stated degree of Superiority and Dignity among Ministers in the point of Government or to separate and exalt Government from and above the office of Preaching to which it is subservient and to appropriate it to certain Ministri-prelati above others can hardly be determined I need not here caution concerning ruling Elders seeing the more full description of Ecclesiastick Government is here given in order to Ministers in which these Elders being only partiall sharers it is not more agreeable to their warrant then suitable to this position 5. As the grounds of the equality and parity of Ministers by us asserted are by these truths plainly held out so that superiority of Power though still Ministerial competent to the meetings of the Brethren as well over the severall constituent members as over the Church according to their warrant hereafter declared is thereto very consistent and thereby mostly established whether these things all evident in the Doctrine and practice of Christ and his Apostles do not fairely exhibite the principles and platform of a Presbyterian Ministerie and its Ministerial parity Let men judge Really Sir when I consider Preaching to be the main office even our Lords own commission great erand into the world Discipline to be dependent upon it and wholly referable to its end and a simple Ministerial Government only allowed for the regulation and advancement of both and when I do remember that neither the glorious excellencie of the Lord Jesus hindered him to be amongst his Disciples as he who served nor did the many advantages of the Apostles and others extraordinarily gifted and accordingly imployed and sent out as their assistents requisite in the Churches infancie make them assume to themselves or endeavour to settle in the Church any superior Order above the degree of preaching Elders and Overseers whom they allwayes respected as their equals in the work of the Gospel And thirdly when I call to minde that wherever a Church came to be gathered the Apostles did either by themselves as at Lystra Iconium and Antioch or by their fellow labourers as Timothy at Ephesus and Titus in Crete there left and appointed by Paul for the work and charged to leave the place when called therein ordain Elders without any imparity or higher order and that Paul after having testified that he had keep back nothing profitable nor shuned to declare all the Counsel of God but shewed them all things did commit to the Elders of Ephesus the full charge and oversight of the Church of God without appointing any Angel Prelat over them And lastly when I reflect how that in the beginnings of the Gospel at Ierusalem all things almost were acted by Common counsel that where and when the Christian name did first take place there and at the same time we finde a Presbyterie of Prophets and teachers assembled and acting jointly and by the Command of the Holy Ghost sending out even the greatest of the Apostles as subject to them that Paul imposeth hands with the Presbyterie termeth it their deed Peter exhorts Elders as his fellows their Compresbyter when I say I ponder these thingsâ— they do make me assuredly conclude the Ministrie Government of the Church in the way of Presbyterie to be as much Iuris Divini as it is opposite to and removed from your Hierarchie Having thus discovered the foundation and traced the undeniable lineaments of Presbyterie in the Word of God I may not insiâ—t upon the inconsonant deformities of Prelacie only this I must say that though Prelacie were not attended with many and great corruptions and in its exaltation mark it lest you think me injurious to good men had not been alwayes enemy to Religion and Godliness Yet a superiour Order of Church-men usurping from the Pastors of the flock of God the Ministerial Power of Iurisdiction and the only right of Ordination and acclaiming to themselves the sole management of Government as their proper work with dignity and authority over their Brethren hath neither warrant nor vestige in the Scripture of the New Testament but is so palpably the invention of man that it is not a greater wonder that the Devil should have improved it to all that pride avarice wickednesse and villany which it hath produced then it is a mysterie how the world should have been thereby imposed upon and have endured all its rapine sacrilege and usurpation under the pretext of Religion to which it is so repugnant I come now to try how you impugne the jus divinum which we assert for Lay elders and other matters condescendâ—d up on by you and therefore hitherto by me not touched You say Lay-Elders are founded on no Scripture as the most judicious amongst us acknowledge And you wonder that when we urge from the Apostles giving rules only for Bishops and Deacons that Diocesans must be shuâ—fled out how we do not also see that ruling Elders are not there Who these most judicious amongst us in Scotland may be who deny Lay or rather Ruling Elders to have any Scripture warrant seeing your own N. C. is none of the Number I cannot apprehend but for your wonder I think it may be easily satisfied if you will but consider that it is not from the simple omission of Diocesans in this Text that we exclude them from the Church but since it is manifest from the Epistles to Timothy and Titus that the true Apostolick Bishop was no other either in name or office then a Presbyter Nay that by the rules to him set down your Diocesans is plainly cast and rejected like as both in Acts Chap. 20. and Titus the names of Bishop and Presbyter are promiscuously used is it not clearly concludent that your Diocesan hath no Scripture warrant whereas the ruling Elder as he is not in these places confounded and made the same with the preaching Elder but may justly enough share both in the general names of Elder and Over-seer and also in their rules without any incosistence so his liquid warrant as a distinct officer is elswhere obviously extant In the next place you add that the Brethren in the Council at Ierusalem prove too much viz. That our Elders are judges oâ— Doctrineâ— but if their concurrence both in the meâ—ting and in the decree may be fairly understood of an assisting and approving suffâ—age without attributing to all unanimous assenters the same power and Authority of deciding as is very casible in any other heterogeneous Assembly whether our argument conclude from the Brethren as distinguished from the Apostles and preaching Elders and therefore to be taken for ruling Elders or from the Elders there mentioned as including both the preaching and ruling Elders your abâ—uâ—dity doth not follow and our argument is nothing convelled But you say it is absurd to think that that was a Church judicature Pray Sir not so fast you would say that that meeting was not a General Synod for that it was a Church judicature its decree doth evince As
