command to come is only in order to the required concurrence which they cannot give as they say Is this rational that where two commands of the Magistrate are joyn'd the one undoubtedly lawful to be obeyed the other doubted of that Subjects should disobey the Magistrate in that which is clearly lawfull because they have a doubt or unclearness anent obeying him in the other command Doth it not become Subjects to go as far on in obedience to lawfull Authority as they see they may without sin against God Then it is time to stop when any thing is put to them by vertue of the Kings Command which they clearly see they cannot do without sin Had they come to the place it would pro tanto have shewed their respect to Authority albeit they had humbly declared themselves bound up from acting by their doubts And yet it may be they will in end find that they might lawfully have concurred in unquestionable duty that there was no ground to refuse this and that they might have sufficiently salved their Conscience by a humble signification of their scruple as was said and yet not refused to concur in undoubted duties for the personal fault as they apprehend of any member of the Assembly 3. What ground could they have for separation from the Synod Is it the want of liberty to choose a Moderator Or Is it that he that presides is a Bishop and claims more power then they can allow more then they think is due as of a negative voice Or Is it the want of unpreaching Elders in the Meeting As to the 1. Are they able to shew that every ecclesiastical Meeting or Judicatory hath by a dvine scriptural Right a priviledge to choose their own Moderator Where is there any Precept for this or any example of such election in Scripture If all Meetings of ecclesiastical Judicatories have this priviledge then also their Sessions where they take upon them to be constant Moderators have this also which belike will not please them well that any of the Meeting but themselves should be chosen there to preside or can they say that every ecclesiastical Meeting or Judicatory hath this priviledge by a divine natural right If so no civill Society or Judicatory should want it but all claim power to choose their own Presidents which were evil doctrine under a Monarchy where power is in the Prince to elect and name Presidents for Council Session c. Or are they able to demonstrate that it is not lawful for the Christian Magistrate upon whom the external ordering of all the Judicatories in his His Dominions depends to nominate out of a Meeting of Ministers conveen'd by him one grave and godly Minister of the number to order the actions of the Meeting and by his Authority to controll the unruly Can it be made evident that the ancient Christian Councils general or provincial though they had ecclesiastick Presidents did alwayes formerly choose their own President Presides ecclesiastici in vetustis Conciliis nonnunquam nominati ab Imperatore saith Zepperus Eccles Pol. p. 742 As to the second The great exception is at the power of the Presidents of the Synods they being Bishops claim in undue power as if Authority solely resided in them at least they claim a negative voice Ans 1. Were it so and were this a fault yet it were not their fault who concur the personal fault of another cannot be any good ground for Brethrens withdrawing from their necessary duty especially it being considered what might be allowed them for easing the scruple of their Conscience as was above said If I be only admitted to consult in regulating the affairs of the Church in a Meeting where I think I should have equal authority with any that sits there Can it be sin in me to go so far in my duty as I am permitted to do to testifie against sin to give my best counsel for suppressing thereof and for advancement of holiness If I be abridged and restrain'd as to that authority which I think is due to me it is the sin if there be any of these who do restrain me and not mine shall I do no part of my duty because I cannot do all that I think I ought to do being as to some part of it restrain'd by another But Secondly Is it not granted by most judicious Divines that Presbyters having a power in several cases to suspend the exercise of their own just authority when the suspension of it tenderh to a publick good may for the peace of the Church resolve to give to one person of their number a negative voice in Government so as to do nothing without him Baxt. Church gover pag. 18. And excellent Mr. Vines when at the Isle of Wight the King could not be brought off that that in Meetings of Presbyters there should be one under the name of Bishop with a negative voice did counsel both Presbyterians and Independents to accept of the concession as they would not have all the blood miseries and confusions that after might ensue laid at their door See his considerations on the Kings Concessions Whatever may be said of that negative voice the law of the land putting Bishops into a stated presidency and yet Presbyters being admitted to rule with Bishops judicious and sober men would not lay so great weight on it as to refuse their concurrence in common and uncontroverted duties upon that account But yet one thing would be remembred that Brethren are at a very clear disadvantage in withdrawing from presbyterial Meetings where they know the Moderator doth not nor can claim more power then any of themselves All the ground of their