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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51154	An apology for the clergy of Scotland chiefly oppos'd to the censures, calumnies, and accusations of a late Presbyterian vindicator, in a letter to a friend : wherein his vanity, partiality and sophistry are modestly reproved, and the legal establishment of episcopacy in that kingdom, from the beginning of the Reformation, is made evident from history and the records of Parliament : together with a postscript, relating to a scandalous pamphlet intituled, An answer to The Scotch Presbyterian eloquence.	Monro, Alexander, d. 1715?	1693 (1693)	Wing M2437; ESTC R20155	87,009	107

external Evidences there is no penetrating into the hearts of men they are only accessible to Omniscience to whom all things are naked and open But the Vindicator may remember that the dissenting Ministes in and about London in their late agreement require no more of any as marks of Orthodoxy than the subsoription of 36 Articles The Vindicator insinuates that though the Clergy do subscribe them yet they preach against them This is another stroke of his good Nature and Civility and he may beconvinced long e're now that the Episcopal Clergy is not so very pliable to do any thing against their Convictions in view of their worldly Interest even when he and his Party have been very active to reduce them to extraordinary straits and difficulties nay if he will oblige me to be plain I could tell him where some Ministers of that Faction were so villanously zealous against the Clergy that they did solicite Witnesses against them where they themselves or some of their intimate Brethren were Judges I am not to publish Names but I can prove this whenever it is found convenient I know the Vindicator will be very curious to know my Informers but I am not obliged to be so particular though I am resolved by Gods assistance to perform all the promises I make to him and his Associates But the next Censure that he bestows on the Clergy is of the same nature with the former The Author of the second Letter had said that there were many among the Clergy who were not inclined to be every day talking to the people of Gods decrees and absolute reprobation c. Indeed I think the Author gave a just account of the prudence and modesty of his Brethren but the Vindicator lashes him here with great severity and tells him that his discourse is impertinent for they do not require that one should talk always to the people of Decrees and Reprobations But here the Vindicator gives no great proof of his Logick For the phrase every day did not imply a Metaphysical strictness as if the Presbyterians never preach'd on any other Subject but on the absolute Decrees and Reprobation but the plain and obvious meaning is that Presbyterians did frequently and indiscreetly handle such abstruse Subjects as neither they nor the people were able to fathom And all such Phrases though they seem to imply a Logical universality must be interpreted to intend no more than that such or such a thing frequently comes to pass The next Blow is more severe and one had need to be armed Capa-pee to meet with it But if he mean as he must if he speak to the purpose that the absolute decrees of Electon and Reprobation both praeteritum as an act of Sovereignty and praedamnatum as an act of Justice are not to be held forth or taught to the people we abhor this as an unsound Doctrine and look on him as a pitiful Advocate for the Orthodoxy of the Clergy Thus the Vindicator is sufficiently revenged of his Adversary who is now more lamentably shattered than can be imagined It is not generous in the Vindicator thus to pursue his Victory is it possible that such meek and calm Saints shall thus openly expose the weakness of their Antagonists But if the Vindicator were out of his passion I would entreat him to tell me in what place of Saint Paul's Epistles does he read of a Decretum praedamnatum and what ever come of the Calvinian or Arminian Hypothesis I am afraid his Explication is both conplicated Nonsense and Blasphemy But he tells us that he understands Philosophy as well as his Neighbors pray let him tell us in which of the Schoolmen or Protestant Calvinists did he ever read of a Decretum praedamnatum praeteritio and praedamnatio may be met with but a Decretum praedamnatum is the peculiar invention of this Philosopher The Decree is the Act of God and there is no act of his can be condemned Such an unfortunate Blunder as this is was never before seen in print and yet the Vindicator must tell us that such things must be held forth to the people and in imitation of Saint Paul too Truly I think they had as good not be held forth but hid and laid up in the boundless Registers of Chimera's Non-entities and Negations I think this Deoretum praedamnatum may keep company with such ancient Gentlemen of its own kindred and Family and ought not at all to be held forth to the people And if you be acquainted with the Vindicator you may advise him to read the Calvinian Hypothesis before he venture to explain it And perhaps there are some about him who may expose his explication of the decrees as much as they do his Latin reasonings against Idolatry The next thing I take notice of is his historical Argument from the Culdees to prove that there was a Presbyterian Church in Scotland in the primitive times before Popery entred And the plain truth is this is the only thing that he says that deserves to be considered not for any weight or historical Truth that is in it but because the learned Blondel