much desire that either we might imbrace it or be inexcusable before the world if we rejected it or urged any thing upon them which might entrench upon their consciences and widen the breach with God The truth is whatever charity we have of the Protesting Brethren of whom they speak pag. 118. that many of them are grieved with these divisions and would be at an Union were they let alone Yet we have not the charity that these Witnesses are any of that number but the very fomenters of the flame 2. Because it is declared that we will not accord to their Proposals of extrajudicial Committees of which we have spoken before nor recede from the established Government nor go out of the common road of the Judicatories to the corruption whereof we have also spoken and will speak to Subordination thereunto afterward Therfore they count Union very hopelesse pag. 73 74. Which is in effect as their arguing afterward cleareth to call it desperate So that it is now come to this No Peace not only except the Resolutions and Assemblies be laid aside but except also the other Judicatories be laid aside and men be allowed to submit to no more of their Sentences than they think just A good and safe bargain for the Church of Scotland indeed But we are yet resolved not to quit the Judicatories God hath given us specially since we have no hope of better to be raised out of the rubbish of these 3. Because the Declaration made mention only of these Overtures for Union which were most material upon the according whereof other things in the Conference might easily be setled They are pleased to question pag. 74 75 76. whether we adhere yet to all the condescensions and offers made by us in the Conference And yet the very words of the Declaration cited by themselves do expresly say so much But where men have no good liking of things it is easie to fish faults at them 4. Because our judgment is asserted concerning the Acts of Assemblies relating to our present differences Therefore they alleage we obstruct Union and pag. 76 77. a great noise is made of our receding upon politick grounds from things wherein we pretend to conscience justice and necessity only because the times are changed And withall they tell us over again the injustice of these Acts about things we account so extrinsick and which they account contrary to the Covenant Answ And yet all this needed not as to the matter of Union but that they would needs let a fling at us for however we think them just yet it was never required of them to think them just in order to an Union yea it was promised they should never be troubled with them But when they have spoken here with as much vehemency against them if not more than we have done for them We are both free when all is done to agree not to impose upon one anothers judgment about them and to lay them aside We shall adde no more to what we have said of the justice of these things about which the Acts are for till they prove them to be open breaches of Covenant and Engagement they remain to us Truths of God Nor shall we make any further enquiry who they are that change with times and do bring the Ministrie in contempt for that is too well known and is no pleasing subject whoever have hand in it But for the thing it self we see no such change in our selves as they would give out We judge the thing it self contained in these Acts being considered simply to be just and true at all times That persons obstructing the defence of their Country going to ruin and overturning a supream Church-judicatory do deserve Censure and that it is necessary it be inflicted when it may reach the end to prevent or render ineffectuall their oppositions And yet not only prudentiall grounds but even conscience telleth us that it is neither expedient nor necessary to make such Acts where the matter about which men controvert is not practicable nor to keep them in force when by laying them aside we may obtain the Union of a broken Church In a word we hold it no paradox in Divinity that practical conclusions relating to the publick State of a Nation do alter much with times altering the face of affairs And that in some times things may justly and ought necessarily to be done which at another time conscience teacheth men ought not to be done And as for the future we have offered sufficiently to secure them so far as we can against the hazard of these Acts and that upon the same grounds of conscience which teach us now to lay aside Acts about a Question that is extinct though we cannot be surety that the Church in the like case of a forreign Invasion and being interrogate by the Civil Power shal never determine concerning these Resolutions as they have done and concerning any who shall make the like opposition they have done Yea we are perswaded would themselves but essay their hand with their wonted principles and practices now it would soon be seen how it would be rellished We shall only adde further that as to what they insinuate of change of times it would be more like kindly children for them to be the more peaceable and respective of their Mother that they think the times allow them a liberty to do otherwise It is no great magnanimity to take advantage of her low condition 5. As to what is said by way of Answer to their outcries that though some very few Presbyteries have required of Intrants of whatsoever judgement that they promise not to trouble the peace of the Church with these debates Yet none of these Acts have been de facto a bar to hold out godly men lawfully and orderly called and tried Though they be industrious to thrust in men of their own judgement and crush Godly and able men who do not agree with them They tell us 1. Of much and many wrongs done by these Acts pag. 78. Which we intreat they may verifie and instruct as they say they can before we can answer For whereas they appeal to our knowledge We do declare we know Elders of their judgement kept in and brought-in in Judicatories where we are the plurality though in some places they have cast out of their Elderships all who differed from them in judgement and have never since made another Election though usually before they did yearly change We know also Expectants of their judgement not only admitted among us to triall in order to a liberty to preach but being lawfully called and tried admitted to the Ministry where we have power We fear many young men who went to other Presbyteries to passe their trialls went not upon the account of their judgement but that they might shun the more accurat trials used in Universities and Presbyteries where more learned men are 2. They are pleased indeed to jest by saying that
