had authoritie to shew for it I have given you as much as that you brought will beare What His Lordship brings here is another discoverie That you did erect them in your Assemblie Acts put them in execution as farre as you durst before any Parliament had pass'd them And Synodicallie established such as no Parliament had passed For this he cites your Acts of several Assemblies which you must either disavow or unriddle what the mistake is you impute Vnlesse you thinke good to save that labour confesse aswel as other your Brethren what is so manifest in your storie The particulars of your proceedings herein Arch-Bishop Bancroft long since collected in his booke of Dangerous Positions Where he shewes how you not onelie acted your selves at home but sent your emissaries into England to see the like practice there in the very face of Episcopal Government What other reasons beside the recalling the Church patrimonie caus'd the refusall of your second booke of Discipline I told you before Which with the rest may suffice to the vindication of what the Bishop premiseth in proofe of the conclusion he makes That the Dissiplinarians by their practies have trampled upon the lawes justled the Civile Magistrate out of his Supremacie in Ecclesiastical affaires His Lordship proceedes to his scrutinie of your doctrine wherein if he yet be more happie as you courteouslie tell us possiblie he will I shall take you to have the spirit of Tirestas having justlie lost your eye-sight for rash judging to be now better at prophesying then reviewing Which immediatelie appeares by your wandring at noonday being at a losse for that which every man may finde in the very place cited by the Bishop None are subject to repaire to this the National Assemblie to vote but Ecclesiastical persons c. This His Lordship conceives to crosse the Kings supremacie which being aswell Ecclesiasticall as civile gives him a power of voting presiding in Assemblies Nor was there ever act of free Parliament in Scotland old or late nor any regular justifiable practice of that Church but reserv'd this power to the King his deputed Commissioner without being chosen member of any Presbyterie or made a ruling elder in a National Assemblie which your booke of Discipline calls the generall Eldership of the Kirke Your hypercriticizing upon his thoughts while the spirit of divination comes upon you makes his Lordship no Super-Erastian in his doctrines Though what transscendent haeresie there is in a moderate answer to the malice in your question any of your aequitable comparers may reade in what Vedelius and Paraeus no herctikes I hope have published to that purpose as the doctrine of all reformed Churches the one quoting Bellarmine the other Stapleton as proper patrons of the Sub-Erastian principles in the Discipline Vedelius in his preface giving the world a caveat of the danger by the mischiefe it had brought upon England Scotland in the yeare 1638. How opposite they were to the Disciplinarian language sense in that particular which the Bishop remonstrates these single propositions can evidence Multo magu est Christiani Magistratus non solùm apprehensivè discretivè sed definitivè de religione judicare Here a definitive vote is asserted to the Magistrate …ad Magistratum pertinet judicium de religione seu rebus fidei causis Ecclesiasticis…tum formaliter tum objectivè Hereby a formal judgement in religion is attributed And this Doctor Rivet who I am told is call'd reverenc'd in the French Dutch Churches as the Calvin of these times hath vouched under his hand to be the Catholike doctrine of the Reformed If he had not we are sure it was the primitive practice of the good Christian Emperours to assume it to whom our conformitie is requisite Of Constantine the great who was personallie present in the Councel of Nice is sometimes called koinonos épiscopoumenon for his communite of suffrage with the Bishops Of the Emperour Theodosius who in the Councel of Constantinople sifted the several Confessions of the Arians Macedonians Eunomians as Brentius relates it cast himselfe upon his knees craving the assistance of Gods spirit to direct him in the choyce of what was most consonant to the doctrine of the Apostles Which epicrisis or completive judgement submitted unto by the Ancient Synods had these authoritative termes to expresse it Bebaioun épipscphizesthai épisphragizesthai cratinein cratioun epikyroun tà pepragmena To the exercise hereof the Discipline of your Reformed Brethren in these Countreyes not onelie admits but craves the presence suffrage of Delegates from the supreme Magistrate without which their Synodical Acts are not establish'd Quin etiam summi Magistratus delegati sunt postulandi ut in ipsorum praesentia eorumque suffragio Synodi Acta concludantur Nor did K. James any more in the Conference at Hampton Court then when in freedome He would have done in any Scotish Presbyterian Assemblie though he hated the name thought of the thing when somewhat was propounded that did not like him put it of with Le Roy Pavisera Rev. Yet the most of the prelatical partie will not maintaine him heerin Ans. Bishop Andrewes will in his Tortura Torti Bishop Field whom your friend Didoclave calls Hierambicorum eruditissimum in his volume of the Church beside many others And possiblie those that seem to be opposite may be reconcil'd if you have the maners to let them state the question among themselves The chiefe case wherein they not you instance of Leontius Bishop of Tripolis in his answer to Constantius the Emperour may be attended with circumstances which may terminate the dispute if not we must not take it on their word that for that as well as his other more regular demeanour he is own'd by Antiquitie to be kánon ecclesias as Suidas records The rule of the Church However it behoves you to cite your lawes to which the Bishops assertion is contrarie And I shall cut you short of that pompous traine which your vanitie holds up in the universal of all the Princes that have lived in Scotland confine you to two the rest being by their Religion unconcern'd in voting though not in permitting any Disciplinarian decrees King Iames the holie martyr King Charles the first who I hope you have not the impudence to say ever made profession so derogatorie to their right In what followes you practise over the fisher-man in the fable from whom you know that unlesse you trouble the water it is in vaine for you to cast in your net if you catch nothing for the Discipline you must sterve The whole paragraph is naught but a malicious seditious inference of your owne whereby you affixe an odious sense to the dutifull attributes of Royal prerogative your owne guilt causing a trembling in your joyuts at the thought of a scepter you buselie creep
Equidem non novi neque credam Christum qui Dei sapientia suit remp suam que omnium est perfectissima arbitrio stultorum hominura religuisse agitandam… quod ne Solon quidem aut Lycurgus aljusve quis pium Legislator pateretur For that and the rest of your religion your Confession of faith sayth That you are throughlie resolved by the â—…ord spirit of God that onelie is the true Christian sayth Religion pleasing God c… Gods aeternal truth ground of your salvation… Gods undoubted truth and veritie grounded onelie upon his written word Nay afterwards you protest and promise with your hearts under the same oath c that you will defend the Kings person and authoritie in the deferse of Christs Euangel and liberties of your Countrey which is or if it be no speake the same with Religion and liberties in your league Besides all which otherwhere you blasphemouslie compare both your confessions with the old Testament and the New That which followes wherein you moderate the first article of your Covenant imposing an endeavour to reforme onelie according to the word of God with out introducing Scotes Presbyterie or any other of the best reformed unlesse it be found according to that paterne though it served to palliate all blemiâ—…hes and deformities that were in it To invite possiblie some well meaning people into your fraternitie who like harmelesse bees relishing that sweetnesse litle thought what poyson they left behinde for other venemous insectiles to sucke out To furnish others withan excuse a petiful one for using so bad meanes to so good an end and when it undeniablie proves the contrarie the same it may be they intended crie they were mistaken though now they can not helpe it Yet it may be shâ—…wed to be a dubious frivolous limitation the same commendation your friends gave it when translated into an oath tenderd in behalfe of Episcopacie by the King First infirming that member and so far disinabling it from bearing part in the mater of an oath as subjection is required unto the reforming power in a Church Secondlie Quitting all that swore it of their engagement every moment if they see clearlie or judge erroneouslie your reforming Principals to digresse from that path Thirdlie either supposing your reformed religion in Scotland to be allreadie conform'd to that paterne or else enjoining to sweare contradictions Lastlie If leaving every man to judge what is according to the word and to endeavour according to that judgement imposing an oath productive of confusion there being as many mindes as men scarce two united in one touching Doctrine Worship Discipline and government The first might be illustrated argued from the fallibilitie and uncertaintie in the Reforming power a maim'd Parliament an illegitimate Assemblie then siâ—…ng whom I could not be assured to have the spirit of God so illuminating their mindes as whereby jointlie to judge the same reformation according to Gods word Secondlie as uncertaine should I bee seting aside all partialitie and passion that they would declare what they so judg'd against many of whom if not the most having a well grounded praejudice whether just or no maters not if not know'n to me I could not sweare de futuro a conformitie to their acts In which cases wisemen advise us to abstaine …Ten apochen tou omnynai prostattei peri toon endcchomenoon kai aoriston tes ecbaseoos echontoon to peras Hierocl in Carm. Pythag. and Iurant presumitur certioratus deliberatus accedere ad actum super quo jurat sayth the Lawyer The second is strengthned sâ—…fficientlie by your words which oblige the Covenanter no farther then he findes your great worke proceeding according to Gods word The successe whereof if no beter then in your Discipline and the Directorie will keep no man in his Covenant Gods word praescribing many parts of neither The Third is evident from the very clauses in the article where first an oath must be taken to praeserve the reformed religion in Scotland which if not according to Gods word is contradicted in the next that enjoines reformation onelie according to the word And if it be then that is it wherewith a uniformitie must be made and yet you tell us there is no such word nor any such mater in the Covenant About the last let every man speake his minde as freelie as I shall mine That I hold no Presbyterian government Scotish or other according to Gods word That I have read of much dissension among your selves in former times and heard of some in later That all Papists all orthodoxe persons in the Church of England are jointlie for Episcopacie in the order as according to Gods word and separatelie for it in the jurisdiction and discipline neither holding all parts of it exemplified in the word so not applicable unto it both not the same extensive particulars in the ordinance and exercise of the Church Besides such as you call Socinians Sectaries separatists whether individual or congregational All which having distinct opinions of Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the word if not concentred in the sense of the House or Assemblie but left to their several endeavours are sworne among them to delineate a pretie implicated diagramme of a Church But for a farther answer to this article of your covenant I remit you to the solide judgement of the Vniversitie of Oxford As likewise to that of several learned men in the Vniversitie of Cambridge who joined in one minde publîshed their refutation of the whole treacherous league A. 1644. Onelie I must adde what persons of knowledge integritie say they will make good That your Covenant came into England with some such clâ—…use as this We shall reforme our Church in doctrine and Discipline conforme to the Church of Scotland Whereof Master Nye his Independent friends fairhe cheated you making that be rased out and this inserted which we treat of By which tricke they have pack'd Presbyterie away and yet pleade with you in publike That they still keepe the Covenant and goe on to reforme according to Gods word The second ground of the Bishops demonstration is no evident errour it being an evident truth That the principal Covenanters Noblemen Gentlemen and Ministers in Scotland protested to Marq. Hamilton His Majesties Commissioner 1638. when it was objected that their Covenant with their new explication was different from the sense of that 1580. because it portended the abolition of Episcopacie That it was not their meaning quite to abolish it but to limit it holding out in the most material point an identitie between them That they assured many who made the scruple and would not have come into their covenant unlesse they had so resolv'd them That they might swearc the same confession and yet not abjure Episcopal government which the three Ministers in their first answer to the Divines of Aberdene positivelie affirmea That thus
they answer That those who made them were theeves murtherers had no power so to alienate the common Good of the Kirk They desire that all such Estates may be anulled and avoided that all Collectours appointed by the King or others may be discharged from intermedling therewith and the Deacons permitted to collect the same yea to that height of madnesse were they come as to define and determin in their Assembly judge whether it be not a modest constitution for a Synod That the next Parliament the Church should be fully restored to its Patrimony and that nothing should be past in Parliament until that was first considered and approved Let all Estates take notice of theâ—…e pretensions and designs If their project have not yet taken effect it is onely becauâ—…e they wanted sufficient strength hitherto to accomplish it Lastly by their own Authority under the specious title of Jesus Christ King of kings and Lord of lords the onely Monarch of his Churcâ—… and under pretence of his Prerogative Royal they erected their own Courts and Presbyteries in the most parts of Scotland long before they were legally approved or received as appeareth by their own Act alledging that many suites had been made to the Magistrate for approbation of the Policy of the Kirk which had not taken that happy effect which good men would crave And by another act acknowledging that Presbytertes were then established Synodically in most parts of the Kingdom And lastly by the Act of another General Assembly at Edenburg ordaining that the Discipline contained in the acts of the General Assembly should be kept as well in Angus and Mernis as in the rest of the Kingdom You see sufficiently in point of practice how the Disciplinarians have trampled upon the Laws and justled the civil Magistrate out of his Supremacy in Ecclesiastical affairs My next task shall be to shew that this proceeds not from Inanimadvertence or Passion but from their Doctrine and Principles First they teach that no persons Magistrates nor others have power to Vote in their Synods but onely Eccl siâ—…tical Secondly they teach that Ecclesiastical persons have the sole power of convening and convocating such Assemblies All Ecclesiastical assemblies have power to convene lawfully together for treating of things concerning the Kirk They have power to appoint times and places Again National Assemblies of this Countrey ought alwayes to be retained in their own liberties with power to the Kirk to appoint times places Thus they make it a Liberty that is a Priviledge of the Church a part of its Patrimony not onely to convene but to convocate whomsoever whensoever wheresoever Thirdly for point of Power they teach that Synods have the judgement of true false Religion of Doctrine Heresies c. the election admission suspension deprivation of Ministers the determination of all things that pertain to the Discipline of the Church The judgement of Ecclesiastical matters causes beneficiary matrimonial and others Jurisdiction to proceed to excommunication against those that rob the Church of its patrimony They have legislative Power to make rules and constitutions for keeping good order in the Kirk They have power to abrogate and abolish all Statutes and Ordinances concerning Ecclesiastical matters that are found noisom and unprofitable and agree not with the time or are abused by the people And all this without any reclamation or appellation to any Jâ—…dge Civil or Ecclesiastical Fourthly they teach that they have these priviledges not from the Magistrate or People or particular Laws of any other Countrey The Magistâ—…ate can not execute the censares of the Church nor prescribe any rule how it should be done but Ecclesiastical power floweth immediatly from God from the Mediatour Jesus Christ And yet further The Church cannot be governed by others than those Ministers and Stewards set over it by Christ nor otherwise than by his Laws And therefore there is no power in earth that can challenge to it self a Command or Dominion upon the Church And again It is prohibited by the Law of God and of Christ for tho Christian Magistrate to invade the Government of the Church and consequently to challenge to himself the right of both Swords spiritual and temporal And if any Magistrate do arrogate so much to himself the Church shall have cause to complain and exclaim that the Pope is changed but the Papacy remains So if Kings and Magistrates stand in their way they are Political Popes as well as Bishops are Ecclesiastical Whatsoever these men do is in the Name of our Lord Jesus and by Authority delegated from him alone Lastly they teach that they have all this Power not onely without the Magistrate but against the Magistrate that is although he dissent send out his prohibitions to the contrary Parliamentary ratifications can no way alter Church canons concerning the worship of God For Ecclesiastical Discipline ought to be exercised whether it be ratified by the civil Magistrate or not The want of a civil Sanction to the Church is but like Lucrum cessans non damnum emergens As it addes nothing to it so it takes nothing away from it If there be any clashing of Jurisdictions or defect in this kind they lay the fault at the Magistrates door It is a great sin or wickednesse for the Magistrate to hinder the exercise or execution of Ecclesiastical Discipline Now we have seen the pernicious practices of their Synods with the Doctrines from which they flow it remains to dispel umbrages wherewith they seek to hide the uglinesse of their proceedings principles from the eyes of the world We say they do give the Christian Magistrate a political Power to convocate Synods to preside in Synods to ratifie the Acts of Synods to reform the Church We make him the keeper of both tables Take nothing and hold it fast here are good words but they signifie nothing Trust me whatsoever the Disciplinarians do give to the Magistrate it is alwayes with a saving of their own stakes not giving for his advantage but their own For they teach that this power of the Christian Magistrate is not private and destructive to the power of the Church but cumulative and onely auxiliary or assisting Besides the power which they call abusively authoritative but is indeed ministerial of executing their decrees contributing to their setlement they ascribe to the Magistrate concerning the Acts of Synods that which every private man hath a judgement of discretion but they retain to themselves the judgement of Jurisdiction And if he judge not as they would have him but suspend out of conscience the influence of his political power where they would have him exercise it they will either teach him another point of Popery that is an implicite faith or he may perchance feel the weight of their Church censures and find quickly what manner of men they be as our late gracious King Charls
