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A77478 A review of the seditious pamphlet lately pnblished [sic] in Holland by Dr. Bramhell, 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. Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662. 1649 (1649) Wing B467; Thomason E563_1; ESTC R10643 69,798 84

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zealous in their doctrine to presse upon the Magistrate as well as upon the people the true practice of piety the sanctification of the Sabbath day the suppression of heresy and schism and repentance for the sins of the time and place wherein they live I his is a crime whereof few of the Warners friends were wont to be guilty of their shamefull silence and flattery was one of the great causes of all the sins and calamities that have wracked the three Kingdoms the stream of their Sermons while they enjoyed the Pulpit was to encourage to superstition and contempt of piety to sing asleep by their ungracious way all that gave ear unto them The man is impatient to see the Pastors of Holland or any where to walk in another path then his own and for this cause would stirre up their Magistrates against them as it was his and his Brethrens custom to stir up the Magistrates of Britain and Ireland to imprison banish and heavily vex the most zealous servants of God only for their opposition to the Prelats profanity and errours The Warner I hope has not yet forgotten how Doctor Bramble and his neighbour Lesty of Down did cast out of the Ministry and made flee our of the Kingdom men most eminent for zeal piety and learning who in a short time had done more good in the house of God then all the Bishops that ever were in Ireland I mean Mr. Blair Mr. Levington Mr. Hamilton Mr. Cuningham and others The Warner needed not to have marked as a singularity of Geneva that there all the Ecclesiasticks quâ tales are punishable by the Magistrats for civil crimes for we know none of the reformed Churches who were ever following Rome in exempting the Clergy from saecular jurisdiction except it were the Canterburian Praelates who indeed did scare the most of Magistrats from medling with a canonical coat though defiled with drunkenness adultery scolding fighting and other evils which were too common of late to that order But how doth he prove The pretended declaration of King James was Bishop Adamsons lying libel that the Scots Ministers exempt themselves from civil jurisdiction first saith he by the declaration of King James 1584. Ans That declaration was not from King James as himself did testifie the year thereafter under his hand but from Mr. Patrike Adamson who did acknowledge it to be his own upon his death bed and professed his repentance for the lyes and slanders wherewith against his conscience he had fraughted that infamous libell His second proof is from the second book of disciplin Chapter II Though always in England yet never in Scotland had Commissaries any jurisdiction over Ministers It is absurd that Commissaries having no function in the Church should be judges to Ministers to depose them from their charges Ans Though in England the Commissary and officiall was the ordinary judge to depose and excommunicate all the Ministers of the diocese yet by the Laws of Scotland no Commissaries had ever any jurisdiction over Ministers But though the officials jurisdiction together with their Lords the Bishops were abolished yet doth it follow from this that no other jurisdiction remaineth whereby Ministers might be punished either by Church or State according to their demerits is not this strongly reasoned by the Warner His third proofe is the cause of James Gibson James Gibson was never absolved by the Church from his Process who had railed in Pulpit against the King and was only suspended yea thereaft●r was absolved from that fault Ans Upon the complaint of the Chancelor the alledged words were condemned by the generall Assembly but before the mans guiltiness of these words could be tryed hee did absent himselfe for which absence he was presently suspended from his Ministry in the next Assembly he did appeare and cleared the reason of his absence to have been just feare and no contumacy this he made appeare to the Assemblies satisfaction but before his processe could bee brought to any issue he fled away to England where he died a fugitive never restored to his charge though no tryal of his fault was perfected Mr. Blacks appe●● fro● the Councel cleered The fourth proof is Mr. Black his case hereupon the Warner makes a long and odious narration If we interrogate him about his ground of all these Stories he can produce no warrant but Spotswoods unprinted Book this is no an h●●tick R●gist●r whereupon any understanding man can rely the Writer was a p●ofest enemy to his death of the Scotish Discipline he spent his life upon a Story for the d●sgrace of the Presbytery and the honour of Bishops no man who is acquainted with the life or death of that Authour will build his belief upon his words This whole narration is abundantly confuted in the historicall Vindication when the Warner is pleased to repeat the Challenge from Issachars burden he ought to have replyed something after three yeers advisement to the printed Answer The matter as our Registers bear was shortly thus In the yeer 1596. the Popish and Malignant Faction in King JAMES his Court grew so strong that the countenance of the King towards the Church was much changed and over all the Land great fears did daily encrease of the overthrow of the Church Discipline established by Law The Ministers in their Pulpits gave free warning thereof among