Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A29489
|
A review of Doctor Bramble, late Bishop of Londenderry, his Faire warning against the Scotes disciplin by R.B.G.
|
Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662.
|
1649
(1649)
|
Wing B466; ESTC R10694
|
70,498
|
112
|
A REVIEW OF DOCTOR BRAMBLE Late Bishop of LONDENDERRY HIS FAIRE WARNING Against the Scotes Disciplin By R. B. G. Printed at DELF By Michiel Stael dwelling at the Turf-Market 1649. For the right Honourable the Noble and potent Lord JOHN Earle of Cassils Lord KENNEDY c. one of his MAJESTIES privie counsel and Lord Iustice generall of Scotland RIGHT HONORABLE MY long experience of your Lordships sinceer zeale to the truth of God and affection to the liberties of the Church and Kingdome of Scotland against all enemies whomsoever hath imboldened me to offer by your Lordships hand to the view of the publick my following answer to a very bitter enemy of that Church and Kingdome for their adhaerence to the sacred truth of God and their own just liberties At my first sight of his Book and many dayes thereafter I had no purpose at all to medle with him The Authors reasons of his wryting your Lordship knowes how unprovided men of my present condition must be either with leasure or accommodations or a minde suitable for wryting of books Also Doctor Bramble was so well knowne on the other side of the Sea the justice of the Parliament of England and Scotland having unanimously condemned him to stand upon the highest pinacle of infamy among the first of the unpardonable incendiaries and in the head of the most pernicious instruments of the late miseries in Britaine and Ireland and the evident falshood of his calumnies were so clearly confuted long ago in printed answers to the infamous Authors whence he had borrowed them I saw lastly the mans Spirit so extreame saucy and his pen so wespish and full of gall that I judged him unworthy of any answer But understanding his malions boldnes to put his Book in the hand of his Majesty of the Prince of Orange and al the eminent personages of this place who can reed English yea to send it abroad unto all the Universities of these Provinces with very high and insinuating commendations from the prime favourers of the Episcopall cause hearing also the threats of that faction to put this their Excellent and unanswerable peece both in Dutch Frensh and Latine that in the whole neighbouring World the reputation of the Scotes might thereby be wounded killed and buried without hope of recovery I found it necessary at the desire of diverse friends to send this my review after it hoping that all who shall be pleased to be at the paines of comparing the reply with the challenge may be induced to pronounce him not only a rash untimous malicious but also a very false accuser This much justice doe I expect from every judicious and aequitable comparer of our wrytes upon the hazard of their censure to fall upon my side The Praelats are unable by reason to defend Episcopacy His invectives against us are chiefly for three things our Discipline our Covenant our alleadged unkindnes to our late Soveraigne My apology for the first is that in disciplin we maintaine no considerable conclusion but what is avowed by all the Reformed Churches especially our Brethren of Holland and France as by the approbatory suffrages of the Universities of Leyden Vtrecht and others to the theorems whereupon our adversarie doth build his chief accusations may appeare If our practise had aberred from the common rule the crookednes of the one ought not to praejudge the straightnes of the other though what our adversary alleadgeth of these aberrations is nothing but his owne calumnious imputations the chiefe quarrel is our rule it selfe which all the reformed harmoniously defend with us to bee according to Scripture and the Episcopall declinations to bee beside and against the line of the word yea Antichristian If our Praelats had found the humour of disputing this maine cause to stir in their veines why did they not vent it in replyes to Didoclavius and Gersome Bucerus who for long thirty yeares have stood unanswered or if fresher meats had more pleased their tast why did not their stomacks venture on Salmasius or Hondels books against Episcopacy If verbal debates had liked them better then wryting why had none of them the courage to accept the conference with that incomparably most learned of all knights now living or in any bygone age Sir Claud Somayis who by a person of honour about the King did signify his readines to prove before his Majesty against any one or all his praelaticall divines that their Episcopacy had no warrant at all in the word of God or any good reason But our friends are much wiser then to be at the trouble and hazard of any such exercise Their stronged arguments are trucks of Court the artifices of the court are their old trade they know better how to watch the seasons and to distribute amongst themselves the howres of the Kings opportunities when privatly without contradiction they may instill in his tender mind their corrupt principles and instruct him in his cabine how safe it is for his conscience and how much for his honor rather to ruine himselfe his family and all his Kingdomes with his own hands then to desert the holy Church that is the Bishops and their followers then to joine with the rebellious Covenanters enemies to God to his Father to to Monarchy that the embracing of the Barbarous Irish the pardoning of all their monstruous murders the rewarding of their expected merits with a free liberty of Popery and accesse to all places of the highest trust though contrary to all the Lawes which England and Ireland has knowne this hundred yeares all this without and before any Parliament must be very consistent with conscience honor and all good reason Yea to bind up the soule of the most sweet and ingenuous of Princes in their chaines of their slavery for ever they have fallen upon a most rare trick which hardly the inventions of all their praedecessors can pararel The Brothers unlu◠foot is 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They rest not satisfied that for the upholding of their ambition and greed they did harden our late Soveraigne to his very last in their Errours and without compassion did dryve him on to his fatal praecipice unles they make him continue after his death to cry loud every day in the cares of his Son in his later will and testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to follow him in that same way of ruine rather then to give over to serve the lusts of the praelaticall clergy They have gathered together his Majesties last papers and cut of them have made a book whereupon their best pens have dropped the greatest eloqution reason and devotion was among them by way of essayes as it were to frame the heart of the Son by the fingers of the dying Father to piety wisedome patience and every virtue but ever znone to let fall so much of their own ungracious dew as may irrigat the feeds of their praelaticall Errors and Church interest so farre
