expresse Articles for the preservation of royalty in all its just rights in his Majestie and his posterity what unkindnes was heer in the Scots to their King When by Gods blessing on the Scotes helpe the opposit faction was fully subdued his Majestie left Oxford with a purpose for London The Scotes selling of the King is a most false calumnie but by the severity of the ordinances against his receivers he diverted towards Linn to ship for Holland or France where by the way fearing a discovery and surprise he was necessitate to cast himselfe upon the Scotes army at New-wark upon his promise to give satisfaction to the propositions of both Kingdomes he was received there and to New-castle here his old oathes to adhaere unto Episcopacy hindred him to give the expected satisfaction AT that time the prime leaders of the English army were seeking with all earnestnes occasion to fall upon the Scots much out of heart and reputation by Iames Grahame and his Irishes incursions most unhappy for the Kings affaires Scotland at that time was so full of divisions that if the King had gone thither they were in an evident hazard of a present war both within among themselfes and without from England our friends in the English Parliament whom we did and had reason to trust assured us that our taking the King with us to Scotland was the keeping of the Sectarian Army on foot for the wracke of the King of Scorland of the Presbyterian party in England as the sending of his Majestie to one of his houses neer London upon the faith of the Parliament of England was the only way to get the Sectaryes disarmed the King and the people settled in a peace upon such tearmes as should be satisfactory both to the King and the Scots and all the wel-affected in England This being the true case was it any either unjustice unkindnes or imprudence in the Scots to leave the King with his Parliament of England was this a selling of him to his enemies the monyes the Scots received at their departure out of England had no relation at all to the King they were scarce the sixth parte of the arreares due to them for bygon service they were but the one halfe of the sume capitulat for not only without any reference to the King but by an act of the English Parliament excluding expresly from that Treaty of the armies departure all consideration of the disposall of the Kings person The unexpected evills that followed in the Armies rebellion in their seasing on London destroying the Parliament murthering the King no mortall eye could have forseen The Scots were ever ready to the utmost of their power to have prevented all these mischiefes with the hazard of what was dearest to them notwithstanding of all the hard measure they had often received both from the King and the most of their friends in England That they did not in time and unanimously stur to purpose for these ends they are to answer it to God who were the true Authors the innocency of the Church is cleered in the following treatise Among the many causes of these miseries the prime fountaine was the venome of Episcopall principles which some serpents constantly did infuse by their speaches and letters in the eares and heart of the King to keep him of from giving that satisfaction to his good subjects which they found most necessary and due the very same cause which ties up this day the hands of covenanters from redressing all present misorders could they have the King to joyne with them in their covenant to quit his unhappy Bishops to lay aside his formall and dead Liturgie to cast himselfe upon the counsels of his Parliaments it were easy to prophecie what quickly would become of all his enemies but so long as Episcopall and malignant agents compasseth him about though all that comes neer may see him as lovely hopfull and promising a prince for all naturall endowments as this day breaths in Europe or for a long time has swayed a Scepter in Britaine yet while such unlucky birds nest in his Cabin and men so ungraciously principled doe daily besiege him what can his good people doe but sit downe with mournfull eyes and bleeding hearts till the Lord amend these otherwise remediles and insuperable evills but I hold heer least I transgresse to farr the bounds of an Epistle I account it an advantage to have your Lordship my judge in what heere and in my following treatise The reason of the dedication I spake of Religion the liberties of our country and the Royall Family I know non fitter then your Lordship both to discerne and decerne in all these matters Me thinks I may say it without flattery which I never much loved either in my selfe or others that among all our Nobles for constancy in a zealous profession for exemplary practise in publick and privat duties the mercy of God has given to your Lordship a reputation second to none And for a rigid adhaerence to the Rights and Priviledges of your Country according to that auncient disposition of your most Noble Family noted in our Historians especially that Prince of them Georg Buchanan the Tutor of your Grand-Father I know none in our Land who wil pretend to goe before you and for the affairs of the King your interest of blood in the Royall Family is so well known that it would be a strange impudency in me if in your audience I durst be bold wittingly to give sinistrous information Praying to God that what in the candid ingenuity true zeale of my spirit I present under your Lordships patrociny unto the eye of the World for the vindication of my mother Church and Country from the Sicophantick accusations of a Stigmatised incendiary may produce the intended effects I rest your Lordships in all Christian duety R. B. G. Hague this 28 May 7 Iunie 1649. CHAP. I. The praelaticall faction continue resolute that the King and all his people shall perish rather then the praelats be not restored to their former places of power for to set up Popery Profanity and Tirranny in all the three Kingdomes WHile the Comissioners of the Church and Kingdome of Scotland The unseasonablenes of Doctor Brambles warning were on their way to make their first addresses to his Majestie for to condole his most lamentable afflictions and to make offer of their best affections and services for his comfort in this time of his great distresse it was the wisedome and charity of the praelaticall party to send out Doctor Bramble to meet them with his Faire Warning For what else but to discourage them in the very entry from tendering their propositions and before ever they were heard to stop his Majesties eares with grievous praejudice against all that possibly they could speake though the world sees that the only apparent fountaine of hope upon earth for recovery of the wofully confounded affaires of the King is in
to convocat Synods to confirme their acts to reforme the Churches within their dominions IN the second Chapter the warner charges the Scotes presbytery with the overthrowing the Magistrats right in convocating of Synods When he comes to prove this he forgets his challenge and digresses from it to the Magistrates power of choysing elders and making Ecclesiastick lawes avowing that these things are done in Scotland by Ecclesiastick persons alone without consent of the king or his counsel Ans It seemes our Warner is very ignorant of the way of the Scotes discipline the ordinary and set meetings of all assemblies both nationall and provincionall since the first reformation are determined by acts of Parliament with the Kings consent so betwixt the King and the Church of Scotland there is no question for the convocating of ordinary assemblies for extraordinary no man in Scotland did ever controvert the Kings power to call them when and where he pleased as for the inhaerent power of the Church to meet for discipline alswell as for worship the Warner fals on it heereafter we must therefore passe it in this place What hee meanes to speake of the Kings power in choysing elders or making Ecclesiastick Lawes himselfe knowes The warners Erastian and Tirannick principles hated by the King his Majestie in Scotland did never require any such priviledge as the election of elders or Commissioners to Parliament or members of any incorporation civill or Ecclesiastick where the Lawes did not expresly provide the nomination to be in the crowne The making of Ecclesiastick Lawes in England alswell as in Scotland was ever with the Kings good contentment referred to Ecclesiastick assemblies but the Warner seemes to be in the mind of these his companions who put the power of preaching of administring the Sacraments and discipline in the supreame Magistrat alone and derives it out of him as the head of the Church to what members he thinks expedient to communicat it also that the legislative power alswell in Ecclesiastick as civill affairs is the property of the King alone That the Parliaments and generall assemblies are but his arbitrary counsels the one for matters of the state the other for matters of the Church with whom or without whom hee makes acts of Parliament and Church cannons according to his good pleasure that all the offices of the Kingdome both of Church and State are from him as he gives a Commission to whom he will to be a sheriffe or justice of peace so he sends out whom he pleaseth to preach celebrate Sacraments by virtue of his regal mission The Warner and his Erastian friends may well extend the royall supremacy to this largenes but no King of Scotland was ever willing to accept of such a power though by erroneous flaterers sometimes obtruded upon him see Canterburian self conviction cap. ult The Warner will not leave this matter in generall The Warners ignorant and false report of the Scotes proceedings he discends to instance a number of particular incroatchments of the Scots Presbiters upon the royall authority wee must dispence in all his discourse with a small peckadillo in reasoning hee must bee permitted to lay all the faults of the Presbiterians in Scotland upon the back of the Presbitery it selfe as if the faylings of officers were naturall to and inseparable from their office mis-kenning this little mote of unconsequentiall argumenting we will goe through his particular charges the first is that King James anno 1579 required the generall assembly to make no alteration in the Church-Policy till the next Parliament but they contemning their Kings command determined positively all their discipline without delay and questioned the Arch-Bischop of Sainct Andrews for voting in Parliament according to the undoubted Lawes of the Land yea twenty Presbiters did hold the generall assembly at Aberdeen after it was discharged by the King Ans The Warner possibly may know yet certainly he doth not care what he writes in these things to which hee is a meere stranger the authentick registers of the Church of Scotland convinces him heire of falshood Bishops were abolished and Presby teries set up in Scotland with King Iames consent His Majestie did write from Stirling to the generall assembly at Edinburgh 1579 that they should ceasse from concluding any thing in the discipline of the Church during the time of his minority upon this desire the assembly did abstaine from all conclusions only they named a committee to goe to Striveling for conference which his Majestie upon that subject What followeth thereupon I. Immediatly a Parliament is called in October 1579 and in the first act declares and grantes jurisdiction unto the Kirk whilk consistes in the true preaching of the word of Jesus Christ correction of manners and administration of the true Sacraments and declares that there is no other face of Kirk nor other face of Religion then is presently by the favour of God established within this realme and that there be no other jurisdiction Ecclesiastical acknowledged within this realme then that whilk is and shal be within the samen Kirk or that which flowes therfra concerning the premisses II. In Aprile 1580. Proclamation was made ex deliberatione Dominorum Consilii in name of the King charging all Superintendentes and Commissioners and Ministers serving at Kirkes To note the names of all the subjectes alsweel men as women suspected to be Papistes or and to admonish them to give Confession of their faith according to the Forme approved by the Parliament and to submitte unto the discipline of the true Kirk within a reasonable space and if they faile that the Superintendents or Commissioners presente a role or catalogue of their names unto the King and Lords of Secret Counsell whereby they shal be for the time between and the 15 day of Iulie nixt to come to the end that the actes of Parliament made against such persones may be execute III. The shorte Confession wes drawen up at the Kings command which was first subscrived by his royall hand and an act of Secret Counsell commanding all subjectes to subscrive the same as is to be seen by the Act printed with the Confession wherein Hierarchie is abjured that is as hath been since declared by Nationall assemblies and Parliamentes both called and held by the King episcopacie is abjured IV. In the assemblies 1580 and 1581 that Confession of faith and the second book of discipline after debating many praeceding years were approved except one chapter de diaconatu by the Assemblie the Kings Commissioner being alwayes presente not finde we any thing opposed then by him yea then at his Majesties speciall direction about fifty classical Presbyteries were set up over all Scotland which remaine unto this day Was there heer any contempt of the roy all authority About that time some noble men had gote the revenues of the Bisshop-rickes for their private use and because they could not enjoy them by any legal right therefore for eluding
