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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42357	Protesters no subverters, and presbyterie no papacie; or, A vindication of the protesting brethren, and of the government of the kirk of Scotland from the aspersions unjustly cast upon them, in a late pamphlet of some of the resolution-party, entituled, A declaration, &c. With a discovery of the insufficiency, inequality and iniquity of the things propounded in that pamphlet, as overtures of union and peace. Especially, of the iniquity of that absolute and unlimited submission to the sentences of church-judicatories that is holden forth therein, and most unjustly pleaded to belong to the being and essence of presbyterial government. By some witnesses to the way of the protestation.	Guthrie, James, 1612?-1661, attributed name.	1658 (1658)	Wing G2264; ESTC R221886	66,607	126

themselves told a whole Synod that they ought to esteem that best which seemeth so to superiours and that this is a sufficient ground to the conscience for obeying though the thing be inconvenient We say that Congregations ought indeed to be subject to Presbyteries and Synods yet not absolutely but in the Lord and in things lawfull and to this purpose the constitutions of Presbyteries and Synods are to be examined by the judgement of Christian discretion for a Synod is judex judicandus and regula regulata so that it ought not to be blindly obeyed whether the Ordinances be convenient or inconvenient Having now vindicated the Protesting Brethren from the Aspersions unjustly cast upon them in that Declaration and given a Reason why they cannot accept thereof as containing right and fit foundations of Union We have only to add That we know and are perswaded in our spirits that as the divisions of this Church are amongst the deepest wounds and greatest afflictions of their souls so there is nothing next unto communion and fellowship with God in his Truth which they do more earnestly desire than a sinlesse Union and Peace in the Church and would redeem it at any rate that shall not pollute their consciences and widen the breach with God And therefore as through the goodnesse and mercy of God these Brethren have a witness of their innocency and of the justice of their cause in the hearts of many of the precious and godly in the Land So we desire that none of the Lord's People will receive the accusations that are laid against them or look upon them as men of implacable spirits who hold up contention and division in the Church but esteem them such as stand for the defence of the Truth and are seeking and pursuing such an Union and Peace as may be not for the destruction but for the preservation of the Truth and Cause of God which they conceive themselves bound to and tender before their own Persons and Ministery POSTSCRIPT AFter that this Answer was sent to the Presse the Authors of the Declaration to which it doth contain a Reply together with several other Brethren of their judgment meeting at Edinburgh in an extrajudicial way two moneths after the first publishing thereof did resolve that the Declaration should be tendered to the several Presbyteries of that judgement for their approbation and thereafter offered by them to the Protesting Brethren in the several parts of the Country and that their Answer should be desired thereupon Whether the imputation which they conceived to be cast upon them by some Synods ref●…sing to declare themselves as to their approving thereof of which we have had a credible report or any other consideration did lead them hereunto we shall not determine but we cannot but take notice 1. That herein they have had little or no regard to the due liberty of Presbyteries and Synods notwithstanding of their great pretentions and professions unto the contrary in all their debates with the Protesting Brethren a few private persons having first without acquainting them with that Paper or desiring their approbation thereof published the same as the Iudgment and in the Name of the Brethren who are for the established Government of the Kirk of Scotland and then ex post facto a long time after it had gone abroad materially in their names to endeavour to engage them in the approbation thereof 2. That the Presbyteries of that judgment have walked in a very different and dissonant way in order to that without justifying the Narrative 〈◊〉 and others having approven the whole Paper Title and Body as it stands and in these tearms tendered it as a ground of Union and Peace 3. That sundry of these Brethren and Presbyteries of the Resolution judgment who have approven and tendered this Paper to several of the Protesting Breth●…en have done it in such a way as doth more savour of the customs of litigious men than doth beseem the Gospel and Servants of Iesus Christ to wit by Civil Notaries and Instruments required under their hand 4. That some Presbyteries of that judgment have because of some Protesting Brethren of the Presbyterie their refusing to joyn with them in condemning the practices and proposals mentioned in that Declaration as contrary and destructive to the Government of this Kirk declared them to be such as do dissent from the Government it self Besides any thing that is said in the body of this Reply it may by these things further appear what reason there was upon the one han●… to hasten forth an Answer to that Paper and upon the other how small reason from the Paper it self how lub●…ick grounds from the dissonant proceedings of the Resolution Brethren thereupon the Brethren for the Protestation have to imbrace the same as a foundation of Union and Peace Or if they do so in how great ●… cloud of uncertainty they must walk and what hard conditions they must swallow FINIS