not concurring with these Meetings must be that they do not choose the Moderator in their particular Presbyteries But he is nominate by the Bishop 〈◊〉 the Synod and yet in all reason the authority and consent of Bishop and Synod should conclude any particular Presbytery Do not Brethren remember that in time of the Commission of the Kirks ruling there were restraints laid upon Presbyteries in matters far higher and weightier concernment then that and little dinn about the same But thirdly if the Brethren refuse to concur with the Synods for want of unpreaching Elders there whose Office they account of divine institution they would remember that great Divines of the presbyterian way Blondel Vines Baxter and many others look upon these as an humane device and their reasons moving them are weighty But let them be as they are imagin'd by the Brethren yet can the removal of these without out their fault render it unlawful for them to concur in a Synod of Ministers where these are not Can the absence or removal of these supposed Church-officers render a Synod of Ministers with their President unlawful and not to be joyned with because other men are debarred from their duty they are supposed to have right to shall we run from our duty especially this being done without our fault A
that Article the Covenant is not to be understood in sensu divisô but compositô which sureth to Mr. Baxters complex frame And therefore asserts that continuing of Bishops with a negative voice in Ordination and ministerial Meetings might be permitted without breach of Covenant And if it be so as this learned man and others mention'd concede What reason is there to bend the Covenant against the present Episcopacy of Scotland which is establish'd to govern the Church not excluding but with consent of Presbyters with as great moderation as any was in the primitive Episcopacy But it will be said then we stand bound against the English Prelacy as it is explained in the Covenant Ans It will be time to dispute that when we are called to live under that frame of Prelacy In the mean time let it be granted that the Church establishment amongst us is not that which the Covenant describeth to be renounced neither are we rashly to judge the way of other Churches which we are not called to own they are to give an account of their own way to God and the King and will allow us a discharge from meddling in their affairs and they are not like in hast to give us any place or calling in modelling their Church-government to which all protestant Churches ought to pay reverence But again it will be said was not the form of Episcopacy that was in Scotland before from which the present is nothing different abjured in the National Covenant before we had any dealing with England anent change of their Church-government Ans If we will believe the Ministers who reason'd with the Doctors of Aberdeen and they were the prime promoters of the Covenant and carried with them the sense of the body of the Covenanters they who subscribed that Covenant might with great liberty voice in an Assembly concerning Episcopacy without prejudice notwithstanding their Oath And upon this ground would perswade the Doctors to subscribe the Covenant because in so doing they should not be taken as abjuring Episcopacy as the Doctors thought But notwithstanding their Oath and subscription had their liberty remaining entire to voice for Episcopacy in an Assembly See their answer to the Doctors their fourth and tenth demands And the truth is that as in the explication added anno 1638. Episcopacy is not mentioned as abjured so neither was it abjured by the National Covenant as it was enjoyn'd to be subscribed anno 1580. It is alledged that under the name of the Popes wicked Hierarchy the Office of Episcopacy was abjured But they who say so would consider that the abjuring of the Popes wicked Hierarchy imports not an abjuration of the Office of a Bishop more then the Office of a Presbyter or a Deacon which are parts of that Hierarchy so called by the Council of Trent Canon Sess 7. as well as the Office of a Bishop If the Covenant do not under that expression abjure these Offices neither doth it abjure the Office of a Bishop seing these are parts of that which the Papists call Hierarchy as well as this The intent of that Covenant was not to abjure the Office of Bishops more then of Presbyters or Deacons but to abjure the Hierarchy so far as it was the Popes his wicked Hierarchy as it also abjureth his five bastard sacraments so far as he maketh them Sacraments for sure Orders or Ordination of Ministers and Marriage which he maketh two Sacraments are not abjured in the Covenant as to the matter of them but only as to the relation of being Sacraments which the Pope puts on them even so the Popes Hierarchy is abjured counted and called wicked not as to the matter of these Offices comprehended under the ecclesiastical word Hierarchy for then the Office of Presbyters and Deacons should be also counted wicked and abjured but as to the dependance of all these Offices on him as the fountain and head of the Church under Christ and the corruption adhereing to these Offices and flowing from him so far as they are his depending on him corrupted by him there is wickedness in them or joyn'd to them and so they are abjured as in another word of that Covenant his blasphemous Priest-hood is abjured yet in that the Office of