SOME Questions Resolved CONCERNING EPISCOPAL AND PRESBYTERIAN GOVERNMENT IN SCOTLAND I protest before the great God and since I am here as upon my Testament it is no time for me to lye in that ye shall never find with any High-Land or border Thieves greater Ingratitude and more Lies and vile Perjuries then with these Phanatick Spirits And suffer not the Principles of them to brook your Land if you like to sit at rest Except you keep them for trying your Patience as Socrates did an evil Wife K. J. his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 2. p. 51. Lond. LONDON Printed for the Author and are to be Sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1690. IMPRIMATUR Z. Isham R. P. D. Henrico Episc. Lond. à Sacris March 10 1690. THE PREFACE THE Government by Arch-Bishops and Bishops was in Scotland restored An. 1662 as being most agreeable to the Word of God most convenient for the preservation of Truth Order and Unity and most suitable to Monarchy and the peace and quiet of the State Those motives for its Restitution are every way so great that none others can be so worthy of the Wisdom of that Nation which challengeth a more early Profession of Christianity and an Ancienter Race of Kings than any of these parts of Christendom can well pretend to But that Ecclesiastical Government which in its self is most agreeable to the Scriptures and best fitted against Heresie and Schism may to prejudiced Men seem burthensome and by them be Misrepresented to others From this it hath happened that the Episcopacy as Exercised in Scotland these 26 years hath been of late abolished as an unsupportable Grievance to the Nation contrary to the general Inclition of the People and inconsistent with the Legal Establishment of that Church at the Reformation Whoever duly compares the Narratives of these Two Acts the one about its Restitution and the other about its Abolishment may find some of their Reasons why no other Ecclesiastick Politie is yet settled in its place For by this delay every Member of Parliament hath had time to consider what Church Government for Essentials is of Divine Right and may both preserve the Church from Heresie and Schism and the State from Usurpation and Rebellion and which may best conduce to the satisfaction of all Religious Protestants and Loyal Subjects in that Kingdom For this Effect the due consideration of the following Questions is doubtless of great importance and the impartial Resolution of them cannot but be at this time very seasonable Whether they are resolved here with such impartiality as this matter requires is submitted to the unbyassed Iudgment of the Reader Whom I shall desire that if he has any thing to object he will tell the world in Charity and Meekness that are the proper Characters of Christianity and not in that Unchristian way of Evil Speaking and Reviling which sufficiently shews what Spirt he is of that writ The brief and true Account of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland occasioned by the Episcopalians since the year 1660. I wish I had seen that Pamphlet before this was going to the Press It would have Occasion'd me to add some things more tho' I do not find my self obliged by it to alter any thing that I have Written SOME Questions c. QUESTION I. Whether Presbytery as contrary to the Episcopacy restored in Scotland An. 1662. was settled by Law when the Protestant Religion came to have the Legal Establishment in that Kingdom 1. ALL the Dispute here intrinsick to the notion of a Church Governour is purely this Whether he should be nominated by the State or by the Church whether after Nomination the power to Elect him should be entrusted to a Delegated Number or remain in the mixt Synod of Clergy and Laity and whether after the Election is past his Institution unto his Office should be for Life or only during Pleasure and lastly whether in the Exercise of his Function he have a Negative voice over his Synod or they a Conclusive Voice over him Wherefore the Presbyterian Moderator An. 1662. abolished is rightly defined the Church-Moderator Nominated and Elected by the Clergy Lay-Elders and Deacons of the Synod instituted unto his Office during their pleasure invested with no fixed Power of Ordination nor any Negative Voice in the exercise of his Jurisdiction And the Episcopacy which was then restored is by the Rule of contraries a Church-Government of a Moderator Nominated by the King Elected by the Chapter invested with a fixed power of Ordination regulated by Cannons and of Jurisdiction balanced by assisting Presbyters 2. Now although such an Episcopacy was in Scotland taken away April last yet since Presbytery is not yet setl'd by Law this question of Fact propos'd about it may be stated and resolved according to Truth without the crime of LEESING MAKING 3. It is not to be doubted but that the Protestant Religion had the Legal Establishment in Scotland in the year 1567 in which year by Parliamentary Statutes Popery was Abolished a Protestant Confession of Faith Authorized and their Kings by the Coronation Oath obliged to maintain it 4. By the Nature of the Scottish Monarchy neither the King without Advice of his Estates nor they without his Royal Consent touching the Publick Act with his Scepter can make or unmake Laws to govern the People Wherefore the Constitution of Bishops having then the Publick Authority the Popish Bishops sitting in this Parliament which thus setl'd the Reformation must in the construction of the Law be confest to remain firm and valid from the aforesaid year 1567 till the full Legislative