grieved that they should have started that Question at all among them and if it were to do again would be better advised and are very desirous to have the divisive Distempers of the People cured and the Preachers of Schism discountenanced And yet this Historian with two or three of the younger sort would contrary to the mind and heart to the tears and prayers of all his Brethren increase the Disease which they were studying to cure and encourage these rash and inconsiderate Youths to cast more fire-brands and add Oyl to the flame I have considered the 47 48 49 Verses of the 7th Chap. of John with Mr. H's Notes and the more I consider it I think it the more impertinently alledged For these Pharisees and Rulers were Enemies of Christ they believed not themselves and they endeavoured to hinder others to believe on Christ and are enraged that the People did believe on him Now the Ministers of whom he is speaking are not Enemies of Christ but his Servants and faithful Servants and zealous for his Glory and are so far from hindering People from believing in Christ or from looking on them as ignorant and cursed upon that account that they study to bring People to believe in Christ and are grieved that this Author and his Associates withdraws them from Christ by withdrawing them from his Ordinances where he comes and blesses his People and is in the midst of them and withdraws them from hearing these whom Christ sends to Preach to them and so hinders them from believing for Faith comes by hearing and it increases by hearing Mr. H. takes notice that these Pharisees were puffed up and I leave it to the consideration of the Reader if the way of these Faithful and Zealous Ministers seems not to be farther from this than the way that this Historian hath taken in this History He shews it's an old Engine to keep men from Christ by the opposition of able and eminent Church-men But the stress of the Argument which he proposes to answer did not lie most upon that that they were Church-men in eminent place of great parts but on that that they were Faithful and Zealous Ministers and that they were not seeking themselves or their own things but the things of Christ and the Edification of the Body of Christ appears in this that they are not like the Historians Youths who cry down all but themselves and draws away the People from all others to hear themselves and tells the People there is a cursed thing in other Meetings and warns them to beware of it But their Faithful Ministers does not seek to engross all the Peoples affection to themselves but they are for their hearing of others they behave as the Lords Ministers were wont to do in the Primitive times and as we find the Apostles doing in their Epistles they commend and recommend their fellow-labourers to the Churches and strengthens their hands Again these Pharisees took it as an evidence of the Ignorance and Misery of the People that they believed on Christ These who speak of the Ignorance of the People who withdraw from hearing Indulged Ministers are far from thinking them Ignorant and Cursed upon that account But they know that many of them are very ignorant of Christ and of the way of Salvation and it 's sad to them that are drawn away from the means of Knowledge Preaching and Catechising from learning the grounds of Religion and their Heads filled with vain janglings And they learn not to know their own sins in order to their Humiliation and Self-denial but learns to know the sins of others more than their own and that readily puffs them up What he adds about the Peoples guiding and breaking the Ice it blows up the People with a conceit that God hath made them Guides and Leaders to go before the Ministers and made the Sheep to lead the Shepherds There was enough of wind in this Bladder before the Historian might have without any hazard spared his breath here and not blown up the People with the ill wind of an anti-scriptural conceit When the Lord guides his People in his way he guides them according to his Word in the use of the means that he himself hath appointed he leads his People like a Flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron and for my part when I observe that these whom the Lord hath not made Guides and Leaders and Shepherds wilfully refusing to be guided and led by these whom God hath made Guides and Shepherds and confidently taking upon them to lead their Leaders I am very suspicious that all is not right and that both the Leaders and they who are led by them are wrong But this is an old trick used by these who stir up People to Schism or Sedition to give the People fair words and make much of them Corah Dathan and Abiram do highly complement the People All the Congregation say they is holy every one of them and the Lord is among them Such fair words will easily beguile unstable Souls I remember a judicious and sober Countrey-man said of one of these Preachers who made it a great part of his work to draw away the People from hearing Indulged Ministers That he thought he clapped the Bairns heads too much The Historian was mistaken if he thought that withdrawing from the Indulged Ministers had it's rise from the People for it was some Preachers who by private conferences and publick Preaching drew them away He alledges that the matter about hearing the Curats is a sufficient instance of the Peoples good guiding Yet I perceive by what he says that he would not follow the Peoples guiding even in this matter for he does not think the Baptisms administrated by them to be no Baptisms But some of the People have thought their Baptism to be the mark of the Beast and that 's much worse than nothing He does not think the hearing of Curats simply unlawful and thinks if there were no other to hear they should be heard But some of the leading People have thought the hearing of them simply unlawful I heard of some who said that the hearing of them was as unlawful as Fornication Adultery as the Worshipping of the Calves of Dan and Bethel And I suppose the Historian will not deny that Fornication c. are simply unlawful Some have been so far from thinking that hearing them could ever become Lawful that they have placed their Religion and Sincerity in this A Minister informed me that when he was enquiring concerning the estate of a dying woman he got no other account of any Evidence that it was well or would be well with her but this that she had never heard a Curate and I suppose the Historian would have looked on this as a Soul-deluding and destructive Error to make that an Evidence of Sincerity which a Lazy Profane Atheistical Person can so easily forbear and that from a Principle of Laziness Profanity or Atheism From
A REVIEW AND EXAMINATION OF A BOOK bearing the Title of the HISTORY OF THE Indulgence Wherein the lawfulness of the acceptance of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry granted by the Acts of the Magistrates Indulgence is demonstrated contrary Objections answered and the Vindication of such as withdraw from hearing Indulged Ministers is confuted To which is added a Survey of the mischievous absurdities of the late Bond and Sanquhair Declaration Rom. 14.19 Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace and things wherewith one may edifie another Prov. 24.21 My son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change c. LONDON Printed for Tho. Cockerill at the Three Legs in the Poultrey over-against the Stocks Market 1681. A Review and Examination of a Book bearing the Title of the History of the Indulgence c. AMongst the many sad tokens and prodigious Prognosticks of Gods anger against the Church of Scotland our multiplied Divisions are none of the least The righteous and holy God being deeply provoked hath armed every man against his brother so that Manasseh is against Ephraim and Ephraim against Manasseh and they both together against Judah And the Lord hath hereby in the open view of the Atheistical and prophane world poured contempt upon the remnant of his people that desire to cleave to his way and truth and made them despicable as a broken vessel that cannot be made whole again And this is the more afflicting that these contentions abound in a time wherein the Protestant Religion is visibly in so great danger from Popery and Popish Plots It therefore concerns all them who are any thing affected with the wrath and anger of a jealous and provoked God to lye in the dust to search out their own sins and provocations and sincerely bewail them before the Lord. And although the publick defections and provocations ought not to be slighted but much sorrowed for yet it is to be feared that personal humiliation repentance and reformation hath been little minded by many pretending to the abhorrence of publick sins O that every one of us might find grace seriously to enquire what we have done and that at such a time when all souls serious exercise of Religion is like to evanish into notions and debates every one of us would lay to heart the evil of his way both as to accession unto publick provocations and as to personal sins It is now high time when the Lord is so visibly taking vengeance for our inventions It hath been the sad observation of divers that every new tryal hath been the occasion of a new difference if not division The Lord partly in his holy displeasure withdrawing light and chastising his people for their sins and partly trying and exercising of them in that great duty of mutual forbearance so little made conscience of and partly discovering infirmities much dross in his own by the contests so carnally managed This we are now to instance in the Indulgence which although it was first looked on as a favour and mercy from God and the Ministers that imbraced it were advised thereto by the generality of outed Ministers a great part whereof were then at Edenborough yet now the contention about it is come to such a height that the acceptance is cried down as highly sinful and the hearing of Indulged Ministers Preached and written against as utterly unlawful The Indulged Ministers have generally hitherto for ought I know with much Christian meekness and patience endured reproach finding that what Letters were spread abroad against them did contain nothing but high Magisterial dictates without any shew of arguments as also they were resolved by their silence and forbearance to evidence their great desire to prevent contentions but now lest their silence should be looked on as faintness arising from the conviction of the evil of their Cause which it seems made the Author of one of these Letters to write that they never had the heart to dare to speak or themselves I shall say something in their behalf I must confess I am astonished to read these Papers that are going up and down amongst the people wherein with high and bitter words which I love not to repeat the Indulged Ministers are represented as having acknowledged and homologate a formal Ecclesiastick Supremacy assumed by the Magistrate and having subjected their Ministry in a direct line of subordination unto his cognizance as inferiour Civil Courts are unto the superiour yea not only so but these grave and worthy Ministers who thought it their duty to notice and bring to an account some few Probationers that were visibly sowing sedition and kindling a flame are represented as enamoured with that Idol of Jealousie meaning the Indulgence and as acted by the spirit of Antichrist And wherefore Because they took upon them to question the carriage of a few hardy and extravagant young men the tendency of whose way will ere long make it to appear what a spirit they were acted by But before I go further I must here protest that the personal reproaches cast upon those honest Ministers are not so much the motive that prevails with me to put Pen to Paper upon this Subject as respect unto the Truth and publick Interest of the Church the unity and order whereof seems to be wholly shaken and going to ruine by the courses driven on by some and to the Gospel of Jesus Christ Preached by them who I am sure have been armed by God in the Ministry with a blessing upon the souls of many though it is like these that now seek to decry the Indulged Ministers will not believe that ever their Ministry was blessed and countenanced of God and how can they seeing they look not upon them as the Ambassadors of Christ But blessed be God who hath looked upon them as his Ambassadors and hath not left their Ministry without the seal of a sensible blessing upon many But that I may inform honest well-meaning people who are jumbled and confounded with questions about the acceptance of the Indulgence and about hearing of Indulged Ministers I shall endeavour to lay the matter open in a plain conference The persons conferring shall be a Minister not Indulged but clear for hearing Indulged Ministers an ingenious Farmer who scruples to hear Indulged Ministers and a Preacher who is against the hearing of Indulged Ministers Farmer Sir it is now near Sun-setting I would be much obliged to you if you would be pleased to lodg at my house this night Minister I would be nearer the Church ere I take up my lodging for I use to make my Sabbath-days journeys as short as I can Farm You will be nighted ere you can come where you can have any tollerable lodging and you may with ease reach the Church to morrow before Sermon-time Min. Well I am content to stay with you Farm I assure you of welcom When you have taken some refreshment I
their knowledge He hath an eye to that Scripture 1 Chron. 12.32 Among those who were ready armed to the War and came to David to Hebron to turn the Kingdom of Saul to him according to the word of the Lord Ver. 23. There are some of the Children of Issachar v. 32. And of the Children of Issachar which were men that had understanding of the Times to know what Israel ought to do the Heads of them were two hundred and all their Brethren were at their command These men of Issachar spoken of were as â—he Dutch Interpreters expound the place underâ—tanding and expert men which are able to give good Advice and Counsel at what time it were best â—o attempt any thing or desist from it whether in War or civil Affairs as Esther 1.13 or in Husbanâ—ry and Countrey Affairs Some Interpreters reâ—â—r this to the knowledge of Astronomy as Diodate â—ews but others sayes he understand and take it to be only wisdom and sagacity either natural or gotten by long experience to discern and know the very moment of Opportunities a thing very important whence ordinarily depends the good success of Affairs Others shew that these men of Issachar were men eminently skilful and endued with prudence to know what was to be done and when and gave evidence of this sagacity at this time in taking this fit opportunity in turning the Kingdom of Saul to David and they were followed by their Brethren in this matter This Knowledge of the Times was not common to all the Professors in Israel for if so this Knowledge of the Times would not have been noted by the Spirit of God as something remarkable in these men of Issachar And no doubt there were many Israelites who were taught of God and were sufficiently distinguished from those who were brutish in their knowledge who yet had not this Knowledge of the Times to know when it was time to make War and to make alterations in the State in turning the Kingdom from the house of Saul to David This Knowledge of the Times is very desirable but every thing desirable is not a duty Moses wishes that all the Lords People were Prophets but it is not the duty of every one of the Lords People to be a Prophet and to Prophesie Again there are several things which we are oblidged to have and to do which yet are not the Cognizance or the Badges and Marks whereby they who are taught of God are distinguished from them who are brutish in their Knowledge as for example an eminent measure of Knowledge of Prudence of Love of Assurance these indeed are excellent Ornaments but they are not Badges and Marks common to all those who are taught of God and distinguishing them from those who are brutish in their Knowledg for there are many honest Professors who are taught of God who have not attained to these eminent degrees of Knowledge Prudence Love and Assurance Again it 's the duty of all Professors to obey the Law of God perfectly otherways their defects in obedience would not be sins But that perfection is not the Badg or Cognizance to distinguish those who are taught of God from those who are brutish in their Knowledge So that though that knowledge of the times were a thing which all Israelites should be adorned with yet it would not be right to make it their Cognizance or a distinguishing Mark to difference them from those who are brutish in their Knowledge But for any thing that appears from the Text or the Interpreters which I have consulted this Knowledge of the Times was a natural or political sagacity attained by long experience by which these men of Issachar knew what was the fit seasons of making War and alterations in matters of State which concerned all Israel Now for this sort of Knowledge of times I suppose the Author of the Epistle will not say that it is the duty of every Professor in the Church of Scotland to have this politick sagacity to discern the Seasons of making War and making alterations in State matters and much less is this politick sagacity and prudence which is not ordinarily acquired even by men imployed in State-Affairs but by much exercise and long experience to be made a Cognizance distinguishing those who are taught of God from those who have not saving knowledge for this knowledge of the Times is as Interpreters think a natural or politick knowledge and so no evidence or mark of a Spiritual and supernatural estate This is certain from the Scripture that this Knowledge of the Times was a Knowledge which distinguished some of the Tribe of Issachar from the Generality of the people of Israel and therefore this Scripture is misapplyed when this Knowledge of the Times is alledged to be the Mark and Cognizance of all who are taught of God distinguishing them from those who have no true Wisdom but are brutish in their Knowledge and so like the beasts that perish This is an ill token that the Author of this Epistle hath stumbled in the threshold and in the very Entry of his Address and his stumbling is the more dangerous because it may be a stumbling-block to private Professors by putting this conceit in their heads that they must either have the knowledge of the Times that the men of Issachar had concerning the fit seasons of making War and peace and of making State-alterations or else they are brutish in their Knowledge and are not taught of God This were the way to put all Professors Male and Female Lad and Lasse to become Politicians and to take on them to know and determine what Israel should do to determine what the State and Church should do And thus they are diverted from studying to know what they ought to do themselves and how they ought to rule their own Families and set a work to dive into the intrigues of State-policy and to plot alterations of States and conclude when to make Wars and to alledge that all who are taught of God have that Knowledge of the Times which the men of Issachar had is to deceive them and make them imagine that they have that Knowledge which they have not and to tempt them to meddle with things that are too high for them and to crack their brains by racking them to reach those things which are beyond their Capacity and to stretch themselves beyond their line and pass the bounds of their Station and Vocation Such flattering insinuations which either puff up people with a conceit of their Wisdom to manage the greatest and most important Affairs of Kirk and State and that they are fit to guide their Guides and break the Ice to them as the Historian says in his 28 Questions and Vindication hath done much harm to several well-meaning people and put them from minding the duties of their particular Callings and the Duties of their Christian Vocation in the exercise of Faith and Repentance and in giving diligence in the exercise of
false Reasonings there are Contradictions and Inconsistences Now the God of Truth puts it not upon mens hearts to write Untruth There are many bitter Reproaches and Calumnies much of the Wrath of man many things which are not for Peace and Edification the design of the Book is a vile Separation and Schism These things are not from God who is Love who is the God of Peace who hath commanded us to do all our things in love and not to forsake the assembling of our selves together My third Question is How he will refute those who alledge that the Writing of this Story came in the Head and Heart of the Historian as it came in Davids head and heart to number the People The Lord was angry against Israel and he left David to the temptation of Satan and to his pride and he numbred the People and this brought on the Plague The Lord was angry at the People who were weary of the Ordinances and were disposed to lightly Ministers and the Lord in his righteous judgment may justly leave men to their Pride and Self-conceit to Write and Print Calumnies against Ministers c. for a Plague upon those who depise his Servants and Ordinances so filling them with their own ways this Book is a great Plague to such people hardning them in their neglect of Preaching Catechising to the increase of ignorance unbelief ungodliness The dismal effects which he spake of are not the effects of the Magistrates granting or the Ministers accepting of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry Pag. 3. he charges the Indulged Ministers with a fearless making and medling with the stated enemies of Gods work ere they had mourned over former unfaithfulness and miscarriages and ere Brethren equally concerned were consulted Ans How knows he that they were fearless or that they had not mourned for their former miscarriages by what evidence doth he thus judge of the frame of the hearts of his fellow-servants especially when he was at such a distance from them when they medled in this matter and I suppose he will not conclude that they had no fears nor tears because they did not Print them and send them over sea seeing they have been and are mourners of whose tears the World gets not notice and I am inclined to think that the deepest sorrow makes least dinn Every mourner hath not the opportunity of publishing their tears in Print and many Mourners have put Books to the Press whose Modesty would not suffer them to mention their own Tears As there is rashness in his judging concerning the inward frame of his Brethrens heart in intruding into those things which he hath not seen so there is something more than rashness in his alledging that Brethren were not consulted for he might have known if he would have been at the pains to have enquired that Brethren were consulted and that the generality of the Ministers in Scotland were for Ministers returning to their own charges and that those who had not access to their own charges might upon the Invitation of vacant Congregations go and exercise their Ministry among them But I perceive that he is against all medling with the present Magistrates because of the ill they have done and do design He looks on all making and medling with them as Defection and the cause of further Defection for saith he what else but further Defection could be expected as the issue and result of those medlings the Author of the Cup of cold Water advises to stand aloof from all listnings to proposals coming from them or making any to them and he conceives we are called of God to take this course as that way wherein alone we can expect his approbation and countenance Pag. 41. Again pag. 42. he saith it passeth his ken what Address can be made to him except it be to tell we can make none or to beseech him to forbear to persecute the Mediators Embassadours and that he seeth not and hopes never to see with his eyes who can see how Addresses to them in Church-matters can consist with the resentment of their Usurpation of Christs Throne and after in that same Page We have nothing to seek from any who sets in our Masters Chair of State God forbid that ever we should be seen to bow or beg to them while they sit there however when we are passive we may make use of what liberty is given yet it 's our Peace c. to abstain from seekings and receivings from those who stand in such terms of Opposition to him Ans This is new Doctrine a new light which I suppose come never to light till now if the Author hath learned it of any I wish he would tell us who are his Authors I doubt if he can shew us a Precedent going before us in this way in which and which is more strange in which alone we can expect Gods Approbation and Countenance I wonder how he hath come to have so great Confidence in this untrodden Path that Subjects are called of God to keep at such a distance from their Rulers as to stand aloof from all listnings to their Proposals And that Subjects are called of God to stand aloof from making any Proposals to their Rulers And that this Course is the way and the only way wherein they can expect Gods Approbation and Countenance are strange and bold Assertions which should not have been obtruded upon us by his Conceit A Divine call and Divine approbation should have been confirmed by Divine Authority what knoweth he but the Lord may put some good motion in their hearts he hath put good things in the hearts of Idolaters Heathen Princes to which the Lords People did listen and to which they were obliged to listen and for which they found themselves bound to bless the Lord who had put such things in their hearts the Lord can put good Motions in the Hearts of ill Men and to refuse to listen to those Motions which are good and of God is to refuse to listen unto God How can this consist with the Honour which all Inferiours Servants Children Subjects are bound to give to their Superiours I suppose there is no Superiour who would not judge it to be a manifest Contempt in his Inferiour if he should keep at such a distance from him as that he would neither hear what he proposed to him nor yet would propose any thing to nor desire any thing of his Superiour I cannot see how a man can bind himself to keep such a distance from any man Superiour Equal or Inferiour as not to listen to any thing he says be what it will This standing aloof from all listnings to any Proposals made to us and from making any Proposals to them if we like not those that are made by them seems inconsistent with common Civility and humanity This is a new sort of an Act of Intercommuning Let us hear his Reasons for it pag. 41. first saith he This is the most
themselves and their People We may see our sins in the sins of Rulers if Christ had been in Truth as he was in Word acknowledged alone Head and Lord of his own house if his Divine Wisdom and Sovereign Will had been only observed and followed in the matters of God and if mens wills and humours and conceits and interests had not been mixed in these things and if those to whom the Lord had given the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven had keeped close to their Spiritual Function it might have prevented all encroachments upon the Spiritual Power of the Church O that the Lord himself would teach Rulers with a strong hand that no other power is good but that which is of God and to God and no other power but that which is of God by whom Kings reign is for their honour and interest all other power is vanity nothing and worse than nothing and will be to their loss shame and sorrow Darius found that that Decree which seemed to confer too much honour upon him in pretending to make him God alone for thirty days was but a miserable cheating snare as Flatterers are a great plague to Rulers so wise and faithful Instructors Counsellors and Reprovers who out of pure Zeal for God and true love to Rulers shew them what is right and wrong in the sight of God are great blessings to them It is not every one that is fit to reprove equals far less any Superiors and least of all Rulers and it is not every one that hath some fitness that is called of God to this work They who are called to it must manage this difficil work with all Wisdom Faithfulness love to the person of the Ruler and respect to his Authority that in discovering his sin his Authority be not brought into Contempt As they must not lessen their sin so they must not make it worse than it is If we must not lye upon the Devil far less upon those whom the Lord hath called Gods it were also good to say nothing of them behind their backs but what we could say to them if we were called to it and had access for to vent things of Rulers behind their backs and when called to an account to deny or mince and extenuate and put another face upon it than it had at first is not ingenuous dealing It is found in sad experience that bitter invectives against Rulers published by uncertain Authors and which overlashes and passes the bounds of verity irritates and provokes Rulers and makes them think that such invectives flow from hatred to their persons and contempt of their Authority and tempts them to reject the truths which are mixt with these falshoods and thus many by overdoing undo all that they intended to do I wish the Author of the Preface and Cup of cold Water and of the Letters had not overlashed and passed the bounds of Truth in their exagerations of the Magistrates sins and in uttering things derogatory to their Authority as for example that no Magistrate either Heathen Turk or Christian ever arrogated such a Supremacy Some have arrogated to themselves the Deity and to be God alone as Darius did by signing the Decree Herod arrogated to himself to be God and not man And that allegiance that they have delete the apprehension of that eternal God who is above them would fasten that upon them which many think the greatest profest Atheists though they intend it yet can never attain unto it to get the apprehension of a Deity rased out It 's also said that they have the purity of enmity at and implacability against all who desire to be faithful and loyal to Christ And elsewhere it is said If it be not an abuse of language to call them Rulers whose Goverment is pure Tyranny They have much real guilt why should we make our selves guilty in alledging upon them that which we cannot prove The Lord hath forbidden to speak evil of any man and in a special manner he hath forbidden to revile Rulers as we should beware of idolizing Rulers so we should beware of despising Dignities if the pains and time that hath been spent in telling how our Rulers had been taken up in earnest Prayers and Endeavours to make them better it might have been better both for them and us The exaggerating of their sins to scare us from all Addresses to them from all seekings and receivings hath a direct tendency to put them and us in a state of hostility and render us hateful to Rulers as Persons who are utterly alienate from them and will have nothing to do with them It may seem a very cleanly-like conceit to well-meaning people to forbear all making and medling with Rulers who have highly provoked the Lord and vexed his People but this is but a conceited cleanliness The first Magistrate that Israel had to do with was a grievous Oppressor of the Lords People and an Idolater and an insolent despiser of God who makes nothing of God Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go I know not the Lord neither will I let Israel go And yet the Lord sends Moses and Aaron to him to desire him to let Israel go to serve him in the Wilderness and after he hath given that blasphemous insolent answer full of tempting of God they insist humbly to pray him to let them go Exod. 5.1 2 3. And they are many times after sent by the Lord to Pharoah with the same desire It were easie to multiply instances of this nature but this one is sufficient here are frequent Addresses made by the Lords servants to a most Godless Atheistical Blasphemer and Persecutor of the Lords people and that in a religious matter It 's for liberty to go and worship God If a company of Christians were taken at Sea by a company of profligate godless Pyrates who were stronger than they might not the Christians desire of them Liberty to worship God together who will question it And if an address may be made to such Ruffians who neither fear God nor regard man and who have no Authority over the Christians but keep them Prisoners by strong hand how much more may Addresses be made to the Magistrate who whatever be his sins hath Authority from God to do good and the same Authority that a godly Magistrate hath and to draw out this power by Petitions and to take the benefit of the exercise of it When the Magistrate doth any good to the Church and undoeth any ill formerly done it is not a touching of any unclean thing but a making use of that Authority which is the excellent Ordinance of God I shall shut up this with a Testimony of precious Mr. Rutherford in his Divine Right of Church-Government and Excommunication Chap. 24. Quest 20. pag. 539 541. Now the Magistrate Heathen as Magistrate even Nero when the Church of God is in his Court and Dominions hath the same Jus the same