that happens to be promoted and that the order or institution it self destitute of divine warrant and promise and clearly occasioned by evil contention and introduced into the house of God by humane invention could not at first have any thing in it recommendable and hath since produced most corrupt â—ruits Neither the existence of Many excellent and great men in this degree nor the laudable yea extraordinary advantages that the Church hath received from them in the concret can now justify and maintain the Order it self in the abstract If this arguing were good able and well qualifyed men vested with such a power or placed in such a condition have proven and may prove notable instruments of Good therefore it is reasonable and expedient that such a constant order should be erected we might not only have Bishops but most of the Monastick Orders of the Roman Church We finde Peter with the singular benefite of the Church exercing a power of Life and Death and that given him from above and not assumed could therefore an order of Church-men pretending to the like Authority be rationally thence maintained in the Church No wayes Accidental advantages do not commend unwarranted institutions much less can they justle out our Lords express constitution But it is he the perfect orderer of his own house who hath positively defined and blessed its Officers and their power and not left the matter Arbitrarie to the probable contrivances of apparent benefite farre less to the dissembling pretenses of mens Lusts and corrupt Interest 8. It is to be noted that although the great measure of Grace given to the Primitive Church and the hard and frequent persecutions wherewith it was exercised did for a time hinder that strange depravation and incredible â—ruption of wickedness whereunto the setting up of the Ancient Prostasia the rudiment of your Prelacie did from its first beginnings secretly and covertly bend Yet this is most evident that so soon as the Church of God obtained the countenance and was favoured by the more fond in many things such as excessive Doâ—ations and Grants of privileges then prudently pious benevolence of Secular Princes this Prelatick order which in its depression had been indeed honoured with many shining lights and Glorious Martyres attaining then to its ascendent did not only debauch the Lords Ministers for the most part unto idleness avarice and luxurie but continually climb up according to its proper Genius of Ambition until the Devils design in its rise and progress was fully discovered and consummate in the revelation of the Son of perdition 9. This being the rise progress and product of Prelacie in the first Churches as may be clearly gathered from the writtings of these times how it was introduced in other Churches thereafter gathered and brought in may be found in their Histories Only this is certain that as in almost no Church it can be shewed to have been coëvous with Christianity and in all the western Churches where it obtained place was ever a sprig of Romes Hierarchie propagate by her ambition and deceit and the like practices So the Church of Scotland in special was in the beginning and for some centuries thereafter instructed and guided by Monks without Bishops until palladius from Rome did set up Prelacie among us as many Authors witness Nay we may finde it on Record that even in the 816. year a Synod in England did prohibite the Scots any function in their Church because they gave no honour to Metropolitans and other Bishops By these observations having in some sort delineate the mysterious and crooked windings of this excrescing Power in its first motions and setting forth and very clearly and naturally traced its progressions and thence deduced that most prodigious production of the Antichristian Papacie as any considerate man may thereby easily perceive not only how it might but how de facto it hath crept into the whole Church without an Apostolicall introduction notwithstanding of all your contrarie insinuations so I am confident that what ever other advantages these primitive times had above our latter dayes yet our discovery made after so full a revelation compared to the obscure appearances of this wickedness in the first ages of the Church cannot be thereby rationally disproved and your scurrile disparaging of the latter times of reformation as the fagg end oâ— sexteen hundred years doth with little less success plead for the Pope and Antichrist then for your Anâ—ichristian Prelacie As for the rest of your discourse wherein you tell your N. C. that though the ancient Bishops were better men then either Bishops or Presbyters alive Yet in Presbyteries Specially in the matter of Ordination they were sine quibus non and what ever be the present abuse of the Episcopall power Yet it is a rational and most necessary thing that the more approven and gifted be peculiarly incharged with the inspection of the Clergie an order of men neâ—ding much to be regulate and seing all humane things and Presbytery also are liable to be abused the common maxime remains to be applied remove the abuse of Bishops but retain their use In answere hereto I need not inlarge he who knows Church History best will easily grant that as for the first Centurie and an half we have no vestige upon record of your Prelatick power So when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had place their concurrence in Presbyteries was only for order as being the Modâ—rators a consideration of the same exigence and effect whether they be fixed or unfixed and not from any peculiar power proper to them as a superior order A thing so certainly disowned by the primitive Church that even after the Bishops thought themselves well stated in their Prelacie and were beginning to contend among themselves for the Papacie Hierom doth plainly deny them any such prerogative above Presbyters and was not therefore contradicted by any How much more then doth this condemn that sole power both of Ordination and Jurisdiction whereunto your Bishops do pretend As for your alledged reason and necessity of promoting the better gifted over the unruly Clâ—rgie whatever application it may have to that naughty Company of your insufficient and profane Curats or Conformity to the Court yea the worlds prejudice against our Lord Jesus his Ministers and all his followers Yet these two things are most evident 1. That as that lowely and ministerial Government appointed by Christ in his own house admitting no superiority or inequality of power among Ministers is not subjected to and alterable at the arbitriment of humane reason so the advantage of Gifts whereupon you would found it doth so little favour your conclusion that the direct contrarie is recommended by our Lord as its best evidence and fruit he that will be chief among you let him be your Servant and that not only as to the grace of humility but in plain opposition to that superior Authority exercised in Secular Rule whereof the imitation in this place is expresty