so in the end to make them run quite away from their old friends as men to be scarred at like children really afrighting themselves with the things which they devised to afright others But let us come to that upon which they lay the stresse and weight of all these harsh constructions to wit their actings and irregular practices as they are pleased to call them being such as in their opinion are contrary to all order and do clearly tend to the subversion of the Government Of these they do reckon a great many in their Representation published at London which as to that head which yet taketh up a great part of that Book is so fraughted with groundlesse alleagances and grosse mis-representations we shall abstain from our Brethrens word of foul slanders of matters of fact some of them feigned and others reported with all the distortion that a prejudiced mind can reach that we do profess though proportionable and correspondent assertions and carriages in their Agent and his industrious spreading of it did make us conceive that it might be his yet untill now that they have owned it in a publick Declaration we could hardly be perswaded that it was theirs But we shall leave th●… full answering of these things to its proper place and shall now only speak to those particulars tha●… are shortly repeated in their Declaration And i●… the entry do desire our Brethren seriously to consider whether they have done well by their departing from their former principles in order to the Malignant party and hugging them in their arms and bringing them into the Judicatories of State and Kirk against a publick solemn Vow and Engagement sworn by the whole Land to the Lord to the contrary and by abusing the Government and turning the edge both of Doctrine and of Discipline from off them and against their Brethren and many of the Godly in the Nation to tempt them to cast at the Government and to fall upon means of defence that haply might have been prejudicial thereunto We do professe we do judge it a special mercy to this whole Church that these things have not prevailed upon the protesting Brethren to the designing and doing of that really wherewith they are unjustly charged and if God had not instructed them with a strong hand to the contrary who knows but corruption meeting with great provocations and strong temptations might have turned them aside to such unhappy purposes It shall be our Brethrens wisdom if they desire to preserve the Government to improve it to edification and for the comfort and encouraging of the Godly and purging of the House of God otherwise all their professing and pleading and appearing for it will do but little to commend it to men's consciences and if it have not a root there it is not like long to subsist in outward professions The first particular is as they call it The declining the Authority of the supream Church-Iudicatories of this Nation once and again They mean the Protestations against the two late pretended Assemblies at S. Andrews and Dundee and Edinburgh in both which the Government of the Church by Presbyteries and Synods National and Provincial is clearly asserted and an honourable testimony given thereunto by the protesting Brethren with distinct and full profession of their purpose and resolution to adhere thereunto Nor is there in ●…ny of these Protestations nor in any thing of theirs that hath been w●…itten or published in defence thereof one tittle that strikes against any thing that relateth to the intrinsecal constitution and being of the Government of the Kirk of Scotland but all the reasons of the Protestations against those meetings are upon the undue qualifications of and prelimitations made by persons assuming the exercise of Government with such other things as are altogether extrinseck to the Government it self they have learned to distinguish betwixt the Government of the Church and the male-administrations and Corruptions of the Church-Governors and not to condemn the one when they are necessarily called to give a testimony against the other Yea the duty and care they owe to the preservation of the Government constraineth them to testifie against the abusing and cortupting of it So did our fathers of old whose Protestations against corrupt National Church Assemblies are upon record to this day and so far have they been by men of sound judgments from being judged because thereof to be against the Government that they are honoured amongst the greatest patrons and preservers thereof The protesting Brethren do not acknowledge these two Meetings to be any of the supream Church-Judicatories in this Nation nor to have any Authority belonging unto them but look upon them as unfree and corrupt Assemblies for the reasons long ago published to the world that have not upon them the stamp of any of the Courts of Jesus Christ neither do they think that testifying against the corruptions of many of these that are now in the exercise of the Government of the Church is to dissent from or to do injury to the Government it self And we cannot but say whatever be our Brethren's intentions in studying some way to wrap up the Authority of these two Meetings and of that part of the Ministerial Church which is of their judgment as it were in the very being of the Government for this they seem to hint though it be not directly spoke in that word of the established Government and Iudicatories of this Kirk which they set in the frontispiece and carry along in their Paper as if the Government could not be owned nor subsist the Authority of these two Meetings being denied and the corruptions of men discovered and acknowledged We say whatsoever they do herein to please themselves and to amuse