how this could have consisted with common civility and how it could have consisted with the duty of any Subjects towards Rulers especially with the duty of Ministers who should be examples to others in all dutiful respectful behaviour towards Superiors I cannot understand I suppose the Author will not get many to vote with him in this vote of Non-addresses I doubt much if he was of that opinion himself at the time of the first Indulgence but we had enough of this before 2. He taxes their embracing of the Indulgence 3. their giving thanks to the givers 4. Their not giving Testimony against their invasion 5. Their going and continuing to exercise their Mistry in these Parishes to which they were Indulged for he desires them with much earnestness to deliver themselves from this Indulgence by relinquishing those Congregations The embracing and accepting of the Indulgence is taken ordinarily by those who quarrel with the Indulged Ministers for an accepting of all that is in the Magistrates Acts that relate to the Indulgence and so they alledge they accepted the Instructions c. But this is a manifest mistake the Indulged Ministers know best themselves what they did make use of in the Magistrates Indulgence and Mr. Hutchesons speech shews what it was that they acknowledged as desirable and refreshing to them even the free liberty of the publick exercise of their Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority They shew they had been under a long restraint and this liberty and free liberty as it is called afterward of the publick exercise of their Ministry is opposed to that civil restraint which the Magistrate had laid on them by reason of which they could not without hazard or great disturbance publickly exercise their Ministry as wanting the Magistrates Protection and being exposed to the hazard threatned in the penal Statutes which did inhibit the publick exercise of the Ministry This publick exercise free from this restraint or this publick exexercise under the protection of lawful Authority is the same with the publick peaceable exercise of the Ministry this they acknowledge as a favour and why may they not accept of freedom from restraint which had been upon the publick exercise of their Ministry and accept of the Protection of lawful Authority and give thanks for it The peaceable exercise of the Ministry is a great benefit and it 's acknowledged that the publick peaceable exercise of the Ministry is by the Magistrate and therefore it was very fit that they should thankfully acknowledge this It is a wonder to me when I hear men who should have more than common ingenuity alledging so confidently that the Indulged Ministers received and accepted their Ministry and Instructions to regulate them in their Ministry from the Council and that they alledge this after they have seen what M. H. spoke in their name who acknowledges no more as received from the Magistrate but liberty or freedom from the restraint that had been upon their Ministry and their Protection of lawful Authority in the exercise of it though he had said no more I think this should have been sufficient to have prevented such false alledgences but when he hath said further in the face of the Council that they received their Ministry from Jesus Christ and full prescriptions from him for regulating them therein that yet they will alledge that they received their Ministry and instructions from the Council is even astonishing and shews what force humours and prejudices have upon mens minds I come next to his Questions and he asks 1. If they could after this their acceptance and giving thanks to the Council have withdrawn from that appearance and setled themselves before Christ Jesus the King of his Church and with a sweet serenity of soul have had confidence to offer their thanks to him for being helped to witness a good Confession against the wickedness of this Invasion made by the overturners of his work upon his Royal Prerogative who built the house and must bear the glory for it was either then or never that this was to have been done Ans I perceive this Author hath a way of intruding upon the secrets of his Brethren as before he judged and condemned their frame and case so here he sets up a new sort of Inquisition and will have his brethren give an account to him and the World of the serenity of their souls after they had been before the Council Although I am in charity bound to think that these Ministers had this serenity of soul after what they had done before the Council and that they can declare this when they find themselves called thereto yet I think this new Inquisition is a dangerous preparative I see not what Authority he hath to put his Brethren to give an account to him and to the World of the frame of their soul nor what obligation lieth upon them to give such an account to him if he have a particular Warrant to erect such an Inquisition-Court let him shew how he came by it if he have no particular priviledge for this then any one may do what he does and if every one may make such Inquisition and all the Lords people and servants be obliged to answer every Inquisitor that searches after the secrets of their souls this would be much more intollerable than the Popish Inquisition and Auricular Confession for this makes every man that pleases an Inquisitor and obliges the party inquired not only to round his secrets in the ear of one but to publish them to the whole world and that upon the Inquisition of persons who are rashly suspicious or prejudged against them and their way How often have good men after they have done what was good and acceptable to God been assaulted with temptations and perplexed with doubts and fears about what they had done I hope he will not say that they were upon the inquiry of persons prejudged against them and the good which they had done and who were waiting for their halting obliged to tell those prejudged persons and the whole World that they were under such doubts and fears about what they had done for beside many other evils that would follow upon this it would give occasion of speaking evil of the good which they had done and harden those who were adversaries to the good deed they had done and might occasion others to doubt of the lawfulness of a good action Beside this sort of Inquisition if it should take place would draw out secret sins to the view of the world and make them publick scandals and would raise suspicions of scandals without ground as for example if a suspicious person might inquire and oblige any other person to answer to this question Could ye after ye come from such a place or such company have confidence to offer thanks to God for helping you to overcome the temptation ye had to uncleanness theft drunkenness and to bear witness against the sins of the persons
ye were with If the person be silent and give no answer the suspicious Inquisitor will be more confirmed in his suspicion and readily conclude the man guilty If the man be really guilty and yet clears himself he sins by lying If he confess his guilt he makes a scandal in an unwarrantable divulging of his sin and though it may be he hath behaved himself blamelesly yet a tender person upon such an enquiry may readily be put to a demur and suspect that he may at least have omitted something which he ought to have done and so cannot give any present account of the serenity of his foul in that matter which will encrease the sinful suspiciousness of his Inquisitor and though he be altogether blameless and his Conscience serene yet the very questioning of such things is apt to breed suspicions and scandals But to come to his Question His design in it is to find the Indulged Ministers guilty by their own Confession of the neglect of a Testimony against the wickedness of this Invasion made by the overturners of the Work of Christ The Question is Whether it was the duty of those Ministers at that time to give in a Testimony of that nature He determines they should have done it then or never Now he hath so conceived his Question that whether they answer yea or nay he will conclude them guilty for not giving in such a Testimony as he requires at that time for if they say they were helped to witness a good Confession against this wickedness then he will conclude that then it was duty to give in such a Testimony as he requires at that time for to make a Confession good it 's required that it be seasonable an unseasonable Confession is not a good Confession for the seasonableness of a Confession is one of those things which are required to the goodness of it and a good thing is made up of intire causes but any defect makes a thing evil Again it cannot be said that men with serenity of soul can have confidence to give Christ thanks for helping them to give an unseasonable Confession or a Confession out of season But again if they answer that they were not helped by Christ to give such a good Confession then he will conclude that they are guilty of neglecting to give in that Confession at that time seeing it was a good Confession and so seasonable which if they had given they would have done it by the help of Christ and would have had matter of thanksgiving and seeing they have not done it they have not been helped by him to that which was good and their duty at that time Thus whether they answer his Question affirmatively or negatively he will conclude them guilty The Author made his Address as he says not as an acute disputant but as a poor blunt plain open-hearted man in a few plain Questions he should not after such a profession of plain-dealing in the very Entry begun with Sophistry with a Caption from many Interrogations Solomon says Prov. 9.8 Reprove not a Scorner lest he hate thee So that a man may forbear to reprove a Scorner and yet not be guilty of a sinful neglect but by such a captious Question as this any man who hath been with and heard Scorners will be found guilty for if ye spear at him were ye helped by Christ to witness a good Confession against such a Scorner or to give a good reproof to such a scorner if he answer that he was not helped to give him a good reproof then ye conclude that he omitted good and so sinned in not reproving him whereas Solomon forbids to reprove him If he say he gave him a good reproof then he calls that good which the Scripture forbiddeth or if this question be moved to one who hath not reproved a man when he was not in a case to receive reproof suppose when in drink or in the height of rage or when in such distemper and under such prejudice as the reproving of him would hinder him from doing some good that he were about to do and in all probability make him worse if the person perceive not the captiousness and sophistry of the Question but answer yea or nay he will be intangled but such may easily answer the Question thus 1. That they did not reprove such a person in such a case and 2. That it was not good to reprove him in such a case or at such a time and that therefore he was not guilty of neglecting a good reproof because it was not seasonable to reprove at that time If the Prefacer would have dealt as plainly as he promised he should have plainly proved that these Ministers should at that time have given in such a Testimony as he requireth The command that requires the making of Confession is an affirmative Precept and though it be obliged at all times yet doth not oblige to give a Testimony at all times we must never deny the truth but we must not ever make Confession of it as all Casuists grant We do not hear that Moses and Aaron made any formal protestation against Pharaohs Blasphemy and avowed Rebellion against God they heard him say Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go I know not the Lord neither will I let Israel go They make no Protestation nor Declaration against this blasphemous Speech and avowed Rebellion against God they only shew their Warrant and humbly insist in their Petition and yet these extraordinary Embassadours of God were in another manner of capacity for doing this if it had been necessary and seasonable than ordinary Ministers are read Exod. 5.2 3. Nor do we hear that the other Children gave any written or verbal Protestation against the making of the Image and Proclaimation to worship it Nor did Daniel give any written subscribed or verbal Declaration against the making signing publishing of that Decree which discharged all Petitions to be given to any for thirty days but to Darius which was to make him God alone All that they did was they did not obey but acted contrary to those godless Decrees and chused rather to suffer death than obey them Nor did our Saviour speak any thing before Herod though a vile man when he was before him Christ held his peace a long time before the Council and when he spoke he gave in no written or verbal Protestation against the Council it 's constitution and corruptions nor against the sentence they pronounced against him as a Blasphemer Nor when Paul compeared at Rome do we hear of any Protestation against the monstrous abominations and persecutions of Nero. Many Martyrs and Confessors did forbear to make publick Protestation against the Idols and Idolatry of their Persecutors and all that many of them said was this That they were Christians and upon that suffered How many both private Christians and Ministers have appeared before the Council since the Supremacy was established
that hath no other effect but a non-advantage and damage of godly persons is no censure approven of Christ for he hath commanded his servants and people that they do all their things in love and for edification How the Indulged Ministers can be still dear to those who cast them out of their Prayers to their damage I cannot understand I suppose when he and those who take his Method have seriously reflected upon the matter they will find that they themselves have more disadvantage by this uncharitable neglect of duty than the Indulged Minsters have He saith he finds himself in fetters as to praying for them ignorance and prejudice and humour and such like distempers will fetter folk in duty I am sure his fetters are not made of the cords of love I am very confident that more light and more love would loose these fetters If those fervent judicious gracious persons that he speaks of were more judicious and had more of the grace of charity and had learned to love more fervently they would not have fallen into that ignorant and uncharitable case of Conscience which binds them up from making Conscience of praying for those who are as he says dear unto them If they had more judgment and more fervent charity they would pray much more better than they do and when they pray better the Indulged Ministers will not be cast out of their Prayers And I cannot but tell him so long as he and they take such unwarrantable and uncharitable methods of praying Christians who are truly judicious will not think so much of their Prayers as it seems he and they do who would terrifie the Indulged Ministers by their forbearing to pray for them from the exercise of their Ministry in those Congregations in which through the good Providence of God they have had in a sad time the peaceable exercise thereof That these people do not account the Indulged Ministers a part of the suffering remnant is another of their mistakes for though their sufferings have not run in the channel of the sufferings of others yet they have had their large share in sufferings if the scourge of Tongues and Calumnies back-bitings and heart-breaking reproaches be sufferings they may be reckoned among sufferers These and many other sad things they have endured with much patience and these things they have suffered because they could not in Conscience neglect to take the opportunity of the peaceable exercise of their Ministry It 's another of their mistakes that they look on the Indulged Ministers as guilty of defection They might have had patience till the Ministry of the Church of Scotland had tried and found the practice of the Indulged Ministers defection But at their own hand to condemn so many judicious and conscientious Ministers of defection and cast them out of their Prayers are among the wild Practises of this evil time in which many folk do what is right in their own eyes But I perceive a new sort of negative Religion is like to come in fashion in this Generation Practical Divines condemn the ill-grounded confidence of those who please themselves because they forbear gross evils though they neglect that which is good and justly because the tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewen down and cast into the fire But now many please themselves as if they were more judicious gracious tender than others because they forbear to hear the word of God preached by those whom they dare not to deny to be Ministers of the Gospel and because they forsake the assemblies of the Lords People met together for the Lords worship and because they do not pray for those who are dear to them and whom they dare not deny to be godly until they actually do that which they desire them O what need have we to walk humbly and pray earnestly for the Spirit of a sound mind He saith in that same page That God hath written an History against the Indulged Ministers acceptance I wish he had forborn this rash assertion the right order had been to have shewed that the practice of the Indulged Ministers was contrary to the written word of God he knows that Providence is not our Bible I know not what History this is and what these effects that he speaks of as flowing from the Indulged Ministers practice which he mentions elsewhere are and so cannot speak particularly to them if he meant that some have been very busie to draw people away from hearing the Indulged Ministers he may remember that there were some who endeavoured to draw away the people from hearing Christ himself He is mad said they why hear ye him If he mean that some people who once countenanced their Ministry have withdrawn from them he knows that many of Christs Disciples went back and walked no more with him and they who would once have pulled out their eyes and given them to Paul looked on him as an enemy because he told them the truth many have stumbled at Christ and the Gospel and the Ministers of it without cause If he mean the renting and division that is no effect of the practice of the Indulged Ministers but of those who did set themselves to draw the people off from them and upon such grounds that too many people are become very indifferent and careless of hearing any Ministers and some are only for hearing some few and how long they will continue their respect for such who can tell for it 's the work of a spirit of Schism to divide and subdivide Mr. Rutherford used to say that Providence was not our Bible and Mr. Ro. Blare used to call the Arguments which the English usurpers took from success Turkish Arguments till all be broken in shivers and crumbled away to nothing We should be very tender in speaking of Gods written Histories against or for any thing There are great mysteries in divine Providence which does not appear at first till the Lords work be compleat and all his Counsel appear and therefore folk who are hasty in determining in this matter run a great hazard of taking the Name of God in vain In his next page he expresses some hope that amongst the Indulged themselves among so many godly men there were some that the Lord should make use of to discover the evil of this Indulgence and says That that man shall be blessed Ans As for the evil that is in the complex of the Indulgence several of the Indulged Ministers have discovered it to much better purpose than the Author of the following History hath done but these same Ministers have given such solid Reasons for the warrantableness of their own Practice in what they have done upon the Magistrates Indulgence that he cannot in reason expect that they should condemn themselves in that in which they have so much peace upon so solid grounds In his last Section he says Many will cry out against the following History who shall never be able to
answer its Reason but by clamour as unanswerable I answer If he had been pleased to have read what the Indulged Ministers and others have written in answer to what the Author of this History sent before this History in Letters and Questions he might have seen any thing that this Author hath said against the practise of the Indulged Ministers very rationally and solidly answered As for his first reason for the seasonableness of this I answer The evil which is in the Magistrates actings which relate to the Indulgence have been more solidly discovered than this Author doth but this Authors great design is to fasten all the Magistrates faults in this matter upon the Indulged Ministers And if this last be the Testimony which the Author means in his second Reason it 's a false Testimony and of no value and worth and worse than nothing In his third he is mistaken for several who are dissatisfied with the Indulgence are much more dissatisfied with this History as a Book which they think will do much mischief among ignorant and profane people in hardning them in a careless neglect of the Lords Ordinances and profaning of the Sabbath and jumble many weak and well-meaning people and confound them with things that they do not understand His fourth Reason for the seasonableness of it is because the Indulged Brethren had been threatning and boasting with a Vindication of the lawfulness of their acceptance I answer The Author either saw these Vindications for there were many of them or not if he saw them not might he not have had patience till he had seen what they had to say for themselves it was injustice to condemn men unheard who were offering a Vindication of their Practice but it seemed he had a mind to give them Couper Justice But it may be he thought he could imagine all that they had to say but this was rashness and too much self-confidence he should have heard them before he had answered seeing he knew they had spoken for themselves If he saw any of these Vindications as some think he did why did he not examine them it may be he found them too hot for his handling If he had sent this History to the Indulged Ministers privately that they might have given him a return this had been fairly done but to print it and publish it to the World at the very first was not fair non amice factum ab amico His first Reason for the seasonableness of it is because the Non-indulged Ministers had done somewhat to strengthen the hands of the Indulged by giving them new confidence in their course in obliquo covering all aid carrying towards them as if they had done nothing amiss but upon the the matter by a direct Homologatry of the Indulgence for now silence as to all speaking against this evil is made the very door and porch through which all entrance to the Ministry must pass And therefore saith he it 's now simply necessary and more than high time to discover and detect the blackness of its Defection when the Church is thus brought in bondage by it Ans I did not think that the Author though he be very confident upon small evidence had so far passed the bounds of modesty as that he durst in Print have avowed and justified the deed of two young men who contrary to Presbyterian Principles did set themselves to counteract the judgment and sentence of the suffering Ministers of the Church of Scotland for their way did manifestly tend to the subversion of the very foundation of all Government and Order It 's a strange Reason that because the Non indulged Ministers endeavoured to strengthen the hands of the Indulged Ministers that therefore it was seasonable to put out a Book condemning all together and what else was this but for two men living at a distance to take upon them to condemn the whole Presbyterian Ministers of the Church of Scotland and to encourage two unruly youths in their contempt of any remnant of Authority that that poor remnant had What sober person who hath any Judgment in matters of that nature can but commend the Practice of these Non-indulged Ministers who laboured to prevent the breaking of the Church by that Question about the Indulgence by restraining these young men who made it their great work to cry out against the Indulged Ministers and the hearing of them and yet this Author is so far from having that reverence that he ought to have had to the Judgment of the generality of the Ministers of the Church of Scotland that he thinks because they agreed together to endeavour to prevent the renting of the Church therefore it was seasonable to cast in a new fire-ball of Contention among the people and so render all their endeavours of Unity ineffectual and what more effectual way would he have taken to render all the suffering Ministers of the Church of Scotland contemptible in the eyes of all who will believe him than to charge all the Indulged Ministers with so black and fearful a defection and all the rest of the Ministers with a direct homologating of the Indulgence In this he hath done service very acceptable to Prelatists Papists and Quakers though I believe he designed no such thing His sixth taken from the severe insulting over some of the poor remnant who could not forbear to witness their abhorrency of it flows from misinformation the insulting was among some of those who quarrelled with the Indulged Ministers and who took occasion from the Indulged Ministers forbearance to meddle with that matter in their Sermons to say that they had nothing to say for themselves and thus their silence for peace sake was turned into a prejudice against them They who live in these parts where Indulged Ministers are can bear witness how much forbearance and tenderness hath been used towards the poor people who were confounded with these doubtful Disputations and frighted with unknown words of Homologations and Homologatings and imposed upon by strong alledgencies and parables and allegories without Scripture or solid Reasons This way of witnessing which he means the withdrawing from the Lords Ordinances to which they formerly resorted and in the use of which they profited is a way of witnessing that if they who take it have little cause to be ashamed of it as he says I am sure they have as little cause to glory in it for there needs no more to qualifie folk for giving this Testimony but laziness and gross profanity and contempt of Ordinances There can be no great matter in that which any profane man as he is profane and because he is profane can do As for his seventh neither this Author nor he hath proven that the Indulged Ministers entring into these Parishes was a coming in not by the door but a climbing up another way His last consists of hopes That some of these godly men Indulged may be by this History taken off and that the Non-indulged will
