Gospel of their Salvation establish Religion and Justice in all the Cities of your Kingdom cause the waters of Life to run from the heart of your Kingdom unto the Borders thereof establish Pastors in all your Kingdom strengthen them in their Offices and speak to their hearts And afterward in the next page he saith to the King I have heard your Majestâ— gravely protest before God in two General Assemblies That it was one of your Majesties greatest desires and ye were even as it were ambitious of thâ— work to plant every Parish within your Kingdomâ— with a Pastor that the Posterity to come mighâ— say That King James the sixth had done such notable Work in his days Confirm your self Sir in that purpose for ye know who hath said I will honour them that honour me Thus we see Mr. Welsh makes use of the words sending and establishing Pastors and does not find fault with the Kings using the word of planting Parishes Mr. Welsh by the Kings sending doth not mean a potestative Mission he understood himself better than so He knew the King could not ordain Ministers but the Kings sending is his commanding his appointing Ministers to go and preach throughout the Kingdom but if the Council in the Acts of Indulgence had made use of the word of sending and other words in the Books of Discipline O what out-crying would some folk have made seeing they make the simple words of appointing and permitting to be no less than a potestative Mission which is a manifest abuse and perverting of Words It is well known that the Papists give Magistrates much less than they should in Church-matters yea they make them meer Executioners of Kirkmens Decrees yea some of their Writers have not been ashamed to compare Kings and Emperours to beasts in respect of their Kirkmen Let any read Prin's Preface to his Book called a Quenchcoal and he will see in that Preface which was directed to the late King Pag. 44 45 46. he will find that Becanâ—s calls the Pope a Shepherd and Kings and Emperours Dogs of this Shepherd and Gasper Sâ—iâ—â—pius calls the Bishops the men who are the Mulietiers and Ass-drivers and the Catholicks Asses and the Catholick Kings Asses with Bells and Charles the Great he says was a far greater and wiser Ass than these Kings who cast off the Popes yoak And yet though they make Kings and Emperours meer Servants to the Pope and Bishops implicitely and blindly to execute their Decrees yet they grant that the Magistrate may apply the Church-men to the use and exercise of their Office yea even the Jesuits who are most addicted to the Pope grant this as Becanus the Jesuit in his Manual of Controversies of the Time Book 5. Chap. 19. pag. 746. and withal shews that this is the common use among them hoc passim apud Catholicos in usu est From what hath been cited from the Books of Discipline we may see that the Church of Scotland did not look upon the Magistrates appointing and much less on their permitting Ministers to preach as a potestative mission or as any part of the power of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven The Author of the History of the Indulgence mentions not that I remember what I have cited out of the first Book of Discipline he only pag. 116. objects in the 3d. objection what is cited out of the the second Book of Discipline Chap. 10. concerning Magistrates placing of Ministers when the Kirk is corrupted and all things are out of order and he answers That in such times Magistrates may do much more than at other times yet saith he I suppose none for shame can make use of such a Concession now I suspect the Author hath been gravelled and picked with this Objection and therefore he would shuffe it off with scorn and disdain but this is a piece of Art in some to seem to make nothing of these objections to which they see they can give no satisfactory answer but when any will without passion consider this passage in the second Book of Discipline they will see that the placing of Ministers implies more than permitting them or appointing them to preach for though the Magistrate appoint a Minister to preach in such a Parish if the Parish do not invite him or if the Invitation be not satisfactory to the Minister he may forbear to go to that Parish to preach but when a Minister is placed he is actually setled in a Parish and therefore the Book of Discipline allows of the Magistrates doing more than permitting and appointing Ministers to preach Again it appears from this That the Magistrates permitting or appointing Ministers to preach in a Parish is not in the Judgment of the Kirk of Scotland contrary to Presbyterian Principles for the Authors of the second Book of Discipline and the General Assembly of Scotland who examined that Book so carefully and appointed all the Ministers of the Church of Scotland to subscribe it understood what were the Principles of Presbyterian Government better than this Author did And these great Seers did see no abomination of desolation in Magistrates placing Ministers and much less did they or could they see it in their permitting them or appointing them to preach when the Church is corrupted and all things out of order but why thinks he that none can for shame make use of that Concession now He gives this Reason Seeing says he our Church was constituted and well ordered and had all her Rights and Privlledges But I wonder that he for shame could make use of this answer If he could have said Seeing our Church is constituted and well ordered and hath all her Rights it had been a pertinent answer if it had been true but when he says only our Church was constituted and well ordered and had all her Rights he grants that the Church now is not constituted nor ordered nor hath not her Rights he clearly yields the cause and acknowledges that our Church is in such a case as that is of which the second Book of Discipline speaks He might have considered that the Readers of his Book would be very sensless if they could not see a difference betwixt what once was and what now is but this was good enough to put off simple people who cannot distinguish betwixt wat is past and what is present But he adds When the Magistrates with their own hands have overturned all shall this Objection be made use of to countenance their after-practises that were indeed to teach Magistrates a way how to usurp and take to themselves all church-Church-power viz. let them once by Iniquity and Tyranny break the glorious Order of the Church and bring all into Confusion and then forsooth they may warrantably assume to themselves an exercise all church-Church-power according to their mind Ans He seems to insinuate that the second Book of Discipline yields that the Magistrate may assume all church-Church-power which is an insinuation very injurious to
the Church of Scotland In that same page cited from Chap. 10. of the second Book of Discipline they shew that the Magistrate may not usurp the power of the spiritual Keys 2. He might have learned from Mr. Rutherford that the Magistratical power which capacitates the Magistrate to do good to the Church is the same in ill Magistrates even in a Nero that it is in good Magistrates 3. The more ill the Magistrate hath done to the Church he is more bound to repair the wrong he hath done 4. According to this way of Reasoning if the Magistrate overturn the Church he can do no more good to the Church if the placing of Ministers in the corrupted state of the Church be commendable in godly Magistrates why would he hinder Magistrates which have overrurned all to restore all or a part to do something that is good or why should that be counted Usurpation in them which is commended as good service done to the Church when it is done by godly Emperours and Kings Is not that the duty of these who have overturned the Order of the Church to build what they have destroyed and when they do any thing that way it should not be despised but made use of as far as can be done with a good Conscience But the Indulged Ministers need not anxiously enquire as to the defence of their Practice what Power the Magistrate hath or may have in some cases to command Ministers to exercise their Ministry in such or such particular Parishes for that which they accepted and made use of was the relaxation from the Civil restraint and they were called by these Parishes to preach and do their parts of the Ministry there What he saith pag 91. Sect. 3. concerning planting and transplanting and placing Ministers in particular charges is obviated already If he would have disputed fairly he should have kept the terms of the Councils Acts of appointing allowing permitting Ministers to preach in such and such places and not have thrust in his own words of potestative mission planting and transplanting We heard before what words are used in the first Book of Discipline as nominating compelling appointing assigning And in the second Book of Discipline placing Ministers and Mr. Welsh doth not find fault with King James's using the word of planting every Parish within his Kingdom but as was said the Indulged Ministers needs not have recourse to these defences Any who considers that Presbyterial Government was overturned before these Acts of Indulgence and Prelacy setled by Law may think strange that he blames the Council for not consulting Kirk-judicatories There were no Presbyterial Church-judicatories to consult and the Prelates did not like the Indulgence and the consulting them in the matter would have readily scared Presbyterians from making any use of the Indulgence He saith in that same Section That it was the Councils deed alone which did constitute all the Indulged Ministers in such and such places and so made up that relation Now this is false and a begging of the question for they who returned to their own Congregations had a standing relation to these Congregations and they who had not access to their own did not till they had Invitation from the Parishes to which they went and the consent of Presbyterian Ministers concerned conceive themselves obliged to exercise their Ministry among them far less did they think that the Councils deed did constitute them Ministers of these Congregations and make up that relation for if they had thought so they would have thought themselves obliged to have gone to these Congregations upon the Councils deed Concerning the oversight that they have of these Congregations we spoke before and must not continually weary the Reader with Repetitions He frequently carps at their getting the stipend I know not whom he would have to get these stipends seeing he is against the Indulged Ministers getting of them as for the Councils design of fixing them in other charges than their own the Indulged Ministers are not Masters of the designs of any persons but their own but the design of these Ministers was to return to their own Congregations assoon as they had peaceable access Nor could the Indulged Ministers hinder the Council to have regard to the consent of the Patrons but they had no regard to it He refers us to his second remark on the Kings Letter I find no new thing in it he taxes the Indulged Ministers silence and alledges that by their silence they interpretatively assented to the usurpation but they were not silent as we heard before But I would enquire as to the point now in hand to wit the Council appointing Ministers to preach in such and such places What he would have had these Ministers to say Would he have had these who were appointed to return to those Parishes where they were ordained Ministers to have told the Council they would not go to these Parishes because they had appointed them to go Or would he have had these who were appointed to go to other Parishes than their own to have refused absolutely to go because they appointed them to go They did not promise them to go to preach in those Parishes but it had been rashness and unreasonable rashness to have absolutely refused to go and to go upon that account and therefore as they acknowledged not any relation betwixt them and these Parishes upon the Councils Act and did not oblige themselves before the Council to go to these Parishes so they did not go until they were invited by these Congregations To have absolutely refused to preach in these Congregations before they had heard what was the resolution of these Congregations who were concerned as well as they in that matter had been a preposterous haste and they could not have given any rational account to the Council of such a refusal or protestation for if the Council had inquired Why will ye not go to preach there if they had answered according to this Authors mind they behoved to have said Because your L. L. appoints me to go there and preach and I can preach no where where ye command me to preach for I must preach contrary to your command for so he states the matter pag. 129. had not this been humour and no reason if the Magistrate had been disposed to make themselves sport they might have said Then we discharge you to preach in that Congregation which we appointed you to preach in before and we appoint you to preach any where else if the Minister concerned would have been ruled by this Authors reason or humour rather he would have answered Then I will preach in that Congregation where ye first appointed me to preach in and no other place this had been very ridiculous The Magistrate needs not keep soldiers under pay to hinder any of this humour from preaching in any place for they need do no more but appoint them to preach in any place and they may be sure they