Power of the King in Parliament concur'd to shake or destroy it 5. But whatever was done at that time in favour of Mr. Iohn Knox his Book of POLICY proposing a superintendency which is another Model of Episcopacy or Mr. An. Melvil his Book of DISCIPLINE proposing Presbytery An. 1578 by Acts of Privy Council extorted in tumultuous times through the Menacing Applications of Clergy Men Assembling themselves without Warrant yet before the year 1592 there is no Act of Parliament either in Print or Unprinted setling that Presbytery which is contrary to the Episcopacy Established before and remaining in substance at the time of the Reformation 6. Wherefore the impartial Resolution of the Question proposed is in short this That Presbytery as contrary to the Episcopacy restored in Scotland An. 1662 was not by Law setled 35 years after the Protestant Religion had the Legal Establishment in that Kingdom QUESTION II. Whether ever Presbytery was setled in the Church of Scotland without constraint from tumultuous times 1. KING Iames describing the Presbyterians calls them the very Pests in the Church and Commonwealth whom no deserts can oblige neither Oaths nor Promises bind brea thing nothing but Sedition and Calumnies Aspiring without Measure Railing without Reason and making their own Imaginations without any warrant of the Word the square of their
importing That every Person having an Inheritance should pay the fourth part of his yearly Estate every Yeoman Tenant or Farmer the fourth part of his free moveables after the payment of their Dues to their Master and that every Burgess should lose all the Priviledges within the Borough and the fourth part of his moveables 12. But notwithstanding this Penal Law the contagion of those Books and Sermons which poisoned so many with Principles of Separation from the established Church produced the renovation of the Covenant contrary to the Authority of the King and Parliament and that again was followed by an open Rebellion of the Western parts known by the name of Pentlin Hills in the Year 1666 defeated by the King's Army so that they were out of capacity of resisting However the King in his Royal Clemency at the Address of some States-men gave them indulgence to convene in Meeting-Houses for Divine Worship and they made this good use of his Mercy as that by them the incumbent Ministers whose Characters would have secured them any where but in the West of Scotland had their Houses in the night time invaded their Persons assaulted wounded and pursued for their Lives Then indeed that merciful Prince with advice of his Estates in Parliament having a just indignation of such horrid and unchristian Villanies thought fit to brand the same with a signal mark of displeasure And this Act of the Date Aug. 1670. is the first that punisheth with Death and confiscation of Goods 13. It is true indeed the King and his Estates of Parliament filled with indignation at the scandalous sin which procured this former Penal Law and understanding from thence that the specious pretences of Religion were altogether false and taken up by seditious Persons They immediately pass'd another Act against Conventicles the Preamble of which last Act declares That such Meetings were the ordinary Seminaries of Rebellion as well as Separation that they tended to the alienating the Hearts of the Subjects from their Duty and Obedience they owe to his Majesty and the Publick Laws and by consequence to the reproach of the Authority of the King and Parliament as well as the prejudice of Gods publick Worship and the scandal of the Reformed Relâ—gion And therefore they were obliged in reason of State as well as for the Peace of the Church to make the Penalty of this Law fall heavy upon the Transgressors thereof 14 And the Penalties therein contained as nigh as I can value Scottish Mony by the current Coin in England are these following That every Minister preaching at a Conventicle should be imprisoned till he find surety for 275 l. that he should not do the like thereafter or else oblige himself by Bond to remove out of the Kingdom and never to return without his Majesties leave that every one of any Inheritance should pay the fourth part of his yearly Estate that every Servant should pay the fourth part of his yearly Wages that every Farmer should pay Forty Shillings and every Tenant under them Twenty 12. Further His Majesty understanding that divers disaffected Persons had been so maliciously wicked and disloyal as to convocate his Subjects to open Meetings in the Fields and considering that those Meetings were the rendezvous of Rebellion and tending in a high measure to the disturbance of the publick Peace declares that those who in Arms did convocate in Field Conventicles should be punishable by Death and confiscation of Goods and that those present at them should be punished in double the respective Fines appointed against House-Meetings This Act is dated Aug. the 30th 1670. 