no favours from Magistrates except they be real penitents and have gracious Principles and good designs in their Magistratical actings From what is said it appears that though the Indulgence had been free of clogs yet these Authors would not have been for making use of it they would still have called the people to leave the Kirks and come to the fields and mountains They know that the Magistrate would oppose these Field-meetings so that people may see if they will follow the dictates of their Authors what ever favours our present Magistrates would give and how free soever of such clogs and entanglements as attended the Indulgence yet they must go to the fields and then seeing the Magistrate will send soldiers to dissipate these Field-meetings they must resolve if they cannot flee to be carried to Prisons or else to fight This gratifies the designs of Papists exceedingly who have been labouring ever since the Reformation to put Magistrates and Subjects in a state-hostility and enmity one against another Among many sad things which have accompanied and followed this way this hath been one that the conceit many have entertained of fighting hath exceedingly hindred their Humiliation under the mighty hand of God and so hath holden on and encreased the Calamities and Desolations of this poor Church From what is observed out of the Writings of these Authors Ministers and People may see that no Indulgence given by the preâ—ent Magistrates will satisfie them and that it is not a withdrawing from hearing the Indulged Ministers that will satisfie them Nothing less will satisfie them than a going to the mountains and hearing those who preach contrary to the Magistrates command for there must be a contrariety in their acting to the Magistrate or else it is not right for this is put in the state of the Question in his Vindication of those who scruple to hear and own the Indulged Pag. 128 129. for those who are to be heard are such as preach not according to mans order but contrary thereto If there be not a contrariety to and counteracting of the Magistrate their Authors will not be satisfied and no wonder for nothing less than this will answer their design so that people may see that their Authors though they were out of danger themselves being at a good distance and under an Engagement by subscription with their hand not to come where the hazard was yet they take upon them to draw up poor people as it were in Battalia against Rulers and armed rude soldiers and discharges them to hear any Proposals from the Magistrate or to make any to him or seek or receive any thing from him and now I leave it to be considered what this tends to It was not becoming them especially who were without the reach of Musket-shot to be so prodigal of the lives of poor people as to think of no way of Peace nor of any treating I could not but remember what I had read in Terence of Thraso who kept himself far off from the hazard and put others betwixt him and it but he undertakes to give the sign of Battel Hic ego ero post principia inde omnibus signum dabo And of Gnathos remark Illuc est sapere ut hos instruxit ipsius sibi cavit loco But People should not upon the desire of any man rush themselves upon hazards when crosses lies in the way that God calls them to walk in then they are their crosses which the Lord calls them to take up willingly and bear patiently but they must not go out of the Lords way to seek crosses they will meet with as many as the Lord sees meet for them in the Lords way I cannot see how the prescriptions that their Authors give to people consists with that command of of God Rom. 12.18 If it be possible as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men I am sure Rulers are not excluded but in a special manner included in the Universality of all men But I do not wonder that the Author did not form the state of the Question distinctly nor do I wonder that they who are against the Indulged Ministers are generally against distinctions at least in that Question seeing that any apparent strength that is in their arguings is founded in confounding things that differ If the Question be rightly stated as I stated it in the beginning the Arguments commonly used against the Indulgence will be found not only inconcludent but very ridiculous for suppose the acts of the Magistrate indulging to be wrong and suppose the Indulged Ministers to have miscarried in their appearance before the Council yet if ye but grant them to be Ministers of the Gospel they might warrant to return to preach to their own Parishes and destitute Congregations might warrantably invite others of them who had not access to their own Congregations to help them in their destitute condition and they might warrantably come upon their invitation to help them To argue it was unlawful to invite them and for them to go upon that Invitation because the Magistrate appointed or permitted them to go or because the Magistrate gave them Instructions is very absurd reasoning for this absurdity follows upon it that the Magistrate may lay by any yea all the Ministers of the Gospel from exercising their Ministry and render it sinful to them to exercise their Ministry for according to this way of reasoning he need do no more to bind up a Minister in his very Conscience that he cannot preach without sin but appoint him or permit him to preach and give him Instructions and the work is done He need not give pay to maintain soldiers to hinder preaching with Swords and Guns seeing he may do all that soldiers can do and much more by Pen Ink and Paper for soldiers can only impede them where they are present by external force but these Paper-Ordinances reach their Consciences that they cannot preach without sin in any place that he appoints or permits them to preach in But there was thus much at least of right in the Magistrates Indulgence that it did so far relax that general restraint that was formerly laid by Penal Statutes upon Ministers that whereas before they could preach no where without hazard now they might somewhere have the publick exercise of their Ministry without hazard or disturbance so that it made way for the peaceable exercise of their Ministry in some places so that though the former Statutes were not abrogated yet this derogating from such Statutes or this dispensation in taking away the Obligation of the Law or the Obligation of a part of it as to some persons in respect of some place c. â—s something of right and better than nothing and may lawfully be made use of The Method which the Author hath followed â—s first to represent the Indulged Ministers as guilâ—y of many grievous faults and then to draw people from hearing them to the Mountains The most
to preach where there is need He knows also that the Indulged Ministers who were appointed to go to other Congregations than their own did not upon the Magistrates appointment go till they were invited by the people and would not have gone if they had not been invited and his alledgance that that they accepted Instructions Orders Acts and Constitutions to regulate them in the exercise of their Ministry is a false alledgance He says he hath cleared it above but he hath neither cleared it above or under I cleared from his own Confession that the Indulged Ministers gave an honest Testimony against these Instructions He grants pag. 95. That the Indulged Ministers never did nor will own the Supremacy but plainly disown it and says he speaks not of a positive explicite formal intentiâ—nal and express homologating but of a virtual implicite material and elsewhere an interpretative homlogating He did well to explain Homologating in the beginning of this page that the people might understand the meaning of this Greek word but now again in shewing what sort of homologating the Indulged Ministers are guilty of he hath added so many Latine words virtual implicite material interpretative that the people who read this will be more in the dark than before for now they have four kittle words whereas they had but one before and yet he will have them to believe that though the Indulged Ministers plainly disown the Supremacy that yet they are virtually implicitely materially interpretatively guilty of it that 's to say they are guilty of it but they cannot tell how and yet upon this interpretative Homologation which they cannot interpret nor understand they are advised to withdraw from hearing the Indulged Ministers The case of the poor people is much to be pitied who are thus made to stumble at they know not what and made to believe that the Indulged Ministers homologate a sinful Supremacy in the Magistrate and that they in hearing the Indulged Ministers homologate the Supremacy and some have gone that length that the Ministers who preach not against hearing of the Indulged Ministers are not to be heard and upon the same groundless grounds they may give up private Christian fellowship with those who are not against hearing the Indulged Ministers I remember a History which I read of one John of Liege who upon the approach of some enemies against that Town took such a pannick fear that he fled into the desert of Ardenna and durst not adventure to come out for he apprehended that all men that he heard or saw were those enemies which first frighted him It hath befallen this Author and the Author of the Epistle as it did to him they have taken such a fright at the Supremacy that they apprehend many Acts to be Acts of Supremacy which others who are as opposite to Erastianism and an arbitrary Supremacy as they know to be Acts of that Authority which the Magistrate hath from God and they apprehend many things to have affinity with the Supremacy which have none at all but this way of theirs is so far from being the right way to discern the ill which is in the Supremacy that upon the contrary it 's the way to commend it when these Acts which Orthodox and Anti-Erastian Divines grant to be Acts of lawful Authority are alledged to be the Acts of a sinful Supremacy Pag. 95. We have his fourth ground I need not repeat the true state of the question he should have proven if he would have proven any thing against the Indulged Ministers that their practice was injurious to the people I know no injury they have done to the people except that be an injury that upon their Invitation they came and preached the truth to them I think they may be forgiven this wrong He says The meer appointment of the civil Magistrate was all the ground of their relation and the only thing that made them Pastors to such a people This is false and will never be proven I told him the Indulged Ministers had no regard to the Patron He objects that it will be said they obtained the full and unanimous consent of the people And he answers 1. I doubt if this was either universally sought or obtained Ans Seeing he charges the indulged Ministers as injurious to the people he should have been clear that they obtruded themselves upon the people and that the people did not consent to their coming It seems he makes his doubts to be evidences to prove his Brethren guilty of injurious dealing But he might have known that no man who hath any common sense will take the most confident assertions of an accuser and much less his doubts for proofs and evidences against the party whom he charges with a fault 2. As for those who returned to their own Congregations they had a standing relation founded upon the election of the people and ordination of the Presbytery and none can rationally imagine that their own Congregations did not desire the return of their own Pastors As for those who went to other Congregations not having access to their own I suppose he would not have thought it sutable for them to have sought Invitations to these Parishes It was not the Custom nor had it been decent but very unsutable and liable to Exceptions to have sought Invitations it was all that could be rationally expected from them to signifie to the people concerned that they could not come to exercise their Ministry among them except they did consent Neither had it been fit for the people to have made a formal election of them seeing they had never heard nor seen some of them and seeing these Ministers were not out of hope of obtaining regress to their own Parishes but all that was necessary as the case stood was the peoples consent to their coming and preaching among them and when they had heard them both the Ministers and they might consider what was fit for them to do I shall set down a true Copy of one of these Invitations We under Subscribers in the Parish of being informed by very many Testimonies to which we owe credit That it hath pleased the Lord to endue you with great Abilities for preaching the Gospel and that upon our call you have free access to come and exercise the Ministerial Function among us have thought it our Duty to give you a very cordial Invitation to come and preach which we expect may be upon Sunday the fifteenth of this instant after which we are not doubtful but both you and we shall have such mutual satisfaction that we shall have the Comfort of your Ministry and you the opportunity of doing service to your Lord and Master in pursuance of the Commission you have from him in whom we remain and subscribe c. By this it appears 1. That the people were informed that the Minister had signified That an Invitation from the Parish was necessary for his access to preach to them 2. Though they
contrary unto the Magistrates will as if the Magistrates appointment or permission to preach were inconsistent with Christs call as the Author states the question pag. 129. are so far from being right means of defeating Erastianism that they are rather means to harden Erastians for to oppose that power which the Magistrate hath from God as if that were an Erastian power confirms Erastians that they who oppose Erastianism that way oppose the Ordinance of God And they who refuse to take the peaceable publick exercise of their Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority but will preach contrary to the Magistrates will need not to think it strange if the Magistrate think and say that such ways and principles as these which lead men to an unnecessary unpeaceable thwarting with the Magistrate are opposite to Civil Authority and lawful peace and so are not of God who is the God of Order and Peace The Indulged Ministers made use of what in the Indulgence was the exercise of that power which the Magistrate hath from God and by this shew their respect to lawful Authority and they both by word and practice did what they judged incumbent to them to render any evil which was in the complex Acts of the Indulgence ineffectual So far were they from doing any thing which had a necessary connexion with any wrong end and he hath not yet cleared that experience or the nature of the thing doth evince what he says I perceive he hath a way of forcing nature to evince what he cannot prove Pag. 98. We have his sixth head of Arguments in which he undertaketh to shew how prejudicial this Indulgence is unto the good of the Church If he would have proven any thing against the practice of the Indulged Ministers he should have shewed that what they did was prejudicial to the Church His first Hist is not pertinent the practice of the Indulged Ministers in returning to their own charges or going to Parishes that were destitute upon the Invitation of the people as it doth not make any precedent for thrusting out of Ministers for he knew that not long before the Indulgence not only the Indulged Ministers but others were thrust out so it makes no precedent for Magistrates putting in Ministers brevi manu for whatever the Magistrate designed yet these Ministers did not enter in these Congregations brevi manu as was cleared before And I suppose he will not find in Church-History that the Church was hurt by the Magistrates restoring or placing Orthodox Ministers He granted before that in the corrupt state of the Church Magistrates might place Ministers If there be any strength in this first Argument it will overturn that concession for if Magistrates may thrust out Hereticks when the Church is corrupted and place Orthodox Ministers then he will infer that the ice being broken if the Magistrate turn Arrian he will thrust out Orthodox and put in Hereticks and the Orthodox Magistrates and Ministers have paved the way and broken the Ice The absurdities which have followed upon the corruptions of corrupt Magistrates doth no more bind up Magistrates from doing right than the absurdities which have followed upon the corruptions of Corrupt Ministers doth bind up Ministers from doing their duty His 2d as it is no parallel to the case in hand so it shews that an ill-disposed Ecclesiastick Court may misplant Kirks and to reason from prejudices arising upon supposition of mens corruptions would exclude Ministers as well as Magistrates from having any hand in providing desolate Congregations The Ministers who were Indulged did not upon the Indulgence leave their own charges for they were thrust out of them long before the Indulgence neither did they go to other Congregations upon the Magistrates sole call as he supposes so that he is but fighting with his own shadow To his 3d. I need say no more but this if any such emergent fall out in after-times the carriage of the Indulged Ministers if it be rightly represented will not be prejudicial to the Church if it be misrepresented as it is by this Author then he and not the Indulged Ministers are to be blamed for any ill use that any may make of it if he had been as tender of the Posterity as he should have been he would not have so misrepresented the practice of many honest Ministers for he might have thought that following generations would lay more weight upon the practice of so many than upon his Authory and that his reasonings would be no sufficient Salvo for Posterity would suppose that so many able and consciencious Ministers wanted not reasonings for their practice and would readily suspect all his reasonings as not solid To his 4th I answer The practice of the Indulged Ministers makes no preparative for sending all Orthodox Ministers to one small inconsiderable corner of the Land for he knows that the Indulged Ministers were not for the unnecessary thrusting in of many Ministers into one Parish If the Magistrate by force did thrust Orthodox Ministers not only to the High-lands but out of the Land I think it were unreasonable to blame the Indulged Ministers for that Magistrates know well enough the way of confining and banishing Ministers that they would have been quit of many ages ago Ministers going to Holland when they are banished may have the same consequences that Ministers going to the High-lands may have To his 5th I answer The case of these Ministers who in the second Indulgence were permitted to preach in Congregations which were already provided was not the same with the case of these who were invited by the people to come and help Congregations which were destitute And as the Ministers who are not Indulged contribute for the general good of the Church when they preach as they have access now in one place and then in another for they cannot preach to the whole Church at once so do the Indulged Ministers contribute for the good of the Church when they help these Congregations where they are setled and their settlement as was said before puts them in a better capacity to take inspection of the flock than if they were not setled and their preaching in these Congregations does not hinder Ministers who are not Indulged to preach elsewhere as they have access The Indulged Ministers did not pretend to be the only doers of the duty of the day but they did a part of the duty of the day and they are glad of the success of the Ministry of those who were not Indulged and wish that it were as great as it is called by him in his Sect. 6. To which I need say no more but these things I. That as the Indulged Ministers had no design to deprive the Lords people of the benefit of the Ministry of Ministers not Indulged so their practice did no way tend to the hinderance of the exercise of their Ministry either in houses or fields no more than the preaching of one Minister not Indulged
Council be to be believed that as he durst not before charge the indulged Ministers with a compact so here he only alledges a transaction but he is not sure as his Parenthesis imports As for his 4th he knows that Presbyterians make a great difference betwixt the Magistrate and a Prelate but of this before And then it 's false That the indulged Ministers looked upon themselves as Ministers of these Parishes upon the sole ground of the Magistrates Act. And thus we have done with his parallels which are meer Paralogisms If the matter could have afforded better Arguments the Author would have readily hit upon them but the subject-matter could not be formed in a Mathematical Demonstration ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius Pag. 110. we have his eleventh head of Arguguments in which he undertakes to prove That by the accepting of the Indulgence the meetings of Gods people are prejudged he means the meetings nicknamed Conventicles and he alledges That by the acceping of the Indulgence they have contributed to the suppressing of these Meetings and that interpretatively they may he charged in part with the severities exercised against the same He only pretends to make this probable and likely and that this head of Arguments deserves some consideration so that the Arguments under this head are not in his own opinion Demonstrations but only topical Arguments The Author speaks much more soberly here than he did in the Letters which he sent before this printed Book for in that Letter which he wrote to a young man who preached at Wamfroy he says That the accepters of the Indulgence could not but homologate before the Lord the Magistrates design to suppress these Meetings of the Lords people and contribute to the carrying on of that end and in another Letter he infers That seeing the Magistrate had the same design in the Indulgence that he had in the band that therefore the band and Indulgence are of a piece and that there is no difference as to kind betwixt the making use of the Indulgence and the taking off the band Though there be a magis and minus that may be yielded yet there is nothing that can alter the kind nor can he see how those who are favourable to the Indulgence can speaking consequently condemn the taking of the Band. Here is very great confidence but it 's very groundless for suppose the design of all that had a hand in the contriving of the Indulgence were as ill as he could imagine yet their design could not vitiate the acceptance of the peaceable exercise of the preaching of the Gospel nor vitiate the hearing of the Gospel to those who preach and hear the Gospel for that end for which God hath appointed it to be preached and heard 2. Whatever was the intention of the Contrivers of the Indulgence the preaching of the Indulged Ministers had no more tendency to hinder other Ministers to preach the Gospel than the preaching of one Minister who is not indulged hinders the preaching of another Minister and experience hath proven this That their preaching hindred others to preach for several Non-indulged preached more since the Indulgence than before 3. He gives a strange efficacy to the Magistrates intention in saying That it makes the making use of the Indulgence and taking of the band to be of a peice and of one kind for the band which he speaks of obliges to conform to Prelacy and to cast off the outed Ministers yea and shut up their bowels from them in their distress and the person who takes it declares Conventicles to be disorderly and the walking according to the Law which establishes Prelacy to be orderly walking They who think that the Magistrates intention can make these things contained in that band to be of a piece and of the same kind with the peaceable exercise of preaching the Gospel they give the Magistrate a power of working Miracles in changing the nature of things by his intention which is more than hath been given to Magistrates by those who talk highest of their Supremacy I wish he had forborn that expression of Homologating before the Lord for it seems to be a taking of the name of God in vain Pag. 111. he desires us to ponder some Particulars for the first about Magistrates design we have weighed it and found it light For his second he should have proven That it is the necessary work of the indulged Ministers who have Churches to preach in where the Meetings of the Lords people are not disturbed to leave these Churches and go to preach in mountains and needlesly expose themselves to hazard when they may have the same ordinances of God in the Church and with these advantages That they have the accommodation of a house to shelter them from storms that they are rid of the fears of Invasion by armed soldiers which do much disorder folks Spirits for the worship of God and the place of meeting being fixed and known peoples uncertain wandring upon the Lords day is prevented It hath been very sad to those who truly designed to sanctifie the Sabbath to wander on the Lords day to seek the word of God and not find it and when they had found it to be in a continual fear of violence or to be fleeing or to see some more taken up in drawing themselves up for fighting than for drawing near to God or to see or hear of blood mingled with Sacrifices He should have proven that God calls the indulged Ministers to quit the peaceable exercise of their Ministry in these Parishes where they are setled where they have opportunity to know the State Case and Way of the people and to apply their Doctrine sutably to the peoples Condition and where they have opportunity to make full proof of their Ministry in preaching and ministring Sacraments Catechising visiting exercising Church-Discipline The indulged Ministers are not convinced That it 's the greater good of the Church to cast these Congregations where they are desolate and leave them to be filled with Conformists He says the Indulged Ministers have given themselves to rest under the covering of the Supremacy This was an invidious and false aspersion if the giving of themselves to the work of the Ministry be a giving of themselves to rest then they have given themselves to rest Thinks he that men cannot labour in the work of the Gospel except they carry the Gospel from mountain to hill Instead of the covering of the Supremacy he should have said Under the protection of lawful Authority and as Mr. H. said before the Council The exercise of the Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority is one of the most desirable things on earth to Ministers of the Gospel To his third The case of these Ministers who were confined to Congregations where there were Ministers setled and permitted to preach â—n these Parishes was far different from the case â—f those who went to desolate Congregations â—f they had been permitted
to preach to destitute Congregations the Lords work might have been â—arried on in all probability with as much sucâ—ess as by their preaching in the mountains To his fourth If all had refused to make any â—se of the Indulgence upon the grounds of this â—uthor and the Author of the Epistle prefixed 〈◊〉 this Book and of the Cup of cold Water In all â—ppearance this would have been the result of it â—hat the Magistrate being more provoked â—ould have raised more forces to have suppresâ—d Conventicles and this would have exposed â—ore to suffering and have heightned the troubles 〈◊〉 Nonconformists so that the execution of the penal Statutes would have been objectively extended and intensively encreased To his 5th in which he says That all the people of these Parishes where indulged Ministers are have been withheld or withdrawn from waiting upon the Lord at these blessed and wonderfully countenanced occasions whereby the followers of the Lord are broken divided and weakened and so become a more ready prey to the Adversary I answer It were to be wished That the blessing of these occasions had been really as great as it was called many who had no prejudice against but loved these occasions have found by sad experience that all was not Gold that glistered and so many people who for a time ran to these occasions have by their practises which are not sutable to the Gospel confirmed the sad truths which outed Ministers who heard of or observed their way preached to them and they have too much verified the fearful apprehensions that they had concerning them and the tendency of their way There were some observed That they did not find the people who withdrew from indulged Ministers any whit better either in their knowledge or in their Conversation by their withdrawing but several of them to decline in both and to become more vain and censorious and addicted to evil-speaking The people who did not withdraw from the Indulged Ministers are very unjustly charged with dividing If they who attended the Ordinances of the Lord dispenced by indulged Ministers were following the Lord in doing so then by their attendance they did not break off from the followers of the Lord. To his 6th I have answered in speaking to his 4th There is greater probability of sad consequences that would have followed upon an absolute refusal of making any use of the Indulgence than there is of these good consequences which he imagines would have followed upon the refusal of it His 7th is a meer begging of the question and so is his 8th For the indulged Minsters have not exposed other Ministers who are not indulged to any cruelties or barbarities I perceive by his way of reasoning if the Council had a little after the Act of Glasgow retracted that Act and have given all these Ministers liberty to return to their several Parishes if they had excepted but one or two this Author could not have allowed of their return for he would have interpreted this to be an exposing of those who were excepted to the fury of Adversaries and would have condemned them as guilty of all the cruelties which the excepted persons might meet with By the same reason prisoners imprisoned for the truth might not accept of freedom from prison except they were all released at once by this means one wilful man who would refuse to accept of liberty from prison upon very honest and just terms might keep a hundred or thousand who had freedom to accept of release upon such honest and just terms I say this one might keep them all in prâ—son by this Argument That their leaving of him would expose him to more severity His 12th and last head of Arguments against the accepting of the Indulgence as taken from the real ground of offence which he alledges was in the accepting of the Indulgence and the scandal that was thereby given to one and other And this he saith is valid enough alone to militate against it and sufficient to condemn it unto all who understand the nature of scandal and the dreadfulness of the sin of giving scandal by any thing we do whether as to matter or manner and who remember what Christ and his Apostles have said of this Ans The all who understand the nature of scandal are not so many as it seems the Author hath imagined the greatest Divines who have searched most into the nature of Scandal have found it very intricate and obscure Mr. Rutherford in his dispute touching Scandal and Christian liberty subjoyned to his Divine right of Church-government pag. 81. saith That the Doctrine of Scandal is more intricate and obscure than every Divine conceives If folk would forbear to condemn the practises of others as scandalous until they understood the nature of Scandal there would be much less Scandal in the World than there is there are many who give Scandal by calling these things scandalous which are not scandalous It 's a grievous sin though many be not aware of it to add to the word of God in making more sins and scandalous sins than they can prove to be sins or scandalous sins from the perfect rule of the word of God Mr. Rutherford shews in the forecited dispute That many alledged That there was Scandal given by telling of Bells and Ministers preaching in a Gown and naming the days of the week from the Planets as Sunday from the Sun and Monday from the Moon c. and in worshipping in Churches which had been built in the times of Popery to the honour of some Saint But he shews that these were not Scandals given but taken for saith he pag. 53. we read not of Scandals culpable in Gods word but there be some apparent moral reasons in them it 's not enough to alledg that this or that is Scandalous but we must if we would prove any thing scandalous shew that there is a moral reason and an apparent moral reason in such things which renders them scandalous The Lords people would be deprived of the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free and brought under an intolerable yoke 〈◊〉 bondage if they were obliged to abstain from every thing which either the malicious or the weak would alledg without reason to be scandalous There is no way saith the Author to evite the force of this Argument but by affirming and proving the Action at which the offence is taken or may be taken is not only lawful in it self but as circumstantial is expedient and necessary to be done Ans The Aurhor should if he would have said any thing to the purpose have proven or at least endeavoured to have proven that the acceptance of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority or which is all one the acceptance of the Relaxation of that Civil restraint which had so long restrained the publick exercise of the Ministry That this acceptance did give offence or was of it self an occasion of stumbling or ruine
