which by acts of Parliaments had been approven before new Parliaments had allowed of their reformation Neverthelesse this plea is foolishly intended against us for the Ministers protestation against the acts of Parliament 1584 establishing in that houre of darknes iniquity by a law and against the acts of the Assembly of Glasgow declaring the unlawfulnesse of Bishops and ceremonies which some Parliaments upon Episcopall mis-information had approven both these actions of the Church were according to former Lawes and were ratified afterward by acts of Parliament yet standing in force which for the Warner a privatman and a stranger to challenge is to contemne much more grossly the law then they doe whom here he is accusing of that crime By the nixt Story the Warner will gaine nothing The Church parte in the road of Ruthven cleered when the true case of it is knowne In King Iames minority one Captaine Iames Stuart did so farre prevail upon the tender and unexperienced yeares of the Prince as to steale his countenance unto acts of the greatest oppression so farre that Iames Hamelton Earle of Arran the nixt to the King in blood in his health a most gallant Prince and a most zealous professor of the true Religion in time of his sicknes when he was not capable to commit any crime against the State was notwithstanding spoiled of all his livelyhood and liberty his Lands and honour with the dignity of high Chancelor of Scotland were conferred on that very wicked Tyrant Captain Iames a number of the best affected and prime nobility impatient of such unheard-of oppressiones with meere boasts and no violence at the road of Ruthven chased away that unhappy chancelor from the Kings persone this his Majestie for the time professed to take in so good part that under his hand he did allow it for good service in his letters to the most of the Neighbour princes he dealt also with the secrete counsel and the chiefe judicatories of the land and obtained from them the approbation of that act of the Lords as convenient and laudable promising likewise to ratify it in the nixt ensuing Parliament When the Lords for their more abundante cleering required the Assemblies declaration there upon the Ministers declined to medle at all with the case but the Kings Majestie sent his Commissioners to the Assembly entreating them withall earnestnesse to declare their good liking of that action which he assured them was for his good and the good both of the Church and Kingdome for their obedience to the Kings importunity they are heer railed upon by the wise Warner It is true Captaine Iames shortly after creept in againe into Court and obtained a sever revenge against the authors of that action before a Parliament could sit to approve it but within a few monthes the same Lords with some more did at Striveling chase againe that evill man from the Court whither he never more returned and this their action was ratified in the nixt Parliament and so stands to this day unquestioned by any but such as the Warner either out of ignorance or malice I am weary to follow the Warner in all his wandrings The interest of the generall assembly of Scotland in the reformation of England at the nixt loupe he jumps from the 1584 to the 1648 skipping over in a moment 64 yeares The articles of Striveling mentions that the promoving of the worke of Reformation in England and Ireland bee referred to the generall assembly upon this our friend does discharge a flood of his choler all the matter of his impatience heere is that Scotland when by fraud they had been long allured and at last by open violence invaded by the English Praelats that they might take on the yock of all their corruptions they were contented at the earnest desire of both the houses of Parliament and all the wel-affected in England to assist their Brethren to purge out the leaven of Episcopacy and the Service book with all the rest of the old corruptions of the English and Irish Churches with the mannaging of this so great and good an Ecclesiastick worke the Parliament of Scotland did intrust the generall assembly No mervaile that Doctor Bramble a zealous lover of all the Arminianisme Popery and Tyranny of which his great patron Doctor Lade stands convicted yet without an answer to have been bringing in upon the three nations should bee angry at the discoverers and dis-appointers of that most pious work as they wont to style it What heere the Warner repeats it is answered before The violent apprehension of Masse-Priests Priests in their act of idolatry reproved by the Warner as for the two Storyes in his conclusion which he takes out of his false Author Spots-wood adding his owne large amplifications I conceive there needs no more to be said to the first but that some of Iohn Knocks zealous hearers understanding of a Masse-Priest at their very side committing idolatry contrary to the Lawes did with violence break in upon him and sease upon his person and Masse-cloathes that they might present him to the ordinary Magistrat to receave justice according to the Law This act the Warner wil have to be a huge rebellion not only in the actors but also in Iohn Knocks who was not so much as present thereat What first he speaks of the Assemblies convocating the people in armes to be present at the tryall of the popish Lords and their avowing of that their deed to the King in his face we must be pardoned to mistrust the Warner heerin upon his bare word