13. These acts against Separation in Meeting-houses or in the Fields were appointed to endure only for the space of three years unless his Majesty should think fit to continue them longer wherefore his Majesty considering that they had not received due Obedience and that the execution thereof had not been so prosecuted as by the Tenor of the same is prescribed found it necessary with the advise of his Estates in Parliament in Sept. 1672. that they should remain in force for other three Years to come 14. These are the Penal Laws in Scotland against the Presbyterians made by divers free Parliaments against their sinful Separation from the Church to frequent Meeting-houses or Field-Conventicles upon mature consideration of the inconsistency of it with Religion towards God Affection to the Laws Loyalty to the King or Study of the publick Peace of the State And three Rebellions in 23 years from the year 1663 to the year 1686 have justifyed the Justice and Wisdom of these Parliaments But none ever suffered for meer Separation but in purse and never any was punished that way but such as came to Church to save their Money notwithstanding all their pretended scruples of Conscience Wherefore unless we derogate from the Authority of King and Parliament justify Rebellion and prefer private Humour to publick Peace the impartial Resolution of the present Question is this That the Penal Laws against the Scotch Presbyterians had nothing of Persecution in them QUESTION VI. Whether the Episcopal Clergy in Scotland from the Year 1662 to the Year 1686 shewed any thing of the Spirit of Persecution against Presbyterians 1. NOtwithstanding that the Presbyterians are pleas'd to say they were dragoon'd by the Bishops and Episcopal Clergy alluding to that way of Conversion in France which indeed was procur'd by an Address of the Assembly of the Clergy of that Kingdom yet this is a palpable Injustice and Calumny For certain it is that all these twenty four years never produced one Address of the Presbyterial Diocesan Provincial or National Assembly of the Established Church of Scotland either beseeching the High Court of Parliament or the Lords of the Privy Council to make or execute Laws against Protestant Dissenters Wherefore notwithstanding all the passionate Exhortations in private and the publick Sermons in the Church concerning the guiltiness of Schism and the necessity of Union among Protestants against their common Adversaries the Inferiour Clergy there cannot be possibly charged with the Spirit of Persecution against Presbyterians Nay upon the contrary our Clergy were so averse from giving obedience to the Act that enjoyned them to present written Lists of the Dissenters in their respective Parishes and so very inflexible to the Publick Order for their Judicial informing upon Oath against Separatists that the Judges competent and Officers of State chid them in Publick for disaffection to the Royal Government so that under that Imputation they had nothing but their Innocency to support them in the Spirit of Meekness and Charity to their sworn Enemies 2. Again it were a great Injustice to the Lords Spiritual the Bishops to charge any of them as having been the first movers of those Penal Laws against Separation but since the repeated Rebellions of Forty Years past convinced all Mankind of the necessity of those Laws for the security of Religion and the Peace of
Conscience And thereafter describing their Church Politie and Discipline calls it that Parity which can never stand with the Order of the Church nor the Peace of a Commonweal and well Ruled Monarchy Now when these are the Characters which the British Solomon gives Presbyterians and Presbytery and with a Protestation before God that he lies not Who can with any shadow of Reason or grain of Charity think that he either was so Unwise or Irreligious as by Act of Parliament to Establish Presbytery in the Church out of his own free choice and not out of some kind of Compulsion Nay when that Government and its Admirers have these Characters from him can any thinking man read over the Act of Restitution of Bishops An. 1606 and not believe that according to its Preamble the former Act An. 1592 impairing that first Estate of his Kingdom was purely owing to his young years and the unsetled Condition of Affairs How he was forced to it we may learn from his own Book wherein he says that God Almighty was pleased that the Blessed Reformation of Scotland should begin with Unordinate and Popular Tumults of men clogg'd with their own Passion and particular Respects that some fiery spirited Ministers got such a guiding of the People at that time of Confusion as finding the gust of Government sweet they began to fancy a Democracy to themselves that having been over well baited upon the wrack first of his Royal Grandmother and next of his own Mother and usurping the liberty of time in his own long Minority there never rose any Faction among Statesmen but they that were of that Factious part were careful to perswade and allure the Church-Men to espouse that quarrel as their own Wherefore in the year 1592 the pernicious Feuds between the Earls of Huntley and Murray and those Contests between the Assembly Men of the Clergy and the Lords of the Session Together with repeated Treasonable Plots carried on against his Royal Person by Bothwel and his Associates of the greatest Power and best Quality forced that young King to settle Presbytery in the Church that thereby he might bring off Presbyterians from joyning with the Acts of their Kirk to unsettle his Throne 3. Charles the First of ever Blessed Memory he pleads that in Charity he may be thought desirous to preserve the English Church Government by Bishops in its right Constitution as a Matter of Religion wherein both his Iudgment was justly satisfied that it hath of all others the fullest Scripture Grounds and also the constant practice of all Christian Churches And after he had written this Confession with Ink and then Sealed it with his Royal Blood who can imagine that his once giving some way to Presbytery in Scotland was his voluntary Act especially when his Majesties Commissioner the Earl of Traquair according to instructions gave in