or that it was inductive to sin He should have proven that this deed was such a deed quod de sui ratione haberet quod esset inductivum ad peccandum But instead of doing this he tells us That when offence is taken or may be taken at an action they who do that action must prove it not only lawful in it self but that as circumstantial it 's expedient and necessary to be done and if they cannot prove the necessity of what they do then the Author concludes from the offence taken at the action that the action gives offence but he should have proven that abstinence from making use of the Indulgence or forbearance of the acceptance of it was necessary by shewing that acceptance gave offence or was inductive to ' em He is accusing the indulged Miâ—â—â—â—ers and affirming them to be guilty of giving offence by the acceptance of the Indulgence and should have proven his alledgance that there was something wrong something inordinately done in this acceptance of this relaxation And beside it 's hard enough to condemn all as guilty of active scandal who cannot prove that their actions are expedient and necessary for every one who doth what is really expedient and necessary hath not the faculty of proving every expedient and necessary action to be expedient and necessary if the thing be really expedient and necessary which is done there is no active Scandal given by it though the doer cannot formally prove the expediency and necessity of what is done for he may possibly be so weak as not to understand the importance of the words or termâ— of expediency and necessity nor to hit upon the proper grounds and midses which prove this expediency and necessity Suppose some did now take offence at the eating of Swines-flesh or blood though the person who eated blood could not prove the expediency or necessity of his eating Swines-flesh or blood yet the offence would be taken and not given and it were incumbent to the person that took offence to prove that the eating of Swines-flesh and blood were unlawful and forbidden or if any take offence at worshipping God in Kirks builded in the times of Popery for Paul or Peter or Cuthbert and alledg that is is not necessary to worship God in these Kirks because men may worship God in the open fields or in other houses which were not builded for any Saint though every man who worships God in these Kirks builded in the times of Popery to the honour of some Saint cannot prove the necessity of worshipping in this or that individual Kirk yet the offence is not given but taken as Mr. Rutherford shews in that dispute of Scandal formerly cited Quest 6. in the 61. and following pages and shews That it 's necessary for those who take offence at worshipping in such Kirks to prove by Scripture-warrant that it is necessary to disuse these Kirks It is certain saith he That the necessity of disusing the Creature in a Physical usage in the worship of God must have a warrant in the Scripture and so he shews That the offence that some take at Bells for convening the people to the worship of God is a meer passive Scandal And I suppose it cannot be denied that the protection of lawful Authority is more necessary for the conventions of the Lords People for his worship than these Houses or Bells The Author lays the stress of the Scandal which he alledges was given by accepting of the Indulgence upon this ground That this acceptance as circumstantial was not expedient and necessary and he supposes that it will be easily granted That the acceptance of the Indulgence was not a thing in its self necessary so as it could not be refused without manifest sin against the Lord. Ans It is ordinary I perceive with this Author in this History to take for granted that which he should prove as for that which he adds That if there be not a manifest sin in refusing the Indulgence then the taking of offence at the acceptance of it will prove that there was offence given in the acceptance will not be so easily granted as he supposes For suppose that one could not make it manifest and evident that there were sin against the Lord in demolishing or disusing St. Giles or St. Cuthberts Kirk or in breaking or disusing the Bells which had been abused in the time of Popery it were very hard to condemn that man who together with the rest of the Lords people convened for the worship of God at St. Giles's Kirk upon the ringing of Bells which had been abused in the times of Popery I say it were hard to condemn him of the sin of giving Scandal in his going to these Kirks upon the ringing of these Bells As for the expediency and necessity of making use of the relaxation of the rigour of the penal statutes as before explained or which is all one accepting of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority the indulged Ministers have much to say for the expediency and necessity of this acceptance and for their not refusing this relaxation and protection when offered 1. Some things are necessary by Divine Ordination as Magistracy Whosoever resists the power saith the Apostle resists the Ordinance of God and the Powers that be are ordained of God Rom. 13.1 2. c. And as Magistracy so Ministry is the Ordinance of God 1. Cor. 12.28 And God hath set some in the Church first Apostles c. 2. Some things are necessary by Divine Precept as for example the exercise of the power of the Magistrate is not only necessary by virtue of Gods instituting and ordaining Magistracy but also by the command of God which obliges Magistrates to punish vice to execute wrath upon them who do evil to promove encourage and praise that which is good to protect their Subjects in well-doing and to preserve peace And so Ministers are under a necessity of preaching the Gospel by the command of God 3. Some things are necessary because God hath made them useful and convenient for man and hath given them to man for his use they are in their nature convenient for man given and designed of God for the good of man thus meat and cloathing and houses peace and the protection of lawful Authority are necessary 4. Some things are necessary means in order to a necessary end and these again are necessary either simply for attaining the end or necessary for the better or more easie and convenient attaining of the end as a house is necessary not simply for hearing of the word but for the more convenient hearing of the word because it shelters the Minister and people from storms winds and scorching heat c. Thus the protection of lawful Authority is necessary for the peaceable hearing of the word without disturbance 5. Some things are necessary for preventing of evil the evil either of sin or of affliction and calamity
6. Some things become necessary or the more necessary to be done because of those who urge the forbearance of them out of some erroneous principle or for establishing of some error And thus Mr. Rutherford sheweth in the forecited Treatise That to forbear the cating of Swines-flesh before a Jew who alledges that it is a sin or breach of the Commandment of God to do so to forbear it now when we are fully possessed in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free were to harden the Jew in his Judaism and the way to bring us again under the yoke of the Ceremonial Law Now 1. seeing God hath ordained Magistracy for protection of his servants and people and for protecting them in the exercise of his worship it was expedient and necessary to accept of this Protection when offered and not to refuse it for the acceptance of the effect and product of the exercise of that Authority which is Gods Ordinance was an acknowledgment and owning the Ordinance of God a honouring of those to whom by Divine appointment honour is due And this was a contributing to render the Ordinance of God effectual for that end for which he had instituted and ordained it and upon the contrary the refusing of this relaxation and of the protection of lawful Authority would have been a slighting and despising of the Ordinance of God and a doing of that which tended to render the Ordinance of God ineffectual for that end and use for which God ordained it Now the relaxation of this restraint which had been long upon the publick exercise of their Ministry and the protection of lawful Authority which Mr. H. accepted of was the very exercise of that Authority which is the Ordinance of God 2. Seeing the Magistrate in loosing that restraint which hindred the peaceable exercise of the Ministry did his duty he did somewhat of that which he was obliged to do it was necessary that the Ministers whom they were willing to loose from the restraint formerly laid on and whom they were willing to protect in the exexcise of their Ministry should in their place and station further and promove the Magistrate in any good which he was willing to do as when a Minister is willing to do his duty in preaching and Catechising the people should be willing to hear and be Catechised so when a Magistrate is willing to permit or allow Ministers to preach in his Dominions and to protect them in the exercise of their Ministry it 's the duty of Ministers who have the access to the peaceable exercise of their Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority to accept of the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and to refuse this offer were the way to mar and stifle the good which the Magistrate was willing to do Now when the Magistrate is willing to do any thing which is right and his duty it 's a sin to mar impede and stifle any good that he is willing to do 3. Seeing peace and the protection of lawful Authority and the peaceable exercise of the Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority are great blessings of God and God promises and gives them to his people as great benefits and his people are obliged to pray for them Isa 48.18 Isa 60.15 16 17 18. Isa 11.6 7 8 9. 1 Tim. 2.1 2. Therefore it 's necessary to accept these mercies and benefits when the Lord in his Providence offers and gives them and to refuse them when they are offered were to slight the mercies of God and to refuse what we are bound to seek and to be thankful for when we get it 4. Seeing the fixed setled and peaceable exercise of the Ministry is so necessary as appears from the Lords taking care that Ministers might be setled in Cities and Churches and from the many conveniencies of a setled Ministry which are wanting in an unfixed Ministry for they who may not stay among a people cannot so know their state and case and so cannot apply their Doctrine sutable to their case and cannot make full proof of their Ministry among them in laying the foundation in all the principles of the doctrine of God and then leading the people forward unto greater perfection in knowledge in declaring the whole Counsel of God and they have not access to Catechise and visit c. as those who have the setled and fixed exercise of their Ministry have and then peace and quietness in preaching and hearing the Gospel hath many conveniences people not only know whither they shall go to hear but they may come seasonably without hazard by the way and without fear of disturbance when they are come so that they may more compose themselves for hearing than they can who are in a continual apprehension of a hostile Invasion and often alarmed with hearing or seeing some noise or appearance of armed soldiers These fears and confusions are great Impediments of the sanctification of the Sabbath Now the setled and peaceable exercise of the Ministry which is so many ways expedient and necessary cannot be had but by the Magistrate and therefore to have refused to make any use of the Indulgence had been to refuse the setled and peaceable exercise of the Ministry 5. This acceptance was useful for preventing many evils of sin and calamity The indulged Ministers could not see how they could without sin refuse to make any use of the Indulgence and they conceived their refusal to take the benefit of the peaceable exercise of their Ministry would have given occasion of offence and provocation to the Magistrate and to the destitute Congregations who desired their help the desire of a people who are wandring as sheep without a Shepherd had a cry that they could not see how they could slight without sin The acceptance prevented the filling of the Kirk with a Conformist whom the people would not have heard and freed those Parishes of the quarterings plunderings imprisonments which they were formerly obnoxious unto it prevented their uncertain wandrings on the Sabbath their disquieting and confounding fears their running and fleeing on the Sabbath which is such a calamity that our Saviour directs the Jews to pray that their flight might not be in the winter neither on the Sabbath-day Matth. 24. and prevented rendevousing and fighting and mingling blood with Sacrifices on the Lords day The many disorders and confusions and sad sufferings the imprisonments and finings and banishments and the great effusion of the blood of the people of God which have followed upon the hostile clashings betwixt Magistrates and people may teach us how necessary the peaceable exercise of the Ministry under lawful Authority is and how necessary it is to take and seek and follow after peace with all men especially with the Magistrate The Indulged Ministers cannot nor could not see how a refusing to have any making or medling with the Magistrate which these Authors urge could consist with the respect due to Authority or with
Indulgence we are all agreed in the preceding exceptions against it and if there had been access for presenting the same to our Rulers our Unanimity and Concord in these had been more discovered and made known to the World than it is there is no change with us about our known and professed Judgment about the Government of the Church in its true distinction from and in dependance on the Magistrate as is afterward expressed whatever was our perswasion of this represented to the World in our publick Confession of Faith we yet through the Grace of God resolve to cleave to having never seen or heard of any thing in all the times that have gone over our heads to cause us to alter our apprehensions of this matter in the least Some who take hold of all occasions to reproach us are pleased to represent some their acceptance of this Indulgence as contradictory to and inconsistent with our former professed Principles anent Church-Government yet any who consider what was shortly hinted 〈◊〉 to the Council at the receiving of this Indulgence and what was more largely declared by them to the Congregations at their first entry will be sufficiently â—onvinced of our constant adherence to our former Principles which by his acceptance is not at all changâ—d It is expected from the Lovers of our righteous â—ause that nothing shall be done by them toward â—he furtherance of the evil intents of this Indulgence but rather an endeavour to contract and ineffectuate them that our opposites may have no benefit therefrom to the prejudice of the Ministers of Christ for which we contend Thus far that Reverend Author of the Apology where we see that the Indulged and Non-indulged are still united in Judgment about the Government of the Church and in disapproving the ills which are in the complex Acts of the Indulgence and that this Author is not pleased with those who are pleased to represent this acceptance as contradictory to and inconsistent with our former professed Principles and acknowledges that what these indulged Ministers spoke before the Council and at their entry to these Congregations is sufficient to convince their adherence to their former Principles And he shews that the difference is only in practice and this difference would have been less if some few who were against ill making use of the indulgence had not obstructed a written Testimony against the ills in the complex of the Indulgence for if that had been agreed on more would have had clearness to have made use of the Indulgence and then this difference of practice would have been less if the case of others had been the same with the case of these who accepted but this made a notable disparity in the case that several who refused to make use of the Indulgence refused upon this account because they were confined and permitted to preach in Parishes which were already provided with Ministers so that they thought their preaching there was superfluous and they might do more good elsewhere As to the Authors Sect. 3. we have shewed before That this acceptance was no Homologation of any sinful Supremacy and they who look on it so the fault is in their own eye the impertinency of the Scripture cited we cleared before out of Mr. Rutherfords dispute of Scandal As for his 4th pag. 114. we shewed before That the Indulged Ministers did not contrary to their engagements leave their Brethren The Ministers who went to Holland would think they were injured if any should alledge That they had left their Brethren because they took the benefits of the peaceable exercise of their Ministry under the protection of the Magistrates in Holland As for his 5th it 's false That the hands of those who were not indulged were weakened the number of the bearers of burthens waxing smaller for the indulged did still continue to be bearers of burdens and the favour shewed to them encouraged other Ministers to adventure to preach more and more publickly than they had done before and there was this further advantage That many people heard the indulged Ministers who would not have ventured to â—ear other Ministers preach so that the Indulgence was to the furtherance of the Gospel The â—ndulged Ministers did not step off but stepped â—o their work in the Congregations to which they â—ent and it was no preposterous tenderness to forbear preaching in those places which were provided with Preachers where there was so many places where no Presbyterian Ministers were setled To his 6th I have answered before That the practice of the Indulged Ministers did not confirm the Prelates c. in any defection To his 7th They gave no offence to Rulers but edified them they did and said what tended to their edification if they had as the Authors would refused to make or meddle with them at all they would have offended by provoking them to wrath in refusing what was good but they took what was good and by word and deed did shew That they disapproved of what was ill in the complex of the Indulgence As for the 8th If the practice of the indulged Ministers be rightly represented to posterity it will edifie and not stumble His 8th is founded upon that false foundation that the indulged Ministers have complied with grievous usurpations And his 9th upon that false ground That the indulged Ministers have submitted to the exercise of Erastianism It 's they who spread such false aspersions of honest men who give offence to Posterity and the reformed Churches abroad Let a true Narration of the practice of the indulged Ministers be given to the Reformed Churches abroad and the indulged Ministers doubt not of the approbation of those Churches and they doubt as little that all the reformed Churches if they heard the strange Tenets and divisive practices of their Authors they would condemn them as erroneous of dangerous consequence and some of them as striking at the very foundation of all order Civil and Ecclesiastical It 's sad That offences real offences do so abound and that so many stumble at these offences and that many make offences where there is none and stumble where there is no Stumbling-block and some stumble at the Lords Ordinances and some stumble at others because they hear the word and this Author furthered that stumbling by a Letter in which he asserted That there was sin wrapped up in hearing the indulged Ministers and thus poor people are taught to stumble at the means of others Edification Having answered his Arguments contained in his History I shall take some notice of some things which he hath in his Letters that nothing which hath any shadow of reason in this Authors writings may seem to be neglected In one of these Letters he says Who I pray amongst these Indulged men as I say as such for otherways I honour such as are known to me and shall entertain charitable thoughs of others can be called the Ambassadors of Christ who depend as to the
actual exercise of their ministerial Function â—n such immediately who never were intrusted â—ven as to kind with Church-power Ans It 's hard enough to reconcile this profession of Honour and Charity towards the indulged Ministers with some of his grievous reproaches which he hath cast upon them which have a direct and manifest tendency to render them base and contemptible and to cast them out of the hearts and affections of all who hear and believe them His Question which he brings in with such a Phrase Who I pray is a very idle Question I suppose he is the first man into whose head this idle imagination That the indulged as indulged are the Ambassadors of Christ did enter did he ever hear That any indulged or any for them thought or said That they were Ambassadors for Christ as indulged they were Ambassadors before they were indulged and would be Ambassadors although the Indulgence were retracted The Magistrates Indulgence supposed them Ambassadors and did not constitute them Ambassadors but it may be he intends to argue thus The indulged as indulged are not the Ambassadors of Christ and therefore they are not the Ambassadors of Christ this is a pitiful quibble like that An Ethiopian as he is black is not a man and therefore the black Ethiopian is not a man a Physitian as he hath the Magistrates Patent to practice Physick is not a Physitian and therefore the Physitian who hath the Magistrates Patent is not a Physitian A Minister as he is banished is not an Ambassador for Christ and therefore a banished Minister is not an Ambassador for Christ The antecedents are true because blackness doth not câ—nstitute the Ethiopian a man nor hath any essential or necessary connexion with his humanity â—or doth the Magistrates Patent institute a Physitian nor doth banishment constitute a Minister but the consequences are naught for the Propositions to be supplied are manifestly false as for example he who is not a man as he is black is not a man c. And beside the Syllogism is made up of Negatives and so is no Syllogism at all I shall subjoyn the words of a Minister not indulged who in a Letter directed to this Historian hath solidly refuted his Letters and in answer to this passage of his Letters saith We grant that indulged Ministers as indulged are not Ministers being taken reduplicatively by a specifick reduplication and so neither banished nor imprisoned Ministers are Ministers as banished or imprisoned for none will say That the Indulgence is the formality under which they are Ministers or the form constituent of their Ministry We think you wrong them and your Readers who would obtrude such an assertion As banished is not the constituent form of your Ministry neither is the Indulgence adjectum repugnans any more than banishment or imprisonment is that because he is indulged therefore hoc ipso he is no Minister neither is your assertion which ye bring as a proof of this any more true or warrantable viz. That they have all their power of preaching derived from the Magistrate for it is only a Civil Allowance freeing the exercise of their Ministry in the places to which they are restricted from molestation or restraint This Civil allowance takes away the execution of penal Laws which were against them this they have from the Magistrates here as you and some others have from the Magistrate where you are these years bygon for the exercise of your Ministry there but the Ministry it self and its exercise they have from Jesus Christ As when the Civil Magistrate convocates a Synod and gives a civil Tollerance and Protection to them in going coming and sitting which they could not have without his Command or Warrant though they have the intrinsick power of meeting sitting and voting from Christ and not from him howbeit the outward quiet and security of their sitting so as none may molest them is from him even so Ministers as they are indulged have the outward civil liberty of a quiet and secure preaching of the Gospel so that no inferiour Courts Officers or Soldiers may molest them for their preaching The simplex indulged Ministers implies two things 1. As Ministers they had before that Indulgence and still have a power from Christ to preach and administrate the Sacraments 2. As Indulged they have the quiet and safe exercise of that power c. The Historian in another of his Letters misrepresents the indulged as a fainting Party who have departed from their suffering Brethren and that they strengthen the hands of the Adversary and are for the peoples sinful compliance with this evil Ans I suppose I have touched upon some of these things before I shall only say These Ministers have laboured and have not fainted they have not shunned to declare the whole Counsel of God nor have they withholden what was convenient for the people they have given the people faithful warning to beware of those evils of the time which the people were in hazard and though they think it not their duty to turn the preaching of the Gospel of peace into bitter wrathful invectives against any especially absent persons which is a smooth preaching to those who are present who use not to be humbled but rather puffed up by such invectives against others and though they dare not bring railing Accusations against nor revile nor curse those who are in lawful Authority nor despise dignities nor say any thing which tends to put an evil Spirit betwixt Magistrates and people yet they have been far from flattering any Rulers or people in their sins but have endeavoured to bring persons of all ranks to Repentance as they have had access and occasion from the word to discover the evil and danger of sins of all sorts and they pray for Repentance to persons of all ranks as they think it not their duty to design to provoke any person to wrath so they study not to please any in their sin but think themselves obliged to endeavour to please all unto edification and to commend themselves though not to the humours yet to the Consciences of all in the sight of God They were not as was shewed before by Covenant bound to be always actually under the same sufferings that all who entered in Covenant did fall under the Lord distributes sufferings among his Servants and People as he sees meet Christ is at liberty when John Baptist was in Prison It had been a very reasonless reasoning Christ is not to be heard because he is not in prison as John is the rest of the Apostles are not to be heard because they are free when James and Peter are in Prison the Angel and Church of Philadelphia are to be disowned because they are not under the trial that other Churches are under Again there are divers kinds of suffering the indulged Ministers have had their share of reproaches which uses to go further than the skin Reproach saith David hath broken my heart reviling
