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A70973
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A declaration of the Commissioners for Visitation of Universities and for placing and displacing of ministers in Scotland, against praying or preaching for the pretended King of Scotland with some reasons given by some of the ministers of Edinburgh why they cannot in conscience omit to pray for him : together with an ansvver to the said reasons ... / by a friend to the Commonwealth.
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Scotland. Commissioners for Visitation of Universities and for Placing and Displacing of Ministers.; Friend of the Commonwealth. Answer to a paper intituled Some reasons why the ministers of Christ in Scotland ought not to be troubled for praying for the King.
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1653
(1653)
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Wing S1001; ESTC R14453
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13,157
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18
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Word of God for such Covenants Can you promise that any man shall have power whether God will or no All your Oaths and Covenants were conditionall For such Covenants for the maintaining of any power upon earth wherein there is no condition neither exprest nor understood concerning giving way to the all-disposing power and providence of God are no better then confederacies against God and therefore horrible snares and not to be defended but repented of lest you be found fighters against and resisters of the mighty Hand of God Suppose a quarrell arise between me and my neighbor which of us shal be master and he saith and swears that I shall never be his master and I say that he shall never be mine If hereupon we fight till that I have laid him fâ—at upon his back and bound him hand and foot if now when my sword is upon his brest and his life is at my mercy if I shall ask him whether he will yeeld now and he shall refuse is it not an unparaleld piece of pride and stubborness But suppose he shal say that his conscience is so tender that he cannot yeeld to me because of his oath will not every one say that his oath binds no longer but whilst he was in a capacity to resist but by my prevailing over him the obligation ceaseth For now God puts him under me so determins the case on my side Therefore though you have made a Covenant and bound it with an oath for your King and against the Commonwealth yet now God hath cut that knot in pieces by putting you in another capacity from what you were then And you may remember what solemn appeals were made to Heaven both by you and us when we came first amongst you for our most just and necessary defence wherein the Lord hath been pleased to give a gracious and favourable testimony to the sincerity of the desires of his poor servants and will you not rest in his arbitriment to whom you have so often referred the cause to whose determination both you and we did with joynt consent refer it And the Lord that righteous Judge hath been pleased to judge between us Though much may be argued against the works of God when considered singly and alone yet when the works of God are superadded testimonies to the truths revealed in his Word and when they are answers of the prayers and appeals of all his people on both sides and favourable smiles upon the actings of some of them following him in untroden paths of difficulty and danger the same dispensations being also distinguishing rebukes and frowns upon others under these and the like circumstances they will argue very much And though it is hard for man and it may be too hard for us to manage this argument to the compleat conviction of opposers and gainsayers and to improve it to the utmost in all the conclusions which it will reach unto yet to those who observe the Name of God in his works are not byassed with the guilt of former actings to this or that interest it will reach to conclude the present question and abundantly praeponderate to the purposes and resolutions of men if laid in the ballance with them 4. Whereas you are pleased to mention The securities which the King gave you for the Interest of Christ and Religion It will be hard to demonstrate to any rationall understanding how there could be any reall safety to Religion in receiving him to reigne with his former principles and with his unchanged heart amongst you The World took notice in your treaties with him at the Hague here too how litle trust you had in him and how you held him off at first but how you could afterwards unless a mouthful or two of Court air wil make wise men mad dispense with your consciences to soder with him when you saw no reall change of heart and self-abhorrence in him for his former wicked ways how the emitting of a feigned forced Declaration upon minatory importunities could be just incouragement for the admitting of a blood-thirsty and blood-guilty man for so in that Declaration you have made him to confesse to reign over you you will find a time to consider all these things Your 3. ground is this As it is a great sin to countermand that which God hath commanded and to give order that a precept of God shall not oblige so when such a command is given out it is then casus confessionis then to adhere to the authority of divine precepts is a necessary restimony to the truth But if ever these words afford a Ground and Warrant of conscience to walk in that practice of praying for the King your assumption which you