the ignorant yet the protesting Brethren do not so judge and the other by doing so make moe adversaries to the ●…overnment than there is just cause ●…he second particular which they alleage is Their planting of Congregations in a tumultuous and disorderly way without respect to the Iudicatories of the Kirk or to the just interest of the People of the Congregation and counteracting to the resolutions and determinations of the Iudicatories when any of them are pleased to be dissatisfied therewith To carry on the great things of God that do concern the Kingdom of His Son Jesus Christ and the eternal state of souls in a tumultuous and disorderly way though there were no more were a fault great enough but to do it upon no better foundations than meer pleasure and for no better ends but for serving of our own lusts were a very grievous and hatefull sin But let us see what cause there is ●…or this great charge The resolution Brethren did by those Resolutions of theirs taken in an occasional meeting of the Commissioners of the General Assembly many of that number receiving either no advertisement or else such as was out of time to keep the meeting in the year 1651. give their judgment

and advice unto the State concerning the capacity of the Malignant-party who were before that time excluded from all Publick Trust in the Army and in the Judicatories Civil and Ecclesiastick and debarred from the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and from having hand in the Election of Ministers in order to Civil Trust and the matter being generally much stumbled at by the Godly in the Land they did a little thereaf●…er whether for the allaying of that offence or 〈◊〉 considerations best known to themselves sudd●…nly and contrary to Acts made by themselves receive them to a shadow of publick repentance or to a mock-repentance We may justly and with grief of heart call it so because God was thereby mocked and sin and wrath increased and though these Brethren may deny it and love not to hear it yet not only the Godly but the Body of the Land are witnesses and do bear record of it yea that party themselves are witnesses and do make it the matter of their sporting to this day by this semblance of repentance they were made capable of all Church-priviledges and put in equal footing for calling of Ministers and ruling in Congregations with men of a blamelesse and christian conversation and of known integrity and good affection to the work of Reformation And when the diet of the General Assembly came having first done what they could for incapacitating all Brethren of differing judgment from these Resolutions to sit in the Assembly by citing them to the Assembly as guilty persons and excluding them from being elected Commissioners where they could have power they did not only ratifie these Resolutions with all the proceedings of those Commissioners who were authors thereof relating thereunto but did also make Acts appointing and ordaining Censures against all persons in this Church whether Ministers or Professors that did not acknowledge the Authority and submit to the Acts and Constitutions of that Assembly concerning those Resolutions and barring all such Expectants from entrance to the Ministery as should not acknowledge that Authority and submit to those Constitutions And in their Assembly of the next yeat at Edinburgh do provide and ordain Presbyteries to take special care that upon the calling of any Expectant to a particular charge of the Ministery before they admit him to his tryals they require him under his hand to passe from the Protestations and Declinators against this and the preceding General Assemblie if he hath been accessory to the same And to promise and give assurance that he shal abstain fro●… holding up debates and controversies about matters of differences in this Kirk since the Assembly 1650. in preaching writing or otherwise upon the performance whereof the Presbytery shall proceed to his trials If not in that case the Presbyterie shall forbear to proceed untill the next General Assembly leaving liberty to the Presbytery or Congregation for planting of the place otherwise And that Presbyteries shall require the same things fore-mentioned of every ruling Elder that cometh to sit and act in Presbyteries and in case of his refusal not admit him to act as an Elder in the Presbytery but require the Kirk-Session from which he is sent to make choice of and send another who for the peace of the Church shall agree to perform the conditions required By these proceedings and practices the most unjust and irregular that we have known in this Church since we did begin to look at Reformation in the year 1638. and which were indeed the great cause of the distempers and distractions that have since followed malignant and disaffected men in Congregations and Presbyteries have got up the head and having the advantage of the Acts already mentioned they do make a bar thereof to shut the door against the calling of able and godly men to the work of the Ministery who cannot bring their consciences in bondage to these things And do labour every-where almost to thrust-in others according to their own heart notwithstanding of the dislike and dissent of many of the godly and well-affected who are best able to judge or if any such happen to be called a stop is put to their trials and admission upon the same accompt or if admitted and received by the Presbytery then refused to be acknowledged Ministers by the Synod And the intrudings of others upon their charges allowed and confirmed If in the midst of all these difficulties and straits whereby they that love the Gospel are barred from the precious sood of th●…ir souls and have men thrust upon