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 Church 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 King Iames avowes himselfe a hater of Erastianisme 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 claimed it none would have more opposed then the most zealous patrones of Episcopacy The injurious invectives which the Warner builds upon this his Erastian assertion wee passe them as Castles in their aire which must fall and evanish for want of a foundation Only before I leave this Chapter let the Warner take a good Sentence out of the mouth of that wyse Prince King James to testifie yet farther his minde against Erastianisme His Majestie in the yeare 1617 having come in progresse to visit his auncient Kingdome of Scotland and being present in persone at a publick disputation in Theologie in the Universitie of St. Andrews whereof also many both Nobles and Church-men of both Kingdomes were auditors when one of those that acted a part in the disputation had affirmed and went about to maintaine this assertion that the King had power to depose Ministers from their Ministeriall function The King himself as abhorring such flatterie cried out with a loud voice Ego possum deponere Ministri caput sed non possum deponere ejus officium CHAP. VII The Presbyterie does not draw from the Magistrat any paritie of his power by the cheate of any relation IN the seventh chapter the Warner would cause men believe many more of the Presbyteries usurpations upon the civill Magistrate The Presbytery cognosceth only upon scandals and that in sewer civil things then the Bishopscourts were wont to meddle with The first is that all offences whatsoever are cognoscible in the consistory upon the case of scandals Ans First the Presbyterie makes no offence at all to come before the consistory but scandall alone Secondly these civill offences the scandall whereof comes before the Presbytery are but very few and a great deale fewer than the Bishops officiall takes notice of in his consistoriall court That capitall crimes past over by the Magistrate should bee censured by the Church no society of Christians who have any discipline did ever call in question When the sword of the Magistrat hes spared a murderer an adulterer a Blasphemer will any ingenuous either praelaticall or popish divine admitte of such to the holy table without signes of repentance The Warners second usurpation is but a branch of the first that the Presbyterie drawes directly before it selfe the cognisance of fraud in barganing false measures oppression and in the case of Ministers brybing usury fighting perjury c. Ans Is it then the Warners minde that the notorious slander of such grosse sins does not deserve so much as an Ecclesiastick rebooke Shall such persons without admonition be admitted to the holy communion Secondly the named cases of fraud in barganing false measures oppression come so rarely before our Church-judicatories that though these thirty yeares I have been much conversant in Presbyteries yet did I never see nor doe I remember that ever I heard any of these three cases brought before any church assembly In the persone of Ministers I grant these faults which the canons of the Church in all times and places make the causes of deprivation are cognosced upon in Presbyteries but with the good liking I am sure of all both papists and praelats who themselves are free of such vices And why did not the Warner put in among the causes of church mens deprivation from office and benefite adultery gluttonny and drunkennes are these in his c. which he will not have cognoscible by the Church in the persons of Bishops and Doctors The Warners third challenge amounts to an high crime that Presbyterian Ministers are bold to preach upon these scriptures which speake of the Magistrats duty in his office or dare offer to resolve from scripture any doubt which perplexeth the conscience of Magistrats or people of Husband or Wife of Master or Servant in the discharge of their Christian duty one to another What ever hath been the negligence of the Bishop of Derry yet I am sure all the preaching Praelats and Doctors of England pretended a great care to goe about these uncontroverted parts of their ministerial function and yet without medling with the Mysteries of State or the depths of any mans particulare vocation much lesse with thejudgement of jurisdiction in politicall or aeconomicall causes As for the Churches declaration against the Late engagement The Churches proceedings in the late engagement cleered from mistakes did it not well become them to signify their judgement in so great a case of conscience especially when the Parliament did propone it to them for resolution and when they found a conjunction driven on with a cleerly malignant partie contrary to solemne oathes and covenants unto the evident hazard of Religione and them who had been most eminent instruments of its preservation was it not the churches duty to give warning against that sinne and to exhort the ring leaders therein to repentance But our Warner must needs insist upon that unhappy engagement and fasten great blame upon the Church for giving any advice about it Ans Must it be Jesuisitisme and a drawing of all the civill affaires to the Churches barre in
ordine ad Spiritualia for an assembly to give their advice in a most eminent and important case of conscence when earnestly called upon in a multitude of supplications from the most of the Congregations under their charge yea when required by the States of the Kingdome in severall expresse messages for that end It seemes it s our Warners conclusion if the Magistrat would draw all the Churches in his jurisdiction to a most unlawfull warre for the advancement of the greatest impiety and unjustice possible wherein nothing could be expected by all who were engaged therein but the curse of God if in this case a doubting Natione should desire the assemblies counsel for the state of their soules or if the Magistrate would put the Church to declare what were lawfull or unlawfull according to the word of God that it were necessary heer for the servants of God to be altogether silent because indeed warre is so civill a busines that nothing in it concernes the soule and nothing about it may be cleered by any light from the word of God The truth is the Church in their publick papers to the Parliament declared oftner then once that they were not against but for an engagement if so that Christian and friendly treaties could not have obtained reason and all the good people in Scotland were willing enough to have hazarded their lives and estates for vindicating the wrongs done not by the Kingdome of England but by the sectarian party there against God the King covenant and both Kingdomes but to the great griefe of their hearts their hands were bound and they forced to sit still and by the over great cunning of some the erroneous mis-perswasions of others and the rash praecipitancy of it that engagement was so spoiled in the stating and mannaging that the most religious with peace of conscience could not goe along nor encourage any other to take part therein The Warner touches on three of their reasons but who will looke upon their publick declarations shall find many more which with all faithfullnesse were then propounded by the Church for the rectifying of that action which as it stood in the state and managment 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
King did really consent to the abolition of Bishops I grant for the turning an ordinance to a standing Law the Kings consent is required but with what qualifications and exceptions wee need not heere to debate since his Majesties consent to the present case of abolishing Bishops was obtained well neere as farre as was desired and what is yet lacking wee are in a faire way to obtaine it for the Kings Majestie long agoe did agree to the rooting out of Episcopacy in Scotland he was willing also in England and Ireland to put them out of the Parliament and all civil courts and to divest them of all civil power and to joyne with them Presbyteries for ordination and spirituall jurisdiction yea to abolish them totally name and thing not only for three yeares but ever till he and his Parliament should agree upon some setled order for the Church was not this Tantamont to a perpetuall abolition for all and every one in both houses having abjured Episcopacy by solemne oath and Covenant the Parliament was in no hazard of agreing with the King to re-erect the fallen chaires of the Bishops so there remained no other but that either his Majestie should come over to their judgement or by his not agreing with them yet really to agree with them in the perpetuall abolition of Episcopacy since the concession was for the laying Bishops aside ever till hee and his houses had agreed upon a settled order for the Church If this be not a full and formall enough consent to the ordinance of changing the former Lawes anent praelat◠his Majestie who now is easily may and readily would supply all such defects if some of the faction did not continually for their own evill interests whisper in his eares pernicious counsel as our Warner in this place also doeth by frighting the King in conscience from any such consent for this end he casts out a discourse the sinshews whereof are in these three Episcopall maximes The Praelats would flatter the King into a Tyranny First that the legislative power is sollie in the King that is according to his Brethrens Cōmentary that the Parliament is but the Kings great counsel of free choyce without or against whose votes hee may make or unmake what Lawes he thinks expedient but for them to make any ordinance for changing without his consent of any thing that has been or instituting any new thing or for them to defend this their legall right and custome time out of mind against the armes of the Malignant party no 〈◊〉 may deny it to be plaine rebellion II. The praelats takes to themselves a negative voice in Parliament That the King and Parliament both together cannot make a Law to the praejudice of Bishops without their own consent they being the third order of the Kingdome for albeit it be sacriledge in the Lords and Commons to clame any the smallest share of the legislative power this in them were to pyck the chiefest jewel out of the Kings Crowne yet this must be the due priviledge of the Bishops they must be the third order of the Kingdome yea the first and most high of the three far above the other two temporall States of Lords and Commons their share in the Legislative power must be so great that neither King nor Parliament can passe any Law without their consent so that according to their humble protestation all the Lawes and acts which have been made by King and Parliament since they were expelled the house of Lords are cleerly voide and null That the King and Parliament in divesting Bishops of their temporall honour and estats The Praelats grieve that Monks and Friers the Pope and Cardinals were easten out of England by Henry the eight in abolishing their places in the Church doe sin more against conscience then did Henry the eight and his Parliament when they put down the Abbots and the Fryers Wee must beleeve that Henry the eight his abolishing the order of Monks was one of the acts of his greatest Tyranny and greed wee must not doubt but according to Law and reason Abbots and priours ought to have kept still their vote in Parliament that the Monasteryes and Nunryes should have stood in their integrity that the King and Parliament did wrong in casting them down and that now they ought in conscience to be set up againe yea that Henry the eight against all reason and conscience did renounce his due obedience to the Pope the Patriarch of the West the first Bishop of the universe to whom the superinspection and government of the whole Catholick Church in all reason doth belong Though all this be heere glaunced at by the Warner and elsewhere 〈◊〉 prove it to be the declared mind of his Brethren yet we must be pardoned not to accept them as undenyable principles of cleare demonstrations 〈…〉 supremacy of Kings is not prejudged by the Covenant The last ground of the Doctors demonstration is that the covenant is ane oath to set up the Presbyterian government in England at it is in Scotland and that this is contrary to the oath of Supremacy for the oath of Supremacy makes the King the only supreame head and governour of the Church of England that is the civil head to see that every man doe his duty in his calling also it gives the King a supreame power over all persons in all causes but the Presbytery is a politicall papacie acknowledging no governours but only the Presbyters it gives the King power over all persons as subjects but none at all in Ecclesiastick causes Ans Is there in all this reasoning any thing sound First what article of the covenant beares the setting up of the Presbyterian government in England as it is in Scotland II. If the oath of supremacy import no more then what the Warners expresse words are here that the King is a civil head to see every man doe his duty in his calling let him be assured that no Presbyterian in Scotland was ever contrary to that supremacy III. That the Presbytery is a papacy and that a politicall one the Warner knowes it ought not to be graunted upon his bare word IV. That in Scotland no other governors are acknowledged then Presbyters himselfe contradicts in the very nixt words where he tells that the Scots Presbytery ascribes to the King a power over all persons as subjects V. That any Presbyterian in Scotland makes it sacriledge to give the King any power at all in any Ecclesiastick cause it is a senselesse untruth The Warners arguments are not more idle and weake The Warners insolent vanity then his triumphing upon them is insolent for he concludes from these wise and strong demonstrations that the poor covenant is apparently deceitfull unvalide impious rebellious and what not yea that all the learned divines in Europe wil conclude it so that all the covenanters themselfes who have any ingenuity must grant this much and that no knowing