Speeches are Persecutions Matth. 5.11 Jer. 18.18 they incite one another to devise devices against Jeremiah and to smite him with the Tongue I remember not of any thing in the Letters which I have missed except his Predictions for the Historian is a sort of a Prophet he hath a faculty of foretelling things to come I know not how he hath fallen upon it or whether it be be ill come or not he very confidently affirmed in the year 1677. That if Mr. John Welsh had hearkened to the desire of drawing near to the shelter of an house for meeting with the people but for one Sabbath though that might have contributed for taking off all Sentences against himself and others and to an Universal Liberty for all outed Ministers to preach without Molestation that then he would have forefaulted all the protection and countenance he had singularly enjoyed before that time This was far said No sober judicious Person will think that it could be unlawful in such Circumstances at least to preach at a house but though there had been somewhat wrong in it how comes he to know that for that failing Mr. Welsh would have lost the Protection and Countenance which he had formerly enjoyed it was presumptuous boldness for him to take upon him to determine so peremptorily concerning the forefaulting of the Protection and Countenance of God who hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and does for his names sake even when his peoples sins testifie against them and remembers his Covenant and Mercy for his People Another of his Predictions is That all indifferent Spectators will judge as he says and that Posterity will see and say as he says whether the indulged men will or not But I think they are over-credulous who will believe that he had the foreknowledge what way the Judgments of men present and of the Generations to come would incline and determine There is yet a third Prediction of another Author which is That the Indulgence should become as odious and detestable to all the godly in the Land as ever Prelacy was To this Prophecy the Author of the History and Letters makes an Addition while he says in one of his Letters That what that person was perswaded of will quickly appear the first had only said it would be but he says it will quickly appear augur augurem but these Prophets were so fearfully mistaken in seeing things that were that there is very good reason to doubt of their foresight of things to come yet there is more Art in this inartificial Argument founded upon the Authority of a man who hath but confidence to say boldly what he says concerning things to come than in many artificial Arguments and these Predictions will go further with weak credulous people than very solid reasons for people of that sort especially if they be curious think more of a man who will take upon him to tell but some things that will be though the event be of small consequence than they will think of a solid judicious man who can tell them from the word of God what they should do that they may glorifie and enjoy God and therefore there is such flocking of people to Fortune-tellers Speamen Dummeos Wizzards and Southsayers Now if curious people have such a conceit of those who foretel though they be suspected to have their Knowledge from the Devil they will think much more of men who are in reputation for Religion if they take on them to foretel things to come they will readily be very desirous that such Predictions may not fail I know one who pressed some of his acquaintaince to get weapons for fighting in such a year upon this ground That if there were not Blood that year then such a person who had foretold that there would be Blood would prove a false Prophet These Predictions are very taking when they suit with peoples Inclinations and when the fulfilling of these Predictions contribute to their honour and when they who are not active in fulfilling them are casten as ungodly and despicable and therefore these Predictions of Ministers which did foretel That the Indulgence would become despicable could not but be very taking with people who were inclined to despise it and this could not but be very effectual to press them to despise it that if they did it not then they would be known to be none of the godly and this would press others to despise it that they might not be ranked among the ungodly I have observed that several have an Art of bringing about several things by foretelling them some make people offend at these things which they would never have offended at by foretelling that the people will be offended So Satan hath brought about many mischiefs by foretelling them and the Actors of them this was a very effectual trick to render the Indulgence despicable to foretel that it would become odious and detestable to all the godly for they who believe these Predictions would reason them If we do not detest and hate the Indulgence we cannot list our selves among the godly and then if the Indulged Ministers did not relinquish the Indulgence and hate it that they could not be reckoned among the godly and if they did not make haste to hate it and detest it very shortly that then they could not be accounted godly because this Prediction was to be quickly accomplished It was no great matter to foretell that the Indulgence and indulged Ministers would become odious when there was so many Letters and Copies of printed Books full of odious reproaches cast at the Indulgence and Indulged Ministers when such causes were working and such Fire-balls cast and the people were so prepared to take fire it was an easie thing without any Spirit of Prophesie to foretel a Fire when such trains were laid and kindled Again when a poor Church is going to ruin the ordinary Forerunner of that ruin is the contempt of the Ministers 2 Chron. last They mocked the Messengers of God and despised his words and misused his Prophets until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people till there was no remedy O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou who killest the Prophets read Matth. 23. ver 34. to the end so that if these two Ministers had spoken a little more indefinitely they might have passed for pretty good Guessors if they had said only that the Indulgence would be detestable to the godly but taking on them to foretel that it would be detestable to all the godly and that quickly hath quite broken their credit as Prophets for there are many of the godly who have always been far from detesting the Indulgence and they are much further from detesting it now than before And the Authors of these Predictions have by these Predictions and some other Practices of that nature much wronged their own Reputation This is ordinary when a Church is going to ruin the Despisers of the Lords Servants go before this contempt uses
Ministers had as hath been shewed before then it will follow that where ever the Magistrate permits allows appoints Ministers to Preach that there there are no Ministers called by Christ or set over People by the Holy Ghost and of what pernicious consequence this is and how destructive to the Ministry of the Gospel in all places of the World where the Magistrate allows of it any may see with half an eye Again may not the People of these Congregations reason thus if these Ministers who either were Ordained our Ministers by the Presbytery or those whom we in our destitute condition did invite to come and help us and who came with the advice and consent of the generality of the Ministers which was all could be expected in such a broken time for setting them among us and applying their Ministry to us for a time If these be not our Ministers then certainly there are none whom we can call our Ministers Is not this the way to shake these People loose of all relation to any Ministers as their Ministers or as sent by Christ to them If the Historian will not deny that the Ministers not Indulged are called of Christ to Preach to the People who are not of the Congregations where they were formerly Ministers why should he deny this to the Indulged Ministers who have much more to make up a Relation betwixt them and these People than they have to make up a Relation betwixt them and other Ministers whom it may be they never heard nor saw before and are not sure whether they be Ministers or not Such wild fancies as this Author and others have suggested to the People have brought some to that that they have respect to no Ministers and others care for none except one or two of whom others who are more discerning are much ashamed As for that Reason that Indulged Ministers Preach according to mans Order and the not Indulged Preach not upon the Warrant and Order of the Council but contrary thereunto If it be truly proposed it must run thus The Indulged have a Civil Order or Warrant for the peacable exercise of their Ministry and so their Preaching in these Parishes to which they are Indulged is not contrary to the Magistrates will seeing the Magistrate allows them to Preach in these places and therefore People are to withdraw from hearing them that they may countenance these Ministers who have no such Civil Warrant for the peaceable exercise of their Ministry but Preaches contrary to the Magistrates will Now what Reason is in this that the Indulged Ministers should be discountenanced and deserted because the Magistrate allows them the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and that these Ministers should onely be heard who Preach contrary to the Magistrates will The Indulged were as far from receiving their Ministry or Instructions to Regulate them in the exercise of their Ministry as the not Indulged were This was the difference that the Magistrate did countenance or allow the Preaching of the Indulged and discountenance and disallow the Preaching of the Non-indulged and should the Indulged be discountenanced because the Magistrate did permit and allow their Preaching This bewrays a great disrespect to the Magistrate Why would not the Author try this in Holland and with some of his Proselytes have taken the Fields and called away the People from the Ministers who were countenanced by the Magistrate to hear them who Preached without and contrary to the Magistrates Order The People might have countenanced the Non-indulged and yet not deserted the Indulged for there were many other places besides Indulged Parishes who desired the help of outed Ministers and the countenance of the People who deserted Indulged Ministers did not continue towards the Non-indulged who would not humour them in all things and hold up their yeas and nays and as soon as any of these outed Ministers began to signifie their inclination to have the peaceable exercise of their Ministry under the Protection of Lawful Authority these People who measured Ministers faithfulness by their Preaching contrary to the Magistrates will did cast at them as Apostates This I suppose is a new Test for trying what Ministers are called of Christ which hath not been before this heard in the Reformed Churches viz. They whom the Magistrate allows to Preach they are not called of Christ and are to be withdrawn from they who Preach contrary to the Magistrates will they are called of Christ and to be countenanced But it is a detestable test for it would cast all the Ministers of the Gospel through the World who have the countenance and protection of Lawful Authority But though this Test had neither Foundation in Scripture nor Reason being contrary to both yet it was pretty well calculate for the new Common-wealth which was to be raised upon the Ruines of the present Magistrates As for that Reason that there are not such exceptions against the Non-indulged as against the Indulged I have shewed before that the exceptions against the Indulged are calumnies and if Ministers shall be cast and deserted upon calumnies it 's an easie thing to depose them all It hath been observed that the best Ministers have been most calumniate and they whom the Lord put in greatest capacity to do him Service the Devil and his Instruments did cast most filthy calumnies at such how many calumnies were cast upon our Lord Jesus the chief Shepherd when he was Minister of the Circumcision Many exceptions were made against Paul the chosen vessel of Christ Athanasius was horribly calumniate by the Arrians As for what he says of the wonderful success of the Non-indulged and rich Blessing attending their Ministry it hath been observed by many who were not Indulged that the Lord blessed the Ministry of these not Indulged Ministers who made it their business to Preach the Gospel and to teach the things which made for Peace and Edification but as for those few who made it their business to divide the People and draw them away from the Indulged Ministers that they left the People worse than they found them For the People who listned to them became more careless or learning the grounds of Religion and had little heart to any thing but these jangling Debates which did not tend to Edification but Division and Confusion and that they become more vain and self-conceited and censorious and some of them become great and manifest lyars and calumniators and of a bitter invective disposition And if tryal be made in these Parishes where the Indulged Ministers are it will be found that these deserters of the Ministry of the Indulged Ministers are far inferiour in knowledge love diligence to others who have constantly countenanced the Ministry of Indulged Ministers But this Reason of deserting the Indulged Ministers is also of most dangerous consequence and would break the best constituted Church of the World if it were reduced to practice and therefore the general Assembly of the Church of Scotland
kindly to it and it takes well with them and they with it And Error is like a fretting gangreen the longer it continues it rots and spreads the more And it 's observed that when People drinks in erroneous Doctrines upon the bare word of these who teach Division and their heart and affection takes with Error though they have neither shadow of Scripture or Reason for it that they are hardly recovered from these delusions for People who are misled by some wrested Scripture or captious Reasoning they may be more easily recovered by shewing the true meaning of the wrested and mis-applyed Scripture and the captiousness of the false Reasoning But when People will err and love to wander and will stumble though they wot not at what and are so affectionately addicted to their erroneous Opinions that they will hear nothing that makes against them there is little probability of Cure for as they received them without Reason because they would receive them so they retain them against Reason and cannot endure to have these beloved tenets brought under examination and tryal and therefore they readily flee out in Passion upon any who would inform them as mens Lusts are their Idols so are their Errors when they are once settled in their hearts Augustine said that his error was his God Error meus erat Deus meus Now if this Historian who was a man of letters be so confounded and confused in stating this Question and is involved in gross contradictions what wonder if the poor people who are not fit for Debates be whirled round by such whirl-winds and contrary winds into a confused giddiness that they wot not what they say or affirm and know not what to do and be like Children that have so long run about that they fall down as unable to stand or move any more So they are so confounded with these perplexed Questions about hearing which cannot be propounded and far less resolved without manifest Absurdities and Contradictions that many of them are fallen over in a careless laziness and indifferency about all hearing of the Word and spends the Lords day in sleeping loytering and idle wandring The Historian doth but waste time and paper when he says that in our best times People were not so tyed to the hearing of their Ministers as that they might never or in no case hear others for that is not the Question But this is the true state of the Question Whether People who have these Ministers to hear who were formerly Ordained by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery to be their Pastors and those who have these Ministers to hear whom they invited to come and help them when they were destitute and had none to Preach to them If these People who have consented to receive the Lords Ordinances from these Ministers and have waited on their Ministry and joyned with them in the Lords Worship if they ought to break off that Church-fellowship and though they acknowledge these Ministers to be Ministers of the Gospel and though these Ministers Preach the Gospel and dispense the Lords Ordinances according to the Lords Institution yet if they ought to withdraw constantly from hearing them and that because it 's unlawful to hear them and there is sin wrapt up in hearing them and that they are called of God to withdraw that in doing so they may bear witness against the sinful Usurpations manifest in the Indulgence and the many evils in accepting it or more shortly If it be sin for these People to hear these Ministers and if it be their Duty to desert them and separate themselves from these Congregations where they exercise their Ministry This Historian seemeth to be for the Affirmative and so confident that these People do right in withdrawing that he says One might think it strange that there should be any necessity to vindicate them considering what he hath said above I am one of these who have considered what he hath said above and I thought it very strange how he could vent such gross and manifestly false Calumnies against faithful Ministers and how he could wrest and pervert their true right honest words contrary to common sense and equity that he might wring out of them that which never entred in the thoughts or heart of these Ministers And again I think it strange that by these false and groundless Calumnies which he hath cast upon these honest Ministers he should labour to rent the Church of God by Schism by breaking these who will listen to him off from communicating with the true Church in the true Worship of God and by pressing them to disown and desert these Ministers whom they formerly owned and countenanced and whom they are still obliged to own and have no just cause to desert except his false Calumnies be accounted just causes Having observed the confusion and contradictions in which the Historian hath involved himself in stating the Question it remains to consider what he says for the vindication of these who scruple to hear and own the Indulged Ministers But seeing he says nothing but what he hath said before and is formerly refuted I hope the Reader will not expect that I should play the goke in repeating again his Cuckows and refuting them although I followed him before in his extravagant wandrings when he without and contrary to all sense and reason imagined that this or that or the other thing was the meaning of the Indulged Ministers words yet I cannot have any pretext for making meer repetitions in his wandrings there was variety of vain imaginations which made the refutation of them less tedious but to repeat the same things to no purpose but to waste time and paper would be intolerably tedious and nauseating I shall onely by answering his first Question shew the way of answering the rest 1. Seeing by what is said under our first head of Arguments c. Answ Seeing by what is said in answer to your first head of Arguments it is manifest that the Indulged in and by their accepting of the Indulgence have not wronged our Lord Jesus Christ who is the onely Head of the Church and King in Zion in any of these nine several particulars which are nine several Calumnies the ordinary Arguments which he makes use of against the Indulged Ministers for he could find no true Arguments to his purpose against them How can they but be blamed who out of a sinful credulity make up or take up such vile Reproaches against faithful Ministers and then out of these Calumnies create to themselves scruples which scare them from hearing these whom the Lord hath sent to Preach the Gospel to them And so through the rest of his Questions where he refers to his heads of Arguments I refer to the Answers which cuts off both heads and tails of these captions As for the Arguments taken out of the late Apology which contrary to the intention of the Apologist he abuses for he perverts the words
he refers to the judgment of the Reader pag. 159. I apprehend the Historian durst not for his Conscience conclude that it was sinful to hear or that it was a Duty to withdraw from hearing the Indulged Ministers he knew and his Conscience put him to declare that the acceptance of the Indulgence and the Councils Order as he calls it settling the Indulged Ministers did not make it sinful to hear these Ministers for he confesses that notwithstanding of the settling of these Ministers by the Councils Order yet if there were no other to be heard they not onely might be Lawfully heard and joyned with but they should and ought to be heard See the stating of the Question in his 28 Questions But though he durst not positively conclude the sinfulness of hearing the Indulged Ministers yet the poor People thinks that he hath done it and they are run so far from hearing the Indulged Ministers that they are without his cry to bring them back though there were no other to hear And too many by these questions about hearing are become careless of all hearing and some place their Religion in no hearing It had been good for many they had never intermedled with these questions about hearing for they are by the wind of Erroneous and Schismatical Doctrines driven from the Publick Worship of God And they take the profanation of the Sabbath in despising the Publick Ordinances to be a piece of tenderness and Religion and if the Lord prevent it not they are like to turn Quakers Pagans Atheists and to shake off the very form of Religion both in publick private and secret The Lord in mercy pity and prevent the ruine that the poor People are blindly running upon Page 159. He proposes Objections to be answered The first Objection should have been proposed thus Ministers of the Gospel who are Ordained and admitted Ministers of their respective Congregations and Ministers who not having access to these Congregations where they were Ordained Ministers are invited by desolate vacant Congregations to Preach the Gospel to them and who upon their invitation and consent of the Ministers concerned come to help these destitute desolate Congregations should not be disowned discountenanced deserted while they are doing the Work of the Ministry to which God hath called them by these People who invited them to Preach the Gospel to them But the Indulged Ministers were either Ordained c. oâ— invited and come with consent of the Ministers concerned c. And therefore they should not be deserted while they are doing the Work of the Lord to which these respective Congregations invited them If he had thus proposed the Argument he could not have evaded the force of it but it is his way to make Objections so as he may leave some way for himself to escape The true state of the Question is Whether these respective Congregations should disown and reject these Ministers of the Gospel whom they had invited and with consent of the Ministers concerned had received and appropriate to themselves to whom they had submitted and whom they had countenanced in the exercise of their Ministry Now why should they reject them as if they had nothing to do with them whom they received Why should they disown them whom they owned and whom they desired to own them Why should they withdraw from hearing these whom they invited to Preach to them Should they leave them because they Preach the Gospel to them While this Author calls in question if the Indulged Ministers be Lawfully called and appropriate Pastours of this Church he calls in question if this Church have any Pastours for they were Ordained by laying on of the hands of the Presbytery according to the Order of the Gospel and if this make them not Pastours of this Church I would know who are Pastours of it As for his second Objection taken from Mr. Livingston's Advice to hear Mr. John Scot an Indulged Minister he had better forborn to mention it than to have past it with such Answers as he gives Mr. Livingston whom he acknowledges an eminent Seer and Servant of Christ advised to hear the Indulged This Historian advises to withdraw from hearing the Indulged And it 's no disparagement to the Historian to say that Mr. Livingston's Advice was preferable to this Historians Advice who for Learning Piety Prudence Experience and Age was far inferiour to Mr. Livingston The onely thing which Mr. Livingston missed so far as I remember was a Testimony and if he had been well informed of the Testimonies which the Indulged Brethren gave upon several occasions and particularly before the Council and of the consonancy of their Practice to their verbal Testimony and their former Principles he would have been much confirmed in advising to hear Indulged Ministers The Historian says that he does not certainly know whether this Advice of Mr. Livingston proceeded from want of full information of Circumstances or from Ignorance of the Magistrates design or from fear that Field-meetings would cease but he inclines to the last because Mr. Livingston speaks not of his Peoples going to the Field-meetings Answ We have seen that any Light which this Historian hath gotten from Circumstances is darkness And I am very confident if Mr. Livingston had lived to see what Erroneous and Schismatick inferences this Historian hath made from the information which he hath gotten of many Circumstances and had seen the horrid Divisions and Confusions following upon these Erroneous dividing Doctrines he would either have judged that that Circumstantial Light was darkness or if it was light that this Historian did draw darkness out of light But I know no Circumstance of any importance which could make any thing against the Indulgence which was unknown to Mr. Livingston Mr. Livingston was a wiser man than to take his measures of judging of the Lawfulness or Unlawfulness of hearing Indulged Ministers from the Magistrates designs and intendments Though Ministers and People were clear that the Magistrate had an ill design in permitting or allowing Ministers to Preach the Gospel and People to hear or in permitting Masters of Families to pray in their Families or in permitting Physicians to cure Diseased People yet no rational man who is not blinded with Humour or some prejudice will conclude from the Magistrates ill design which is his Act and no way approved but disapproved by these Ministers Masters of Families Physitians that it 's unlawful for them to Preach Pray or Cure Diseased Persons Mr. Livingston's fears that Field-meetings would cease it seems have been better founded than the Historians confidence that they would continue And though it cannot be supposed that Mr. Livingston was an Enemy to Field-meetings yet none who knew him will think that he was so fond of the Fields that he would have preferred the Fields to a Kirk if the Kirk could have contained all who were to hear him And seeing he speaks nothing of Field-meetings it seems he had not learned that