me to a discovery which rendreth its event so dishonourable to our King's memory Having run thorow so many examples with such success as we have spoken you conclude And thus I have cleared the Churches abroad of that inâ—urious stain you brand them with But seeing I have so mamanifestly discovered your falshood and presumption in this matter I will not insult over this your folly You go on in the next place to our Britain and tell us of the English Reformation and how that it was stained with no blood save that of Martyrs and that indeed was no stain but as you do well correct your selfe its chief Ornament But Sir if the Reformation in other places were no less confirmed and rendred glorious by this zeal and testimony and withall the People by defensively resisting when in a sufficient capacity did evidence a greater and more universal constancy not versatile by every blast of Authority and ambulatory at Princes their pleasure doth it not rather augment then diminish their praise You adde That in England though a Popish and persecuting Queen interveened betwixt the first Reformation of King Edward and the second of Queen Elizabeth yet none rebelled And what then Pray Sir how or wherefore doth Scotland want that glory Sure I am that the Reformation being established in Scotland after a sharp war and by the way you may remember that Queen Elizabeth sided with the subject both by Pacification Authority and determination of a General Assembly yet we received Queen Mary from France a declared violent Papist without the least question anent her right of Government or any opposition moved against her until provoked by such weakness wickednesse as I am ashamed to mention Wherein then in this regard are we inferior to England unless it be that neither for the favour nor fear of a woman we were moved by any publict act let be by vote of Parliament as the Representative of that Nation to deny the â—aith and again take on theyoke of the Romane Antichrist Or how are you not ashamed to reproach your Nation with a nimious fervour specially upon this occasion wherein our worthy Reformers did make the Court complyance back-drawing and lukwarmness of a few temporizers their great and continual complaint In the next place you tell us that all that travelled the World can witness that we were not approven in our late rebellion and passing by Diodat Spanhem Rivet Salmasius Blondel Amerald de Moulin and others not named as all either in print or publick discourse declaring for you you say There was an act made by the Consistory of Charentoun that no man should be barred the communion for the Scots Excommunication except it were for a crime And this forsooth was a loud declaration of their disowning of our practice 'T is answered 1. Though you could give a account of the opinion of the Nations abroad concerning our late wars yet their judgement in matters so remote from their knowledge and wherein the favour generally born to Kings specially when so fatally unfortunat as Charles the first was is able to create in the most part very little inquisitive a very strong prejudice cannot amount to a testimony of any moment 2. That the more knowing among them did both by their Histories and other writtings also by their letters approve our proceedings might be very easily made out by an unanswerable condescendence nay that the generality both of Dutch and French Protestants did condemne the King's party and their practices I am certain none of these to whom you appeal in this matter can justly disown it As for Diodat and the rest you name why do you not eâ—hibite their words You say indeed for some of them very wisely and safely That they did only declare themselves in their Discourses and Sermons And for these I think you must be excused because you heard them not But for the rest I ingage that whatever passages you shall adduce from them on your part I shall redargue either their information in matter of fact or their reasons in matter of Right to the satisfaction of all unbyassed men Beside Salmasius is most exceptionable in respect he was imployed and got money in the cause and yet in the judgement of many though he had unanswerable advantages as to the main design of his defence he was even in that shamefully baffled And for Amerauld read but his own vain and ridiculous Dedication of his paraphrase upon the Psalmes to the King in the year of his restitution and I am certain you will allow us to think the want of his suffrage no prejudice to our cause Now for your act made at Charenton I confess your not producing of it doth the more dissatisfy because you represent it in termes little consistent viz. That the Scoâ—s Excommunication should not debar unless it were for a crime That you take a crime in this place in its larger acceptation for an offense and not in that more strict and proper wherein Lawyers use it it were disingenuity in me for to call it in question But then how Excommunication can otherwise proceed without the allegation of any crime as you seem to accuse us is indeed to me a difficulty inexplicable whereof I am sure our Church could not be guilty and therefore seing the Consistorie could not doubt that the Church of Scotland did hold an offense and obstinacie to be the necessary causes of excommunication for them to have â—lighted the tryal by us made and judged the particular grounds of our procedure not answerable to the general rule had been breach of Christian communion and charity whereof your naked assertion shall never make me think the French Church guilty withal yow know that the Bishop of Galloway whom you alledge to have been upon this act admitted to the Lords Table notwithstanding of his excommunication was excommunicate upon the accusation of clear crimes So that what you call a loud declaration on the Consistories part I apprehend to be only a loud calumny on yours But whatever be in that act or the Bishops admission upon his own information in opposition to all your vain pretenses of contrary Authorities it is certain that not only the truth and right was on our side but also that our practices were approven yea applauded and we therein encouraged by letters from several of the reformed Churches yet extant upon record But in the next place your N. C. Demanding it you undertake to tell him ingenuously what precedents there are in History for subjects fighting upon the account of Religion And the first you say that you know is that of Gregory the seventh arming the subjects of Germanie against Henry the fourth from whom other Popes taking example they made no bones upon any displeasure pretending alwayes some matter of Religion to depose Princes and liberat their subjects As you instance in Frederick the. 1. und 2. Lewes of Bavier and several others but the latest