not of this world Their determinations passe for the Sentences of Christ. Alas there is too much faction and passion and ignorance in their Presbyteries Their Synodall Acts go for the Lawes of Christ. His Lawes are immutable mortall man may not presume to alter them or to adde to them but these men are chopping and changing their constitutions every day Their Elders must be looked upon as the Commissioners of Christ. It is impossible Geneva was the first City where this discipline was hatched though since it hath lighted into hucksters hands In those dayes they magnified the platform of Geneva for the pattern sbewed in the mount But there the Presbyters at their admission take an oath to observe the Ecclesiasticall Ordinances of the small great and generall Councels of that City Can any man be so stupid as to think that the high Commissioners of Christ swear fealty to the Burgers of Geneva Now forsooth their Discipline is become the Scepter of Christ the Eternall Gospel See how successe exalts mens desires and demands In good time where did this Scepter lye hid for 1500. yeers that we cannot finde the least footsteps of it in the meanest village of Christendome This world drawes towards an end was this discipline fitted and contrived for the world to come Or how should it be the Eternal Gospel When every man sees how different it is from it self in all Presbyterian Churches adapted and accommodated to the civill policy of each particular place where it is admitted except onely Scotland where it comes in like a Conqueror and makes the Civill Power stoop and strike topsaile to it Certainly if it be the Gospel it is the fifth Gospel for it hath no kindred with the other foure There is not a Text which they wrest against Episcopacy but the Independants may with as much colour of reason and truth urge it against their Presbyteries Where doth the Gospel distinguish between temporary and perpetuall Rulers Between the Government of a person and of a corporation There is not a Text which they produce for their Presbytery but may with much more reason be alledged for Episcopacy and more agreeable to the analogie of faith to the perpetuall practice and belief of the Catholick Church to the concurrent Expositions of all Interpreters and to the other Texts of holy Scripture for untill this new modell was yesterday devised none of those Texts were ever so understood When the practise ushers in the doctrine it is very suspicious or rather evident that the Scripture was not the rule of their reformation but their subsequent excuse This jure divine is that which makes their sore incurable themselves incorrigible that they father their own brat upon God Almighty and make this Mushrome which sprung but up the other night to be of heavenly descent It is just like the doctrine of the Popet infallibility which shuts the door against all hope of remedy How should they be brought to reform their errors who beleeve they cannot erre or they be brought to renounce their drowsy dreams who take it for granted that they are divine revelations And yet when that wise Prince King Iames a little before the Nationall Assembly at Perth published in print 55. Articles or Questions concerning the uncertainty of this Discipline and the vanity of their pretended plea of divine right and concerning the errours and abuses crept into it for the better preparation of all men to the ensuing Synod that Ministers might study the point beforehand and speak to the purpose they who stood affected to that way were extremely perplexed To give a particular account they knew well it was impossible but their chiefest trouble was that their foundation of divine right which they had given out all this while to be a solid rock should come now to be questioned for a shaking quagmire And so without any opposition they yeelded the bucklers Thus it continued untill these unhappy troubles when they started aside again like broken bowes This plant thrives better in the midst of tumults then in the times of peace and tranquillity The Elme which supports it is a factious multitude but a prudent and couragious Magistrate nips it in the bud CHAP. IX That this Discipline makes a monster of the Commonwealth VVE have seen how pernicious this Discipline as it is maintained in Scotland and endeavoured to be introduced into England by the Covenant is to the supreme Magistrate how it robâ—… him of his Supremacy in Ecclesiasticall affaires and of the last appeals of his own Subjects that it exempts the Presbyters from the power of the Magistrate and subjects the Magistrate to the Presbyters that it restraines his dispensative power of pardoning deprives him of the dependance of his Subjects that it doth challenge and usurp a power paramount both of the Word and of the Sword both of Peace and War over all Courts and Estates over all Laws Civill and Ecclesiasticall in order to the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ wherof the Presbyters alone are constituted rulers by God and all this by a pretended divine right which takes away all hope of remedy untill it be hissed out of the world in a word that it is the top-branch of Popery a greater tyranny then ever Rome was guilty of It remains to show how disadvantagious it is also to the Subject First to the Common-wealth in generall which it makes a Monster like an Amphisâ—…baina or a Serpent with two heads one at either end It makes a coordination of Soveraignty in the same Society two supremes in the same Kingdom or State the one Civill the other Ecclesiasticall then which nothing can be more pernicious either to the consciences or the estates of Subjects when it falls out as it often doth that from these two heads issue contrary commands If the Trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself to the battel Much more when there are two Trumpets and the one sounds an Alarm the other a Retreat What should the poor Souldier do in such a case or the poor Subject in the other case If he obey the Civill Magistrate he is sure to be excommunicated by the Church if he obey the Church he is sure to be imprisoned by the Civill Magistrate What shall become of him I know no remedy but according to Solomons sentence the living Subject must be divided into two and the one half given to the one and the other half to the other For the Oracle of Truth hath said that one man cannot serve two Masters But in Scotland every man must serve two Masters and which is worse many times disagreeing Masters At the same time the Civill Magistrate hath commanded the Feast of the Nativity of our Saviour to be observed and the Church hath forbidden it At the same time the King hath summoned the Bishops to sit and Vote in Parliament and the Church hath forbidden them In the year 1582. Monsieur-le-mot a Knight of the Order
which Commissioners the chancelor his Majesties Commissioner was chief But neither the King nor the Church could get it to passe the Parliament in regaird of the opposition which some States-men did make unto these parts thereof which touched on their owne interest of unjust advantage this was the only stick The next instance of the Churches encroachement is their usurpation of all the old rents of the clergy as the Churches patrimony and their decerning in anassembly that nothing in the nixt Parliament should passe before the Church were fully restored to her rents Ans. Consider heere the Warners hypocrisie and unjustice he challenges the Presbiterians for that which no praelate in the world did ever esteem a fault a meer declaration of their judgement that the Church had a just right to such rents as by law and long possession were theirs and not taken away from them by any lawfull meanes What if heere they had gone on with the most of the praelaticall party to advance that right to a jus divinum what if they had put themselves by a command from Court into the possession of that right without a processe as diverse of the Warners friends were begun lately to doe in all the three Kingdomes but all that he can here challenge the Scotes for is a meere declaration of their simple right with a supplication to the Regent his grace that hee would indeavour in the nixt Parliament to procure a ninth part of the Churches patrimony for the mantainance of the ministry and the poore of the country for all the rent that the Churches then could obtaine or did petition was but a third of the thirds of the benefices or tithes That ever any assembly in Scotland did make any other addresse to the Parliament for stipends then by way of humble supplication it is a great untruth The last instance is the erecting of Presbyteries through al the Kingdome by an act of the Church alone Ans. I have showne already the untruth of this alleadgeance the proofe heere brought for it is grounded only upon an ambiguous word which the Warners ignorance in the Scotish disciplin and Presbitery though the maine subject of his booke permits him not to understand The Presbyteries were set up by the King after the assembly 1580 but the second booke of discipline of which alone the citation speaks how ever enjoind by many assemblies yet it could never be gotten ratified in any Parliament only because of these parts of it which did speake for the patrimony of the Church and oppugne the right of patronages How well the Warner hath proven the Presbiterian practises to be injurious to the Magistrate we have considered possibly he will bee more happy in his nixt undertaking in his demonstrations that their doctrinall principles doe trample on the Magistrats supremacy and Lawes their first principle hee takes out of the second book of disciplin Cap. 7. That no Magistrat nor any but Ecclesiastick persons may vote in Synods Ans. Though I find nothing of this in the place cited yet there is nothing in it that crosseth either the Laws or the Kings supremacy for according to the acts of Parliament of Scotland both old and late and the constant practise of that Church the only members of Presbyteries are Ministers and ruling elders Is it the Warners minde to vent here his super-Erastianisme that all Ecclesiastick assemblies Classicall Provinciall nationall are but the arbitrary Courts of the Magistrat for to advise him in the execution of his inhaerent power about matters Ecclesiasticall and for this cause that it is in his arbitrement to give a decisive voyce in all Church assemblies to whom and how many so ever hee will Though this may bee the Warners minde as it hath been some of his friends yet the most of the praelaticall party will not mantaine him heerein How ever such principles are contrary to the Lawes of Scotland to the professions also and practises of all the Princes and Magistrats that ever have lived there But the Warner heere may possibily glaunce at another principle of his good friends who have been willing lately to vent before al Britaine in print their Elevating the supremacy of Soveraignes so far above Lawes that what ever people have obtained to bee established by never so many assemblies and Parliaments and confirmed with never so many great seales of ratification and peaceably injoyed by never so long a possession yet it is nothing but commendable wisedome and justice for the same Prince who made the first concessions or any of his successors when ever they find themselfes strong enough to cancell all and make void what ever Parliaments Assemblies royall ratifications and the longest possession made foolish people beleeve to be most firme and unquestionable To this purpose Bishop Maxwel from whom much of this warning is borrowed doth speak in his Sacro-Sancta regum Majestas Though this had been the Cabine divinity of our praelats yet what can be their intentions in speaking of it out in these times of confusion themselves must declare for the cleare consequente of such doctrine seemes to be a necessity either of such Warners perpetuall banishment from the Courts and eares of Soveraignes or else that subjects be kept up for ever in a strong jealousy and feare that they can never be secure of their liberties though never so well ratified by Lawes and promises of Princes any longer then the sword and power remaines in their owne hand to preserve what they have obtained Such Warners so long as they are possessed with such maximes of state are cleare everters of the first fundations of trust betwixt Soveraignes and subjects they take away all possibility of any solid peace of any confident setlement in any troubled state before both parties be totally ruined or one become so strong that they need no more to feare the others malcontentment in any time to come Our second challenged principle is that wee teach the whole power of convocating assemblies to be in the Church Ans. The Warners citations prove not that we maintaine any such assertion our doctrin and constant practise hath been to ascribe to the King a power of calling Synods when and wheresoever he thought fit but that which the Warner seemes to point at is our tenet of an intrinsicall power in the Church to meet as for the word and Sacraments so for disciplin in this all who are Christians old and late the praelaticall and Popish party as well as others goe along with us to mantaine in doctrine and practise a necessity even in times of persecution that the Church must meet for the worship of God and execution of Ecclesiastick disciplin among their owne members In this the doctrine and practise of the Scots is according to their setled lawes uncontroverted by his Majestie If the Warner will mantaine that in reason and conscience al the Churches of the world are oblidged to dissolve and never more
to meet when an erroneous Magistrat by his Tyrannous edict commands them to doe so let him call up Erastus from the dead to be disciplined in this new doctrine of the praelats impious loyalty The third principle is that the judgment of true and false doctrine of suspension and deprivation of Ministers belongeth to the Church Ans. If this be a great heresie it is to be charged as much upon the state as upon the Church for the acts of Parliament give all this power to the Church neither did the lawes of England or of any Christian state popish or protestant refuse to the Church the determination of such Ecclesiastick causes some indeed doe debate upon the power of appeales from the Church but in Scotland by the law as no appeale in things civill goes higher then the Parliament so in matters Ecclesiastick none goes above the generall assembly Complaints indeed may goe to the King and Parliament for redresse of any wrong has been done in Ecclesiastick Courts who being custodes religionis may by their coercive power command Ecclesiastick Courts to rectifie any wrong done by them contraire to Scripture or if they persist take order with them But that two or three praelats should become a Court of delegats to receave appeales from a generall assembly neither Law nor practise in Scotland did ever admit nor can the word of God or any Equity require it In the Scotes assemblies no causes are agitat but such as the Parliament hath agreed to bee Ecclesiastick and of the Churches cognisance no Processe about any Church rent was ever cognosced upon in Scotland but in a civill Court it s very false that ever any Church censure much lesse the highest of excommunication did fall upon any for robbing the Church of its patrimony Our fourth challenged principle is that wee maintain Ecclesiastick jurisdiction by a divine right Ans. Is this a huge crime is there divine in the world either Papist or Potestant except a few praelaticall Erastians but they doe so If the Warner will professe as it seemes hee must the contradiction of that which he ascribes to us his avowed tenet must bee that all Ecclesiastick power flowes from the Magistrat that the Magistrat himself may execute all Church censures that all the Officers appointed by Christ for the governement of his Church may bee laid aside and such a kind of governors bee put in their place as the Magistrate shal be pleased to appoint that the spirituall sword and Keies of heaven belong to the Magistrate by vertue of his supremacy al 's wel as the temporall sword and the Keies of his earthly Kingdome our difference heere from the Warner will not I hope be found the greatest heresie Our last challenged principle is that wee will have all our power against the Magistrat that is although hee dissent Ans. It is an evill comentare that al must be against the Magistrate which is done against his consent but in Scotland their is no such case for all the jurisdiction which the church there does enjoy they have it with the consent of the Magistrat all is ratified to them by such acts of Parliament as his Majestie doth not at all controvert Concerning that odious case the Warner intimats whither in time of persecutiō when the Magistrat classheth with the Church any Ecclesiastick disciplin be then to be exercised himselfe can better answer it then we who with the auncient Christians doe think that on all hazards even of life the church may not be dissolved but must meet in dens and caves and in the wildernes for the word and Sacraments and keeping it selfe pure by the divine ordinance of discipline Having cleered all the pernicious practises and all the wicked Doctrines which the Warner layes upon us I think it needles to insist upon these defenses which he in his aboundant charity brings for us but in his owne way that he may with the greater advantage impugne them only I touch one passage whereupon he make injurious exclamations that which Mr. Gilespie in his theoremes wryts when the Magistrate abuses his power unto Tyranny and makes havock of all it is lawfull to resist him by some extraordinary wayes and meanes which are not ordinarily to bee allowed see the principles from which all our miseryes and the losse of our gracious Master have flowed Ans. Wee must heere yeeld to the Warner the great equity and necessity that every doctrine of a Presbyter should be charged on the Presbytery it selfe and that any Presbyter teaching the lawfulnesse of a Parliaments defensive armes is tantamont to the Churches taking of armes against the king These small unconsequences wee must permit the Warner to swallow downe without any stick however wee doe deny that the maxime in hand was the fountaine of any our miseryes or the cause at all of the losse of our late Soveraigne Did ever his Majestie or any of his advised counsellers declare it simply unlawfull for a Parliament to take armes for defence in some extraordinary cases however the unhappines of the Canterburian Prelats did put his Majestie on these courses which did begin and promote all our misery and to the very last these men were so wicked as to refuse the lousing of these bands which their hands had tyed about his misinformed conscience yea to this day they will not give their consent that his Majestie who now is should say aside Episcopacy were it for the gayning the peaceable possession of all his three Kingdomes but are urgers of him night and day to adhaere to their errours upon the hazard of all the miseries that may come on his person on his family and all his people yet few of them to this day durst be so bold as to print with this Warner the unlawfulnes of a Parliaments armes against the Tyranny of a Prince in any imaginable case how extraordinary soever CHAP. III. The Lawes and customes of Scotland admitte of no appeal from the generall assembly IN this chapter the challenge is that there are no appeales from the generall Assembly to the King as in England from the Bishops Courts to the King in Chauncery where a Commission uses to be given to delegats who discusse the appeales Ans. The warner considers not the difference of the Government of the Church of Scotland from that which was in England what the Parliament is in the State that the generall assembly is in the Church of Scotland both are the highest courts in their owne kind There is no appeale any where in moderat Monarchies to the Kings person but to the King in certaine legall courts as the Warner here confesseth the appeale from Bishops lyes not to the King in his person but to the King in his court of Chauncery As no man in Scotland is permitted to appeale in a civil cause from the Lords of Session much lesse from the Parliament so no man in an Ecclesiastick cause is permitted by