us except it be to a Court of delegats a miserable releefe that all the Nobility gentry and Commons of a Kingdome who are oppressed by Episcopall officials have no other remedie but to goe attende a Committee of two or three civilians at London deputed for the discussing of such appeales The Presbyterian course is much more ready solide and equitable if any grievance arise from the sentence of a Presbytery a Synode twice a yeare doth sit in the bounds and attends for a week or if need be longer to determine all appeales and redresse all grievances now the Synode does consist of all the Ministers within the bounds which ordinarly are of diverse whole shyres as that of Glasgow of the upper and neather ward of Clidsedaile Baerranfrow Lennox Kile Carrick and Cunninghame also beside Ministers the constant members who have decisive voice in Synodes are the chiefe Noblemen Gentlemen and Burgesses of all these shyres among whom their be such parts for judgment as are not to be found nor expected in any inferiour civil Court of the Kingdom yet if it fall out so that any party be grieved with the sentence of a Synode there is then a farther and finall appeale in a Generall assembly which consists of as many Burgesses and more Gentlemen from every shire of the Kingdome then come to any Parliament beside the prime Nobility and choisest Ministry of the land having the Kings Majestie in persone or in his absence his high Commissioner to be their praesident This meeting yeerly or oftner if need be sits ordinarly a month and if they think fit longer the number the wisedome the eminency of the members of this Court is so great that beside the unjustice it were a very needlesse labour to appeal from it to the Parliament for as we have said the King or his high Commissioner sits in both meetings albeit in a differēt capacity the number and qualification of knights and Burgesses is ever large as great in the assembly as in the Parliament only the difference is that in the Parliament all the Nobility in the Kingdom sit without any election and by virtue of their birth but in the Assembly only who for age wisedome and piety are chosen by the Presbyteries as fittest to judge in Ecclesiastick affairs but to make up this oddes of the absence of some Noblemen the Assembly is alwayes adorned with above ane hundred of the choifest Pastors of the whole land none whereof may sit in Parliament nothing that can conciliate authority to a Court or can be found in the Nation is wanting to the generall assembly how basely so ever our praelats are pleased to trample upon it The second alledged hurt which the Nobility have from the Presbytery All questions about patronages in Scotland are now ended is the losse of their patronages by congregations electing their Pastors Ans Howsoever the judgment of our Church about patronages is no other then that of the Reformed divines abroad yet have our Presbyteries alwayes with patience endured patrons to present unto vacant Churches till the Parliament now at last hath taken away that grievance The Nobilities last hurt by the Presbytry is their losse of all their impropriations and Abey-lands The possessors of Church lands were ever feared for Bishops but never for the Presbytery Ans How Sycophantick an accusation is this for who knowes not how farre the whole generation of the praelaticke faction doe exceed the highest of the Presbyterians in zeale against that which they call Sacriledge never any of the Presbyterians did attempt either by violence or a course of Law to put out any of the Nobility or gentry from their possessions of the Church-lands but very lately the threats and vigorous activity of the praelats and their followers were so vehement in this kinde that all the Nobility and gentry who had any interest were wackned to purpose to take heed of their rights In the last Parliament of Scotland when the power of the Church was as great as they expect to see it againe though they obtained the abolition of patronages yet were the possessors of the Church-lands and tythes so little harmed that their rights therto were more cleerly and strongly confirmed then by any praeceding Parliament The fourth hurt is that every ordinary Presbyter wil make himselfe a Noblemans fellow Ans No where in the World does gracious Ministers though meane borne men receive more respect from the Nobility then in Scotland neither any where does the Nobility and gentry receive more duely their honour then from the Ministers there That insolent speach fathered on Mr. Robert Bruce is demonstrat to be a fabulous calumny in the historicall vindication However the Warner may know that in all Europe where Bishops have place it hes ever at least these 800 yeares been their nature to trample under foot the highest of the Nobility As the Pope must be above the Emperour so a little Cardinal Bellarmin can tell to King Iames that hee may well be counted a companion of any Ilander King were the Bishops in Scotland ever content till they got in Parliament the right hand and the nearest seates to the throne and the doore of the greatest Earles Marquesses and duks was it not Episcopacy that did advance poore and capricious pedants to strive for the whyte staves great Seales of both Kingdomes with the prime Nobility and often overcome them in that strife In Scotland I know and the Warner will assure for England and Ireland that the basest borne of his brethren hes ruff led it in the secreet counsel in the royall Exchequer in the highest courts of justice with the greatest Lords of the Land it s not so long that yet it can be forgotten The praelats continue to annull the being of al the reformed Churches for their want of Episcopacy since a Bishop of Galloway had the modesty to give unto a Marquise of Argile tanta mont to a broadly in his face at the counsel table The Warner shall doe well to reckon no more with Presbyters for braving of Noblemen The nixt hee will have to bee wronged by the Presbytery are the orthodoxe clergy Ans All the Presbyterians to him it seemes are heterodoxe Episcopacy is so necessary a truth that who denies it must be stamped as for a grievous errour with the character of heterodox The following words cleere this to be his mind they losse saith hee the confortable assurance of undoubted succession by Episcopall ordination what sence can be made of these words but that all Ministers who are not ordained by Bishops must lie under the confortlesse uncertainty of any lawfull succession in their ministeriall charge for want of this succession through the lineall descent of Bishops from the Apostles at least for want of ordination by the hands of Bishops as if unto them only the power of mission and ordination to the Ministry were committed by Christ because of this defect the Presbyterian