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
as to charge him to perseveer in the maintainance of Episcopall governement upon all hazards without the change of any thing except a little p. 278. and to assure that all Covenanters are of a faction engaged into a Religious rebellion who may never be trusted till they have repented of their Covenant and that till then never lesse loyalty justice or humanity may be expected from any then from them that if hee stand in need of them hee is undone for they will devoure him as the Serpent does the dove These and the like pernicious maximes framed by an Episcopall hand of purpose to separat for ever the King from all his covenanted subjects how farr they were from the heart language and wrytings of our late Soveraigne all who were aquainted with his carriage and most intime affections at New-Castle in the Isle of Wight and thereafter can testify But it is reason when the Praelats doe frame an image of a King that they should have liberty to place their owne image in its forheade as the statuary of old did his in the Boss of Pallas targe with such artifice that all her worshipers were necessitat to worship him and that no hand was able to destroy the one without the disfolution and breaking in peeces of the other yet our Praelats would know that in this age there be many excellent Engyneers whose witty practicks transcend the most skilfull experiments of our Auncestors and what ever may be the ignorance or weaknes of men wee trust the breath of our Lords mouth will not faile to blow out the Bishop from the Kings armes without any detriment at all to royalty Allwayes the wicked and impious cunning of these craftsemen is much to be blamed who dare be bold to insert and engrave themselfes so deeply in the images of the Gods as the one cannot be intended to be picked out of the other more then the Aple from the eye unles the subsistance of both be put in hazard The other matter of his rayling against us is the solemne league and covenant The only crime of the Covenant is that it extirpate praelacy when this nimble and quick enough Doctor comes assisted with all the reasons the whole University of Oxford can afford him to demonstrat it as he professes in his last Chapter to be wicked false void and what not wee find his most demonstrative proofes to be so poor and silly that they infere nothing of his conclusion To this day no man has shewed any errour in the mater of that covenant as for our framing and taking of it our adversaries drave us thereunto with a great deale of necessity and now being in it neither their fraud nor force may bring us from it againe for we feare the oath of God After much deliberation we found that covenant the soveraigne meanes to joyne and keep together the whole orthodox party in the three Kingdomes for the defence of their Religion and Liberties which a popish praelaticall and malignant faction with all their might were overturning who still to this day are going on in the same designe without any visible change in the most of their former principles And why should any who loves the King hate this covenant which is the straytestty the world can devise to knit all to him and his posterity if so be his Majestie might be pleased to enter therein but by all meanes such a mischiefe must be averted for so the roote of Episcopacy would quickly wither without any hope of repullulation an evill farr greater in the thoughts of them who now mannage the conscience of the Court thē the extirpation of Monarchy the eversion of all the three Kingdomes or any other earthly misery As for the third subject of the Warners fury against us The Bishops are most justly cast out of England our unkindnes to the late King if any truth were in this false challenge no other creature on earth could be supposed the true cause thereof but our unhappy praelats all our grievances both of Church and State first and last came principally from them had they never been authors of any more mischiefe then what they occasioned to our late Soveraigne his person family and Dominions this last dozn of yeares there is abundant reason of burying that their praeter and Antiscripturall order in the grave of perpetuall infamy But the truth is beside more auncient quarrels since the dayes of our fathers the Albigenses this limb of Antichrist has ever been witnessed against Wickleif Huss and their followers were zealous in this charge till Luther and his disciples got it flung out of all the reformed world except England where the violence of the ill advised princes did keep it up for the perpetuall trouble of that land till now at last it hath well neare kicked downe to the ground there The Scots were never injurious to their King both Church and Kingdome As for the point in hand we deny all unkindnes to our King whereof any reasonable complaint can be framed against us Our first contests stand justified this day by King and Parliament in both Kingdomes When his Majestie was so ill advised as to bring downe upon our borders an English army for to punish our refusing of a world of novations in our Religion contrary to the lawes of God and of our country what could our land doe lesse then lie downe in their armes upon Dunce law for their just and necessary defence when it was in their power with ease to haue dissipat the opposit army they shew themselves most ready upon very easy conditions to goe home in peace and gladly would have rested there had not the furious Bishops moved his Majestie without all provocation to breake that first peace and make for a second invasion of Scotland only to second their unreasonable rage was it not then necessary for the Scots to arme againe when they had deseate the Episcopall Army and taken Newcastle though they found nothing considerable to stand in their way to London yet they were content to lie still in Northumberland and upon very meane tearnes to returne the second time in peace For all this the praelats could not give it over but raised a new Army and filled England with fire and sword yea well neere subdued the Parliament and their followers and did almost accomplish their first designes upon the whole Isle The Scots then with most earnest and pitifull entreaties were called upon by their Brethren of England for helpe where unwilling that their brethren should perish in their sight and a bridge should be made over their carcasses for a third warre upon Scotland when after long tryall they had found all their intercessions with the King for a moderat and reasonable accommodation slighted and rejected they suffered themselves to be perswaded to enter in covenant with their oppressed and fainting brethren for the mantainance of the common cause of Religion and liberty but with
the hands of that Antipraelaticall nation but it is the hope of these who love the welfaire of the King and his people of the Churches and Kingdomes of Britain that the hand of God which hath broken all the former devices of the Praelats shall crush this their engine also The irrational way of the warners writing Our warner undertaketh to oppugne the Scotes discipline in a way of his owne none of the most rational He does not so much as pretend to state a question nor in his whole book to bring against any maine position of his opposites either Scripture father or reason nor so much as assay to answer any one of their arguments against Episcopacy onely hee culs out some of their by-tenets belonging little or nothing to the maine questions and from them takes occasion to gather together in a heape all the calumnies which of old or of late their knowne enemies out of the forge of their malice and fraud did obtrude on the credulity of simple people also some detorted passages from the bookes of their friends to bring the way of that Church in detestation without any just reason These practises in our warner The most of his stuffe is borrowed and long agoe confuted are the less pardonable that though he knowes the chiefe of his allegations to bee but borrowed from his late much beloved Comerads Master Corbet in his Lysimachus Nicanor and Master Maxewell in his Issachars Burden yet he was neither deterred by the strange punishments which God from heaven inflicted visibly on both these calumniatores of their mother Church nor was pleased in his repeating of their calumnious arguments to releeve any of them from the exceptions under the which they stand publickly confuted I suppose to his own distinct knowledge I know certainly to the open view of thousands in Scotland England and Ireland but it makes for the warners designe to dissemble here in Holland that ever he heard of such books as Lysimachus Nicanor and Issachars Burden much lesse of Master Baylies answer to both printed some yeares agoe at London Edinburgh and Amsterdam without a rejoinder from any of that faction to this day The contumelious bitternes of the warners spirit How ever let our warner be heard In the very first page of his first chapter wee may tast the sweetnes of his meek Spirit at the verie entrie he concludeth but without any pretence to an argument there or else where the discipline of the Church of Scotland to be their owne invention whereon they dote the Diana which themselves have canonized their own dreams the counterfeyt image which they faine hath fallen down from Iupiter which they so much adore the very quintessence of refined popery not only most injurious to the civill Magistrat most oppressive to the subject most pernicious to both but also inconsistent with all formes of civill governement destructive to all sorts of Policy a rack to the conscience the heaviest pressure that can fall on a people So much truth and sobernes doth the warner breath out in his very first page Though he had no regard at all to the cleare passages of Holy Scripture whereupon the Scotes doe build their Anti-Episcopall tenets nor any reverence to the harmony of the reformed Churches which unanimously joyne with the Scotes in the maine of their discipline especially in that which the Doctor hates most therein the rejection of Fpiscopacy yet me thinks some little respect might have appeared in the man to the authority of the Magistrat and civil Lawes which are much more ingeminated by this worthy divine over all his book then the holy Scriptures Can hee so soon forget that the whole discipline of the Church of Scotland as it is there taught and practised The warner stricks at the Scotes discipline through the Kings sides is established by acts of Parliament and hath all the strength which the King and State can give to a civil Law the warner may wel be grieved but hardly can he be ignorant that the Kings Majestie this day does not at all question the justice of these sanctions what ever therefore be the Doctors thoughts yet so long as hee pretends to keep upon his face the maske of loyalty he must be content to eat his former words yea to burne his whole book otherwise hee layes against his own professions a slander upon the King and His Royal Father of great ignorance or huge unjustice the one having established the other offring to establish by their civill lawes a Church discipline for the whole nation of Scotland which truly is the quintessence of Popery pernicious and destructive to all formes of civill governement and the heaviest pressure that can fall on a people All the cause of this choler which the warner is pleased to speake out In the threshold hee stumbles on the Kings conscience is the attempt of the Scotes to obtrude their discipline upon the King contrary to the dictars of his own conscience and to compell forraigne Churches to embrace the same Ans Is it not presumption in our warner so soone to tell the world in print what are the dictats of the Kings conscience as yet he is not his Majesties confessor and if the Clerk of the Closet had whispered some what in his eare what he heard in secret hee ought not to have proclaimed it without a warrant but we doe altogether mistrust his reports of the Kings conscience for who will beleeve him that a knowing and a just King will ever be content to command and impose on a whole Nation by his Lawes a discipline contrary to the dictats of his owne conscience This great stumble upon the Kings conscience in the first page must be an ominous cespitation on the threshold The other imputation had no just ground The Scots never offered to impose any thing upon England the Scotes did never medle to impose any thing upon forraigne Churches there is question of none but the English and the Scotes were never so presumptuous as to impose any thing of theirs upon that Church It was the assembly of divines at Westminster convocat by the King and Parliament of England which after long deliberation and much debate unanimously concluded the Presbiterian discipline in all the parts thereof to be agreable to the word of God it was the two Houses of the Parliament of England without a contrary voice who did ordaine the abolition of Episcopacy and the setting up of Presbyteryes and Synods in England and Ireland Can heere the Scotes be said to compell the English to dance after their pype when their own assembly of divines begins the song when the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England concurre without a discording opinion when the King himselfe for perfecting the harmony offers to adde his voice for three whole yeares together In the remainder of the chapter the warner layes upon the Scotes three other crimes first The