his Declaration to the contrary But here there is no need to declare the unhappy State of Affairs that forced him to it Since there are Volumes written concerning that Religious Rebellion which produced the most horrid Murder of the best King that ever was in these Kingdoms 4. Wherefore the Impartial Resolution to the question proposed is in short this that K. Iames the 6th and K. Charles I. setled Presbytery in the Kingdom of Scotland being constrained thereunto by troublesome and tumultuous times QUESTION III. Whether the Principles of Scottish Presbytery grant any Toleration to Dissenters 1. SINCE the solemn League and Covenant is the Canon and the Acts of the general Assembly the Comment of the Principles of Scotch Presbytery this Question in reference to their Toleration of Dissenters plainly resolves in this Whether Covenanters and Assembly-men according to their Principles are for Liberty of Conscience or against it 2. In the first Article of the Solemn League they swear That they shall sincerely really and constantly endeavour the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Discipline and Government against their common Enemies 3. To preserve this part of the Reformation they swear again in the second Article against Popish Prelacy that is the Church Government by Arch-Bishops Bishops their Chancelors and Commissiaries Dean and Chapters Arch-Deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierarchy Superstition and Heresie 4. What is meant by their Sincere Real and constant endeavour against their common Enemies King or Parliament for preserving that Reformation in Church-Government by extirpating such an Episcopacy is manifest in the last Article in which they swear to assist and defâ—nd all those that enter into the League and Covenant in the maintaining and persuing thereof and that they shall not suffer themselves directly or indirectly by whatsoever Combination Perswasion or Terror to be divided from their Blessed Union and Conjunction whether to make defection to the contrary part or to give themselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in the Cause which so much concerneth the Glory of God 5. But if after all these parts of the first second fourth and sixth Articles of the Covenant compared together any Seruple yet remains whether those Men who make Conscience of the Oath they have taken against any Indifferency or Neutrality in this Cause against Episcopacy which in Charity I believe they think the Cause of Christ can allow any Toleration to Dissenters let us in the next place consider some Acts of their General Assemblies which are the Infallible Interpreters of this Rule of their Faith about Ecclesiastical Polity Now although the Episcopal Clergy in the times before the year 1639 when they saw that destruction of the Church Government neither themselves appear'd in Tumults nor in Sermons or Books exhorted others to Tumultuate for to preserve it yet the Presbyterians were so far from taking pains to gain them unto a Conformity or in case they conform'd from letting them continue in their Cures as the Presbyterians were dealt with after the year 1662 that on the contrary they pass these following Acts. 6. The General Assembly ordaineth the subscription of the Covevant to all the Members of that Kirk and Kingdom 7. And whereas the former Act Aug. 1630. hadnot been obeyed it was again ordain'd by another Assembly That all Ministers make intimation of the said Act in their Kirks and thereafter proceed with the Censures of the Kirk against such as shall refuse to subscribe the Covenant and that exact account be taken of every Ministers diligence herein by their Presbyteries and Synods as they will answer to the General Assembly 8. Neither was this last Act inflicting Ecclesiastical Censures only to fall heavy upon those who were hinderers of their blessed Reformation whom they called Anticovenanters but in the Assembly it 's appointed that all Ministers take special notice when any secret disaffecters of the Covenant shall come within their Parishes that so soon as they shall know the same they may without delay cause warn them to appear
Christian Faith agreeable to the Word of God and amiently received in the Churches of Christ This their acknowledgment of its Antiquity and Scripture Purity must force any Scotch Presbyterian to grant that there is no more sin in saying the Apostles Creed publickly in the Church tho' there be no precept for saying it than there is in sprinkling water upon the Baptized Infant 6. Now laying all these considerations together that the purity in Doctrine which Presbyterian Synods confess and the purity of Publick Worship doing nothing which the Directory forbids could be as well retained in the Episcopal Church of Scotland these 27 years as in any Presbyterian Kirk or Meeting-House And that no Confession of any Reformed Church asserts the Divine Right of their Presbytery as before defined And that the Covevenant abjures not the Epis opacy likewise defin'd but on the contrary it was petiâ—ioned for by the English Covenanters I say laying all these things together the impartial Resolution of the present Question is this That between the year 1662 and the year 1689 Presbyterian Separatists were guilty of sinful Separation QUESTION V. Whether the Penal Laws against Scotch Presbyterians had any thing of Persecution in them 1. IT cannot be denied but there may be a party in a Kingdom of well meaning men truly Pious and Peaceable who yet for some Non-Conformity to the Church-Establishment may have too severe Laws Enacted against