them who know not how to speak a word in season to a weary soul nor to divide the Word aright but do make glad the hearts of those whom God hath not made glad and make sad the hearts of those whom God hath not made sad what wonder were it though the gaining or preserving of that which is more excellent and necessary and for avoiding of a greater evil should sometimes and in some cases perswade unto a sinless preterition of some things otherwise fit to be observed in the course of formality and order though yet the protesting Brethren have been tender even of these things and have made conscience as to do nothing evil and sinfull in it self so to do nothing from contempt or disrespect to the least point of order yea they have been carefull to keep within the bounds warranted and allowed unto them of God And if it be fit to compare we may truly say that for all the noise our Brethren make against them for the violation of order and taking irregular courses they have been more carefull then themselves have been and that they have more just and weighty grievance against them even upon this accompt than they have against the protesting Brethren Have not these Brethren some of them intruded both upon the people and charges of other able and godly Ministers already setled Have not others of them being the smaller part and sometimes a very small part of the Presbytery separated and withdrawn themselves from the body and greater part thereof because they were of the other judgment Have they not counteracted and been instrumentall to cause people in Congregations counteract to the Determinations and Sentences of their own Presbyteries and Synods Have they not in Synods violently taken things out of the hands of the Presbytery when there was neither reference nor appeal nor male-administration Have they not refused to acknowledge Ministers for members of the Synod or to suffer them to sit vote among them though called by the whole Congregation and duly tryed and admitted by the Presbytery Have not some of their Synods taken upon them the power of a Gen. Assembly and other things of that kind which were tedious to collect and enumerate They that teach others would teach them own selves And if they would have their Brethren to abhor Idols they would not commit sacriledge If they say that there is a difference upon the matter betwixt that which is done by

them and done by the other take the matter simply and without respect to their numbers and we believe the protesting Brethren will be content to stand or fall by it and if it be the plurality of the number only we cannot accompt that ●…specially in a time of corruption a sufficient plea either for condemning the one or justifying the other The third thing wherewith they labour to make out the designs and endeavours of the protesting Brethren to subvert the Government is as they are pleased to expresse it in the fourth page of their Declaration That they have cast many and foul reproaches upon them at home and abroad both by word and writ that so they might make them hatefull and purchase credit and power to their own party whereby also they have endeavoured to render this National Church odious in the view of the world and exposed her to be a laughing-stock to all her enemies and furnished them with weapons if say they their foul slanders deserve to have credit whereby to fight against her and justifie their opposition to her when her own children bear such witnesse against her And as they expresse it in the fifth page of that Paper their branding Church-Officers and inferiour Iudicatories as generally corrupt that so all of them might be cast loose or at least moulded to their mind If our Lord and Master Jesus Christ had not forewarned us herein we should have wondred that the Brethren for the publick Resolutions should see a mote in their neighbours eye and not consider the beam in their own eye Hath it not been their work at home and abroad in private and publick in print and writ to cast foul reproaches and slanders upon the protesting Brethren That one scurril pamphlet published under the name of Uldericus Veridicus which had been better stiled Falsidicus may testifie of what spirit some of our Brethren are who knowing that the tongue of the poor man the Author thereof would be no slander at home so small was his credit in this Church when he lived that now after his death they have sent his crazie discourses abroad in a Latin dresse to gain credit to their cause amongst strangers in the Reformed Churches and make the world believe the Protesters are men fanatick and abominable like Thomas Munster or Iohn of Leyden But would any be at the pains to turn it into the Scotish tongue it should not only prove a sufficient resutation of the manifold lyes and calumnies therein contained but open the eyes of many that they might perceive by what pillars that cause is supported But it doth most grieve us that the Name of the Lord is so often taken in vain by our Brethren's filling their preachings and prayers in the pulpit with such stuffe as goeth abroad in others of their pamphlets whether it be for scarscity of other purpose or from the abundance of that humour predomining in their breasts we shall not determine but sure we are that thereby not only many hungry souls are disappointed of their food but those Ordinances are rendred irksome even to many hearers of their own judgment and the 〈◊〉 sort are furnished with a common theam for the tavern But to leave this and answer that which is charged upon the Protesters Our Brethren as we conceive do by these reproaches and slanders and brandings mean a Paper of the protesting Brethren which holdeth forth the evidences of the growing defection in