elder praelats of England were Erastians and more but the younger are as much anti-Erastian as the most riged of the Presbytery That they count it Erastianisme to put the governement of the Church in the hand of the Magistrat Answ The Doctors knowledge is greater then to bee ignorant that all these goe under the name of Erastians who walking in Erastus ways of flattering the Magistrat to the prejudice of the just rights of the Church run yet out much beyond Erastus personall tenets I doubt if that man went so far as the Doctor heere and else where to make all Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction but a part of the Magistrats civill power which for its execution the supreame Governours of any state may derive out of the fountaine of their supremacy to what ever hands civill or Ecclesiastick themselfes think fit to commit it Let the Doctor adde to this much knowledge but a little ingenuity and he shall confes that his Brethren the Later Bishops who claime Episcopacy by divine right are all as much against this Erastian Caesaro-papisme as any Presbiterian in Scotland The elder Bishops indeed of England and all the Lawes there for Episcopacy seeme to be point blank according to the Erastian errours for they make the crowne and royall supremacy the originall root and fountaine whence all the discipline of the Church doth flow as before the days of Henry the eight it did out of the Popes head-ship of the Church under Christ How ever let the Doctor ingenuously speake out his sence and I am deceived if he shall not acknowledge that how grosse an Erastian so ever himselfe and the elder Bishops of England might have been yet that long agoe the most of his praelatical friends have become as much opposit to Erastianisme as the most rigid of the Presbiterians The other crime he layes to the charge of the Scotes is The Scotes first and greatest crime is irreconciliablenes with Rome that they admit no latitude in Religion but will have every opinion afundamentall article of faith and are averse from the reconciliation of the Protestant Churches Ans If the warner had found it seasonable to vent a little more of his true sence in this point he had charged this great crime far more home upon the heade of the Scotes for indeed though they were ever far from denying the true degrees of importance which doe cleerly appeare among the multitude of Christian truthes yet the great quarrell heer of the warner and his freinds against them is that they spoiled the Canterburian designe of reconcealing the Protestant Churches not among themselfes but with the Church of Rome When these good men were with all earnestnes proclaming the greatest controversies of Papists and Protestants to be upon no fundamentalls but only disputable opinions wherein beleefe on either side was safe enough and when they found that the Papists did stand punctually to the Tenets of the Church of Rome and were obstinately unwilling to come over to England their great labour was that the English and the rest of the Protestants casting aside their needlesse beleefe of problematick truths in piety charity and zeale to make up the breach and take away the shisme should be at all the paines to make the journey to Rome While this designe is far advanced and furiously driven on in all the three Kingdomes and by none more in Yreland then the Bishop of Derry behold the rude and plaine blewcapes step in to the play and marre all the game by no arte by no terrour can these be gotten alongs to such a reconciliation This was the first and greatest crime of the Scotes which the Doctor here glances at but is so wyse and modest a man as not to bring it above board The last charge of the chapter is The Scotes were ever anti episcopall that the Scotes keep not still that respect to the Bishops of England which they were wont of old in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths reigne Ans In that letter cited by the warner from the generall assembly of Scotland 1566. Sess 3. there is no word of approbation to the office of Episcopacy they speake to the Bishops of England in no other quality or relation but as Ministers of the word the highest stile they give them is reverend Pastors and Brethren the tenour of the whole Epistle is a grave and brotherly admonition to beware of that fatall concomitant of the most moderat Episcopacy the troubling of the best and most zealous servants of Christ for idle fruitles Ceremonies How great a reverence the Church of Scotland at that time carried to praelacy may be seen in their supplication to the secret counsell of Scotland in that same assembly the very day and Session wherein they write the letter in hand to the Bishops of England The Arch-Bishop of S. Andrews being then usurping jurisdiction over the ministry by some warrant from the state the Assembly was grieved not only with the popery of that Bishop but with his auncient jurisdiction which in all Bishops Popish and protestant is one and the same That jurisdiction was the only matter of their present complaint and in relation thereto they assure the counsel in distinct tearmes that they would never be more subject unto that usurped tiranny thē they would be to the devill himselfe So reverend an opinion had the Church of Scotland at that time of Episcopall jurisdiction But suppone that some fourscore yeares agoe the Scotes before they had tasted the fruits of Protestant Bishops The Praelates lately were found in the act of introducing Popery into the Church and Tiranny into the Kingdom had judged them tolerable in England yet since that time by the long tract of mischiefes which constantly has accompanied the order of praelacy they have been put upon a more accurat inspection of its nature and have found it not only a needles but a noxious and poysonous weed necessare to be plucked up by the root and cast over the hedge Beside al its former malefices it hath been deprehēded of late in the very act of everting the foundations both of Religion and governement of bringing in Popery and Tiranny in the Churches and States of all the three Kingdomes Canterburian self conviction cap. 1. And for these crimes it was condemned killed and buried in Scotland by the unanimous consent of King Church and Kingdom when England thereafter both in their Assembly and Parliament without a discording voice had found it necessary to root out that unhappy plant as long agoe with great wisedome it had been cast out of all the rest of the reformed Churches had not the Scotes all the reason in the World to applaud such pious just and necessary resolutions of their English Brethren though the warner should call it the greatest crime CHAP. II. No controver sie in Scotland betwixt the King and the Church about the convocating of Synods The Presbiterians assert positively the Magistrats right
the Law they did effectuate that some Ministers should have the title of this or that Bishopricke and the revenues were gathered in the name of this titulare or tulchan Bishop albeit hee had but little part e. g. Robert Montgomerie Minister at Sterline was called Arch-Bishop of Glasgow and so it can bee instanced in other Bishop-rickes and abbacies Now this kind of praelats pretended no right to any part of the Episcopall office either in ordination or jurisdiction when some of these men began to creep in to vote for the Church in Parliament without any Law of the State without any commission from the Church the generall assembly discharged them being Ministers to practise any more such illegall insolencies with this ordinance of the Church after a little debate King James at that time did shew his good satisfaction But the Warner heere jumps over nolesse then twenty seven years time from the assembly at Edinburgh 1579 The innocency of the much maligned assembly of Aberdeen to that at Aberdeen 1605 then was King James by the English Bishops perswasion resolved to put down the generall assemblies of Scotland contrary to the Lawes and constant practise of that Church from the first reformation to that day The act of Parliament did bear that once at least a yeare the assembly should meet and after their busines was ended they should name time place for the next assembly When they had met in the yeare 1602 they were moved to adjourne without doing any thing for two whole yeares to 1604 when then they were conveened at the time and place agreed to by his Majestie they were content upon his Majesties desire without doing any thing againe to adjourne to the nixt yeare 1605 at Aberdeen when that dyet came his Majesties Commissioner offered them a Letter To the end they might be an Assembly and so in a Capacity to receave his Majesties Letter with the Commissioners good pleasure they sate downe they named their Moderator and Clark they received and read the Kings letter commanding them to rise which they obeyed without any farther action at all but naming a dyet for the nixt meeting according to the Lawes and constant practise of Scotland hereupon by the pernicious counsel of Arch-Bishop Banckroft at London the King was stirred up to bring sore trouble upon a number of gracious Ministers Christmas and other superstitious festivals abolished in Scotland both by Church and State This is the whole matter which to the Warner heir is so tragick an insolence that never any Parliament durst attempt the like See more of this in the Historicall vindication The nixt instance of our Presbiteryes usurpation upon the Magistrat is their abolition before any statute of Parliament thereupon of the Church festivals in their first book of discipline Ans Consider the grievousnesse of this crime in the intervall of Parliaments the great counsel of Scotland in the minority of the Prince entrusted by Parliament to rule the Kingdome did charge the Church to give them in wryte their judgement about matters Ecclesiasticall in obedience to this charge the Church did present the counsel with a wryte named since the first book of disciplin which the Lords of counsel did approve subscribe and ratify by an Act of State a part of the first head in that wryte was that Christmas Epiphany purification and other fond feasts of the virgin Mary as not warranted by the holy Scriptures should bee laid aside Was it any encroachment upon the Magistrate for the Church to give this advice to the privy counsell when earnestly they did crave it the people of Scotland ever since have shewed their ready obedience to that direction of the Church founded upon Scripture and backed from the beginning with an injunction of the state His third instance of the Church of Scotlands usurpation upon the Magistrat is The friends of Episcopacy thryves not in Scotland their abolition of Episcopacy in the assembly 1580 when the Law made it treason to impugne the authority of Bishops being the third estate of the Kingdome Ans The Warner seemes to have no more knowledge of the affairs of Scotland then of Japan or Utopia the Law hee speakes of was not in being some yeares after 1580 how ever all the generall assemblyes of Scotland are authorised by act of Parliament to determine finally without an appeale in all Ecclesiastick affaires in the named assembly Lundie the Kings Commissioner did sit and consent in his Majesties name to that act of abolition as in the nixt assembly 1581 the Kings Commissioner Caprinton did erect in his Majesties name the Presbiteryes in all the Land it is true three yeares thereafter a wicked Courtier Captaine James Stuart in a shadow of a closse and not summoned Parliament did procure an act to abolish Presbiteries and erect Bishops but for this and all the rest of his crimes that evill man was quickly rewarded by God before the world in a terrible destruction these acts of his Parliament the very nixt yeare were disclaimed by the King the Bishops were put downe and the Presbitry was set up again and never more removed to this day The Warners digression to the perpetuity of Bishops in Scotland to the acts of the Church and State for their restitution is but to shew his ignorance in the Scotes story what ever be the Episcopall boastings of other Nations yet it is evident that from the first entrance of Christian Religion into Scotland Presbiters alone without Bishops for some hundred yeares did governe that Church and after the reformation their was no Bishop in that Land but in tittle and benefice till the yeare 1610 when Bancroft did consecrat three Scotes Ministers all of them men of evill report whom that violent Commissioner the Earle of Dunbar in the corrupt and null assembly of Glasgow got authorised in some pairt of a Bishops office which part only and no more was ratified in a posterior Parliament Superintendents are no where the same with Bishops much lesse in Scotland where for a time only till the Churches were planted they were used as ambulatory Commissioners and visitors to preach the word and administer the Sacraments for the supply of vacant and unsetled congregations The fourth instance is the Churches obtruding the second book of discipline without the ratification of the State Ans The second book of disciplin why not al ratified in Parliament For the Ecclesiastick enjoining of a generall assemblyes decrees a particular ratification of Parliament is unnecessary generall acts of Parliament commanding obedience to the acts of the Church are a sufficient warrant from the State beside that second book of disciplin was much debated with the King and at last in the generall assembly 1590 his consent was obtained unto it for in that assembly where unanimously the subscription of the second book of disciplin by all the ministers of the Kingdome was decried his Majestie some time in person and