without the releefe of some witnes and that a more faithfull one then his Brother in evill Mr. Spotswood whom yet heere he does not professe to cite Against these popish Lords after their many treasons and bloody murders of the lieges the King himselfe at last was forced to arme the people but that the generall assembly did call any unto armes we require the Warners proofe that we may give it an answer CHAP. VIII The chiefe of the Praelats agree with the Presbyterians about the divine right of Church discipline THE Warners challenge in this chapter is that we mantaine our discipline by a Iure divino and for this he spewes out upon us a sea of such rhetorick as much better beseemed Ans Mercurius Aulicus then either a Warner or a praelate In this challenge he is as unhappy as in the rest it is for a matter wherein the most of his owne Brethren though our Adversaries yet fully agree with us that the discipline of the Church is truely by divine right The Warner and his Praelatical Erastian brethren are obliged by their owne principles to advise the King to lay aside Episcopacy and set up the Praesbytery in all his dominions and that Jesus Christ holds out in scripture the substantials of that Governement whereby he will have his house to be ruled to the worlds end leaving the circumstantials to be determined by
A REVIEW OF DOCTOR BRAMBLE Late Bishop of LONDENDERRY HIS FAIRE WARNING Against the Scotes Disciplin By R. B. G. Printed at DELF By Michiel Stael dwelling at the Turf-Market 1649. For the right Honourable the Noble and potent Lord JOHN Earle of Cassils Lord KENNEDY c. one of his MAJESTIES privie counsel and Lord Iustice generall of Scotland RIGHT HONORABLE MY long experience of your Lordships sinceer zeale to the truth of God and affection to the liberties of the Church and Kingdome of Scotland against all enemies whomsoever hath imboldened me to offer by your Lordships hand to the view of the publick my following answer to a very bitter enemy of that Church and Kingdome for their adhaerence to the sacred truth of God and their own just liberties At my first sight of his Book and many dayes thereafter I had no purpose at all to medle with him The Authors reasons of his wryting your Lordship knowes how unprovided men of my present condition must be either with leasure or accommodations or a minde suitable for wryting of books Also Doctor Bramble was so well knowne on the other side of the Sea the justice of the Parliament of England and Scotland having unanimously condemned him to stand upon the highest pinacle of infamy among the first of the unpardonable incendiaries and in the head of the most pernicious instruments of the late miseries in Britaine and Ireland and the evident falshood of his calumnies were so clearly confuted long ago in printed answers to the infamous Authors whence he had borrowed them I saw lastly the mans Spirit so extreame saucy and his pen so wespish and full of gall that I judged him unworthy of any answer But understanding his malions boldnes to put his Book in the hand of his Majesty of the Prince of Orange and al the eminent personages of this place who can reed English yea to send it abroad unto all the Universities of these Provinces with very high and insinuating commendations from the prime favourers of the Episcopall cause hearing also the threats of that faction to put this their Excellent and unanswerable peece both in Dutch Frensh and Latine that in the whole neighbouring World the reputation of the Scotes might thereby be wounded killed and buried without hope of recovery I found it necessary at the desire of diverse friends to send this my review after it hoping that all who shall be pleased to be at the paines of comparing the reply with the challenge may be induced to pronounce him not only a rash untimous malicious but also a very false accuser This much justice doe I expect from every judicious and aequitable comparer of our wrytes upon the hazard of their censure to fall upon my side The Praelats are unable by reason to defend Episcopacy His invectives against us are chiefly for three things our Discipline our Covenant our alleadged unkindnes to our late Soveraigne My apology for the first is that in disciplin we maintaine no considerable conclusion but what is avowed by all the Reformed Churches especially our Brethren of Holland and France as by the approbatory suffrages of the Universities of Leyden Vtrecht and others to the theorems whereupon our adversarie doth build his chief accusations may appeare If our practise had aberred from the common rule the crookednes of the one ought not to praejudge the straightnes of the other though what our adversary alleadgeth of these aberrations is nothing but his owne calumnious imputations the chiefe quarrel is our rule it selfe which all the reformed harmoniously defend with us to bee according to Scripture and the Episcopall declinations to bee beside and against the line of the word yea Antichristian If our Praelats had found the humour of disputing this maine cause to stir in their veines why did they not vent it in replyes to Didoclavius and Gersome Bucerus who for long thirty yeares have stood unanswered or if fresher meats had more pleased their tast why did not their stomacks venture on Salmasius or Hondels books against Episcopacy If verbal debates had liked them better then wryting why had none of them the courage to accept the conference with that