constituted Church and how the contrary practice will bring confusion upon all Societies Civil and Ecclesiasticall on earth 5. But to consider what they offer against this distinction and state of the Question as to the matter of Submission And 1. we find them arguing Arg. 5. pag. 103 104 105. That if Submission be due in matters of Discipline and Government then also in matters of Doctrine and Worship unless God hath either put a greater respect on the first than those last or hath given greater latitude in the one than the other Answ To say nothing here of the Submission due in matters of Doctrine and Worship as not lying in our way as was said before seing passive obedience which is the matter in debate betwixt us is relative only to the Criticall power of Judicatories We can soon give them another ground of difference in these than what they are pleased to find out for us viz. That however God hath not put a greater respect on Discipline than on Doctrine and Worship nor hath allowed men to take a greater latitude in the one than the other though yet in many things of Discipline and Government God hath left us to be directed by the light of nature and rules of prudence common in like cases in all Courts as He hath not done in Doctrine and Worship and consequently the multitude of Counsellors in a Judicatorie are more to be respected than one who is loadened with a prejudice of passion and interest in his own particular Yet to submit in the matter of Discipline where the hazard is only personall and of a mans suffering is not tanti to disturb a well setled National Church where Doctrine and Worship are in their integrity whereas the case is of greater moment when a National Church in her Judicatories introduceth false Doctrine and corrupt Worship to be imposed upon a Church 2. They argue Arg. 6. pag. 105. 106. That Submission to the Critick power or exercise of Discipline will infer Submission in matters of Doctrine for which they instance the ratification of and Censures ordained to be inflicted upon the matter of the Publick Resolutions and the matter of Athanasius of which before Answ We see no cogency in this Argument that because a Church may censure Hereticks who submit not to their Dogmatick determinations which none of us ever doubted of therefore our Question with them is not about matters of Discipline only when we are setled in all other points and do professe our adherence thereunto But as to the matter of the Resolutions 1. As we wonder with what face they can conclude all these men taken in to be sons of Belial if it were for no more but upon the account of their own professed respects to many of them To say nothing of the good parts yea and real piety of at least some of them who failed in an hour of trial So they must first prove these Resolutions to be an errour before they can make the Sentences concerning them unjust This we are forced to tell them often because they have the good manners so oft to say much and prove nothing at all 2. This Question being extrinsick to our Doctrine Worship and Government as hath been said men may well be enjoyned silence in it without entrinching upon the matter of Doctrine or mens opinions we are sure it is maintained by the Learned that men having declared their judgements concerning some truths of an inferiour nature they may be silent for peaces sake And so contending Divines have been enjoyned silence by Church-Judicatories And if any would but have a touch of the necessity and equity of these proceedings of the Judicatories against the opposers of these Resolutions let them but take a view of these mens wayes and let these Witnesses but re-act a few of their former pranks Let them but oppose any of these publick Resolutions of conjunction of Forces with either Malignants or very Papists that may be in practice in these Nations Let them refuse to act or enjoy their publick Offices under an Authority owning and putting in practice these Resolutions let them not only write and preach against them as a defection and sin against God but let them protest against Judicatories as not lawfull who owne them Let them draw a faction and keep up a Rent till they be repented of or at least made void and assurance given against them for the future Let them we say but shew forth a little of this their wonted spirit and we hope others will see what they are as well as this Church and Nation hath felt it And if they be true to their principles they must do so still in all times and cases in these confederate Nations Otherwise men will have just cause to suspect them of little conscience in the things they have done But 3. This instance hath nothing to do with our Question for in our Overtures wherein Subordination was required it was also offered that all debates and censurableness about these matters should be laid aside and made void And so had they accepted the Union that would have had nothing