seem to understand and beg must be proved viz. That God hath given you such a command to pray for him which the Declaration countermands but till then this Proposition will not reach the Conclusion aimed at If you be Confessors what truth of Christ do you suffer for name it Is it not this that Charles Stuart ought to be King and will you indeed stop your own mouths from preaching the blessed Gospel of Christ rather then be silent about that mans interest Wil you not preach Christ unless you may preach up Charles Stuart also Now the Lord lay not this sin to your charge You wil suffer upon the lowest and most uncomfortable account that ever men did For you suffer clearly upon the Royall interest not for the testimony of JESUS not for any truth of Religion but as witnesses to the Kings Interest Your 4. ground is this That Ministers of the Gospel receive their Commission from Jesus Christ which earthly powers cannot alter nor limit For if in one duty then in more and if they may prohibite a duty they may command that which is no duty And here still you take it for granted That it is a duty to pray for that Titular King but you should have proved that when you were made Ministers Christ did put this into your Commission and then you had said somthing Surely a Popish exemption of the Clergy from under the arm of the secular power is not that which you drive at For then you would never have alledged Statutes and Acts of Parliament as oblieging you in conscience to the King But this is certain that that which formerly was or which now is a duty may cease to be a duty not through any humane prohibition but through a providentiall alteration of the state of things The woman saith the Apostle is bound by the Law to her husband so long as he liveth but if her husband be dead she is freed from that Law Rom. 7. 2 3. And therfore your selves also upon this account of the revolutions of providence do find a present freedom of conscience to desist from some former actings to which you thought your selves formerly obliged by the Covenant And this may suffice for the removall of the grounds and
prayers to God and preachings to the people are these no wayes nor means of disquieting and stirring up the people We commend unto you that of David Lord lead me in a way of plainness because of them that observe me Psa. 27. 11. And the primitive Church in Acts 2. 46. walked in simplicity and singleness of heart But if your future deportment shall attest and make good the truth of this your profession that which is past will be forgotten and forgiven But for men of reputation to relinquish and abandon that Interest we are apprehensive how much it may reflect upon their honor and wisdom in tampering with it so long in complying with it and cleaving to it at the first and we have seen Conscience pretended when such an Interest hath layn at the bottom which is hypocrisie From which as also from pertinacy in your way there is no better way to purge your selves that it may not seem to cleave to you as Naaman's leprosie to Gehezi for ever than by submission to the Powers that are and supplications for the City wherein you live in the peace whereof you shall have peace For the present let us briefly commend to your most serious thoughts these four Considerations in reference to the matter in hand 1. What a fruitless and sad mistake of the nature of your work it is to pray and preach up particular interests among your people when you should preach the saving truths of the Gospel to their souls Alas what profits it to the business of Faith and Repentance and Spiritual union and communion with the Lord Jesus to cry-up the King or to cry-down the Common-wealth Will you cease to preach the Gospel rather than cease to preach up Charles Stuart We mourn for you before the Lord in this thing and the Lord Jesus help you in it Would the Spirit of God thus forsake you and leave you to such a sinful and dreadful mistake were there not something wherein you have first forsaken him Now the Lord help you to look into your hearts and to consider your wayes and to make diligent search Sure we are that you are sadly and strangely below and beside the business the great business of Divinity in these impertinent strifs about Civil Interests And this is the first Consideration 2. That the same obligation lies upon our consciences to preserve the peace of the Commonwealth which you say doth upon yours to hold up the Interest of the King and with this advantage that we are subservient therein to Him whose Almighty Hand hath actually placed this power over you and hath not yet born witness to the contrary Interest For we will remember the Name of our God and his wonderfull works we will often make mention of the loving kindness of the Lord and the praises of the Lord according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us and done for us according to his mercies and according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses And indeed it is a matter of conscience with us not to betray nor to wrong or weaken that Cause through over much indulgence to which God himself hath born witness We do beleeve that the present Cause of the Commonwealth hath much of the Interest of Christ wrapt up with it And though to tender consciences dissenting from us we shew much favour and forbearance yet Conscience you know is not the rule but the Word of God And though we hope better things of you yet there be two sorts of consciences which we conceive are not usually very tender viz. heretical consciences and seditious consciences 