done more good in the house of God then all the Bishops that ever were in Ireland I meane Master Blaire Master Levingston Master Hamilton and Master Cuningham and others The Warner needed not to have marked as a singularity of Geneva that there all the Ecclesiasticks quâ tales are punishable by the Magistrats for civil crimes for wee know none of the reformed Churches who were ever following Rome in exeeming the Clergy from saecular jurisdiction except it were the Canterburian Praelats who indeed did skarre the most of Magistrats from medeling with a canonical coat though desiled with drunckenesse adultery scolding fighting and other evils which were too common oflate to that order But how does hee prove that the Scots Ministers exempt themselves from civill jurisdiction first saith he by the declaration of King James 1584. Ans. That declaration was not from King James as himselfe did testify the yeare thereafter under his hand but from Master Patrike Adamson who did acknowledge it to bee his owne upon his death bed and professed his repentance for the lyes and slaunders wherewith against his conscience hee had fraughted that infamous libell His second proofe is from the second booke of discipline Chapter II It is absurd that Commissaties haveing no function in the Church should be judges to Ministers to depose them from their charges Ans. Though in England the Commissary and officiall was the ordinary judge to depose and excommunicat all the Ministers of the diocese yet by the Lawes of Scotland no Commissaries had ever any jurisdiction over Ministers But though the officialls jurisdiction together with their Lords the Bishops were abolished yet doth it follow from this that no other jurisdiction remaineth whereby Ministers might be punished either by Church and State according to their demerits is not this strongly reasoned by the Warner His third proofe is the case of James Gibson who had railed in pulpit against the King and was only suspended yea thereafter was absolved from that fault Ans. Upon the complaint of the Chancelor the alleadged words were condemned by the generall assembly but before the mans guiltines of these words could bee tryed hee did absent himselfe for which absence he was presently suspended from his Ministry in the nixt assembly he did appeare and cleared the reason of his absence to have been just feare and no contumacy this hee made appeare to the assemblyes satisfaction but before his processe could be brought to any issue he fled away to England where he died a fugitive never restored to his chardge though no tryell of his fault was perfected The fourth proofe is Mr. Blacke his case heereupon the Warner makes a long and odious narration If wee interrogat him about his ground of all these Stories he can produce no warrant but Spots-woods unprinted book this is no authentick register whereupon any understanding man can rely the writer was a profest enemy to his death of the Scottish disciplin he spent his life upon a Story for the disgrace of the Presbytery and the honour of Bishops no man who is acquainted with the life or death of that Author will build his beleefe upon his words This whole narration is abundantly confuted in the historicall vindication when the Warner is pleased to repeat the challenge from Issachars burden hee ought to have replyed something after three yeares advisement to the printed answer The matter as our registers beare was shortly thus in the yeare 1596 the Popish and malignant faction in King James his court grew so strong that the countenance of the King towards the Church was much changed and over all the Land great feares did daily increase of the overthrow of the Church discipline established by Law The Ministers in their pulpits gave free warning thereof among others Mr. Black of Saint Andrews a most gracious and faithful Pastor did apply his doctrine to the sins of the time some of his Enemies delated him at Court for words injurious to the King and Queen the words hee did deny and all his honest hearers did absolve him by their testimony from these calumnies of himselfe hee was most willing to be tryed to the uttermost before all the world but his Brethren finding the libelled calumnies to bee only a pretence and the true intention of the Courtiers therein was to stop the mouthes of Ministers that the crying sins of the time should no more bee reproved in pulpits they advised him to decline the judgement of the counsel and appeale to the generall assembly as the competent judge according to the word of God and the Lawes of Scotland in the cause of doctrin for the first instance they did never question but if any thing truely seditious had been preached by a Minister that he for this might be called before the civill Magistrat and accordingly punished but that every Minister for the application of his doctrine according to the rules of scripture to the sins of his hearers for their reclaming should be brought before a civill court at the first instance they thought it unreasonable and desired the King in the nixt assembly might cognosce upon the equity of such a proceding The Ministers had many a conference with his Majestie upon that subject often the matter was brought very neare to an amicable conclusion but because the Ministers refused to subscribe a band for so great a silence as the Court required against his Majesties countenancing of treacherous Papists and favouring the enemies of religion a seveer Sentence was pronounced not only against Master Black but also all the Ministers of Edinburgh In the meane time malcontented States-men did adde oyle to the flame and at the very instant while the Ministers and their friends are offering a petition to his Majestie they subborne a villane to cry in one part of the streets the Ministers are slain and in another part of the streets that the King was killed whereupon the People rush all out to the streets in their armes and for halfe an howr at most were in a tumult upon meere ignorance what the fray might be bur without the hurt of any one man so soone as it was found that both the King and Ministers were safe the people went all peaceably to their houses This is the very truth of that innocent commotion whereupon the Warner heere and his fellowes elsewhere make all their tragedies None of the Ministry were either the authors or approvers thereof though diverse of them suffered sore troubles for it CHAP. V. No Presbyterian ever intended to excommunicat any supreame Magistrat THE Warner in his fifth chapter chardges the Scotes for subjecting the King to the censure of excommunication and bringing upon princes all the miseries which the popes excommunications of old wont to bring upon Anathematised Emperours Ans. It does not become the Warner and his fellowes to object to any the abuse of the dreadfull sentence of excommunication no Church in the world was
ever more guilty of that fault then the praelats of England and Ireland did they ever censure their own officialls for the pronouncing of that terrible sentence most profanly against any they would had it been for the non-payment of the smallest summes of mony As for the Scotes their doctrine and practise in the point of excommunication is as considerat as any other church in the world that censure in Scotland is most rare and only in the case of obstinacy in a great sin what ever be their doctrine in generall with all other Christians and as I think with the praelaticall party themselves that the object of Christian doctrine Sacraments and disciplin is one and the same and that no member of Christ no sone of the Church may plead a highnes above admonitions and Church censures yet I know they never thought it expedient so much as to intend any processe of Church animadversion against their Soveraigne To the worlds end I hope they shal not have againe greater grievances and truer causes of citation from their Princes then they have had already It may be confidently beleeved that they who upon so pregnant occasions did never so much as intend the beginning of a processe against their King can never be supposed in danger of any such proceeding for time to come How ever we love not the abused ground of the Warners flattering of Princes to their owne great hurt is it so indeed that all the sins of princes are only against God that all Kings are not only above all lawes of Church and State but when they fall into the greatest crimes that the worst of men have ever committed that even then their sins must not be against any man or against any law such Episcopall doctrin spurrs on princes to these unhappy praecipies and oppressed people unto these outrages that both fall into inextricable calamities CHAP. VI. It grieves the Praelats that Presbyterians are faithfull Watchmen to admonish Princes of their duty THE sixth Chapter is spent on an other crime of the Presbytery it makes the Presbiters cry to the Magistrat for justice upon capitall offenders Ans. What hes Presbytery to doe with this matter were it never so great an offence will the Warner have all the faults of the praelaticall faction flow from the fountaine of Episcopacy this unconsequentiall reasoning will not be permitted to men below the degrees of Doctors But was it a very great crime indeed for Ministers to plead the cause of the fatherlesse and widowes yea the cause of God their Master and to preach unto Magistrats that according to Scriptures murtherers ought to die and the Land bee purged from the staine of innocent blood when the shamefull impunity of murther made Scotland by deadly feuds in time of peace a feild of warre and blood was it not time for the faithfull servants of God to exhort the King to execute justice and to declare the danger of most frequent pardons drawne from his hand often against his heart by the importunity and deceitfull information of powerfull solicitors to the great offence of God against the whole land to the unexpressible griefe and wrong of the suffering party to the opening also of a new floodgate of more blood which by a legall revenge in time easily might have been stopped Too much pitty in sparing the wilfull shedders of innocent blood ordinarlie proves a great cruelty not only towards the disconsolat oppressed who cry to the vicegerents of God the avenger for justice in vaine but also towards the soule of him who is spared and the life of many more who are friends either to the oppressor or oppressed As for the named case of Huntly let the world judge whether the Ministers had reason often to give Warning against that wicked man and his complices Beside his apostacy and after-seeming-repentance his frequent relapses into avowed popery in the eighty eight he banded with the King of Spaine to overthrow the religion and government of the whole Iland and after pardon from time to time did renew his treasonable plots for the ruine of Britain hee did commit many murders he did invade under the nose of the King the house of his Cousin the Earle of Murray and most cruelly murdered that gallant Nobleman hee appeared with displayed Banner against the King in person he killed thereafter many hundreds of the Kings good people when these multiplyed outrages did cry up to the God of heaven was is not time for the men of God to cry to the judges of the earth to doe their duty according to the warrant of many Scriptures what a dangerous humour of flattery is this in our Praelats not only to lull asleep a Prince in a most sinfull neglect of his charge but also to cry out upon others more faithfull then themselves for assaying to breake of their slumber by their wholesome and seasonable admonitions from the word of God The nixt challenge of the Scotes Presbyters is that they spoile the King of his Tythes first fruits patronage and dependence of his subjects Ans. The Warner understands not what he writes the Kings Majestie in Scotland never had never craved any first fruits the Church never spoiled the King of any Tythes some other men indeed by the wickednesse most of Praelats and their followers did cousin both the King and the Church of many Tythes but his Majestie and the Church had never any controversie in Scotland about the Tythes for the King so far as concerned himselfe was ever willing that the Church should enjoy that which the very act of Parliament acknowledgeth to bee her patrimony Nor for the patronages had the Churh any plea with the King the Church declared often their minde of the iniquity of patronages wherein they never had from the King any considerable opposition but from the Nobility and gentry the opposition was so great that for peace-sake the Church was content to let patronages alone till God should make a Parliament lay to heart what was incumbent for gracious men to doe for liberating congregations from their slavery of having Ministers intruded upon them by the violence of Patrones Which now at last blessed be God according to our mind is performed As for the dependence of any vassals upon the King it was never questioned by any Presbyterian in Scotland What is added in the rest of the Chapter is but a repetition of that which went before to wit the Presbyters denying to the King the spirituall government of the Church and the power of the keyes of the Kingdome of heaven such an usurpation upon the Church King James declared under his hand as at length may be seen in the Historicall vindication to be a sinne against the Father Son and Holy Ghost which puts in the hand of the Magistrat the power of preaching and celebrating the Sacraments a power which since that time no Magistrat in Britaine did assume and if any would have
by the Church for the rectifying of that action which as it stood in the state and management was cleerly foretold to be exceeding like to destroy the King and his friends of all sorts in all the three Kingdomes The irreparable losses and unutterable calamities which quickly did follow at the heeles the misbeleefe and contempt of the Lords servants and the great danger religion is now brought unto in al these Kingdomes hes I suppose long agoe brought griefe enough to the heart of them whose unadvised rashnes and intemperate fervour did contribute most for the spoiling of that designe The first desire about that engagement which the Warner gives to us concernes the security of religion In all the debate of that matter it was aggreed without question upon all hands that the Sectarian party deserved punishment for their wicked attemptes upon the Kings persone contrary to the directions of the Parliamentes of both Kingdomes and that the King ought to be rescued out of their hands and brought to one of his houses for perfecting the treaty of peace which often had been begunne but here was the question Whither the Parliament and Army of Scotland ought to declare their resolutiones to bring his Majestie to London with honour freedome and safty before he did promise any security for establishing Religion The Parliaments of both Kingdomes in all their former treaties had ever pressed upon the King a number of propositions to be signed by his Majestie before at all he came to London was it then any fault in the Church of Scotland to desire the granting but of one of these propositions concerning Religion and the covenant before the King were brought by the new hazard of the lives and estats of all the Scottish nation to sit in his Parliament in that honnor and freedome which himselfe did desire There was no complaint when many of thirty propositions were pressed to be signed by his Majestie for satisfaction and security to his people after so great and long desolations how then is an out-cry made when all other propositions are postponed and only one for Religion is stuck upon and that not before his Majesties rescue and deliverance from the hands of the sectaries but only before his bringing to London in honor freedom and safety This demande to the Warner is a crime and may be so to all of his beleefe who takes it for a high unjustice to restraine in any King the absolute power by any condition for they doe mantaine that the administration of all things both of Church and state does reside so freely and absolutly in the meere will of a Soveraigne that no case at any time can fall out which ought to bound that absolutnesse with any limitation The second particular the Warner pitches upon is the Kings negative voyce behold how criminous we were in the point When some most needlesly would needs bring into debate the Kings negative voyce in the Parliament of England as one of the royall praerogatives to bee maintained by our engagement it was said that all discourse of that kynde might bee laid aside as impertinent for us if any debate should chance to fall upon it the proper place of it was in a free Parliament of England that our Lawes did not admit of a negative voyce to the King in a Parliament of Scotland and to presse it now as a prerogative of all Kings besides the reflection it might have upon the rights of our Kingdome it might put in the hand of the King a power to deny all and every one of these things which the Parliaments of both Kingdomes had found necessary for the setling the peace in all the three dominions Wee marvail not that the Warner heere should taxe us of a great errour seeing it is the beleefe of his faction that every King hath not onely a negative but an absolute affirmative voyce in all their Parliaments as if they were nothing but their arbitrary counsels for to perswade by their reasons but not to conclude nor impede any thing by their votes the whole and intire power of making or refusing Lawes being in the Prince alone and no part of it in the Parliament The Warners third challenge against us about the ingagement is as if the Church had taken upon it to nominate the officers of the army and upon this he makes his invectives Ans. The Church was farre from seeking power to nominate any one officer but the matter was thus when the State did require of them what in their judgement would give satisfaction to the people and what would encourage them to goe along in the ingagement one and the last parte of their answer was that they conceived if a Warre shal be found necessarie much of the peoples encouragement would depend upon the qualification of the commanders to whom the mannaging of that great trust should be committed for after the right stating of the Warre the nixt would be the carying on of it by such men who had given constante proofe of their integrity To put all the power of the Kingdome in their hande whose by past miscariadges had given just occasion to suspect their designes and firmenesse to the interest of God before their owne or any other mans would fill the hearts of the people with jealousies and feares and how wholsome an advice this was experience hath now too cleerly demonstrate To make the world know our further resolutiones to medle with civile affaires the Warner is pleased to bring out against us above 80 yeares old stories and all the stuffe which our malicious enemy Spotsewood can furnish to him from this good author he alledges that our Church discharged merchants to traffique with Spaine and commanded the change of the mercat dayes in Edenburgh Ans. Both these calumnies are taken of at length in the Historicall Vindication After the Spanish invasion of the yeare eighty eight many in Scotland kept correspondence with Spaine for treacherous designes the Inquisitors did seduce some and persecute others of our merchants in their traffique the Church did deale with his Majestie to interceed with the Spanish King for more liberty to our country men in their trading and in the meane time while an answer was returned from Madrile they advertised the people to be warry how they hazarded their soules for any worldly gaine which they could find about the inquisitors feet As for the mercat dayes I grante it was a great griefe to the Church to see the sabbath day profaned by handy labour and journeying by occasion of the munday-mercats in the most of the great tounes for remedie heerof many supplications have been made by the Assembly to the Parliament but so long as our Bishops satte there these petitiones of the Church were alwayes eluded for the praelats labour in the whole Iland was to have the sunday no Sabbath and to procure by their Doctrine and example the profanation of that day by all sorts of playes
