such Differences have fallen in and have been sadly Fomented on all hands will search and try our ways respectively how far they and we have receded from the good old way of the Church of Scotland And in our impartial search shall find out our respective defections and breaches of Covenant on the one hand and on the other and unite in confessing these by joyning in this or the like Acknowledgement of publick Sins and keeping dayes of humiliation and mourning for the same And as we offer and promise to confess our Sins here acknowledged or any other so far as we can be convinced any manner os way that they shall desyre or appoint So if they at least will confess theirs Doctrinally and they and we both forsake them mutually and forsaking concur in procuring the Condemnation of them in Ecclesiastick Synods or Assemblies and so return unto and fix our ground on the old Established foundations according to the Word of God and Constitutions of this Church settled before the Covenanted Reformation stopped We will then embrace and maintain Union and Communion with them and submission to them in the Lord And shall not suffer our selves Directly or undirectly by whatsoever Combination perswasion or terror to be divided or withdrawn from this blessed Union and Conjunction Thus far we advanced in these steps with one accord Thereafter in the remembrance of these Resolutions and Engagements which we looked upon as at last inferring an obligation lying upon us to make some Endeavours in pursuite of this Union which is a Duty Materially Morally and Antecedently obliging in it self Being invited also by some reverend Ministers in Edinburgh we had once again Conferences with them Wherein at length after we had still insisted on the necessity of confessing and condemning these Defections and Corruptions which caused us to stand so long at a distance from them proposed the Difficulties we had in our Conscience to return to Communion with them before these were removed as is said They condescended upon some Expedients for our satisfaction that it should be allowed to us to exhibite to the next Assembly our Testimony against all these courses and practises in Ministers that did offend us and to plead for recording of it in the Books of Assembly which might exoner our Consciences and absolve us from all participation with or Communion in the guilt that we conceived to be in any of these things Whereupon taking this Condescension to further consideration which indeed gave us more clearness than we had before and declining any further procedure in it until we consulted the mind of the People whom we desired to be tender of and guard against all appearance of imposing upon them or overdriving them unto things they could not be suddenly clear in We had a Meeting with them to deliberate upon this matter at Dowglas wherein we proposed the Case and offered several Considerations to bring things to a temper endeavouring to satisfie and solve several Scruples and Objections adduced by tender zealous and serious People Alleaging they could not have freedom or clearness to joyn with these Ministers from whom they had formerly withdrawn until they should acknowledge their defection for without that they could never be counted faithful would never faithfully urge others to confess their Sins when they would not acknowledge their own And that Union without this would bury the Testimony against these defections And several other difficulties of this nature very weighty to them and affecting to us To all which we endeavoured to give solution by shewing That the not confessing of Sins not in present practise was never and can never be owned by us to be a ground of Separation And that we found in Scripture the Godly had Communion in Churches where there were several Corruptions not confessed nor reformed And that if the Church came to recover Her Authority and Assemblies we must submit and unite in Reformation and would not be required to unite in defection telling them also of the forementioned Condescension and of our purpose to give in Papers to the first Assembly And perswading them thô we would not urge them against their Conscience to hear all or any of the Ministers against whom there were greatest exceptions to try and search through all the Country where such might be had that were most free of these offences or most faithful in confessing them and joyn with these in the first place In the mean time because it was a grave and greatly important matter not rashly to be determined we agreed that a day of Humiliation should be set a part for praying for Light in the case And that the business should be suspended to another Meeting Thus the Matter was kept in suspence for a considerable time And in the mean while we were now and then upon occasion in conference and sometimes in preaching pleading for endeavours of Union wherein perhaps our weakness sometimes hath vented it self in expressions of too great fervor to the offence of tender People as formerly it might have its Eruptions to the offence of others in the prosecution of our differences with them And in seems thô the manner of managing a business should not prejudge People against the matter it self yet