and confound these Callings which the Lord hath made distinct Again the Brethren who thought it convenient to add the words formally and intrinsically Ecclesiastical have considered that although the Assertion without this addition in its genuine sense was sound yet it might be Interpreted by Persons disposed to Cavil and Calumniate in a wrong sense which would not agree with the judgment of Anti-erastian Divines who though they do not allow to the Magistrate a Power Formally Ecclesiastical and so allow not to him a Power of forming Canons Ecclesiastical Regulating Ministers in the exercise of their Ministry yet they allow to the Magistrate Power to Command Ministers to exercise their Ministry and to do their Office according to the Word of God In the first Chapter of the Second Book of Discipline we have these words The Civil Power should Command the Spiritual to exercise and do their Office according to the Word of God And afterward in that same Chapter The Magistrate neither ought to Preach administer the Sacraments nor execute the Censures of the Kirk nor yet prescribe any Rule how it should be done but Command the Ministers to observe the Rule Commanded in the Word and punish the Transgressors by Civil means And Chap. 10. which is of the Office of a Christian Magistrate in the Church we have these words That it pertains to the Office of a Christian Magistrate to see that the Kirk be not invaded nor hurt by false Teachers and Hirelings nor the rooms thereof be occupied by dumb dogs and idle bellies To assist and maintain the Discipline of the Kirk and punish them Civilly that will not Obey the Censure of the same without confounding always the one Jurisdiction with the other And afterwards they add To make Laws and Constitutions agreeable to Gods Word for advancement of the Kirk and Policy thereof without Usurping any thing that pertains not to the Civil Sword but belongs to the Offices that are meerly Ecclesiastical as is the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments using Ecclesiastical Discipline and the Spiritual execution thereof or any part of the Power of the Spiritual Keys which our Master gave to the Apostles and their true Successours And although Kings and Princes that be Godly sometimes by their own Authority when the Kirk is corrupted and all things out of Order place Ministers and restore the true Service of the Lord after the Example of some Godly Kings of Judah and divers Godly Kings and Emperours in the Light of the New Testament yet where the Ministry of the Kirk is once Lawfully Constitute and they that are placed do their Office Faithfully all Godly Princes and Magistrates ought to hâ—â—r and obey their voice and reverence the Majesty of the Son of God speaking in them The Author of the History of the Indulgence pag. 62. grants that concession of Orthodox Anti-erastian Divines That Magistrates may and should put Ministers to their Duty in following the Rules and Injunctions prescribed by Christ in their Political way and by their Political Penalties And hence it will follow that Ministers should not refuse Christs injunctions because the Magistrate commands them to observe them and by their Political Power and Political Penalties puts them to observe them He grants also That Magistrates may Civilly confirm and inforce Canons and Rules Ministerially cleared and concluded by Church Judicatories And pag. 63. He distinguishes Instructions into these which are concerning such things as are always necessary to the right exercise of the Ministry or are concerning alterable Circumstances which onely hic nunc can be called necessary And concerning the former he saith That the Magistrate cannot enjoyn these Ministerially as holding forth the mind of God because so he would not be a Magistrate but a Minister But he grants That the Magistrate may Politically inforce these Instructions in a well Reformed and Instituted Church after they have been Ministerially held forth by the Authorized Ministerial Interpreters of the Word And in a Church confused and needing Reformation he does not deny to the Magistrate a Power to enjoyn such things as are at all times necessary to the right exercise of the Ministry But he alledges This latter Case is not ours But it seems he hath not considered the Case of this Church or hath had very bad Information concerning it If the Case of this Church had not been confused he durst not have written and Printed such a History nor written Letters to encourage some young Men to counteract the Suffering Ministers of this Church and to refuse to be subject to them he might possibly when he was in another Nation in his study among his Books imagine that this Church was not confused but well ordered and needing no Reformation But alas our Confusions and Disorders are more real than to be removed by the force of his imagination We see them we find them and they who have any sense groan under them and we want these Assemblies which were a part of the Order of this Church and the means to preserve Order to prevent Confusion or rectifie Disorders if they had entred But he will prove that this Church is not confused and needing Reformation I wish he could prove this but I have found his former Arguings so fallacious that I fear this proof prove like the rest that is prove nothing But let us hear him The latter Case says he is not our Case unless by this concession we would grant Power and Liberty to any Magistrate to overturn the best Reformed Church that is to the end he may order all things in it as he pleaseth which was never understood by the users of this distinction The Argument runs thus If we grant that this Church is confused and needs Reformation we grant a Power and Liberty to the Magistrate to overturn the best Reformed Church c. but we cannot grant a Power to the Magistrate to overturn c. and therefore we cannot grant that this Church is confused and needs Reformation The first proposition is manifestly false This is a hard case that a poor Church confused and disordered may not confess to God nor declare before Men that it is confused and needs Reformation may not relate its case as it is but it must by the confession or concession of the truth become guilty of giving Power and Liberty to the Magistrate to overturn the Church There 's no shadow of Reason for this connexion although the Church confess that the Magistrate hath overturned her that grants no Power and Liberty to the Magistrate to overturn the Church Does a poor mans complaint that his Neighbour hath come in and made Abuse and Disorder in his House grant a power and liberty to his Neigbour to make Abuse and Disorder or a Power to Order all things in it as he pleaseth Shall the complaint of an injurious Fact grant a Power and Liberty to do injury The Magistrates Ordering all things in the Church as he
addition of the foresaid words was no ways destructive to the words that Mr. B. spoke to the Chancellour for if Mr. B. had thought them to be so he would never have acquiesced to them in the meeting nor have acknowledged afterward that Mr. H. spoke his mind and therefore if the words as spoken by Mr. B. were an honest Testimony then Mr. Hutcheson's words which were the same and more ample were an honest Testimony but enough of this before And thus we see that the horrible horned Argument with which he so terribly threatned these Brethren hath done no hurt but to himself he hath raised dust which hath blinded his own eyes and exposed himself to the laughter or pity of the beholders And it is really a great pity that he who was fit for better work should have so abused himself and wasted his precious time in passing judgment against his Brethren who were Judicious and Conscientious Ministers as men who after a long Debate concluded that which was nothing to the purpose or a betraying of the Cause And instead of evident Reasons to confirm this Charge bringing nothing but falshoods and ridiculous Fopperies It were but a wasting of time and an abusing of the Readers patience to go through all his jumblings against the Informer for many things in his Answers are nothing to the purpose in hand His insinuation pag. 65. That the Lord was away from these Brethren and so Light and Counsel could not remain with them is full of Insolent boldness and rashness he ought in Charity to have supposed that these Brethren were met in Christs name and that the Lord was in the midst of them and with them If he had considered what he says in the end of that page and beginning of the next of the inconsiderableness of one or two abandoning the rest of their Brethren it might have made him and his Colleague a little more modest in their singular and extravagant conceits so contrary to the sentiments of the Suffering Ministers of the Church of Scotland He alledges pag. 66. That they who were not clear for giving in a subscribed Paper to the Council could not be very clear as to the matter of the Paper The proof of this is in a Parenthesis I judge ipse dixit and so all is sure and the Reader must acquiesce it 's res judicata and so there is no more place for Debate His thinking strange that these Ministers could not do that which he thinks every Minister and Servant of Christ should be ready to give upon less than a few hours warning yea at the first demand makes me apprehend he hath not well understood the difficulty of ridding Marches betwixt Magistrates and Ministers He who thinks that any Servant of Christ can at demand and off hand decide that Question de finibus does not understand it or else he is a man of great abilities and withal so Charitable as to think every Minister as able as himself If I had been upon the Historians Counsel I would have advised him to have forborn the Imprecation which he hath pag. 67. § 4. and that for his own sake for if he by other papers and by this History hath not administred fuel to this fire very many are much mistaken Page 68. he inveighs much against Mr. H. for not speaking sooner and not insinuating Reasons why they could not in Conscience accept of these Impositions but he himself hath cleared Mr. H. for before these papers were delivered Mr. Hutcheson gave an honest Testimony against these Impositions for he said the same upon the matter which Mr. B. said which the Author commends as an honest Testimony And pag. 70. proves that there was upon the matter no difference betwixt Mr. H. and Mr. B's words Page 71. he wrongs the Informer in alledging that he gives to the Magistrate a diatactick power in an illimited and unqualified manner as he doth saith the Historian when he talks of the diatactick power of both for this is a manifest homologating of the Supremacy as lately explained by the Parliament For the Informer speaks not of the manner of the Magistrates diatactick power at all and much less of an illimited manner of his power The Author hath in the beginning of this page blamed the Informer for putting one term more than he should in a Syllogism and yet I find not that Logical escape in the Informers paper which I have and if the Informeâ— be the Person whom I take him to be he can make a Syllogism as well if not better than the Author of the story could But I wonder how he who blamed the Informer for putting one term more than enough in a Syllogism should add two terms of his own to the Informers words and then conclude from terms of his own making a maniâ—â—â— homologation of the Supremacy as lately explained in the Act of Parliament This is not fair bâ—â— very foul dealing The Informer saith onely thaâ— the Magistrate hath a diatactick power and the Author of the Answer to the History of the Indulgence very rationally sheweth that all power of Government is diatactick so that if the Magistrate haâ—â— any power of Government about things Sacred â—â— must have a diatactick power But to Reason thâ—â— he who ascribes to the Magistrate a diatactick power ascribes it to him in an illimited and unqualified manner and homologates the Supremacy as lately explained by the Parliament But the Informer ascribes to the Magistrate a diatactick power and therefore he ascribes it in an illimited manner c. and therefore c. is to reason without any shadow of Reason for there is a manifest difference and no appearance of identity betwixt a power diatactick and the illimited manner that he speaks of res differt à modo rei praecipue à modo illimitato hoc est à modo qui modum nescit Neither the word power nor the word diatactick nor both of them joyned together do import an illimited boundless manner and to infer from the term diatactick illimitedness is to draw confusion out of Order and quidlibet ex quolibet I wonder that the Author did not alledge also that the Informer ascribed this illimited unqualified manner of diatactick power and a Spiritual Supremacy to Church Judicatories for he ascribes this diatactick power to these also and hath not the least insinuation that he ascribes it in an illimited manner to the Magistrate but in a limited to them But the Author hath been in an ill humour and ill humours makes ill Arguments Passion prompts men to make Reproaches but hath no patience to make Syllogisms or to take leisure to examine whether they be right or wrong It disfigures both body and mind and puts men in an ill mood and therefore it 's no wonder if it keep neither mode nor figure in Reasoning Page 171 172. he takes upon him to be an Instructor to the Informer but the Informer knew as well as himself