new Doctrine of the Historian that fatning Feasts and the wonderful continuance and Blessing of God was onely to be found in Fieldings and that People from whom God justly with-holds the Blessing in the Kirk because of sin may find it in the Fields notwithstanding of their provocations for if he had been of that Opinion he would not have failed to exhort his People to go to the Fields And although he had heard that the Lord did countenance the Preaching of the Gospel in the Fields he would not have Advised his People to run at random to hear any body who Preached in the Fields No no Mr. Livingston was more Advised and sicker in his Advices than so for wise men like Mr. Livingston use to fore-see evils and prevent them while the simple pass on and are punished For Mr. Livingston could not but fear that if his People did run to hear any who Preached in the Fields though they knew not who the Preacher was and whence he came that they might readily find instead of Ministers a cheating Cobler or a Tanner instead of a solid judicious Minister some ignorant rash young man who instead of the sincere Milk of the Word would give the People the windy froth of his own Conceits and instead of the wholsome words of Christ would give them his own ill Humours and Reproaches of honest Ministers and his own doltings about Questions and doubtful Disputations which would divert the People from the main thing and fill their Heads with confounding notions and their Mouths with vain janglings and so alienate their minds and hearts from these things which make for Peace and Edification Or that they might perhaps find instead of a Protestant Presbyterian Minister a Popish Priest or Frier and so instead of Food find Poyson and instead of a Blessing find a Curse Mr. Livingston knew the tricks of Jesuits better than the Historian and therefore would have rather Advised them still to hear Mr. John Scot who he knew was a Godly Orthodox Minister than have exposed his People to run such risks he knew the saying Qui amat pericula peribit in illis He who loveth hazards shall perish in them To the third Objection That the People heard the Indulged Ministers and were Edified by their Ministry till some inconsiderate Persons took it in their Head to cry out against the unlawfulness of hearing the Indulged as if that had been the onely thing necessary for which many even of the Non-indulged are offended with them The Historian Answers That the Curats might alledge that as well as the Indulged Answ He is a little out of that story as well as in many other Any who knows the truth knows how great a disparity there was in the cases so that his as well had been as well and better out than in for it makes his Allegeance false He says he is not fit to judge if these Persons be inconsiderate but he wishes that they who call them so would remember that Judge not lest ye be judged c. Answ He was very unfit by Reason of his distance and mis-information of many other things which yet he hath very peremptorily judged I wish he had sooner considered his unfitness to judge of others and had ere he began to write this History remembred that Judge not lest ye be judged it might have prevented his writing this Book which is mainly founded upon rash and false judgings and reproaches The inconsiderateness of these Persons he speaks of was so evident and so sensibly felt in the effects of it that they who had any consideration or common sense could not but see it And the second thoughts and third thoughts of these who were displeased with their way makes no change upon these Brethren but confirms them the more He found not himself fit to judge whether they were inconsiderate or not yet he finds himself fit to judge them worthy of praise But if he was not in a capacity to judge them considerate he could be in no good capacity to judge them worthy of praise For if they were inconsiderate Persons they were not to be praised and till he had evidence that they were considerate he might have spared his praises and his Blessing of God in their behalf till he had been better informed As for his hopes that the fruits of their labour proclaim their insisting upon the one thing necessary I see not what ground he had for this hope for the ordinary fruits of their labour was the kindling of the fire of Contention Strife Debate Confusion Reproaches of these who followed not with them But for the fruits of the Spirit Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance I wish we could see them in these who with him did so much cry up these Preachers He tells us that at the beginning of the Indulgence People called them the Councils Curats and he will not enquire how it came that that spark did not break forth into a general flame and insinuates his desire that this flame had spread sooner and that the first ten had been discountenanced but he acquiesces in Providence But if he had known what I learned from a Gentleman who hath good Intelligence that it was the late Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews who was the first Inventer of the name of Council-Curats and did so convey the casting of this spark that he might not be seen to be the kindler and caster of it and how pleasant it was to these of the Prelatick party to see the flame kindled by this little spark running as the Historian speaks like Moor-burn among the People If the Historian I say and these of his way had known this it may be they would have taken less pleasure in this Moor-burn which was so pleasant to these to whom the Historian I suppose did not desire to make sport Then he alledges that some suppressed their judgment about the Indulgence out of a preposterous affection to the Brethren Indulged whom they much honoured and esteemed and that deservedly for their eminent endowments and sometimes usefulness in the Church or out of a tender care of keeping up Union and guarding against all motions apparently tending to troublesome distractions and divisions And it 's not unlike says he that many were really in the dark as to the thing but however light is light whoever they be that bring it how inconsiderable soever the Instruments be who are employed and whether they come sooner or later the light when it 's come should be made welcome because of him who sent it c. Answ These Brethren not onely were but are yet useful notwithstanding of all his endeavours to render them useless And affection to them is not preposterous but a commended Duty for whatever Infirmities they be compassed about with yet they should be esteemed very highly in love for their works sake I think when he was speaking of the tender care to keep up Union and to
in general is called to nor could he in Reason think that the withholding of this light could have so many inconveniencies following upon it as the venting of it would have by an unseasonable awakening and keeping up of Divisions and all the mischiefs which follow upon Divisions 3. If he would needs vent this Light of his and press others to do the like he might have done it in the way which Mr. Durham points out viz. with that meekness tenderness and respect towards his Brethren who differed from him that the difference might make no Division nor marr Union But he is so far from this that he will have this Light and those who bring it made welcome though it be brought for this very end to make Division and to distract and rent the Church But 4. The worst of all is this Light of his is not Light but Darkness a confused mass of false Calumnies published to scatter the poor sheep and drive them away from their faithful Pastours who fed them with knowledge and understanding If they who will not forbear to vent Truths which are not necessary when the venting of them is unseasonable or if they who will vent such Truths in a factious and divisive way be justly censurable O! how hateful is their temper or rather distemper who cannot be perswaded for Peace-sake to with-hold their Lies and Calumnies but will vent them upon design to rent the Church in drawing away the People from the Lords Ministers and the Lords Ordinances They who come to publish untruths to make Discord and Division come not by the Commission of the God of Truth and Peace I shall again transcribe some of Mr. Durham's words in his excellent Exposition of the Song of Solomon Chap. 1. v. 8. pag. 91. 6. Believers would make use of publick Ordinances and Christs Ministers especially in reference to snares and errors and they would take their directions from them and their Counsel would be laid weight upon 7. Allowed dependance on a Ministry is a great mean to keep Souls from error whereas on the contrary when no weight is laid on a Ministry unstable Souls are hurried away 8. Christ hath given no immediate or extraordinary way to be sought unto and made use of even by his Bride in her difficulties but the great mean he will have her to make use of is a sent Ministry and therefore no other is to be expected It 's no wonder then that the Devil when his design is to cry down Truth and spread Error seek to draw the Lords People from the Shepherds Tents and no wonder that Souls who do cast off respect to their Overseers be hurried away with the temptations of the times as in experience hath often been found a truth 9. Ministers should have a special eye on the weakest of the flock their care should be that the Kids may be next them Our blessed Lord doth so When the Lambs are carried in his own bosom Isa 40.11 And therefore seeing weak Believers have most need of Christs oversight if they begin to slight the Ministry and Ordinances they cannot but be a ready Prey and the Devil hath gained much of his intent when he hath once gained that O! that men would try whose voice it is that saith Come back from the Shepherds Tents when Christ says abide abide near them it 's as if a Wolf would desire the Lambs to come out from under the Shepherds eye And lastly when Christ gives this direction to his own Bride we may see he allows none to be above Ordinances in the Militant Church it will be soon enough then when they are brought to Heaven and put above the reach of Seducers In these words that Holy man of God who was a burning and shining light who had the mind of Christ and the bowels of Christ doth clearly from the words of Christ warn us that the voice which saith Come back from the Shepherds Tents is not the voice of Christ this is not light from the Sun of Righteousness from the face of Christ but darkness from the Prince of darkness who can transform himself into an Angel of Light Obj. 4. All or most of the Non-indulged Faithful and Zealous Ministers in the Land are for hearing of the Indulged and onely a few and those of the younger sort with the ignorant People are against it He Answers That he would hope few should lay weight on this Objection and thinks it enough to refer any such to consider John 7.47 48 49. with Mr. Hutcheson's Notes especially 7 and 9 and then tells us that in all the parts of our Tryal God hath made use of the nothings to break the ice to others And in the Introduction to his 28 Questions he says That in all our carriage that is this day approveable as to the grounds of our Suffering the Lord hath for the most part made the poor flock go before the Shepherds and lead the way to them rather than the Guides to break the Ice and lead the way to the flock as might have been expected I reply His hope is as groundless and reasonless as his imaginations but he would hope his affection guides his hope Credimus an quia amant ipsi sibi somnia fingunt And indeed it seems he was dreaming when he hoped that more weight would or should be laid upon the Opinion and Practice of a few young Preachers and of the ignorant People than on the judgment and practice of all not onely Indulged Ministers but of all or most of the Non-indulged Faithful and Zealous Ministers And I know none who will joyn with him in this Dream except it be such who love to be singular and hope to be more noticed and talked of when they take odd and singular ways and who lay down that for a Principle that the fewest number especially if they be in greatest hazard and danger must certainly be right and all others wrong And when their party grows numerous they grow suspicious that all is not right and so they break again as the English Separatists did at Amsterdam Any may see how strongly this Historian hath been Acted by a spirit of Division seeing he with a few young men take upon them by themselves without the knowledge and concurrence yea contrary to the known and declared mind of all or most of the Non-indulged Faithful Zealous Ministers to drive the poor People upon the Rock of Schism contrary to the Word of God and to the Covenant Many of the Non-indulged thought it fit to forbear to move that Question about the acceptance of the Indulgence in their Sermons to the People they knew weak People though they be well inclined yet having as Children strong Passions and little knowledge and less prudence to direct their affections can hardly differ and not divide Some others who did touch upon that Question yet were against Separation but now perceiving that the People have gone further than they intended are I suppose
this it appears that the People are none of the best Guides in the matter of hearing seeing they have been so far from breaking the Ice in the right Foord that they have broken it above Whirlpools and have plunged themselves so palpably that the Historian himself could not follow them And I am so far from seeing sufficient Evidences of the Peoples good guiding of their Guides that I am very hopeful that all sober People will upon serious consideration of the Errors and Confusions that some People who would needs guide matters have run unto will acknowledge that it is the good and acceptable will of God that every one should keep within the bounds of their own vocation and not take upon them that which the Lord hath not called them to and that the sheep should not lead the Shepherds but be led by them And I suppose that several Ministers have by sad experience found that they have been indeed led upon the Ice by following the humours of some head-strong leading People who were fitter to break themselves and the hearts of their Ministers than to break the Ice to make safe passage for their followers The 5th Object Now when we are in hazard to be over-run with Popery is it seasonable that such Questions should be started to break the remnant in pieces and thereby to make all a Prey to the man of sin Were it not better that we were all united as one to withstand the Inundation He Answereth That he fears that the Lord by Popery and Blood will avenge the quarrel of his Covenant and the contempt of the Gospel I Reply He should have remembred that we did covenant to extirpate Schism which he endeavours to plant and water in this History And hath he not exposed the Gospel to contempt in tempting the People to cast off all the Indulged Ministers as no Ministers of Christ and all almost who are not Indulged as acted by the spirit of Supremacy the spirit of Anti-christ He could not have taken a more compendious way to render the Preaching of the Gospel contemptible than to render the Ministers of the Gospel contemptible Then he Advises That we should acknowledge our selves the basest of sinners This Advice is good but his Schismatick directions are contrary to it A Schismatick Spirit is a proud and self-conceited Spirit They who see themselves the basest of sinners would if they could rather separate from themselves than others they will in lowliness of mind esteem others better than themselves they will acknowledge themselves less than the least of mercies unworthy of any remnant of the Lords Ordinances unworthy to whom the Lord should send any of his Messengers such will be far from casting at any of the Lords Servants or Ordinances Then he says Union so long as the accursed thing is amongst us is a Conspiracy I suppose the Indulgence is the accursed thing which he means but the Magistrates permitting and allowing the peaceable exercise of the Ministry is a good thing This is a curse of his own making a causeless curse this is one of the tricks of the Devil to divert People from taking notice of the sins they are really guilty of by bogling them with imaginary sins alledging that there is sin wrapped up in hearing the Ministers of the Gospel Preach the Gospel and so he turns Duty to sin and by making them take up the peaceable exercise of the Ministry under the protection of Lawful Authority as if it were a curse or cursed thing and so flegging poor People that they flee from and forsake their own mercies and it 's a dreadful delusion to mistake blessings as if they were curses He adds If we be not tender of Christs headship and of what depends thereupon and of the least pin of his Tabernacle pitched among us I Answer If he had been more tender of Christ as head of his Church he would have been more tender of the Union of the Members of his Body and would have been afraid to have rent the members of that Body asunder His divisive Doctrine looses all the pins of the Tabernacle he hath cast fire into the Lords Tabernacle which if the Lord prevent not may burn up the Synagogues of God in the Land His Doctrine tends to dissolve all Meetings for the publick Worship of God except these who meet at the Separate Meetings moulded after his conceit He Prophesieth That they who follow his way shall find a shelter and a Chamber of Protection But he hath been so far mistaken in taking up things past and present they are not wise who will believe him when he Prophesies of things to come a false Historian is not an Infallible Prophet He is so far wrong in his Precepts for Direction that I have no Faith to believe his promises of Protection He recommends Union upon the old grounds of our received and sworn Principles and Maximes But they who know these old grounds see his grounds to be the grounds of the English Brownists which were solidly refuted by the old Non-Conformists Next He threatneth That if there be not an Union in the way that he prescribes that is if there be not a Separation from these Congregations where Indulged Ministers are and also from these Meetings where Non-indulged Ministers who are for hearing Indulged Ministers Preach for he Reproaches these Ministers also as Acted by the Spirit of Supremacy the Spirit of Anti-christ that then this Division from his Separated party will be the certain fore-runner of a dark and dismal Dispensation And then he Advises every man that would have Peace in the day of Gods contending against these back-sliders and revolters to mourn for this Abomination of the Indulgence among other Abominations and to adhere to the Lord and to our Principles which the Lord hath owned and countenanced though he should be in a manner left alone Answ This Division and Schismatick renting of the Lords People this driving of them away from the Lords Ordinances is more than a fore-runner of a dark and dismal Dispensation it 's an Evidence of the continuance of the Lords Anger and that his hand is stretched out still Schism is a grievous sin a dreadful plague which uses to end in ruine and desolation and they who drive on this vile and destructive Schism and scare the Lords People from joyning together in the Worship of God they are back-sliders and revolters from the Principles and Covenant of true Presbyterians They adhere not to the Lord who hath commanded his People not to forsake the Assembling of themselves together and hath promised to be with them when met in his Name and to come and bless them where he Records his Name and to be with his Servants Preaching and Baptizing in his Name to the end of the World They who forsake the Ordinances in which the Lord hath trysted a meeting betwixt himself and his People they who will not come where the Lord comes they who will be
absent where the Lord promises to be present and where he commands his People to present themselves before him they do not adhere unto the Lord but depart from the presence of the Lord and they who run away from the Society of the People of God they are not left alone but have left their Company they have left the Shepherds Tents and wander alone as a Lamb in a large place as a bewildered Lamb which being alone is a prey to every Wild Beast and woe to him who is and will be thus alone It is above sufficiently cleared that the Magistrate as Magistrate is the Minister of God for good As the Nursing-father of the Church not only may but should take off Civil restraints that hinder the peaceable exercise of the Ministry of the Servants of Christ and should grant to Ministers the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and take care that the Lords People in his Dominions be fed with the sincere Milk of the Word of God and that it is the Duty of Ministers to accept thankfully of the peaceable publick exercise of their Ministry when the Magistrate grants it and to make the Magistrates Duty in allowing the Preaching of the Gospel in his Dominions or the Ministers Duty in making use of the Magistrates grant of the peaceable exercise of their Ministry in Preaching the Gospel or to make the Peoples Duty in hearing the Gospel Preached by these Ministers an Abomination to be mourned for is to teach People to pervert their own Mercies and to turn them to Curses and to divert them from laying to heart real Abominations which are real causes of mourning to mourn for that for which they should give thanks Such false visions are matter of mourning and were among Jeremiah's Lamentations Lam. 2.14 Thy Prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee and they have not discovered thine iniquity to turn away thy Captivity but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of Banishment The good old Principles of Presbyterians did not lead them to despise Dignities they feared God and honoured Rulers and did humbly Supplicate for Liberty for Preaching the Gospel and did thankfully accept of any such Liberty when it was granted by the Magistrate He adds pag. 162. Will not I pray many of these who have complyed with Prelacy and with the courses that have been carried on profess an abhorrency at Popery And is this ground sufficient for us to think of uniting with them notwithstanding of all they have done that we may be the more fortified to withstand that torrent Answ What is the importance of his praying in this place Or if it be an idle insignificant word is not worth the enquiry But it may be he was sensible that his Arguments had no force to convince his Readers judgment and Conscience and therefore he makes use of earnest Supplication to work upon his Readers Affections that what he could not extort by the strength of Reason he might obtain it by importunate praying and begging of the Question and so gain the thing in question by requesting as Beggers who have no price to purchase what they would be at do importunately seek what they cannot buy and thus he would have the Question Si non justo pretio saltem prece precariò When his praying is done let us see what he says to the Cause His Reasoning is to this purpose If the professed abhorrence of Popery be no sufficient ground for us to think of uniting with these who have complyed with Prelacy that we may be the more fortified to withstand the torrent of Popery then the Presbyterians may break off that Fellowship in the Worship of God which they had in these Congregations where Indulged Ministers Preach and may disown these Ministers whom they once owned as Ministers and their Ministers and withdraw from hearing them whom they invited to Preach to them and whom they did hear and countenance in the exercise of their Ministry But so it is that the abhorrency of Popery professed by these who have complyed with Prelacy c. is no sufficient ground of Uniting Presbyterians with these complyers and therefore Presbyterians should break off c. The connexion is very ill knit it 's loose work for although the professed abhorrency of Popery and the design of withstanding Popery were not sufficient to make up Union betwixt the Presbyterians and the Prelatick party it would not follow that Presbyterians who are United in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government should break off their Communion in the Worship of God and as it is in the Objection by breaking themselves in pieces expose themselves as a Prey to the Man of Sin there is no shadow of Reason for this Consequence For this ground of Uniting Presbyterians and complyers with Prelacy may be insufficient and yet there may be a vile Schism in Presbyterians breaking themselves in pieces Although the Invasion of a common Enemy be not thought a sufficient ground of Uniting two distinct Parties in a Nation yet it may be a very strong motive to keep these of the several Parties United in these things in which they are United and it should keep them from making sub-divisions for the more Divisions the Nation is the more weakened and the more exposed as a Prey to the Invader It seems the Author hath been against all sort of Uniting with these who comply with Prelacy It 's true Presbyterians should not Unite with them in their complyance with Prelacy nor joyn with them in any ill course But there are many things wherein we may Unite with Papists themselves do not Protestants joyn with Papists against the Jews in believing that the Messiah is come If an Arrian were like to put a Popish Doctor out would it not be the Duty of a Protestant Minister if he were present to assist the Popish Doctor in maintaining the Trinity and the Deity of the Son of God May not Papists and Protestants Unite in defending their Native Countrey against the Turks May not Christians Unite with Pagans in doing some work of necessity Paul wrought with the Pagans with whom he sailed in casting out the tackling of the Ship May not Christians joyn with Pagans in saving and helping Ship-broken men to shore May not should not Protestants whether they be Non-conformists or Conformists joyn together in the abhorrency of Popery and in withstanding the current of it Would the Historian have Protestants more demented than the very Jews when they were Judicially plagued with intestine Divisions and Seditions while the Romans besieged Jerusalem yet they had so much sense remaining that they left off their inward fightings when the Romans made any Assault and joyned together in defending the Walls of the City We must abhor what is evil in men and must have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but we should not abhor that which is good even in Papists or Pagans Mr. Rutherfurd in his Peaceable Plea for Pauls
Presbytery in Scotland Chap. 10. pag. 124. Consideration 8. Says We Separate not from men but Errors we Separate from Papism kindly properly and totally from Christian Articles in no sort And pag. 123. We have not Separate from Rome's Baptism and Ordination of Pastours according to the Substance of the Act nor from the letter of the twelve Articles of the Creed and Contents of the Old and New Testament as they stand with relation to the mind and intent of the Holy Ghost Howbeit we have left the false Interpretations of the Lords of poor Peoples Faith and Conscience The Historian himself in some cases grants that we should joyn in the Worship of God with these who comply with Prelacy notwithstanding of all they have done as we saw from his concessions in the stating of the Question and yet here he speaks as if all Uniting with them were sinful If the hearing of these who have complyed with Prelacy be at any time a Duty then the hearing of them is no complyance with Prelacy and if the hearing of them who have really complyed with Prelacy be not a complyance with Prelacy then suppose the Indulged Ministers had really complyed with an Erastian Power in the Magistrate yet the hearing of the Indulged Ministers would not have been any complyance with Erastianism How much then is this Historian in the wrong to the poor People who would fright them from hearing the Indulged Ministers who have never complyed with any Erastian Power or sinful Supremacy in the Magistrate as if the hearing of the Word of God Preached by them were sinful a homologating of a sinful Supremacy He adds Alas this our strength will prove our weakness let us remember that of Esay 8.11 12 13 14. He means that Uniting in the Worship of God in these paroches where Indulged Ministers are settled is our weakness and so that it's Peoples strength to withdraw from the Worship of God in these Paroches This must be his meaning or he says nothing to the purpose in hand This is one of the Historians Paradoxes that Union in the true Worship of God is the Churches weakness and that the breaking off that Union is the Churches strength That is to say a Church divided shall stand It seems a Church is not like other Societies for our Saviour says A House and Kingdom divided cannot stand This is a pitiful Paradox for it 's contrary to Scripture Reason Common Sense Experience and the Author brings no shadow of Reason to give it any colour of probability but as he began his last Reason with praying so he Ushers in this pitiful Paradox with lamentation that seeing it had nothing in it nor upon it to plead for it's admission it might be received of meer pity He should have considered that a Printed Book would readily come to the hands of Rational men who regard not Passions that are void of Reason and who will not be prayed or lamented out of their wits Yet this will pass currant among weak People who will be more moved with an Oh or an Alas than with ten solid Reasons or Scripture-Testimonies The Scripture which he exhorts us to remember makes nothing for withdrawing from hearing the Word of God Preached by the Lords Ministers When the Lord Instructed the Prophet That he should not walk in the way of that People nor say a Confederacy to all them to whom that People said a Confederacy He did not discharge the Prophet to hear the Word of God or to joyn with the Lords People in the Worship of God The way of Gods Ordinances is the way of God in which the Lords goings are and in which his People walk with him and in which he hath commanded them to walk but the way of that People was their sinful ways ways of their own which were not Gods ways the Confederacy discharged was not joyning together in the Lords Ordinances for the Lord had commanded his People to Assemble together for his Solemn Worship Deut. 12.11 12 13. Deut. 15.19 20. Deut. 16.7 8.16.17 But the Confederacy discharged is a Confederacy with the King of Assyria He cites Amos 4.12 13. Where the Lord directs his People to prepare to meet their God This Scripture is as little to the Historians purpose as the former for the way to meet with God is not to withdraw from the Worship of God but upon the contrary they who would meet with God must come to his Ordinances for there he meets with them Exod. 25.22 Exod. 29 42 43. He hath said That they who hear his Servants hear himself and hath blessed these who hear him and watch daily at his gates and wait at the Posts of his Doors That 's the way to find him to find Life c. Prov. 8.32 33. He hath promised that where he Records his Name he will come to his People and bless them Separation from the Lords Ordinances is no preparation to meet with God but it is a departing from God And if this Separation from the Lords People and from his Worship be comprehended under the Separating of our selves from every sinful course the Christian complyance which he speaks of is an unchristian mis-application of that word in the 4th of Amos And if he thought that they who have heard the Indulged Ministers must utterly forsake that way as a way provoking the Lord to wrath he was quite out and utterly mistaken about this utter forsaking The Scripture with which he closeth Zeph. 2.1 2 3. is not for his scattering of the Lords People but for the gathering of them together to the Solemn Worship of God If the Author had pondered this Scripture and observed the directions of the Spirit of the Lord which are given in it he would not have endeavoured to scatter the Lords People and if he had made more Conscience of seeking Righteousness he would not have done so many and great wrongs and injuries to his innocent Brethren who had done him no wrong and who were doing right things and if he had made more Conscience of seeking Meekness he would have been more quiet and either altogether been silent or spoken and written of these things with more calmness and composure of Spirit If meekness as they say were lost it would be a hard work to find it in this History in which there is much of the wrath of man which perfects not the Righteousness of God He concludes well with two Petitions of the Lords Prayer Thy Kingdom come thy Will be done If he had looked to the Exposition of the Second Petition of the Lords Prayer in the larger Catechism he would have found that this is a part of the meaning of that Petition that the Church may be countenanced and maintained by the Civil Magistrate and to confirm this the 1 Tim. 2.1 2. is cited I exhort therefore that first of all Supplications Prayers Intercessions and Thanksgivings be made for all men for Kings and for all that are in