3. Consider how long a time of tenderness and forbearance you have had ever since the English power first prevailed here and how long God and man hath waited on you which we think will not be easily parallel'd in the Histories of former Ages We have carried our selves towards you to the praise of his Grace we speak it because you call us compel us to it not as Victors to conquered Enemies but as Brethren to brethren for so indeed we desire to look on you and no otherwise And whatever there is in our power wherein we may further encourage you and strengthen your hands in the work of the Ministery we hope we shall rejoyce to do it for His sake whom you ought to serve in the Gospel of His Son If the Lord would encline your hearts to know and to do his work It is our hearts desire and prayer to God that His good pleasure may prosper with you Wherein we hope we shall one day praise Him when the envy of Ephraim shall depart You may be as good as holy as you will you may enjoy all the Ordinances of Christ in the liberty and purity of the Gospel according to your hearts desire in your own way and according to your own consciences Which is more than you would have allowed to us We know nothing but the carkass of Church Discipline without the life and power of it yea a mungrel Discipline made up of Civil aswel as Spiritual power and so no better than a Gospel Monster that hath been taken from you which warming in its bowels a fatal engine of disobedience to that Civil Government which the Hand of the Almighty hath set over you and which doth plenarily possess and protect you it could not with any colour of conscience or reason be any longer suffered in that exorbitancy But if your Discipline which hath been wont to be a check to your Parliaments will hereafter learn to keep within its own channel you may still practice it as sundry godly persons of the Presbyterian Judgment do at this day in England Therefore why are the dissentions of Brethren like the bars of a Palace What shall be done for you You speak of burdens We know not what you mean unless it be the Monthly Assessment for there is no other burden laid on you but some we are sure are taken off which yet is no more for all Scotland than for that one County of Vlster in Ireland viz. about 8000 l. a month And you say you have been no hinderance to the people to bear the burdens in quietness that are laid upon them For indeed why should you Are not you the very men that lay these burdens on them The Assessment is for the Pay of the Army though it goes but a little way towards it The Army is continued because the people are unquiet and disaffected But who is it that feeds these malignant humors and keeps up this disaffection of the people who is it and what will they answer for it in the great day of accompt Let us reason with you before the Lord a little This power which God hath set over you for your good and which the Lord knows hath been favorable and tender over you What have returns been Protection requires allegeance by the rule of com mutative justice But have you not made unworthy unchristian returns upon them for that protection for that love and tenderness whereby they have sought to win you by being their enemies in heaven earth endeavoring to alienate the hearts of the Lords People from them and denying them that remembrance in your prayers which they have often begg'd and which you know they would prize far more than that wicked man doth for whom you cry even to the Lord do you cry but be answers you not And are there two greater unkindnesses in the world than these And yet the Lord hath enabled them to forgive or at least to forbear you hitherto But take heed if you persist in your course having had dreadful meetings with God therein lest you bring the matter to this passe That God will not forgive though we would For thy violence against thy brother Jacob thou shalt be cut off for ever Obad. 10. Now it may be ingenuity may work in you but if nothing will break your hearts you will find to our grief and to your trouble that the patience of mortal men is finite 4. Consider sadly how little benefit and advantage ariseth to the Interest of Jesus Christ in Scotland yea what real dis-service you do to Him by your adhering to that Man whom the Lord by a mighty Hand hath taken from you and by dis-accepting his kindness therein and in casting forth the branches of that bloody House which hath been a plague to this Nation from the dayes of your forefathers If you accept not the Instruments who did it or approve not the manner of their proceedings therein yet why do you not rejoyce for the thing it self All the world knows that you were innocent enough about it We know not any Magistracy at this day appearing upon the Earth to whom the Lord hath given a more abundant and immediate Testimony and for whose establishment he hath more gloriously revealed made bare his own Arm from Heaven and who have further engaged in protecting and promoting the Interest of Jesus Christ in the world then this which you resist and whose hands you labour to weaken But will you be the men of al others who hinder the Kingdom of God from coming God forbid As for this Man Heaven and Earth are witnesses that you have don your duty to him if so you cal it even to the utmost both day and night have seen it You have wept over his grave long enough Therefore we leave with you beseeching Him to set it home upon your hearts that which the Lord said to Samuel 1 Sam. 16 How long wile thou mourn for Saul whom I have rejected from reigning over Israel FINIS