doubting for conscience sake his Majestie might lay aside Episcopacy and set up the Presbytery so fully as is required in all his dominions though not upon a divine right which the Presbyterians beleeve yet upon Erastus royall right which the Warner here and elsewhere avouches What the Warner puts heere again upon the Presbyterie the usurpation of the temporall sword in what indirect relation so ever its probation in the former chapter was found so weake and naughty that the repetition of it is for no use only wee marke that the Warner will have the Presbitery to be an absolute papacy for no other purpose but to vent his desire of revenge against the Presbyterians who gave in a challenge against the Praelats especially the late Canterburians among whom Doctor Bramble was one of some note to which none of them have returned to this howre an answer that their principles unavoidably did bring backe the pope For a Patriarch over all the westerne Churches and among all the Patriarches of the whole Catholick Church a primacy in the Roman flowes cleerly out of the fountaine of Episcopacy according to the avowed doctrine of the English praelats who yet are more liberall to the pope in granting him beside his spirituall super-inspection of the whole Catholick Church all his temporall jurisdictions also in the patrimony of St. Peter and all his other faire principalities within and without Italy There is no ceremony in Rome that these men stick upon for of all the superstitious and idolatrous ceremonies of Rome their images and altars and adorations before them are incomparably the worst yet the Warners friends without any recantation we have heard of avow them all even an adoration of and to the altar it selfe As for the doctrines of Rome what points are worse then these which that party have avowed in expresse tearmes a corporall presence of Christs body upon the Altar the Tridentine justification free-will finall apostacy of the Saints when no other thing can be answered to this our sore challenge it is good to put us off with a Squib that the Presbyterie is as absolute papacy as ever was in Rome The Presbyterian position which the Warner heere offers not to dispute but to laugh at that Christ as King of his Church according to his royall office and Scepter hes appointed the office-bearers and lawes of the house is accorded to by the most and sharpest of our adversaries whether English or Romish as their owne tenet howbeit such foolish consequences that all acts of Synods must be Christs Lawes c. neither they nor wee doe acknowledge His declamations against the novelty of the Presbyterie in the ordinary stile of the Jesuites against Protestants and of the pagan Philosophers against the Christians of old who will regarde our plea for the Praesbyterie is that it is scripturall if so it is auncient enough if not let it be abolished But it were good that heer also the Warner and his friends would be ingenuous to speake out their minds of Episcopacy Why have they all so long deceived the King in assuring him that English Episcopacy was wel warranted both by Scripture and antiquity Be it so which yet is very false that something of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter had any footing in Scripture yet can they be so impudent as to affirme that an English Bishop in his very flesh and blood in his substantiall limbs was ever knowne in the World till the pope was become Antichrist A Bishop by virtue of his office a Lord in Parliament voycing in all acts of State and exercising the place of a high Thesaurer of a Chancelor or what ever civill charge the favour of a Prince did put upon him a Bishop with sole power of ordination and jurisdiction with out any Presbytery a Bishop exercising no jurisdiction himselfe in any part of his dioces but devolving the exercise of that power wholly upon his officials Commissaries a Bishop ordaining Presbyters himselfe alone or with the fashionall assistance of any two Presbyters who chaunce to be neare a Bishop the only Pastor of the whole dioces and yet not bound to feed any flock either by word or Sacrament or governement but having a free liberty to devolve all that service upon others and himself to wayte at court so many yeares as he shall think fit This is our English Bishop not only in practise but in law and so was hee defended by the great disputants for praelacy in England But now let the Warner speake out if any such treasure can more be defended or was ever knowne in scripture or seen in any Christian Church for 800. yeares and above after the death of Christ. I take it indeed to be conscience that forces now at last the best of our Court-divines to devest their Bishop of all civill imployment in Parliament court or Kingdome in denying his solitarines in ordination in removing his officiall and Commissary courts in taking away all his arches Arch Bishops Arch Deacons deane and Chapter and all the c. in erecting Presbyteries for all ordinations and spirituall jurisdiction It is good that conscience moves our adversaries at last to come this farre towards us but why will they not yet come nearer to acknowledge that by these their to lately recanted errours they did to long trouble the world and that the little which yet they desire to keepe of a Bishop is nothing lesse then that English Bishop but a new creature of their own devising never known in England which his Majestie in no honnour is obliged to mantaine for any respect either to the lawes or customes of England and least of all for conscience While the Warner with such confidence avowes that no text of Scripture can be alleadged against Episcopacy which may not with more reason be applyed against the Presbytery behold I offer him here some few casting them in a couple of arguments which according to his great promises I wish he would answer at his leasure First I doe reason from Ephesians 4. 11 all the officers that Christ has appointed in his Church for the Ministry of the word are either Apostles Evangelists Prophets Pastors or Doctors but Bishops are none of these fyve Ergo they are none of the officers appointed by Christ for the Ministry of the word The Major is not wonte to be questioned the minor thus I prove Bishops are not Apostles Evangelists nor prophets for it s confessed all these were extraordinary and temporary officers but Bishops say yow are ordinary and perpetuall our adversaries pitch upon the fourth alleadging the Episcopall office to be pastorall but I prove the Bishop no Pastor thus no Pastor is superior to other Pastors in any spirituall power but according to our adversary a Bishop is superior to all the Pastors of his dioces in the power of ordination and jurisdiction Ergo. The doubt heer is only of the Major which I prove Argumento Ã
paribus no Apostle is superior to an Apostle nor an Evangelists to an Evangelist nor prophet to a prophet nor a Doctour to a Doctour in any spirituall power according to scripture Ergo no Pastor to a Pastor Againe I reason from 1. Tim. 4. 14. Math 18. 15. 1. Cor. 5. 4. 12. 13 What taks the power of ordination and jurisdiction from Bishops destroyes Bishops as the removall of the soule kills the man and the denyall of the forme takes away the subject so the power of ordination and jurisdiction the essentiall forme whereby the Bishop is constitute and distinguished from the Presbyter and every other Church officer being removed from him he must perish but the quoted places take away cleerly these powers from the Bishop for the first puts the power of ordination in the Presbytery and a Bishop is not a Presbytery the second puts the power of jurisdiction in the Church and the third in a company of men which meet together but the Bishop is not the Church nor a company of men met together for these be many and he is but one persone When the Doctors learning hes satisfied us in these two he shall receave more scripturall arguments against Episcopacy But why doe wee expect answers from these men when after so long time for all their boasts of learning and their visible leasure none of their party hes hade the courage to offer one word of answer to the Scriptures and Fathers which in great plenty Mr. Parker and Mr. Didoclave of old and of late that miracle of learning most noble Somais and that Magazin of antiquity Mr. Blondel have printed against them What in the end of the Chapter the Warner addes of our trouble at King James his fiftie and five questions 1596 and of our yeelding the bucklers without any opposition till the late unhappy troubles we answer that in this as every where else the Warner proclaines his great and certaine knowledge of our Ecclesiastick story the troubles of the Scots divines at that time were very small for the matter of these questions all which they did answer so roundly that ther was no more speach of them therafter by the propounders but the manner and time of these questions did indeed perplex good men to see Erastian and Prelaticall counsellors so farr to prevaile with our King as to make him by captious questions carpe at these parts of Church-discipline which by statuts of Parliament and acts of Assemblyes were fully established Our Church at that time was far from yeelding to Episcopacy great trouble indeed by some wicked States-men was then brought upon the persones of the most able and faithfull Ministers but our land was so far from receiving of Bishops at that time that the question was not so much as proposed to them for many yeares thereafter it was in Ann. 1606 that the English Praelats did move the King by great violence to cast many of the best and most learned Preachers of Scotland out of their charges and in Ann. 1610 that a kind of Episcopacy was set up in the corrupt assembly of Glasgow under which the Church of Scotland did heavily groane till the yeare 1637 when their burdens was so much increased by the English praelaticall Tax-masters that all was shaken of together and divine justice did so closly follow at the heeles that oppressing praelacy of England as to the great joy of the long oppressed Scotes that evill root and all its branches was cast out of Britaine where wee trust no shadow of it shall ever againe be seen CHAP. IX The Common-wealth is no monster when God is made Soveraigne and their commands of men are subordinated to the clear will of God HAving cleered the vanity of these calumnious challenges wherewith the Warner did animate the King and all Magistrates against the Presbyterians let us try if his skill be any greater to inflame the people against it Hee would make the World beleeve that the Presbyterians are great transsubstantiators of whole Common-wealths into beasts and Metamorphosers of whole Kingdomes of men into Serpents with two heads how great and monstrous a Serpent must the Presbytery be when shee is the Mother of a Dragon with two heads But it is good that she has nothing to doe with the procreation of the Dragon with seven heads the great Antichrist the Pope of Rome this honour must bee left to Episcopacy the Presbytery must not pretend to any share in it The Warners ground for his pretty fimilitude is that the Presbyterians make two Soveraignities in every Christian State whose commands are contrary Ans. All the evill lyeth in the contrariety of the commands as for the double Soveraignity ther is no shew of truth in it for the Presbyterians cannot bee guilty of coordinating two Soveraignities in one State though the Praelats may wel be guilty of that fault since they with there Masters of Rome mantaine a true hierarchie a Spirituall Lord-ship a domination and principality in their Bishops above all the members of the Church but the Presbyterians know no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no dominion no Soveranity in Church officers but a meer ministry under Christ. As for the contrariety of commands its true Christs Ministers must publish all the commands oftheir Soveraigne Lord whereunto no command of any temporall Prince needs or ought to be contrary but if it fall out to bee so it is not the Presbytery but the holy Scriptures which command rather to obey God then man Dare the Warner heere oppose the Presbyterians dare he mantaine a subordination of the Church to the State in such a fashion that the cleer commands of God published by the Church ought to give place to the contrary commands of the State if the Warner must needs invert and contradict Christ ruling of this case let him goe on to preach doctrine point blank to the Apostles that it is better to obey men then God It falls out as rarely in Scotland as any where in the world that the Church and State run contrary wayes but if so it happen the commune rules of humane direction towards right and wrong judgement must be followed if a man find either the Church or the State or both command what he knowes to be wrong for neither the one nor the other hath any infallibility their is no doubt but either or both may be disobeyed yet with this difference that for disobedience to the Churches most just commands a man can not fall under the smallest temporall inconvenient without the States good pleasure but for his disobedience to the most unjust commands of the State he must suffer what ever punishment the law does inflict without any releefe from the Church Two instances are brought by the Warner of the Church and States contrary commands the first the King commanded Edenburgh to feast the frensh Ambassadours but the Church commanded Edenburgh to fast that day when the King desired them to feast
stated to be the controversie between us The Presbyterian aberrations which the Bishop hath observed are for the most part taken from the crookenesse of the Discipline it selfe which in the very Acts of their Assemblies he findes not so straight as to run parallel with the word of God or practice of the true Catholike Church whether what His Lordship cites to that purpose be calumnious imputations or no will best appeare in the procedure of our discourse But the Reviewer takes it ill that Didoclave Gerson Bucer Salmasius Blondel were not rather replied to then the mysteries of the Kirke Discipline revealed This poor tricke of diversion will not take If what hath been writ in the behalfe of Episcopacie stand firme notwithstanding these or any other stormes that passe over it requires no such frequent reparations The holie cause indeed will shortlie need such auxiliaries as these He doth well therefore to call for them in time And yet it may be the imcomparable knight will not be charm'd by a litle mercenarie breath into the reare of a distressed beggarlie engagement He hath been since better informed of many fraudulent practices in the Kirke so well satisfied about the state of our affaires that Mr. Baylie is litle pleased for all his sugar candi'd commendations with the earnest he hath allreadie given to imploy his pen paines about a better subject for the future And 't is a mere fiction what he so confidentlie averres of Sr. Claud Somayi's offering to dispute with the Divines by a Person of honour about the King a person of reverence then not farre from him having told me that His Majestie knowes not any thing of the buisinesse nor did the Divines about him heare of any thing to that purpose Therfore let his person of honour come out from behind the curtaine vouch his credit to be such as quolibet contradicente we must believe him when he appeares in his colours makes good any such offer as is mention'd I presume I may say that no apprehensions of trouble hazard will deterre such judicious and learned Champions from entring upon any just reasonable vindication of truth In the meane time they doe but the dutie of their places in their Royal attendance which the Reviewer calls the Court artifice their trade if they watch the seasons distribute the houres of the Kings opportunities wherein privatelie to avoyd the importune intervention of other civile businesse not to decline I know not what contradiction which they are not in that case reasonablie to expect from their modest fellow servants of the laitie I hope there are no Clerical Disciplinarians there about to instill into His Majesties tender mind how unsafe it is for his soul how litle for his honour to desert the Holie Church that is the Episcopal doctrine government which came into the world with Christianitie it selfe hath for 1500 yeares enjoy'd a joint haereditarie succession aequi-universall diffusion with the same to joyne with a crew in a Northerne corner of rebellious Covenanters if yow will have it so for ought hitherto can be judg'd enemies to God to his Father to Monarchie it selfe if he will take it upon his Father or Grandfathers word To put him sarther in mind that his Martyr'd Father sayd There are wayes enough to repair the breaches of the state without the ruine of the Church it is the Episcopal Church that he meanes To instruct him that he may as conscientiouslie pardon the Irish as the Scots reward with a limited libertie of their Religion what other gracious encouragements he pleaseth the first fruits of their voluntarie submission to his government without imposing the slaveric of any covenant or conditioning for a toleration in his other Kingdomes And this to be as it is in reference to a Parliament to be conven'd so soon as the state of that Kingdome will admit To assure him that this is very consistent with conscience honour all Good reason for ought they know repugnant to no law yea to linke the soul of the most sweet ingenuous of Princes too sweet too ingenuous indeed to have to deale with the rough-hev'd Covenanters of the mission with those Golden chaines let downe from heaven reached out by the hand of a tender hearted father to his sonne in those peerlesse Counsels which the most prudent advice in the last Testaments of all his praedecessours can not parallel To tell him then That his necke is like the tower of David builded for an armourie whereon there hang a thousand bucklers all shields of mightie men The Bishops unlâ—…ckie foot as he calls it is visible onely in Mr. Baylie's margin As close as he others follow upon the sent not the least tracke in e'ikôn Basilikè will in the end be found by them nor by the whole packe of bloud-hounds other where But to be sure here as well as in 100 Pamphlets beside is the foule Scotish Presbyterian paw which besmear'd His Royal Majestie while he liv'd would now spoyle that pretious oyntment cast as ill a savour as it can upon his sacred memorie being dead Not the Bishops but God it may be sometime by their subordinate Ministrie strengthened our Royal Soveraigne to his last in that which the lampe of natural reason the leading starre of Catholike Antiquitie the bright sun in the firmament of the Word above all that inexpressible light streaming from the spirit of God revealed to him to be the safe sanctuarie of truth Not the Bishops but the Presbyterian Scots hardened their hearts to thrust their native King out of their protection with out any compassion did drive him from Newcastle to Holmebie which appeares to be the fatal praecipice where he fell And these same men continue after his death to crie loud in the cares of his sonne to take that direct path to his ruine rather then root or branch or slip shall be left of the Praelatical Clergie whom they would faine have lie like dung upon the face of the earth make a fat soile to pamper the Presbyterian in his lusts Their gathering together His Majesties papers if they must needs have the honour of causing them to be presented in a booke with out a page or syllable of their owne was but binding up that bundle of myrrhe which should lie all night in the Virgin breast of his Royal sonne who maugre all the malice of his enemies hath that beloved for his comfort That fall of ungracious dew as the Reviewer Diabolically calls it came from an higher region then the Bishops It was the judgement of God given to the King by him his righteousnesse to the Kings sonne It is he that here comes downe like raine into this fleece of wool this most soft sweet ingenuous of Princes in gentle
reference to its reception otherwhere because vested with the power of a civile law in Scotland nor is that law unalterable when a future Parliament may take into consideration the inconveniencies that accompanie it The Bishop need not be grieved being as ignorant as your selfe you are enough as King knowing as you would seem that His Majestie doth not at all question the justice because he doth not the legalitie of these sanctions Therefore his Lordship may thinke on speake on when he pleaseth more about this bussinesse yet vouch with out a maske loyaltie in his face nor for ought you draw from him need his veines be so emptie nor his stomake so sharpe set as to eate his former words much lesse be so desperate as to burne his whole booke the consistence of it with his toughts professions laying no slander upon the King his Royal Father of ignorance injustice the one having established the other offering to establish by your civile lawes such a Church discipline as is mentiond both having done it upon most unreasonable importunitie without any know'n inclination to or approbation of the same Farther what a slander this would prove upon your grounds beyond the irreverence toward any actions of a King which is haled hither in a forced consequence by the cords of your malice may be guessed by the Royal Father's confession in his solitude If any shall impute my yeilding to them the Scots as my failing sinne I can easilie acknowledge it but that is no argument to doe so agaiâ—…e or much more For the Royal sonne His Majestie now being you say he hath not yet gone beyond an offer therefore His Martyr'd Fathers poenitential acknowledgement of his failing sinne join'd to your seasonable admonition That there can be no such actual concession but upon the peril of ignorance or buge injustice except he ownes it aswell to be the religious dictate of his conscience as a poltike indulgence upon necessitie of state may probablie move him at leisure to deliberate whatsoever he shall determine to doe in this wherein God direct him for the best aswell for his owne sake as the saftie of his Kingdomes make him cautious hereafter how the importunitie of the mission gets ground upon his goodnesse when all his grants shall be so publikelie registred as conscientious acts by such barbarious pens deliver'd to posteritie as sealed with his soule The Bishops presumption in that which followes is none but what from the grounds of modest Christian charitie may be raised viz. That a knowing a just King such as your owne character renders him will acknowledge that contrarie to the dictates of his conscience which is proved contrarie to the lawes of God man And this may be proclaimed if not prohibited without being his Confessour or taking it from the Clerke of the closet in any whisper Nor doth your mistâ—…ust of reports beare authoritie enough to make His Majesties conscience passe for Presbyterian no more then that for a command or imposition by law which was by your petitionarie violence ravish'd from his passive innocencie into a grant So that you see in the very beginning you stumble at a strawe being to finde somewhat worse in your way you were best life your legs higher in your progresse How much the Disciplinarian Scots have contributed from the beginning toward the alteration of Religion in England is too large a storie to be inserted in this dispute Their old account the Rt Reverend Arch-Bishop Bancroft cast up in his Dangerous positions English Scotizing Discipline their later arreares ruu very high in the historie of our times beginning with his religious learned successour The losse of whose head is not more to be imputed to the peoples clamours then the Scotish papers Whatsoever they did before I hope they can not denie themselves to be one of the horned beasts which together with their English brethren make the supporters of the Presbyterian Rebells scutcheon in the Covenant This in their remonstrance upon their last inroad into England when their fainting brethren with the cause were giving up the ghost they tell the King plainlie they shall zealouslie constantlie in their severall vocations endeavour with their estates lives to persue advance This pursuance was against the King Bishops which with the Convocation of divines are the true full representatives of the Church of England The assemblie of Divines were but locusts caterpillars brought together at Westminster by a Northerne wind The lawes of England convocate no such creatures nor in such a maner King Parliament were mere names had then there no real being so no breath to such a purpose nor those in the two Houses afterward more then the heads on the top of them in any politike capacitie to ordaine the abolition of Episcopacie Beside what the Assemblie did deliberate debate poor mechanike people 't is very well know'n they did as daylie labourers sacrilegious hirelings spend the thred of their time in your service payd the price of their souls for a sequestration or two the Covenanting brethren's pillage of the Church So that if they began the song you know by whom they were payd for their paines if they danc'd not after your pipe poor scraping wretches they came at your call how soever you were in a medley together to be sure your Covenanting Divel had got you all into a circle will better distinguish you when he calls to you for his reâ—…koning But by your favour good Sir His Majestie kept out for the very three yeares you mention told you plainlie he would make one in the practike harmonie of the Catholike Church That permission for it was no more necessitie extorted though he could not at that time get you all into Bedlam he thought in thrce yeares you would pipe dance your selves wearie then be content to give way to a better solemnitie of the Cathedral musike to come in In the meane time estates lives engag'd in the advancement of the Covenant by the sword the end thereof being to setle discipline was medling with imposing upon our Church Quod erat demonstrandum The Bishop you see gives a shrewd guesse who they are you endeavour to brand with the name of Erastians how all Protestans Churches even such as are not Episcopal must be beholding to you for that title because they come not up to the rigour of your Discipline Wherein Erasttus slaterd the Magistrate to the prejudice of the just rights of the Church concernd you aswell to prove as to mention then to have draw'n a parallel of the like flaterie in the Bishop Your doubting argues you ignorant or negligent confirmes my beleefe that you have travail'd as litle in Erastus's doctrines as his wayes gone no farther then the title of his booke What His