the Land with another Paper that holdeth forth a corrupt party amongst the Ministery since the dayes of the Prelates who by the late publick Resolutions for bringing-in of the Malignant party have got up the head and carry the vote and sway in many the Judicatories of the Kirk with some 〈◊〉 Papers and Conferences of that kind 〈◊〉 these Brethren have been necessarily drawn in 〈◊〉 own defence Concerning which we say 〈◊〉 That if these things be indeed slanders and false 〈◊〉 themselves and have been coined and vented 〈◊〉 the protesting Brethren for the ends alleaged 〈◊〉 ly they are great transgressors and wretched 〈◊〉 whom the resolution Brethren have at a 〈◊〉 advantage and if they can but a little wait 〈◊〉 possesse their souls with patience God will 〈◊〉 their innocency and discover the others malice against them and their treachery against His Cause But secondly if these things be no inventions 〈◊〉 theirs but have real and sad truth in the bottom and have been vented by them not out of malice against the persons nor for rendring the Church odious or subverting the Government or any such sinistrous ends as these but that according to the Commandment of God they may plead with their Mother Hos. 2. 2. that free and faithfull warning being given of her backsliding revolting condition the sin might be repented of and reformed by those who are guilty and the danger avoided by those who desire to keep their garments pure And that it might appear that they do not without just reason call and cry for purging of the House of God that insufficient and scandalous and corrupt men being removed from the exercise of Government and the administration of holy things the Government may be preserved and improved to edification and the sons of Levi being purified and purged they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousnesse and ●…hat the offerings of His people may be pleasing ●…o Him as in the dayes of old and as in former years If we say there be truth at the bottom of these things and if in speaking and writing thereof they have these good ends before them which they have professed then may the Lord through grace therein accept and hear and have compassion upon them and His people by finding out the means to purge His House though men will not hear nor pitie but accompt them foul slanderers and subtil subverters for discovering and complaining of these things Th●…rdly To the thing it self they have frequently acknowledged and testified that there is a precious Gospel-godly Ministery in Scotland which they do not confine to these of their own judgment only but extend also to not a few of the Brethren of the other judgment also though they dare not approve of their way as to these late revolutions and are much grieved in spirit and judge it a matter to be lamented before the Lord that they should so far mistake their old friends who strive though in much weaknesse to keep the good old way wherein both were wont to walk for carrying-on of the wo●…k of Reformation as to accompt them the wasters and destroyers of the Lords Vine and become so kindly companions and patrons to men of another stamp that they judge themselves wounded if their sore be touched But fourthly Are the protesting Brethren in fault if they have often bemoaned it before God and complained of it unto men both to our Brethren and others when called thereunto that there be a great many ignorant insufficient and

Expectants being called been thereby barr●… from proceeding to their trials and sundry rulin●… Elders been excluded from sitting and voting i●… Presbyteries and Synods and sundry hopefu●… young-men have been necessitated to remove from the Presbyteries and Provinces wherein they d●… live before they could be admitted to give any proof of their gifts for preaching which the Resolution Brethren throughout the Country do ve●… well know to be a truth that can be verified b●… instructing of particulars in several Presbyteri●… and Synods But besides those sad effects of the●… Acts which are here buried in silence it seeme●… that the Authors of this Paper though they wou●…●…ain deny yet cannot get it avoided that thes●… Acts have been put in execution for they a●… forced to confesse that some few Presbyteries ha●… required these bonds of Intrants to the Ministery only they say that they have been required of me●… of whatsoever judgment as if they had required of men of their own judgment as well as of thos who are for the Protestation so serious are our Brethren in these matters that it seems they love to jest But who gave them this power to require these bonds of men of their own judgment seing the Act speaketh only of men of the other judgement Or if they do exercise it do they mean to bind up men of their own judgment from debating for the Protestation and against the Publick Resolutions or to bind them up from debating for the Publick Resolutions and against the Protestation If so why do they themselves shew them so bad example in their Representation and Declaration which are fraughted with debates of that nature Why do they that teach others not teach them ownselves But what rational man who readeth these Acts will think that they were equally made for or that they can be equally extended against men of both judgments Their last refuge is That to their best knowledge none of these Acts have been de facto a bar to hold out any godly man who was lawfully and orderly called and tried We have already told them that it is a bar to keep some from being called and others from being tried and therfore this though true were but a sophistication as to the point they speak unto but there is not truth in the thing it self because godly men lawfully and orderly called and tryed