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A29750 The history of the indulgence shewing its rise, conveyance, progress, and acceptance : together with a demonstration of the unlawfulness thereof and an answere to contrary objections : as also, a vindication of such as scruple to hear the indulged / by a Presbyterian. Brown, John, 1610?-1679. 1678 (1678) Wing B5029; ESTC R12562 180,971 159

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the Supremacy and the Erastian Designe as hath been shown above And what a preparative this was let any judge I know the Indulged themselves will say they are free of all compacting And I shall not accuse them further than I know or have ground Yet this is certaine that the Kings Letter mentioned such and such Instructions to be given to all the Indulged it is also certaine that this Letter was not altogether unknown to them And when the Instructions which the Council in plain Expressions calleth termes on which they granted the Indulgence the samine was accepted were tendered unto and put in the hand of each of these in particular who were called before the Councel Anno 1673. I heard not of their expressing their Dissatisfaction with these Termes so as to quite the benefite or as we say to cast the bargane thereupon And if all the Ministers that shall ever hereafter be admitted to preach the Gospel in Scotland must follow this example and give but an implicite consent unto these or the like termes imposed by the Council where shall then our Gospel Liberty be And what shall then become of the Liberty of our Church And how shall the Ministers then be called the Servants of Christ and not the Servants of Men 10. By the very subjecting to the Councils Instructions to regulat them in the exercise of their Ministrie they become thereby as formally subject unto them in Matters Ecclesiastick as any inferiour Civil-Officers such as Sheriffs Justices of Peace Baylies c. who yet it may be shall as little observe all their Instructions as the Indulged haue observed theirs this subjecting of the Ministrie in its exercise unto the Magistrate is a manifest enslaving of the same to the unspeakable prejudice of the Gospel and hurt of the Church 11. What prejudice it is to the Church to want the free and full exercise of Discipline that in the lawful Courts of Christ needeth not here to be told And yet in this Indulgence there was an accepting of the exercise of the Ministrie without the full exercise of Discipline save what was to be had in a sinful way by compliance with Prelacie and so a tacite at least consent given unto this want It will not be of advantage here to say that the Field-Preachers or Non-indulged Ministers have no Discipline yet preach For all their preaching is sub cru●e not having so much as fr●edome to exerce any part of their Ministrie and so are allowed of God to do all they can when they cannot do all they would and beside it is alledged without ground for with no lesse signal countenance they exercise some Acts of Discipline such as receiving of penitents than they preach and in both are countenanced as His ●mbassadours But the indulged are under the lee sheet of the Supremacie having full peace countenance and protection as much as in our best times and when our Church was most flourishing and yet dispense calmely with the want of Church-Discipline in Presbyteries and Synods and how some of their Sessions guide and are constitute is none of our Glory 12. Nor needeth it be told what prejudice will inevitably follow upon the want of Ordination whereby a Succession of the Ministrie is keeped up and the word committed to faithful men according to Christs Appointment who may serve the Lord in the Work of the Gospel in their Generation How quickly upon the want of this a faithful Ministri● shall of necessitie cease every one may see And yet the Indulged have accepted of the exercise of their Ministrie on such termes or in such a way as doth utterly incapacitate them for going about the Necessary Work of Ordination Their Transgressing their Bounds and violating the Injunctions upon their peril if so be they do so that they may ordaine some in order to the keeping up of this Ordinance is in so far commendable but is not sufficient to expiat the guilt of accepting the Indulgence which was thus clogged as their whole relinquishing of the Indulgence betaking themselves to the Fields with the rest of their Brethren would prove a commendable after-wit but would not say that there was no evil in their accepting of the Indulgence but the contrary rather VII How hereby our Cause and Ground of Suffering is vvronged THE Lords good hand of Providence having so ordered it that once a considerable Company were willing to endure Hardshipe Want Tribulation for the Truths sake and therefore choosed suffering rather than sin which howbeit it was upon some accounts sad and afflicting yet upon the account that the Cause of Christ was owned the Work of Reformation not condemned but accounted still the Work of the Lord was no small matter of Joy Though it might have been expected that few or none of all the Ministers that had seen the great Works of the Lord should have so relinquished the Interest of Christ and embraced what once they had abjured yet we ought to bless the Lord that so many abode steadfast in the day of Temptation But how joyful so ever it was to see such a goodly Company adhering to their Principles and fully following the Lord it cannot but be as sad and afflicting upon the other hand to see this goodly Bulk wretchedly broken and to see men stepping off and that such Men and so many such and that after such a way as cannot but be accounted a falling off from formerly received Principles and from the Cause and Ground of our Sufferings Now that the Embracers of this Indulgence are justly chargable herewith may appear from these Particulars 1. It was a part of the Reformation which through the special goodness of God our Church at length after long wrestling attained to that the people should be restored to their Right and Privilege of Calling and making a free Choise of their own Pastors according to the example of the pure and primitive Church And it was because they would not renounce this way of entrie that so many Ministers were thrust out from their Congregations by the Act of Councel at Glalgow But in the Indulgence there was an entering into the Pastoral Charge of a people upon the Act and Call or Order of Council without this Free and Full Election of the people The Nominal Call that was precariously had thereafter as to some was but a mock-call and no foundation of their Relation unto these places as hath been seen And how the Councils Act and Order was exclusive thereof is manifest and confirmed by the Instance of Mr Weer's Process Sure as the Election here was null there being none to choose upon and the Call prelimited because the Councils Order did set such an indulged Man over them whether they would or not so the making a shew of seeking or of getting a Call from the people after the Ground of the Relation was already laid was the exposeing of that Order of Christs to ludibrie 2.