the Magistrate and some of them are not ashamed to calumniate Presbyterians as if they gave as little to the Magistrate as Papists do 2. From the touchy sense that all in Authority have of any thing that diminishes or but seems to diminish their Power or to derogate from it 3. From my L. Chancellours displeasure at Mr. B. and his question proposed about the Magistrates Power of confining and Mr. H's beginning and ending his Discourse with that desire that their Lordships would not mistake Mr. B. That it 's a wonder how a Person that had any imagination at all could miss the purpose of this Discourse But yet all these objective Evidences which might have as Guides led his imagination to the true design of Mr. H's Discourse were overswayed by two more intimate Guides which like ill Ghosts haunted his imagination in the matters relating to Indulged Ministers I mean his Passion and Prejudice which habitually mis-guided him in these matters and led him out of the right way which was obvious into extravagant phantasms and imaginations which are so wild that it 's a wonder how any man who had but common sense to rectifie his imagination could give way let be with-gate to them or how he could suffer them to arise or if they had started when he was not adverting how he could behold them without laughter or indignation but that he should have entertained them and bewildered himself and his followers in following them is one of the wildest Wild-goose Chases imaginable There is one thing somewhat singular in this Authors imagination in these matters that his imagination hath a habitual mishap of missing the right way and taking the wrong I do not remember of any Person to whom I can compare him in this except one who was a Servant to a Gentleman of my Acquaintance of whom I heard his Master say that when his Servant took the guiding of the way he constantly mistook when he came where there were two ways he was sure to take the wrong way which his Master having often observed he resolved when there was any doubt of the way never to take the way which his man took but the way which he left and so he was sure not to be mistaken But yet I must give the Historian the pre-eminence in wandring for that Servant took but one wrong way at once but the Historian when he hath prosecuted one wrong imaginary way in which no foot hath trod before him and followed it out till he could win no further he immediately comes back and at the same pass where he began to wander he takes another wrong way and then another and so forth till he hath wearied himself and his followers to no purpose and which is yet worse after all these wandrings he never comes right That Servant I spoke of came back to his Master to the right way but the Author having no other Guide but his own imagination miscarried by Prejudice and Passion wanders habitually when he begins to guess at the Indulged Ministers meaning and upon a false imagination that they meant something which never came in their head he pursues after them in a way which they never took nor dreamed of and then to be sure to overtake them some way he begins again if they meant not that they meant this and then again pursues and so fashes himself in following his own fancies but for the true meaning of these Ministers he ordinarily misses it though it be most obvious to any who will not hood-wink himself Any who looks but with half an eye into this Controversie about the limits of the Magistrates and Ministers Power and into this business which was before the Council will see that it was most necessary to add what Mr. H. added to Mr. B's words both for clearing Mr. B's meaning and for preventing the Objections that the Magistrate or others for the Magistrate might make against an Assertion which seemed to exclude the Magistrate from having any Power about Church Canons or the exercise of the Ministry to which there was nothing added to clear what Power the Magistrate had in reference to matters of Religion Might they not have Objected Ye will we see take no Instructions from Magistrates nor commands to Regulate the exercise of your Ministry Ye will make Rules your selves for Regulating your Ministry but ye will admit us to make none for any thing we hear from you Ye ascribe no Power to us about matters of Religion What can the Magistrate do nothing for the Reformation and preservation of Religion and for Reforming Ministers Is the Magistrate bound up that he cannot hinder the making or execution of wrong Canons What if a Church-Assembly a Council agree upon Arrianism and resolve to Preach this to the Magistrates Subjects What if they make Canons for Idolatry for adoring Images as the 2d Nicen Council did What if they agree to publish the error of Transubstantiation and to lift up the Bread in the Eucharist to be adored by the People What if they agree upon a Church-policy manifestly contrary to the Scripture and require the Subjects to subject themselves to be ruled by these Rules of Policy of their own making Shall the Magistrate suffer his Subjects to be poisoned with Heresie Idolatry corrupt Church-mens Tyranny Can he do nothing to hinder the making of such Heretical Idolatrous Tyrannical Canons or to crush them and hinder the execution of them when they are made Must he blindly assent to all the Canons Kirk-men enact and add his Civil Sanction to them and see to the execution of them that is to promove the eternal destruction of his own Subjects Does not the confession of Faith allow to the Magistrate a Power for Reformation and conservation of Religion And our latest Confession of Faith though it assert Chap. 31. Sect. 3. That it belongs to Synods and Councils Ministerially to determine Controversies of Faith and Cases of Conscience to set down Rules and Directions for the better Ordering of the Publick Worship of God and Government of his Church to receive complaints in cases of male Administration and Authoritatively determine the same yet it doth not assert that though these Decrees be contrary to the Word of God that they are to be received by any and much less by the Magistrate for it 's added in that same Article Which Decrees and Determinations if consonant to the Word of God are to be received with Reverence and Submission not only for their agreement to the Word but also for the Power whereby they are made as being an Ordinance of God appointed thereto in his Word And though that same late Coâ—fession Chap. 23. Article 3. affirm that the Civil Magistrate may not assume to himself the Administration of the Word and Sacraments or the power of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven yet he hath Authority and it is his Duty to take Order that Unity and Peace be preserved in the Church
Councils ministerially to determine controversies of Faith and cases of Conscience to set down Rules and Directions for the better ordering of the publick Worship of God and government of his Church Art 5. Synods and Councils are to conclude nothing but that which is Ecclesiastical and are not to meddle with Civil affairs which concern the Commonwealth unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary or by way of advice for satisfaction of conscience if they be thereto required by the Civil Magistrate Chap. 23. Art 3. The Civil Magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of word and Sacraments as the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven yet he hath authority and it is his duty to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church that the truth of God be kept pure and intire that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed all corruptions and abuses in worship or discipline prevented or reformed and all Ordinances of God duly setled administred and observed for the better effecting whereof he hath power to call Synods to be present at them and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the word of God These Articles and the Scripture-proofs do clearly hold out and confirm That Christ not the Magistrate is the Head King Lord of the Church which is the Body House and Kingdom of Christ that Church and not the Magistrate is the Fountain of the Spiritual Power of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven that the Offices in the Church are of divine institution given by Christ and that these Offices which Christ hath given are sufficient for gathering and perfecting the Church seeing he hath given them for that end and that they are Ministerial and not Lordly and hence it follows that the Office of a Prelate who claims a majority of Directive and Coercive power over Ministers who not only takes upon him without election to moderate Synods but also is above the censure of the Synod and who can hinder the Synod from concluding any thing how necessary soever they find it and without whose Authority the Synod is no Synod who imposes Moderators upon the meetings for exercise and to whom these meetings are countable for their actings without whom there can be no ordination deposition excommunication relaxation from it who exacteth an Oath of Canonical obedience from Ministers not being in the Rolls of the Offices and Officers given by Christ and being a Lordly and so more than a Ministerial Office Presbyterians cannot own it nor judg it useful for gathering or perfecting of the Church They shew also that the Magistrate to whom God hath given the Lordly power of the sword is so far from having a spiritual Supreme power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven that he hath not the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven given to him at all for the power of the keys which Christ hath given is Ministerial and makes those who are invested with it Ministers of the Church but the power of the Sword is Magistratical and a Lordly Dominion and that it belongs to Synods and Councils and not to Magistrates to make Ecclesiastical Rules c. and that none neither Magistrates nor Ministers may order Ecclesiastical matters according to their mind and pleasure but those things must be ordered according to the mind and will of God revealed in his word And all true Presbyterians believe That seeing both the Lordly Power of the Magistrate in general and in special the Kingly Power and the Ministerial Power of Church-Officers are of God and his Ordinances that they are not contrary to one another for the Ordinances of God do not justle one against another but sweetly agree and any justling or clashing which hath proceeded from the corruptions of Magistrates or Ministers are not to be imputed to the Lords Ordinances and it 's the earnest desire of all truly godly and loyal subjects who seek the glory of God and the Magistrates true honour and interest That whatsoever in the actings of their rightful Magistrates hath exceeded the bounds which the Lord hath set to them may be in mercy discovered to them and in time reformed That all occasions of grief and stumbling may be taken out of the way of truly loyal subjects and all occasion of doing mischief may be cut off from those who take advantage from those excesses to render the Magistrate contemptible and to overthrow that Power which they have from God As for what they say of Ministers hindering those who would have given a testimony and censuring others who did give it the truth is Presbyterian Ministers endeavoured to restrain some young men who instead of preaching the Gospel made it their work to revile the Magistrate and Ministers who made use of the liberty granted by the Magistrate but these youths discovered themselves not to be of Presbyterian Principles by their refusing to be subordinate to the Ministers and by reproaching them who would have reclaimed them from their disorderly and Schismatick practices By this the Magistrate may perceive if the Presbyterian Ministers who are Presbyterians indeed had by allowance of the Magistrate the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and liberty of meeting for regulating their own actings and the actings of those who profess themselves to be Presbyterians such unruly persons who stir up the people to Schism and Sedition would not be admitted to the Ministry or if they after their admission discovered themselves to be of pernicious principles they would be put from the Ministry and so the people who are true to Presbyterian Principles would not own them and so they would not have access to pervert the people with Seditious and Schismatick doctrine this would be found the most proper Remedy for these distempers But what wonder is it if young men who are ordinarily rash being but Novices who have not studied the Body of Divinity and who have no experience and know not the Principles and Practices of Presbyterial Government who are not put ro Presbyterial Exercises for their trial and instruction and who it may be have never seen any thing of the Exercise of Presbyterial Government in Presbyteries or Synods and who are not under the iâ—spection of meetings of Presbyterians but wander to and fro at random not thinking themselves accountable to any meeting of Ministers nor censurable by any What wonder is it if such persons when they are blown up with the vain applause of some ignorant and humorous people who under their sad sufferings have taken up such prejudice against the Magistrate and all to whom the Magistrate shews any favour that they think what is most cross to the Magistrate is most right and any thing which the Magistrate allows they think it wrong and so they cry up those Preachers most who speak most invectively against the Magistrate and against those Ministers to whom the Magistrate shews any favour I say what wonder is