incomparably most learned of all knights now living or in any bygone age Sir Claud Somayis who by a person of honour about the King did signify his readines to prove before his Majesty against any one or all his praelaticall divines that their Episcopacy had no warrant at all in the word of God or any good reason But our friends are much wiser then to be at the trouble and hazard of any such exercise Their stronged arguments are trucks of Court the artifices of the court are their old trade they know better how to watch the seasons and to distribute amongst themselves the howres of the Kings opportunities when privatly without contradiction they may instill in his tender mind their corrupt principles and instruct him in his cabine how safe it is for his conscience and how much for his honor rather to ruine himselfe his family and all his Kingdomes with his own hands then to desert the holy Church that is the Bishops and their followers then to joine with the rebellious Covenanters enemies to God to his Father to to Monarchy that the embracing of the Barbarous Irish the pardoning of all their monstruous murders the rewarding of their expected merits with a free liberty of Popery and accesse to all places of the highest trust though contrary to all the Lawes which England and Ireland has knowne this hundred yeares all this without and before any Parliament must be very consistent with conscience honor and all good reason Yea to bind up the soule of the most sweet and ingenuous of Princes in their chaines of their slavery for ever they have fallen upon a most rare trick which hardly the inventions of all their praedecessors can pararel The Brothers unlu◠foot is 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They rest not satisfied that for the upholding of their ambition and greed they did harden our late Soveraigne to his very last in their Errours and without compassion did dryve him on to his fatal praecipice unles they make him continue after his death to cry loud every day in the cares of his Son in his later will and testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to follow him in that same way of ruine rather then to give over to serve the lusts of the praelaticall clergy They have gathered together his Majesties last papers and cut of them have made a book whereupon their best pens have dropped the greatest eloqution reason and devotion was among them by way of essayes as it were to frame the heart of the Son by the fingers of the dying Father to piety wisedome patience and every virtue but ever znone to let fall so much of their own ungracious dew as may irrigat the feeds of their praelaticall Errors and Church interest so farre
the hands of that Antipraelaticall nation but it is the hope of these who love the welfaire of the King and his people of the Churches and Kingdomes of Britain that the hand of God which hath broken all the former devices of the Praelats shall crush this their engine also The irrational way of the warners writing Our warner undertaketh to oppugne the Scotes discipline in a way of his owne none of the most rational He does not so much as pretend to state a question nor in his whole book to bring against any maine position of his opposites either Scripture father or reason nor so much as assay to answer any one of their arguments against Episcopacy onely hee culs out some of their by-tenets belonging little or nothing to the maine questions and from them takes occasion to gather together in a heape all the calumnies which of old or of late their knowne enemies out of the forge of their malice and fraud did obtrude on the credulity of simple people also some detorted passages from the bookes of their friends to bring the way of that Church in detestation without any just reason These practises in our warner The most of his stuffe is borrowed and long agoe confuted are the less pardonable that though he knowes the chiefe of his allegations to bee but borrowed from his late much beloved Comerads Master Corbet in his Lysimachus Nicanor and Master Maxewell in his Issachars Burden yet he was neither deterred by the strange punishments which God from heaven inflicted visibly on both these calumniatores of their mother Church nor was pleased in his repeating of their calumnious arguments to releeve any of them from the exceptions under the which they stand publickly confuted I suppose to his own distinct knowledge I know certainly to the open view of thousands in Scotland England and Ireland but it makes for the warners designe to dissemble here in Holland that ever he heard of such books as Lysimachus Nicanor and Issachars Burden much lesse of Master Baylies answer to both printed some yeares agoe at London Edinburgh and Amsterdam without a rejoinder from any of that faction to this day The contumelious bitternes of the warners spirit How ever let our warner be heard In the very first page of his first chapter wee may tast the sweetnes of his meek Spirit at the verie entrie he concludeth but without any pretence to an argument there or else where the discipline of the Church of Scotland to be their owne invention whereon they dote the Diana which themselves have canonized their own dreams the counterfeyt image which they faine hath fallen down from Iupiter which they so much adore the very quintessence of refined popery not only most injurious to the civill Magistrat most oppressive to the subject most pernicious