several have been stumbled upon this For at the next Meeting at the forsaid place some did move in the debate with more fervour than before against Union except the foresaid defections were confessed And other Objections and Scruples were adduced both verbally and in Papers sent from several Societies bearing they could not return to a declining party until they should return from their declinings And that confession and forsaking of Sin is so frequently inculcate in the Scriptures that without this they could not expect the blessing of God upon the Ministry of those who retained and defended causes of wrath And that the Church was not yet settled and the Government not yet established so they could not tell but their might be Corruptions in the very constitution of it Whereunto we offered several Answers and at the close of that Meeting it was earnestly desired by the People promised by us that some thing should be write and spread amongst them that might inform them and clear from the Scriptures the difficulties of this controversie the necessity of Vnion Communion with the Church in the present circumstances Which accordingly so soon as was possible was prepared and may be hereafter published Afterwards the business was more remisly followed both sides being more abstract and kept in suspence waiting to see the constitution of the Church established and a free General Assembly unto which they might make application whence all expected more light and resolution would accrue At length the General Assembly indicted by Authority approaching we had another Meeting in which after some litle debates we came to a more sedate
Counsellors against them to frustrate their purpose yet being Furnished and Spirited of the Lord for that Generation work they never studied to please men but to acquit themselves as faithful Servants of their Princely Master Jesus Christ in witnessing against all Sins and Corruptions of great and small impartially and in Acts of Assembly ordaining and recommending to all Ministers this faithfulness in applying their Doctrine to the Sins of the time under pain of Censure But now thô there was never greater freedom and encouragement for and necessitie of faithfulness when the Adversaries of Judah are seeking to Build but on design to marr the Work and many are too much inclining to joyn in affinity with the People of these abominations Yet it is sadly wanting and much Desiderated among many Ministers who being long accastomed to fears and constrained silence under former hazards and tentations have not yet recovered their Confidence and Courage to cry a loud against and not spare the iniquities of the time We desire also to joyne in that common regrate that thô informer Reformations this Church was not only for Order and Authority beautiful as Tirzah comely as Jerusalem and terrible as an army with banners but for Vnion got the Name of Philadelphia being then as much admired for Vnitie which is the fruit of Presbyterian Government wherever it hath place as for any other Priviledge which rendered her the Envy of all the Nations about Yet now alas The Crown hath fallen from our heads wo unto us that we have sinned This Holy and Beautiful Fabrick hath been burnt up with the fire of Enemies fury with the fire of our Divisions and with the fire of the Lords indignation burning against us for our defections whereby the Lord was provoked to forsake his House and since his departure there hath been nothing but disorder among his Children and Servants The Popish Prelatical and Malignant Party have come in by Force and Fraud and by the Cedings of those that should have stood in the Gap and broke down the Carved Work of our Covenanted Reformation as with Axes and Hammers Rescinding all the Legal Bul-warks of Ecclesiastical Constitutions Civil Sanctions and National Covenants wherewith it was fenced Wherein alas They were too much encouraged by our faint resistance and too universal involvement in the sin of submitting to Countenancing of the intrusions of the Prelatical Party At length having set up these their Ensignes for Signs in Sign of compleate Victory obtained over the Servants and Subjects of our exalted Prince after they have invaded His Kingdom and Palace and made Havock and Sloughter of such as would not yield they offered some tempting terms whereupon they would suffer them to live in subjection to these Vsurpations painted indeed with pretences of Favours but really at least indirectly requiring a recognizance of the Vsurpers power and a Cessation from opposing the peaceable possession of their Robberies These and the like defections on the one hand together with many Extravagances on the other have brought the Godly into many confusions stumbled them into many tontations racked rent and almost ruined them with many Divisions promoted too much an every hand by Passion Pride Prejudice Jealousie too credulous and sedulous taking up and spreading reports and reproaches one of another whereby the Spirit of GOD hath been grieved the Power Practice and Spiritual Exercise of Religion obstructed the Gospels success marred the Ministrie and all Ordinances brought into contempt ungodliness encouraged the mouths of the