attempt of the royal authority About that time some noble men had got the revenues of the Bishop-ricks for their private use and because they could not enjoy them by any legal right therefore for eluding the Law they did effectuate that some Ministers should have the title of this or that Bishoprick and the revenues were gathered in the name of this titulare or tulchan Bishop albeit he had but little part e. g. Robert Montgomery Minister at Sterline was called Arch-Bishop of Glasgow and so it can be instanced in other Bishop-ricks and Abbacies Now this kind of praelats pretended no right to any part of the Episcopal 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 General assembly discharged them being Ministers to practise any more such illegal insolencies with this ordinance of the Church after a little debate King James at that time did shew his good satisfaction The innocency of the much maligned assembly of Aberdeen But the Warner here jumps over no less then twenty seven years time from the assembly at Edingburgh 1579. to that at Aberdeen 1605. then was King James by the English Bishops perswasion resolved to put down the general assemblies of Scotland contrary to the Lawes and constant practice of that Church from the first reformation to that day The act of Parliament did bear that once at least a year the assembly should meet and after their business was ended they should name time and place for the next assembly When they had met in the yeer 1602 they were moved to adjurn without doing any thing for two whole years 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 to adjourn to the next year 1605 at Aberdeen when that dyet came his Majesties Commissioner offered him a Letter To the end they might be an Assembly and so in a Capacity to receive his Majesties Letter with the Commissioners good pleasure they sate down they named their Moderator and Clark they received and read the Kings letter commanding them to rise which they obeyed without any further action at all but naming a dyet for the next meeting according to the constant practise of Scotland hereupon by the pernicious counsel of the Arch-Bishop Banckroft at London the King was stirred up to bring sore troubles upon a number of gratious Ministers This is the whole matter which to the Warner here is so tragick an insolence that never any Parliament durst attempt the like See more of this in the Historicall vindication * Christmas and other superstitious festivals abolished in Scotland both by Church and State The next instance of our Presbiteryes usurpation upon the Magistrate is their abolition before any statute of Parliament thereupon of the Church festivals in their first book of discipline Ans Consider the griveousness of this crime in the intervall of Parliaments the great Councel of Scotland in the minority of the Prince entrusted by Parliament to rule the Kingdom did charge the Church to give them in write their judgement about matters Ecclesiasticall in obedience to this charge the Church did present the councel with a write named since the first book of discipline a which the Lords of councel did approve subscribe and ratifie by an Act of State a part of the first head in that write was that Christmas Epiphany Purification and other fond feasts of the Virgin Mary as not warrented by the holy Scriptures should be laid aside Was it any encroachment upon the Magistrate for the Church to give this advice to the privy councel 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 Magistrate 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 Kingdom Ans The Warner seems to have no more knowledge of the affaires of Scotland then of Japan or Utopia the Law he speaks of was not in being some years after 1580 however all the general assemblies of Scotland are authorised by Act of Parliament to determin finally without an appeal in all Eclesiastick affairs in the named assembly Lundie the Kings Commissioner did sit and consent in his Majesties name to that act of abolition as in the next assembly 1581 the Kings Commissioner Caprinton did erect in his Majesties name the Presbyteries in all the Land it is true three years thereafter a wicked Courtier Captain James Stuart in a shadow of a close and not summoned Parliament did procure an act to abolish Presbyterie and erect Bishops but for this and all other crimes that evil man was quickly rewarded by God before the world in a terrible destruction these acts of this Parliament the very â—â—â—t year were disclaimed by the King the Bishops were put down and the Presbytery 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 Scots story what ever be the Episcopall boasting of other Nations yet it is evident that from the first entrance of Christian Religion into Scotland Presbyters alone without Bishops for some hundred years did govern the Church and after the reformation there was no Bishop in that Land but in tittle and benefice till the year 1610 when Bancroft did consecrate three Scots Ministers all of them men of evil report whom that violent Commissioner the Earl of Dunbar in the corrupt and nul assembly of Glasgow got authorised in some part of a Bishops office which part only and no more was ratified in a posterior Parliament Superintendents are nowhere the same with Bishops much less in Scotland where for a time only til 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 second book of discipline why not at all ratified in Parliament The fourth instance is the Churches obtruding the second book of discipline without the ratification of the State Ans For the Ecclesiastick enjoyning of a general assemblies decrees a particular ratification of Parliament is unnecessâ—ry general acts of Paâ—liament 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 General assembly 1590 his consent was obtained unto