Presbyter is not abjured But mean time the Offices themselves which are said to make up that Hierarchy are not abjured nor are to be rejected but purged from what is his or any dependance on him or corruption flowing from him And so the Office of a Bishop amongst Protestants Bishops now being loosed from that dependance from the Sea of Rome and the Pope who as head of the Church claimed a plenitude of power over the whole Church and made all Christian Bishops and Ministers but as his slaves and vassals portioning out to them such measure of jurisdiction as he thought fit as their stiles in this Countrey imported of old Ego N. Dei apostolicae sedis gratiâ Episcopus I say the Office of the protestant Bishop is no more a part now of the Popes wicked Hierarchy then is the Office of a Minister or Deacon But further it may appear that under the name of the Popes wicked Hierarchy the Office of Bishops was not abjured in the National Covenant 1. The enjoyner of that Covenant to be taken by the subjects was King James of blessed memory He having himself with His family subscribed that Oath and Covenant gave charge to all Commissioners and Ministers within the Realm to crave the same Confession from their parishoners and proceed against the refusers as the words of the charge bear March 2. 1580. This was the first injunction for taking the Covenant which was mainly intended for securing the Religion and the King who favoured it and professed it from Papists who were sound practising with forraigners against him and it and for clearing the King and his Court from aspersions But that the King by that Covenant intended the abjuration of the Office of protestant Episcopacy it is most improbable and by many things the contrary appeareth 1. The instrument in penning that Covenant at the Kings command was Mr. John Craig His Minister a very learned man who but nine years before Jan 12. anno 1571. had given his consent in the Assembly of the Church which then did meet at Leith that Commissioners might be appointed to joyn with these whom the Council should appoint for settling the policy of the Church of these Commissioners he himself was one and with him Dun the Superintendent of Angus Winrame Superintendent of Fyfe and others the resolution they came to was that there should be of the most qualified of the Ministry some chosen by the Chapters of the cathedral Churches to whom vacant Arch-bishopricks and Bishopricks might be dispon'd and they to have power of Ordination and to exerce spiritual Jurisdiction in their several Diocesses and at the Ordination of Ministers to exact an Oath of them for acknowledging His Majesties Authority
maintains that the Ministers who of old took the canonical Oath did not swear the contradictory thereto when they took the Covenant whence it will follow necessarily that they who have taken the Covenant do not contradict that Oath if they should take the Oath of canonical Obedience and indeed it will be hard to find out a contradiction either in termes or by necessary consequence But if the obligation of the Covenant as to that second article shall be found to cease whereof afterward the lawfulness of the other Oath will be clearer 3. It would be considered that the Reverened Persons intrusted by Law to call for that Promise from Ministers do not search into mens apprehensions concerning the grounds of their power all they seek is obedience to them in things lawfull and honest as being presently in power being by Law ordinary Overseers of the Ministry in their duties and chief Ordainers of them who enter into the Ministry But it is said where obedience is promised there is an acknowledgment of the lawfulness of their Power Office and Authority because obedience formally cannot be but to a lawfull Authority therefore he that in his conscience thinketh a Bishops Office unlawfull cannot so much as promise obedience to him in things lawfull and honest lest by his taking such an Oath he make himself guilty of establishing that which he accounts unlawfull But 1. it is not obedience under a reduplication and as formally obedience they call for if it be obedience materially Ministers doing their duties in things really lawfull they are satisfied 2. Suppose it were so that obedience as formally obedience were required yet it were hard to say it could not be promised or that it could not be acknowledged that they have any lawfull Authority for waving the consideration of any ecclesiastical Office wherein they may pretend to be superiour to other Ministers and giving but not granting that as Church-ministers their Office and superiority were unlawful yet looking upon them as the Kings Majesties Commissioners in Causes ecclesiastical for regulating the external order of the Church in their several bounds and impowred by the law of the land so to do they being also Presbyters and having power with others in Ordination and Jurisdiction ecclesiastical it will be hard to say that their power is not lawfull and that obedience is not due to them The strictest Presbyterians will not find ground to disown their Office in that consideration There are three things mainly which bear off Brethren of both these sorts and ranks from submitting to and concurring in their duties under the present Government 1. Their fears of future evils 2. Their present thoughts of the unlawfulness of the Office of a Bishop over Presbyters in the