subordination of the parts unto the whole in matters pertaining and relating to the body and concerning its end are the inseparable propriâ—ties and privilege of a Society is evident aâ—ove exception which argument is the more confirmed that in the acts of the Apostles we finde the Church assembling and by Common Counsel managing its affaires and determining differences not by any speciall and expresse warrant or command but meerly in the exercise of this intrinsick power competâ—nt to the Church as gathered and erected in one Society This right then and power of meetings being undeniable to the whole by the same reason precedent they are confirmed to the parts the Subordination whereof to the whole cannot be drawn in doubt Thus you see how your own grant affirmeth what you dâ—ny but your N. C. answeres further That they at Antioch send up to them at Jerusalem And are not the Spirits of the Prophets subject to the Prophets To these Scriptures you reply beginning with the last That it is clear that in that place the Apostle is speaking of Pâ—râ—chial Churches which subjection none deny But Sir is not that which you call in question the Subordination of Sessions to Presbyteries Now if the Apostle tell us That the Spirit of the Prophets who in the dayes oâ— the Apostles had many of them charge pro indiviso jointly over the same Church but now a dayes have their distinct charges over Parochial Churches are subject to the Prophets gathered in one assembly may not the Subordination questioned be sufficiently thence concluded especially seing I can hardly suppose you so Anti-episcopal as to be Independant and still to doubt after the many irrefragable demonstrations given by the Presbyterians whether this Church of Corinth was a Presbyterial and not a meer Congregational or Parochial Church As for what else may be in your return I confesse I reach it not seeing that at the time of the Apostles writing we finde no divided Parishes and to fancie that the subjection spoken of waâ— of the Prophets in one Parochial Church such as at that time there was properly none and not rather of the many Prophets having the charge pro indiviso jointly over the whole company of the Beleevers in that Citie in which many parishes were virtually included is groundless and absurd To the first instance you say It is ridiculous to urge it seing they of Antioch sent not up to Jerusalem either as to a Church superior or as to an Oecumenick Councel but to men there who were immediatly inspired That they sent not up as to an Oecumenick Councel I cannot dissent from you seing I finde in the Text no suitable concurse for or vestige of such an Assembly but that they sent not up as to a Church superior is by you ill asserted and worse proved seing 1. The phrases in the letter sent from that meeting that certain which went out from us and it seemed good c. to lay upon you and that the same letter is termed a Decree do clearly prove a superior Authority in the writers 2. Because the example which ye adduce from the jews their high Priest for confirming your Gloss doth plainly redargue you in as much as the Jews consulted not the high Priest his Urim and Thummim without regard to his Authority but consulted him as the high Priest and the Person to whom God had therefore committed them Deut. 17. v. 10. 11. 12. putting them in the breast-plate termed of judgement and not of Responses But you may say supposing the matter was thus carried what makes it for your Assemblies I Answere yes very much for it sheweth 1. That if the Apostles who all of them severally were immediatly inspired and so might have determined this controversie did notwithstanding join with other ordinary Elders or Churchâ—officers and by common counsel give out their Decrees that common Councels their authority in the Church are juris Divini 2. That as the Church of Antioch in which the Apostle Paul Barnabas and several other Prophets wereâ— and the other Churches in Asia received and submitted to the decrees so it evidently intimats a subordination of these making as it were one Provincial Church to that great Assembly of the Apostles Elders conveened at Ierusalem You subjoin in this place That if that meeting at Jerusalem was a Councel then all Councels may speak in their stile it seems good to the Holy Ghost c. It 's answered 1. The connexion oâ— your proposition containeth an obvious non sequitur in as much as it is not from their being a Councel but from the certainty of these Scripture evidences whereupon their determination proceeds that their prefacing of the minde and sentencâ— of the holy Ghost doth flow 2. That that meeting was a Councel of the Apostles and Elders at Ierusalem a conveened in one to Consulte Reason and exercise Authority which severally was not so satisfying â—or the very Apostles to do notwithstanding of their immediâ—â—e assistance is plain from the Text especially Pauls deference to them 3. If you imagine that Ecclesiastick Councels cannot be of Divine right unlesse they have the Spirits absolute and infallible assistance you erre as grossly as he who for want of this infallibility should deny to the Church a standing Minâ—strie by Divine institution 4. Though the infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost given to the Apostles aâ—d being to them in stead of the rule was indeed singular and extraordinary Yet as the Lord to all his Ordinances hath annexed the promise of an agreeable presence which doth not fail the sincere and faithfull improvers so Church Assemblies in matters of Faith to them committed and following the rule thereto prescribed are also thereby countenanced and in sound beleeving and upright walking may both attain to and profess their assurance of the Holy Ghosts assistance 5â— Seing that all Councel-acts and Canons anent matters of Faith ought to be guided by the Spirit and conform to the word of God and enacted and emitted in this persuasion these Meetings that truly keeping the rule and sincerely laying hold on the promise do proceed in their determinations may therein warrantably use the Apostles words and such as do otherwayes are only culpable in the presumptuous usurpation because they have not rightly followed and in effect attained unto the rule of the Word and the conduct of the Spirit which ought indeed to be their warrant 6. Having on these clear grounds declared the Authority of Ecclesiastick Meetings in Matters of Faith I freely grant that in other things which may be incident to their cognition and are not of Faith nor defined in Scripture they have neither the like warrant nor may they use the like expressions and therefore as in this case they cannot found upon the Lords Commandments so they are only to be respected as such who are intrusted to give their judgement and have obtained mercie of the Lord to be faithfull 7. The