under the protection of the club The name of Parliament you make but a pandar to countenance the wanton license of your Assemblies the great seale you would have set to nothing but an indenture of the Crownes perpetuall servitude to your Synods The Prelates Cabin divinitie which sea language you 're in love with since your voyage into Holland came often above decke with very innocent loyal intentions long before these times of confusion which your Consistorian divinitie hath wrought And though you take your selfe to appeare as ominous as Caster without his brother in the shrowds it feares no shipwraâ—…ke by any storme you can raise nor lookes through your cleare prediction upon its ruine You have not hitherto found such a fate in your words as to produce a consequential necessitie of the banishment of Marquisses Bishops from Court though divine justice may hereafter inspire our Soveraigne to returne this judgement upon your heads who are ever breathing murder exile into his eares For while such popular Sicophants as you are suffered to live in any Monarchs dominions neither can the People be secure of their peace nor Princes of their lives K. Iames spake it plainlie when he sayd A Scotsh Presbyterie as well agreeth with Monarchie as God the Devil Such Reviewers who looke but halfe way home into the original of crownes are cleare everters of the first foundation of Kingdomes which made Kings some what more then siduciaries of the people whose solid peace consisted in an hurâ—…ble active submission to their just commands a Christian quiet passive obedience if tyrannicallie imperious This to be sure would keep the best part if not the best partie from ruine till the high hand of heaven over ballance their temporall sufferings with an aeternitie of reward where no malecontentment can be to come To the second challenged principle your answer is very slight impertinent And would I undertake a farre more unpleasing imployment then Phocion had in chiping Demosthenes for which he was call'd kópis ton lógon I should make a slender instrument of your review there being beside the extravagancie of your railing language your malicious enlargements in false commentaries diverting your Reader from the genuine orthodoxe meaning of the text drawing him into an intricable labyrinth of jealousies feares the chimaerical brats of your owne braine which you would faine lay at other mens doores scare sixe pages in your booke that are a direct answer to the Bishop which I can not impute to your ignorance but your cunning who feeling your selfe held closse by the necke in the letter of your lawes Assemblie Acts would very fame winde your selfe out of the controversie or run away with it into any Church or Countrey but your owne In this paragraph the Bishops citations prove what he intends nor dare you I see denie what you are too conscious you maintaine It having never been your practice but when you could not doe otherwise to wait the Kings or Queens call for your Synods In the yeare 1561. Knox writes expresselie That gladlie would the Queen her secret Counsel have had all the Assemblies of the Godlie that is the Rebellious Disciplinarian discharged They notwithstanding make a convention the businesse comes to dispute Mr. Secretarie Leshington makes a doubt whether the Queen allowed it or no to whom was this answer returned If the libertie of the Church should stand upon the Queens allowance they were assured not onelie to lacke Assemblies but also to lacke the publike preaching of the Euangel In the beginning of your late commotions the Historian that so officioussie styles himselfe the Parliaments Secretarie mentions a writing publish'd by you wherein you affirme That the power of calling a Synod in case the Prince be an enemie to the truth or negligent in promoting the Churchs good is in the Church it selfe And that the state of the Church of Scotland at that time was necessitated to such a course Nor doth your Disciplinarian doctrine make the Christian Magistrate any more then your Baylisse to take up your rents or the Captaine of your guard to defend you Vedelius renders it in more harsh language… faciunt ex iis Magistratibus mancipia imò lictores curnisices Episcoporum seu Ministrorum Ecclesiae To advance the Kingdome of Iesus Christ. …To defend it against all that would procure its hurt… To â—…ssist fortisie the Godlie proceedings of the Kirke in all behalfes… To see that the Kirke be not invaded… To hold hand as well to the saving of the Ministers persons from injurie openviolence as to their rents possessions Finallie not a word is there in all that chapter or booke that asscribes to him a syllable of this power So that the King may call a Synod when whersoever he thinke sit if the toy take you in the head to anticipate or procrastinate his time you will assemble when wheresoever you please for you tell him he ought to heare obey your voyce And your friend Didoclave averres this to be a businesse that hath no absolute dependance upon him Non absolute simpliciter pendere a Christiano Magistratâ—… If when you have a minde to meet he prohibites that must make no demurre non cunctandum est non cessandum ab officio … For this you pretend an intrinsecal power touching which I demand what it is when where how farre to be exerciz'd What old or late dutifull Christians did use it when any Christian King did forbid it Who of the Praelatical partie they be that maintaine it in their writings or practice for I know none that in either extend it to a like latitude with you And how many soever you have of the Papists all the Popes are not of your side Leo confessing that he had not power to call a Counsel but the Emperour nor durst Liberius call one against Constantius pleasure The necessitie you frame of meeting for the execution of the Discipline even in times of persecution may have reference to an heathen Magistrate or Christian. If to the former you doe it either in confidence of your power to resist him in that rebellion wherein how are you justified Or else you runne desperatelie upon your ruine which is selfe murder no martyrdome for Quis requisivit by what praecept or counsel is it required at your hands If to the later there may be at least a sallibilitie in your judgements if not an obstinate perversenesse in your will Et quis vos judices constituit who made you that are parties Arbitratours If at any time the ancient Christians assembled it was where no Imperial edict restrain'd them And then the learned Grotius tells you Non opus fuisse venia ubinulla obsturent Imperatorum edicta What private conferences they had in the times of heathenish persecution you know by their apologies were voy'd of suspicion which yours never were but
anomia ergapiria the very shops or Laboratories of rebellion The Church is not dissolv'd where dissipline's not executed if it were it should be where it is at the pleasure of the Magistrate suspended To imagine a final ineapacitie of meeting by perpetual succession of Tyrants hath litle either of reason or conscience it assaults the certitude of fayth in Gods promises advanceth infidelitie in his providence But to give you at length your passe from this paragraph Such as you in a schismatical Assemblie may have frequentlie in Scotland pinn'd the character of erroneous upon an upright Magistrate a Disciplinarian rebell to save his credit call'd a Royal moderate proclamation a tyrdnous edist The Bishops third allegation you finde too heavie therefore let fall halfe of it by the way You have too good a conceit of your Parliaments bountie though had they been as prodigal as you make them it litle becomes you to proclaime them bankrupts by their favour Their Acts were allwayes ratified by your Princes any which whom tell me one wherein this right Royal was renounc'd of suspending seditious Ministers from their office or if cause were depriving them of their places It were a senselesse thing to suppose that the Bishop would denie to the Church a proprietie to consult determine about religion doctrine haeresie c. Yet its likelie His Lordship allowes it not in that mode which makes her power so absolute as to define consummate authorize the whole businesse by her selfe He hath heard the King to be somewhere accounted a mixt person thinkes it may be that the holie oyle of his unction is not onelie to swime on the top be sleeted off at the pleasure of a peevish Disciplinarian Assemblie but to incorporate with their power The lawes of England have not been hitherto so indulgent of libertie to our Convocation but that the King in the cases alledged did ever praedominate by his supremacie And the Parliament hath stood so much upon priviledge that if Religion fetch'd not her billet from West-minster the could have but a cold lodging at St. Pauls The booke of Statutes is no portable manual for us whom your good brethren have sent to wander in the world yet I can helpe you to one An. 1. Eliz. that restor'd the title of supreme to the Queen withall provided that none should have authoritie newlie to judge any thing to be haeresie not formerlie so judged but the High Court of Parliament with the assent of the Clergie in their Convocation Where the Convocations assent by the sound should not be so determinative as the Parliaments judgement which right or wrong here it assumes As touching appeales because you will have somewhat here sayd though it must be otherwhere handled No law of Scotland denies an appeale in things Civile or Ecclesiastike to the King One yet in force enjoines subjection unto them the Act of Parliament in May 1584. which was That any persons either spiritual or Temporal praesuming to decline the judgement of His Majestie His Councel shall incurre the paine of treason What you call a complaint is in our case an appeale what taking order is executing a definitive judgement without traversing backe the businesse to Ecclesiastike Courts or holding over the rod of a coercive power to awe them into due regular proceedings I confesse this the Presbyters in Scotland never made good by their practice Their appeales were still retrograde from the supreme Magistrate his Councel to a faction of Nobles or a seditious partie of the people Such is that of Knox printed at large Or which in effect is the same The Scotish Assemblies when they had no power appeald to providence when they had whereupon they might relie unto the sword In case of Religion or doctrine if the General Assemblie which is not infallible erre in judgement determîne any thing contrarie to the word of God the sense of Catholike Antiquitie the King may by a court of Orthodoxe Delegates consisting of no more then two or three Prelates if he please receive better information of truth establish that in his Church Or which often hapens in Scotland If the Presbyters frame Assemblie Acts derogatorie to the rights of his Crowne prejudicial to the peace of his people the King may personallie justifie his owne praerogative and keep the mischiefe they invented from becoming a praecedent in law This doth not the word of God nor any aequitie prohibite The judgement of causes concerning deprivations of Ministers in the yeare 1584 you would have had come by way of appellation to the General Assemblie there take final end but this you could not make good within yourselves nor doe I finde upon your proponing craving it was then or at any time granted you by the King Two yeares before you adventurd not onelie for your priviledge in that … but against the Magistrates puting preachers to silence…hindering staying or disannulling the censures of the Church in examining any offender Rev. In the Scotes Assemblies no causes are agitated but such as the Parliament hath agreed to be Ecclesiastike c. Ans If any Parliament have agreed all causes of what nature soever to be Ecclesiastike by reduction so of the Church cognizance you have that colour for your pragmatical Assemblies but if you admit of any exception you have for certaine transgressed yourlimits there being no crime nor praetended irregularitie whatsoever that stood in view or came to the knowledge of the world that hath escaped your discussion censure not been serv'd up in your supplicates to be punished Rev. … No processe about any Church rent was ever cognosced upon in Scotland but in a Civile Court Ans. Your imperious though supplicatorie prohibition 1576. I allreadie mention'd In the Assemblie at Edenburgh April 24. 1576. You concluded…That you might proceed against unjust possessours of the patrimonie of the Church…by doctrine admonition last of all if no remedie be with the censures of the Church In that at Montrosse June 24. 1595. About setting Benefices with diminution of the rental c. you appointed Commissioners with power to take oaths call an-inquest of men of best knowledge in the Countrey about to proceed against the Ministrie with sentence of deposition Master Tho. Craig the Solicitour for the Church to pursue the Pensiionars in Caitnes for reduction of their pensions If in no particular you actuallie proceeded to Church censures It was because you foresaw they would not restraine the corruption no more of the laitie then the Clergie then your menasing petitions sometime obtein'd strength from some partial or pusillanimous Parliament or when you praevail'd not you wrapt this up with the rest of your discipline put all to the processe of a warre And this was you know the mysterious sense of Knox's method upon good experience praescrib'd on his death bed First
them to relate who to shame you into some speachlesse civilitie have had reason to be your Domestike observers if they can frame it by chast language in a riddle Yet because your Presbyterie shall gaine no credit if I can helpe it by any counterfeit innocence I will returne you a line or twoâ—… in Latin which may informe you that such an ill weed hath grow'n even where the sharpe sickle of the Eldership hath praetended to cut downe all wickednesse before it Hoetamen dissimulare non possum in Palatinatu nulla prius seandala tam atrocia incidisse quam ed sint quae seniorum illic constitutorum culpa acciderunt Et quis obsecro eos postea feret correptores qui sceleratissimum hominem Siculum Sodomitam cundem pestilentissimum calumniatorem you inherite at least the upper halfe of his qualities impune elabi passi sunt ne ad Iudices legitimos traheretur If you name Bishop Aderton in your next you will force me to breake the bond of modestie with my Readers make me lay this horrid scene nearer home If you will shew your self a better Christian or Scholar strengthen your arguments with the ruines of Bishops doctrines where you finde them not rake up the rubbish out of some few sinnes or lapses in their lives you may write your pleasure without a blush expect the like ingenuitie on this side Pseudon syncolletes…leptotaton leron hiereus Excuse me sir if Aristophanes at praesent furnish me with no more honorable titles to salute you by for your ingenuous meritorious demeanour in the next paragraph Wherein you are pleas'd to pervert all that the Bishop mean'd innocentlie writ temperatelie sacrifice your soule to the Father of lies to gaine the countenance of your ' brethren in Holland Historical â—…ruth I hope is no slander Nor can it be their shame to keep peace in their Churches turne seditious incendiaries out of doores But while you plead for these your owne brethren among them the rest holding not that point of your discipline what respect you beare to their vigilant Magistrates whom you taxe for putting out of their cities men zealous in their doctrine pressing the true practice of pietie c. I leave to some interpreter to tell them But my selfe shall tell you by the way that they joyne not with you in rejecting our Episcopacie as Anti-christian Name you what booke of theirs or person of any note that hath done it I am sure since you your English mates fell to worke with root branch Spanheim their great divinitie professour in Leyden held up his hands wished that all had been such as Arch-Bishop Vssher Bishop Morton then the order with such men he acknowledg'd would passe here wel enough So that it should seem in the rest there wanted onelie a conformitie in some such thing as Calvins opinions to qualifie them for a tolerable communion with the Dutch What their zealous Ministers have preached for practice of pietie suppression of haeresie schisme the Bishop is farre from calling or accounting any crime But because you croud into their zealous preachments the sanctification of the Sabbath-day in your Judaical sense If they pressed it in the rigour of your discipline their auditours use a large practical license to confute them To passe by their weeklie Sabbath mercates many publike faires one of which you I met with at the Hague I could have shewd you there the dancing on the ropes if not a dutch stageplay for a need many other prettie sights to which you were invited with sounding of trumpets beating of drumes which is their businesse at this instant in another part of the reformed Provinces where I am I can tell you of several recreations I have observed beside playing on the ice objected against the Ministers of St. Andrewes that were spectatours which I litle thought on when the poor praelatical Clergie not many yeares since were cursed with Presbyterian bell booke candel for approving a narrower toleration in our Countrey Our persecutions have help'd us to this some other experience whereby we shall be hereafter enabled to unmaske your adventurous impudencie to the world Whether the streame of Presbyterian oâ—… Praelatical ermons have run clearer from contempt of pictie from silence flaterie c. may be seen by him that will looke into these last 12 yeares current of the times If the vigilant Bishops such as their Lordships of Derrie Downe purg'd their chanels from the filthie doctrines rebellious obstructions of Blaire Leving stone Hamilton Cuningham others they did it for the more even passage of pure Primitive reformation The zeale of these men was eating out the foundation of Gods house their swelling waters did overflow the bankes of government where they came Their impious doctrines made them first be turn'd out of Scotland where Blaire had been before expelled the Vniversitie of Glasgow by the Professours for teaching his scholars in his lectures upon Aristotle that Monarchicall government was unlawfull the lawfullnesse whereof Mr. Baylie accounts part of the Prelates profanitie errours Vpon the like misdemeanour the same justice overtoke them in Ireland but at a time as it hapened when Christs Covenanting Antimonarchical Kingdome began to be reedified in Scotland which wanting such bold pieces to supportit their blasphemous treasonables sermons to cement it they were very heartlie welcom'd praeferred to places of greatest eminencie in that Church What a singular difference there is in the point of exemption from secular jurisdict on between the Geneva Discipline yours the proceedings in the next paragraph will shew And what person convict of or notorious for those crimes that you reckon was ever priviledg'd by the spiritual Court you are to mention Your generals are aire the Bishop craves no favour of your extraordinarie charitie to conceale The Declaration 1584. might be penned by Mr. Patrike Adamson yet be King Iames's If his Majestie declin'd the acknowledgement thereof the yeare after when your Rebells had seiz'd upon his person at Sterlin that may very well be imputed to his feare Nor was that the onelie negative subscription you extorted from your prisoner that yeare who when at libertie afterward with the same hand blotted out that which when you had the guidance of his pen you had forc'd him to write against his owne inclination sense If Mr. Adamson prosessed upon his death his repentance for lies slanders to which we have a contrarie tradition from some that were praesent he did no more then your great Declaratour Buchanan for his that were opposite to the other And how both these sort of lies that caried contradictions could proceed from the same spirit or their repentance have the same grace truth to reforme it I leave to your discerning spirit to reconcile or if you find them different to distinguish