others Mr. Black of S. Andrews a most gracious and faithfull pastor did apply his doctrine to the sins of the time some of his Enemies delated him at Court for words injurious to the King and Queen the words he did deny and all his honest hearers did absolve him by their testimony from these calumnies of himself he was most willing to be tryed to the uttermost before all the world but his Brethren finding the libelled calumnies to be onely a pretence and the true intention of the Courtiers therein was to stop the mouthes of Ministers that the crying sins of the times should no more be reproved in pulpits they advised him to decline the judgment of the councell and appeal to the general Assembly as the competent Judge according to the word of God and the Laws of Scotland in the cause of doctrine for the first instance they did never question but if any thing truely seditious had been preached by a Minister that he for this might be called before the civil Magistrate and accordingly punished but that every Minister for the application of his doctrine according to the rules of Scripture to the sins of his hearers for their reclaiming should be brought before a civil court at the first instance they thought it unreasonable and desired the King in the next Assembly might cognosce upon the equity of such a proceeding The Ministers had many a conference with his Majesty upon that subj●ct often the mat er was brought very near to an amicable conclusion but because the Ministers refused to subscibe a band for so great a silence
any honest man THe bounds and compass of the Warners rage against the Presbytery is very large There is no rig●ur at all in the Presbytery not being content to have incensed the King and Parliament against it he comes down to the body of the people and will have them beleeve the special enmity of the Scots Discipline against them first because it inflicts Church-Censures upon every one for the smallest faults Ans The faults which the Warner mentions may well be an occasion of a private advice in the ear but that any of them did ever procure the smallest censure of the Church it is a great untruth no man who knows us will complain of our rigour here we wish we were able to refute upon as good reason the charge of our laxness in the mouth of Sectaries as we are that of our strictness in the mouth of Erastians We would know of the Warner what are these Sabbath Recreations which he saith are void of scandal and consistent with the duties of the day are they not the stage plays and the other honest pastimes wherewith his friends were wont to sanctifie the Lords Day as no more a Sabbath then any other day in the year and much less then diverse Popish Festivals An Aposteme in the lowest gut will shew it self by the unsavory vapors which now and then are eructate from it That ever in Scotland there was one word of debate about Starch and Cuffs is more then the Warner can prove Crimes till repented of ought to keep from the holy table The second oppression whereby the Presbytery treads the people under foot is a rare cruelty That persons for grievous crimes whereof the Magistrate takes notice are called to Ecclesiastick repentance Will the Doctor in his fury against us run out upon all his own friends for no appearance of a fault Will either the English or Popish Prelates admit Murderers Whores or Theeves to the holy Table without any signs of repentance Is not the greatest crime the ground of the greatest scandal Shall small scandals be purged away by repentance and the greatest be totally past by 〈◊〉 The Warner here may know his own meaning but others will confess their ignorance of his mind Excommun●cation in Scotland is not injurious to any The third grievance he would have the people conceive against the Presbytery is The rigour of their excommunication in this also the Warner seems to know little of the Scots way let excommunication be so severe in Scotland as is possible yet the hurt of it is but small It is so rare an accident men may live long in Scotland and all their life never see that Censure executed I have lived in one of the greatest Cities of that Land and for forty seven years even from my birth to this day that Censure to my knowledg or hearing was never executed there in my days but twice first upon one obstinate and very prophane Papist and next on some horrible scandalous Prelates Again when any is excommunicated by the Church we go no further with them then Pauls command 2 Thes 3.14 only they who are not tyed to them by natural bonds abstain from familiar and unnecessary conversation to bring them by the sence of this shame to repentance for their sins Thirdly The civil inconveniences which follow that Censure come along from the State and the Acts of Parliament for which the Church ought not to be challenged especially by Prelates who wont to allow their Officials to excommunicat whole incorporations of people for a small debt of mony and to presse the contemners of that frivolous and profane sentence with all the civill inconveniences they could Fourthly what ever be the lawes in Scotland against them who continue long in the contempt of Excommunication which is not inflicted but for great sins and after a long processe yet certainly their executon is very farre from all cruelty as they who know the proceedings of that land will beare witnesse What he objects about fugitives it is true when a processe is begunne a fugitive may have it concluded and sent after him but we count not that man a fugitive from discipline or contumacious as the Warner quarrels us who upon just feare to hazard his life does not compear