Indeed the engaging not to take up Arms against the Kings Person and Authority and any lawful Oath of Allegiance could not consist with such Arms as the Contrivers of this Band and Sanchar Declaration would be at for their Arms are designed to destroy the Magistrates person without mercy and their Authority and the established Civil Goverment which hath no parallel that I know of except that of the Boors in Germany under Thomas Munster and after under John of Leyden which Usurpation being not only of private persons but also being against the Magistrates person and Authority was justly condemned as a fury by all the Reformed Churches At length after this long Inditement they come to give sentence against these Ministers who have accepted of the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and all who voted for that acceptance all who have heard and pleaded for them trafficked for union with them all that do not testifie against them and deport themselves suitably to their testimony all who do not join publickly with the Brethren who testifie against them The sentence is in effect deposition as far as their power reaches they say indeed that they have not nor assume to themselves authoritative sentences of deposition and suspension against these Ministers there is some modesty here yet they specifie the censures which should be inflicted upon these Ministers no less will serve than deposition or suspension It 's somewhat strange that they who had the confidence to depose the Magistrate as formally as they could did not formally depose these Ministers also but though they do not formally depose them yet they do it materially and effectually in that they will neither hear them nor receive Sacraments from them And no wonder seeing they had before declared them to be the Ministers of men not of Christ the ground of this sentence is a Scripture 2 Thes 3.6 but misunderstood and so misapplied for the Apostle is not there directing to withdraw from the Lords Ordinances from the hearing of the Word or Administration of the Sacraments or from fellowship with the Church in the Worship of God but he forbids ordinary familiar private converse with disorderly persons it 's a metaphor taken from Soldiers who keep not their rank idle and yet busie-bodies busie about that which did not belong to them such as are spoken of 1 Tim. 5.13 who were idle wandering about from house to house tatlers busie-bodies speaking things which they ought not The authors of this Band have made such a breach upon all order both in speaking and engaging to do things which they ought not and which tend to all confusion that if they had understood this Scripture and their own way they would have seen their way condemned in this Scripture from which they would condemn others 2. Orthodox Interpreters think that the withdrawing which is enjoined in this Scripture is to be after the Church hath taken due notice of the disorder of such persons and they after admonition continue disobedient see the Dutch Annotations which cite Mat. 18.15 1 Cor. 5.11 as parallel places and Diodate Mr. Dickson and Mr. Ferguson upon the place If private persons were left to Excommunicate all whom they thought disorderly it would breed great confusion and if private persons be not to be thus withdrawn from till the Church hath noted them and proceeded by lesser censures to the censure of Excommunication How insolent an act is this for a few inconsiderable persons who as they confess themselves have no capacity to inflict any censure to declare that they will carry themselves towards so many ministers who have never been convened or heard much less censured by any Church-Judicatory and others who adhere to them and all who testifie not against them and do not publickly join with those who testifie against them as if they were deposed and Excommunicate and the insolency was the greater because they knew that the ministers who were not indulged did think these young men who had not come to this height of Schism censurable I am certainly informed that this spirit of Schism hath prevailed so far in some that they will not have private Christian fellowship with any who hear Indulged ministers though they be persons of so blameless and Christian conversation that they have nothing to cast at them for but this that they have clearness to hear Indulged ministers This joining in the Worship of God where these ministers preach they account a joining with the people of these abominations ignorantly perverting that place Ezra 9.14 as if joining in the commanded Worship of God were like the Israelites joyning in forbidden marriages with the cursed Nations But as the fool thinks the bell clinks The least that they require of these deposed and Excommunicate ministers is that they stand in judgment before these ministers and be judged by them who have followed the Lord and kept themselves free of these defections The least I perceive that they will accept of is no less than an acknowledging of Prelates and setting up Prelacy Pr. Sir ye seem now to be jesting and not in earnest Min. No Sir I am in good earnest and if ye will consider what Prelacy is I suppose ye will not deny what I say Ye know your self that these Ministers whom they mean and who fall not in one of the Classes mentioned were never for any thing known above four and some say they were but three and a little after this Band one of them was laid aside from Preaching And a Gentleman told me that he was credibly informed that he went hence to Ireland and joined with the Conformists there But suppose that they were four yea fourteen that would not make them the Plurality in a capacity to judg to suspend or depose the Indulged and not Indulged Ministers of the Church of Scotland and yet we see they have a jurisdiction over all the rest of the Ministers who must stand before them and be judged by them and stand and fall in judgment as these judges shall determine And as they engross the power of suspension and deposition so consequently the power of Ordination and in their last Article they talk of a Gospel-ministry rightly chosen and rightly Ordained and they promise to rectifie what was amiss in former Ordinations Now two or three or four persons engrossing the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction over all the Presbyterian Ministers of the Church of Scotland are Prelates Doctor Gauden defines the Office of a Bishop thus Episcopal presidency and authority is a Soveraign power and Spiritual jurisdiction in Ordination Confirmation Censures rebuking silencing Excommunication Absolution and other exercises of Ecclesiastick power without above and against Presbyters and people This description if ye will take Confirmation out of it seems to agree much better to these new Prelates than to the old They arrogate a Soveraign power a power above all Presbyterian Ministers who must stand before them when they set to judg
compendious way if I be not mistaken to meet with any thing he says is to consider what is in his Arguments against the Indulgence for he resumes there what he had remarked on the Kings Letter and what he hath in his Vindication is taken out of these Arguments In these Reasons against the Indulgence he saith the Reader may see at one view what was scattered up and down the foregoing Relation so here we will find all his forces united and drawn up in order Pag. 85. 1. He promises to shew in how many particulars Injury was done by the Indulgence as accepted unto our Lord Jesus Christ the only Head and King of his Church Ans That which the Indulged Ministers accepted was a freedom from or a relaxation of that civil restraint which had hindered the peaceable exercise of their Ministry as was cleared before If he alledge that they accepted of the Instructions c. This is an acceptation of his own making and he may make any thing if he pleases for the Indulged Ministers cannot hinder any body to fight against their own fancies having premised this I come to the particulars of his charge against them 1. Saith he in that hereby they declared they did not hold their Ministry wholly and solely of Christ Jesus How proves he this We saith he saw above how the Indulged did plainly and positively refuse to say that they held their Ministry of Jesus Christ alone where ex professo the word alone was left out See what is remarked on Mr. Hutchesons Speech and what was said in answer to the Informer whâ— was dissatisfied with M. Blair whereby an injury of a very high nature was done unto our Lord Jesus That which is remarked on Mr. Hutchesons Speech is in pag. 24. 9. they say That they received their Ministry from Jesus Christ Buâ— why was it not said as some of them if I am nâ— misinformed desired only from Jesus Christ wheâ— this was designedly and deliberately left out leâ— all the World judge whether in this they carried a faithful Ministers of the Gospel or not For mâ— part I cannot but judge that this was a manifest betraying of the Cause and a giving up of all iâ— the Magistrate for hereby they declared that eitheâ— in their judgment they had their Ministry from others as well as from Christ that is from the Magistrate as well as from Christ and that in an equality and Co-ordination or else that they had it nâ— from Christ immediately but from men from thâ— Magistrate in subordination to Christ And then he reasons against both these and concludes that therefore when they kept out the Word only they did plainly declare that they held their Ministry partly of the Magistrate And after he hath started another Objection about holding the peaceable exercise of the Ministry from the Magistrate he concludes So that use what devices men can to cover this matter a manifest betraying of the Cause will break through and a receding from received and sworn Principles will be visible In the answer to the Informer to which also he refers he saith pag. 71. Ministers receiving instructions for regulating them in the exercise of their Ministry from Magistrates acting like themselves Magisterially and Architectonically do if not formally yet at least virtually deny Christ to be the only Head and Lawgiver of his Church But again pag. 85. he objects That this fault was but personal and accidental to the Indulgence and so cannot effect the same or make it an encroachment upon Christ of so high a nature He answers That being spoken at that occasion when the King and Council were acknowledged thankfully for granting of the Indulgence and being spâ—ken with understanding it must be granted that it had reference to the Indulgence it self and so saith he their discourse was to this purpose in effect We declare that we hold not our Ministry of Christ alone but of Christ and of the Magistrate and therefore do accept of this Indulgence without scruple He adds afterward Further this Discourse of theirs so worded purposely and deliberately saith That if they had not believed that they held their Ministry not of Christ alone but of others also they could not have accepted of the Indulgence Ans This is the Authors great Gun with which he thought fit to begin the battel if this misgive and do no skaith there is no less reason to fear his lesser Ordnance It 's strange that he should have begun with a piece of Ordnance which he knows not whether it be fixed or not he is not sure whether the word only was by some of the Indulged Ministers desired to be added for when he says it he casts in this doubtful Parenthesis If I be not misinformed He got many wrong Informations and this may be one among the rest I do not remember of any such thing and if he be misinformed his first Argument hath neither matter nor form I have heard it alledged that some people by telling uncertainties yea falshoods come themselves to believe them and confidently to add to them I find something like this in this Author 1. We see he speaks doubtfully if I be not misinformed but the oftener he repeats it he grows the more positive and confident for we never hear more of any doubt of his Inforformation yea in repeating he wonderfully amplifies the matter and makes the not saying of this only to say many things For saith he hereby they declared that they did not hold their Ministry wholly and solely of Christ He might have easily perceived that a positive Declaration that they did not hold their Ministry from Christ only is more than a not-saying that they had it from him only A man may truly say I had this gift from my Father though he add not the exclusive word only Who yet cannot positively declare that he had not the gift only from his Faâ—her because he as I suppose received it from â—is Father and not from any other Again he granted that some of the Indulged desired that the word only might be put in sure â—hese did not positively and plainly refuse to say That they held their Ministry from Christ alone and yet here he charges it upon the Indulged generally that they refused to say so This is another of his Amplifications Then he judgeth that this was a manifest betraying of the Cause and refers it to the judgment of the world if they carried as faithful Ministers What shall Ministers be condemned â—as not faithful because they spoke of their Ministry in the words that the Holy Ghost taught Paul to speak Acts 20.24 Shall the using of the Words of God be judged a betraying of the cause of God Suppose that that word was designedly and deliberately left out this might have been the reason that they durst not adventure to add a word to the words of the Apostle who spoke by the Inspiration of God He amplifies yet further This was saith