exerciz'd canonicallie by none but Bishops in the Historie of the Primitive Church According to the second canon of the Apostles Presbyter ab uno Episcopo ordinetur Diaconus reliqui Cleriâ—…i The laying on of hands of the Presbyterie both in Scripture and Ecclesiastike storie was onelie for external forme no intrâ—…secal power the efficacie of the act being in the Bishops benediction which I never finde attributed to the Priest As in the third Canon of the fourth Councel of Carthage Episcopo eum benedicente nowhere benedicente Presbytero Therefore your friend Didoclave is faine to acknowledge a great difference Magnum discrimen between St. Pauls imposition of hands and that at the same time of his Presbyterie whatsoever is mean'd by it Nam per imposâ—…tionem mannum Apostolorum Deus conferebat charismata non autem per imposâ—…ionem mannum Presbyterorum distinguishing in the ordination of Timothie between dia meta the former relating to Saint Paul the later to the assistent Priests Which is another interpretation of the texâ—… then you were pleas'd to make of it chapt 8. So that I see the bâ—…ethren agree not upon the point Succession through the lineal descent of Bispops from the Aposiles aâ—…d ordination by the hands of Apostolical Bishops have been ever used as strong arguments to uphold Catholike Christians in a comfortable assurance of their Ministrie as lawfull And haeretikes have been pâ—…essed by the ancient Fathers with the want of nothing more then these to justifie their profession Hâ—…c enim modo Ecclâ—…siae Apostolicae census suos deferunt sayth Tertullian And Irenaeus before him joines the gifts of God required in the Ministrie if he meanesnot the sacraments with the Apostolical cession of the Church Vbi igitur charismata Domini posita sunt ibi discere oportes veritatem â—…pud quâ—…s esi ea quae est ab Apostolis Ecclesiae successis c. The Presbyterians praetending divine institution must likewise prove such an uninterrupted succession or evidence their new extraordinarie mission otherwise they can minister litle comfort lesse assurance of their calling to be lawfull The former they can not doe for Saint Hierom's time at least who makes ordination a proprietie of the Bishops Quid facit excepta ordinatione Episcopus quod Presbyter not facit where a friend of theirs failes them when he sayth ad morem jusque siâ—…ae aetatis respexit That he had respect to the custome canon of his time Nor can they doe it for above 200. yeares uncertaine storie after Christ in which they have as litle light to shew their Presbyterie was in as that Episcopacie was out which they would faine perswade us to take upon their word dispensing with themselves for the use of unwritten tradition to so good a purpose If they will pleade an extraordinarie mission they should doe well to name the first messenger that brought the newes of their Euangel and what miracle he wrought which might serve him for a leter of credence to us who it may be otherwise shall be no such superstitious admirers of his gifts or person That therefore the orthodoxe Ministers must want the comfortable assurance of their undoubted ordination in the Ministrie which words yet beare a much more moderate sense then that you give them viz. That they may very well know and be assured that their calling and ministrie is null the distance being as I take it not so indivisible between the negation of one assurance to the position of the other Such a malicious interpreter beares the image may stand in Constantines opinion for the statue of him who is the father of calumnies cares not what pâ—…yson he casts to spot other mens names cracke their credits ta tesoiceias ita motetos deleteria apheidos proballon as true of an Aërian as Arian Your divination about the deleted words will succeed in some strange disoverie by and by In the interim you set too sharpe an edge upon the doctrine of the Bishops friends and doe act violence where it may be they intended not so much injurie as the ut most extremitie of justice allthough they held the axe in their hand in Christian charitie disputing the sentence not so hastie to execute it or beyond it in the rigour and cut off at one stroke the Clergie from their calling and so many â—…ay societies of Christians from the Church Vntill 〈◊〉 meet with some particular more forward instances then I know of I shall answer for them to the Churches of France Holland Zwitzerland and Germanie as Pope Innocent writ to the first Councel at Toledo about the ill custome of the Bishops ordination in Spaine That it 's very requisite somewhat should be peremptorilie determin'd according to the true primitive tradition might it be without the disturbance of so many Churches For what is done ita reprehendimus ut propter numerum corrigendorum ea quae quoquo modo sactaâ—… sunt non in dubium vocemus sed Dei potius dimittamus judicio We so dislike it as not to startle so great a number of delinquents with our doubt but referre the judgement to God who standeth in the congregation as well of Presbyters as Princes and is a Iudge aswell among Ministers as Gods The Sophisme of the Iesuits because so popular should have been refuted or else not recited allthough the â—…imilitude it brings runnes not upon all foure even with the doctrine of the Bishops prime friends Some of whom I beleeve will acknowledge there may be resident many Members of the true Church where are no true Sacraments being well praepared to receive them when they may have a true Ministrie to dispense them That one of the two Sacraments is true though not dulie administred when in case of necesstie by lay hands where is no true Ministâ—…e to doe it which may consist with that of B. Ignatius if applied to this purpose Ouk exon esti choris tou episcopou oute baptizein oute prospherein Exon at most but illegitimating the outward visible act not nulling the inward invisible grace That the other 's effectual when had but in voto if it can not in signo through want of any or which is as bad a lawfull true Ministrie to make it In the third clause I hope you will shake hands with the Iesuits and them Where is no true ordination there is no true ordinarie Ministrie or lawfull Priesthood as His late Majestie call'd it As for the fourth the Bishops friends whatsoever they may doe allay it thus Where are no Bishops can be no comfortable assurance of a true ordination And so in whatsoever reformed Countrey are no Bishops being no true Apostolike ordination no comfortable assurance is had of a true visible Church in the publike administration of the Sacraments though they hope well the invisible Members have an invisible true Priesthood among them or such an high Priest as being
himselfe holâ—…e harmelessc c is able to supplie what their Presbyters want able to save them eis to panteles very completelie and make intercession for them who sin in submission out of more good meaning then fayth to their discipline who can give no comfortable assurance that Saint Pauls rod or St. Peters keyes everwere committed to their charge Those of the Reformed which I hope are not all iâ—… any that concurre if you meane covenant like your selves under praetense of selfe praeservation being endangerd by nothing beyond the frequent ineffectual power of good advice and plea of Apostolike example with â—…eigned words to make merchandize aswell of Bishops as Kings and like the insolent Abaddons at Edenburgh and London to assault their persons and then abolish their order declare themselves such as Saint Peters false teachers or worse because more publike in bringing in damnable haeresies denying the Lord at least in his Ministrie which they call Anti-Christian and what they have allreadie in part bringing swift destruction upon themselves Your officious informer that drew the curtaine made the discoverie of what the Bishop deleted had litle good maners though it may be not so much malice as you in your uncharitable not so fortunate conjecture A dangerous question being mistaken when called a true judgement and doubting whether it be within the pale not actuallie excluding all Reformed Ministres c. out of the line of the Church Remorse of conscience hath commonlie antecedent evidence of science puting all out of question doubt without which the vanitie or pusillanimitie of repenting had been litle commendable how condemnable soever had been the iniquitie of erring What His Lordship left behind unscraped out doth not shew his mind onelie but the minde of all good Catholike orthodox Christians And why his feare to provoke should incline him more to delete the following expressions then his care for their comfortable satisfaction had mov'd him to pen them I know not Nor need I be curious to enquire the reason of a line blotted in his booke more then if I had seen it expunged in his papers being not concerned to give account for more then was his pleasure to have publish'd Though were all the Protestant Churches what they are not as unconscionablie cruel to us as the Presbyterian Conventicle of the Scots I see not why in reference to the Religion we professe it should be more unsafe why more unseasonable since they give I hope the same libertie they take out of a pious sollicitude to have a union of both some what ambiguouslie to unchristen them then they out of malice to make an aeternal separation very affirmativelie anti-Christen us in all the peevish pamphlets they put out So that whether stands upon the more extreme pinacle of impudence arrogance the Praelate that doubts your being in a Church visible true for succession Apostolike ordination or the Presbyter that denieâ—… our being in any but what is visible false by a Satanical Priesthood Antiapostolical investiture let your aequitable comparers impartiallie decide The Praelatical tenet is not to averre the Church of Rome as she stands this day c to be a Church most true who praeferre that of their owne for a truer and condemne many Canons in the Counsel of Trent That they h ld she is true in respect of undoubted succession and Apostolike ordination our businesse now in dispute so much concernes them as the truth of their owne derived from that Nor can you denie what you so shamefullie dissemble that in the retrograde line your last Priest for a last there must be unlesse you have been Autóchthones or Autoráni â—…i rather coaeternal with tho Priest that 's in heaven had his ordination and you thereby succession from them and so both prove as Anti-Christian as ours An easie way of salvation in the Romish Church is no second tenet of the Praelates who meet with her stumbling upon many errours in doctrine and worship going somewhat about by Lymbus Patrum Purgatorie whereas we thinke if she walked with us she might have a more easie shorter journey to heaven Yet withall knowing that the wayes of God are anexichniastoi not to be tracked and his judgements anexcreuneta not to be searched we dare not damne at adventure all that goe with her no more then you can assure a ship to be sunke so soon as ever you lose sight of her saile but leave the issue to him who is great in Counsel and mightie in worke whose eyes are open upon all the wayes of the sonnes of men to give every one according to his wayes and according to the fruit of his doings The seperation from her Which they hold to be needlesse is such as that which you fondlie make about copes and surplices Church Musike and festivals that came not in with the Counsel of Trent That which is made upon higher points though not yet God be prays'd in the highest of having one Lord saying one Creed using one baptisme in substance however different in ceremonic they impute to them who kept not their station in conformite to the Primitive Christians of the 5. or 6. first Centuries with whom a reunion not onelie may but ought to be much desired on just conditions and that which is continued rather then the division made greater by our fruitlesse compliance with morose and humourous Reformers whose preaching being not with entising words of mans wisdome they tell us of aspirit which can not be the same with Saint Pauls because thereof they never gave us any demonstration nor of any power but the sword Could your bold praecedent priviledge or excuse me in comparing judging censuring or approving the publike transactions of our Royal Soveraigne I should with much modest innocent freedome professe more justifiable according to Christian Religion prudence His Majesties late graces and securities granted unto the returningconfederated Irish then any like future concession unto the persisting covenanting Scots They gratefullie accepting a limited toleration of their publike worshp to those of their owne division in that Countrey you endeavouring to extort an absolute injunction of yours in all His Majesties dominions denying libertie of conscience so litle as to his familie or person They onelie craving in much humilitie a freedome from being bound or obliged by oath to acknowledge the Ecclesiastike supremacie in the King you arrogantlie binding by solemne league and covenant wherein so much is implied Him and us to attribute it to the Kirke They renewing in the oath of allegeance their recognition of Royal right and swearing without restriction their defence of his person c to the uttermost of their power you by proclamation admitting him to the exercise of his power but in order to the Covenant And covenanting his defense no otherwise then in the desense of what you call the true religion liberties
to follow the misfortune of his father to let the Presbyterians binde his hands from laying hold upon any advantageous assistance from the Papists till his head be cut off by your bloudie Executioners the Independents Therefore whatsoever passed in this agreement if perswaded by the gracious partie no faction of the Praelates they exonerated their conscience if opposed by them they were no antagonists to their dutie if with moderation and patience heard their passionate zeale did not so transport them as to reject salvation from God when he gives it by the hand of Papists unto their-King Who thinke it neither loyaltie nor prudence rather to deliver him up to the hazard if not assurance of the axe then he should by such meanes be delivered from the perill of the sword The Kings inclination toward covenanting protestants hath never hitheâ—…to made such an uglie appearance as to scare them in a dreame or a waken their art industrie in a furiâ—… Nor have you heard I beleeve His Majestie complaine that his sleep was broake by their midnight disswasions If in sermons by daylight they layd before him the mischiefes that lurke in your Covenant they did but bring him a message from his Fathers Ghost who it may be heard the low'd cries of those tongues that had toke it as he passed from the skaffold to Ahrahanâ—…s bosome Or were sent from some other Ancients that were dead to tell him more truth then he ever will heare from the Scotish Interpreters of Moses and the Prophets That temporal death with any misfortune ought much rather to be embraced then the losse of his soul in the hell of the Covenant they could not beate too often in His Majesties head unlesse they infalliblie knew his Martyr'd Fathers instructions to be engraven with the point of a diamon'd or unchangeablie set as a seale on his heart And where as our Saviour assures him the whole world can be no proportionable profit for that damage mention'd in the 16. S. Matth. the ruine of his three Kingdomes need never be grudged in so good an exchange as he afterward speakes of Though His Majesties conscience or such of his Councel as look'd well about them could not hitherto tell him he hath been by any necessitie tempted to one of those two immediate extremities between which providence ever maintain'd a visible passe it may be none of the easiest nor ought is it but sloth and Athiesme except some treason may be in the composition that would scare him with fancies of prodigious monsters worse then Solomons lion in that way Your forsooth with a seigned lispe and a courtesie will winne your Mistresse the Covenant no favour in wisemens eyes who can not be catch'd with such red and white painting and patches as where with you so often praesent her Since their deare bought experience hath tought them that her crowne of pride can as litle brooke a societie with the Goddesse Regalitie as Prelacie Nor doth she oblige in sense how faire soever she speakes her takers to lesse in their station then to the abolition of them both If I conceiv'd my selfe in danger instead of answering I would cut out your next paragraph and weare it for an amulet or special guard against magical enchantments having read that things most rediculous or filthie are the best securitie that can be in such cases That you should appeale to Reason Experience for your Iudges of Presbyteries praeeminence before Episcopacie in learning honour wealth who stand selfe condemn'd by the frequent invectives you with your partisans make against the vaine philosophie which is the sciential learning of Prelatical preachers against the dignities of Praebendaries Archdeacons c. Against pluralitie of their livings which doubles their revenues is as if you were practizing with your pencil upon the first verse in Horace Poetrie rather then disputing by your pen in divinitie or Logike with the Bishop The Severest of your Trial before ordination is about cutting to the root some Hebrew word and corrupting it in the sense graffing some yong vowel upon an hopefull stocke or in oculating with a pricke to make it bring forth fruit pleasing to your tast though in all likelihoo'd never intended by the Holy Spirit that planted it in the Bible Your all sort of learning here called gifts utterance and knowledge in your first booke of discipline were it not reduced as it is in your liturgie to tatling halfe an houre beside a text would put his Lay if not his Clerical Iudges to a nonplus when they were to give their verdut of his parts And though here you talke of disputations upon controverted heads and there of the chief points of controversie betwixt you and the Papists Anabaptists Arrians c. We know what discouragements you give your yong students about looking into Schole Divinitie the most authentike Ecclesiastical Historie and Fathers without which they are proper champions for such an encounter It is not Davids sling but in Davids hand and with Davids God to guide the stone which goes out of 't that without other weapons can make these Goliaths fall upon their saces to the earth Our trial is personnallie by the Bishop or his Archdeacon unlesse in his absence some other learned Minister be appointed We have nothing to doe with lay Elders nor people in the examen who have no interest by the Catholike canon in the election Peri tou me tois ocklois epitrepein tas eclogas poiersthai toon mellontoon Cathisasthai cis hieratcion is the 117. by Iustells account Our practice is seldome so remisse as yours if our rule be more it may be imputed to the necessitie of that time when learned men I meane reformed did not swarme in a number aequal to the cures to be served Against which what you argue in your owne case 1. Book Discipl may be replied to as in ours 1. That the Bishop His Deane and Canons or Cathedral Clergie may supplie the imperfections of others in his Diocese for if the lacke of ablemen be real your streight and sharpe examination may disparage by discovering the infirmities not one whit enable your Proponents or expectants for their duties 2. The raritc among the Gentiles in the begining of the Gospell was recompensed with the extraordinaire diversitie of gifts 3. Vnpreaching Ministers are no idols having eares to heare what the Church praescribes and mouthes to utter as her prayers for so her wholesome doctrine unto the people But what I can not passe by since it meetes me in the way That efficacie of the Sacraments aswell as power of the word which you call of exhortation should be limited to the abilities of the Minister And as the Papists directlie so we by inference be disabled in both I thinke will helpe you to a share in the Iesuits Sophisme whereof we latclie discoursed and set you upon the pinacle of arrogance and impudence who hereby