made use of it to support that imaginary Hypothesis from some Ancient Testimonies He had met with it in Buchanan's History and that learned Historian took it unwarily from his Contemporary Monks Boctius and others or such as were little removed from his own Age Blondel made use of it to serve the dissenting Interest in Britain And to the end that he might make a great muster of Testimonies he must needs erect a Presbyterian Church in Scotland towards the end of the second Century or beginning of the third If they can prove this I must confess it is of considerable weight but the great misfortune is there are no Authors now extant upon whose Testimony an affair so distant from our times can be reasonably founded None within six hundred years of that Period gives us the least evidence for it when I say six hundred years I do not mean that good Authors at the distance of seven or eight hundred years give any Evidence for it more than their Predecessors but when there is none to vouch it within that Period it is ridiculous to impose it as a piece of true History And our Vindicator tells us that tho the Presbyterian Government continue for some Ages in the Church of Scotland before they had Bishops Can he name any Church upon Earth that embrac'd the Christian Religion and yet none to write the affairs of their own time for some Ages together But if the writings of those ancient Presbyterians are lost Are there no fragments of them preserved in the writings of succeeding Ages There were no people so ignorant as the Monks for some Centuries before the Reformation and yet there was nothing that they were so ignorant in as true Ecclesiastical History And if they had been the most learned and accurate what could they help

themselves in an affair of this nature when they had no certain Records by which they might transmit the knowledge of former times to Posterity No tradition of that Antiquity can be preserved without writing why then do they obtrude this fabulous Story since it cannot be received by any known rules of Credibility we have no vestige of it from any Author that lived near those times The Vindicator uses to refer us in some Instances to his own little Books I do him a greater kindness when I refer him to the Learned Du Launoy and from several Treatises and reasonings of his which now I have not at command he may learn by what Rules to distinguish fabulous Accounts from true and solid History and not only from him but from hundreds if they do but argue from principles of common sense and the acknowledg'd rules of Logick Indeed the Presbyterians might have given us some of the Acts of their Assemblies in that ancient Period and the rules of Discipline as well as obtrude upon us this Romantick Account And if I dare interpose my Opinion I think that the late illiterate Monks advanc'd this Fable to gratifie the Pope's design of exempting the religious Orders from Episcopal Jurisdiction by which Engine the Bishops were kept low and the Reformation hindred and the religious Orders encouraged to check their Authority in all places This is so known that it needs neither proof nor illustration and this Fiction of the Culdees governing a Church without the authority of a Bishop invented in the days of Barbarism and Superstition seems naturally calculated to advance this Design and to depress the Episcopal Jurisdiction For the Monks that propagated this Story were more conversant in little Legends than the Writings of the Ancients And hardly is there any thing more opposite to the Universal Testimony and simplicity of those Ages than this Monkish Fable of Presbyterian Government towards the end of the Second Century or the beginnings of the Third when all the known Records of the Christian Church unanimously declare for the Hierarchy of Bishop Presbyter and Deacon and the Succession of Bishops from the Apostles It is not possible to preserve the memory of the greatest men the greatest Conquests or the most remarkable Actions unless they are timeously committed to writing Unwritten Tradition goes but a short way and is not able to support it self with any certainty for any number of years Is it likely that the Scotish Church had any other Ecclesiastical Government than what was received in the Christian Church when they were converted to the Faith and is it not very sad that there are no parallel Instances of any other Church from abroad By whom were they Converted And is it not reasonable to think that such as were instrumental in their Conversion would plant the Ecclesiastical Government amongst them that they were acquainted with themselves And are there any footsteps of such a Government amongst the more polite and learned Nations who because they had the Advantages of learning might sooner transmit to Posterity the Knowledge of their Ecclesiastical Affairs And let me ask the Presbyterians if they had all the Testimonies of the Ancients in favours of their parity and that we only had the Authority of some fabulous Monks in some remote Corner of the World to support our Hierarchy and that in an Age of shameful Ignorance and Darkness when they imposed upon mankind and multiplyed their visionary Legends I ask how the Vindicator would treat us if we appeared with our Culdees against the undoubted Records of the Fathers the Universal Suffrages of Councels the Succession of the famous Sees and the glorious Cloud of Witnesses that by their Zeal and Sufferings enlightened the World I think he would treat us very huffingly and let us hear more than once his oft repeated and beloved Metaphor of