CHAP. XII The Presbytery is hurtfull to no order of men PRaelaticall malice is exorbitant beyond the bounds of all shew of moderation The warners outrage against the Presbytery was it not enough to have calumniate the Presbytery to Kings Princes and Soveraignes to Parliamen●s and all Courts of Justice to people and all particular persons but yet a new chapter must be made to shew in it the hurtfulnesse of Presbytery to all orders of men we must have patience to stand a little in the unsavoury aire of this vomit also Unto the nobility and gentry the Presbytery must be hurtfull The Praelates were constant oppressors of the Nobility and gentry because it subjecteth them to the censures of a raw heady novice and a few ignorant artificers Ans It s good that our praelats are now turned pleaders against the oppression of the Nobility and gentry it s not long since the praelatical clergy were accustomed to set their foule feet on the necks of the greatest peeres of the three Kingdomes with so high a pride and pressure that to shake of their yoks no suffering no hazard has beene refused by the best of the Nobility and gentry of Britaine but natures and principles are so easy to be changed that no man now needs feare any more oppression from the praelates though they were set downe againe and well warmed in their repaired thrones The way of the Scotes Presbytery is incomparably better then that of the English Episcopacy But to the challenge we answer that the meanest Eldership of a small Congregation in Scotland consists of the Pastor and a dozen at least of the most wise pious and learned that are to be found in the whole flock which yet the Warner here makes to be judges but of the common people in matters of smallest moment But for the classicall Presbytery to which he referres the Ecclesiasticall causes of the Nobility and gentry and before whom indeed every Church processe of any considerable weight or difficulty does come though it concern the persons of the meanest of the people this Presbytery does consist ordinarily of fifeteene Ministers at least and fifeteen of the most qualified noblemen gen●lemen and Burgesses which the circuit of fifteen parishes can afford these I hope may make up a judicatory of a great deale more worth then any officiall court which consists but of one judge a p●tty mercenary lawyer to whose care alone the whole Ecclesiastick jurisdiction over all the Nobility and gentry of divers shires is committed and that without appeale as the Warner has told us except it be to a Court of delegates a miserable reliefe that all the Nobility Gentry 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 and anon to let fall so much of their owne ungracious dew as may irrigat the seeds of their prelaticall Errors and Church interest so farre as to charge him to presevere in the maintainance of Episcopall governement upon all hazards without the change of any thing except a little p. 278. and to assure that all Covenanters are of a faction engaged into a Religious rebellion who may never be trusted till they have repented of their Covenant and that till then never lesse loyalty justice or humanity may be expected from any then from them that if he stand in need of them hee is undone for they will devoure him as the Serpent does the dove These and the like pernicious maxims framed by an Episcopall hand of purpose to separate for ever the King from all his covenanted subjects how far they were from the heart language and writings of our late Soveraigne all who were aquainted with his cariage and most intime affections at New-Castle in the Isle of Wight and thereafter can testify But it is reason when the Prelates do frame an Image of a King that they should have liberty to place their owne image in its forehead as the statuary of old did his in the Boss of Pallas targe with such artifice that all her worshipers were necessitat to worship him and that no hand was able to destroy the one without the dissolution and breaking in peeces of the o●her yet our Prelats would know that in this age their be many excellent Engyneers whose witty practicks transcend the most skilfull experiments of our Auncestors and whatever may be the ignorance or weaknes of men wee trust the breath of our Lords mouth will not faile to blow out the Bishop from the Kings armes without any detriment at all to royalty Allwayes the wicked and impious cunning of these craftmen is much to be blamed who dare be bold to insert and engrave themselfes so deeply in the images of the Gods as the one cannot be intended to be picked out of the other more then the Aple from the eye unles the subsistence of both be But in hazard The other matter of his railing against us is the solemne league and covenant The only crime of the Covenant is that it extirpate prelacy when this nimble quick enough Doctor comes aflicted with all the reasons the whole University of Oxford can afford him to demonstrat it as he ptofesses in his last Chapter to be wicked false void and what not we find his most demonstrative proofs to be so poore and silly that they infer nothing of his conclusion To this day no man has shewed any errour in the matter of that covenant as for our framing and taking of it our adversaries drave us thereunto with a great deale of necessity and now being in it neither their fraud nor force may bring us from it againe for we feare the oath of God After much deliberation we found that covenant the soveraigne meanes to joyne and keep together the whole orthodox party in the three Kingdomes for the defence of their Religion and liberties which a popish prelaticall and malignant faction