this matter would fall under the compasse of this crime However not to rake into this abysse of wickedness that Act of Supremacie giving to the King over all Persons Meetings and in all Causes of the Church all the power that Christ as head of the Church in these things hath or can acclame a piece of such desperat solly that I am assured that as he that sitteth in the Heaven doth laugh so shall he one day have all its contrivers and abettors in dirision in this I am very positive that according to the present legall establishment made in these matters to derive the power of your Courts from or connect the same with the power and headship of our Lord Jesus is utterly impossible That we then who as Ministers of the Gospel do take upon us and exercise no power save that which is our Lords cannot join and partake with your Meetings your self may judge But you say That all that is Divine in Discipline is that scandalous persons be noted and separated from worship but how this shall be administred can be no matter of Religion or of the concernment of Souls providing it be done 'T is answered to argue thus all that is Divine in Preaching is that the truth of the Gospel be declared but how this shall be performed can be no matter of Religion or of the concernment of Souls providing it be done would it not be false and weak reasoning 2. As your Providing it be done viz. rightly is a salvo whereby a man may as pertinently argue against all means whatsomever which certainly are nothing useful providing the end for which they are appointed be rightly done so this quality hath such an exigence even of these midses which you suppose to be of no import that it plainly subverts your Argument But 3. Your position that all that is Divine in Discipline is that scandalous persons be noted c. Is false in as much as this is no more clearly to be found in Scripture then the Persons and Officers therewith incharged are evidently thereby ordained yea this matter is so certain that there is scarce one place to be seen in Scripture for the warrant of Discipline which doth not with the same evidence hold out the persons intrusted with its administration And I will give unto thee the keyes of the Kingdom of heaven Whose sins soever ye remit they are remitted unto them Feed Over-see Rule the slock are Commissions so full ordaining the persons as well as designing their work that I can hardly impute the laxeness of your reasoning to your oversight In the next place for as for your quibling with your N. C. anent the foolish answere which you put in his mouth it is altogether frivolous as shall be shewed in your 7. Dial. you urge That seing that Presbytries do by Divine right acclaime a power oâ— jurisdiction they ought to meet in these Courts let the Law call it what it will even as iâ— the King should abrogate all Laws for the worship of God and declare that all that assemble to worship God shall be understood to worship Mahomet and thereupon command all to meet though we meet not on that ground yet you hope we would sâ—ill meet to worship God how ever it be interpret 'T is answered If the jurisdiction competent to Presbyteries by Divine right were in these Courts your Argument might have some weight but seing they are not the former Presbyteries but new Courts set up as I have already declared no more deriving power from Jesus Christ then your late High-commission how can you think in reason that either the right and power of Presbyters or his Majesties call should oblige Ministers to com to the one more then the other For my part as I esteem it a less sin upon the Kings call to come to a Court of his own erecting then to abuse Christs warrant to the establishing of a Court as his which by its institution manifestly disowns him So I should sooner resolve upon the Kings command to meet in the High-Commission then by coming from the motive of our Lords warrant acknowledge your Exercises of the Brethren for his Courts which are so palpably setled upon the basis of another Authority As for your Similitude not to insist upon such claudicant Arguments it is like to the legs of the lame which are not equall but make it straight thus the King dissolves all Christian Churches and erects Mahometan Mosches charging all to repaire there to worship and declaring that he will account thâ—ir so doing a testimony of their compliance with the change by him made Now if one should stand up and for the perswading of just recusants say that they may safely go there and worship God without either owning of Mahomet or regarding the construction may be made of it Pray Sir how would you understand it And what ever you or any reasonable man think should be the practice or Christians in this case I am content the N. C. be thereby judged I confesse the termes of the Similitude are hard But remember they are of your own choosing and my work is only to make them just to conclude therefore it is not Mens interpretation or mis-interpretation although in many cases these homologations whereby either Enemies may be hardened or friends stumbled require also a very weighty consideration that we regard in this matter but the reall state of things whereby as Christ's power is ejected forth of your Courts So the Divine jurisdiction of Presbyters cannot possibly therein have place To this you subjoin that suppose Episcopacie were Tyrannie and Bishops were Tyrannes in the Church Why ought you not to submit to them as well as you did to the late Tyrannes in the State It is answered if I did think there were any Emphasis more then the strain of your discourse in this your urging Our submission to the late Usurpers I could tell you that though the cases were parallel as they are not all the submission made by us to Oliver would not make out your inference And that it is Your and not Our submission which only can serve your turn I need not mention that Mr. Sharp Now of St. Andrews was the first if not the only Minister in Scotland that took the Tender and thereby deserting his Fellow-prisoners procured his own liberty Nor how the late introductors of Episcopacie were most or many of them such as by subscriving the Tender abjuring the King and the like compliances had wholly deboshed their Consciences unto the perfidious re-establishing of your abjured Prelacie whereas the tenacious honesty of the faithfull of the Land was both then and is now accounted their bigotrie and folly But to the purpose 1. If Bishops had only been intruded upon Presbytries as they were in former times it is not questioned but Faithfull Presbyters not Outed of their possession founded on Divine right might have continued the same with a due Testimony and opposition