the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the woman Would not he tell us of our bold and silly pretences to Antiquity However when the Vindicator names good Authors foreign or domestick in the third fourth fifth sixth or seventh Century and this is more than by the Rules of Credibility or History we need yield to him then it is time to consider his Testimonies Let him Read Blondel again and see whether that great Antiquary can name any Ancient Writer to uphold this Monastick Dream But if I should grant that there had been some Priests in Scotland before there were Bishops in it there is nothing in that Concession to favor Presbytery for they had their Mission and Ordination from Bishops in other places to whom they might give an account of their Travels and Success and this was ordinary before Nations were Converted But when they received the Faith all Ecclesiastical Officers were then encouraged to continue amongst them and this is it that we confidently affirm that where there are any Records of Nations and Countries Converted to the Faith there do we meet with the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of Bishop Presbyter and Deacon over the whole Christian Church The Primitive Confessors and Martyrs Travailed the World over to gain Proselytes to Christianity some Bishops some Presbyters some Deacons some Lay-men but wherever there was any considerable number of Converts then they became an Organical Church and had Bishops and Presbyters Constituted until their sound went unto all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world He runs down the Author of the History of the General Assembly as one not acquainted with the Actings of Grace in the Soul because forsooth he had not spoke with reverence enough of Mr. Gray's Sermons in that Page cited on the Margin The Vindicator discovers much of his own creeping Genius when he discourses of the Act of their Assembly against the private Administration of Baptism nor is it possible to pursue him in such a Wilderness of little impertinencies Their pretended Assembly would have done better if they had left the Administration of Baptism to the discretion of Ministers in all places it is certainly much to be wished that Baptism be Administred with all publick Solemnity when there is not an apparent necessity to recede from so laudable a Custom but to make Discourses to the People on particular Texts of Scripture at the Administration of Baptism is a thing in it self altogether new and unnecessary If the nature use and design of it be seriously explained there needs no more And to think a Sermon in the modern and usual Notion necessary is as great Superstition as that of theirs who fancy that the effects of it follow ex opere operato which Phrase is very little understood by the People and perhaps others who should teach the People do not throughly understand it neither Next I shall take notice of what we are told by the Vindicator Pag. 174. That the Presbyterians could not comply with Human Ceremonies with a good Conscience in the

Preferment receives a Presentation from the Patron he goes to the Bishop and the Bishop sends him to the Presbytery to undergoe the ordinary tryals of his Literature and Sufficiency and when the Bishop and his Presbyters with him are satisfied of his Knowledge and Learning then the Bishop serves a publick ●dict at the Church where the Candidate is to be preferred inviting all the Parishioners to come to the Cathedral Church against an appointed day to see if they have any reasonable exception against the Candidate and this is not done in a hurry but they have a competent time allowed them to gather all possible Informations concerning him from all Quarters and if they can object any thing against him that is of any weight they are heardand the Candidate is repulsed now I would gladly know what is it that the People can complain of in this Ecclesiastical Polity The Consusions of Elections that are solely left to the People are innumerable and though we had not famous and remarkable Instances in Ecclesiastical History of the bloody and tragical Effects of such popular Elections our own Country might furnish us with very many sad Experiments when the Parishoners could not compromise the affair peaceably they quickly came to Blowes and in many places to Bloodshed and Riots These were all the good effects we could discern of their popular Elections it cannot be denyed but that the method of electing the Clergy varied often and appeared under many Figures in several Ages and Countries since the first Plantations of Christianity but I dare boldly say no Christian Church came nearer the Apostolical Method and more happily avoided both Extremes than the Church of Scotland under the Episcopal Constitution But you may put the Vindicator in mind that the Presbyterians themselves never thought the Call of the People so essential a Constitution of that Pastoral Relation For there is an Act of the General Assembly ordering the Presbytery to name a Minister to such Parishes as were Malignant that is such as were of the Episcopal persuasion so this pretended popular Election if at any time it prove unserviceable to advance their Tyranny is immediately rejected For the Presbyterians do not at all believe any such inherent Right in the People to chuse their own Ministers for they think the Malignants have no Right to chuse for themselves this is the sole privilege of the Godly The Malignants are not at all to be consulted accordingly we see that though their Parliament Iudged the power of Election in the Heretors