have been barred from entring the Ministerie by this Act as themselves do well know and whereof we can give the instances As to what they speak of the protesting Brethren that they may but too justly complain that they have been industrious and active to thrust-in men of their judgement and to crush godly and able men who did not agree with them it is but a groundlesse complaint that is as easily denied as asserted For our parts we think that there is cause to wish there were more industrie and activity amongst the protesting Brethren for their duty and that there were more ability and godlinesse amongst the Expectants who are of the Resolution judgement Next they tell the protesting Brethren That though they make a great noise of the Censures inflicted on some of their number by the Assembly 1651. yet they might say much on the behalf of the Assembly their proceeding at that time and of their lenity who did only censure four of their number who yet have never submitted to these Censures and consequently have the lesse cause to complain It seemeth they do still resolve to justifie all their unluckie proceedings to a tittle and that they do rather repent that they have done so little in persecuting the protesting Brethren then that they have done so much Was it lenity first to suspend and depose innocent men from their Ministerie because of their witnessing against Covenant-breaches and then to ordain the Judicatories of the Kirk to proceed against them with the sentence of Excommunication if they should not submit to their unjust Censures That they have not submitted was not because of any abatement of rigor upon the part of the Brethren who are for the publick Resolutions they having caused some of these Sentences to be publickly intimated four or five years time after the enacting of them and having denyed to admit others of them as correspondents though clothed with a commission from their own Synods for that effect but from the conscience of their own innoc●…ncie and of the iniquity and nullity of these Sentences as being unjust in themselves and proceeding from these who had no Authority and yet have they great cause to complain because they have thereby not only been violently thrust out of these Kirk Judicatories where the resolution Brethren could carry the vote but also have been exposed to railing and reproach and hazard from profane and malignant men throughout the Land and sundry of them to suffering and pers●…cution from ill-affected persons in their own Congregations who have upon that account not only separated themselves from their Ministerie and set up others according to their own heart in their stead but done their utmost to thrust them out of their stations and when that could not be obtained have done what they can to make their life a burden and comfortless unto them in all which for ought that ever we did hear they have been connived at by the resolution Brethren and in most of these things countenanced and assisted by not a few of the chief of them who have thought it good service to God so to do but bles●…ed be His holy Majestie that hath not herein accomplished their desires but hath upholden His weak Servants and keeped them from fainting in the day of their trouble And though the resolution Brethren do now seem to proffer some mitigation in the matter of these Censures yet is it being duly weighed in such a way and upon such hard conditions as maketh it nothing upon the matter For why They do not offer that these Censures shall be declared void or null or that these Ministers notwithstanding thereof shall be declared standing Ministers of the Gospel but after a preface of the justice of these Censures they are content that the Synods do take off the Censures that are upon their respective Members which doth suppose and lay for a gronnd that they have been reall and just Sentences rightly inflicted for reall and just causes and are now taken off as these Brethren explain themselves at the conference at Edinburgh for the Peace of the Church which is in stead of making them void in effect to establish and fix them as to the equity of them however a dispensation be granted to these Brethren whom they concern to exercise their Ministerie for Peaces sake and neither is even this to be done but upon their giving assurance of their submission to the Judicatories that is in our Brethrens sense never to counteract any of the Sentences of the Church Judicatories hereafter but to submit thereunto whether they be just or unjust the

no reason of ●…quity in them but their own meer arbitrament and pleasure or though there be iniquity and injustice in them Dan. 11. 36. and when subjection without gainsaying is not only required of private and particular men but also o●… all inferiour Judicatories and even of these that are clothed with lawfull power and authority Was not this the State-tyranny that was formerly exercised and 〈◊〉 for by the Malignant-party to which there was publick opposition made by defensive Armes that are generally acknowledged by all sober men both Polititians and Divines to be a lawfull mean of a peoples preservation from the mine that is threatened by Tyranny And shall we now set up a Church-tyranny the meer will and abitrement yea the unjust Sentences of Church-judicatories for Laws and require absolute submission thereunto not only of private and single persons but of all in●…iour Judicatories not allowing the Congr●…gational-eldership once to whisper against what is resolved by the Presbyterie or the Presbyterie against what is resolved by the Synod or the Synod against what is resolved by the General Assembly If then the superiour Judicatories will tyrannize what remedy is there or if