ungodly opened their hearts hardned and their hands strengthned against us And as the effect of all these we may lament another sad and very sensible want the Lords Power and Glory not seen in the Sanctuary as sometimes in the former House it was with a speciality of brightness And the Spirit of Grace and Supplication Repentance and Reformation publick Zeal for the Interest of Christ and the Gospel Spirit of Love and Tendernsss towards Brethren is not yet poured from on high But it may be if the Tabernacle were once reared up that the cloud of the LORDS Presence would cover it and the Glorie of the LORD would fill it And if we were ashamed of our iniquities we might then measure the Pattern and see the form of the House and the fashion thereof and the goings out thereof and the comings in thereof and all the Ordinances thereof and the whole limit thereof should be holy which is the Law of the House Then the glorie of this latter House should be greater than of the former Nevertheless We are so far from despising the day of small things that in weakness and humilitie we would desire to say it is our highest ambition to enjoy the Communion of this Sanctuary of the LORD in this Land if it were but to be Door-keepers in the House of our GOD And it is the matter of our greatest longing to see the day when all the Dissintient and long Dissevered Children of Zion shal together with one heart take their Mother by the Hand and with one Lip praise their Father in the Beautie of Holiness For when the Courts of the LORD are amiable in Order it cannot but be pleasant and desireable for Brethren to dwell together in Vnitie And so much the more that we have felt the sad effects of our unhappie Divisions which not onlie now but even in their greatest heat made us with much longing desire and pray for a comfortable Vnion and to bemoan the Causes and Effects of the delayes of it upon all occasions declaring our dread and detestation of Schism as a very heinious hurtful and hateful sin We did indeed demure to concure with and follow and did think it our dutie pro tempore to withdraw from these Ministers thô still we owned and esteemed them as godlie Ministers of this Church who promoted courses of defection after specified and to adhere to those thô but few who were more stedfast and faithful in that time of Divisions Gonfusions and abounding snares when the Church was in a broken state deprived of the Remedie of Church Judicatories whereunto we might recurr with Complaints and Supplications for removing these Offences And when the Government was so Tyrannical that if there had been Church Judicatories neither durst they have corresponded with us nor we make Application to them for hazard of our Lives When also the case was so stated that we thought communion could not be kept by us with them from whom we withdrew without sin while the very exercise of their Ministrie in the then circumstances was so far depending upon subordinate unto complying with modified and authorised by unlawful Usurpations that our joining would have inferred at least in our conscience a submission to symbolizing with and approving of their offensive yieldings to these encroachments Yet we never thought this a Schism We never judged it to be a separation from the Church of Scotland either in Her Doctrine Worship Discipline or
much Strength and Increment from the Indulgence so reciprocally it had its Rise Spring Conveyance and subsistence from the Supremacy from which it flowed upon which it stood and by which at length it was removed And in the grant and conveyance of the Indulgence all the power of the Supremacy was arrogate asserted and exerted in first taking away the power of the Keyes from CHRISTS Stewards and then restoring only one of them to some few with Restrictions bounding and Instructions regulating them in the exercise of that The Acceptance whereof so clogged with these complex Circumstances without a clear distinct Testimony in that case of confession hath at least a great appearance which should have been abstained from of a conniving at submitting unto complying with and homologating of that ErastianVsurpation 3 Because as it was interpreted to be accepted in the same Terms wherein it was granted without a Testimony against the Supremacy so the Entry of those Ministers to their Churches by this Indulgence was prejudicial to the Churches Priviledge Some of them being fixed in particular Churches whereunto they had no peculiar Pastoral Relation before and some transplanted from one Church to another without the interposure of any Ecclesiastick Presbyterial Authority without the free and orderly Call of the People being in many respects prelimited and in the way of Patronages at the Councils Pleasure and Order and those that were Restored to their own Churches being there admitted not by vertue of their Old Right and claim of an undissolved Relation but by vertue of a New Holding on the Indulgence 4 Because the embracing thereof and the continuing therein was a faint yielding to prevailing Erastianism a course of Defection from former Integrity of Ministerial Freedom and Faithfulness in which the Servants and Witnesses of Jesus Christ were Famous and