and Elders of each Parish or in the major part of them yet no Elections are allowed by the Presbyteries though never so unanimous and universal but such as are promoted by their own Factions witness Musselburgh and Tranent There is hardly any thing insisted upon by the Presbyterians more foolish and inconsistent with common honesty than this Topick from popular Elections and to say the truth the old Presbyterians never obtrude such a whimsey upon the People the Lay Patronages were not abolished in Scotland until the year 49. when the Discipline was in its Zeaith when there was no sin Preached against but Malignancy and the King Prerogative Royal was possessed by the Kirk Presbyterians in other Countries quietly submit to Lay Patrons and indeed if the Bishops take care that 〈◊〉 but pious and vertuous Men be Ordained what harm can the Church 〈◊〉 by such Presentations May not the Clergy examine such Candidates 〈◊〉 offer themselves to the Ministry accurately and narrowly 'T is certain that the most tristing and supersicial Students do most effectually recommend themselves to the People nay there are so many mean and abject Arts requisite to promote a Clergy-Man if the Hypothesis of the popular Election hold necessary that an ingenuous man cannot proslitute himself to such servile and popular methods As for the grave and retired Clergy-Man he is sure never to be preferred and if some judicious and discreet Patron does not force him out of his Solitude he is like to die amongst his Books and the Church has been served in all Ages to the best Advantages by such as least understood the Arts of Insinuation and it will continue so until the end of all things In the next place I do not see why the Vindicator should say that the Clergy pressed the Consciences of their Hearers there was nothing in our worship but the use of the Lords Prayer the Doxology and the Apostolick Creed at Baptism that they themselves objected against are not these mighty Grievances to Tender Consciences The Vindicator tells us that Presbyterians were not against the use of those Forms but they would not use them as the Prelatists did What he means by this I cannot tell but I can tell you that all the Presbyterians before the year 1638. made use of them all And that after the year 38. until Cromwell's Army invaded our Nation they never left off the using of those Catholick and Christian Forms But such of the Remonstrators as were deeply in the Interests of the Usurper then left off the use of such Forms drawing as near as was possible to the Spiritual Heights and pretended Purity of the Independents in the Army And the Christian Religion at that time in our Nation varied in its outward Figure and in their Notions about it as much as the Philosophy of the Schools and the wise Questions of Universale and Objectum Attributionis logicae The Vindicator is content to use such Forms but not as the Episcopal Church doth command it That is to say he will do nothing in Unity and Society with the Christian Church and though the Vow of Baptism oblige us as we are Members of Christs Mystical Body to preserve and support the Unity of the Christian Church yet he thinks he may leave the Communion the Church without either fear or scruple in those very things that are short Abstracts of our Faith and Symbols of our Profession And yet no People are now so violent as they in pressing Subscriptions to the Presbyterian Confession at Westminster and that without any exception restriction or explication I am of Opinion that the Episcopal Clergy of Scotland have been from their Infancy taught in and are firmly resolved to adhere to the Protestant Religion and is it not a piece of extraordinary vanity in the Presbyterians to insinuate that they themselves are the only men careful to preserve the purity of Doctrine Did not the Clergy that addressed to the pretended General Assembly plainly declare that they would subscribe the Westminster Confession as it contained the Fundamentals of Protestant Religion But this the Vindicator thinks did not sufficiently purge them from the suspicion of being Arminians There are but very few of the Clergy of Scotland that explain the Doctrine of Grace and Freewill after the method of Arminius and if any of them does not favor the Calvinian Hypothesis they are very far from propagating their

of Caldea for debt Now I agree with this angry Scribler so far that these are horrid and blasphemous expressions and I pitch upon them because he himself thinks that nothing can be worse and that these Expressions alone if falsely alledged disprove the whole Collection Now we fairly offer to prove these three the first against Mr. Urquhart the other two against Mr. Kirkton This is undeniably just by his own Concessions Pag. 61. and if such blasphemous Stories are openly tolerated what must we expect from that Society of Men and I have in the former Treatise given you two instances of greater Ignorance and Nonsense in the Printed Books of Mr. Rule than any that's to be found in the Scotch Eloquence As for the Stories cited from the Scotch Eloquence against Mr. Rule and mentioned by him in Pag. 61. I do not truly believe them unless I have better Authority for them Thirdly suppose that one had a mind to make Stories to the disadvantage of the Scotch Presbyterians yet their jargon is so coarsly extravagant that it is not possible for any Man to speak their Language unless he had been Educated in their Gibberish and the Harmony between their Printed Books and their unprinted Sermons is so exact that none can doubt of the last who