with al their might were overturning who still to this day are going on in the same designe without any visible change in the most of their former principles And why should any who loves the King hate this covenant which is the straytestry the world can devise to knit all to him and his posterity if so be his Majesty might be pleased to enter therein but by all meanes such a mischief must be averted for so the root of Episcopacy would quickly wither without any hope of repullulation an evill far greater in the thoughts of them who now mannage the conscience of the Court then the extirpation of Monarchy the eversion of all the three Kingdomes or any other earthly misery The Bishops are most justly cast out of England As for the third subject of the Warners fury against us our unkindnes to the late King if any truth were in this false challenge no other creature on earth could be supposed the true cause thereof but our unhappy Prelats all our grievances both of Church and Sate first and last came principally from them had they never been authors of any more mischief then what they occasioned to our late Soveraigne his person family and Dominions this last dozen of yeares there is abundant reason of burying that their praeter and Antiscripturall order in the grave of perpetuall infamy But the truth is beside more ancient quarrels since the dayes of our fathers the Albigenses this limb of Antichrist has ever been witnessed against Wicklise Huss and their followers were zealous in this charge till Luther and his disciples got it flung out of all the reformed world except England where the violence of the ill-advised princes did keep it up for the perpetuall trouble of that land till now at last it hath well neer kicked downe to the ground there both Church and Kingdome The Scots were never injurious to their King As for the point in hand we deny all unkindnes to our King whereof any reasonable complaint can be framed against us Our first contests stand justified this day by King and Parliament in both Kingdomes When his Majestie was so ill advised as to bring down upon our borders an English army for to punish our refusing of a world of novations in our Religio● contrary to the laws of God and of our country what could our land doe lesse then lie down in their armes upon Dunce law for their just and necess●ry defence when it was in their power with ease to have dissipat the opposite army they shew themselves most ready upon very easy conditions to goe home in peace and gladly would have rested there had not the furious Bishops moved his Majestie without all provocation to break the first peace and make for a second invasion of Scotland only to second their unreasonable rage was it not then necessary for the Scots to arme againe when they had defeat the Episcopall Army and taken New-castle though they found nothing considerable to stand in their way to London yet they were content to lie still in Northumberland and upon very meane tearms to return the second time in peace For all this the Prelats could not give it over but raised a new Army and filled England with fire and sword yea well neere subdued the Parliament and their followers and did almost accomplish their first designes upon the whole Isle The Sco●● then with most earnest and pitifull entreaties were called upon by their Brethren of England for helpe where unwilling that their brethren should perish in their sight and a bridge should be made over their carcasses for a third warre upon
general assembly IN this Chapter the challenge is that there are no appeals from the general Assembly to the King as in England from the Bishops Courts to the King in Chauncery Appeales in Scotland from a generall Assem●ly were no lesse irrational then illegall where a Commission uses to be given to delegats who discusse the appeals Ans The warner considers not the difference of the Government of the Church of Scotland from that which was in England what the Parliament is in the State that the general assembly is in the Church of Scotland both are the highest Courts in their own kinde There is no appeal any where in moderate Monarchies to the Kings person but to the King in certain legall Courts as the Warner here confesseth the appeal from Bishops lies not to the King in his person but to the King in his Court of Chancery As no man in Scotland is permitted to appeal in a civill cause from the Lords of Session much lesse from the Parliament so no man in an ecclesiastick cause is permitted by the very civil Law of Scotland to appeal from the general Assembly According to the Scots order and practice the King in person or else by his high Commissioner sits as usually in the generall Assembly as in Parliament But though it were not so yet an appeal from a generall Assembly to be discussed in a court of Delegats were unbeseeming and unreasonable the one court consisting of above two hundred all chosen men the best and most able of the Kingdom the other but of two or three often of very small either abilities or integrity who yet may be more fit to discern in an Ecclesiastick cause then a single Bishop or his Official the ordinary Trustee in all acts of Jurisdiction for the whole Dioces But the Scots way of managing Ecclesiastick causes is a great deal more just safe and Satisfactory to any rational man then that old Popish order of the English where all the spirituall Jurisdiction of the whole Dioces was in the hand of one mercenary Officiall without all relief from his Sentence except by an appeal as of old to the Pope and his Delegats so thereafter to the King though never to be cognosced upon by himself