to do with the Subordination required for the future IV. As to the persons of whom Submission is required Two things come to be considered which may further clear the Question 1. That Submission is required of ordinary Officers and Church-members only So that their Arguments from the practice of the Apostles and Prophets pag. 47. and Arg. 2. pag. 100 101. might well have been spared For to omit what further may be said afterward to the instance of the Apostles their Calling being neither of man as to the Office it self nor by man as to their call to it but being immediatly called by Christ Himself without the interveening Ministerial Power of Church-judicatories We assert they were not subject to any Church-judicatory on earth as to their continuance or non-continuance in the exercise of their Ministery But ordinary Ministers as they have their Call mediatly by the Church without whose authoritative Mission no inward Call can warrant them to thrust-out themselves So in their continuance in that Office which they have from the Church they are subject to the Church And if they will assert a warrant for their continuance in the Ministery whether the Church will or not Tub preachers may as well improve it to thrust themselves in over the Churches belly And here we may take notice of what is said by the Authors of that Treatise published by Mr. Rathband formerly mentioned who speaking of their yeelding to Suspensions and Deprivations by Bishops and their Courts pag. 41. they tell us that it lieth in them to depose who may ordain and they may shut that may open and afterward and pag. 42. They answer that very Objection from the Answer of the Apostles Act. 4.19 20. urged by the Brownists against their Submission by shewing the differences betwixt the Apostles case and theirs 1. That they who inhibited
while they make it their work to advance their party they little consider into what inconveniences they thrust themselves nor what a door of confusion they open to all Innovators Thirdly They labour to clear themselves in this matter by recrimination telling us pag. 22.23 That we have intruded men upon their setled Ministers have divided and separated from the body of Presbyteries being but a small part thereof have counteracted and caused people counteract Determinations of Presbyteries and Synods That Synods have taken things out of the hands of Presbyteries where there was neither reference nor appeal nor mal-administration have refused to acknowledge Ministers for members though duely called tried and ordained and that some Synods have taken upon them the power of a General Assembly Answ Were all these true charges and unquestionable faults yet we know they have better skill than to think they can justifie their fault by our committing of another But in so far as we can understand these general challenges and we wish they had made them out more distinctly we doubt not sufficiently to clear our selves not only as to the matter but to the observation of Order in them And 1. If after a Minister is orderly called and upon his trials before the Presbyterie in order to his admission some of them in the mean time in a few dayes huddle up the trials of another who is desired by some of their party in the Congregation and do thrust him in over the belly of People Presbyterie and the person who is already called We trust none will count it a crime that the Presbyterie proceed in their orderly way to set over the People the man whom they have called and to whom they do still adhere Or suppose they in their precipitant way as they use not in these cases to observe the prescribed Order do take the start of Presbyterie and People and thrust-in a man we do not believe that any will condemn the Presbyterie if they hearken unto a People and set a Minister over them according to the appointed Order seing they cannot in conscience submit to such an Intruder and are rather willing to maintain another if the legal maintenance be otherwayes disposed of than be brought into such bondage To do otherwayes were not only to approve of their usurpations but to wrong the liberty of the People and subject them to an intolerable slavery though otherwise we have forborn to meddle with such as they have thrust-in where the People do not make a grievance of it 2. It hath been often denied that the guilt of separation and dividing of Presbyteries lieth at the door of those who adhere to the Judicatories of the Church and would they submit the matter to the trial of any competent Judge it would appear to be so But they have now taken-up a way of being both Judge and Party in their own cause and so are sure not to lose And were it for edification to search the Country for stories of fact and trouble the world in print with them it were an easie thing to make the injustice of this charge appear This we assert that all they can say in this matter in places which we know is That because the Brethren of a Presbyterie would not owne nor sit with such as were deposed by the General Assembly who with possibly one or two of their adherents would presbyterially condemn all the proceedings of the Assemblies but did meet together apart to do the work of the Lord incumbent to them therefore they must be accounted dividers from their Presbyterie And in another Presbyterie which in time of the troubles had not met for a year some Protesters at the instigation of some of their Leaders having called the Brethren together occasionally without conveening Moderator and Clerk did approve of the Protestation against the Assembly at St. Andrews and Dundee which when some Brethren who met with them perceived they deserted that meeting and did acquaint the Moderator therewith who as it was proper to him appointed time and place for the meeting of