of fine gold unto an obedient eare And for my confidence in commending it as a word in season unto the Reader I render these reasons First If men consider the hainousnesse of guilt which the Author hath clearly demonstrat to be wrapped up in and inseparably connected with this Indulgence they will rather say Alas he hath been too long in comeing to make a discoverie of its iniquitie than complain as if he had come to soon Secondly If men take it up in its true nature and tendency and consider impartially the qualitie of its defection according as it is here held forth if they speake their soul they must say That a standing Testimony against this evil is of more value and worth than all of us are when sold out of the ground Thirdly It will not fall under the Censure of unseasonablenesse by any except such as doe either down-right plead for the Indulgence and defend it or else connive at it as an aliquid nihil not to be regarded and it is to me and I hope will be so to many in regard of such that the one may be cured of their Confidence and the other of their Indifferency and detastable Neutralitie a word in season Fourthly Let this silence the clamour about its unseasonablenesse and satisfie yea plead the indispensible necessitie of it at this time That the Indulged Brethren have of late been more hot and high than formerly even to the threatning of men into a silence at its defection by boasting us with a Vindication of the Lawfulnesse of their Acceptance and therefore as to them it ought to be justly reckoned seasonable Fiftly Because somewhat hath been of late done even by the Non-Indulged not onely to the strengthening of the hands of the Indulged and giving them new confidence in their course in obliquo by covering all and carrying towards them as if they had done nothing amisse But upon the matter for it is beyond my shallow capacitie otherwise to interpret or understand the deed by a direct homologating of that Indulgence for now silence as to all speaking against this evil is made the very Door and Porch thorow which all the Intrants to the Ministery must passe I hope they will not alleage that this is misinformation for now we have it under their own hand and the breach of this engagement is brought and laid down as a ground upon which a Young man is challenged And therefore it s now simply necessate yea more then high time to discover and detect the blacknesse of its defection when the Church is thus brought in bondage by it Sixtly The severe insulting over some of the poor remnant who cannot forbeare to witnesse their abhorrence at it and dare not dissemble their hatred of it constrained the Author to give the world this account to convince them how little reason the one Partie hath to insult thus over their poor Brethren and how litle cause the other have to be ashamed of witnessing their dislike Seventhly Because it hath been often and still is objected to us that we have made a hideous hue and cry after it as a theefe but neither would nor could render a reason or prove it to be a coming-in not by the right door but a climbing up by another way And therefore the Interest of truth constrained the Author to give them and the world such a Plain and Publick Account of the reasons of his just dissatisfaction as may abide ad futuram rei memoriam And Lastly Because there is a may be of hope that as some at least of these Godly men Indulged may be hereby taken off and all of them made more sober and lesse violent so it is much more to be hoped that the Non-Indulged will hence-forth more seriously consider what way to deliver the Church from this evil their Brethren out of the snare and how to keep themselves free from the transgression of giving this evil any interpretative countenance for if God put it upon their heart to apply it the Plaister is in their hand to wit a just discountenanceing of this as a defection And withal that they will henceforth appeare more friendly towards the real Lovers of them and the cause and holders fast of their integritie and lesse severe against such who ought to be countenanced cherished and encouraged for their uprightnesse in hateing the Supremacy as the spring and all the streames that flow from that corrupt and cursed fountain and hereby shall they have better accesse when real affection and tendernesse upon these accounts is witnessed to curbe or cure these excesses which are not inseparable from yea incident to the zeal of the best of Saints out of heaven for it is there that our fire will want smoak Deare Brethren I shall detain you no longer from Peruseing this History And that you may in calmenesse and without Prejudice consider what is said and that the Lord God himself may as in all things so in this thing also give you Light is for you the soul-desire of Your poor afflicted Brother and welwisher THE HISTORY OF THE INDULGENCE AFter the unexpected Alteration which proved indeed a Convulsion falling-out so suddenly that came upon the Church after the Kings restauration when beside many other sad passages and too many here to be commemorated the memorie of which may make tears trickle down from our eyes so many of the able painful faithful and succesful labourers in the Vineyard of the Lord were by one Act of Councel at Glasgow Anno 1662. put from their work and by violence thrust out of the Vineyard where the Lord had set them to labour even to the number of Three hundered and above Nor was it enough to the Rulers to banish all those by an Act from their own Parishes but to make this banishment yet more grievous and the life of those faithful Servants of Christ yet more bitter and less vital they thereafter did command them to remove from their own Paroches twentie miles six miles from a Cathedral Church and three miles from a Brugh After I say this surprizing and astonishing blow tending so directly to the overthrow of the Lords Ministrie in that Church and the Introduction afterward of abjured Prelacie whereby the Church became suddainly filled with aswarme of locusts and the many Acts made to enforce a compliance among the people with this defection and actual conformity thereunto and that so violently and rigorously as even simple withdrawing was made seditious and criminal and severely punished the ejected Ministers began to think with themselves that this tyrannical ejection did not nor could not unminister them or make them no more Ministers of Christ so as they might not preach the Gospel wherever they were as Ambassadours of Christ but on the contrary they saw that they lay under the wrath and displeasure of God if they should not preach Christ and that a necessity was laid upon them yea and wo was unto them if