A REVIEVV OF THE Seditious Pamphlet lately published in HOLLAND by Dr Brambell pretended Bishop of London-Derry ENTITLED His faire Warning against the SCOTS DISCIPLINE In which His malicious and most lying Reports to the great scandall of that Government are fully and clearly refuted As also The Solemne League and Covenant of the three Nations justified and maintained By Robert Baylie Minister at Glasgow and one of the Commissioners from the Church of Scotland attending the KING at the Hague Printed at Delph by Mich. Stait 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 Privy-Counsell and Lord Iustice generall of Scotland Right Honourable MY long experience of your Lordships sincere zeale to the truth of God and affection to the liberties of the Church and Kingdome of Scotland against all enemies whomsoever hath emboldened 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 adherence to the sacred truth of God and their owne just Libert es At my first sight of his Book and many days thereafte◠The Authors reasons of his writing I had no purpose at all to meddle with him your Lordship knowes how unprovided men of my present condition must be either with leisure or accommodations or a mind suitable for writing 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 higgest 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 extreme saucy and his pen so waspish and full of gall that I judged him unworthy of any answer But understanding his malicious boldnesse to put his Booke in the hand of His Majesty of the Prince of Orange and all the eminent Personages of this place who can read 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 French and Latine that in the whole neighbouring World the reputation of the Scots might thereby be wounded killed and buried without hope of recovery I found it necessary at the desire of divers 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 equitable comparer of our wrytes upon the hazard of their censure to fall upon my side The Prelate are unable by reason to defend Episcopacy His invectives against us are chiefly for three things our Discipline our Covenant our alleaged unkindnes to our late Soveraigne My apology for the first is that in discipline 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 Universitie◠of Leyden Utrecht and others to the theorems whereupon our adversary doth build his chiefe accusations may appeare If our practise had aberred fro◠the common rule the crookednesse of the one ought not to prejudge the straitnesse of the other though what our adversary alleadgeth of these aberrations is nothing but his owne calumnious imputations the chiefe quarrell is our rule it self which all the Reformed harmoniously defend with us to be according to Scripture and the Episcopall declinations to be beside and against the line of the word yea Antichristian If our Prelates had found the humor 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 years have stood unanswered or if fresher meats had more pleased their tast why did not their stomacks venture on Salmasius or Blondels books against Episcopacy If verball debates had liked them better than writing 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 signifie his readinesse to prove before His Majesty against any one or all his Prelaticall Divines that their Episcopacy had no warrant at all in the word of God or any good reason Their strongest Arguments are tricks of Court But our friends are much wiser then to be at the trouble and hazard of any such exercise the artifices of the Court are their old trade they know better how to watch the seasons and to distribute amongst themselves the houres of the Kings opportunities when privately 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 himself his Family and all his Kingdoms with his own hands then to desert the holy Church that is the Bishops and their followers then to joyne with the rebellious Covenanters enemies to God to his Father to Monarchy that the embracing of the barbarous Irish the pardoning of all their monstrous 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 known this hundred yeares all this without and before any Parliament must be very consistent with conscience honour and all good reason Yea to bind up the soule of the most sweet and ingenuous of Princes in the chaines of their slavery for ever they have fallen upon a most rare tricke which hardly the inventions of all their Predecessors can paralell They rest not satisfied that for the upholding of their ambition and greed The Bishops unlucky foot is visible in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they did harden our late Soveraigne to his very last in their Errours and without compassion did drive him on to his fatall praecipice unlesse they make him continue after his death to cry loud every day in the eares of his Sonne in his later will and testament to follow him in that same way of ruine rather than to give over to serve the lusts of the Prelaticall Clergy They have gathered together His Majesties last papers and out of them have made a Booke whereupon their best pens have dropped the greatest eloqution reason and