alwayes by the chancelor his Commissioner was present and in the act for subscription Sess 10. Augusti 8. it is expresly said that not only all the Ministers but also all the Commissioners praesent did consent among 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 The Warners hipocrisy calling that a crime which himselfe counts a virtue 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 The Warner a grosse Erastian 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 man taine 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 possibly glaunce at another principle of his good friends Praelatical principles impossibilitate alsolid peace betwixt the King and his Kingdoms 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 Erastian praelats evert the legall foundations of all government 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
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 The Church medled not with the munday mercat but by way of supplication to Parliament I grante it was a great griefe to the Church to see the fabbath 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 to the end people might be brought back to their old licentiousnes and ignorance by which the Episcopall Kingdome was advanced It was visible in Scotland that the most eminent Bishops were usual players on the Sabbath even in time of divine service And so soone as they were cast out of the Parliament the Churches supplications were granted and acts obtained for the carefull sanctification of the Lords day and removing of the mercats in all the land from the Munday to other dayes of the week The Warners nixt challenge of our usurpation is the assembly at Edinburgh 1567 their ratifying of acts of Parliament and summoning of all the country to appeare at the nixt assembly The Church once for safty of the infant Kings life with the concurrence of the secrete counsel did cal an extraordinary meeting Ans If the Warner had knowne the history of that time he would have choysed rather to have omitted this challenge then to have proclaimed to the world the great rottennesse of his own heart at that time the condition of the Church and Kingdome of Scotland was lamentable the Queen was declared for popery King James's Father was cruelly without any cause murthered by the Earle of Bothwell King James himselfe in his infancy was very neare to have been destroyed by the murtherer of his Father there was no other way conceivable of saftie for Religion for the infant King for the Kingdome but that the Protestantes should joine together for the defence of King James against these popish murtherers For this end the generall assembly did crave conference of the secrete counsel and they with mutual advise did call for a meeting of the whole Protestant party which did conveen at the time appointed most frequently in an extraordinary and mixed assembly of all the considerable persons of the Religion Earles Lords Barrons Gentlemen Burgesses and Ministers and subscribed a bond for the revenge of King Henryes death and the defence of King Iames his life This mixed and extraordinary assembly made it one of the chiefe articles in their bond to defend these Actes of the Parliament 1560 concerning religion and to endeavour the ratification of them in the nixt ensuing Parliament As for the assemblies letter to their Brethren for so frequent a meeting at the nixt extraordinary assembly it had the authority of the secret counsel it was in a time of the greatest necessity when the Religion and liberties of the land were in evident hazard from the potent and wicked counsels of the popish party both at home and abroad when the life of the young King was daily in visible danger from the hands of them who had murthered his Father and ravished his Mother Lesse could not have been done in such a juncture of time by men of wisedom and courage who had any love to their Religion King and country but the resolution of our praelats is to the contrary when a most wicked villaine had obtained the connivance of a Queen to kill her husband and to make way for the killing of her Son in his Cradle and after these murders to draw a nation Church from the true Religion established by Law into popery and a free Kingdome to an illegall Tyranny in this case there may be no meeting either of Church or State to provide remedies against such extraordinary mischiefes Beleeve it the Scotes were never of this opinion What is subjoined in the nixt paragraph of our Churches praesumption to abolish acts of Parliament By the lawes and customes of Scotland the Assembly praecieds the Parliament in the reformation of Ecclesiastical abuses is but a repetition of what is spoken before Not only the lawes of Scotland but equity and necessity referres the ordinary reformation of errours and abuses in Religion to the Ecclesiasticall assemblies what they find wrong in the Church though ratified by acts of Parliament they rectify it from the word of God and thereafter by petition obtaines their rectification to be ratifyed in a following Parliament and all former acts to the contrary to be annulled This is the ordinary Methode of proceeding in Scotland and as I take it in all other States and Kingdomes Were Christians of old hindred to leave paganisme and embrace the Gospell till the emperiall lawes for paganisme and against Christianity were revoked did the oecumenicall and National Synods of the auncients stay their reformation of heresies and corruptions in religion till the lawes of State which did countenance these errors were cancelled Was not popery in Germany France and Britaine so firmely established as civil lawes could doe it It seems the Warner heer does joyne with his Brother Issachar to proclaime all our Reformers in Britaine France and Germany to be Rebells for daring by their preachings and Assemblies to change these things
which by acts of Parliaments had been approven before new Parliaments had allowed of their reformation Neverthelesse this plea is foolishly intended against us for the Ministers protestation against the acts of Parliament 1584 establishing in that houre of darknes iniquity by a law and against the acts of the Assembly of Glasgow declaring the unlawfulnesse of Bishops and ceremonies which some Parliaments upon Episcopall mis-information had approven both these actions of the Church were according to former Lawes and were ratified afterward by acts of Parliament yet standing in force which for the Warner a privatman and a stranger to challenge is to contemne much more grossly the law then they doe whom here he is accusing of that crime By the nixt Story the Warner will gaine nothing The Church parte in the road of Ruthven cleered when the true case of it is knowne In King Iames minority one Captaine Iames Stuart did so farre prevail upon the tender and unexperienced yeares of the Prince as to steale his countenance unto acts of the greatest oppression so farre that Iames Hamelton Earle of Arran the nixt to the King in blood in his health a most gallant Prince and a most zealous professor of the true Religion in time of his sicknes when he was not capable to commit any crime against the State was notwithstanding spoiled of all his livelyhood and liberty his Lands and honour with the dignity of high Chancelor of Scotland were conferred on that very wicked Tyrant Captain Iames a number of the best affected and prime nobility impatient of such unheard-of oppressiones with meere boasts and no violence at the road of Ruthven chased away that unhappy chancelor from the Kings persone this his Majestie for the time professed to take in so good part that under his hand he did allow it for good service in his letters to the most of the Neighbour princes he dealt also with the secrete counsel and the chiefe judicatories of the land and obtained from them the approbation of that act of the Lords as convenient and laudable promising likewise to ratify it in the nixt ensuing Parliament When the Lords for their more abundante cleering required the Assemblies declaration there upon the Ministers declined to medle at all with the case but the Kings Majestie sent his Commissioners to the Assembly entreating them withall earnestnesse to declare their good liking of that action which he assured them was for his good and the good both of the Church and Kingdome for their obedience to the Kings importunity they are heer railed upon by the wise Warner It is true Captaine Iames shortly after creept in againe into Court and obtained a sever revenge against the authors of that action before a Parliament could sit to approve it but within a few monthes the same Lords with some more did at Striveling chase againe that evill man from the Court whither he never more returned and this their action was ratified in the nixt Parliament and so stands to this day unquestioned by any but such as the Warner either out of ignorance or malice I am weary to follow the Warner in all his wandrings The interest of the generall assembly of Scotland in the reformation of England at the nixt loupe he jumps from the 1584 to the 1648 skipping over in a moment 64 yeares The articles of Striveling mentions that the promoving of the worke of Reformation in England and Ireland bee referred to the generall assembly upon this our friend does discharge a flood of his choler all the matter of his impatience heere is that Scotland when by fraud they had been long allured and at last by open violence invaded by the English Praelats that they might take on the yock of all their corruptions they were contented at the earnest desire of both the houses of Parliament and all the wel-affected in England to assist their Brethren to purge out the leaven of Episcopacy and the Service book with all the rest of the old corruptions of the English and Irish Churches with the mannaging of this so great and good an Ecclesiastick worke the Parliament of Scotland did intrust the generall assembly No mervaile that Doctor Bramble a zealous lover of all the Arminianisme Popery and Tyranny of which his great patron Doctor Lade stands convicted yet without an answer to have been bringing in upon the three nations should bee angry at the discoverers and dis-appointers of that most pious work as they wont to style it What heere the Warner repeats it is answered before The violent apprehension of Masse-Priests Priests in their act of idolatry reproved by the Warner as for the two Storyes in his conclusion which he takes out of his false Author Spots-wood adding his owne large amplifications I conceive there needs no more to be said to the first but that some of Iohn Knocks zealous hearers understanding of a Masse-Priest at their very side committing idolatry contrary to the Lawes did with violence break in upon him and sease upon his person and Masse-cloathes that they might present him to the ordinary Magistrat to receave justice according to the Law This act the Warner wil have to be a huge rebellion not only in the actors but also in Iohn Knocks who was not so much as present thereat What first he speaks of the Assemblies convocating the people in armes to be present at the tryall of the popish Lords and their avowing of that their deed to the King in his face we must be pardoned to mistrust the Warner heerin upon his bare word without the releefe of some witnes and that a more faithfull one then his Brother in evill Mr. Spotswood whom yet heere he does not professe to cite Against these popish Lords after their many treasons and bloody murders of the lieges the King himselfe at last was forced to arme the people but that the generall assembly did call any unto armes we require the Warners proofe that we may give it an answer CHAP. VIII The chiefe of the Praelats agree with the Presbyterians about the divine right of Church discipline THE Warners challenge in this chapter is that we mantaine our discipline by a Iure divino and for this he spewes out upon us a sea of such rhetorick as much better beseemed Ans Mercurius Aulicus then either a Warner or a praelate In this challenge he is as unhappy as in the rest it is for a matter wherein the most of his owne Brethren though our Adversaries yet fully agree with us that the discipline of the Church is truely by divine right The Warner and his Praelatical Erastian brethren are obliged by their owne principles to advise the King to lay aside Episcopacy and set up the Praesbytery in all his dominions and that Jesus Christ holds out in scripture the substantials of that Governement whereby he will have his house to be ruled to the worlds end leaving the circumstantials to be determined by