ought to command the Ministers to observe the Rule commanded in the word and punish the Transgressors by civil means if he ascribe no more to our Magistrates but this That they should meerly permit or not molest or as the Cup of cold Water hath it pag. 42. forbear to persecute the Mediators Ambassadors he gives no more to the Magistrate than is given to a strong Captain of Robbers who hath Ministers under his power and at his disposal which were most absurd But even upon this absurd supposition That the Magistrate might not command or appoint Ministers to preach and that appointing were an overstretch yet even upon this supposition the Ministers might lawfully after this appointment of the Magistrate have gone to those Parishes to which they were appointed to go upon the earnest desire of those destitute people I clear it by this similitude Suppose a Captain of Robbers hath by force subdued an Island in which there are two Ministers and four distinct Parishes this Usurper commands these Ministers to be brought before him and tells them he will not suffer them to return to their former Charges but appoints them to preach at the two vacant Churches though he have no Authority to appoint them to preach in these two other Parishes yet these Ministers having no access to their own Parishes being debarred by strong hand might upon the earnest desire of the two vacant Congregations go and help them till they might have regress to their own Parishes and their doing so would be no owning of the Authority of the Captain of Robbers to appoint and it were but folly to say to that Captain If ye only suffer us to go it may be we will go but if ye appoint us we will not go at all for that were but the way to hinder themselves from all exercise of their Office and deprive the whole Island of the benefit of the Gospel or if that Captain should appoint or command a Physitian to make his residence in such a Town of the Island or else he would not suffer him to exercise his Calling in the Island the Physitians going would be no acknowledgment that the Captain had a lawful Authority to command or appoint him the exercise of the Ministry and of Medicine are works of necessity and mercy and so necessary in order to the Glory of God and the good of man that whenever and wherever they who are called and fitted of God to exercise their Offices have lawful access to do these works of necessity and mercy they should not neglect the occasion and it 's a Phantastick and Childish Conceit to think that if men who have no Authority over Ministers or Physitians or they who have lawful Authority but claim more in reference to Ministers c. than God hath given them if they take upon them a power in reference to Ministers which they have not and in a way not competent to them appoint Ministers or Physitians to do the work of the Ministry or Medicine which God antecedently to any thing that those who usurp upon them do in reference to them hath called them to I say it 's a Phantastick and Childish Conceit to think That such Usurpations can make void the call which they have from God to do those works of necessity and mercy when they have access thereunto without doing Injury to any His 2 3 4. Answers about the Magistrates discharging Ministers to preach are in answer to what he was pleased impertinently to object to himself That the Magistrate may for ends known to himself discharge Ministers to preach and so though the purpose in his Answers be good yet they are nothing to the purpose in this place I have only one question anent somewhat he saith In the end of his 4th Answer he grants in the beginning of it That the Magistrate may indirectly and consequently silence a Minister for a civil Crime as Solomon did Abiathar but he says For an Ecclesiastick Transgression the Magistrate cannot indirectly or consequently remove any Minister from the exercise of his Ministry where the Church is setled in his power except only causative by commanding the Church-Judicatories to do their work First that is first to judge for in prima instantia he may not do it or corroboratively by backing the Service of the Church-Judicatory with his Civil Sanction and Authority Now my question is Suppose a Magistrate hath commanded a Church-Judicatory to take course with a Minister who preaches Heresie or Doctrine tending to Idolatry or preaches Schismatick-Doctrine and rents the Church and yet the Church-Judicatory through Ignorance or being themselves tainted or through want of Zeal take no effectual course to remedy these evils this is a case supposable for we see the Church-Judicatory of Pergamus suffered them that held the Doctrine of Balaam and that held the Doctrine of the Nicclatians and the Church-Judicatory of Thyatria suffered the Woman Jezabel that called her self a Prophetess to teach and seduce the Servants of God to commit Fornication and to eat things sacrificed to Idols in this case shall the Magistrate do no more but command the Church-Judicatory to their work He hath done that and yet the Judicatory does nothing or nothing to purpose and the Church is like to be undone through these Doctrines that fret like a Gangreen And the other member of his distinction makes no help for the Church-Judicatory I suppose passes no right sentence which the Magistrate may corroborate shall he who is Gods Vicegerent suffer the people of God and his Subjects to be poisoned with damnable Doctrine may he do nothing indirectly to restrain these Hereticks from preaching such damnable Doctrines and therefore it seems that though the Magistrate cannot depose an Heretick that 's a Minister yet he may do more to restrain a Heritick from destroying the people of God than is comprehended within the members of his distinction of causatively and corroboratively and he himself seems to grant with Voetius in his Answer to the second Objection That the Magistrate may hinder an Heretick from preaching Heresie either publickly or from house to house As for his second Objection if he had formed it thus When the Magistrate granteth the peaceable publick exercise of the Ministry Ministers should thankfully accept of this grant he would have had no Answer but he kept out peaceable out of the Objection and then he answers that the Magistrate should not discharge the publick exercise of the Ministry well but what is that to the purpose will he infer from thence that therefore he should not allow to Ministers the publick peaceable exercise of their Ministry The third Objection he proponeth thus Our second Book of Discipline granteth That Magistrates may place Ministers when the Kirk is corrupted and all things out of order and so it is now with us The Argument may be framed thus if the Magistrate when the Church is corrupted and all things out of order may place Ministers
then the Magistrate may appoint permit allow Ministers to preach in such and such Kirks For if the Magistrate may do what is more then they may do what is less in the corrupt state of the Church But the state of the Church is such and therefore if the Magistrate may in this case place c. he may much more permit c. He grants all the major is evident from the place cited and he grants it to the minor which was as he proponed it but so it is now with us he answers that our Church was a constituted and well-ordered Church but that now Confusion is come and so in effect he yields all but I remember he spoke to this before What he says of the Magistrates bringing on this Confusion is no evasion for the Book of Discipline does speak generally of a Church corrupted whatever way it hath been corrupted whether by Magistrates or Ministers that 's neither up nor down A Magistrate that hath disordered the Church is so much the more obliged to right those disorders and if a Magistrate hath disordered the Church by thrusting Ministers from the peaceable exercise of their Ministry he ought to retract what he hath done by allowing them the peaceable exercise of their Ministry if he did wrong in thrusting them out it 's right to let them in and the Church of Scotland in that place cited hath declared That in that case Ministers should not refuse to preach in any place because the Magistrate hath interposed his Authority for setling them He insinuates in the end of this Answer That this Concession gives the Magistrate all Church-power but this is a groundless and injurious alledgance the Authors of that Book and the General Assemblie's which after exact examination of every part of it concluded it to be subscribed by every Minister of the Church of Scotland understood the Nature of Church-power much better than he did and they were so far from thinking That the Magistrates who in the corrupt and disordered state of the Church interposes their Civil Authority for setling Ministers does in so doing assume unto themselves and exercise all Church-power that they commend what they did in that case as a practice well-becoming godly Kings and Princes and Emperors This Insinuation is highly injurious to those wise and godly men who compiled and approved subscribed that second Book of Discipline for if this Concession did yield all Church-power to the Magistrate then those who compiled and subscribed it do quite subvert what they had immediately asserted viz. That the Magistrate may not usurp any thing which belongs not to the civil Sword but belongs to the Offices which are meerly Ecclesiastical as is the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments using Ecclesiastical Discipline and the Spiritual Execution thereof or any part of the power of the Spiritual Keys which our Master gave to the Apostles and their Successors As it cannot be supposed that so wise men would so quickly contradict themselves in a Book so deliberately and after so many Debates concluded so it cannot be imagined that they would design Kings and Princes godly for doing that which would quite swallow up and subvert the holy Calling of the Ministry This one passage in the second Book of Discipline does quite ruine the cause of the Author of the History of the Indulgence and approves the practice of the Indulged Ministers so that what they have done they have done it according to the mind of the Church of Scotland expressed in the second Book of Discipline The Book says That godly Kings both in the old and in the light of the New Testament have placed Ministers when the Kirk was corrupted c. This not only may be but it hath been and the Author denies not that the Church was corrupted at the time of the Indulgence and all things out of order and in confusion and thus he really yields the cause and concedes all when the Church is corrupted and all things out of order the Magistrate may place Ministers and Ministers may be placed by Magistrates but at the time of the Indulgence as the Author grants the Church was corrupted and all things out of order and therefore at the time of the Indulgence the Magistrate might place Ministers and Ministers might be placed by Magistrates according to the 10th Chapter of the second Book of Discipline It 's true that the Magistrate should not have broken the order of the Church â—ut to conclude that the Magistrate cannot place Ministers because he thrusts them out or that he cannot do them right in granting to them the peaceable exercise of their Ministry because he did them wrong in restraining them â—rom the exercise of it or to conclude That â—he Magistrate by breaking the order of the Church loses all Authority to do any good to â—he Church afterward or that we may make â—o use of any good that the Magistrate does â—ecause he hath done evil or because at the â—me time he does some things right and some â—ings wrong that we cannot chuse the good because we must refuse the evil is a most unreasonable way of reasoning and at this rate a man may conclude quidlibet ex quolibet any thing he pleases from whatsoever he pleases any Conclusion he pleases from any premisses Neither doth the acceptance of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry from the Magistrate who had formerly restrained Ministers by penal Statutes that they could not without molestation exercise their Ministry teach Magistrates a way how to usurp all Church-power for the taking off of Restraints was a doing of right and no Usurpation He might as well alledge That if one by strong hand wound a man and put him out of his own house and take his Goods and afterward be willing to cure the wound and admit the man to return to his House and Goods that the injured man by admitting the Cure and returning to his own House and Goods teaches the man who injured him to wound intrude and spoil To the 4th Objection taken from the examples of Hezekiah and Josiah who commanded the Priests and Levites to do the work of their Calling he answers nothing to the purpose If Hezekiah and Josiah did right in setting the Priests in their Charges and the Levites in their Courses and in commanding them to do the work of their Calling and if the Priests and Levites did right in obeying those Commands then Magistrates may not only permit and allow but also command when there is need Ministers to do the work of their Ministerial Calling and Ministers may and should obey such Commands but the former is true for these Kings are commended for doing so 2 Chron. 35.2 c. 2 Chron. 29.2 3 4 5. c. 2 Chron. 31.2 and therefore the latter is true also He answers That our Rulers have done many evil things which these Kings did not but will he conclude that because they have done evil which these Kings