but as it was of old by two or three Delegats the weakest of all Courts often for the quality and ever for the number of the Judges The Churches ●●st severity a●●inst Mont●●mery A●●mson was ●proven by ●●e King and ●●e parties ●●mselves Two Instances are brought by the Warner to prove the Church of Scotlands stopping of appeals from the generall Assembly to the King the cases of Montgomery and Adamson if the causes and events of the named cases had been well known to the Warner as he made this chapter disproportionably short so readily be might have deleted it altogether But these men were infamous not onely in their Ministeriall charges but in their life and conversation both became so insolent that contrary to the established order of the Church and Kingdom being suborned by wicked Statesmen who in that day of darkness had well neer brought ruine both to King and Countrey would needs take upon them the Office of Arch-Bishops While the Assembly was in Process with them for their manifold and high misdeameanors the King was moved by them and their evil Patrons to shew his high displeasure against the Assemblies of the Church they for his Maj●sties satisfaction sent their Commissioners and had many conferences whereby the pride and contempt of these Prelats did so encrease that at last they drew the sentence of Excommunication upon their own heads the King after some time did acknowledge the equity of the Church proceedings and professed his contentment therewith both these unhappy men were brought to a humble confession of their crimes and such signs of repentance that both after a renunciation of their titulary Bishopricks were re-admitted to the function of the Ministry which they had deserted Never any other before or after in Scotland did appeal from the generall Assembly to the King the late Excommunicate Prelate in their declinator against the Assembly of Glasgow did not appeal as I remember to the King but to another Generall Assembly to be constitute according to their own Popish and Tyrannicall principles CHAP. IV. Faulty Ministers in Scotland are lesse exempted from punishment then any other men THe Warner in his fourth Chapter The pride of Prelats lately but never the Presbytery did exempt their fellows from punishment for their civill faults offers to prove that the Scotish Discipline doth exempt Ministers from punishment for any treason or sedition they can act in their Pulpits Answ This challenge is like the rest very false The rules of the Church Discipline in Scotland obliges Churchmen to be subject to punishment not only for every fault for which any other man is lyable to censure but ordains them to be punished for sundry things which in other men are not at all questionable and whatever is consu●able in any they appoint it to be much more so in a Minister It is very untru● that the Pulpits in Scotland are Sanctuaries for any crime much lesse for the grievous crimes of sedition and treason Let the Warner remember how short a time it is since an Episcopall Chaire or a Canonicall Co●t did priviledge in England and Ireland from all censure either of Church or State great numbers who were notoriously known to be guilty of the foulest crimes Was ever the War●●●● companion Bishop Aderton challenged for his Sodomy so long as their common Patron of Canterbury did rule the Court did the Warner never hear of a Prelate very sibb to D●ctor Bramble who to this day was never called to any account for flagrant scandals of such crimes as in Scotland are punishable by the Gallows the Warner doth not well to insist upon the Scots Clergy exempting themselves from civill punishments no where in the world are Churchmen more free of crimes deserving civill Cognisance then in Scotland and if the ears and eyes of the World may be trusted the Popish Clergy this day in Italy and Spaine are not so challengeable as the Prela●icall Divines in England and Ireland lately were for many gross● misdemeanors The Warner is injurious to the Ministers of Holland But why does the Warners anger run out so far as to the Preachers in Holland is it because he knoweth the Church D scipline in Holland to be really the same with that he oppugnes in the Scots and that all the Reformed Churches doe joyn cordially with Scotland in their rejection of Episcopacy is this a ground for him to slander our Brethren of Holland Is it charity for him a stranger to publish to the World in print that the Ministers in Holland are seditious Orators and that they saucily controll the Magistrates in their Pulpits Their crime seems to be that for the love of Christ their Master they are
of Jealousie no man did question but all who were to have the managing of that war should be free of all just causes of Jealousie which could be made appear not to half a dozen of Ministers but to any competent judicatory according to the laws of the Kingdom The Warner hath not been careful to inform himself where the knot of the difference lay and so gives out his own groundless conjectures for true Historical narrations which he might easily have helped by a more attentive reading of our publick Declarations The second fault he finds with our Church is that they proclaim in print their dis-satisfaction with that ingagement It is one of the liberties of the Church of Scotland to publish declarations as favourable to the malignant Party c. Ans The Warner knows not that it is one of the liberties of the Church of Scotland established by law and long custom to keep the people by publick Declarations in their duty to God when men are like to draw them away to sin according to that of Esay 8. v. 12 13. What