Read the first Let me but name one Man it is Mr. J. K. his Fancy is so Comical so surprizing so unimitable that it is not possible to say any thing as he says it himself nor yet to ascribe to another what is said by him and this way of Preaching is no new thing amongst the Presbyterians They always accused the Episcopalians that their Sermons were Cold and Dry and Moral Discourses and were not Calculated to the Capacities and Affections of the People as theirs were and therefore they complyed so much with the Genius of the People that they forgot the Majesty of Religion and the distinction between things Sacred and Prophane Fourthly There may be so many Stories added of their abusive Distorsions of the Scripture with Authentick attestations that it were their wisdom to let this Debate fall For Preaching after their way is become of late so trisling an Exercise that no Man could perform it to the satisfaction of their thorow pac'd Disciples but he that was either an extraordinary Hypocrite or well advanced in Madness and whatever Men pretend that have considered the affair but superficially 't is necessary to expose that absurd sensual and ludicrous Sect that Metamorphose Religion and its Solemn Exercises unto Theatrical Scenes If the great things of Religion be true if we have any thing that distinguishes us from the Beasts that perish if our Souls survive our Bodies and if our belief and hopes of invisible things and the slate of Retribution be not intirely a Dream what greater affront can be done to the Majesty of God the dignity of Human Nature and the Common Sense of Mankind than thus by mock Sermons to Lampoon the great Truths of the Gospel Did not our meek and blessed Saviour chastise the Hypocrisie of the Pharisees with greater severity than the more open and undisguised lewdness of Publicans and Sinners And St. Paul treats them with no other Language than that of dogs evil workers and the concision their Character is more at length in the Epistle of St. Jude such religious Scorners do in the most effectual manner promote Atheism and they that Act Devotion after the manner of a Farce do expose it more than the Wits and the Philosophers Upon this consideration alone the Presbyterian Preachments do more harm to Piety than the most subtile Arguments of Ancient and Modern Atheists we are supported against Atheism by the strength of Natural Reason when we are attacked gravely by plausible appearances but when we are surprized and disarmed by the sudden insinuations of Raillery we are quickly overcome not because we are weak but because we do not resolutely encounter the Enemy One Sermon mixt with such fooleries as give occasion to this Digression do more real hurt than can be imagined and if it be a fault to Publish them how intolerable is it to Preach them and to support Societies that seem to design nothing less than to ridicule all Religion But it is the just Judgment of God that they who have forsaken the Unity of the Church should be given up to strong delusions In the third part of his Pamphlet he heaps together some monstrous and ridiculous Stories against the Clergy and though one had sufficient strength to grapple with a Scavenger and lay him in the Mire yet methinks the undertaking is neither generous nor decent There are a great many of them that he asperses that I know nothing off so it is not reasonable to expect that I should meddle in their affairs and yet if they were the most arrant Villains upon Earth I am able to demonstrate that his Testimony against them is not Valid And therefore I humbly beg of all disinterested Strangers to consider but a few Particulars and then let them judge whether the accusations of Presbyterians against the Episcopal Church of Scotland are to be valued First They may remember that this way of Libelling is the true Characteristick of the Party and we need gather no other instances to prove this than the Practises of their General Assembly Anno 1638. Who when they Sat Libelled the Venerable Archbishop Spotswood and all his Brethren of that Order of the most abominable Crimes and charged them with the sins of Habitual Lying Swearing Drunkenness Adultery Incest Sodomy and Sorcery with an c. and they past their Censures upon them as guilty of these Abominations and inserted the names of particular Gentlemen as Witnesses who were never acquainted with this Contrivance and ordered all the Ministers of the Nation to Read all these Libels and Sentences from their Pulpits as if the whole Process had been fairly examined and the Witnesses had appeared before that Packt Jury of Mock Ecclesiasticks Now this was the Solemn Act of the whole Party met in a General Assembly who concerted those Methods when they were mutually conscious to the Knavery of one another and defying the Omniscience of Heaven went on resolutely against their own Convictions as well as the Practice of all former Ages It is but ordinary for private Men to assault the Reputation of others but what degrees of wickedness must they arrive to that Combine together and own to one another that the plainest Laws of God might be trampled upon rather than miss their end And this Villany is still upon Record and to their everlasting disgrace undeniable and will continue so as long as there are any Monuments of that Nation preserv'd Their Predecessors thus United found Calumny the most proper Weapon and effectual Instrument to serve their Malice and to disgrace amongst the deluded People Grave Learned Loyal and Judicious Men and the People were quickly undeceived when the Covenanters got into the