to both but also inconsistent with all formes of civill governement destructive to all sorts of Policy a rack to the conscience the heaviest pressure that can fall on a people So much truth and sobernes doth the warner breath out in his very first page Though he had no regard at all to the cleare passages of Holy Scripture whereupon the Scotes doe build their Anti-Episcopall tenets nor any reverence to the harmony of the reformed Churches which unanimously joyne with the Scotes in the maine of their discipline especially in that which the Doctor hates most therein the rejection of Fpiscopacy yet me thinks some little respect might have appeared in the man to the authority of the Magistrat and civil Lawes which are much more ingeminated by this worthy divine over all his book then the holy Scriptures Can hee so soon forget that the whole discipline of the Church of Scotland as it is there taught and practised The warner stricks at the Scotes discipline through the Kings sides is established by acts of Parliament and hath all the strength which the King and State can give to a civil Law the warner may wel be grieved but hardly can he be ignorant that the Kings Majestie this day does not at all question the justice of these sanctions what ever therefore be the Doctors thoughts yet so long as hee pretends to keep upon his face the maske of loyalty he must be content to eat his former words yea to burne his whole book otherwise hee layes against his own professions a slander upon the King and His Royal Father of great ignorance or huge unjustice the one having established the other offring to establish by their civill lawes a Church discipline for the whole nation of Scotland which truly is the quintessence of Popery pernicious and destructive to all formes of civill governement and the heaviest pressure that can fall on a people All the cause of this choler which the warner is pleased to speake out In the threshold hee stumbles on the Kings conscience is the attempt of the Scotes to obtrude their discipline upon the King contrary to the dictars of his own conscience and to compell forraigne Churches to embrace the same Ans Is it not presumption in our warner so soone to tell the world in print what are the dictats of the Kings conscience as yet he is not his Majesties confessor and if the Clerk of the Closet had whispered some what in his eare what he heard in secret hee ought not to have proclaimed it without a warrant but we doe altogether mistrust his reports of the Kings conscience for who will beleeve him that a knowing and a just King will ever be content to command and impose on a whole Nation by his Lawes a discipline contrary to the dictats of his owne conscience This great stumble upon the Kings conscience in the first page must be an ominous cespitation on the threshold The other imputation had no just ground The Scots never offered to impose any thing upon England the Scotes did never medle to impose any thing upon forraigne Churches there is question of none but the English and the Scotes were never so presumptuous as to impose any thing of theirs upon that Church It was the assembly of divines at Westminster convocat by the King and Parliament of England which after long deliberation and much debate unanimously concluded the Presbiterian discipline in all the parts thereof to be agreable to the word of God it was the two Houses of the Parliament of England without a contrary voice who did ordaine the abolition of Episcopacy and the setting up of Presbyteryes and Synods in England and Ireland Can heere the Scotes be said to compell the English to dance after their pype when their own assembly of divines begins the song when the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England concurre without a discording opinion when the King himselfe for perfecting the harmony offers to adde his voice for three whole yeares together In the remainder of the chapter the warner layes upon the Scotes three other crimes first The
the Law they did effectuate that some Ministers should have the title of this or that Bishopricke and the revenues were gathered in the name of this titulare or tulchan Bishop albeit hee had but little part e. g. Robert Montgomerie Minister at Sterline was called Arch-Bishop of Glasgow and so it can bee instanced in other Bishop-rickes and abbacies Now this kind of praelats pretended no right to any part of the Episcopall office either in ordination or jurisdiction when some of these men began to creep in to vote for the Church in Parliament without any Law of the State without any commission from the Church the generall assembly discharged them being Ministers to practise any more such illegall insolencies with this ordinance of the Church after a little debate King James at that time did shew his good satisfaction But the Warner heere jumps over nolesse then twenty seven years time from the assembly at Edinburgh 1579 The innocency of the much maligned assembly of Aberdeen to that at Aberdeen 1605 then was King James by the English Bishops perswasion resolved to put down the generall assemblies of Scotland contrary to the Lawes and constant practise of that Church from the first reformation to that day The act of Parliament did bear that once at least a yeare the assembly should meet and after their busines was ended they should name time place for the next assembly When they had met in the yeare 1602 they were