entry from tendering their propositions and before they were ever heard to stop his Majesties eares with grievous prejudice against all that possibly they could speak though the world sees that the onely apparent fountain of hope upon earth for the recovery of the wofully confounded affaires of the King is in the hands of that Anti-prelaticall Nation but it is the hope of these who love the welfare of the KING and the people of the Churches and Kingdomes of Britain that the hand of God which hath broken all the former devices of the Prelats shall crush this their engine also Our warner undertaketh to oppugne the Scots discipline in a way of his own none of the most rationall The irationall way of the Warners writing He does not so much as pretend to state a question nor in his whole Book to bring against any main position of his opposites either Scripture Father or reason nor so much as assay to answer any one of their arguments against Episcopacy only he culs out some of their by-tenets belonging little or nothing to the main questions and from them takes occasion to gather together in a heap all the calumnies which of old or of late their known enemies out of the forge of their malice and fraud did obtrude on the credulity of simple people also some decorted passages from the books of their friends to bring the way of that Church into detestation without any just reason The most of his stuffe is borrowed and â—ong ago confuted These practises in our Warner are the less pardonable that though he knows the chief of his allegations to bee but borrowed from his late much beloved Comrades Master Corbet in his Lysimachus Nicanor and Master Maxwel in his Issachart Burden yet he was neither deterred by the strange punishments which God from heaven inflicted visibly on both these Calumniators 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 design to dissemble here in Holland that ever he heard of such Books as Lysimachus Nicanor Issachars Burden much lesse of Master Baylies Answer to both Printed some years agoe at London Edenburg and Amsterdam without a rejoynder from any of that faction to this day The contumelions bitternes of the Warners spirit However let our Warner be heard In the very first page of his first chapter we may tast the sweetnesse of his meek Spirit at the very entry he concludeth but without any pretence to an argument there or else where the discipline of the Church of Scotland to be their own invention whereon they dote the Diana which themselves have canonized their own dreams the counterfeit image which they faine hath fallen down from Jupiter which they so much adore the very quintessence of refined Popery not only most injurious to the civil Magistrate most oppressive to the Subject most pernicious to both but also incensistent with all forms of civil Government destructive to all sorts of Policy a rack to the conscience the heaviest pressure that can fall on a people So much truth and sobernesse doth the Warner breath out in his very first page Though he had no regard at all to the cleer passages of Holy Scripture whereupon the Scots do build their Anti-Episcopall tenets nor any reference to the harmony of the reformed Churches which unanimously joyn with the Scots in the main of their Discipline especially in that which the Doctor hates most therein the rejection of Episcopacy yet methinks some little respect might have appeared in the man to the Authority of the Magistrate and civill Laws which are much more ingeminated by this worthy Divine over all his book then the holy Scriptures Can be so soon forget that the whole discipline of the Church of Scotland as it is there taught and practised The Warner stricks at the Scots 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 civill Law the Warner may well be grieved but hardly can he be ignorant that the Kings Majesty at this day does not at all question the justice of these sanctions what ever therefore be the Doctors thoughts yet so long as he pretends to keep upon his face the mask of loyalty he must be content to eat his former words yea to burn his whole book otherwise he layes against his own professions a slander upon the King and His Royal Father of great ignorance or huge injustice the one having established the other offring to establish by their civil laws a Church Discipline for the whole Nation of Scotland which truly is the quintessence of Popery pernicious and destructive to all formes of civil Government and the heaviest pressures that can fall upon a people All the cause of of this choler which the Warner is pleased to speak out is the attempt of the Scots In the thresshold he stumbles on the Kings conscience to obtrude their Discipline upon the King contrary to the dictats of his own conscience and to compell forraign Churches to embrace the same Ans Is it not presumption in our warner so soon 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 somewhat in his care what he heard in secret he ought not to have proclaimed it without a warrant but we do 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 laws a discipline contrary to the dictats of his own conscience This great stumble upon the Kings conscience in the first page must be an ominous cespitation on the threshold The other imputation hath no just ground The Scots never offered to impose any thing upon England the Scots did never meddle to impose upon forraign Churches there is question of none but the English and the Scots 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 Parliament of England which after long deliberation and much debate unanimously concluded the Presbyterian Discipline in all the parts therof 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 Presbyteries and the â—ynods in England and Ireland Can here the Scots be said to compell the English to dance after their pipe when their own Assembly of Divines begins the song when the Lords and Commons
