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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	authority_n	church_n	council_n	1,729	5	6.6396	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33543	A continuation of the historical relation of the late General Assembly in Scotland with an account of the commissions of that assembly, and other particulars concerning the present state of the church in that kingdom.	Cockburn, John, 1652-1729.	1691 (1691)	Wing C4805; ESTC R2774	64,454	78

it was answered that Miracles were wrought to detect secret and hidden Murthers but not to attest those which were known and transacted in the Face of the Sun This Year to get this Anniversary duly observed the Court of Session was adjourned for that day and both Lords of Council and Session sent some of their number to wait upon the Commission and to desire that they would appoint one to preach to them a Sermon for the Day Sir Colin Campbel of Arbruchell was one of them who was sent after he had delivered the Request of the Council and Session which all others think in such Cases to be equivalent to a Command the Moderator said to him My Lord we are very busie and have much to do and should not be hindered And you and the rest all know well enough that it 's not agreeable to our Persuasion to keep days To which it might have been replyed that none of them make any scruple of keeping Days which bring them in Money for they preach very frankly at the Anniversary of George Heriot in Edinburgh by which an hundreth Marks Scots come to the Preachers Pocket The Commission was so civil as to deliberate about the Request but the Result was That they could not obey it which the Lords of Council and Session were highly offended with as being an Affront to their Authority and therefore sent them Word That unless they did obey them they would not suffer them to have any other Sermon that day The Lord Provost had Orders to see that their Will in this was observed who therefore forbad ringing of Bells to the ordinary Weekly Sermon but forgot to call for the Keys of the Church Doors so that they caused the Trone Church to be opened whither they went and set up Mr. Shields to preach which was interpreted a greater Contempt of the Authority of Council and Session than if it had been any other Person because this Mr. Shields in a Book of his entituled The Hind let loose doth expresly defend and justifie the Murther of King Charles the First and the Assassination of the Archbishop of St. Andrews In the beginning of his Sermon he said It may be expected that I should speak something of that Man that dyed forty years ago He either dyed justly or unjustly If unjustly it was the better for himself if justly we need not trouble our selves more about him The rest of his Sermon was stuffed with Invectives against Bishops and the Episcopal Clergy and the Church of England and he held forth that it was very unlawful to keep any Confederacy with Papists and Idolaters This Mr. Shields is one of the Three Cameronians who addressed to the Assembly as was said before in the Historical Relation thereof since that time he hath published a Pamphlet called An Account of the Methods and Motives of the late Union and submission to the Assembly in which all the steps of his and his two Brothers Proceedings are narrated and the larger Paper published which the Assembly thought to have suppressed altogether because it contain'd some Reflections on the Members of the Assembly When all is considered the coming in of these Cameronians appears a kind of Mystery which cannot be well understood for there seems not to be a true Union but only a kind of Truce for present Conveniency or if there be any Union the Condescendence is upon the Assembly's side so that it may be said the Assembly has turned Cameronian For Mr. Shi●lds and his Two Brethren declare That they have not retracted any thing they said or did formerly and as they would not condemn their own Principles and Practices so they have laid heavy and grievous things to the charge of those in the Assembly inconsistent with the Principles of true Covenanted Presbyterians which as Mr. Shields observes the Assembly has not contradicted nor refuted And as their Silence is a tacite Confession of their Guilty which they also acknowledge in general Terms in the Act and Reasons for the Fast so the receiving Men into their Communion without Check or Censure who teach publickly in their Sermons and maintain in their Books Tenets and Positions which are both Scandalous to Religion and also destructive of human Society I say this is an evidence that they are of the same mind and have no abhorrence of such scandalous and pernicious Principles as those men have vented But though the Assembly and Mr. Shields Mr. Linning and Mr. Boide have made an Agreement without coming to particulars or expressing the mutual Terms or Conditions yet the other Cameronians refused to patch up a Peace so easily they require express and particular Declarations from the other Presbyterians and desire that what Mr. Shi●lds and his Two Brethren did may be considered as their own Private Deed and not the Deed of the whole Party and it is said the Breach is rather wider than it was before Mr. Howston who now heads the Cameronians refused to submit his Call to the Kirk of Kilsyth to the Presbytery of Glasgow and when one who was sent from that Presbytery to preach there possessed the Pulpit it 's reported that he went up to a Loft or Gallery in the Church and instead of instructing the people they fell soul upon one another Whatever be of this it 's certain the Parish was divided upon this Head and one part followed the one and another the other To such a height is this difference arrived that it canbe decided by no meaner person than the King so that Mr. Howston went to Flanders that King William might interpose his Authority for repairing the Injury he had received and I am told that he not only complained of his own Treatment but also represented to his Majesty that the Assembly and other Presbyterians took measures that were not good either for Church or Kingdom Thus though they will not acknowledge the King to be the Head of their Kirk yet they as well as others will have recourse to him on occasion He succeeded so well that he procured two Letters from the King in his behalf one to the Council another to the Presbytery of Glasgow He delivered the first to my Lord Crawford and went with the other to Glasgow The Presbytery received it and to prevent any Protestation he might make for their not obeying it they said to him that some of the Brethren should be appointed to confer with him and in the mean time they dissolved the Meeting and did nothing Upon this he returned to Edinburgh to be redressed by the Council but when he came there he found that his Letter had never been produc'd and Crawford to whom he had delivered it had taken Journey for London so that he is still where he was and by this it appears that Kings Recommendations avail but little with some Men. This Howston has a Brother who also will not unite with our Assembly men but goes up and down drawing People from them as they were