Church 3. Their former Engagements by the bond of the Covenant which they conceive still binds them As to the first their fears there can be no sufficient ground in these to bear them off from that which for the present is found to be their duty If evils feared should come and Brethren in conscience toward God not able to comply with them then suffering might be the more comfortable but the gracious providence of God watching over his Church the goodness and wisdom of our Soveraign and of Rulers under him considering the temper of this Nation may make all these fears vain and disappoint them and it is not for us to be too thoughtful or to torment our selves with fears before the time In the mean time it would be well considered by Brethren that bear off from concurrence if they do well in withdrawing their counsels from their Brethren and in doing that which tendeth to the loss of their enterest in and respect with persons in present Authority in regard whereof they might be exceedingly instrumental to prevent any thing that is feared 2. As to their thoughts of the unlawfulness of the Office of a Bishop something hath been said of the lawfulness of their concurrence in unquestion'd duties even upon that supposition something also hath been said of the acknowledgment of the lawfulness of their Office looking upon them as Presbyters commissionated by the King for external ordering of Church-affairs in their severall bounds and of the lawfulness of obedience to them as in that capacity It is not the purpose of this Paper to dispute much for their Church-capacity or Rule over Presbyters or anent the Office of Bishops as an order of Church-ministers Only as to this three things would be seriously pondred by Brethren 1. Where they are able to find in all Christs Testament any precept for meer Presbyters preaching and unpreaching in a full equality of power to rule the Church of Christ to give Ordination to Ministers to judge in all controversies of Religion ministerially and do all acts of Government in the Church or where they can find any example of such a Presbytery doing these acts without some superiour Officer acting with them or directing them in their actings or where there is any inhibition either expresse or by necessary consequence that no Gospel-minister should in any case have superiority in power over others in Church-affairs 2. Let it be considered if descending from the Scripture times it can be found in any Writer who lived in the first two or three ages after Christ or in any History or Record relating to these times not to speak of after-ages it can be found that there was any such Church-officer as an unpreaching Elder joyned in full equality of power with Preaching-elders in acts of Ordination of Ministers from which if they be necessary parts and members of the Presbytery they cannot be excluded and in all other acts of Jurisdiction or if there be any mention of the names or power of any such persons Or if it can be from these Writers found that there was ever any Ordination of Ministers or exercise of Jurisdiction ecclesiastical by Ministers i. e. by meer Preaching-presbyters without some one stated President over them under the name of Bishop who was to go before them in these actions and without whom nothing was to be done in these Shall not the practice of that primitive Church which followed the Apostles as it were at the heels be most able to shew us which way they went and what was their practice It is too horrid a thing to imagine and that which a modest Christian can hardly down with that immediately after the Apostles times the whole Church of Châ—â—â—t should agree to so substantial an alteration of the Government of the Church suppos'd to be instituted by Christ and his Apostles as to exclude one sâ—â—t of Officers of his appointment and to take in another not appointed by him And that it should be done so early Statim post tempora Apostolorum aut eorum etiam tempore saith Molinaeus Epist 3. ad Episcop Winton Bishops were set up in the time when some of them especially John were living viventibus videntibus non
and for obedience to their Ordinary in all things lawfull And accordingly some were provided to Bishopricks at that time neither did the Church in the following Assembly at St. Andrews March 1571. take exception at these Articles of agreement It is true at Perth August 1572. they received the same but with a protestation it was only for an interim c. But this we may say that the learned Penner of the National Covenant allowed of Bishops a few years before this Covenant Nor is there any evidence that he changed his mind or that he did in that draught of the Confession mean protestant Bishops which then he approved by the Popes wicked Hierarchy which is abjured 2. As for the King himself that He minded no abjuration of the Office of a protestant Bishop by that Covenant may be evident by this that when He and His family took that Covenant and when he enjoyn'd it to the subjects there was no such thing known in this Church as a Government by Presbyteries the whole Government consisting in Ordination and Jurisdiction exerced in the several parts of the land being in the hands of some under the name of Bishops some under the name of Superintendents or under the name of Commissioners of Countreys who exercis'd the same in their several precincts other Government there was not but by some