they become corrupt how shall the ruine of Religion or the persecution and oppression of these who desire to keep Faith and a good Conscience be avoided Have the Ministers and Saints and Courts of Jesus Christ received Religion and His Ordinances upon these tearms that if a superiour Court will have it so they shall all crouch down as Asses under the burden and let them without gainsaying they being now cudgel'd into silence by a sentence of suspension from the Sacrament or Deposition or Excommunication ruin Church and Ministers and Ordinances and Professors and all the precious interests of Jesus Christ And shall we say that such a submission is required in this case as though they ought to do nothing but weep and pray in secret How great tyranny is this and how remedilesse a way to ruin And yet this is the consequent of our Brethren's opinion If they tell us that there is no hazard of these things because the Church of Scotland is sound in Doctrine and Worship and Discipline and Government and that it is upon the account of the soundnesse of the Church-judicatories only that they challenge this submission as due unto them We desire 1. to know whether they will grant that such a submission as they do now plead for may be denied to Church-judicatories that are unsound and what degrees of unsoundnesse they will have them to fall into before this submission can be warrantably denied unto them It seems to us by our Brethrens judgement as long as they keep any thing of the being and authority of Kirk-judicatories though they be corrupt not only in the particular Determinations to which submission is required but in many things besides both in Doctrine and Discipline and Government this submission must be granted them because to deny it is to deny the very being and essence of the Government How this shall be avoided we do not see unlesse they say That a Church-judicatory that is unsound in any point of Truth doth lose its being and authority which we hope they will not say having in some of their Papers charged it as heterodoxie upon the Protesting Brethren 2. As we shall be glad that they will confine this submission to sound Judicatories upon the accompt of their soundnesse only so in the case of their so doing we do not see what this importeth more in the matter of submission than the Protesting Brethren are willing to yeeld to wit A submission to all sound Determinations and just Sentences of the respective Judicatories of the Kirk without any counteracting because if it be given to them upon that accompt only that they are sound then is it only to be given to them when they are sound and right in their resolutions and actings which the Protesting Brethren willingly yeeld and be like in some particular cases somewhat more We finde them in their last Paper in the Conference at Edinburgh November 25. 1655. professing that if the case were only of particular persons in things of more private interest and personal concernment and of Judicatories imploying their power to edi●…ication in the current of their actings they would not much contend about it But 3. the Protesting Brethren do deny tha●… the Church of Scotland is now sound It is their sad complaint that there is in the Church the plu●…ality of her Judica●…ories very much practical●… unsoundnesse not only because of their not improving the precious Ordinances of God for bearing down of the kingdom of sin and Satan and advancing the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ but also because of their abusing of them in many things for a carrying on of a course of defection from former integrity and purity and a course of persecution against godly Ministers and Elders and Professors in the Land who cannot be consenting to their backsliding courses therefore do these Brethren conceive that they have the more reason to refuse to engage themselves to an absolute submission to the Sentences of the Church Judicatories whilst the power is in such hands because it were to betray themselves and the Work and People of God to the lusts and will of men We conclude this debate of the nature of that submission that is due to Church-Judicatories with two testimonies of men who are deservedly acknowledged to be great and worthy asserters of Presbyteriall Government The first is of the Authors of the Divine-right of Church-Government who in the 15. Chap. of that book treating of the subordination of particular Churches to greater Assemblies for their authoritative judging and determining of causes Ecclesiasticall and the Divine right thereof do write thus It is granted say they that the highest Ecclesiasticall Assembly in the world cannot require from the lowest a subordination absolute and pro arbitrio i. e. at their own meer will and pleasure but only in some respect subordination absolute being only to the Law of God laid down in the Scripture We detest Popish tyrannie which claimeth a power of giving their will for a Law It is subjection in the Lord that is pleaded-for the streightest rule in the world unlesse the holy Scricpture we affirm to be regulam regulatam i. e. a rule to be regulated peace being only in walking according to Scripture Canon Gal. 6. ver. 16. The other is of our Country-man Mr. George Gillespie in his Assertion of the Government of the Church of Scotland the sec. part ch. 2. page 127. We must distinguish saith he betwixt a dependance absolute and in some respect a Congregation doth absolutely depend upon the holy Scriptures alone as the perfect rule of Faith and manners of Worship and of Church-Government for we accurse the tyrannie of Prelates who claimed to themselves autocratorick power over Congregations to whom they gave their Naked-will for a Law one of