it for in that assembly where unanimously the subscription of the second book of disciplin by all the ministers of the Kingdom was decryed his Majestie some time in person always by the Chancelor his Commissioner was present and in the act for subscription Sess 10 Augusti 8. it is expresly said that not only all the Ministers but also all the Commissioners present did consent among which Commissioners the chancelor his Majesties Commissioner was chief But neither the King nor the Church could get it to passe the Parliament in regard of the opposition which some States-men did make unto these parts thereof which touched on their own interest of unjust advantage this was the only stick The Warners hypocrisy calling that a crime which himself counts a vertue The next instance of the Churches encroachment is their usurpation of all the old rents of the clergy as the Churches patrimony and their decerning in an assembly that nothing in the next Parliament should passe before the Church were fully restored to her rents Ans Consider here the Warners hypocrisie and unjustice he challenges the Presbyterians for that which no Prelate in the world did ever esteem a fault a meer declaration of their judgment that the Church had a just right to such rents as by Law and long possession were theirs and not taken away from them by any lawfull means What if here they had gone on with the most of the prelatical party to advance that right to a jus divinum what if they had put themselves by a command from Court into the possession of that right without a processe as divers of the Warners friends were begun lately to do in all the three Kingdoms But all that he can here challenge the Scots for is a meer declaration of their simple right with a supplication to the Regent his Grace that he would indeavour in the next Parliament to procure a ninth part of the Churches patrimony for the maintenance of the ministry and the poor of the Country for all the rent that the Churches then could obtain or did petition was but a third of the Thirds of the Benefices or Tithes That ever any Assembly in Scotland did make any other addresse to the Parliament for stipends then by way of humble supplication it is a great untruth The last instance is the erecting of Presbyteries through all the Kingdom by an Act of the Church alone Answ I have shewn already the untruth of this Allegation the proof here brought for it is grounded only upon an ambiguous word which the Warners ignorance in the Scotish Discipline and Presbytery though the main subject of his Book permits him not to understand The Presbyteries were set up by the King after the Assembly 1580 but the second Book of Discipline of which alone the citation speaks how-ever injoyned by many Assemblies yet it could never be gotten ratified in any parliament only because of those parts of it which did speak for the patrimony of the Church and oppugne the right of patronage How well the Warner hath proved the Presbyterian practices to be injurious to the Magistrate we have considered The Warner a gross Erastian possibly he will be more happy in his next undertaking in his demonstrations that their doctrinal principles do trample on the Magistrates Supremacy and Laws Their first principle he takes out of the second book of Discipline Chap. 7. That no Magistrate nor any but Ecclesiastick persons may vote in Synods Ans Though I finde nothing of this in the place cited yet there is nothing in it that crosseth either the Laws or the Kings Supremacy for according to the Acts of Parliament of Scotland both old and late and the constant practice of that Church the onely members of Presbyteries are Ministers and ruling Elders Is it the Warners minde to vent here his super-Erastianism that all Ecclesiastick Assemblies Classical Provincial National are but the arbitrary courts of the Magistrate for to advise him in the execution of his inherent power about matters Ecclesiastical and for this cause that it is in his arbitrement to give a decisive voice in all Church Assembles to whom and how many soever he will Though this may be the Warners minde as it hath been some of his friends yet the most of the prelatical party will not maintain him herein How-ever such principles are contrary to the Laws of Scotland to the professions also and practices of all the Princes and Magistrates that ever have lived there Prelaticall principles impossibilitate all solid peace betwixt the King and his Kingdoms But the Warner here may possibly glance at another principle of his good friends who have been willing lately to vent before all Brittain in print their elevating the supremacy of Soveraigns so far above Laws that whatever people have obtained to be established by never so many Assemblies and Parliaments and confirmed with never so many great seals of ratification and peaceably enjoyed by never so long a possession yet it is nothing but commendable wisdom and justice for the same Prince who made the first Concessions or any of his successors whenever they find themselves strong enough to cancel all and make void what ever Parliaments