single persons having power in their several bounds It is true the Assembly quarrel'd what they did amiss but yet they were then really Bishops And it is not like the King did swear himself or put others to swear against the Church-government that was then in the Countrey and was not rejected by the Church till July 12 1580. Yea it is evident that the King and His Council minded not to swear down protestant Episcopacy by that Covenant For suppose the General Assembly in that same year 1580 July 12. did passe an Act against Episcopacy the like whereof had not been done in this Church before yet the very year following 1581. though the King and Council had presented the Confession to the Assembly to be subscribed by them and the people in several Parishes at their order or by their perswasion yet that very same year an Act of Council is made confirming expresly that agreement 1571. at Leith concerning Archbishops and Bishops And this was done six months after the sending the Confession to the Assembly and the Councils Act for subscribing this being in October that in March 1581. Now is it any way probable that the King and Council had they intended to abjure Episcopacy in the Confession should within six moneths make an Act for confirming a former agreement for establishing Episcopacy And this Act of Council was no secret For the King openly avowed it in the business concerning Montgomery Bishop of Glasgow whom the King would not suffer to be processed upon the account of his accepting a Bishoprick because as he said he had so lately ratified the agreement at Leith 1571. Neither did the Assembly or any Ministers speak of that deed of the Kings and Councils as contrary to the Covenant albeit in these dayes they had a way of using liberty enough and more then was sitting And it being plain that the Covenant in the intention of King and Council who injoyned it first and transmitted it to the Assembly and subjects doth not abjure Episcopacy Why should the subjects take themselves bound as swearing down Episcopacy by that Oath seing every Oath is to be taken in the declared sense of the Imposers which is consistent with the words of it But it will be yet said that the General Assembly at Glasgow 1638. have declared that in that National Covenant Episcopacy was abjured in the year 1580 and they enjoyned that all should subscribe according to the determination of that Assembly and many have done so Ans 1. It seemeth very strange that any Assembly or Company of men should take upon them to declare what was the sense of the Church in taking a Covenant or Oath when few or none of the men were living who took that Covenant or if living few or none of them were members of that Assembly at Glasgow 1638. As juramentum est vinculum personale so say the Casuists So no man or company of men can take upon them to define what was the sense of dead men in taking an Oath or Covenant while they were alive unlesse they can produce some authentick expresse evidence that such was their meaning in taking the Oath and Covenant in their life-time Now all that the Assembly of Glasgow hath produced in their large Act Sess 16. declaring Episcopacy to be abjured anno 1580. amounts to nothing more but this that before Jul. 1580. at which time some moneths after the Covenant was enjoyn'd by the King to be taken by the subjects the Church was and had been some years labouring against Bishops who notwithstanding continued till after the Act at Dundee 1580. And that after the year 1580. there was much opposition to that Office by the Assemblies But all their citations of Acts come not to this point to prove that Episcopacy was abjured by the Covenant or any words in it nor do these ancient Assemblies after 1580. ever assert any such thing men being then living who knew the sense of the Covenant that it was against Covenant to admit of Episcopacy but they go upon other grounds in oppugning that Office How strange is it that Assemblies of Ministers who had taken that Covenant are never heard to plead against Episcopacy though they loved it not upon that ground And that fifty eight years after when most or all of these first takers of it are worn out a generation riseth that will plead that their Ancestors took that Covenant in that sense abjuring Episcopacy whereas there is in no Act of these ancient Assemblies after the Covenant was taken or at the taking of it any assertion that it was their mind in taking that Covenant to abjure Episcopacy And that Episcopacy was not in the intention of the takers of the National Covenant of old abjured by the Covenant no nor unlawfull in it self even in the judgment of the Assembly of the Church of Scotland may appear in that within six years after that year 1580. a General Assembly at Edinburgh do declare that the name of Bishop hath a special charge and function thereto annexed by the Word of God and that it is lawful for the General Assembly to admit a Bishop to a Benefice preferred by the Kings Majesty with power to admit visit and deprive Ministers and to be Moderators of Presbyteries where they are resident and subject only to the sentence of the General Assemblies It seems within six years the General Assembly at Edinburgh retracted the Act of Dundee 1581. But 3. Strange it was that the Company met at Glasgow an Assembly against which as much is said and upon good grounds as against any other in our Church had power