moved to adjourne without doing any thing for two whole yeares to 1604 when then they were conveened at the time and place agreed to by his Majestie they were content upon his Majesties desire without doing any thing againe to adjourne to the nixt yeare 1605 at Aberdeen when that dyet came his Majesties Commissioner offered them a Letter To the end they might be an Assembly and so in a Capacity to receave his Majesties Letter with the Commissioners good pleasure they sate downe they named their Moderator and Clark they received and read the Kings letter commanding them to rise which they obeyed without any farther action at all but naming a dyet for the nixt meeting according to the Lawes and constant practise of Scotland hereupon by the pernicious counsel of Arch-Bishop Banckroft at London the King was stirred up to bring sore trouble upon a number of gracious Ministers Christmas and other superstitious festivals abolished in Scotland both by Church and State This is the whole matter which to the Warner heir is so tragick an insolence that never any Parliament durst attempt the like See more of this in the Historicall vindication The nixt instance of our Presbiteryes usurpation upon the Magistrat is their abolition before any statute of Parliament thereupon of the Church festivals in their first book of discipline Ans Consider the grievousnesse of this crime in the intervall of Parliaments the great counsel of Scotland in the minority of the Prince entrusted by Parliament to rule the Kingdome did charge the Church to give them in wryte their judgement about matters Ecclesiasticall in obedience to this charge the Church did present the counsel with a wryte named since the first book of disciplin which the Lords of counsel did approve subscribe and ratify by an Act of State a part of the first head in that wryte was that Christmas Epiphany purification and other fond feasts of the virgin Mary as not warranted by the holy Scriptures should bee laid aside Was it any encroachment upon the Magistrate for the Church to give this advice to the privy counsell when earnestly they did crave it the people of Scotland ever since have shewed their ready obedience to that direction of the Church founded upon Scripture and backed from the beginning with an injunction of the state His third instance of the Church of Scotlands usurpation upon the Magistrat is The friends of Episcopacy thryves not in Scotland their abolition of Episcopacy in the assembly 1580 when the Law made it treason to impugne the authority of Bishops being the third estate of the Kingdome Ans The Warner seemes to have no more knowledge of the affairs of Scotland then of Japan or Utopia the Law hee speakes of was not in being some yeares after 1580 how ever all the generall assemblyes of Scotland are authorised by act of Parliament to determine finally without an appeale in all Ecclesiastick affaires in the named assembly Lundie the Kings Commissioner did sit and consent in his Majesties name to that act of abolition as in the nixt assembly 1581 the Kings Commissioner Caprinton did erect in his Majesties name the Presbiteryes in all the Land it is true three yeares thereafter a wicked Courtier Captaine James Stuart in a shadow of a closse and not summoned Parliament did procure an act to abolish Presbiteries and erect Bishops but for this and all the rest of his crimes that evill man was quickly rewarded by God before the world in a terrible destruction these acts of his Parliament the very nixt yeare were disclaimed by the King the Bishops were put downe and the Presbitry was set up again and never more removed to this day The Warners digression to the perpetuity of Bishops in Scotland to the acts of the Church and State for their restitution is but to shew his ignorance in the Scotes story what ever be the Episcopall boastings of other Nations yet it is evident that from the first entrance of Christian Religion into Scotland Presbiters alone without Bishops for some hundred yeares did governe that Church and after the reformation their was no Bishop in that Land but in tittle and benefice till the yeare 1610 when Bancroft did consecrat three Scotes Ministers all of them men of evill report whom that violent Commissioner the Earle of Dunbar in the corrupt and null assembly of Glasgow got authorised in some pairt of a Bishops office which part only and no more was ratified in a posterior Parliament Superintendents are no where the same with Bishops much lesse in Scotland where for a time only till the Churches were planted they were used as ambulatory Commissioners and visitors to preach the word and administer the Sacraments for the supply of vacant and unsetled congregations The fourth instance is the Churches obtruding the second book of discipline without the ratification of the State Ans The second book of disciplin why not al ratified in Parliament For the Ecclesiastick enjoining of a generall assemblyes decrees a particular ratification of Parliament is unnecessary generall acts of Parliament commanding obedience to the acts of the Church are a sufficient warrant from the State beside that second book of disciplin was much debated with the King and at last in the generall assembly 1590 his consent was obtained unto it for in that assembly where unanimously the subscription of the second book of disciplin by all the ministers of the Kingdome was decried his Majestie some time in person and