Assemblies Royall ratifications and the longest possession made foolish people beleeve to be most firm and unquestionable To this purpose Bishop Maxwel from whom much of this VVarning is borrowed doth speak in his Sacro-Sancta regum Majestas Though this had bin the Cabin-divinity of our Prelats yet what can be their intentions in speaking of it out in these times of confusion themselves must declare for the clear consequent of such doctrine seems to be a necessity either of such Warners perpetuall banishment from the Courts and ears of Soveraigns or else that subjects be kept up for ever in a strong jealousie and fear that they can never be secure of their Liberties though never so well ratified by Lawes and promises of Princes any longer then the sword and power remains in their own hand to preserve what they have obtained Such Warners so long as they are possessed with such maximes of state are clear everters of the first fundations of trust betwixt Soveraigne and Subjects they take away any possibility of any solid peace of any confident settlement in any troubled State before both parties be totally ruined or one become so strong that they need no more to feare the others malecontentment in any time to come Our second challenged principle is that we teach the whole power of convocating assemblies to be in the Church Erastian Prelats evert the legal foundations of all Government Ans The Warners citations prove not that we maintain any such assertion our doctrin and constant practise hath been to ascribe to the King a power of calling Synods when and wheresoever he thought fit but that which the Warner seems to point at is our tenet of an intrinsicall power in the Church to meet as
learned'st of the Prelates find any fault with us yet our Warner must spend a whole Chapter upon it It is true as we observed before the elder Prelates of England in Edwards Elizabeths days as the Erastians now did maintain The Warner and his prelatical Erastian brethren are obliged by their own principles to advise the King to lay aside Episcopacy and set up the Presbytery in all his dominions that no particular Government of the Church was jure divino and if this be the Warners mind it were ingenuity in him to speak iâ— out loud and to endeavor to perswade his friends about the King of the truth of this tenet he was never imployed about a better and more seasonable service for if the Discipline of the Church be but humano jure then Episcopacy is kept up upon no conscience conscience being bottomed only upon a divine Right so Episcopacy wanting that bottom may well be laid aside at this time by the King for any thing that concerns conscience since no Command of God nor Warrant from Scripture ties him to keep it up This truly seems to be the main ground whereupon the whole discourse of this Chapter is builded Is it tolerable that such truths should be concealed by our Warners against their conscience when the speaking of them out might be so advantagious to the King and all his Kingdoms however we with all the reformed Churches do beleeve in our heart the divine Right of Synods and Presbyteries and for no possible inconvenient can be forced to deny or pass from this part of truth yet the Warner here joyns with the elder Prelates who till Dr Banckrofts advancement to the sea of Canterbury did unanimously deny Episcopacy to be of divine Right and by consequent affirmed it to be moveable and so lawful to be laid aside by Princes when so ever they found it expedient for their affairs to be quite off it why doth not the Warner and his Brethren speak plainly their thoughts in his Majesties ears Why do they longer dissemble their conscience only for the satisfaction of their ambition greed and revenge Sundry of the Prelatical Divines come yet further to joyn fully with Erastus in denying not only Episcopacy and all other particular forms of Church-Government to be of Divine Institution but in avowing that no Government in the Church at all is to be imagined but such as is a part of the civil power of the Magistrate The Warner in the Chapter and in divers other parts of his Book seems to agree with this judgment and upon this ground if he had ingenuity he would offer his helping hand to unty the bonds of the Kings conscience if here it were straitened by demonstrating from this his principle that very safely without any offence to God and nothing doubting for conscience sake his Majesty might lay aside Episcopacy and set up the Presbytery so fully as is required in all his Dominions though not upon a divine Right which the Presbyterians beleeve yet upon Erastus royal Right which the Warner here and elsewhere avouches What the Warner puts here again upon the Presbytery the usurpation of the temporal Sword in what indirect relation soever The prelatical party were lately bent for Popery its probation in the former Chapter was found so weak and naughty that the repetition of it is for no use only we mark that the Warner will have the Presbytery to be an absolute papacy for no other purpose but to vent his desire of revenge against the Presbyterians who gave in a challenge against the Prelates especially the late Canterburians among whom Doctor Bramble was one of some note to which none of them have returned to this hour an Answer that their principles unavoidably did bring back the Pope For a Patriarch over all the Western Churches and among all the Patriarchs of the whole Catholick Church a primacy in the Roman flows clearly out of the fountain