against unlawfull usurpations conforme to the old practice of Gods Servants among us in the like case but seing in the late revolution not only Presbytries were broken and discontinowed but the very foundations razed a new foundation of the Kings Supremacie laid and a new superstructure thereon built Our compliance now as you require it would not be an act of Submission but a plain partaking in this wickedness 2. The case of mens usurpation in the State is so vastly different from that of your usurpations in the Church that it greatly alters the latitude of these submissions which you go about to equiparat for though in Civils the aspiring and usurpation of wicked men be a hainous transgression before God Yet such is the nature and condition of the Kingdoms of the Earth in themselves mutable and at the disposal of the most high who ruleth therein and giveth them to whomsoever he will and setteth up over them sometime the basest of men that the attaining thereto becometh such a providentiall title as may sufficiently warrant not only necessary submission and obedience in things lawfull but even these other acts of seeming compliance that do directly acknowledge the Usurper to be in titulo providing that they proceed no further either to anticipate Divine Providence in the establishment or homologate the wickedness of the usurpation If of this you have any doubt I remit you to Scripture-practice the customes of all Nations the opinion of most Casuists and Reason it self whereby the taking and exercising of inferior offices under undeniable Usurpers is most certainly confirmed And this is plainly the case both of State-usurpations and of the largeness of that submission which it admittes Now as for Church-usurpations the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus not being mutable and perishing like unto the Kingdoms of this world but his dominion of it self extra Commercium as Lawyers speak of things not acquirable and by Divine decree an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed As it is therefore incapable of all acquisition and his Crown such whereunto however the great ones of the Earth may bandie together and boast themselves against it neither violence nor possession can intitle So in case of a pretended usurpation though Providence may order a passive submission yet most certain it is that in this case where there neither is nor can be any title all deeds so much as of simple recognizance are utterly unlawful And therefore albeit that under the late Usurpation it was Lawfull to partake in the capacity of inferior Magistracie of that power whereunto the Usurper had in providence attained yet in the case of our present Church-usurpation to acknowledge it in the least by partaking of a jurisdiction founded in the pretended Supremacie and not derived from Christ to which neither the events of of Providence nor immemoriable possession can give the least shadow of title is altogether unlawfull Thus I have unfolded to you the disparity that invalidates your Argument and have also granted the passive submission which Providence and Christian patience do alwayes recommend If the grounds here insinuate do not so easily engage you assent when you shall add thereto these certain truths 1. That in Civils though the manner of purchasing may be in many cases injurious and unlawful yet it may be sufficient to acquire the dominion 2. That whereever the length of time or prescription may superinduce a Right there even from the beginning naked possesion is quasi titulus qui pro suo possidet potest usucapere 3. That although Lawyers speak of certain vitia that in private rights hinder definite prescription Yet all Polititians grant that immemorial possession or even that of three ages is sufficient to confirme over any people the most violent usurpation And lastly that on the other hand our Lords Throne and Scepter are everlasting and such as can never be moved I doubt not but all your difficulties will evanish You proceed to say that our Ministers are content to Preach and quite Discipline a part of their Rights why may they not aswell exercise Discipline though not with a full liberty 'T is answered 1. As I have already told you that to sit in your Courts is not at all to exercise Christs Discipline but a pretended power dependent upon another head so you do not truely accuse our Ministers of quiting Discipline it is well known that in so farre as is permitted they do not separate Doctrine and Discipline which our Lord hes conjoined And if full liberty be not permitted and they necessitat to acquiesce to what the Powers will allow it is very disingenuous in you to misconstrue this force which they suffer unto a voluntaire quiting 2. Though by the manner of your proposing the objection you would have us to believe that the cases are parallel and that in the case urged as well as in that instanced there is only a restraint laid upon a more full liberty yet the disparity is most manifest in this that in the matter of Preaching without the exercise of Discipline we are by force debarred from doing full dutie in which case the doing of a part permitted cannot be censured whereas in the compliance you require the very act is sinful and is therefore and not because we are denied a more full liberty very justly by us refused but having vainly concluded upon the poor arguments which we have heard our Ministers to be Peevish and made your pitiful N. C. confess himself non-plust by his general pretence of Conscience You ask him what he can pretend for the peoples withdrawing from your Churches since there is only a small alteration made in point of Government 'T is answered if all the matter be a small alteration in point of Government it had farre better become that charitable healing and free spirit whereunto you so often pretend to have reflected thus since the change lately made by its previoâ—s perjury and subsequent deluge of profanity the desolating of Churches and dispersing of Shepherds and flockes the disquieting and vexing of thousands unquestionably Godly and Loyal the fiering and filling all the corners of the Land with contention and discontent the burdening of a Countrey formerly exhausted and now expecting relief with heavie impositions and strange exactions And lastly the necessary and worst result of all these evils the provocking the Lord to Anger and rendering his Majesties Government less comfortable and desireable hath occasioned so great a perturbation and yet is in it self and imports so small a matter why do not our King and Nobles consider for what the Land perisheth Wherefore do not all men bend their knees and pour out their prayers to God and the King that so seen destructive and easily remedied a cause may be removed but seing for all your sparingness in passing judgment yet you cease not scornfully to censure a poor people needlessly and unchristianly by you