Eminent in former times who for writing Preaching and protesting against the Ecclesiastick Supremacy in the Magistrate and all Erastian courses did bear the cross of Christ with much stedfastness Yea a receding from and foregoing of a very matterial part of the Cause and Testimonie of the Church of Scotland which till then did constantlie wrestle against such encroachments And in this respect scandalous because hardening to Erastian Enemies stumbling to many Friends and offensive to Posteritie 5 Because it is contradictorie to our Covenants to receive Indulgences contrived and conferred on purpose to divide by the terror of persecution on the one hand and the perswasion of this pretended Libertie taking off the Legal restraint on the other Ministers People from the Cause and Testimony of the Church of Scotland against the Supremacy from their former blessed Conjunction therein and to induce them to make Defection to that Party that were Advancing Erastianism And it is expresly contradictory to the Engagement to Duties Anno 1649 where the Obligation bears Because many have of late laboured to supplant the Liberties of the Kirk we shall Maintain and Defend the Kirk of Scotland in all her Liberties and Priviledges against all who shall oppose or undermine the same or encroach thereupon under any pretext whatsomever Likewise we Plead and Obtest that a Search may be made into and a review taken of the late Toleration the Addressing for it and Acceptance of it complexely considered The sinfulness whereof we could not and now cannot forbear to Witness against 1 Because as the Design of the Granter and Tendency of the Grant it self in its own nature being the Introduction of Popery and Slavery could not in any probability be counteracted but rather corroborated by this Addressing for it and Accepting of it even thô there had been a Testimony against the design thereof as there was none and could be none consistent with the continuance thereof so being conveyed from Absolute Power which all were required to obey without reserve Stopping Suspending and Disabling all the Penal Statutes against Papists thereby undermining all the Legal Bulwarks of our Religion The Addressing for and Accepting of it so conveyed without a witness against this Despotical Encroachment yea the very condition of enjoying the benefit of it being exclusive of such a Testimony which might any way tend to the alienating of the People from such a despotical Government in all its Encroachments did indirectly at least imply Complyance with if not the Recognizance and Acknowledgement of that Vsurped Power and the Arbitrary Exercise and Effect of it in suspending the Penal Statutes 2 Because it was extended not only to Prelacy but to Popery Quakerism and all Idolatry Blasphemie and Heresie which was highly provoking to the Lord Jesus and prejudical to the Peace and Purity of His Church contrary to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament contrary to our Confession of Faith and Gatechisms Chap. 20. § 4. and Chap. 23. § 3. Being placed also among the sins of the second Command in the Larger Catechism contrare to the Principles of the Church of Scotland being condemned warned of and witnessed against by Acts of Assembly anno 1649. And by her faithful Pastors Preaching Writing and Protesting against such Tolerations and sometimes even when Papists were exccluded as that against which the Ministers of Fife and Perth did testifie And contrary to our Covenants wherein we are bound to preserve Reformation and Vniformity in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government to extirpate Popery c. to free our Souls from the guilt of other Mens Sins defend our Liberties and consequently never to comply with a Toleration eversive of all these Interests we are sworn to maintain and introductive of these things we are sworn to endeavour the Extirpation of 3 Because it was clogged with such Conditions and Limitations as did exceedingly hamper the Freedom of the Ministry being Offered in Proclamations and Accepted in Addresses and Obedeince with Restrictions to Persons who might Preach allowing some and discharging others who had as good Authority as they to exercise their Ministry To Places where they should preach only where Intimation was given of the Name of the Place and of the Preacher to some of the Lords of the Council c. And to the matter What or at least what they might not preach to wit nothing that might have any tendency to alienate the Hearts of the People from a Popish and Tyranical Government and consequently nothing against the wickedness or of the Misery of Tyranny nothing against the Toleration and the open Sins proclaimed therein and wicked Ends designed thereby nothing against disabling the Penal Statutes or for the Obligation of them and Ties of National Covenants strengthning them 4 Because of the manifold Scandal of it we cannot but witness against it being so disgraceful to the Protestant Religion and prejudicial to the Interest thereof It was reproachful to our Religion sometimes established by Law then only Tolerate under the Notion of an Evil to be suffered How Confounding and Consternating was this to all the Reformed Churches that