all the Presbyterie But these Protesters who had formerly met would never meet with them any more but keeped their own adjournments and meetings to this day notwithstanding all the endeavours of the Synod to unite them All which being duely considered will leave the division at their door seing they would not conveen at the Call of the Moderator whose office it was to call them together after so long an intermission at least it ought to have been first desired of him Nor did the Presbyterie conveen secluding them but they were called with the rest and when they refused to come were earnestly followed by their Brethren and it was a long time after before the Synod having much and often dealt with them to unite did proceed to declare these to be the Presbyterie they would owne who should meet together at a time and place fixed by them Which they could not forbear to do any longer unless they would leave all the affairs within these bounds in a confusion 3. For our causing people counteract the Determinations of their own Synods it is a thing we profess ignorance of and do take it for a calumny unless they make it out But that People or Ministers have been warranted to counteract the Determinations of Presbyteries when their superiour Judicatories have condemned these their Determinations and reponed the parties injured to their right we hope is agreeable to the Rules of Government and what else they can mean by that general challenge we confess we cannot divine 4. That Synods have found mal-administrations in Presbyteries and so have taken matters out of their hands according to the Order when yet these Presbyteries did not find any mal-administration in their own actings we believe is true enough But we hope this will be found no crime unless we make Presbyteries their own Judges to determine when they are right and when wrong and disallow that Synods take any thing from them either upon appeal or mal-administration except they will first be pleased to be convinced they have been in the wrong 5. That Synods though they have forborn to quarrel mens exercise of their Ministerie in Congregations where they have been disorderly planted when the Congregation maketh no opposition to them as it falleth out in some few places Yet will not owne these as members of their Synods who are thus admitted either by Ministers without the bounds of the Presbyterie or by Ministers within the bounds who make themselves a Presbyterie and will neither unite with their Brethren nor be subordinate to the Synod is we hope the most sober and fair testimonie can be given against their encroachments and usurpation and will be condemned by none but those who would have us as they elsewhere phrase it stoop like Asses and bear all their irregularities and approve all they do 6. That a Synod yea and Presbyteries of their judgment take upon
ever it should be needfull to take them Or that the Church of Scotland did ever since the Reformation from Popery oppose these Resolutions as they tell us afterward in the second branch of their Answer or owne any Doctrine contrary to these Resolutions and did not rather practise them and print Declarations conform to them And let them answer what is said to all these particulars in the printed Papers formerly mentioned before they so magisterially tread under-foot both the truth and us 2. They tell us that it is not a question so extrinsick as we would make it but involves a portion of the precious Truths of God revealed in His Word and is a truth holden forth by the Kirk of Scotland as containing what is necessary for preserving the rest of the Doctrine Worship and Government from the pollutions which ill men use to bring in or give way unto whereof they give an instance in the desires of the Commission of the Assembly 1648. concerning qualifications of Instruments in the unlawful Engagement And they desire us to remember of what spirit that man would have been judged who in the Assembly 1650. it seems by what follows it should be 1648. would have pleaded this to be a question much extrinsick to our Doctrine Worship and Government Answ Whatever was said concerning the nature of that question Yet it was never our mind to assert that there is not a matter of truth and errour in it to be determined by the Word of God nor yet will we deny but where the case is practicable in any Nation under heaven their opinion in this matter is of soveraign bad consequence to the State and Nation as not only exposing the Nation to unavoidable ruine but even exposing the Doctrine Worship and Government to the mercy of Turks and Pagans or Papists if they please to invade it rather than they will trust fellow-subjects to defend themselves and the common Interest of the Nation and that because they may bring in or give way to corruptions as there they expresse it Only we have still judged that when the Church of Scotland is no way concerned nor put to it to determine that Question who may be employed in State and Armies And seing this question is not determined nor debated in our Confession of Faith and we may very well Preach Christ and the Gospel and what concerns the practice of the people of God without dipping upon that Question yea and may observe the Directory for Worship and keep up Presbyteriall Government without it Therefore it hath been thought strange we might not lay such a Question aside and joyn our selves in the work of the Lord which is presently put in our hand But since those Witnesses will have it of such importance still we do again put them in mind of their work to make out their assertion in this controversie Mean time lest their state of the Question be as lax as that concerning Subordination is here We must put them in mind of these few particulars 1. That they must state