Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n
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A48029
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A Letter from a Presbyterian minister to a member of Parliament
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1693
(1693)
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Wing L1429; ESTC R41463
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8,102
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13
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A LETTER FROM A PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT A LETTER FROM A PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT YOur Desire which has alwayes the force of a Command to me to give you my Thoughts in Writ of a Petition given in to His Grace the Duke of Hamiltoun His Majesties High Commissioner and the Honourable Estates of Parliament by them who conformed to Episcopacy brings you this Trouble which a Multitude of my Brethren were they to undertake the subject of this Missive and handle it according to the Grace and Wisdom which God hath more copiously given to them could have done with more Accuracy of Stile and more Fully and Nervously to the Conviction of these Concerned particularly the Honourable Members of this present Parliament than I am capable to do yet I have exposed this Draught to an observant Generation and am willing to bear the Censures and Contempt of Many if I may but contribute some Light to the Consciences of some Well-meaning but less Discerning and Observant Friends The Petition at first view seems so plausible as might challenge Reception from all that love the Advancement of the Great Ends of the Gospel And truely if the Petitioners had not bewrayed a want of Candor unworthy of their Character in their Address to to the last General Assembly in the Terms of a Formula Adjusted by His Majesty to which Formula in the Letter they closly adhere but not to His Majesties Meaning and the genuine Sense of the Words as Conserted for Terms of Communion The Assembly at that time would have made a considerable progress in laying down such Rules whereby an effectual Door had been opened for Receiving and Assuming into a share of the Government all duely qualified of which they only were the competent Judges especially in the first instance Now that the World as well as our Friends in Parliament may understand how the late Assembly could not without great Unfaithfulness to God the King their Religion and People receive the Addressers into their Communion nor will I hope this Parliament interpose their Authority for that effect without an antecedent Judgement of the Church I shall give an ingenuous Representation 〈◊〉 the Matter of Fact as that Affair was mannaged before the Assembly But lest I be mistaken in the following Lines I must Preface a few Things 1. I would Anathematize in my self and Condemn in others that Malignant and Censorious Zeal that overlooks much Excellence in any and that envies and dispises all deserving Services Gifts and Graces if not seated in and performed by themselves and that makes particular Opinions Modes Forms and Humors the Main or the Only Terms of Peace and Concord and that bottoms the Christian Interest Peace and Welfare of the Churches on any Terms too mean and narrow to sustain them I shall never neither Value nor Vindicat that Zeal which shuts out those Characters of the Wisdom which is from above mentioned in James 3.17 18. 2ly I would have no Man think that the Representation of the Addressers Behaviour to the General Assembly is Levelled against all or the greatest part of that Way and least of all against many of them who are in the Exercise of their Ministry on the North side of Tay ' of whose soundness in the Faith Piety of Life and painfulness in their Ministry we have sufficient Documents but only against those whose Immoralities Errors Non-residence when vested with a Charge tampering with persons dissaffected to the Government Civil as well as Ecclesiastick and other Enormities hath rendred them contemptible in the Eyes of the people and uncapable of any Office in a well constitute Church 3ly I would have none to suppose that the Exceptions of the Presbyterian Ministers are mainly against the Formula which in most things coincide with the Act of the General Assembly in the year 1690 instructing their Commissioners anent the Reception of such Ministers into Ministerial Communion but against their Method of improving it for it is uncontestable his Sacred Majesty whose civil Interests are inseparably Complicated and twisted with these of the True Religion did certainly intend that thereby They should give sufficient Evidence of the Orthodoxy of their Principles But when the Assembly found it necessar from the pregnant Grounds of Jealousy Ministred by not a few of them who openly taught Arminian Doctrines at their Synodical Meetings and Presbytries without being censured And that Doctor Monro a leading man amongst them offered to Subscribe the Confession of Faith and Catechisms as vinculum pacis not Symbolum fidei And withal the Formula it self seemed a little dubious and capable of being stretched to a sinister Sense whereby all security to our Doctrine was eluded and Evacuat as will appear afterward from the particular consideration of the Formula which is the Ground they still stand upon to interrogate them concerning their meaning of some parts of the Address how unsatisfactory their Answers were I leave to any Judicious and impartial person to Judge I shall pass over their Answer ' to the first Interrogator without Discanting on it or drawing these Inferences which natively follow from it but when I have told you the Question which was if they owned the Authority of the General Assembly I shall set down their Answer in their own Words and leave you to your own Remarks and and Animadversions upon it The Answer then in terminis was That they conceive they cannot be oblidged to Answer any Questions about any part of the Direction and Address or to express their Judgment of the Authority of this General Assembly farther then his Majesty hath required them to direct their Address thereunto But the main Question I was concerned about who am neither of a contracted Charity nor a sworn Votary to humane Inventions and I must confess their stingy Answer did much trouble me The Question was Whether by their promising in that Declaration to sign the Confession of Faith and Catechisms they do explicitly avow and cordially and firmly profess their belief of the Doctrines therein delivered in opposition to the Popish Socinian Arminian and other Tenets Doctrines and Opinions contrare to and inconsistent with the saids Confession and Catechisms Their Answer to this Question given in by them in writ no doubt after Deliberation for time was allowed them for that end was That they can give no Explication of any point or Article in the said Formula and Declaration it being conserted for them and seen and approven by his Majesty and that they are satisfied in Conscience to sign the said Formula and Declaration in the words as it now stands and that they can give no Answer if the whole Formula and Declaration should be turned into Questions and that they conceived the words of the Formula and Declaration are as clear as any they can give by way of Explication The Committee of the Assembly found their first Answer unsatisfactory being shifting and upon