of Episcopacy according to the avowed Doctrine of the English Prelates who yet are more liberal to the Pope in granting him beside his spiritual super-inspection of the whole Catholick Church all his temporal Jurisdictions also in the patrimony of St. Peter and all his other fair principalities within and without Italy There is no Ceremony in Rome that these men stick upon for of all the superstitious and idolatrous Ceremonies of Rome their Images and Altars and Adorations before them are incomparably the worst yet the Warners friends without any Recantation we have heard of avow them all even an Adoration of and to the Altar it self As for the Doctrines of Rome what points are worse then these which that party have avowed in express terms a corporal presence of Christs Body upon the Altar the Tridentine Justification Free-will final Apostacy of the Saints when no other thing can be answered to this our sore challenge it is good to put us off with a Squib that the Presbytery is as absolute Papacy as ever was in Rome The Presbyterian Position which the Warner here offers not to dispute but to laugh at That Christ as King of his Church according to his royal Office and Scepter hath appointed the Office-bearers and Laws of his House is accorded to by the most and sharpest of our Adversaries whether English or Romish as their own tenet howbeit such foolish consequences that all acts of Synods must be Christs Laws c. neither they nor we do acknowledg His declamations against the novelty of the Presbytery in the ordinary stile of the Jesuits against Protestants The Prelats profess now a willingness to abolish at least three parts of the former Episcopacy and of the pagan Philosophers against the Christians of old who will regard our plea for the Presbytery is that it is Scriptural if so it is ancient enough if not let it be abolished But it were good that here also the Warner and his friends would be ingenuous to speak out their minds of Episcopacy Why have they all so long deceived the King in assuring him that English Episcopacy was well warranted both by Scripture and antiquity Be it so which yet is very false that something of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter had any footing in Scripture yet can they be so impudent as to affirm that an English Bishop in his very flesh and blood in his substantial limbs was ever known in the world till the Pope was become Antichrist A Bishop by virtue of his office a Lord in Parliament voycing in all Acts of State and exercising the place of a high Treasurer of a Chancelor or whatever civil charge the favor of a Prince did put upon him a Bishop with sole power of ordination and jurisdiction without any Presbytery a Bishop exercising no jurisdiction himself in any part of his diocess but devolving the excise of that power wholy upon his Officials and Commissaries a Bishop ordaining Presbyters himself alone or with the fashional assistance of any
know and bee assured that their calling and Ministery is null The words immediatly following are scraped out after their Printing for what cause the Author best knoweth but the purpose in hand makes it probable that the deletted words did expresse more of his minde then it was safe in this time and place to speake out it was the late Doctrine of Doctor Brambles prime friends that the want of Episcopall ordination did ot onely annull the calling of all the Ministers of France Holland Zwit-zerland and Germany but also did hinder all these Societies to bee true Churches for that popular Sophisme of the Jesuits our Prelats did greedily swallow where are no true Sacrament there is no true Church and where is no true Ministry there are no true Sacraments and where no true ordination there is no true Ministry and where no Bishops there in no true ordination and so in no reformed Country but in England and Ireland where were true Bishops is any true Church When Episcopacy comes to this height of elevation that the want of it must annull the Ministry yea the very being of all the Reformed Churches at one strock is it any marvell that all of them do concurre together for their own preservation to abolish this insolent abaddon and destroyer and notwithstanding all its ruine have yet no discomfort at all nor any the least doubt of their most lawfull ordination by the hands of the Presbytery The Prelats are so basely injurious to all the Reformed Churches that their selfes are ashamed of it After all this was written as here it stands another copy of the Warners book was brought to my hand wherin I found the deleted line stand Printed in these distinct termes and put it to a dangerous question whether it be within the payle of the Church the deciphering of these words puts it beyond all peradventure that what I did conjecture of the Warner and his Brethrens minde of the state of all the reformed Churches was no mis-take but that they do truely judge the want of Episcopall Ordination to exclude all the Ministers of other Reformed Churches and their flocks also from the lines of the true Church This indeed is a most dâ—ngerous question for it stricks at the root of all If the Warner out of remorse of conscience had blotted out of his booke that errour the Repentance had beene commendable But hee has left so much yet behind unscraped out as does shew his minde to continue what it was so that feare alone to provoke the reformed here at this unseasonable time seemes to have been the cause of deleting these too cleare expressions of the