the Question more accurately than to make it amount only to this as they hold it out pag. 67. Whether we should entrust known wicked malignant men enemies to Truth and Godlinesse with the Interests of the Lords Work and People For we will easily reply that this state of the Question would be found faulty in diverse respects as to that case It will not be granted them nay their own Consciences dare not assert that all of these then in question were known wicked Malignant men enemies to Truth and Godlinesse but rather that many of them were forward in the defence of the Truth and cause of God from the beginning though they were led away in the matter of the Engagement Neither will it be granted that men Ecclesiastically purged from what accession they had to evil courses must still be accounted what they were before the profession of their repentance and while they were going on in their wicked courses And they must also remember that the Question will take-in more than the Interests of the Lords work and People as they are pleased to take those in a restricted sense For the common interests and safety of the Nation and of every particular person and family therein are supposed to be concerned in the question betwixt us and consequently will allow more to be engaged than in a quarrell purely religious Yea in such a case of common hazard and combustion they will hardly perswade rationall Christians but that fowl water may very lawfully be made use of to quench fire 2. That they must bring better proofs than that of the Commissions desire 1648. to prove their assertion For there the Engagement was unlawfull and the War was offensive and an Invasion of another Nation to say nothing of the different condition and posture of the Supream Magistrate in these two cases And if they will grant that the unlawfulness of that Engagement consisted only in the imploying of persons wanting the qualifications in the Commissions desire and that it had been lawfull if put in the hands of Confidents they say somewhat Otherwise it will be found wilde reasoning that because a Church being jealous of the States intentions in an offensive War otherwise unlawfull desired this as one mean of removing their fears that confident persons might be intrusted with the management of the War Therefore in a defensive war which none of the parties questioned to be lawfull and wherein the whole Nation in generall and every person in particular are concerned as much as they are worth no other persons may be imployed 3. Whether they mean the year 1648. or 1650. we know not what strange thing it would have been thought to maintain this Thesis But we are sure that the Commission shortly after the Assembly 1648. did upon the debate word the solemn Engagement so as it might not precondemn that Thesis as is said before and is elsewhere cleared And the Commission of the Assembly 1650. did shortly after that Assembly take these Resolutions and that when it consisted generally of men who were most eminent friends to Reformation 3. They retort this consideration upon our selves enquiring why we are so tenacious of the Determinations of our Assemblies about this Question which we judge so extrinsick and will not for the peace of the Church take course that these Determinations be not looked on as the definitive judgement of this Kirk or any of the Judicatories thereof and why we make and keep up Acts against those who submit not to these Determinations Why also we sometime place the standing or falling of this Church therein Some of this stuffe is laid in our dish again with vehemence enough Pag. 85. But we answ If we look to what is past and the Question were put Why the Assemblies did define and determine in these matters and make these Acts Our Reply would be because the things determined and defined are lawful
and just and they were required by the Civil Magistrate in a time of extream exigencie to give their judgement therein And because publick opposers of these Determinations when practicable and necessary are turbulent men and drawers on of the ruin of any Nation where they live But if we turn to our present case had the Question been Why do we not lay aside these debats and take away these Acts for peace And why do we not forbear to impose these Determinations upon their consciences that they should approve them as the definitive sentence of this Kirk yea why do not we promise that they should never be urged against them as the definitive sentence of this Kirk Our Answer is as easie That all this is offered to them in our Conference for Union and rejected by them But as to their Question we say That therefore we do not take course that they be not looked on as the difinitive judgement of this Kirk because we are perswaded in our consciences they were lawfull Assemblies who did take cognition of these matters And we know that de facto they did define and determine in them and therefore we can not lie against our consciences and knowledge to say the contrary nor can we being private men annul these Determinations simply which is only competent to another Generall Assembly if they find just cause so to do And if they can instruct that ever private men did repeal the Acts of Civil or Ecclesiastick Judicatories especially which they held in their consciences to be lawfull Judicatories and declare them not to be the definitive judgement of these Judicatories as it seemes they would have us believe pag. 85. and is the thing they seek of us Let them produce their evidences But we believe they will succumb in their probation and that it will be found a practice intolerable either in a State or Church And as to the weight they say we sometime lay upon this matter We do indeed judge that Question about the Resolutions very weighty where