did not that therefore they may not imitate these Kings in doing good in permitting allowing commanding Ministers to preach the Gospel and do the other parts of their Ministerial Office this was the Act of Indulgence which the Indulged Ministers made use of and the Magistrate in this Act did not destroy the Order and Beauty of the Church c. The Author in his Answer would make his Reader believe That they who make use of this Argument bring it to prove that the Magistrate might make the Act of Instructions but it hath been often answered That the Act of Instructions was not the Act of Indulgence the Act of Indulgence permitted and allowed the exercise of their Ministry of this Act they made use the Act of Instructions which was super-added to the Act of Indulgence the Indulged Ministers did not observe and told the Magistrate they could not receive such Instructions I am wearied of these Repetitions the Question is Whether the Magistrate may command Ministers to do the work of their Ministerial Calling the Question is concluded in the affirmative That they may from the Scriptures cited and if they may command they may permit and allow them to preach and do the other Functions of the Ministry He diverts his Reader from considering the force of the Argument by making a Comparison betwixt Hezekiah and Josiah and other Rulers as if this were the design of those who argue from the forecited Scriptures to prove that our Rulers were as godly Reformers as Hezekiah and Josiah but this is but a trick to escape the dint of the Argument As we should mourn that neither our Rulers nor we are like those eminently holy Kings who were very singular for uprightness and tenderness and pray that the Lord who hath the hearts of Rulers and Subjects in his hand would give them and us such uprightness and tenderness as those Kings had so when our Rulers do any thing for which those Kings were commended we should thankfully acknowledge it and this is one of those things for which they are commended That they commanded the Priests and Levites to do their work and is not preaching and the exercise of the other Functions of the Ministry the work of the Ministers of the Gospel and if it was good and a part of the Reformation of those godly Kings to command this why should it be judged evil in our Rulers to do what they did Object 5. But what can be said of such of the Indulged c the Argument may be formed thus When the Magistrate appoints permits allows Ministers to go to their own Charges to exercise their Ministerial Office Ministers may lawfully go yea they should go to their own Charges but the Magistrate appointed those Ministers whom the Objection concerns to go to their own Charges to exercise their Ministerial Office and therefore they might lawfully go and it was their duty to go He answers 1. That it was a meer accidental thing that they were sent to their own charges viz. because at that time they were vacant Ans 1. He puts in his own word of sending and not the words used in the Acts of Indulgence which is not fair dealing 2. What means he by a meer accidental thing if he mean that the Council did not intend that they should go to their own Charges but that this fell out beside the Magistrates intent this is false for as it was appointed by the Kings Majesty That they should return to preach and exercise the other Functions of the Ministry in the Parish-Churches where they formerly served so the Council appointed them to go to these Churches and therefore their going thither was not beside the intent of the Magistrate but was a thing designed and intended by the Magistrate Their going to their former Charges was not in respect of the Magistrate like the finding of a Treasure by a man who is plowing the ground But 3ly Suppose this had been a meer accident will this militate against these Ministers returning to their own Charges It was accidental that those Parishes were vacant and therefore it was unlawful for these Ministers to return to their own vacant Parishes had not these Parishes been vacant these Ministers had been appointed either to go elsewhere or had not been indulged at all and therefore it was unlawful for them to return to those Congregations which were accidentally vacant These are reasonings which have no shadow of Reason but the Subject-matter could not furnish him with any better But it would seem from pag. 19. That he opposes accidental to that which is necessary and cannot be otherways than it is for when he is proving that this was an accidental thing he labours to make it appear by Mr. John Park his disappointment because the Prelate prevented his coming to the Kirk designed by thrusting in a Curate notwithstanding of his pleading the benefit of the Act of indempnity in his own defence against what was objected against him and thereby acknowledged himself to have been a Traytor in all his former actings and that all the work of Reformation was but Rebellion Here the Author grants That Mr. John Park 's own Kirk was designed for him and so his accidental thing is not here opposed to a designed thing but to a thing that is so necessary that it cannot be hindred or prevented and if he take accidental in this sense the Argument must run thus The returning of Ministers to their own Charge was not a necessary thing which must be and cannot but be but only a contingent thing which may not be and whose being may be prevented and therefore it was not a thing lawful or a duty But this Argument is as ridiculous if not more ridiculous than the former for there are many things which may lawfully be and should be which yet never have any existence I doubt not but the Reverend Brother Mr. John Park can abundantly clear himself from the foul aspersions that this Author would cast upon him I know not the Matter of fact which might yield many grounds of defence but it seems the Author hath been too intent to have a hit at Mr. Park seeing he brings or rather impertinently drags him upon the Stage to be beaten and that because he pleaded the benefit of an Act of Indempnity It seems very unreasonable and injurious dealing to alledge That any man who pleads to have the benefit of an Act of Indemnity as it doth free a man from Skaith and Damage doth hereby acknowledg that he hath been a Traytor in all his former actings or that he acknowledges any real crime at all 2. Says he They were not barely permitted to go to their own Charges by rescinding of the Act of Glasgow or taking off the Sentence of Banishment which might easily have been done if the Council had intended no actual Invasion Ans They were not barely permitted to return to their own Charges and therefore they should not have returned
that Act which was in Sess 2. of Parliament 1. 1662. The Brethren being removed some of them were called in together upon particular Summons for Baptizing of Children in other Congregations and that defence which the Informer speaks of that the instructions had not been intimate did as the answerer of the History of the Indulgence informeth drop unwarily from the mouth of one He says further that there were other Indulged Ministers there who had never seen a double of the Instructions and hence very rationally infers that they could not be the condition upon which they received the Liberty to exercise their Ministry without molestation If the Council had designed them for Conditions they would have sent them as soon as the Indulgence and would have made surer work in their intimation And whatever was their Design in giving these Instructions they cannot be with any Reason or Sense supposed to be the Condition upon which the Ministers accepted the Indulgence seeing it was accepted by them ere they saw the Instructions and many of them had not seen the Instructions for some years after they had exercised their Ministry in these Parishes to which they were Indulged He shews also that the inferences which the Historian draws from that defence viz. That it contained a tacite acknowledgment that they would not have done what they did if the Act had been intimate to them and that in time coming they would willingly obey them and consequently that the injunctions were just and righteous and such as neither they nor any other should disobey whether because of the matter or because of the power enjoyning them are without all Reason and will not follow from that Antecedent by thrice nineteen Seeing this onely follows that therefore they ought to be free of all damage intended because of that Fact And further he shews that the Answer which the Historian suggests viz. That they might not be answerable to their Master to refuse to Baptize any Child within the Covenant brought to them for that end is a lax tale for 1. says he it will be hard for him to make out such an Obligation 2. The Order of the Church determines the contrary 3. They must have it testified that they are within the Covenant 4. That the Parents at least the presenters are not scandalous 5. And that they are not grosly ignorant or if the testimony be not from one who takes inspection of their knowledge they must examine them in the grounds of Religion He adds after all this there was a Macer sent to the utter Council House who summoned the whole number of these Ministers to compear before the Council on Tuesday next He adds that in the interval betwixt that Thursday and the Tuesday in the ensuing week they met frequently every week-day and twice upon the Tuesday And partly from memory and partly from draughts of papers which he had by him he shews that at their very first meeting one of their number told them that he heard a whisper that subscribed doubles of the Instructions would be delivered to them at their next compearance Whereupon they thought fit that there should be a draught of a paper bearing in it a Testimony not onely against the matter of the injunctions but also and mainly against the undue power of Ecclesiastick Supremacy assumed by the Magistrate from upon some of them at least as was generally apprehended had both their formation and injunction and not only against it as productive of these but also of all other things of that Nature since the year 1660. Afterwards there was a draught produced containing in its Narrative a thankful acknowledgment of the taking off Restraints and for granting the safe outward Liberty of the exercise of the Ministry as also a sad complaint of what was grievous in the three Acts of Council Sep. 3. 1672. complexly taken Next there was a full and clear Assertion and Declaration of what was due to the Magistrate about Ecclesiastick Affairs and what was not due to him in Ecclesiastick matters in a strict consonancy unto the Judgment and Expressions of the greatest of the Anti-erastian Divines Then there was a representation of Grievances in seven full Paragraphs more particularly of all contained in the foresaid three Acts and most particularly of those contained in the Act of Injunctions all which carry in their bosom a testimony against the sinfulness and Usurpation manifested in these matters of Grievance And lastly There was a full Petition for Redress This Paper was lookt upon as too large and therefore a shorter draught was fallen upon not differing as to Method nor yet as to Matter and Substance but onely contracted in fewer words a double whereof saith the Answerer of this History I have in my hand and I remember it was much debated as to the alteration detracting and adding of words and clauses but what those particular Debates were I cannot so distinctly remember onely one thing I do distinctly remember that the principal Debate was about the adding of a Clause unto the close of a Paragraph about the Injunctions or Instructions for the further clearing of it the Clause was conceived in these words That we cannot receive from the Magistrate any Instructions in Regulating us in the exercise of our Ministry How this Debate came to a close the Informer does truly relate for it being overtured that instead of the former Clause this should be insert viz. We cannot receive from the Magistrate Instructions formally and intrinsecally Ecclesiastical for regulating us in the exercise of our Ministry All did acquiesce This Paper being compleat upon Tuesday before twelve hours it was appointed to be drawn in fair writ that after Dinner it might be Subscribed before their Appearance before the Council But at that time on a sudden the turning of it into a Directory as the Informer says and the appointing of one in their name to declare the substance of it before the Council was generally consented unto by Indulged and not Indulged In voting who should be their mouth the whole votes ran upon Mr. George Hutcheson and Mr. Alexander Blair and each of them voted to other and Mr. H. had the greater number by very few Upon their compearance before the Council the Clerk of the Council did read in their hearing an Act wherein each of them were fined in the half of a years stipend after the reading whereof Mr. Hutcheson addressing his Speech to my Lord Chancellour after he had spoken somewhat relative to the Act of Fining added That their Lordships would be pleased not to burden them with Impositions in the matter of their Ministry wherein they were the Servants of Christ and they being men who demeaned themselves as became Loyal Subjects The Ministers thinking themselves dismissed turned towards the door my L. Chancellour required them to stay and did appoint the Clerk to deliver to each of them a subscribed Copy of that Act of Injunctions of Sep. 3. 1672. A