the judicatories of the Church according to the generall rules which are clear also in the word for matters of that nature In this neither Papists nor the learndest of the Praelats find any fault with us yet our Warner must spend a whole Chapter upon it It is true as we observed before the elder Praelats of England in Edwards Elizabeths dayes as the Erastians now did mantaine that no particular Governement of the Church was jure divino and if this be the Warners mind it were ingenuity in him to speake it out loud and to endeavour to perswade his friends about the King of the truth of this tenet he was never imployed about a better and more seasonable service for if the discipline of the Church be but humano jure then Episcopacy is keeped up upon no conscience conscience being bottomed only upon a divine right so Episcopacy wanting that bottom may well be laid aside at this time by the King for any thing that concernes conscience since no command of God nor warrant from scripture tyes him to keep it up This truely seemes to be the maine ground whereupon the whole discourse of this Chapter is builded Is it tolerable that such truthes should be concealed by our Warners against their conscience when the speaking of them out might be so advantagious to the King and all his Kingdomes how ever wee with all the reformed Churches doe beleeve in our heart the divine right of Synods and Presbyteries and for no possible inconvenient can be forced to deny or passe from this part of truth yet the Warner heere joynes with the elder Praelats who till Warner Banckrofts advancement to the sea of Canterburry did unanimously deny Episcopacy to be of divine right and by consequent affirmed it to be moveable and so lawfull to be laid aside by princes when so ever they found it expedient for their affaires to be quyte of it why does not the warner and his Brethren speake plainly their thoughts in his Majesties eares why do they longer dissemble their conscience only for the satisfaction of their ambition greed and revenge sundry of the Praelaticall divines come yet further to joyne fully with Erastus in denying not only Episcopacy and all other particular formes of Church government to be of divine institution but in avowing that no governement in the Church at all is to be imagined but such as is a part of the civill power of the Magistrat The Warner in the Chapter and in diverse other parts of his booke seemes to agree with this judgment and upon this ground if he had ingenuity he would offer his helping hand to untie the bonds of the Kings conscience if heere it were straytened by demonstrating from this his principle that very safely without any offence to God and nothing 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 praelaticall party were lately bent for Popery 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 The Praelats professe now a willingnes to abolish at least three parts of the former Episcopacy 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
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 similitude is There is no Lordship but a meer service and ministry in the Pastors of the Church 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 of their 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 Ans Heer were no so contrary commands but both were obeyed the people did kepe the humiliation and some of the Magistrats that same day did give the banquet to the frensh Ambassadours as the King commanded that for this any Church censure was intended against them it is a malitious calumny according to the author of this fable his owne confession as at length may be seen in the unloading of Issachars burden As for his second instance The Warner is ful of calumnious untruths the difference of the Church and State about the late ingagement we have spoken to it in the former chapter at length the furthest the Church went was by humble petitions and remonstrances to set before the Parliament the great danger which that ingagement as it was stated and mannaged did portent to religion the Kings Person whole Kingdom when contrary to their whole some advices the ingagement went on they medled not to oppose the act of State further then to declare their judgement of its unlawfulnesse according to the duty of faithfull watchmen Ezek. 33. It is very false that the Church has chased any man out of the country or excommunicated any for following that engagement or have put any man to sackcloath for it unto his day Neither did ever any man call the freedome of the late Parliament in question how unsatisfied soever many were with its proceedings When the Warner heapes up so many untruths in a few lines in things done but yesterday before the eyes of thousands we shall not wonder of his venturing to lye considently in things past long before any now living were borne but there are a generation of men who are bold to speake what makes for their end upon the hope that few wil be at the pains to bring back what hes flowne from their teeth to the touchstone of any solide tryall CHAP. X. The Nature of the Presbytrie is very concordant with Parliaments IN the tenth chapter the Warner undertakes to shew the antipathy of Presbyteries to Parliaments albeit there bee no greater harmony possible betwixt any two bodies then betwixt a generall assembly and Parliament a Presbyterie and an inferior civill court if either the constitution or end or dayly practise of these judicatories be looked upon but the praelaticall learning is of so high a flight that it dare undertake to prove any conclusion yet these men are not the first that have offered to force men to beleeve upon unanswerable arguments though contrary to common sence and and reason that snow is black and the fire cold and the light dark The eight desires of the Church about the ingagement were just and necessary For the proofe of his conclusion he brings backe yet againe the late engagement how often shall this insipide colwort be set upon our table Will the Warner never be filled with this unsavory dish The first crime that here the Warner marks in our Church against the late Parliament in the matter of the ingagement is their paper of the eight desires upon this he unpoureth out all his good pleasure not willing to know that all these desires were drawne from the Church by the Parliaments owne messages and that well neare all these desires were counted by the Parliament it self to be very just and necessary Especially these two which the wise Warner pitches upon as most absurd for the first a security to religion from the King upon oath under his hand and seale where the question among us was not for the thing it self but only about the time the order and some part of the matter of that security And for the second the qualification of the persons to be
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
Ministers must not only want the confort of an assured and undoubted calling to the Ministry but may very well know and be assured that their calling and Ministry is null The words immediatly following are scraped out after their printing for what cause the author lest knoweth but the purpose in hand makes it probable that the deletted words did expresse more of his mind then it was safe in this time and place to speake out it was the late doctrine of Doctor Brambles prime friends that the want of Episcopall ordination did not only annull the calling of all the Ministers of France Holland Zwit-zerland and Germany but also did hinder all these societies to be true Churches for that popular Sophisme of the Jesuits our praelats did greedily swallow where are no true Sacraments there is no true Church and where is no true Ministry there are no true Sacraments and where no true ordination there is no true ministry and where no Bishops there is no true ordination and so in no reformed country but in England and Ireland where were true Bishops is any true Church When Episcopacy comes to this height of elevation that the want of it must annuall the Ministry yea null the Church and all the Reformed at one strock is it any mervaill that all of them doe concurre together for their own preservation to abolish this insolent abaddon and destroyer and notwithstanding all its ruine have yet no disconfort at all nor any the least doubt of their most lawfull ordination by the hands of the Presbytry After all this was writen is heer it stands The Praelats are so baselie injurious to all the reformed Churches that their selfes are ashamed of it another copie of the Warners book was brought to my hand wherin I found the deleted line stand printed in these distinct tearmes and put it to a dangerous question whither it be within the payle of the Church the deciphering of these words puts it beyond all peradventure that what I did conjecture of the Warner and his Brethrens minde of the state of all the reformed Churches was no mis-take but that they doe truely judge the want of Episcopall ordination to exclude all the Ministers of other Reformed Churches and their flocks also from the lines of the true Church This indeed is a most dangerous question for it stricks at the root of all If the Warner out of remorse of conscience had blotted out of his book that errour the repentance had been commendable But he hes left so much yet behind unscraped out as does shew his minde to continue what it was so that feare alone to provoke the reformed heere at this unseasonable time seemes to have been the cause of deleting these too cleare expressions of the praelaticall tenet against the very being and subsistence of all the Protestant Churches which want Episcopacy when these mē doe still stand upon the extreame pinacle of impudency and arrogance denying the Reformed to be true Churches and without scuple averring Rome as shee stands this day under the counsel of Trent to be a Church most true wherin there is an easy way of salvation from which all separation is needlesse and with which a re-union were much to be desired That gracious faction this day is willing enough to perswade or at least to rest content without any opposition that the King should of himselfe without and before a Parliament though contrary to many standing Lawes grant under his hand and seale a full liberty of Religion to the bloody Irish and to put in their hands both armes Castles and prime Places of trust in the State that the King should give assurance of his endeavour to get all these ratified in the nixt Parliament of England these men can heare with all moderation and patience but behold their furious impatience their whole art and industry is wakned when they heare of any appearance of the Kings inclination towards covenanting Protestants night and day they beate in his Majesties head that all the mischieves of the world does lurke in that miserable covenant that death and any misfortune that the ruine of all the Kingdomes ought much rather to bee imbraced by his Majestie then that prodigious Monster that very hell of the Covenant because forsooth it doth oblige in plane tearmes the taker to endeavour in his station the abolition of their great Goddesse praelacy The nixt hurt of Ministers from the Presbytry The generality of the Episcopal clergy have ever been covered with ignorance beggery and contempt is that by it they are brought to ignorance contempt and beggery Ans Whither Episcopacy or Presbytry is the fittest instrument to avert these evills let reason or experience teach men to judge The Presbyteriall discipline doth oblige to a great deale of severer tryalls in all sort of learning requisite in a divine before ordination then doth the Episcopall let either the rule or practise of Presbyterian and Episcopall ordination be compared or the weekly Exercises and monthly disputations in Latine upon the controverted heads be looked upon which the Presbytry exacts of every Minister after his ordination all the dayes of his life for experience let the French Dutch and Scots divines who have been or yet are be compared with the ordinary generation of the English Clergie and it will be found that the praelats have not great reason so superciliously to look downe with contempt upon their Brethrens learning I hope Cartwright Whitaker Perkins Reynolds Parker Ames and other Presbyterian English were inferior in learning to none of their opposits some of the English Bishops has not wanted good store of learning but the most of them I beleeve wil be content to leave of boasting in this subject what does the Warner speake to us of ignorance contempt and Beggery does not all the world know that albeit some few scarce one of twenty did brook good benefices yea plurality of them whereby to live in splendor at Court or where they listed in their non-residency neverthelesse it hath been much complained that the greatest parte of the priests who had the cure of soules thorow all the Kingdome of England were incomparably the most ignorant beggerly and contemptible clergy that ever have been seen in any of the reformed Churches neither did we ever heare of any great study in the Praelats to remeed these evils albeit some of them be provident enough for their owne families Doctor Bramble knowes who had the skill before they had sitten seven yeare in their charge to purchase above fifeteen hundred pounds a yeare for themselves and their heirs what somever The third evil which the Ptesbytery brings upon Ministers is that it makes them prat and pray nonsence everlastingly Ans The Praelats continue to hate preaching and prayer but to idolize a popish service It is indeed a great heartbrake unto ignorant lazy and unconsciencious Ministers to be put to the paines of preaching and prayer when a read service