a Nation is put to practise them But they do here alter the Question from what they are upon in this Section and turn-in upon the Assemblies and their Determination therein For we do not think nor ever did we say that the laying aside the Debate concerning the Resolutions would be the falling of this Church Only we assert that their questioning the Authority of these Assemblies upon the grounds produced and our consenting to them herein were in effect to expose the Church to ruin by granting a liberty to privat men to overturn National Church-judicatories at their pleasure and so to repeal their Determinations as to declare they had no lawfull Authority therein And yet this doth nothing contradict our Assertion that the Question about the Resolutions is so extrinsick to our Doctrine Worship and Government as they need not hold up perpetuall debates about it which is the Assertion they are now refuting 4. They assert that the subject matter of this Debate continueth in respect of the sin and guilt thereof not taken with nor repented of and in regard of the Synodicall approbation and tye the Acts of Censure publick Warnings Declarations and Remonstrances against the opposers thereof the authoritative approbation thereof by Synods and Presbyteries in regard of the execution of these Acts against some the taking-in of malignant men to have Ecclesiastick priviledges and trust and to be Elders and in regard of many sad fruits and evidences of defection following thereupon which they long ago represented to the severall Synods Answ We leave them in what they have given-in to Synods to the Returns given them by the Synods since they passe it here in a general Only we say this whatever were their faults in what they gave in to Synods themselves It had been more tolerable if they had sisted there and had not cast-off tendernesse and shame in aspersing the Judicatories and Servants of Christ in this Church among strangers by their Papers spread at London containing manifest untruths as the particular Synods concerned are able to instruct But for what they expresse here as many of these particulars have been answered before when they laid these things to our charge So for these which they refer to their considerations upon the Overtures of Union pag. 71. We shall remit them thither also to see if they will be able to make out as we are sure they will not that any of these things they complain of were to continue upon an Union which is the case in hand further than in so far as might reserve the freedom of our own judgement concerning the matter of these Resolutions and the lawfulnesse of these Assemblies Or if any thing was required of them which might either continue them under censures or censurablenesse or import their approbation of these things in their judgement And as to the matter of Repentance we trust we have obtained mercy not to decline the taking with or repenting of real guilt when it is made out unto us though we dare not sin against our souls to repent of our duty and of owning the Truth of God as we believe we do in this particular whatever they say here to the contrary We shall not insist to regrate how little there is indeed of repentance for faults among us nor shall we offer to do any thing like recrimination in so serious a businesse yet we must tell them that as all of us have need of more repentance before the Lord So though we believe it is their duty to repent their opposition to the Truth in this particular and their violent prosecution thereof to the running-down of their Mother-Church Yet we never did urge this as a thing without which an Union might not be Yea we think it strange Divinity that there can be no Peace or Union in a Church unlesse every man will renounce and repent of every thing wherein he differs from another in judgment We think God hath set other limits of mutuall forbearance for avoiding of a Schisme II. Whereas it was alleaged that their courses did speak them men affecting preheminence and to set up a domination of their Party in the Church and over their Brethren They begin with an acknowledgement of that bitter root of pride and ambition common to them with all men but they deny that charge though they grant they would wish all to be of that judgement in these points of difference because they judge it to be of the Lord So pag. 71 72. Answ As we shall wish them and our selves both more sense of that bitter root and of the breaking out evidences thereof according as their guilt is and we are sure some of them will not get many compurgators of that very crime So we leave it to the judicious to consider how they acquit themselves of the charge in the matters in debate in their unreasonable demands of and endeavoured impositions upon their Brethren and in
Courts of Christ and consequently not to be submitted unto Yea in case such decrees were published we should hold it a case of Confession for Ministers to preach and people to frequent Ordinances so long as they had liberty or opportunity And so though neither the Apostles nor Prophets had been extraordinarily called nor cloathed with a Commission unrepealable as hath been said by any on earth their warrant was sufficiently clear in that case to hold up the oppressed truth of the Gospel against the sworn enemies of Christ and the Gospel who would neither preach Christ nor suffer Him to be preached by any other as we heard from these worthy Non-conformists Authors of the Treatise against the Brownists formerly mentioned But on the other hand When a Church doth owne all the Truths of the Gospel and all the Ordinances of Christ and doth no sooner put out one from preaching of Christ but they provide another to make up that want and do dispense the Ordinances in purity to the people of God In such a