prelaticall tenent against the very being and subsistence of all the Protestant Churches which want Episcopacy where these men doe still stand upon the extreme pinacle of impudency and arrogance denying the Reformed to be true Churches and without scruple averring Rome as shee stands this day under the councell of Trent to be a Church most true wherin there is an easy way of salvation from which all separaion is needlesse and with which a re-union were much to be desired That gracious faction this day is willing enough to perswade or at least to rest content without any opposition that the King should of himselfe without and before a Parliament though contrary to many standing Lawes grant under his hand and saâ—â— a full liberty of Religion to the bloudy Irish and to put in their hands both armes Castles and prime Places of trust in the State that the King should give assurance of his endeavour to get all these ratified in the next Parliament of England these men can heare with all moderation and patience but behold their fu ious impatience their whole art and industry is wakned when they heare of any appearance of the Kings inclination towards covenanting Protestants night and day they beate in his Majesties head that all the mischiefes of the World doe lurke in that miserable Covenant that deâ—th and any misfortune that the ruine of all the Kingdomes ought much rather to be imbraced by His Majesty then that prodigious Monster that very hell of the Covenant because for sooth it doth oblige in plaine termes the taker to endeavour in his station the abolition of their great Goddesse Prelacy The next hurt of Ministers from the Presbytry is The generality of Episcopall Clergy have ever been covered with ignorance beggery and contempt that by it they are brought to ignorance contempt and beggery Ans Whither Episcopacy or Presbytry is the fittest instrumen to avert these evills let reason or experience teach men to judge The Pâ—esbyteriall discipline doth oblige to a great deale of severer tryalls in all sort of learning requisite in a divine before ordination then doth the Episcopall let either the rule or practise of Presbyterian and Episcopall ordination be compared or the weekly Exercises and monthly disputations in Latine upon the controverted heads be looked upon which the Presbytery exacts of every Minister after his ordination all the dayes of his life for experience let the French Dutch and Scots divines who have beene or yet are be compared with the ordinary Generation of the English Clergy and it will be found that the Prelates have not great reason so superciliously to looke downe with contempt upon their Brethrens learning I hope Cartwright Whitaker Perkins Reynolds Parker Ames and other Presbyterian English were inferior in learning to none of their opposits some of the English Bishops have not wanted good store of learning but the most of them I believe will be content to leave of boasting in this subject what does the Warner speak to us of ignorance contempt and Beggery does not all the World know that albeit some few scarce one of twenty did brooke good benefices yea plurality of them whereby to live in splendor at Court or where they listed in their non-residency neverthelesse it hath bin much complained that the greatest part of the Priests who have the cure of the soules thorow all the Kingdome of England were incomparably the most ignorant beggerly and contemptible Clergy that ever have bin seen in any of the reformed Churches neither did we ever heare of any great study in the Prelats to remedy these evills albeit some of them be provider t enough for their owne Families Doctor Bramble knowes who had the skill before they had sitten seven yeare in their chaire to purchase above fifteen hundred pounds a year for themselves and their heirs what some-ever The Prelats continue to hate preaching and prayer but to idolize a popish service The third evill which the Presbytery brings upon Ministers is that it makes them prate and pray nonsence everlastingly Ans It is indeed a great heartbreake unto ignorant lazy and unconsciencious Ministers to be put to the paines of Preaching and Prayer when a read service was wont to be all their exercise but we thought thâ—t all indifferently ingenuous men had long
agoe bin put from such impudence It was the late labour of the Prelats by all their skill to disgrace Preaching and Praying without booke to cry up the Liturgy at the only service of God and to idolize it as a most Heavenly and Divine peece of write which yet is nought but a Transcript of the superstitious breviary and idolatrous missall of Rome The Warner would doe well to consider and answer after seven years advisement Mr Bailie his pararell of the Service Booke with the Missall and Breviary before he present the world with new paralells of the English liturgy with the directories of the Rerormed Churches It is so indeed that all Preaching and Praying without Booke is but a pratting of non-sence everlastingly why then continues the King and many well minded men to be deceived by our Doctors while they affirme that they are as much for Preaching in their practise and opinion as the Presbyterians and for Prayer without book also before and after Sermon and in many other occasions it seemes these affi mations are nothing but grosse dissimulation in this time of their lownesse and affliction to decline the envy of people against them for their profane contempt of Dâ—vine ordinances for we may see here their