was wont to be all their exercise but we thought that all indifferently ingenuous men had long agoe been put from such impudence It was the late labour of the praelats by all their skill to disgrace preaching and praying without booke to cry up the Liturgy as the only service of God and to idolize it as a most heavenly and divine peece of write which yet is nought but a transcript of the superstitious breviary and idolatrous missall of Rome The Warner would doe well to consider and answer after seven yeares advisement Mr. Bailie his pararell of the service with the missall and Breviarie before hee presente the world with new paralels of the English liturgy with the directories of the Reformed Churches Is it so indeed that all preaching and praying without book is but a pratting of non-sence everlastingly why then continues the King and many well minded men to be deceived by our Doctors while they affirme that they are as much for preaching in their practise and opinion as the Presbyterians and for prayer without book also before and after sermon and in many other occasions it seemes these affirmations are nothing but grosse dissimulation in this time of their lownesse and affliction to decline the envy of people against them for their profane contempt of divine ordinances for wee may see heere their tenet to remaine what it was and themselves ready enough when their season shall be fitter to ring it out loud in the eares of the World that for divine service people needs no more but the reading of the liturgy Vide laâ—â—â—ium cap. 7. that sermons on week dayes and Sundayes afternoon must all be laid aside that on the Sabbath before noone Sermon is needlesse and from the mouths of the most Preachers very noxious that when some learned Schollars are pleased on some festivall dayes to have an oration it would be short and and according to the Court paterne without all Spirit and life for edification but by all meanes it must bee provided that no word of prayer either before or after be spoken except only a bidding to pray for many things even for the welfare of the soules departed and all this alone in the words of the Lords prayer If any shall dare to expresse the desires of his heart to God in privat or publick in any words of his own framing hee is a grosse Puritan who is bold to offer to God his own nonsence rather then the auncient and well advised prayers of the holy Church The Warner is heer also mistaken in his beleefe that ever the Church of Scotland had any Liturgy they had and have still some formes for helpe and direction but no ty ever in any of them by law or practise they doe not condemne the use of set formes for rules yea nor for use in beginners who are thereby endeavouring to attaine a readinesse to pray in their family out of their owne heart in the words which Gods spirit dytes to them but for Ministers to suppresse their most confortable and usefull gift of prayer by tying their mouth unto such formes which themselves or others have composed wee count it a wrong to the giver and to him who has received the gift and to the gift and to the Church for whose use that was bestowed In the nixt place the Warner makes the Presbytry injurious to parents Episcopall warrants for clandestin marriages rob Parents of their children by marying their children contrary to their consent and forcing them to give to the disobedient as large a portion as to any other of their obedient children and that it is no mervail the Scots should doe these things who have stripped the King the father of their country of his just rights Ans By the Warners rule all the actions of a nation where a Presbytry lodges must be charged on the back of the Presbytry II. The Parliament of Scotland denyes that they have stripped the King of his just rights while he was stirred up and keeped on by the praelaticall faction to courses destructive to himselfe and all his people after the shedding of much blood before the exercise of all parts of his royall government they only required for all satisfaction and security to religion and liberties the grant of some few most equitable demands The unhappy Praelats from the beginning of our troubles to this day finding our great demande to runne upon the abolition of their office did ever presse his Majestie to deny us that satisfaction and rather then Bishops should be laid aside they have concluded that the King himselfe and all his family and all his three Kingdomes shall perish yet with all patience the Scotes continue to supplicat and to offer not only their Kingdome but their lives and estats and all they have for his Majesties service upon the grant of their few and easy demands but no misery either of King or people can overcome the desperat obstinacy of Praelaticall hearts As for parents consent to the mariage of their children how tenderly it is provided for in Scotland it may be seen at length in the very place cited It was the Bishops who by their warrants for clandestine mariages and dispensations with mariages without warrant have spoiled many parents of their deare children with such abhominations the Presbytery was never acquainted all that is alleadged out of that place of our discipline is when a cruel parent or tutor abuses their authority over their children and against all reason for their owne evill ends perversely will crosse their children in their lawfull and every way honest desires of mariage that in that case the Magistrats and Ministers may be intreated by the grieved childe to deale with the unjust parent or tutor that by their mediation reason may be done I beleeve this advice is so full of equity that no Church nor State in the world will complaine of it but how ever it be this case is so rare in Scotland that I professe I never in my life did know nor did heare of any child before my dayes who did assay by the authoritative sentence of a Magistrate or Minister to force their parents consent to their marriage As for the Warners addition of the Ministers compelling parents to give portions to their children that the Church of Scotland haths any such canon or practise its an impudent lie but in the place alledged is a passage against the sparing of the life of adulterers contrary to the Law of God and for the excommunication of Adulterers when by the negligence of the Magistrat their life is spared this possibly may be the thorne in the side of some which makes them bite and spurne with the heele so furiously against the Authors and lovers of so severe a discipline The Presbyteries nixt injury is done to the Lawyers Synodes other Ecclesiastick Courts revoke their Sentences Ans No such matter ever was attempted in Scotland frequent prohibitions have been obtained by
curtisan Bishops against the highest civil judicatories in England but that ever a Presbitry or Synode in Scotland did so much as assay to impede or repeale the proceedings of any the meanest civil court I did never heare it so much as alleaged by our adversaries The nixt injury is against all Masters Serious catechising is no Episcopal crime and Mistresses of families whom the Presbytery will have to be personally examined in their knowledge once a yeare and to be excommunicat if grosly and wilfully ignorant Ans If it bee a crime for a Minister to call together parcels of his congre gation to be instructed in the grounds of Religion that servants and children and where ignorance is suspected others also may be tryed in their knowledge of the Catechisme or if it bee a crime that in family-visitations oftener then once a yeare the conversation of every member of the Church may be looked upon we confesse the Ministers of Scotland were guilty thereof and so farre as we know the generality of the Episcopall faction may purge themselves by oath of any such imputation for they had somewhat else to doe then to be at the pains of instructing or trying the Spirituall State of every sheep in their flocks we confesse likewise that it is both our order and practise to keep off from the holy table whom wee find groslly and wilfully ignorant but that ever any for simple ignorance was excommunicat in Scotland none who knowes us will affirme it The last whom he will have to be wronged by the Presbytery are the common people Church fessions are not high commissiones who must groane under a high commission in every parish where ignorant governors rule all without Law medling even in domesticall jarres be twixt man and wife Master and Servant Ans This is but a gybe of revenge for the overthrow of their Tyrannous high Commission-Court where they were wont to play the Rex at their pleasure above the highest subjects of the three Kingdoms and would never give over that their insolent domeneering court till the King and Parliaments of both Kingdomes did agree to throw it down about their eares The thing he jeares at is the congregation all Eldership a judicatory which all the Reformed doe enjoy to their great confort as much as Scotland They are farre from all arbitrary judications their Lawes are the holy Scripture and acts of superior Church-judicatories which rule so clearly the cases of their cognisance that rarely any difficulty remaines therein or if it doe immediatly by reference or appeal it is transmitted to the Classes or Synode The judges in the lowest Eldership as wee have said before are a doszen at least of the most able and pious who can bee hade in a whole congregation to joine with the Pastors one or more as they fall to be but the Episcopall way is to have no discipline at all in any congregation only where there is hope of a fyne the Bishops officiall will summon before his owne learned and conscientious wisedome who ever within the whole dioces have fallen into such a fault as hee pleaseth to take notice of as for domestick infirmities Presbyterians are most tender to medle therein they come never before any judicatory but both where the fault is great and the scandal thereof flagrant and broken out beyond the wals of the family These are the great injuries and hurts which the Church discipline has procured to all orders of men in the whole reformed world when Episcopacy has been such an innocent lambe or rather so holy an angel upon earth that no harme at all has ever come by it to any mortall creature a misbeleeving Jew will nothing misdoubt this so evident a truth CHAP. ULT. The Warners exceptions against the covenant are full of considence but exceeding frivolous THough in the former Chapters the Warner has shewed out more venome and gall then the bagge of any one mans stomack could have been supposed capable of yet as if he were but beginning to vomite in this last Chapter of the covenant a new flood of blacker poyson rusheth out of his pen. His undertaking is great to demonstrat cleerly that the covenant is meerly void wicked and impious His first clear demonstration is that it was devised by strangers imposed by subjects who wanted requisite power and was extorted by just feare of unjust suffering so that many that took it with their lips never consented with their hearts Ans This cleer demonstration is but a poor and evill argument the Major if it were put in forme would hardly be granted The Covenant was not dishonourable to union but I stand on the minor as weake and false for the covenant was not devised by strangers the Commissioners of the Parliament of England together with the Commissioners of the Parliament and generall assembly of Scotland were the first and only framers thereof but they who gave the life and being to it in England were the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament at West-Minister by the Kings call and at that time acknowledged by his Majestie without any question about the lawfullnes of their constitution and authority these men and that Court were not I hope great strangers in England The covenant was not imposed upon the King but the Parliaments of both Kingdomes made it their earnest desire unto his Majestie that he would be pleased to joyne with them in that Covenant which they did judge to be a maine peece of their security for their Religion and liberties in all the three Kingdomes As for their imposing of it upon the subjects of England an ordinance of Parliament though the King consent not by the uncontroverted lawes of England is a sufficient authority to crave obedience of all the subjects of England during the continuance of that Parliament The last part of the demonstration is dishonorable indeed to the English Nation if it were true it was no dishonour to England to joyne with their brethren of Scotland in a Covenant for mantainance of their Religion and Liberties but for many of the English to sweare a covenant with their lippes from which their heart did dissent and upon this difference of heart and mouth to plead the nullity of the oath and to advance this plea so high as to a cleer demonstration this is such a dishonour and dishonesty that a greater cannot fall upon a man of reputed integrity Especially when the ground of the lie and perjury is an evident falshood for the covenant was not extorted from any flesh in England by feare of any unjust suffering so far was it from this that to this day it could never be obtained from the Parliament of England to enjoyne that covenant upon any by the penulty of a two pence The Warners second demonstration is no better then the first the ground of it is Covenanters were not deceived but understood what they sweare that all oathes are void which