will admit cannot but be received for a Directory both of words and things But you add That it was but a cheat to cozen the World who might have startled to have seen us without any rule for Worship in as much as our Leaders quickly wearied of it It is answered first So long as any Church doth own the revealed will and word of God for the rule of Worship none but such phantastick Formalists as you will prove startlers at this sure and acceptable simplicity 2. Whence you alledge our Ministers their wearying of the Directory as such except from the suggestion of your own malice I cannot conceive that our Leaders neither turned it nor astricted themselves to it as to an imposed Liturgie is very certain but that they did not at all regard it is a groundless calumnie In the next place you add that Hence it clearly followed that the Preaching was the great matter of the Worship but the constant acts wherein the Church should adore God were thought too homely How you will make out this connexion seing both the ground is false and the consequence doth not hold I recommend to your second thoughts though our Prayers and Psalms related to our Preaching yet it will not conclude that therefore the Preaching was the great matter of the Worship Your Service-book makes many both Prayers Gospells Epistles and Collects relative to certain festivall dayes is therefore the observation of these dayes the great point of Worship The great matter of Worship is the rendering of our acknowledgement unto God which if performed by prayer hearing of His word and praises and that in such a harmony as all the exercises may conspire and be mutually helpful is thereby greatly advanced and not in the least marred As for these Constant acts which you desiderat in our Service if thereby you mean your Constant Set-forms you are already answered but if only the dayly solemn performances of Prayer and Praise which in liew of the morning and evening Sacrifice ought as the stated and fixed recognizance of the great God be observed and kept up in every Christian Society when other things shall be restored I frankly promise you my assent In the last place you say It is the least evill of extemporarie Forms that a Minister is ready to pour out his Soul to God in such devotions as are then most in his own Spirit Which may possibly happen to be very unfit for Publick Worship Sir this is so groundless a fear and so plain a diffidence of the assistance and presence of the Lord that I shall not trouble you with any further answere then to add that as a thoughtfull serious Spirit is ever found to be most prepared for dutie and divine influences so all experiences do conclude that a Ministers particular exercises have been so farre from marring that on the contraire they have alwayes rendered his publick performances more spiritual and lively And thus at length your dull N. C. comes to see that you are for Set-forms and demanding your reason tels you that the Apostles used them not to which you answere that you cannot doubt but they used our Saviour's Prayer and really though I do as little doubt but they might have done it yet I think both you and I must acknowledge that we finde no vestige of their doing of it For as for your distinguishing betwixt Mathew's after this manner therefore pray ye and Luke's when ye pray say the pattern to be proposed in the first and the practice intended in the second seing the form is formally the same in both places and the patterm so proposed by Mathew that the practice might be its most exact imitation and the practice so enjoined by Luke that yet the latitude of a Pattern is not discharged your notion is but airie and of no moment But if it were needful to give you my thoughts in this matter I would say that considering 1. That this pattern was given to the Disciples in the infancie of their knowledge before the out-pouring of the Spirit as a short and easie rudiment 2. That thereafter the Spirit is promised and that in such an abundant measure as it should flow like rivers of living water 3. That our Lord in his last discourse commands them frequently to pray to and ask the Father in his Name and 4 that the Spirit being given de facto they were enriched unto all utterance and both in their own Prayers and in their Directions to others how to pray do constantly make mention of the name of Iesus these things I say considered I am verily in the opinion they did not precisely use either this form of Prayer or any other but leaving this digression and esteeming this Form to be the most excellent modell and the very Substance of all prayer and granting the Apostles might have used it yea supposing with you they did use it yet what makes all this for your imposing and enjoining of Forms the only point of our present difference But you go on and say the Iews at that time had a Liturgie and hours of Prayer which our Saviour never reproves ergo quid I have told you already that to inferre an approbation from our Lords tolerance for a time of either the whole or any of the parts of that service which he was in a short space to abolish totally is bad Logick 2. Admit this tolerance were an approbation how will you make it out that the Iews their Lyturgie was more then a Directorie and that they were thereby astricted to an imposed Set-form Specially seing we finde that where in their best times certain Forms of Prayer and Thanksgiving dictated by the Spirit are committed by David and other men of God to the Ministers for publick use yet the thing was both done and observed without the mention of any precise astriction or limitation In the next place you tell us that the Lords Prayer is word for word taken out of the Iewish Lyturgie and thence you think that exception against the English Service that some of its Prayers are out of the Roman Missal and not or Breviarie to be foolish and groundless But pray Sir why talk you so confidently of the Iewish Liturgie of these times for other posterior Liturgies availl not since to this day though much search hath been made and many forgeries have been obtruded no such thing could assuredly be found Next if such a thing sound and pure was in our Lord's dayes think you it was then no better Pattern nor the Roman Missal Ritual and Breviarie were in the very profoundest darkeness of that Superstition immediatly before the Reformation broke up and when the first glimmerings of that light managed as much by Police as Piety did translate from it the English Liturgie The disparity of these things is too palpable 3. Admitting the Iewish Liturgies used in the dayes of our Lord were yet truely extant it will not be sufficient for you to