among the heathen such as this in Plutarch cheironeinai monarchias paranomou polemon emphylion and that of Plinie in his Panegyrike Quanto libertate dis◅ordi servientibu◅ s◅tilius unum esse cui serviant The other horne of the Bishops dilemma is as sharpe and it need be no sharper then the former The danger whereof makes the Reviewer keep his distance first not daring positavelie to assert the lan fullnesse of taking up armes for religion And then muffling himselfe in his cloake invaine hoping he shall not by this argument de gored unto the quicke His spitting Atheisme in the face of Reason the native image we beare of God will set no wisemē on gaping for extraordinarie revelat ◅s nor his false translating the Bishops sense into mere apprehensions and uncertaine conceptions make him or theirs of his minde worse then Pagan Secptikes in Religion His Lordship I beleeve grants no such postvlate as the Reviewer seemes to looke for That every Scotish Ma◅ is a Moses every persecuting Presbyter before Gods ju◅gemen's have humbled him to his conversion a Saint Paul He conceives their Cat◅chisme or Directorie can passe for no Pentateuch nor Ap◅al Epissles and say◅h they beg the qu◅ that take it to be the Gosp◅ He argues That in asserting the lawfu◅lenes of taking armes they justifie the Ird◅pendents that supplanted themselves whose new light s◅ines as much like that from Moses's face as they Presbyterians new doctrine sounds like the oracles he received in the mount That the Anabaptists in Germanie were no more Enthusiasts then the Anabaptists in Scotland who null the powerfull operation of the sacrament and for ought we know may be nulls in the missionarie power to administer it That Iohn of Leyden his crue could not be more mad then Iohn Knox and his nor could they have lesse reason for their militarie proceedings His Lordship is so farre from placing the summe of Religion in every simple apprehension that he desires the authoritie of the Chuch should take place of his conceptions untill the truth if different from that doctrine which is unlikelie were seald to him by some internal impression of Gods spirit What every man is perswaded in his conscience to be divine truth he would have him praeferre before other mens apprehensions of a contrarie religion Yet if that perswasion be dissonant from what was generallie among the primitive Christians he would not that he should mistake himselfe to have a singular infallibilitie nor a transscendent commission above that of Christ and his Apostles to take armes force all men to his beleefe The most certain truths even these divine ones in religion if His Lordship doth not which I did not aske him I doe thinke to be in many men that praetēd to that supernatural grace called fayth were uncertaine conceptions or inadvertent praesumptions finding few so considerate of their very principles in Religion as to build them upon any so much as that subordinatie moral certanitie they might doe with good endeavour fewer live so devoutlie as without it can reasonablie suppose God miraculouslie infuseth his revelatious to assure them Therefore though all the truths of Christian Religion wherein controverted are reveal'd from heaven Yet I thinke we are to looke a great way backe for the persons by and unto whom immediate inspirations being now adayes very rare nor doe we live much like the holie mortified men that were wont to have them of old You know what Saint Ma◅tin told the Divel when he appear'd arrayed like a King and would be taken for Christ come in triumph upon the earth Ego Christum nisi in eo habitu formaque qua passus est nisi or◅ stigmata proforensem venisse non credam He would not beleeue him to be come till he saw him in the habit of his sufferings So when we see you qualified like his disciples wise as Serpents not craftie as foxes harmelesse as doves not rapacious as harpies patient like sheep not ravening like wolves Delivered up to Councels not excommunicating in Synods scourg'd in Synagogues not disciplining without mercie in your Churches Brought before Governers and Kings for Christs sake not bringing Governers and Kings to mooke-tribunals for your owne Then tell us of Divine truths the beleefe of Moses and Saint Pauls revelation from heaven and we will hearken to you as Angels whom now we take to be no beter then the haereti◅es who Vincet sayth are ran◅quaedam cyniphes muscae moriturae such contemptable creatures as croking frogs gnats and dying flies that would buzze what mischiefe you can before you leave us and make the oyntment of the Apothecarie stinke with the corruption of your writings when you are dead The second part of your apologie is most false both thesei kai hypothesei 1. Because subjects have no armes while the Magistrate is in being to hold the sword put into their hands to defend their religion and liberties how legallie soeuer established They have onelie pleas by that law to claime them and petitions of right or aequitie to put up unto the Magistrate to maintaine them 2. If they goe beyond defending themselves in their religion and force others to enter into their league covenant though contrarie to their conscience this is no other then planting of religion by armes And if the difference in any point of religion be such as to state the Magistrate in a condition to be put to death by his subjects as it doth in your sense when he joines in worship with Papists Praelates whom you make idolaters and idolatrie death unpardonable this is cutting the throates of all Magistartes And this is maintained to be just and to have the ground of Gods ordinarie judgement by your Patriarch Knox. And to be imitated of all those that praeferre the true honour of the true worship and glory of God to the affection of flesh and wicked Princes Your hypothesis is false because the religion and liberties of your Covenant in England were never established by law and what was so established was never usurped by Papists Praelates and Malignants And if it had been from so good a King redresse had probablie been procured upon just complaint without taking armes To your third I replie That the Bishop gives no judgement makes no mention of the Protestants Armes in France Holland and Iermanie compares them not with the Anabaptists in Munster or Sectaries in England If you can once perswade them to espouse your quarell for which you have begg'd long enough at their gates by this time or publish a parallel between your taking up armes and their owne the praelatical partie will make no difference between you but give alike judgement against you all In the meane time the maximes they give are rational and divine they are brutes or Atheists divested allreadie of all religion and reason who praeferre them not to the Presbyterian
Their praecedence and place neare the throne Ibid. Officies of State 141 The Antiquitie c. Of Bishops justified very judiciouslie by Dr Ier. Tayler Whose booke is an antidote against the poyson of all the Reviewers objections 102 Bishops Apostles 106 Evangelists Prophets Pastours 107 Doctours 108 Bishops Ceremonies no burthen 187 The Bishop of Derrie's prudence no boldnesse in the publication of his booke Anf. to Ep. Ded. 2 Very seasonable 1 In it His Lordship is no slanderer of the King 4 Blackes rebellious case 53 Baleanqual Bruce other Ministers guiltie of raising the tumult 56 Blaire and his complices justlie banished out of Ireland 51 Bothwells notorious crimes 61 Bruce's bold speach to the King about E. Huntley 63 The Bishops appeale in the Assemblie at Glasgow not derogatorie to the Kings personal praerogative 45 C. CAlderwood's ridiculous reverence of Bruce's ghost 139 E. Cassils demeanour Ans. to Ep. Ded. 1 Canons infirming the Reviewer to be an aceuser of the Bishop 48 Publike catechizing of Masters and Mistresses indecent 171 Not very necessarie before their receiving the Sacrament Ibid. The Kings Chaplanes use no Court artifice but what becomes such reverend worthie persons in their places Ans. to Ep. Ded. 4 A proposition of trial to be made whether Christ's scepter must be swayed by Bishops or Presbyters 100 The difference between us the Church of Rome about ceremonies 98 Iurisdiction of Commissaries 52 The Kings Commissioner how off ronted in Pr Sc. Synods 134 Riot in Scotland to get downe the High Commission Court Which was not so tyraâ—…nical as the Pr. Consistorie 173 Wherein is more rigour then other where among the Resormed Churches 174 The adventurous concessions of K. Ch. I. extorded by the necessitie or difficultie he was brought to 104 K. James's dislike of the Scotish short confession Many unjustificable praetices about it 14 Conscience not bottom'd onelie up on divine right 95 Contrarietie of commands at the same time ordinarie under Scotish Presbyterie 114 The Reviewers fallacie to salve it in the case of the French Ambassadours 115 His ignorance of the true stated controversie between vs and the Church of Rome 8 His cunning in altering the true state of that between the Bishop and himselfe as in many places so 30 K. Ch. 1. invaded not the Scotish Consistorie his condescensions leaving them contended 190 The Reviewers uncharitable interpreting Mr. Corbets's end a punishment from God 3 Particulars about framing the English-Scotish Covenant The persons by whom c. 177 How dishonourable it is to the English that approved it 179 The Reviewes's abominable affected falshood in defense of it 180 His impudence in preaching at the Hage that nothing at all had been objected against it Ans. to Ep. Ded. 7 How destructive it is to the Royal line Ibid. 12 How the same with that of K. Iames 1580. 183 How it divers from it 184 Foraigne Presbyterians asham'd to countenance it 196 The ambiguitie of the words in it leaves religion to the libertie of their conceits that take it 198 Covenants unlawfullie taken are more unlawfullie kept 177 The Praelates docline not the judgement of Councels 202 No inhaerent right in Courts to nominate Commissioners for intervalls 123 Spirituall crucltie in the prayers of Scotish Presbyters 125 Their temporal crueltie as much as they praesume may by Gods providence be restrained 203 The Court conscience will if the experiment be tried soon finde the difference between the Episcopal and Presbyterian Clergie 197 D. NO defensive armes for subjects 40 Court of Delegates neither unbeseeming not unreasonable 43 K. Iames's Declaration 1584. How by His Majestie subscribed 51 The Pr. Scots imprudence as well as injustice c. in delivering up K. Ch. 1. to his murderers Ans. to Ep. Ded. 14 The old grudge that mor'd them to it Ibid. 15 The same newlie conceived against K. Ch. II. Ibid. 15 The difference between Vs and Scotish Presbyterians is more then in Bishops and ceremonies 199 The Sc. Discipline omits what the ancient Canons had among the cases of Ministers deprivation What it hath conconcernes more Presbyters then Praelates 67 It playes the tyrant over the consciences of the people 124 Divine attributes profaned in asscribing them to the Discipline and Assemblie Acts. 100 Covenanters missetake the Discipline for Christs institution 180 No legal establishment in Scotland of the first booke of Discipline 18 K. Iames's consent to the second booke of Discipline how improbable 24 They anticipate the law in the exercise thereof 27 The English Discipline long since setleâ—… by law in Scotland and our Liturg there used 16 That of the Pr. Scots obtruded upon England Ibid. Divine right pleaded for Presbytere frustrates all treaties 96 Episcopacie wants no Discipline aequivalent to that in the Scotish Presbyterie 175 Our doctrines about real praesence justification free will final apostafie praedestinatîon breissie touched And a quaestion propounded about Davids case 98. 99 Dowglasse that murdered Capt. I. Stuart kill'd in Edenburgh high street 21 E. OUr Episcopacie not reputed Antichristian by other Reformed Churches Ans. to Ep. Ded. 3. 50 K. Ch. I. suspended the jurisciction of Episcopacie in Scotland for no crimes No full and free Parliament that voted in downe in England 9 Episcopacie no obstruction to the Kings peace Why it may not be lay'd aside 40 What right it hath to become unalterable 94 The reasons of K. Ch. I. well bottom'd 95 Some particulars about the historie of Scotish Episcopacie 111 Abolition of Episcopacie is not that which will ever give the Pr. Scots satisfaction 165 K. Ch. I. in his largest concessions yeilded not unto it 188 The asserrours of the Magistrates just power misse call'd Eraâ—…ans by the Reviewer 6 Erastus's Royal right of Church government can not untie the Kings conscience if streightned Nor is that onelie it the Bishops praetend to 97 The Sc. Discipline exempts not Kings from being excommunicate 57 Excommunication not mean'd by delivering up to Satan 110 Ignorance no ground for the execution of it 172 The Scotish Presbyters practice touching excommunication litle lesse rigid then their canon 227 The inconveniences that follow to be imputed rather to the Kircke then State 128 Impunitie no good ground for excommunication 61 The Kings pardon quitting poenitent malefactours 65 F. SCotish Presbyters much too busie in private families 175 Fayth not so common if such a grace as ordinarilie it is defined 201 Church Festivals not legallie abolished in Scotland 18 Crueltie toward fugitives 129 G. GIbson's insolent speaches unto the King 21 The Assemblie's juggling in his case 52 Gilespie's theoreme for resisting Magistrates disclaimed by no Assemblies The substance of it the sense of many 37 The King why concerned to be cautelous in his grants to the Presbyterian Scots 5 The Bishops Office entirelie authorized in the Assemblie at Glasgow 1610. 23 H. THe proceedings against D. Hamilton's late engagement discussed 70. 71. c 115. 117. c. Mr. Henderson's speach of Bishops 199
in plures divisum ectas eos expulit Buchan Hist. lib. 4 Episcopacie intirelie authorized in the Synod of Glasgow Vind. Epist Hitr. Philadelph Superintendents aequivalent to Bishops Presbyters not to have Synods as often as they list nor doe in them what they please The King consented not to the second booke of Discipline K. Ch. 1. Larg Declar 1633. pag. 411. Refutat libel De Regim Eccl. Sâ—…ot The Bishop no hypocrite in his chalenge about the patrimonie of the Church 1. Book Disc. 6. head which be longs not by haereditaire right to the Presbyters Let. of K. Ph. Q. Mar. Ann. 1559. The Reviewer is the hypocrite Mainten of the sanstatie pag. 10. The Disciplinarians declaration of their judgements in their impudent imperious supplicats They anticipate the law in the exercise of the Discipline Hieron Philadelph de Regim Eccles. Scot. Epist. Iren. Philaleth Narrat mot Scotic Their doctrine as destructive as their practice Ovid. Met. lib. 3. sub 4 2. Book of Disc. ch 7. 2. The Bishops Super-Erastianisme the doctrine of the Reformed Churches Ad Dissert De Epise Constant. M. Ph. Par. Vindic. propos 8. D. Par. N. Vedel De Epise Const M. q. 5. The practice of the good primitive Emperours Har. Syn. Belgic c. 10. Altar Damasc. pag. 15. Renounced by none of the Scotish King The Reviewers malice not any Prelatical principles doth impossibilitate as he speakes the peace betwixt the Kiag his Kingdomes Conf. at Hampt Court The Disciplinarian doctrine practice against the Kings power to convocate Synods Pag. 41. DeEpiscop Constanstin M. 2. B. of Disc. ch 10 Cap. De primat Reg. Epist. 43. De Imper sum Pot. cap. 8. Constantin De Ario. The ultimate determination of Ecclesiastike causes by the lawes of Scotland is not in the general Assemblie No more then in the Convocations of England Appeales to the King in Scotland Court of Delegates against neither word of God nor aequitie All causes agitated in Scotish Assemblies Processe about Church rent Letter to the Gen. Assembli at Sterling Aug. 3. 1571. Reviewer declines answering about the legislative power Danger in asserting the divine right of Ecclesiastike jurisdiction Hug. Groti De Imper. Sum. Pot. Scotish Donatist Polit. Anglic Ad Reg. Iac. Sozomen Eliens De Episcopat Constant M. Disciplinariam call resistance against the person obedience to the office of the Magistrate The Reviewer too bold with his Majestie The Disciplinarians no compartie for the Primitive Christian The Reviewers cunning in passing over what he dares not can not answer His unkindnesse to his brother Gilespie whose theoremes are the doctrine of the whole Presbyterie Harm Syn. Belg. cap. 1 Gilespie's theoreme the rule of the late Disciplinarian practice a Nec enim dissimulabant foederati nimis diu apud Scotos regnatum esse Monarchis nec recte cum illis agi posse Stuarto vel uno superstite Hist. M. Montisros No defensive armes for subjects Episcopacie no obstruction to His Majestics peace See the leâ—…rned judicious Digges upon this subjects Appeale in Scotland from a General Assemblie neither irrational nor illegal Altar Damascen 3. Paper An. 1574 The Rebellious insolent disciplinarian proceedings against the too Rt. Reverend Arch-Bishops Montgomerie Adamson Answ. to the Prosession Declar made by Marq. Hamilt 1638. Vindic. Epist Hier. Philad Supplicum libellorum Magister Se posse salvo Regis imperio de causa tota cognoscere â—…arg D clar pag. 308. Marg. not upon Potest of the Gen. Assemb at Edenb Crosse Decemb 18. 1638. Quioccasione laeti palinodiam â—…i per vim expressam sed in numeris a se locis inter-polatam typis publicarunt The Bishops Appeale not derogatorie to the Kings personal Prâ—…rogative The Reviewer mistakes the scope of the Bishops warning Ch. 5. v. 1. Sedition rebellion not censur'd by the Discipline Hift. of Reform 4. booke Scotish Presbyters mounting in halls schooles c. An. 436. Ancient Canons against Ministers accusers of their brethren Reviewer no competent witnsse against Bishops He will not be at peace charitie with the dead Gualth Epist. Erast. Aug. 3. 1570. Nor speake any truth of the living Spanheims speach about English Bishops The Kings booke of recreations farre short of what other Reformed Churches tolerate on the Lords day Vindic. Chr. Philaed Blaire his companions justlie banished K. Ch. 1. larg Dec. 1639. pag. 324. The Discipline in Scotland different from Geneva King Iames Declaration 1584. Part. 3. An. 1684 The Bishops consequence good from Commissaries to Civite Magistrates Fucus ad fallendum simpliciores vel potius illudendum Ecclesiis pag. 404. Altar Damase The Assemblie jugling in Gibsons case The Bishops relation of Mr. Blackes case vindicated enlarged Hamp Court Conf. Rom. 6. 1. Ephes. 6. 16. Hebr. 11. 33. Nescio quid nec quando sed multo ante Vind. ep Philad L. 1. c. The od de Relig De Impersum Potestcirc sacr cap. 9 Nam co repore summaÌ„ fuit Ecclae concordia authoditas ut aulici ab ea tametsi Regia gratia niterentur timerent Vindic. Ep. Chr. Philad Let to the Q. of Engl. Iul. 16. 1561. The Ministers guiltie of the tumult Decemb 17. 1596. * Vasius The Rev. impertinencie or cunning in altering of the state of the quaestion Let of the Congreg to the Nobles of Scotland 1559. De Imper sum Poâ—… cap. 9. Disciplinarian intentions never better then their words Eccles. 8. 4. No thankes due to them for not excommunicating their Kings The Ancient Fathers quit peccant Kings of all humane censure Apos Gent. adv The Bishops reasonning not unconsequential Aristophâ—… Nubes Bloud the seed of the Discipline Esai 1. 15. Mercie Gods attribute so the Kings 〈◊〉 Book Discipl 9. head Presbyters sollicite pardon for murder * Rigour to be preached c. under nonâ—… but implous or nâ—…ligent Magistrates so exâ—…ommunication for impunitie E. Huntleys case wholie minted in the Assembiiâ—… Bothwells notorious crimes R Bruce's speach against E. Huntley First fruites c. witheld from the King as much by the Presbyters as Pope An. 1587. Contradiction about tithes pag. 57. Patronages Presbyterian rebellion tyrannie Rejoycing at the sequestring the Church patrimonie Qui jactare non dubitârunt se Episc plygin kairian inflixisse Aitar Damasc. p. 3. K. Iames anti-presbyterie No Donaâ—…ist Ep. lector Aitar Damascen Georg. Con. De Dupl Stat. Relig. apud Scot. lib. 2. Their latitude of scandal 8. 9. Malefactours pardoned not to be excommunicated False measures c. maters of civile cognizance The Reviewers 30. yeares experience no argument of Presbyterian henestie Their Canons not the same with those of the ancient Church Victorem Romanum Epum circa annum Dui 200. legimus Coenae usuâ—… interdixisse injurias condonare nolentibus Th. Erast. thes 7. No canon against rebellion nor deprivation of rebellious Ministers Presbyters as peccant as Bishops Ch. 2. 11. 29. 9. Revel 17. 5. 9. 2. 3. 2 S. Pet. 2. 13. Their exercing civile