case which through mercy is the case of this Church as we have heard Suppose they do erre in discharging one to Preach and another to come to the Ordinances It is not the will of God that persons so suffering should make a Schism by their Non-submission and counteracting upon the account of their personall suffering or prejudice as the preceding Arguments do abundantly prove But having used all lawfull means of redresse by Appeals to superiour Judicatories they ought to acquiesce and submit to the will of God calling them to suffer rather than run upon the many inconveniences formerly mentioned But to clear this further 2. We would distinguish duties commanded us by God wherein we may be restrained by men For there are some morall duties incumbent to Christians simply and absolutely as they are Christians and which are simply in their own power by themselves and independently from others and enjoyned them without any respect to their Subordination or relation to others in the Church So that to their performance of them they neither need a call impowering them thereunto nor are dependent upon the concurrence of any others in or to the same Such as prayer to God and confessing of Christ which are of morall naturall right And there are other duties of morall positive institution which are not in mens own power severally and by themselves and independently from others in the Church but some way in the power of others beside themselves and are incumbent to men as they stand in relation or Subordination to others And are either duties to be performed by men as they stand cloathed with an Office received by the interveening Ministery of the Church such as the ordinary Ministeriall preaching of the Word and the administration of other publick Ordinances Or priviledges which they do enjoy by the Ministery of others who are to dispense them unto them or also by the joynt concurrence of others with them therein Such as the participation of Sacraments publick Assembly-praying and praising The difference here is very considerable Both as to the power of Disciplinary Sentences about them for Sentences of Church-censures are not conversant about performance of duties of the first sort but only of the second nor can there ever in any case a restraint be lawfully put upon men in the matter of praying and worshipping God or confessing of Christ as there lawfully may be in some cases in the second sort of duties And as to the matter of Submission to Sentences restraining men from and forbearing of the performance of them For the first sort are so intirely in our own power that we neither need a call from any warranting us to go about them nor the concurrent acting of any other for our enjoying the liberty thereof And they are so absolutely commanded without respect to any dependence upon any other and are so absolutely necessary necessitate medii for a mans glorifying of God and his own eternal salvation That it must be a sin not to observe them constantly as affirmative precepts ought to be observed yea a double sin not to adhere to them in a case of Confession as it is when these duties are prohibited by men But as for the second sort of duties Albeit as hath been said there can be no submitting to forbear them upon any decree of men prohibiting them in their very nature and kind Yet being duties that are not absolutly necessary necessitate medii and being as to the exercise thereof not wholly in our own power of and by our selves but some way dependent upon others also So that we cannot go about them without a call and warrant from others nor enjoy the exercise of them by our selves Therefore in case the Church who calleth and ordains a Minister will not suffer him to preach Or a Minister who hath the trust of dispensing Ordinances will not dispense the Sacrament to a member the sufferer breaks no command in suffering that injury after he hath essayed all lawfull means of redresse Seing his forbearance is not a voluntary and elective omission of the duty he is restrained from but a patient suffering of an injury under a necessity whereof providence hath brought him unlesse he would commit a morall evil which he is oblieged not to do by naturall right viz. make a Schism in a true Church and bring contempt on lawfull Authority It is his affliction and not his sin nor is it the violation of any commandment but only a cessation from a duty commanded when he cannot do it without the violation of another command of more universall and necessary obligation Neither is he by this cessation deprived of the exercise of any duty absolutely necessary to the honouring of God enjoying of fellowship with Christ and saving his own soul And if they deny these things they must yeeld also that in some cases beside that of an erring Conscience which is yeelded by all a man may be concluded under a necessity of sinning on all hands As that a Minister must either sin by forbearing to preach or sin in making a Schism by continuing to preach when he is deposed by a lawfull Authority in a true Church though erring in that particular As such a case and snare upon men is held by the Learned to be repugnant to the infinite Holinesse and Wisdom of God the Law-giver So we find godly sufferers before us very far from judging their Submission and suffering to be any violation of Gods command calling them to their work Parker on the Crosse Chap. 4. Sect. 14. cleareth that sufferers in the cause of Non-conformity did not voluntarily wilfully or sinfully give-over their Ministery adding It is not the leaving of the Ministery that is a sin but the causes why the end wherefore and the circumstances wherein that maketh the leaving of it sinfull To wit as he expresseth both before and after in that Section when men leave it for their gain