have deceipt and errour of the substantiall conditions incident to them This ground had need to be much better cautioned then heere it is before it can stand for a major of a clear demonstration but how is the minor proved behold how much short the Warners proofes are of his great boastings His first argument is grounded upon an evident falshood that in the Covenant we sweare the lately devised discipline to be Christs institution Ans There is no such word nor any such matter in all the Covenant was the Warners hatred so great against that peece of write that being to make cleare demonstrations against it hee would not so much as cast his eye upon that which he was to oppugne Covenanters sweare to endeavour the reformation of England according to the word of God and the best reformed Churches but not a word of the Scotes Presbytery nor of any thing in any Church even the best reformed unlesse it be found according to the paterne of Gods holy word The second ground of his demonstrantion is also an evident errour The Warner unwittingly comends the Covenant that the covenant in hand is one and the same with that of King Iames. Ans Such a fancy came never in the head of any man I know much lesse was it ever writen or spoken by any that the Covenant of King Iames in Scotland 1580 should bee one and the same with the Covenant of all the three Kingdomes 1643 whatsoever identities may appeare in the matter and similitude in the ends of both but the grossest errors are solide enough grounds for praelaticall clear demonstrations Yet heere the Warner understands not how hee is cutting his own vines his friends in Scotland will give him small thanks for attributing unto the nationall Covenant of Scotland that Covenant of King Iames these three properties that it was issued out by the Kings authority that it was for the maintenance of the Lawes of the realme and for the maintenance of the established Religion tyme brings adversaries to confesse of their own accord long denyed truthes But the Characters which the Warner inprints upon the solemne league and Covenant of the three Kingdomes wee must bee pardoned to controvert till he have taken some leasure to trie his wilde assertions First that the league is against the authority of the King secondly that it is against the Law and thirdly that it is for the overthrow of Religion The man cannot think that any should beleeve his dictats of this kind without proofe since the expresse words of that league do flatly contradict him in all these three positions His gentle memento that Scotland when they sued for aid from the crowne of England had not the English discipline obtruded upon their Church might heer have been spaired was not the English discipline and liturgy obtruded upon us by the praelats of England with all craft and force did we ever obtrude our disciplin upon the English but when they of their owne free and long deliberate choice had abolished Bishops and promised to set up Presbytery so far as they had found it agreable to the word of God were wee not in all reason obliged to encourage and assist them in so pious a work In the nixt words the Warner for all his great boasts finding the weaknes of all the former grounds of his seconde demonstration The King did not clame the sole and absolute possession of the militia he offers three new ones which doubtles will doe the deid for he avowes positively that his following grounds are demonstrative yet whosoever shal be pleased to grip them with never so soft an hand shall find them all to be but vanity and wind The first after a number of prosyllogismes rests upon these two foundations first that the right of the militia resides in the King alone secondly that by the covenant the militia is taken out of the Kings hands and that every covenanter by his covenant disposes of himselfe and of his armes against the right which the King hath into him Ans The Warner will have much adoe to prove this second so that it may be a ground of a clear demonstration but for the first that the power of the militia of England doth reside in the King alone that the two houses of Parliament have nothing at all to doe with it and that their taking of armes for the defence of the liberties of England or any other imaginable cause against any party countenanced by the Kings presence against his lawes must be altogether unlawfull if his demonstration be no clearer then the ground where upon he builds it I am sure it will not be visible to any of his oppofits who are not like to be convinced of open rebellion by his naked assertion upon which alone he layes this his mighty ground Beleeve it he had need to assay its releefe with some colour of ane argument for none of his owne friends will now take it of his hand for ane indemonstrable principle since the King for a long time was willing to acknowledge the Parliaments jointe interest in the militia yea to put the whole militia in their hands alone for a good number of yeares to come so farre was his Majestie from the thoughts that the Parliaments medling with a parte of the militia in the time of evident dangers should be so certainly and clearly the crime of rebellion The Warners second demonstrative ground wee admit without question in the major that where the matter is evidently unlawfull the oath is not binding but the application of this in the minor is very false All that hee brings to make it appeare to be true is that the King is the supreame Legislator that it is unlawfull for the subjects of England to change any thing established by Law especially to the prejudice of the Praelats without their own consent they being a third order of the Kingdom otherwise it would be a harder measure then the Friers and Abbots received from Henry the eight The change of lawes in England ordinarly beginne by the two houses without the King Ans May the Warner be pleased to consider how farre his dictats heere are from all reason much more from evident demonstrations That the burden of Bishops and ceremonies was become so heavy to all the three Kingdomes that there was reason to endeavour their laying aside he does not offer to dispute but all his complanit runnes against the manner of their removall this say I was done in no other then the ordinary and high path-way whereby all burdensome Lawes and customes use to be removed Doth not the Houses of Parliament first begin with their ordinance before the Kings consent be sought to a Law is not an ordinance of the Lords and Commons a good warrant to change a former Law during the sitting of the Parliament The Lawes and customes of England permit not the King by his dissent to stoppe that change The
English man can deny it but his owne conscience will give him thely Ans If the Warner with any seriousnesse hath weighed this part of his owne write and if his mind goe along with his pen I may without great presumption pronounce his judgment to be none of the most solide His following vapours being full of aire we let them evanish only while he mentioneth our charging the King with intentions of changing the Religion and government we answer that we have been most willing alwayes to ascribe to the King good intentions but withall we have long avowed that the praelaticall party have gone beyond intentions to manifest by printed declarations and publick actions their former designe to bring Tiranny upon the States and popery upon the Churches of all the three Kingdomes and that this very write of the Warners makes it evident that this same minde yet remaines within them without the least shew of repentance So long as the conscience of the court is mannaged by men of such principles it is not possible to free the hearts of the most understanding from a great deale of Jealousy and feare to have Religion and lawes still overturned by that factione But the Warner commands us The covenant is not for propagating of Religion by armes to speake to his Dilemma whither we think it lawfull or unlawfull for subjects to take armes against their prince meerly for Religion We answer that the reasons whereby he thinks to conclude against us on both sides are very poor if we shall say it is unlawfull then he makes us to condemne our selfes because our covenant testifies to the world that we have taken up armes meerly to alter Religion and that we beare no alleadgance to our King but in order to Religion which in plaine tearmes is to our owne humours and conceits Ans There be many untruthes here in few words first how much reality and truth the Warner and some of his fellowes beleeves to be in that thing which they call Religion their owne heart knowes but it can be no great charity in him to make the Religion of all covenanters to be nothing but their owne humours and conceits Secondly it is not true that Covenanters beare no alleadgance to the King but only in order to religion III. The Parliament of England denied that they took up armes against their King though to defend themselves against the popish praelaticall and malignant faction who were about to destroy them with armes IV. They have declared that their purpose was not at all to alter Religion but to purge it from the corruptions of Bishops and ceremonies that to long had been noxious unto them V. They have oft professed that their armes were taken for the defence of their just liberties whereof the preservation and reformation of Religion was but one The other horne of his Dilemma is as blunt in pushing as the former If we make it lawfull saith he to take up armes for Religion we then justify the independents and Anabaptists wee make way for any that will plant what ever they apprehend to be true Religion by force and to cut the throat of all Magistrats who are in a contrary opinion to them that it is a ridiculous partiality for any to priviledge their own Religion as truth and Gospell Ans The Warners black Atheisme Whether will these men goe at last the strength of this reason is blak atheisme that their is no realty of truth in any Religion that no man may be permitted to take his Religion for any thing more but his owne apprehension which without ridiculous folly he must not praeferre to any other mans apprehension of a contrary Religion this is much worse then the pagane Scepticisme which turned all reality of truth into a meer apprehension of truth wherein their was no certainty at all this not only turnes the most certaine truths even these divine ones of Religion into meer uncertaine conceptions but which is worse it wil have the most orthodoxe beleever so to think speake and act as if the opinions of Independents Anabaptists Turks Jews Pagans or grosse Atheists were as good true and solide as the beleefe of Moyses or Paul were of the truths revealed to them from heaven Secondly we say that subjects defence of their Religion and liberties established by Law against the violent usurpation of Papists Praelats or Malignants is not the planting of Religion by arms much lesse is it the cutting of the throats of al Magistrats who differ in any point of Religion a The Praelats condemne the defensive armes of the Dutch Frensh Protestants III. In the judgement of the praelaticall party the defensive armes of the Protestants in France Holland and Germany must be al 's much condemned as the offensive armes of the Anabaptists in Munster or of the sectaries this day in England Can these men dreame that the World for their pleasure will so farre divest themselves of all Religion and reason as to take from their hands so brutish and Atheisticall maximes b The Praelats decline the judgement of counsels He concluds with a wish of a generall counsel at least of all protestant Churches for to condemne all broatchers of seditious principles Ans All true covenanters goe before him in that desire being confident that he and his fellowes as they have declined al ready the most solemne assemblies of their owne countries upon assurance of their condemnation so their tergiversation would be al 's great if they were to answer to an oecumenick Synod c The Praelats overthrow the foundatiōs of Protestant Religion What I pray would the Warner say in a counsel of protestants for the practise of his party pointed at in his last words I meane their purging the Pope of Antichristianisme of purpose to make way for a reconciliation yea for a returne to Rome as this day it lyes under the wings of the Pope and Cardinals d The Praelats are stil peremptorie to destroy the King and all his Kingdoms if they may not be restored Also what could they answer in a Christian counsel unto this charge which is the drift of this whole Book that they are so farre from any remorse for all the blood and misery which their wickednes most has brought on the former King and all his Kingdomes these eleven yeares that rather then they had not the Covenant and generall assembly in Scotland destroyed as an Idoll and Antichrist they wil chuse yet still to imbroyle all in new calamities This King also and his whole Family the remainder of the blood and Estats in all the three Kingdomes must be hazarded for the sowing together of the torne mytres and the reerecting of the fallen chayres of Praelats If Bishops must lie still in their deserved ruines they perseveer in their peremptory resolution to have their burials sprinckled with the ashes of the royall Family and all the three Kingdomes FINIS ERRATA GOod Reader the Authors absence from the Presse the whole time of the impression and the Printers unacquaintance with the English language has occasioned not onely many mispunctations and literall faults but also diverse grosser Errata such as the following which thou art intreated to mend with thy Pen PAg. 4. lin 23. for had read hath pag. 9. lin 8. for Provincionall read Provinciall p. 11. l. 30 for whereby r. where p. 15. l. 19. for pairt r. part p. 20. l. 19 for can r. doth l. 30. for potestant r. Protestant pag. 22. l. 19. for these r. the. p. 23. l. ult for over r. or for trusted r. trustee p. 27. l. 4. for impatien t r. impatient l. 18. dele and. p. 28. in marg for commissarie r. commissaries l. 14. for and r. or l. 29. for chardge r. charge p. 31. l. 1. for chardges r. charges l. 25. for citation r. irritation p. 32. l. 10. for praecipies r. praecipices p. 35. in tit of chap. 7. for paritie r. part p. 36. l. 2. for scandals r. scandal p. 37. l. 2. for benefite r. benefice p. 38. l. 10. for nation r. souldier l. 11. for their souls r. his soule p. 48. c. 8. l. 4. dele Ans p. 49. l. 18. for Warner r. Doctor p. 51. l. 13. for the r. his p. 52. l. 16. for treasure r. Bishop p. 55. in tit of chap. 9. for their r. the. p. 56. l. 31. for Christ r. Christ his l. 32. for point blank to r. point blanck contrare to p. 59. l. 1. dele and. l. 1. for unpoureth r. vapoureth l. 17. for where r. heere p. 65. l. 5. for continues r. continue l. 6. for are r. is p. 66. l. 3. for to r. so l. 9. for warned r. warmed p. 67. l. 16. for in r. to p. 68. l. 5. for or r. which l. 16. for last r. nixt p. 70. l. 18. for lest r. best l. ult for null the Church and r. the verie being of p. 71. l. 1. for Reformed r. Reformed Churches p. 73. l. 23. for charge r. chaire p. 74. l. 6. for service r. service book l. 28. dele and. p. 75. l. 16. dele and to the gift p. 76. l. ult for haths r. hath p. 78. l. 24. for doszen r. dozen p. 82. l. 5. for inprints r. imprints p. 84. l. 9. for complanit r. complaint p. 85. l. 7. for aside ever r. aside for ever l. 16. for sinshews r. sinews