he refers to the judgment of the Reader pag. 159. I apprehend the Historian durst not for his Conscience conclude that it was sinful to hear or that it was a Duty to withdraw from hearing the Indulged Ministers he knew and his Conscience put him to declare that the acceptance of the Indulgence and the Councils Order as he calls it settling the Indulged Ministers did not make it sinful to hear these Ministers for he confesses that notwithstanding of the settling of these Ministers by the Councils Order yet if there were no other to be heard they not onely might be Lawfully heard and joyned with but they should and ought to be heard See the stating of the Question in his 28 Questions But though he durst not positively conclude the sinfulness of hearing the Indulged Ministers yet the poor People thinks that he hath done it and they are run so far from hearing the Indulged Ministers that they are without his cry to bring them back though there were no other to hear And too many by these questions about hearing are become careless of all hearing and some place their Religion in no hearing It had been good for many they had never intermedled with these questions about hearing for they are by the wind of Erroneous and Schismatical Doctrines driven from the Publick Worship of God And they take the profanation of the Sabbath in despising the Publick Ordinances to be a piece of tenderness and Religion and if the Lord prevent it not they are like to turn Quakers Pagans Atheists and to shake off the very form of Religion both in publick private and secret The Lord in mercy pity and prevent the ruine that the poor People are blindly running upon Page 159. He proposes Objections to be answered The first Objection should have been proposed thus Ministers of the Gospel who are Ordained and admitted Ministers of their respective Congregations and Ministers who not having access to these Congregations where they were Ordained Ministers are invited by desolate vacant Congregations to Preach the Gospel to them and who upon their invitation and consent of the Ministers concerned come to help these destitute desolate Congregations should not be disowned discountenanced deserted while they are doing the Work of the Ministry to which God hath called them by these People who invited them to Preach the Gospel to them But the Indulged Ministers were either Ordained c. oâ— invited and come with consent of the Ministers concerned c. And therefore they should not be deserted while they are doing the Work of the Lord to which these respective Congregations invited them If he had thus proposed the Argument he could not have evaded the force of it but it is his way to make Objections so as he may leave some way for himself to escape The true state of the Question is Whether these respective Congregations should disown and reject these Ministers of the Gospel whom they had invited and with consent of the Ministers concerned had received and appropriate to themselves to whom they had submitted and whom they had countenanced in the exercise of their Ministry Now why should they reject them as if they had nothing to do with them whom they received Why should they disown them whom they owned and whom they desired to own them Why should they withdraw from hearing these whom they invited to Preach to them Should they leave them because they Preach the Gospel to them While this Author calls in question if the Indulged Ministers be Lawfully called and appropriate Pastours of this Church he calls in question if this Church have any Pastours for they were Ordained by laying on of the hands of the Presbytery according to the Order of the Gospel and if this make them not Pastours of this Church I would know who are Pastours of it As for his second Objection taken from Mr. Livingston's Advice to hear Mr. John Scot an Indulged Minister he had better forborn to mention it than to have past it with such Answers as he gives Mr. Livingston whom he acknowledges an eminent Seer and Servant of Christ advised to hear the Indulged This Historian advises to withdraw from hearing the Indulged And it 's no disparagement to the Historian to say that Mr. Livingston's Advice was preferable to this Historians Advice who for Learning Piety Prudence Experience and Age was far inferiour to Mr. Livingston The onely thing which Mr. Livingston missed so far as I remember was a Testimony and if he had been well informed of the Testimonies which the Indulged Brethren gave upon several occasions and particularly before the Council and of the consonancy of their Practice to their verbal Testimony and their former Principles he would have been much confirmed in advising to hear Indulged Ministers The Historian says that he does not certainly know whether this Advice of Mr. Livingston proceeded from want of full information of Circumstances or from Ignorance of the Magistrates design or from fear that Field-meetings would cease but he inclines to the last because Mr. Livingston speaks not of his Peoples going to the Field-meetings Answ We have seen that any Light which this Historian hath gotten from Circumstances is darkness And I am very confident if Mr. Livingston had lived to see what Erroneous and Schismatick inferences this Historian hath made from the information which he hath gotten of many Circumstances and had seen the horrid Divisions and Confusions following upon these Erroneous dividing Doctrines he would either have judged that that Circumstantial Light was darkness or if it was light that this Historian did draw darkness out of light But I know no Circumstance of any importance which could make any thing against the Indulgence which was unknown to Mr. Livingston Mr. Livingston was a wiser man than to take his measures of judging of the Lawfulness or Unlawfulness of hearing Indulged Ministers from the Magistrates designs and intendments Though Ministers and People were clear that the Magistrate had an ill design in permitting or allowing Ministers to Preach the Gospel and People to hear or in permitting Masters of Families to pray in their Families or in permitting Physicians to cure Diseased People yet no rational man who is not blinded with Humour or some prejudice will conclude from the Magistrates ill design which is his Act and no way approved but disapproved by these Ministers Masters of Families Physitians that it 's unlawful for them to Preach Pray or Cure Diseased Persons Mr. Livingston's fears that Field-meetings would cease it seems have been better founded than the Historians confidence that they would continue And though it cannot be supposed that Mr. Livingston was an Enemy to Field-meetings yet none who knew him will think that he was so fond of the Fields that he would have preferred the Fields to a Kirk if the Kirk could have contained all who were to hear him And seeing he speaks nothing of Field-meetings it seems he had not learned that
by the Holy Ghost 4. They engage in the 2d Art That they shall to the utmost of their Power c. and so have altered a very necessary clause in the League and Covenant viz. We shall endeavour in our several Places and Callings Art 1. And in our several Vocations Art 3. They saw that if they had kept within the bounds of their Callings they could never have had access to make that terrible Confusion in Kirk and Kingdom which they designed Their Places and Vocations did not allow or warrant them to overturn King and Kingdom and bring all Ministers that were not of their way to stand at their Bar. And therefore being resolved to pass the bounds of their Vocation they left out these words of the Covenant which manifestly crossed their Designs 4. They say in that 2d Art We shall to our Power relieve the Church and Subjects of this Kingdom we being called thereto by his giving of us Power Power being Gods call to do good of that oppression c. 1. This is I suppose a new Principle in Christendom that Power or Strength is Gods call The Turk thinks he hath a Call and Right to take all that he hath might to Conquer but this is a part of Turcism which Christians detest It 's good that Malefactors who deserve Death be Executed but every man who hath strength or pith to kill them is not called of God to put them to death It 's good that there be Magistrates to govern a City it 's good that the Gospel be Preached but every man who hath ability to Govern a City or to Preach is not called of God to Govern or to Preach If this Principle were reduced to practice it would turn the World up-side down It 's good that a Master who hath injured his Servant should be punished May therefore a Servant if he be stronger than his Master punish him Is he called of God to do it If ability to do good were Gods call the man who desired Christ to speak to his Brother to divide the Inheritance with him might have answered to our Saviours Question Man who made me a Judge or a Divider over you That seeing Christ had ability to judge and divide that therefore he was called of God to judge and divide 2. Seeing they had not power or strength to effectuate these great things which they undertake in this and the following Articles and seeing there was no probability that a few private Persons could ever be in a capacity to do these things And so seeing according to their own description of Gods câ—ll they neither had nor ever were like to have Gods call to do these great things how could they swear to do these things which they were not yet called to do nor were ever like to be called to do them To swear to do what we are not called to do and which is not in our power and is neveâ— like to be in our power is a rash taking of the Name of God in vain it 's not a swearing in Judgment 5. The Method they take to overturn Pâ—â—â—â—â— and Erâ—stianism by overturning and ruining â—he Civil Government and Governours is meer â—onfusion and tends to havock and desolation Pâ—â—â—byterians think themselves bound in their placâ— and stations to seek the removal of Prelacy anâ— Erastianism but they do not think it their Dâ— overturn Civil Government to erect Presbytâ—â—â— Governmenâ— to destroy Civil Order in the Kingdom to erect Ecclesiastical Order in the Kirk 〈◊〉 do not think it their Duty to break the third Aâ—â—â—cle of the Covenant to keep the preceding â—â—â—â—cles As God hath appointed Order in the Church so he hath appointed Order in the State and the one of these should not be overturned to establish the other It 's the earnest desire of Presbyterians that the removal of all disorders in the Church and the reparation of the Ruines of the Church may be by the hand of their rightful Rulers 6. What confidence can the Subjects have that they who have so easily shaken themselves loose of subjection to Lawful Rulers to whom God hath commanded them to be subject for Conscience-sake will be very tender of the Consciences of others and will not exercise oppression upon the Consciences of these who would be under them No great tenderness can rationally be expected from these who have so lightly loosed themselves from the Obligation of the 3d. Article of the Covenant Or what confidence can they have that their Banders will not dispossess them of their Civil Rights if they find any fault in them seeing they engage themselves to dispossess the King and Subordinate Magistrates of their places to which they have undoubted right Or that they who make not Conscience to attempt the greatest desturbance that can be imagined in the whole Kingdom will regard the quiet or disturbance of private Persons Again the Subjects do not desire to be relieved in the way laid down in this Bond which is indeed the way of Disorder Confusion and Desolation they think the Remedy would prove worse than the Disease And what Right can be expected from these who makes Power and might to be a Call and Warrant for their Actings 7. It may seem strange that they could in the 3d. Article mention the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant without terrour and shame Seeing they have so manifestly in many things departed from these Covenants and gone cross to them in this very Bond for although in words they engage to extirpate Popery in all the Articles of it yet they really and effectually plant and establish several Popish Articles It 's a Popish Article that the Ministers of the Reformed Churches should not be owned as Ministers that Communion should not be kept with them nor with these who joyn with them in the publick Worship of God The Authors of this Bond say the same of all the Ministers of the Church of Scotland who are not of their own Opinion and way and for any thing known when this Bond came forth these whom they own for Ministers were but two or three at most and they renounce Communion in the Worship of God with all who joyn not with them in their wild and furious conceits And thus they yield this to Papists that there are no Ministers nor Churches in Scotland with which Christians should joyn in Christian or Church-fellowship It 's a Popish Article that the Pope may depose Kings and Magistrates and free Subjects of their Allegiance to Kings and Rulers and that any private Person may kill these Rulers whom the Pope hath Excommunicated and Deposed The Authors of this Bond in their Deposing the King and Subordinate Rulers and in declaring them no Rulers and in engaging to execute Judgment upon them I shall forbear to speak of their late Excommunication of them because I have not seen it they have confirmed the Papists in these Errors for they will think that the Pope may