tenet to remaine what it wâ—s and themselves ready enough when their seaâ—on shall be fitter to ring it out loud in the eares of the World that for Divine Service people needs no more but the reading of the Liturgy that Sermons on week dayes and Sundayes afternoon must all be laid aside Vide ladensium cap. 7. that on the Sabbath before noone Sermon is needlesse and from the mouths of the most Preachers very noxious that when so â—e leaâ—ned Schollars are pleased on soâ—e festivall dayes to have an Oration it woâ—ld be short and according to the Court paterne without all Spâ—rit and life for edification but by all meanes it must be provided that no word of prayer either before or after be spoken except only a bidding to pray for many things even for the welfare of the soules departed and all this alone in the words of the Lords Prayer If any shall dare to expresse the desi es of his heart to God in privat or publick in any words of his oâ—n framing he is a grosse Puritan who is bold to offe to God his own nonsence rather then the ancient and well advised prayers of the holy Church The Waâ—ner is here also mistaken in his beliefe that ever the Church of Scotland had any Liturgy they had and have still some formes for helpe and direction but notice eâ—er in any of them by Law or practise they do not condemne the use of set formes for Rules yeâ— nâ—t for use in â—ee nâ—eâ—s who are thereby endeavouring to attaine a readinesse to pray in their family our of their own heart in the words which Gods Spirit dytes to them but for Ministers to suppresse their most comfortable and usefull gift of prayer by tying their mouth unto such formes which themselves or others have composed we count it a wrong to the giver and to him who has received the gift and to the Church for whose use that was bestowed Episcopall Warrants for clandestin marriages rob Parents of their childdren In the next place the Warner makes the Presbytry injurious to parents by marying their children contrary to their consent and forcing them to give to the d sobedient as large a portion as to any other of their obedient children and than it is no marvail the Scots should doe these things who have stripped the King the father of their Country of his just rights Ans By the Warners Rule all the actions of a Nation where a Presbyteâ—y lodges must be charged on the back of the Presbytery II. The Parliament of Scotland denyes that they have stripped the King of his just Rights while he was stirred up and keeped on by the prelaticall faction to courses destructive to himselfe and all his people after their shedding of much bloud before the exercise of all parts of his Royall government they onely required for all satisfaction and security to Religion and Liberties the grant of some few most equitable demands The unhappy Prelats from the beginning of our troubles to this day finding our great demande to runne upon the abolition of their Office did ever presse His Majesty to deny us that satisfaction and rather then Bishops should be laid aside they have concluded that the King himselfe and all his family and all his three Kingdomes shall perish yet with all patience the Scots continâ—e to supplicate and to offer not onely their Kingdome but their lives and estates and all they have for His Mâ—je â—es seâ—vice upon the grant of their few and easy demands but no misery eâ—ther of King or people can overcome the desperate obstinacy of Prelaticall hearts As for parents coâ—seâ—t to the mariage of their childreâ— how tenderly it is provided for in England it may be seen at length in the very place cited It was the Bishops who by their warrants for clandestine mariages and dispensations with mariages without warrant have spoyled many parents of their deare children with such abhominations the Presbytery was never acquainted all that is alleadged out of that place of our discipline is when a cruel parent or tutor abuses their authority over their Children and against all reason for their owne evill ends perversely will crosse their Children in their lawfull and every way honest desires of mariage that in that case the Magistrates and Ministers may be intreated by the grieved childe to deale with the unjust parent or tutor that by their meditation reason may be done I beleeve this advice is so full of equity that no Church nor State in the world will complaine of it but how ever it be this case is so rare in Scotland that I professe I never in my life did know nor did hear of any childe before my dayes who did assay by the authoritative sentence of a Magistrate or Minister to force their parents consent to their marriage As for the Warners addition of the Ministers compelling parents to give portions to their children that the Church of Scotland hath any such cannon or practise it s an impudent lye but in the place alledged is a passage against the sparing of the life of adulterers contrary to the Law of God and for the excommunication of Adulterers when by the negligence of the Magistrate their life is spared this possibly may be the thorne in the side of some which makes them bite and spurne with the heele so furioâ—sly against the Authors and lovers of so severe a discipline The Presbyteries next injury is done to the Lawyers Synods and other Ecclesiastick Courts revoke their Sentences Ans No such matter ever was attempted in Scotland frequent prohibitions have beene obtained by curtisan Bishops against the highest civill judicatories in England but that ever a Presbytery