was judged by his first resolution and if there were but the least flaw in ones compliance he was dealt with as if he had not offered any compliance at all By these means a great many more of the Episcopal Clergy were laid aside and the Presbyterians would have been glad to have had all turned out this way for then they thought the Odium would not lye upon them But this method failed at last too for the Council became weary of it as they had reason so the next thing resolved on as was reported was to procure an Act of Parliament for declaring all the Churches within the Kingdom vacant The pretence was that the present Incumbents were all obtruded upon the Parishes and therefore it was fit that the people should have their free choice and be allowed to call Ministers suitable to their own Inclinations but they were advised not to propose this as that which would be very far from serving their design because upon calculation it would be found that most of the Parishes within the Kingdom would call back their own Ministers or other Episcopal ones for by this time the people were every where shewing their disgust both at Presbytery and the present Presbyterians and by manifold instances it appeared that neither of them were acceptable to the greater and better part of the Nation Seeing therefore they could work no more by other mens means the Presbyterian Clergy resolved to do the work themselves howsoever invidious it may seem to be and for this end they got the Government of the Church and all Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction by Act of Parliament put into their own hands When the Covenant was in force they found good service of Itinerant Committees or Commissions and they judged it would be of no less use now to set them up again and so before the rising of the Assembly two were appointed one for the South and an other for the North with full power to visit all Ministers and to purge out of the Church such as should be thought Insufficient Scandalous Erroneous or supinely Negligent The Names of the persons appointed for these Commissions together with an Abstract of their Instructions are set down page 53 54 and 55. of the Hi●●orical Relation of the General Assembly The giving them Instructions seemed to limit them but in truth they have all the power of a General Assembly it self and are so much freer that they have not one from the King to check and controul them I shall begin with the Committee or Commission for the South which according to appointment sate down at Edinburgh the 21st of Ianuary 91. being the third Wednesday of that Month. Several Ministers up and down the Country received citations to appear before them and among the rest Mr. Alexander Malcolm Mr. Iames Hutchison Mr. Iohn Farqhuar three Ministers of Edinburgh Mr. Kay at Leith Mr. Samuel Nimbo Minister of Collinton Mr. Andrew Lumsden Minister at Dudduston and Mr. Iohn Monro Minister at Sterline There was also many others whose Processes had been referred to them either by the General Assembly or some particular Presbyteries The three Ministers of Edinburgh received the Citation on Saturday the 10th of Ianuary betwixt Nine and Ten a Clock at Night which both the Ministers and others constructed to be done on design to discompose them for Preaching the day following At this very hour also they sent a Summons to Dr. Robe●●son Minister of the Gray-frier-Church in Edinburgh who had been Sick for a long time and whom all the City knew to be then in Articulo mortis as indeed he died some few hours after The tenor of the Summons was this To compeir before the Commission upon the twenty first of January to be tryed in Life and Doctrine and discharge of the Duties of the Ministerial Function and censured by the said Commission as they shall think Iust. Mr. Alexander Malcolm Mr. Iames Hutchison Mr. Iohn Farqhuar Mr. Samuel Nimbo and Mr. Andrew Lumsden met and all of them resolved to take the same joint-measures seeing they were all in the same Circumstances Accordingly on the 21st day of Ianuary to which they had been cited Mr. Iames Hutchison presented himself before the Commission and in his own Name and in Name of the other four he desired of the Commission a special Citation containing and expressly naming their Crime or Crimes for which they were to be tryed and censured the Accusers and Witnesses Names and a competent time for preparing such Defences as were legal and just but all this was flatly denied The next day Mr. Malcolm compeired and proposed in his own Name and in the Name of his Brethren the same things and had the same answer for Mr. Kennedy the Moderator said That the Commission was not bound to give an account why they Summoned them nor to tell who were their Accusers nor for what they were Accused or who were to Witness against them but that being cited they were obliged to answer instantly to what should be asked of them and if they refused he told them the Commission had power to Censure them and would do it To which Mr. Malcolm replied That it was illegal to Summon any Super inquirendis that he and his Brethren were not bound either by Civil Laws or Ecclesiastical Cannons to regard or obey general citations and that none of them would answer except they got citations which were special and particular He added That they were more unjust than Festus a Heathen Judge for he thought it unreasonable to send a prisoner to Caesar and not withal to signifie the crimes laid against him but saith he we are here convened before you and you 'll not tell us for what cause Upon this he was ordered by the Moderator to remove Ianuary the 23d these five Ministers to free themselves of farther trouble from the Commission resolved to disown and decline their Authority and so they sent one Mr. French as Proctor for them with the following Declaration which he delivered and took Instruments upon the delivery of it WE under-subscribers Mr. Alexander Malcolm James Hutchison John Farqhuar Ministers of Edinburgh Mr. Samuel Nimbo Minister of Collinton and Andrew Lumsden Minister of Duddiston being continued in the peaceable Exercise of our Ministerial Function notwithstanding of the alteration of the Church-government by Act of Parliament and being under the protection of their present Majesties by our Submission and Obedience to Authority and we being nevertheless cited to compeir before the Commission of the late General Assembly to hear and see the Iudgment of the said Commission given anent us and our Session Books and Records and to hear and see such tryal taken of our Life Doctrine and discharge of the Duties of our Function as the said Commission shall think Iust. We having all of us considered the import of the said compeirance upon the Citations given us do hereby declare That we have no freedom in our Consciences to compeir or