them by the Execution of which they may suffer for Conscience Sake so that the question here proposed plainly resolves into this Whether the Penal Laws against Scotch Presbyterians had any thing in them which cannot be justified in Christian Policy as necessary at those times in which they were Enacted for the Preservation of true Religion and Publick Peace in the Church and State Or whether they were the uncharitable effects of a peevish resentment inconsistent with good Nature or Christianity 2. Forasmuch as it had pleased Almighty God to compassionate the Troubles and Confusions of Scotland by returning King Charles the 2d to the exercise of that Royal Government under which and its excellent Constitution that Kingdom had for many Ages enjoyed so much Happiness Peace and Plenty The Noble Lord the Earl of Middleton being for his unshaken Loyalty honoured with his Majesties High Commission the Administration of the Oath of Allegiance to all the Members of Parliament was the first thing enacted by the States thereof 3. In Conscience of their Oaths of Allegiance to maintain and defend the Sovereign Power and Authority of the Kings Majesty and in consideration of the sad consequences that do accompany any encroachments upon or diminution thereof they from their senâ—e of humble Duty wholy applyed themselves in this Session to Establish such wholesome Laws as might by acknowledgment of his Majesties Prerogatives prove Salves to cure the State from the Diseases of Anarchy and Confusion which had before in the Usurpation seized her Vitals 4. But all this time of the Parliaments sole application to matters of State in this first Session the Presbyterian Clergy did not neglect to do all they could for a Parliamentary Confirmation of their Ecclesiastical Government 5. First the Synod of Edenburgh applyed themselves to a Person of great Interest with his Majesties Commissioner that his Grace might be intreated to procure from his Royal Master instructions to give them Presbytery without Bishops and they promised that they should themselves Enact never to meet without his Majesties Commissioner who should call and dissolve them at his pleasure Which Act of theirs they promised to get ratified by the first General Assembly 6. And when they found this Address of theirs to be without any success they sall upon another method and send a Clergyman whose name because of his Memory for his Piety and School Learning I shall not mention with this threatning that if the Estates in Parliament consirm'd not their Presbytery they should have the People let loose upon them 7. In that first Session of the Parliament already mentioned the King with the Advice of the Estates therein Convened had before forbid the renewing of the Solemn League and Covenant and by several Acts annulled all the pretended Conventions of the preceeding Rebellion but this imperious Address from the Ministers gave them a new sensible occasion to be perswaded that all the late Disorders and Exorbitances in the Church incroachments upon the Prerogative and Right of the Crown and Usurpations upon the Authority of Parliaments and the prejudice done to the Liberty of the Subject were the Natural Effects of the Invasion made upon the Episcopal Government and therefore upon deliberation of twenty Months they past an Act of its Restitution in the beginning of the second Session of that Parliament 8. This Act of Restitution of Bishops had this effect in reference to the Scottish Clergy Whoever among them were disappointed in their hopes of Preferment or were Lovers of Ease from the burthensome Service in the Church or else impatient to be made subordinate to those with whom they so lately had been upon a Level forsook their Ministry but they lived quietly at their respective habitations and in Personal Conformity to the Church Establisht Others again and of them not a few were sensible that the Established Episcopacy being obliged to exercise their Jurisdiction in a Synod with the ballance of Assisting Presbyters was the only Church Government which could be obtained of the State and which was not abjur'd in the Solemn League and therefore did keep their Charges and were willing to own Canonical Obedience to their Diocesan Bishops 9. This Example of Christian submission to Authority given by the generality of Presbyterian Ministers of both sorts gain'd the Laity of that Perswasion to a Pious and Sober observance of the Publick Worship so that at that time nothing was wanting to render that National Church happy without Protestant Dissenters but a competent number of Godly Learned and Grave Men to fill up the vacant places of those who for any of the Motives before mentioned had left their charges and till that deplorable want especially in the West the Separation from the regular Meetings for Divine Service was so little observable that before June 1663 the wisdom of that Nation had by no Act provided against it 10. It is true that the libellous Sermons and Books of some wicked Men which were written to justify the Murder of Charles the I. and the Banishment of Charles the II. the renovation of the Covenant the necessity of taking up Arms to promote its Ends and the sinfulness of complyance with the legal Settlement in Church or State did now alarm that Parliament 11. They considered how seditious and of how dangerous example and consequence Seperation from the rugular Church might prove for the future And therefore for security of the State from the confusions they had so lately smarted under they were forced to enact a Penal Law against it