in great humility piety and wisdom was spoken to the world in the declaration of the Church concerning that undertaking was visible enough for the time to any who were not peremptory to follow their own ways and the lamentable event since hath opened the eyes of many who before would not see to acknowledge their former erors but if God should speak never so loud from heaven the Warner and his Party will stop their ears for they are men of such gallant Spirits as scorn to submit either to God or men but in a Roman constancy they will be ever the same though their counsels and ways be found never so palpably pernicious The third thing the Warner lays to the charge of our Church is The leavy was never off red to be stopped by the Church that they retarded the leavies Ans In this also the Warner shews his ignorance or malice for how sore soever the leavy as then stated and mannaged was against the hearts of the Church yet their opposition to it was so cold-rife and smal that no complaint needs be made of any retardment from them So soon as the Commanders thought it expedient there was an Army gotten up so numerous and strong that with the ordinary blessing of God was abundantly able to have done all the professed service but where the aversion of the hearts of the Church and the want of their prayers is superciliously contemned what marvell that the strongest arm of flesh be quickly broken in pieces The Church was not the cause of the gathering at Mauchlin-Moor The fourth Charge is most calumnious That the Church gathered the Country together in Arms at Mauchlin-Moor to expose the Expedition Ans No Church-man was the cause of that meeting a number of Yeomen being frighted from their houses did fly away to that corner of the Land that they might not be forced against their conscience to go as Souldiers to England while their number did grow and they did abide in a Body for the security of their persons upon a sudden a part of the Army came upon them some Ministers being near by occasion of the Communion at Mauchlin the day before were good Instruments with the people to go away in peace And when the matter was tryed to the bottom by the most Eagle-eyed of the Parliament nothing could be found contrary to the Ministers Protestation that they were no ways the cause of the peoples convening or fighting at Mauchlin The Assembly is helpful and not hurtful to the Parliament The paralel that the Warner makes betwixt the general Assembly and Parliament is malicious in all its parts For the first though the one Court be Civil and the other Spiritual yet the Presbyterians lay the Authority of both upon a divine Foundation that for conscience sake the Courts Civil must be obeyed in all their lawful Commands as well as the Assemblies of the Church God being the Author of the politick Order as well as the Ecclesiastick and the revenger of the contempt of the one as well as the other But what doth the Warner mean to mock at Ministers for carrying themselves as the Embassadors of Christ for judging according to the rule of Scripture for caring for life eternal Is he become so shamefully impious as to perswade Ministers to give over the care of life eternal to lay aside the holy Scripture and deny their embassage from Jesus Christ Behold what Spirit leads our Prelates while they jeer the World out of all Rel●gion and chase away Ministers from Christ from Scripture from eternal Life Of the second part of the Paralel That people are more ready to obey their Ministers then their Magistrates what shall be made All the power which Ministers have with the people is builded on their love to God and Religion how much soever it is a good Statesman will not envy it for he knows that God and Conscience constrain Ministers to employ all the power they have with the people to the good of the Magistrate as the Deputy and Servant of God for the peoples true good The Warner here understands best his own meaning while he scoffs at Ministers for their threatning of men with hells fire Are our Prelates come to such open Proclamations of their Atheism as to print their desires to banish out of the hearts of people all fear not only of Church-Censures but even of hell it self Whither may not Satan drive at last the Instruments of his Kingdom The third part of the Paralel consists of a number of unjust and false Imputations before particularly refuted What he subjoyns of the power of the general Assembly to name Committees to sit in the Intervals of Assemblies The appointment of Committees is a right of every Court as well Ecclesiastick as Civil it is but a poor Charge Is it not the dayly practise of the Parliaments of Scotland to nominate their Committees of State for the Intervals of Parliament Is it not one inherent right to every Court to name some of their number to cognosce upon things within their own sphere at what ever times the Court it self finds expedient however the Judicatories of the Church by the Laws of the Kingdom being authorized to meet when themselves think fit both ordinarily and pro renata their power of appointing Committees for their own Affairs was never questioned and truly these Committees in the times of our late troubles when many were lying in wait to disturb both Church and State have been forced to meet oftner then otherwise any of their Members did desire whose diversion from their particular Charges though for attendance on the publick is joyned with so great fashery and expence that with all their heart they could be glad to decline it if fear of detriment to the Church made not these meetings very necessary CHAP. XI The Presbytery is no burden to