it imports to me an excess wherewith we ought not to comply To join with the merit of Jesus Christ that of their own good works nay of their own superstitious inventions and to his Mediation that of Saints seem to me to impinge upon the very foundation which you acknowledge What shal we then say of the avowed gross Idolatries and Superstitions ridiculous penitences and perverted morality whereby both the truth and spirituality of Gods Worship and Service with the inward and genuine Grace of Obedience and Sanctification are subverted Really Sir these appear to me to be a superstructure of such naughty stuffe as neither the sincerity of Grace with which I judge them incompatible nor even the flames of their own purgatory will ever purge away But you proceed That though you will not say that all things controverted betwixt the Reformed Churches and them are matters of Salvation yet in their greater errors such as the Popes Supremacie the Churches infallibility the corporal presence c. you condemne them and perhaps on clearer grounds then we do 'T is answered 1. That the things controverted with the Papists are not all of them such as do directly and necessarily in beleefe or practice appertain to Salvation is not by us denied but where in this your latitude you do in effect intimate such a dissent from the Reformed Churches as if many things betwixt us and the Papists were needlessly by us drawn in question it is such an undervaluing of the will and way of the Lord whereupon even in our smallest differences we hope we are founded that I could not pass it without an observation 2. Whether you do indeed condemn the Papists in many of the points by you enumerate let be on better grounds is to me very dubious You say you are against the Popes Supremacie but how is it then that you have transferred it upon his Majesty and that with a more ample extent then ever was conceded to nay or arrogat by any Pope That the King may enact such Acts and Orders concerning the administration of the external Government of the Church and the Persons therein imployed and concerning all Ecclesiastick Meetings and matters therein to be proposed as he shall think fit is more then any Pope ever assumed Pray Sir is the difference betwixt the persons of the Pope and Prince the hinge of the controversie Or is this one of the clearer grounds you talk of consider it at your leisure In the next place you tell us that you condemn the Churches infallibility and yet p. 31. of this same Book your affirme that even in matters as punctually set down in Scripture as either of these Sacraments the Church may judge that God did not therein intend any perpetual obligation and by her practice oblige us to a cessation and consequently alter Scripture-determinations Beside you know what power you attribute to the Church to impose significant ceremonies and other observances which although you tell us for an evasion do not take away the liberty of inward opinion yet you affirme that they do bind in Conscience to a conformable practice Verily if a Church so impowered be not infallible the concessions are too large but the truth is Scripture defectible the Church fallible and nothing fixed appear to be most aggreeable to the lightnes of your brains and the Conveniencie of your new latitude 3. You affirme that you are against the corporal presence and also the worshiping of Images and yet you are for Adoration to before or in order to the Eliments For call it as you will you plead for it as due veneration in the action whereof they are the necessary objects how these do consist I see not For my part I cannot but judge the Papists though more gross yet more consequent But we have enough of this subject and these few instances premised may indeed well justify the excessive love which you profess to the unity of the Catholick Church wherein you include the Roman and your esteem for such meaning by Cassander and others of his way who have studied to bring things to a temper do palpably hold out your byass to their haltings But if the unity and temper that you aime at be of this temper since it hath not truth for its foundation the Lord deliver his Churches from it In the next place your N. C. and you fall a quarrelling about Iustification and after you have first taxed then smoothed and again in a manner rejected the Papists their Iustification by works and their Merit you proceed to Iustification by faith only and when you have given us your explanation of it you make a prettie boâ—st as it forsooth by your right apprehension of things you had in a few words told that which with much nicety swels amongst us to Volumes Sir I so greatly defire to find you walking in the truth and am so little in love with contention especially in a matter of this importance that I am resolved rather fanely to pass then rigidly to strain even your more ambiguous expressions but since you would make the World beleeve that with you and you only is to be found both Truth and Light and that on the other hand we do perplexe this point with Nicâ—ties and subtilties it will not be amiss that in this matter I examine you more particularly which that I may performe with the greater candor and perspiciuty I shall first exhibit your words in their full context and thereafter review them in parts You say then That Iustification and Condemnation are two opposite legall termes relating to the judgement shal be given out at the last day For though we are said to be condemned already this is only that we are now in the state of such as shal be solemnly justified or condemned Now at the great day we must give an account of our actions and we must be judged accordingly but since all must be condemned if God enter in judgement with them therefore God gave his Son to the death for us that thereby we might obtain Salvation And all judment is by the Father committed to the Son and Iesus Christ hath proposed life through his death to as many as receive his Gospell and live according to it And as that which gives us a title to the favour of God is the blood of Christ so that which gives us an interest in his death is faith with a life conforme to the rules of the Gospel and the root of this new life is a faith which worketh by love purifyeth the heart and overcometh the world and therefore Iustification is ascribed to it in Scripture and this you say is the right apprehension of things both ascribing all to Christ and declaring clearly the necessity of a holy life 'T is answered The matter of Justification being in effect the very substance of the Gospel and its right uptaking of the greatest moment in order to our Salvation for as much as you by