Authority That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty Which shews that the Assembly of Divines at Westminster did not think that the Kingdom of Christ is to be set up by ruining earthly Kings and Kingdoms and that they take not the right way to advance Christs Kingdom who reject the Magistrates countenance and maintenance of the Church Or who by despising and provoking Magistrates to wrath tempts them to discountenance the Church And seeing they look on the Church as Christs Kingdom the Historian hath not taken the right way to advance this Kingdom but hath taken the way to ruine it by dividing it For a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand And if he had pondered the explication of the third Petition it might have been a mean to have prevented his giving so much place to his own Humour and Will in this History and helped him to more submission unto the Holy Providence of God than doth appear in this History I wish he had ere he began to write this History put up that Petition And lead us not into temptation Or at the close of it put up that Petition And forgive us our sins We have great need ere we begin Debates and Controversies even when they are necessary to pray that we be not led into temptation And great need to close such Debates even when the cause maintained is right with praying Lord forgive us our sins I have examined all that had any appearance of Reason in this History and refuted many things which needed no refutation if it had not been for the sake of simple People who are often deceived by big words where there is no shew or colour of Reason I have often by Reason refuted the unreasonable clamours both of the Author of the Epistle and of the History whereas I might have opposed clamour to clamour for what is founded upon meer clamour may be as easily cried down as it 's cried up Let none because of the Authors errors in this History cast at other useful Books which he hath published nor reject any thing that is true and right in this History Good men have their failings and we may not take our measures of them from their miscarriages under a fit of temptation Job's Friends had a just hatred against Hypocrisie and they mistake Job and falls foul upon him as a Hypocrite and speaks many things that are not right things in the heat of Debate This Author had a just indignation against Erastianism and a Spiritual Supremacy in Magistrates and he apprehended that his brethren had interpretatively homologate this Erastian and Spiritual Supream power in the Magistrate and having mistaken them he hath fallen foully upon them and spoken much evil of them without cause These things which in the Epistle and History are wrong are things for the most part which several people had drunk in and the printing of these errours hath given occasion to rectifie the mistakes of erring people if they will not shut their eyes against the light The Lord who is excellent in working draws good out of evil and maketh all things work together for good to them who love him and are the called according to his purpose he can over-rule the darkness of error so as it shall be subservient to clear the truth In the worst times the Elect hath obtained and shall obtain The Lord reigneth and ruleth in the midst of Enemies he can when men are scattering the dust of Zion be making way for laying a solid foundation in the deep humiliation of his people for building his house The Church hath been before as dry and scattered bones as bones scattered at the graves mouth and yet he who raiseth the dead hath made these bones to come together and live It 's our best to leave the answering of that Question Can these Bones live To the Lord himself to Jehovah who makes things that are not to be who doeth great things and unsearchable marvellous things and without number If we would take shame and confusion of face to our selves and would humble our selves in the sight and sense of our sins our darkness and stumblings and justlings in the dark and justifie the Lord in his judgments that are come upon us and yet ascribe to him the glory of his Mercy and out of our depths and darkness cry to him that he would cause his face to shine and enlighten our darkness and send out his Light and Truth and pour out the Spirit of a sound mind and that he would quicken us by the Spirit of Life that is in Christ Jesus that we might call on his Name and look on him whom we have pierced and mourn that when mens endeavours to gather the scattered sheep are not effectual that he the great Shepherd would seek out his sheep and deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day And if we would wait on him in the way of his Judgments and hope in his Word his Covenant which he uses to remember for his People and to repent according to the multitude of his Mercies and though we have no ground of hope in our selves yet hope against hope on the Lord who is the hope of Israel and the Saviour thereof in the time of trouble and that because with him there is Mercy and plenteous Redemption And so continue humbly praying hoping waiting for him He could soon redeem us from all our Iniquities and all our Troubles and cure all our distractions and distempers and give Light and Life and Unity and Peace Let us take shame to our selves and give him the glory due to his Name that his Name may endure for ever and be continued as long as the Sun that men may be Blessed in him and all Nations call him Blessed Blessed be the Lord God the God of Israel who onely doeth wondrous things And Blessed be his Glorious Name for ever and ever and let the whole Earth be filled with his Glory Amen and Amen The Conference continued Farmer SIR there are many things considerable in this Answer to the History of the Indulgence which I purpose to consider but there is one thing which not a little troubles me That the withdrawing from hearing the Indulged Ministers is called Schism Now I remember we are by Covenant bound to extirpate Schism and if I have been practising Schism in withdrawing from hearing the Indulged Ministers I have been Acting contrary to the Covenant Minister They who deal truly in the matter of the Covenant will study to fulfill their Vows not onely in some things but in all things Schism is a dissolution of that Union which ought to be among Christians and especially it appears in refusing that Church-fellowship or Ecclesiastical Communion which ought to be observed or in an unwillingness to communicate or to have communion with the true Church in Holy Actions Casuists shew that it is a most grievous
20. Servants be Subject to your Masters with all fear not only to the good but to the froward or perverse as it 's also rendered This Scripture is cited in the larger Catechism in explication of the fifth Commandment to shew what is the Honour that Inferiours owe to Superiours If the miscarriages of Magistrates Masters Parents or the miscarriages of Inferiours did dissolve the Relation and make it void And if the miscarriages of Married Persons did nullifie the Marriage-relation and loose the Party wronged from all Obligation towards the Party that 's injurious this would quickly dissolve the Bonds of all Humane Society and make Men like a multitude of loose Cartel If Subjects were not bound to give due Obedience to Magistrates except they did preserve the true Religion then all the Directions that Christ and his Apostles gave to Honour and be Subject to and pay Tribute to and pray for the Magistrates and Powers that then were did not oblige the People to whom they were first directed for all the Magistrates then were Infidels and Idolaters In the Confession of Faith Chap. 23. Art 4. It 's the Duty of People to pray for Magistrates to Honour their Persons to pay them Tribute and other dues to obey their Lawful Commands and to be Subject to their Authority for Conscience sake Infidelity or difference of Religion doth not make void the Magistrates just and Legal Authority nor free the People from their due obedience to him And the General Assembly Anno 1639. in their Supplication to the Commissioner and Council say We have Solemnly sworn and do swear not only our mutual Concurrence and Assistance for the cause of Religion and to the utmost of our Power with our Means and Lives to stand to the Defence of our dread Sovereign his Person and Authority in the Preservation of true Religion Liberties and Laws of this Kirk and Kingdom but also in every Cause which may concern His Majesties Honour shall concur with our Friends and followers as we shall be required Preach Subjects are not obliged to concur with and assist Rulers in doing ill Min. That 's true for to concur with them in assisting them to do evil were to partake of their sin But though we may not partake of their evil yet that will not follow that we must not maintain their Person and Authority Although the Israelites would not assist and concur with Saul in destroying Jonathan but rescued him yet they thought themselves bound to defend Saul's Person and Authority It 's one thing not to concur with Superiours in evil and another thing to destroy their Persons and their Power because they do evil But ye cannot deny but the Covenant obliges to defend and maintain the King in so far as he maintains the true Religion and Righteousness and I think ye will not deny that the King doth in part maintain the true Religion and Righteousness and therefore ye are bound to defend his Person and Authority and how can ye defend his Person and Authority in doing any good if ye destroy his Person and Power as is designed and sworn in this Band. There are many other Absurdities in that fourth Article of the Band which were tedious to repeat and refute In the fifth Article they say We then being made free by God and their own doings he giving the Law and they giving the transgression of that Law which is the cause that we are loosed from all Obligations Divine and Civil to them It 's strange that men who cry out against these who break other Articles of the Covenant should so boldly shake off the Obligation of the third Article of the Covenant and so increase the sin of the Nation by adding the breach of the Civil part of the Covenant to the breach of the Religious part of it To make out what they assert it 's not enough to prove that the Rulers have transgressed the Law of God for they must also shew from the Law that it is the will of God that Subjects should upon such and such transgressions shake off all Obligations towards such Rulers But this they have never attempted because they could not I would enquire at them doth every transgression loose these Obligations If not then how many and how great must these transgressions be And then shall a few private Persons who have very little Interest in the Nation determine this Question How many and how great transgressions makes Rulers no Rulers and Subjects no Subjects Then they promise to set up Government and Governours according to the Word of God especially Exod. 18.21 Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the People able Men such as fear God Men of Truth hating Covetousness c. I wish they had pondered Prov. 24.21 22. My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change For their Calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both The Dutch Interpreters expound it of these who are addicted to changes and novelties departing from the Obedience which they owe to God and their Lawful Magistrates and rising up in Rebellion against them Moses was King in Jesurun and his setting up subordinate Rulers is no pattern for their shaking off the Yoke of Subjection and setting up Usurpers and an unlawful Government The 16 of Numbers where Subjects do Seditiously exalt themselves against Moses and Aaron quadrats better with their case than the 18 of Exodus where Moses makes subordinate Rulers for his own and the Peoples ease And how could they in Reason expect that able men wise and prudent men fit for Government or men fearing God or men of Truth would undertake to be Governours over them For wise men would see the sin and snare and hazard in breaking down the hedge of Civil or Ecclesiastical Government Eccles 10.8 Men fearing God they also fear the King and fear an Oath and men of Truth will not deal falsely in the matter of their Covenant with God or Man And who but foolish rash Persons would take upon them to Rule such an unruly and disorderly People who had destroyed all Order Civil and Ecclesiastical It 's strange that they durst speak as they do of Kingly Government and Lineal Succession seeing the Lord established both among his People in the House of David the man after his own heart Kingly Government as established in these Nations in which King and Parliament make Laws is a form of Government so excellent that few except Persons byassed with prejudice will find fault with it The faults of Rulers should not be imputed to the form of Government They engage to set up the Judicial Law but they apprehend it would not reach far enough and they reject some parts of it but beside these things which they mention there are several other things which would not suit with us Some even of their Capital Laws have intimate connexion with their Ceremonial Law and derive much of
their strength and equity from it By that Law Fornication in the Priests Daughter was Capital and so was the gathering of sticks upon the Sabbath-day and this seems to be a lesser breach of the Sabbath than the mispending of a great part of the Lords day in drawing up Men and Horse and learning them how to handle their Arms as if the Lords day had been a day of Rendevouz or Weapon-shewing The restoring of four or five-fold would not sufficiently restrain Theft in this Nation The Judicial Law was not given to other Nations See Confes of Faith Chap. 19. Art 4. To them also as a Body Politick he gave sundry Judicial Laws which expired together with the Estate of that People nor obliging any other now further than the general equity thereof may require Our Saviour and the Apostles never offered to impose the Judicial Law upon the Gentiles The Apostle Paul submitted to be Judged by the Roman Law at Caesar's Judgment-Seat and exhorts Christians of all Nations to submit themselves to the Government and wholesom Laws of the Nations in which they lived There have been Hereticks who were for restoring of the Judicial and Ceremonial Law and some wild Persons in the Netherlands have of late written for this Error and there is the more need to take heed of restoring the Judicial Law because of its connexion with the Ceremonial Law This is a strange Age some are seeking to draw the World by Pelagianism and Quakerism to old Paganism and some seeking to draw men under the shadow and vail of Judaism They are not very much concerned though they be called Fifth-Monarchy-men But this contrivance of theirs is so strange that it is hard to find a name for it it 's rather an Anarchy and Confusion than a Government And it 's hoped that it will never have any such proportion to the four Monarchies as to get the name of a Fifth-Monarchy And it is fit that such a Monstrous thing die ere it get a Name I know nothing so like to it as the Insurrection of the Boors in Germany who believed Thomas Munster and Nicholas Stork that God was setting up a new Kingdom in which the Saints should Reign and that the present wicked Magistrates were to be killed and Godly Magistrates set up in their stead These Teachers pretended Revelations and Christian Liberty The poor People believed these delusions and rejected the wholesom Instructions of Luther and Melancthon and in their Fury which they imagined to be true Zeal they would needs fight but when it came to fighting they could neither fight nor flee and in one Summer fifty thousand of them were killed Munster at his Death confessed his Error and exhorted the Princes to use more clemency towards poor Men and so they needed not fear any such hazard and withal exhorted them to read diligently the Book of the Kings If they who contrived this Bond of Confusion had considered the Confession of Faith and the Questions in the larger Catechism which explain the fifth Commandment and the Scriptures confirming the Articles of the 23d Chapter of the Confession and the Answers of the fore-said Questions it might have prevented this furious and mad design Confes Chap. 23. Art 1. God the Supream Lord and King of all the World hath ordained Civil Magistrates c. Rom. 13.1 2 3. Let every Soul be subject to the Higher Powers for there is no Power but of God the Powers that be are ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation c. 1 Pet. 2.13 14. Submit your selves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as Supream c. And Art 4. It 's the Duty of People to pray for Magistrates to Honour their Persons to pay them Tribute and other dues to Obey their Lawful Commands and to be Subject to their Authority for Conscience sake Infidelity or difference of Religion doth not make void the Magistrates Just and Legal Authority nor free the People from their due Obedience to him from which Ecclesiastical Persons are not exempted much less hath the Pope any Power or Jurisdiction over them in their Dominions or over any of their People and least of all to deprive them of their Dominions or Lives if he shall judge them to be Hereticks or upon any other pretence whatsoever 1 Tim. 2.1 2. I exhort therefore that first of all Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of Thanks be made for all Men for Kings and for all that are in Authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable Life in all Godliness and Honesty 1 Pet. 2.17 Rom. 13.6 7. For this cause pay you Tribute also c. Titus 3.1 Put them in mind to be Subject to Principalities and Powers to Obey Magistrates 1 Pet. 2.13 14. 16. As free and not using your Liberty as a Cloak of maliciousness but as the Servants of God 1 Kings 2.35 Acts 25.9 10. Then said Paul I stand at Caesar's Judgment-seat where I ought to be judged I Appeal unto Caesar 2 Pet. 2.1.10 11. But there were false Prophets also among the People even as there shall be false Teachers among you But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the dust of Uncleanness and despise Government presumptuous are they self-willed they are not afraid to speak evil of Dignities whereas Angels who are greater in Power and might bring no railing accusation against them before God Jude 8 9 10 11. Likewise also these filthy Dreamers defile the Flesh despise Dominion and speak evil of Dignities Yet Michael the Arch-Angel when contending with the Devil about the Body of Moses durst not bring against him a railing accusation but said the Lord rebuke thee But these speak evil of these things which they know not but what they know naturally as brute Beasts in these things they corrupt themselves Woe unto them for they have gone in the way of Cain and run greedily after the Error of Balaam and perished in the gain-saying of Coâ—e 2 Thes 2.4 Rev. 13.15 16 17. In the larger Catechism Quest Who are meant by Father and Mother in the fifth Commandment Answ By Father and Mother in the fifth Commandment are meant not only Natural Parents but all Superiours in Age and Gifts and especially such as by Gods Ordinance are over us in place of Authority whether in Family Church or Common-wealth and they cite Isa 49.23 And Kings shall be thy Nursing-Fathers and Queens thy Nursing-Mothers Quest Why are Superiours stiled Father and Mother Answ Superiours are stiled Father and Mother both to teach them in all Duties towards their Inferiours like Natural Parents to express love and tenderness to them according to their several Relations and to work Inferiours to a greater willingness and chearfulness in performing their Duties towards their Superiours Quest What is the Honour that Inferiours owe to Superiours Answ The
c. But the donation of the Office and spiritual authority annexed thereunto is only derived from Jesus Christ our Mediator he alone gives all Church-Officers and therefore none may devise or superadd any new Officers Ephes 4.7 8 10 11. 1 Cor. 12.28 And he alone derives all authority and power Spiritual to these Officers for dispensing the Word Sacraments Censures and all Ordinances Mat. 16.19 28.18 19 20. Joh. 20.21 22 23. 2 Cor. 10.8 13.10 and therefore it is not safe for any creature to intrude upon this Prerogative Royal of Christ to give any power to any Officer of the Church And thus we see that these Learned and Godly Ministers who solidly in that same Book refute Erastianism yet assert that it belongs to the Magistrate to protect countenance authorize defend maintain Ministers in the publick exercise of their Ministry which they have received from the Lord Jesus But it 's the ignorance of the solid writings of Presbyterians which makes some folks so confident that they are true Presbyterians and adhering to Presbyterian Principles when in the mean time they are publishing to the world that they are strangers to the solid writings of sound Presbyterians And there is no Orthodox Divine who would find fault with these Ministers who when they appeared before the Council did give humble thanks to the Kings Majesty and the Lords of his Majesties Council for the peaceable exercise of the Ministry which they had received from the Lord Jesus The elicite act of the Will is too Philosophical for common people to subscribe or swear to for they can hardly be made to understand it And what they say concerning it is not Philosophical enough to be approven by those who understand what an elicite act is for elicite acts of the Will are such as immediately flow from the Will as love or hatred volition or nolition Now translation of power from Ministers to Magistrates is not made by these inward acts of the Will but by some external imperate acts as speaking writing c. Politick acts of surrender or translation of power are not effectuate by meer elicite internal acts of the Will But their ignorance of the nature of an elicite act of the Will and their opposing acts of force and constraint to elicite acts whereas elicite acts use to be contra-distinguished from imperate acts and their insinuating That if an act be not an elicite act of the Will it is an act of force and constraint whereas the imperate acts of the Will are not elicite acts and yet being commanded by the Will they are not acts of force and constraint these are more harmless mistakes But it is a very injurious calumny that those Ministers who appeared before the Council translated the power of sending out ordering and censuring Ministers to the Magistrate It 's a ridiculous ignorant conceit to imagine that what these Ministers did in appearing before the Council was a translation of the power of order of Potestative mission or else such censuring to the Magistrate or changing their Master and making themselves the Ministers of men and a quitting of the Government and succession of a Presbyterian Ministry These are meer calumnies and ridiculous fopperies that none who understand any thing in these matters will think worthy of any answer They were very injurious to the poor people many of whom are simple and ready through prejudice to believe any ill word spoken against indulged Ministers who in their Papers and Pamphlets abused them with such slanders But they are more injurious to them who would have them to subscribe and swear such injurious calumnies and ridiculous fopperies which are not only far from truth but from any appearance of truth And so much hath been said in several Papers written in vindication of the practice of the Indulged Ministers that it were to waste time and paper to answer any more to these Calumniators and the best answer to them is to pray that the Lord would give them repentance for these abominable reproaches whereby they have very actively driven on the design of Satan and his instruments the Papists and Quakers c. which is to render the Ministry contemptible And it was seen and told long ago that they would not rest satisfied with the reproachieg of a few Ministers but would proceed to render all contemptible The contrivers of this Bond have made a great progress in this Devilish work of rendering Ministers contemptible and useless for they have casten all except some few who for any thing known did not exceed the number of four and some think that they were but three at most and one of them was casten by the other two It is strange that any person who had the use of reason could be so far blinded with prejudice as to think that these Ministers did translate the power of sending out Ministers or the power of Potestative mission to the Magistrate for as was said the Magistrate supposed them to be Ordained ministers and so to have a Potestative mission to Preach the Gospel already for ministers are potestatively sent to preach the Gospel when they are Ordained ministers this clearly appeared by the Councils inquiring if they were and where or by whom they were Ordained ministers if the Council had called some persons who were not Ordained and sent them to Preach and Baptize c. then they might have alledged that the Magistrate did assume the power of sending out ministers or of a Potestative mission but they never pretended to any thing like that Preacher But Sir did not the Council send these ministers to these Congregations Minist 1. The Council did not so much as use the word of sending 2. Suppose they had used the word of sending that would not have imported a Potestative mission because the Magistrate did suppose that they were already Ordained Ye heard also that Mr. Welsh in his Preface to King James desires the King to send ministers throughout the Land it were great ignorance and perverseness to gather from that word that he translated to the King the power of a Potestative mission 3. Suppose the Magistrate had said nothing concerning their being Ordained Ministers before it had been great perverseness to have concluded from the Magistrates sending of them that they ceased to be the Ministers of Christ and became the Ministers of men Will any be so perverse as to conclude because Jehoshaphat 2 Chron. 17.8 9. sent Priests and Levites through all the Cities of Judah to teach the people that therefore these Priests and Levites ceased to be the Lords Ministers and became the ministers of the King Preach But Jehoshaphet was a godly reforming King Minist That is nothing to the purpose in hand Ye might have remembred that Mr. Rutherford shews that the magistratical power in reference to the Church is the same in Nero and in a Christian magistrate and if a godly King 's sending ministers does not annul their ministry then