Honour which Inferiours owe to Superiours is all due Reverence in Heart Word and Behaviour Prayer and Thanksgiving for them imitating their Virtues and Graces willing Obedience to their Lawful Commands and Counsels due Submission to their Corrections Fidelity to defence and maintenance of their Persons and Authority according to their several Ranks and Nature of their places bearing with their Infirmities and covering them in love that so they may be an Honour to them and to their Government And for confirming this Answer beside places cited in the Confession they cite Ephes 6.5 6 7. 1 Pet. 2.18 19 20. Servants be Subject to your Masters with all fear not only to the good but to the froward for this is thank-worthy if a Man for Conscience toward God endure grief suffering wrongfully for what glory is it if when ye be buffetted for your faults ye shall take it patiently But if when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is acceptable with God Titus 2.9 10. 1 Sam. 26.15 16. Wherefore hast thou not kept thy Lord the King This thing is not good which thou hast done as the Lord liveth ye are worthy to die because ye have not kept your Master the Lords anointed 2 Sam. 18.3 But now thou art worth ten thousand of us Esther 6.2 Matth. 22.21 Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are Gods Rom. 13.6 7. Gen. 9.23 And Shem and Japhet took a Garment and laid it upon their shoulders and went backward and covered the nakedness of their Father and their faces were backward and they saw not their Fathers nakedness If we compare this Band with the Confession of Faith and Catechisms and the Covenants and the Scriptures which are cited in the Confession of Faith and larger Catechism we may see if we will not shut our eyes that this Band cannot be reconciled with these but manifestly clasheth with them and therefore they who adhere to this Band are a party who by their tenets and practices distinguish themselves from these who do adhere to the Confession of Faith Catechisms and Covenants I had forgot that they also design themselves Persons whom the Magistrate hath declared no Lawful Subjects which shews that their number is not great and yet there are many who fall under the lash of these Declarations who think themselves bound by the Covenants to maintain the Kings Person and Authority and who disclaimed Ruglen Declaration and would undergo a thousand Deaths ere they subscribed this Band And it 's hoped that the Magistrates will think it true Policy to put a difference betwixt these who own their Authority and these who disown it This shews how inconsiderable the number of these who own this Band are and how unfit they are to make a Representative of the true Presbyterian Church and Covenanted Nation of Scotland Very ordinarily they who are for destroying Magistrates are no great friends to Ministers Having rejected the Magistrates in the preceding Articles they fall upon the Ministers in the sixth Article at least the greater part of them as being defective in preaching and testifying against the Acts of the Rulers c. and then for hindring others who were willing to have testified c. It was a long time a mystery to many what some people meant by a testimony which they were always calling for because although Ministers plainly preached as their Text led them against Prelacy and Erastianism and did shew the people from the Scripture that God hath given the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to Ministers and not to Magistrates and that the things of the House of God Ecclesiastical matters must be done according to the will of the God of Heaven and not according to the will of the Magistrate And though they with grief regrated the breaches made in the Order and Government of the Church yet these people would still exclaim against them as not bearing testimony against the ills of the time but at length it appeared what was the testimony which they meant for if one instead of preaching the Gospel had made an invective discourse against the Rulers and treated them at the rate that they are treated in this band and so rendred them and their Authority despicable and hateful O! that was a preaching of the whole counsel of God though they brought neither Scripture nor Reason for what they said and they made nothing of what was brought from Scripture and Reason against Prelacy and Erastianism by other Ministers because they also did preach the duty which subjects owed to the Magistrate and maintained their lawful Authority as Gods Ordinance and prayed for the King and subordinate Magistrates The Testimony which some of these people who were upon the secret which hath now broken out were seeking was something which might render the Magistrate hateful and cast him out of the affections of the subjects and so make way for driving on the design which is now discovered in this band and declaration viz. the rejection of the King and Kingly Government and all subordinate Magistrates deriving their Authority from the King They are highly injurious to Presbyterian Ministers in alledging that they have not born testimony to that truth which Christ witnessed before Pontius Pilate viz. That Christ is a King for they declare it privately and publickly in their places and stations That Christ is a King and that he hath a spiritual Kingdom distinct from the Kingdoms of this world but no ways prejudicial to earthly Kingdoms but where it comes into any Kingdom of this world it is if it be received the establishment of that Kingdom Not to repeat what is said in several Papers which do shew the several sorts of testimonies both verbal and real given by Presbyterian Ministers I shall only say That their testimony concerning the Church and the Government thereof and the power of the Magistrate in reference to Church-matters is in the Confession of their Faith and Catechisms Directory for Worship and Government and as it could hardly be expected that these Ministers being so scattered could meet to agree upon new Confessions so though they had met they could not readily have fallen upon a better confession than what is already extant and to which they add here In chap. 25. of the Confession of Faith Art 2. it is asserted That the visible Church is the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ the House and Family of God Art 3. Unto this Catholick visible Church Christ hath given the Ministry Oracles and Ordinances of God for gathering and perfecting of the Saints Art 6. There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ Chap 30. The Lord Jesus as King and Head of his Church hath therein appointed a government in the hand of Church-Officers distinct from the Civil Magistrate Art 2. To these Officers the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are committed Chap. 31. Art 3. It belongs to Synods and
them and they must stand and fall as they are pleased to determine Their Soveraignty is the more absolute that their Dignity proceeds of themselves and men use not to limit their own power when they have it at their own making or taking the old Prelates depend upon the King and they are sent from Court It 's true Athanasius * Epist ad Solitariam vitam Agentes finds fault with that ubi ille Canon ut è palatio mittaturis qui futurus est Episcopus Yet any thing that is in its nature excessive and inclined to pass bounds is less dangerous when it is limited by some other thing on which it depends than when it is left to its own indefinite appetite or inclination Their new Prelates depend neither upon King nor Kesar but are independent their Prelacy proceeds of themselves this makes it very dreadful like the Dominion of the Chaldeans Hab. 1.7 They are terrible and dreadful their judgment and dignity shall proceed of themselves They were terrible because as Mr. Hutcheson upon the place saith They would be their own carvers in all matters of advantage and honour standing to no law either of Nature or Nations in dealing with a terrified and subdued people but meerly following their own will armed with power If ye say they are not designed Lords nor a Soveraign power ascribed to them in the Bond but they are designed Ministers that is Servants I answer if folk will be beguiled with names the Pope will call himself Servus servorum a Servant of Servants but there is a real Soveraignty given to them when a Jurisdiction over all Presbyterian Ministers to suspend depose and dispose of their Ministry as they please is ascribed to them And the other Prelates deal more candidly in taking the name of Soveraignty and Lordship seeing they have the thing Is it not a strange arrogance that a Presbyter or two or three Presbyters shall claim a stated Jurisdiction over a great multitude of Presbyters who have the same office with themselves they either have that power over their Brethren by vertue of their Ministerial Office as they are Presbyters or by vertue of some other Office not by vertue of the Office of a Presbyter or Minister for then one and the same Office should make one Presbyter a Soveraign and Lord and another Presbyter his subject a Presbyter as a Presbyter cannot have dominion over a Presbyter for one and the same Office cannot make a man Soveraign over another who hath the same Office that he hath If they have this Soveraign power over their Brethren by vertue of some other Office than the Office of a Minister or Presbyter then let them tell us what Office this is if it be not the Office of a Prelate 2. It hath not yet been proven that the Lord gave a Soveraign power and Spiritual jurisdiction to any one of his Ministers no not to the Apostles over the rest Paul Bains in his Diocesan Trial Pag. 73 77. shews that a majority of directive and corrective power such a power as Bishops claim is more than Ministerial And Mr. Rutherford in his Divine Right of Church-Government saith Nor do we find that the Apostles had jurisdiction over Pastors in the Scripture nor in any Ecclesiastick Records but where Papacy was working See Pag. 21. There is but one Lord in the Church Ephes 4. and Christ hath forbidden Lordship and enjoined ministry and serving Luk. 22.24 1 Pet. 5.3 Non requiritur in dominatione humilitas sed ipsa Dominatio prohibetur saith Whitaker Christus de re dominantur non autem de modo dominandi hoc vel illo modo dominantur saith Junius The work of all Church-Officers is a Ministerial work not only Doctors and Pastors but Apostles Prophets and Evangelists were appointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the work of the Ministry Ephes 4.12 2 Cor. 4.5 Paul calls himself a fellow-servant with Epaphras Col. 1.7 with Tychicus Col. 4.7 Paul's dignity consisted not in Lording over other Ministers but in labouring more abundantly than others the Apostles claimed no Mastery or stated jurisdiction over other Ministers but they did draw with them as yoke-fellows and fought with them in their Spiritual warfare as fellow Soldiers and wrought with them as fellow-labourers Phil. 4.3 Phil. 2.25 Phil. 2. Rom. 16.3 they engrossed not the power of Jurisdiction in the Synod of Jerusalem to themselves for the Presbyters judged with them the Decrees of the Council Act. 16.4 were Ordained by the Apostles and Elders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church at Antioch sends Paul to Jerusalem Act. 15. the Officers of the Church at Antioch lay hands on Paul and Barnabas Act. 13.1 2 3. Paul and Barnabas are sent with a Collection Act. 11.29 30. the Apostles claimed no negative in Presbyteries or Synods in Ordination Excommunication c. The Apostles were extraordinary Ambassadors had infallible instructions by their Doctrine and practice did shew the Platform of the Church were not limited to any fixed charge and so might exercise their Ministerial authority in all places where they came they were to lay the foundations of Churches But that they had any such stated Jurisdiction over other Ministers as Prelates claim over Presbyters is yet to be proven for any thing I know their instructing Ministers and Churches in their duty and reproving their sins will not prove it for the Prophets did so and yet they had no stated Jurisdiction over the Priests Paul reproved Peter but had not jurisdiction over him That Timothy or Titus had such a stated Jurisdiction over the Ministers of Ephesus and Creet is yet to be proven that they had the sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction and that the Ministers of Ephesus and Creet had no power of Ordination and Jurisdiction is not yet proven The Apostle directs them to Ordain but that they are directed to do it alone and not in conjunction with other Ministers is yet to be proven Lay hands suddenly on no man is a Direction applicable to every Minister there are multitudes of Directions given them that cannot be denied to be given to all Ministers and that some Directions are given to them as Prelates and some as Presbyters is as easily denied as affirmed But though it were granted that those extraordinary Officers in founding Churches at first might do some things which ordinary Ministers might not do this would be no warrant for these two or three who were but very ordinary persons to claim a Jurisdicton over the rest Whence have they their power No man can receive any thing of this nature except it be given him from Heaven Joh. 3.27 Let us see their Patent that we may know if it be leill come They must first shew a Warrant from the word for such a Prelatical Sovereignty and then let ut see how they came by it no man should take any Honour in the Church to himself at his own hand he must be called of God