jurisdiction Their eoconomical superintendencie Preaching personallie against Princes Knox Hist. Lib. 2. Their proceedings in the late engagement St. Matth. 12. 43. Declar. Iul. 21. 1649. Isai. 63. 15. Prov. 12. 5. Ps. 50. 16. Isai. 61. 2. 11. Isai. 8. 20. Prov. 13. Ianuar. 6. 29. 1649. 1. Tim. 4. 2. 1. Kings 22. Heb. 12. 16. Scot. Mist. dispell'd I crem 9â—…1 Isai. 58. Edenb 12. May. 1649 postser Scottiâ—…h mist Dispell'd Hendersons Prophesie Pap. to K. Ch. 1. Iun. 3. 1646. Esih. 4. 12. Preâ—…yters Deâ—…aring against Parliament debates The Kings negative voice proper to be debated in a Scottish Parliament Ans to both Houses upon the new propositions and the 4. bills 1647. Why opposed by the Presbyters Eic Bas. Ch. 11. The Kings affirmative voice Hug. Grot. De Imper. Pot. cap. 8. No such vicitie need be us'd about mominating ofsicers Ch. 4. The Presbyters destructive demurres Scot. Mist. disp The Reviewers impertinencie in the successe of the Spanish Merchants As. Dund 1493. The Presbyterian zeale for the 4. Commandment bypocritical cover for their breach of the rest Prov. 11. 9. Recreations resections to fit us for spiritual duties Rob. Bruc'es motion to alter the Sabbath The Bruc'es Sunday toleration not so large as the Reformed Church's abroad The monsirous impietie of the Presbyterians in prosecusion of their ends Lib. 5. 1560. Lib. 3. Assemblies have no power to summâ—…n contrarie to the Kings proclamation Cantic 8. 6. 7. Contradiâ—…iion The Assemblies can reforme onelie according to canon not the canon 2. Tim. 2. 23. 24. Ancient Assemblies reversed no Civile lawes Euseb. Reformed no haresies â—…ith out the Emperour Henrie the eight's reformation the occasion not the original of ours Scotish Presbyterians from the begining sâ—…hisme None but they have declared Bishops ceremonies unlawfull Ch. 6. 28. Ch. 9. 3. Capt I. Siuart vindicated The treason at Ruthuer Saint Iam 4. 16. S. Macth 11. 12. The King can not be sayd to invade the Presbyter Consistorie Rev 1. 18. Prov 24. 2. c. 27. 20 Tert De Praeser advraeser haeret c 42. Arch-Bp Lauds Armenianisme Pâ—…perie the doctrin of scripture and the Fathers Prov. 25. 23. Advers hares cap 16. Ariote under praetense of taking Priest at Masse Abetted by Knoâ—… improid to a rebellion Vit Eliz. 〈◊〉 â—…563 Assemblie's summoning the people in Armes upon the trial of Popish Lords Isai. 57. 20 Power of order and jurisdiction The midd le Apostolical right of Episcopacie Conscience not bottom'd onelie upon a divine Right Rom. 1. v. 2. ch Alterations unsate and sinfull while conscience is doubtfull The reasons of K. Ch 1. against a change Peace Antiquitiâ—… Vniversalitie The considerable approch of Church discipline to doctrine Paternal government Communion with Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ch 17. Ius divinum of Presbyterie srustrates all treaties excommunicates all Christians threatens all Princes Isai. 40. 23. 24. The Reviewers perverting the Bisâ—…ops doctrine Erastus's Royal right abused in a Sophisme Sen De Clem l. 1. c. 20. The consequences from Episcopal principles not such as praetended S. Matth. 4. 9 Difference between us and Rome bout ceremonies Prov. 10 31. Real Praesence corporal disserent Hist. Mot. Iustification S. Matth. 13â—…45 Free will Deut. 30 19. Final Apostasice 1. Cor. 10. 12. Phil. 2. 12. A quaestion about Davids case Rubrike in the consirmation Christ as King of his Church appoints lawes c. H. Grot. Hane none magis licet Ecclae mutare quà m mutare licet ipsam scripturam V indic Eplae Philad By whom his Seepters is to be swayed Vincent Lyrin advers haeres cap. 14. English Episcopacie out done by the more for ward Presbyterie B. Discips 4. head The treasure thereof to be found as well before as after the years 800. Dr. Ierm Taylor Can. 2. The Praelates still of the same minde they were Declar. B. 2. Dang Posit Not the Court but Citie Divines devest Bishops Sen De Benef. lib. 2 cap. 7. S. Matth. 7. 9. 46. 17. The Reviewers detestable ingratitude De Ben. lib 3. cap. 16. The texts of scripture against Episcopacie discussed Prov. 26. 4. 5. Act. 20. Beshosp are Apostles Lib. advers haeres cap. 32. May be call'd Euangelists H. Grot. Proleg ad Matth. Should be prophets In 1. Cor. 12. H. Grot. Why Pastours Apostles superiour to Apostles Euangelists Coadjutours Doctours Bishops haeres 75. Dr. Tayler Episcop assert No power of Ordination in the Presbyterie 2 Tim. 1. 6. No power of Iurisdiction in the Church Confirma Thes. lib. 4. c. 5. De Verb. Dom. hom 15. Iohn Morell excommunicated for this doctrine No power of jurisdiction in a Companie met together Delivering to Satan what Why Blondel c. are not answered Somais fare well to the Presbyterie The Scottish presb may be contracted out of their owne storie Revel 20. 12. K. I.'s 55. quaestions non plus'd them Episcopacie recovered ground in Scotland Vindic. Epist Philadelph Whence they had not been legallie ejected Psalm 137. Psalm 1. Revel 2. 7. The Reviewers slender shiss Icr. 8. 17. The Preshyterians not Praelates coordinate two Soveraignaties in one state Two Kings in Scotland Not God onelie but his Anoynted likewise to be obeyed St. Matth. 26. 25. St. Luke 9. 23. Contrarietie of Commands very frequent in Scotland The Revicwers fallacie Humble petitions c full of threats The Church-chasing and exeommuniting for the late engagement The untruths are the Reviewers Prov. 6. 28. The Rev. eares not for hearing of the late engagement Ps. 69 23. The 8. desires of the Church neither just nor necessarie The Ch. of Scotland hath no libertie to declare against King and Parliament Job 5. 13. Prov. 17. 24. Heb. 11. 39. Ephes. 2. 2. Gal. 1. 8. 9. Lament 4. 20. Contradiction between the Revic margin and text The levie was offered to be stopped May 11. 1649. Lib. De Ir. cap. ulr Ministers â—…in armes Not cens by the Commissioners of the Kirke S. Pet. 2. 16. v. 13. Presbyterie makes Parliaments subject to the Assemblies 2. Book discipl 1. ch Heb. 1. 14. Ps. 104. 4. Ier. 14. Isai. 42. 19. Ministers power with the people dangerous if seditiouslie bent Th. Capâ—…nel eap 18. Ps. 45. 5. â—…psis Cardinalibus and P. P. maxformidabilis fuit diremita aut unyt principes subditos suos arbytratu Ps. 12. 4. Eik Bas cap. 17. St. Liturg. p. 87. V. 18. Isai. 66. 24 No in haerent right in Courts to nominate Commissioners for intervalls Haggai 1. 6. The Presbyterie a tyrannie over the consciencies of thepeople Censures upon slight grounds Scot. Lit. Rom. 8. 15. Prov 1. 26. Spiritual crueltie in the prayers of Presbyters Sc. Lit. p. 196. 1. Pet. 5. 8 Our Sabbath recreations shorst of those in other Reformed Curches Trivial debates and articling against habiss Knox Hist. The same fault under a different formalitie not to betwice punished Lib. De Fid. Op. cap. 2. Offenders quitted to be admitted to the H. Sacrament without publike satisfaction in
THREE TREATISES Concerning the Scotish Discipline 1. A Fair Warning to take heed of the same By the Right Reverend Dr. Bramhall Bishop of Derrie 2. A Review of Dr. Bramble late Bishop of London-Derry his Fair Warning c. By R. B. G. 3. A Second Fair Warning in Vindication of the First against the Seditious Reviewer By Ri. Watson Chaplain to the Right Honorable the Lord Hopton To which is prefixed A Letter written by the Reverend Dean of St. Burien Dr. Creyghton HAGH Printed by Samuel Broun English Book-seller 1661. A FAIR WARNING To take heed of the SCOTISH DISCIPLINE As being of all others most Injurious to the Civil Magistrate most Oppressive to the Subject most Pernicious to both By Dr JOHN BROMWELL Lord Bishop of London-Derie in Ireland LUKE 9. 35. No man having drunk old wine straight-way desireth new for he saith the old is better HOSEA 2. 7. I will go and return to my first husband for then was it better with me than now Printed in the Year 1649. A FAIR WARNING To take heed of the Scotish Discipline as being of all others most Injurious to the Civil Magistrate most Oppressive to the Subject most Pernicious to both CHAP. I. The Occasion and Subject of this Treatise IF the Disciplinarians in Scotland could rest contented to dote upon their own inventions and magnifie at home that Diana which themselves have canonised I should leave them to the best School-Mastresse that is Experience to feel where their shoe wrings them and to purchase Repentance What have I to do with the regulation of forreign Churches to burn mine own fingers with snuffing other mâ—…ns Candles Let them stand or fall to their own Master It is charity to judge well of others and piety to look well to our selves But to see those very men who plead so vehemently against all kinds of tyranny attempt to obtrude their own dreams not onely upon their fellow-Subjects but upon their Sovereign himself contrary to the dictates of his own conscience contrary to all Laws of God and Man yea to compel forreign Churches to dance after their pipe to worship that counterfeit image which they feign to have fallen down from Jâ—…piter and by force of arms to turn their neighbours out of a possession of above 1400 years to make room for their Trojan horse of Ecclesiastical Discipline A practice never justified in the world but either by the Turk or by the Pope This put us upon the defensive part They must not think that other men are so cowed or grown so tame as to stand still blowing of their noses whilst they bridle them and ride them at their pleasure It is time to let the world see that this Discipline which they so much adore is the very quintessence of refined Popery or a greater Tyranny than ever Rome brouâ—…he forth Inconâ—…t with all forms of civil Government destructive to all sorts of Policy a rack to the conscience the heaviest pressure that can fall upon a people and so much more dangerous because by the specious pretence of Divine Institution it takes a way the sight but not the burthen of slavery Have patience Reader and I shall discover unto thee more pride and arrogancie through the holes of a threed-bare coat than was ever found under a Cardinals Cap or a triple Crown All this I undertake to demonstrate not by some extraordinary practices justified onely by the pretence of invincible necessity a weak patrociny for general Doctrine nor by the single opinions of some Capricious fellows but by â—…heir books of Discipline by the acts of their general and provincial Assemblies by the concurrent votes and writings of their Commissioners I foresee that they will suggest that through their sides I seek to wound forreign Churches No there is nothing which I shall convict them of here but I hope will be disavowed though not by all Protestant auctouâ—…s yet by all the Protestant Churches in the world But I must take leave to demand of our Disciplinarians who it is they brand with the odious name of Erastians in the Acts of their Parliaments and Assemblies and in the writings of their Commissioners and reckon them with Papists Anabaptists and Independents Is it those Churches who disarm their Presbyteries of the Sword of Excommunication which they are not able to weeld so did Erastus or is it those who attribute a much greater power to the Christian Magistrate in the managery of Ecclesiastical affairs than themselves So did Erastus and so do all Protestant Churches The Disciplinarians will sooner endure a Bishop or a Superintendent to govern them than the Civil Magistrate And when the Magistrate shall be rightly informed what a dangerous edg'd-tool their Discipline is he will ten times sooner admit of a moderate Episcopacy than fall into the hands of such hucksters If it were not for this Disciplinarian humour which will admit no latitude in Religion but makes each nicity a fundamental and every private opinion an Article of faith which prefers particular errours before general truths I doubt not but all reformed Churches might easily be reconciled Before these unhappy troubles in England all Protestants both Lutherans and Calvinists did give unto the English Church the right hand of fellowship the Disciplinarians themselves though they preferred their own Church as more pure else they were hard-hearted yet they did not they durst not condemn the Church of England either as defective in any necessary point of Christian Piety or redundant in any thing that might virtually or by consequence overthrow the foundation Witnesse that letter which their General Assembly of Superintendents Pastours and Elders sent by Mr. John Knox to the English Bishops wherein they stile them Reverend Pastours fellow-preachers and joynt opposers of the Roman Antichrist They themselves were then far from a party or from making the calling of Bishops to be Antichristian But to leave these velitations and come home to the point I will shew first how this Discipline entrencheth most extreamly upon the right of the civil Magistrate secondly that it is as grievous and intollerable to the Subject CHAP. II. That this new Discipline doth utterly overthrow the Rights of Magistrates to convocate Synods to confirm their Acts to order Ecclesiastical affairs and reform the Church within their Dominions ALl Princes and States invested with Sovereignty of power doe justly challenge to themselves the right of Convocating National Synods of their own subjects and ratifying their constitution And although pious Princes may tolerate or priveledge the Church to convene within their territories annually or triennially for the exercise of discipline and execution of constitutions already confirmed neverthelesse we see how wary the Synod of Dort was in this particular yet he is a Magistrate of straw that will permit the Church to convene within his territories whensoever wheresoever they list to convocate before them whomsoever they please all the Nobles all the Subjects of the Kingdom to
change the whole Ecclesiastical pollicy of a Common-wealth to alter the Doctrine and Religion established to take away the legall rights and privileges of the Subjects to erect new tribunalls and courts of Justice to which Sovereigns themselves must submit and all this of their own heads â—…ue of a pretended power given them from heaven contrary to kâ—…own laws and lawfull customs the Supreme Magistrate dissenting disclaiming Synods ought to be called by the supreme Magistrate if he be a Christian c. And either by himself or by such as he shall please to choose for that purpose he ought to preside over them This power the Emperours of old did challenge over General Councels Christian Monarchs in the blindnesse of Popery over National Synods the Kings of England over their great Councels of old and their Convocation of later times The Estates of the united Provinces in the Synod of Dort this power neither Roman Catholick or Protestant in France dare denie to his King None have been more punctual in this case then the State of Geneva where it is expressely provided that no Synod or Presbytery shall alter the Ecclesiastical pollicy or adde any thing to it without the consent of the civil Magistrate Their elders do not challenge an uncontrolable power as the Commissioners of Christ but ate still called the Commissioners of the Signiory The lesser Councel names them with the advise of the Ministery their consent is not necessary The great Councel of 200 doth approve them or reject them At the end of the year they are presented to the Signiory who continue them or discharge them as they see cause At their admission they take an oath to keâ—…p the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of the civil Magistâ—…ate The finall determination of doctrinal differences in Religion after conference of and with the Ecclesiasticks is referred to the Magistrate The proclamations published with the sound of trumpet registered in the same book do plainly shew that the ordering of all Ecclesiastical affairs is assumed by the Signiory But in Scotland all things are quite contrarie the civil Magistrate hath no more to doe with the placing or displacing of Ecclesiastical Elders than he hath in the Electoral Colledge about the Election of an Emperor The King hath no more legislative Power in Ecclesiastical causes than a Cobler that is a single Vote in case he be chosen an Elder other wiâ—…e none at all In Scotland Ecclesiastical persons make repeal alter their Sanctions eyery day without consent of King or Councel King Jonâ—…s proclaimed a Parliament to be held at Edenburgh and a little before by his letter required the Assembly to abstain from making any Innovatioâ—…s in the Policy of the Church and from prejudging the decisions of the States by their conclusions and to suffer all things to continue in the condition they were until the approcâ—…ing Parliamâ—…nt What did they hereupon They neglected the Kings letter by their own Authority they determined all things positively questioned the Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews upon their own Canons For collating to benefices and Voting in Parliament according to the undoubted Laws of the Land Yea to that degâ—…ee of sawcines they arrived and into that contempt they reduced Sovereign power that twenty Presbyters no more at the highest sometimes but thirteen sometimes but seven or eight dared to hold and maintain a General Assembly as they miscalled it after it was discharged by the King against his Authority an Insolence which never any Parliament durst yet attempt By their own Authority long before there was any Statute made to that purpose they abolished all the Festivals of the Church even those which were observed in memory of the Birth Circumcision Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour By their own Authority they decreed the abolition of Bishops requiring them to resign their offices as not having any calling from Gods word under pain of Excommunication And to desist from preacbing until they had a new admission from the General Assembly And to compleat their own folly added further that they would dispose of their possessions as the Churches Patrimony in the next Assembly which ridiculous Ordinance was maintained stifly by the succeeding Synods notwithstanding the Statute that it should be Treason to impugn the Authority of the three Estates or to procure the innovation or diminution of any of them Which was made on purpose to control their vain presumption Notwithstanding that themselves had formerly approved and as much as in them lay established Superintendents to endure for term of life with their numbers bounds salaries larger than those of other Ministers indewed with Episcopal power to plant Churches ordain Ministers assign Stipends preside in Synods direct the censures of the Church without whom there was no Excommunication The world is much mistaken concerning Episcopacie in Scotland for though the King and Parliament were compelled by the clamours and impetuous violence of the Presbyters to annex the temporalities of Bishops to the crown yet the Function it self was never taken away in Scotland from their first conversion to Christianity until these unhappy troubles And these very temporalities were restored by the Act of restitution and their full power was first established Synodically and afterwards confirmed by the three Estates of the Kingdom in Parliament By their own Authority when they saw they could not prevail with all their iterated indeavours and attempts to have their book of discipline ratified they obtruded it upon the Church themselves ordaining that all those who had born or did then bear any office in the Church should subscribe it under pain of Excommuication By their own Authority or rather by the like unwarrantable boldnesse they adopted themselves to be heirs of the Prelates and other dignities and orders of the Church suppressed by their tumultuous violence and decreed that all tythes rents lands oblations yea whatsoever had been given in former times or should be given in future times to the service of God was the patrimonie of the Church and ought to be collected and distributed by the Deasons as the Word of God appoints That to convert any of this to their particular or profane use of any person is detestable Sacriledge before God And elsewhere Gentle-men Barons Earls Lords and others must be content to live upon their just rents and suffer the Kirk to be restored to her libertie What this libertie is follows in the same place all things given in hospitalitie all rents pertaining to Priests Chanteries Colledges Chappelries Frieries of all orders the Sisters of the Seens all which ought to be retained still in the use of the Kiâ—…k Give them but leave to take their breath and expect the rest The whole revenues of the temporalities of Bishops Deans and Arch-Deans lands and all rents pertaining to Cathedrall Kirks Then supposing an objection that the Possessours had Leases and Estates