no magistrate's sending ministers to preach c. doth make them no ministers of Christ Did Ezra cease to be a Scribe and minister of the Lord because Artaxerxes and his seven Councellers sent him to do the work of a Scribe in Judah and Jerusalem Ezr. 7.13 14. For as much as thou art sent of the King and of his seven Councellors Pr. If Artaxerxes had destroyed the Temple and the Worship of God Ezra would not have taken any benefit of such a Decree and Commission Min. What warrant have you for that if Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed the Temple had made a Decree That the Priests and Levites and people should return and worship God at Jerusalem would they have been such fools to refuse to return till Nebuchadnezzar were dead and some other King made such a Decree Did Jeremiah reject the favour which was appointed by Nebuchadnezzar Jer. 39.11 12. and conferred upon him by Nebuzaradan Jer. 40.4 who had burnt the House of the Lord 2 King 25.9 Pr. But these were Heathens who had never professed the true Religion and so had not backslidden Min. The backsliding of Rulers makes them not incapable of doing good afterward Manasseh had been Religiously educated and became monstrously wicked and yet was an instrument of Reformation afterward and Judah did not refuse to serve the Lord because Manasseh who had so fearfully fallen away did command them to serve the Lord 2 Chron. 33.16 Pr. Manasseh repented Minist But do ye think that if he had commanded Judah to serve God or the Lords Priests to sacrifice to the Lord before he repented that these commands should have been rejected because he was not truly penitent It 's the duty of all Kings whether they be penitent or not to command the Lords ministers and people to serve God The Orthodox ministers who had been banished in the time of the Arrian Persecution and Athanasius among the rest did not refuse to return to the exercise of their ministry upon the Edict of Julian the Apostate who had been a professed Christian and turned Pagan and a despiteful enemy and mocker of Christ and tho' he made that Edict for ill ends yet these godly zealous Servants of God made use of it Ye may read the History in Zozomens Church-History Book 5. Chap. 5. where he shews that he afflicted the Church in all things most bitterly and grievously except that he recalled the Bishops and Priests which were banished in the time of Constantius and that it was said he gave not that command out of mercy or pity but that either they by their mutual contentions might fight against the Church by an intestine War and so fall away from their own Laws and Institutions or that he might wrong the Estimation of Constantius and might raise up hatred against him through the whole Empire c. And Georgius Horsnius in his Ecclesiastick History Pag. 93. saith That Julian recalled Athanasius from Banishment to the place of one George an Arrian a most naughty man who had been slain a little before Athanasius's return There is no man more famous for Learning and Zeal and stedfastness in the Church-History than Athanasius and I am sure if ye have read the History of Julian the Apostate ye will be ashamed to say that any of our Rulers are so ill as he was and yet none of these holy and Learned ministers made any scruple to obey his command when he called them to the work of their ministry If many would compare their practices with the Scripture-rule and examples in Scripture and in Church-History they would find that what they take for light and zeal is but ignorance and an humourous peevishness who would have thought that ever any who had been members of the Church of Scotland that besides the obligation common to them with other Protestant Churches are by solemn Covenants obliged to extirpate Schism and maintain the Kings person and authority would have so far degenerate as to place their zeal and Religion in scarring at the Preaching and Hearing of the Gospel because the ministers who preach it are permitted and allowed to preach it by the magistrates who are bound as magistrates as Christians as Protestants to permit allow countenance protect by their authority the Preaching of the Gospel in this Kingdom Farm Sir I desire ye would return to answer what is said against the Ministers in that sixth Article of the Band. Min. As for what they say of Ministers submitting to the Magistrates censures and saying they would not have done the things they were charged with if they had thought it would have offended them it 's a confused charge and it is not easie to guess what they mean they cannot prove that any of those Ministers have done any thing that will import an acknowledgment that the Magistrate hath power of inflicting Ecclesiastick Censures or of making Ecclesiastick Canons And as for Civil Restraints of Imprisonment and Banishment if they condemn submission to these they will condemn all who have been imprisoned and banished and among the rest the Ministers who went to Holland who did not only passively submit to Banishment but also by their Subscription engaged not to return If any Minister hath done any thing which warrantably might have been forborn or which might have been done as conveniently or more conveniently at another time in another place in a way that would not have irritated or provoked the magistrate if such a person hath made the foresaid acknowledgment who can with reason condemn it for we owe thus much even to any private person whom we should not needlesly provoke to anger if we can conveniently help it but the contrivers of this bond and those who go their way are for needless provocations of the magistrate and if there be many ways of doing what is right upon the matter they will chuse the way that is irritating to the Rulers because it is irritating and shun that way which will not provoke the magistrate as if it were a duty to provoke the magistrate to wrath And if any have needlesly provoked them they will not allow him to give an innocent soft answer to turn away their wrath But it is no wonder that they who are for overthrowing the magistrate and the Government be against all things that make for peace with them or may tend to pacifie them when they are angry and be for grievous words and things which may stir up strife and put evil betwixt the magistrate and subjects What they add That these ministers have departed from the Courts of Christ and subjection to the ministry are meer calumnies Do they think that ministers appearing before the magistrate when called that by the magistrates Civil allowance of the peaceable exercise of the ministry they might without disturbance preach the Gospel in such or such places will prove that these ministers have departed from the Courts of Christ and have changed their Courts and so by common Law have changed
their masters and are become of the ministers of Christ the ministers of men These are meer forgeries that have no foundation but in their own fancy nor any consonancy with common Law but are against common sense and reason Although these ministers had bound themselves to answer when the magistrate would it had been no more than men who compear before the magistrate use to do when required that till they be called they may in the mean time have their freedom Now the peaceable exercise of the ministry is in many respects preferable to Civil liberty But it was the people and not the minister who gave bond to the Council to present the minister when called under such a penalty It 's another groundless slander that they have given up and utterly quit the Government and a succession of a Presbyterian Ministry for they have not by their making use of this liberty bound up themselves from doing any thing in their places and stations which they might have done before for the Government of the Church and succession of a Presbyterian Ministry and it 's but a melancholly dream to imagine that the setled fixed peaceable exercise of the Ministry of the Gospel under the protection of lawful authority does swallow up the Government of the Church extinguish the Ministry and bury the work of Reformation Is not the Preaching of the Gospel a part of the exercise of Christs visible Kingdom Does the exercise of the Ministry destroy the Ministry Or does the Preaching of the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches bury the work of Reformation Next they charge these Ministers with Preaching the lawfulness of paying that tribute declared to be imposed for the bearing down of the true Worship of God which they falsely termed seditious Conventicles Pr. Sir before ye speak any thing as to the paying of that tribute I desire that ye would consider that there were several Ministers who Preached against the paying of it and I hope ye will not be rash in giving your opinion in that matter Min. I wish those who Preached against the paying of it had made less haste and had conferred with their Brethren and heard what they had to say from Scripture and Reason e're they had adventured to preach such a new Doctrine That subjects should not pay a tribute which was concluded by a meeting of the Estates of the Nation and for an end which is unquestionably good the resisting of foreign Invasion It 's I suppose a new Doctrine That subjects should not pay tribute and the preaching of new Doctrines is dangerous it hath been the rashness of some that they were too hasty to preach their own private and very singular opinions it were good Ministers of the Gospel would forbear to say any thing to the people in preaching but that of which they might say Thus saith the Lord. They should have considered what danger they exposed the people to by this Doctrine for either those who believed this Doctrine would persist in refusing to pay and this would expose them to be eaten up by Soldiers or they being distressed would at length pay it though they thought it unlawful and this would debosh and waste their Consciences and prepare them to do other things which they thought unlawful and this would encourage those who differed from them in other things to take the same method in pressing them to conform to them and some of the poor people who have stood out long and at length yielded to pay have exposed themselves to the scorn and derision of those who uplifted that Sess Pr. Seeing they declared that this Sess was imposed to bear down the true Worship of God how could any with a good Conscience pay it Min. Any who reads this part of the Band and had not seen the Act of the Convention of Estates would think that they had declared that it was for bearing down the true Worship of God now there are no such words in the Act of Convention Again any who had not seen the Act might think that if their words were true that then the Convention of States were for bearing down whatsoever was the true Worship of God or that there was no true worship of God but in these meetings which the Magistrate calls seditious Conventicles We should not make either words or things worse than they really are and we should at least deal as fairly with the Magistrate as with other men It hath been reported by persons of Honour and of great candor that the motion of setting up Prelacy which hath been the cause of the sad suffering of Presbyterians in Scotland did not come of the Kings Majesty but was repelled by the King when first moved by some Scots men and if they who moved it had not vehemently insisted and strongly alledged that it would be easily effectuate and would be acceptable to the people of Scoland the King would never have set up Prelacy in Scotland And any favour that hath been shewed to Non-conformists hath principally flowed from the King himself as Dr. Owen in his Answer to Dr. Stillingfleets Sermon declareth And in some places of his Majesties Dominions Presbyterians have the publick worship of God without any disturbance which shews that the King doth not look upon all the Meetings of Presbyterians for the worship of God as seditious Conventicles so that suppose that were said which yet no judicious person will alledge that there were no true worship of God except in these Meetings which are called Conventicles it would not be alledged that it were the Magistrates design to bear down the true worship of God seeing these Meetings in several places of these Kingdoms are not suppressed and if some Preachers had not vented Doctrines which were really seditious at some of those Conventicles Presbyterian Ministers and people who designed nothing but the preaching and hearing of the Gospel of peace would not have been molested as they were but the seditious turbulent Doctrine of some did breed much trouble to others who were innocent It cannot be denied that there were some Meetings where such Doctrine was taught by the Preachers and applauded and practised by hearers that it was no wonder that the Magistrate called them seditious And if the Contrivers of this Bond had set themselves to devise a way to confirm the Magistrate in calling Conventicles seditious they could not have fallen upon a more effectual way than this Contrivance which is indeed seditious and will readily be imputed to many who abhor the seditious designs and principles which are in this Bond. As for the reason why this Sess should not be paid viz. because it 's declared to be imposed for an ill end they who are free to pay it will retort It 's imposed for a good end viz. to put the Kingdom in a posture of defence against Invasion and therefore it should be payed I know a judicious Gentleman who said he would pay his Sess for that end which was
what Doctrine they should preach which was an encroachment beyond any thing done by the secret Council Some talk of Presbytery and Presbyterian parity and of their detestation of Prelacy and in the mean time set up Prelacy it 's a great evidence of a Spirit of giddiness when people run round as those who run in a Circle and so run to that point from which they once did run The Declaration at Sanquair is refuted in the Confutation of the Bonds and the truth is such principles and practices are so absurd and destructive to all Rule and Government that they are not worthy of Refutation and should be answered with detestation and abhorrence They conclude that Declaration hoping that none will blame them for or offend at their rewarding those that are against them as they have done to them if they had considered Prov. 20.22 Say not thou I will recompence evil but wait on the Lord and he shall save thee and Prov. 24.29 Say not I will do so to him as he hath done to me I will render to the man according to his work Rom. 12.14 17 18 19 20 21 1 Thes 5.15 1 Pet. 3.9 10 11 12 13 14. They might have seen how groundless and absurd this hope was The 8 and 9 veses of the 137 Psalm are wrested when applied to justifie such unchristian Practices for that Scripture is a prediction of the prosperous success that the Medes and Persians should have in destroying Babylon which is also foretold Isa 45.1 3 4 13. and not a Rule to warrand us to revenge our selves and to dash out the brains of Infants It 's among the delusions of the time that some know not of what Spirit they are and imagine that to be the Zeal of God which is nothing but the wrath of man which worketh not the Righteousness of God It is meet to shut up this sad Subject with humble and earnest Supplications That the Lord would humble us in the sight and sense of our sins which have procured the dreadful Judgments and Plagues which have come upon this sinful Generation That he would convince us of our sins and make every one sensible of the Plagues of his own heart and of the Plagues that are upon the hearts of others which are among the most dreadful evidences of the anger of God that Magistrates Ministers people of all ranks may take with their sins and take shame and confusion of face to themselves because of their own sins and the sins of others That he would so turn in mercy and loving-kindness and turn us again that our backslidings be not perpetual and turn the hearts of Rulers and the hearts of people to himself and the hearts of Rulers to the people and the hearts of people to the Rulers the hearts of the fathers to the children and of the children to the fathers that Rulers may have the love kindness pity and compassion of fathers towards the people and may not by rigor and severity provoke the children to wrath and may pity those who are distempered by sad sufferings and that the Lord would incline their hearts to take speedy course that the poor people who wander as sheep without shepherds and who through their own ignorance and humours and distempers are exposed as a prey to seducers to Jesuits and those who are influenced by them who drive poor unstable people who are destitute of faithful Teachers to discover to them the devices of Satan and of his Instruments into snares and mischievous practices and makes them imagine that those pathes of the destroyer are the way to an outgate from their calamities That the Lord would incline I say their hearts to take speedy course that these poor wandering sheep may be provided with Pastors after the Lords heart who may feed them with knowledg and understanding with sound doctrine with the wholesome words of Christ that they may not be turned from the truth unto fables but by the words of the Lords mouth they may be keeped out of the paths of the destroyer and any who are intangled through the devices of Satan and subtil deceivers may be recovered in time out of these snares And that the Lord would incline the hearts of people to be subject to principalities and powers and to obey Magistrates to fear God and honour the King and keep them that they be not tempted by grievous pressures to cast off the yoke of lawful Authority but may possess their souls in patience and wait on the Lord in the way of his judgments who often makes use of lawful Magistrates to punish his people for their sins and though the Magistrate may be wrong yet God is righteous and we should be humbled under his hand It 's a very humbling dispensation when Parents and Magistrates are alienate from and rigid against their children and subjects and we should not be chafed and enraged but humbled under the mighty hand of God and carry with that lowliness and meekness patience and respect to lawful Authority that we may commend ourselves to the consciences of all in the sight of God that being reviled we may bless being persecuted we may suffer it being defamed we may entreat And seeing the Devil is so active to rent the Church and to ruine it and to render the Ministers of the Gospel and so the Gospel it self contemptible we should if we can do no more pray for the peace of Jerusalem and that the Lord would let people see the devices of Satan and Seducers who draw them away from under the eye of the Shepherd that they may destroy them and that he would convince people that it 's their duty to esteem Ministers very highly in love for their works sake and for their Masters sake for they who despise them despise Christ and the Father who sent Christ Farmer Sir I think my self much obliged to you for the pains you have taken for my information and I ingenuously acknowledg I am by what I have heard instructed in many things of which I was ignorant I shall desire before we part that ye would give me some directions how to order my way in this dark and dangerous time in which my lot hath fallen it 's seldome that I have occasion to converse with Ministers which makes me the more desirous to make the best use of their company I can when any of them come this way Minist There are many excellent directions in several of these Papers that I was speaking of before it were your advantage to have them I shall only give you a few 1. Let that be your earnest study to be in Christ and to walk in him to know him and to be found in him having his righteousness and to be conformed to him to walk at he walked The Apostle Paul counted all things loss for the excellency of the knowledg of Christ and to be found in him c. and he travelled as in birth to have Christ formed in the
Galatians It 's to this fellowship with Christ that God calls us in the Gospel and then give all diligence to make your calling and election sure It 's sad to see several people who will talk great things of the interests of Christ in the Land so ignorant of Christ and of union with him and so unconcerned as to their own interest in Christ that though they have no assurance of it and cannot give one mark of interest in Christ yet they are not sensible of this nor regrating it nor earnestly seeking in publick or private to know him to be in him to know if they be in him but they are taken up with other things Christ is not in their mind heart and mouth they are not speering after him in their private converse as the Spouse doth in the Song Saw ye him whom my soul loveth They are more in seeking to know some useless barren notion some jangling debate than they are in seeking to know Christ and him crucified more taken up in apprehending some unedifying empty conceit than in apprehending Christ or seeking to be apprehended by him Who can think that they are truly careful about Christs interests in the Land who are careless about their own interest in Christ and give no diligence to make sure their calling If folk were taken up about the one thing necessary it would take them off their vain janglings about these things which tend neither to edification nor peace They who are striving to enter in at the strait gate and taking the kingdom of heaven by violence and working out the work of their salvation with fear and trembling and giving diligence to make their calling and election sure will not find leisure to dote about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy strife railings and evil surmisings That weighty question What shall I do to be saved would take folk off from unedifying questions and doubtful disputations 2. Be much in the exercise of Faith and Repentance ye must live and walk by Faith and be daily searching out your sins looking into the sink of original corruption that loathsome stinking corrupt body of Death that is ever present with you to hinder you from good and incline you to evil and to the innumerable swarms of actual sins which compass you about and ye must be daily confessing your sins judging your self lamenting after the Lord lying at the Fountain opened to the house of David and Inhabitants of Jerusalem and coming through the great High Priest Jesus the Son of God to the Throne of Grace to obtain Mercy and find Grace to help in the time of need These exercises would hold you doing and keep you from medling as a busie-body in things too high for you and that do not belong to you and are not within the compass of your calling if ye were thus exercised ye would walk humbly with God and humbly with men ye would be so far from bidding others stand by themselves as if ye were holier than they that in holiness of mind ye would esteem others better than your selves and so far from casting at fellowship with the Lords people in publick Ordinances or private worship that ye would rather judge your self unworthy of their fellowship and if ye could do it would rather separate from your self than from others ye would think it a great mercy and priviledge that the like of you had any access to wait at the posts of the Lords doors and any place in his Courts beware of those who undervalue the preaching of Faith and Repentance for this was the Doctrine of the Prophets of John the Baptist who came preaching the Doctrine of Repentance and directing his hearers to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World Christ himself preached that men should repent and believe the Gospel and the Apostle Paul taught Repentance toward God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ Repentance and Faith are as necessary for the beginning and progress of our motion towards Heaven as our two legs are necessary for walking and the exercise of Faith and Repentance cease not till all tears be wiped away and Faith be turned into sight to cut off the exercise of Faith and Repentance is to cut off the legs of a man who is fleeing from sin and wrath to the true City of Refuge Ye may be sure that those Teachers who make it their business to discover to you your sins and diseases your poverty nakedness filthiness and direct you to Christ as the Saviour of sinners as the Physitian of souls as full of grace and truth who hath fine white Raiment fine Gold who is a fountain opened who teach you to loath your selves and to love Christ to have no confidence in the flesh but to rejoyce in the Lord Jesus who teach you that you are nothing and he is all that you may not glory in your selves but in the Lord you may be assured that they preach the same that Christ and his Apostles preached and if you were rightly sensible of your own sins and humbled for them then the consideration of the sins of others would not puff you up but humble you further Dan. 9.5 6 7 8. Beware of the way of those who talk of the sins of others as if they were accusers leading a process against others and commending themselves by condemning others for that looks like the strain of the Pharisee in the 18. of Luke The sins of our Rulers Ministers and of persons of all ranks should make us ashamed Ezr. 9.6 3. Let the Glory of God and the enjoying of God be your chief end and take his word which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament for the only Rule to direct you how to glorifie and enjoy him deny your self beware of self-seeking self-pleasing of pleasing your own humors or the humors of others Let that be your great design to please God to be accepted of him if you can please others to their edification become all things to all for gaining of them but beware ye displease not God to please any make no mans Testimony though it were given immediately before his death the rule of your Faith or Practice so long as men are here on earth they know but in part and even good men may err in their judgment and practice in several things some are so easily misled that if a Paper come to their hand that pleases them in some opinion that they are addicted to they take all the rest of it for unquestionable truth without examination or if a Preacher be of their party they implicitely follow him in any thing he says or does beware of listning to Impulses and Revelations which ye find born in upon you even though ye be in a good frame of Spirit when they are cast in for Satan can turn himself into an Angel of light and wait such occasions of suggesting errors and he can delude people by
suggesting that such or such a Scripture makes for his deluding suggestions Peter roved even when he was in the Mount beholding Christs Transfiguration when he moved that Christ might abide in the Mount and after he had given that excellent Confession of Christ That he was the Son of God which not flesh and blood but the Father had revealed to him Satan suggests to him to disswade Christ from going to Jerusalem to suffer which drew that sharp rebuke from the blessed mouth of Christ Get thee behind me Satan The Devil can back his suggestions with Scriptures which he perverts as we see he did when he tempted Christ to cast himself down from the Pinacle of the Temple and therefore there is the more need to search the Scripture and to compare Scripture with Scripture and to consider what goeth before and what followeth in the Scripture and to know the Analogy of Faith from the Scriptures that are more clear and as it is holden forth from the Scriptures in the Confession of Faith and Catechisms that ye may not receive any sense of Scripture which is contrary to the Analogy of Faith to the Doctrine which is according to godliness received in the Reformed Churches Beware of adding to the word of God by making these things Duties which God hath not commanded or making any thing sinful which God hath not forbidden there are too many who will confidently impose their Conceits upon others and too many who are easily imposed upon simple people who believe every word and are tossed to and fro with every wind Study to be well founded in the Scriptures that with the Bereans ye may try Doctrines and Practices by the Rule of the holy Scripture It 's lamentable that there is so great ignorance of the Scriptuees and many are more in reading other writings than in reading the holy Scriptures Walk exactly according to the light which the Lord hath given to you from his word detain it not in unrighteousness and beware ye go no further than the light of the word directs you for if ye go out of the light and be in the dark ye know not how far ye may wander they who without direction from the word do blindly follow the example of others and know not whether it be right or wrong or take what others do to be right because such or such persons does it they are in an ill taking Beware ye go not without the word walk in the Law of the Lord in the light of the word which is a light to the feet and a Lamp to the paths 4. And that ye may be nourished up in the knowledge of the Scriptures of truth go to the publick Ordinances forsake not assembling together with the Lords people who meet in his name the Lord hath commanded his Ministers to teach and baptize c. and hath promised to be with them to the end of the world and hath promised That where he records his Name there he will come and bless his people he hath appointed Ministers for this end to feed his people with the knowledge and understanding of the word with the sincere Milk of the word and therefore if ye would glorifie the Name of the Lord if ye would have fellowship with God if you would have his presence and his Blessing if ye would know his mind and will revealed in his word frequent his Ordinances beware of those who would draw you away from the Shepherds Tents for they draw you away from Christ himself for it 's there that he feeds and makes his Flocks to rest Believe not those who say That he is not to be found in his own Ordinances for there he is and hath trysted his people to meet him there and he hath promised to come there and bless them whenever they are met in his name He is present he is not to come when they are met in his Name for he is come already There am I saith he in the midst of them The sins of those who are present at the Lords Ordinances shall not deprive those who upon his call comes to record his Name of his Presence and blessing for he is faithful who hath promised and they who come according to his appointment to glorifie his Name in his own Ordinances may be assured that he comes and blesses them though it may be they do not sensibly discern it and they are bound to believe it that he hath come and blessed them because he hath said it Beware of those who think they are the best and most tender Christians who are readiest to cast Ministers as no Ministers and Churches as no Churches there were many great faults in the Church of Corinth in several of the Churches of Asia and their Angels and yet Christ himself owns them and their Angels as Chuches and Angels and we find not that the Lord directs any to separate from these Churches or their Assemblies for publick worship because of those scandalous sins which were among them We find Christ himself present in the Church of Lacdicea which was the worst of them and standing at their door and knocking It 's insolent boldness to cast these as no Churches and Ministers whom Christ owns or who condemn going to these Meetings where Christ himself comes and blesses his people remember that your great busines in Ordinances is with the Lord himself for they are his Ordinances he hath appointed them the efficacy of them depends upon his Institution and Blessing and not upon the worthiness and intention of Ministers whoever absent themselves ye may be sure he is present whom your soul should seek come because he calls you and because he comes and blesses his people where he causes his Name to be recorded Learn to hear the Word not as the word of man but as the word of God Esteem the Ministers of Christ very highly in love for their works-sake and for their Masters sake Beware of the way of those who cast at the Ordinances if they be not dispensed by Ministers of the most eminent gifts or by Ministers who are in all things of their opinion receive the Lords message of the hand of any of his Messengers Beware of idolizing any Minister Remember that neither he that planteth nor he that watereth is any thing but God who giveth the encrease And beware of undervaluing any of the Lords Ministers seeing they are the Ministers of Christ 1 Cor. 4.1 In which Chapter the Apostle disswades the Corinthians who overvalued some and undervalued others of their Ministers from this comparing and rash judging of Ministers and among other Arguments uses this That they judge before the time he desires them to let alone that judging till the Lord come ver 5. who knew the counsels of the heart and the hidden things of darkness Neglect not the private exercises of Religion upon the Lords day but beware of the way of those who neglect the publick Ordinances though they have the
opportunity of them these private Meetings which were kept in England in a separating way from the solemn Assembly became the Seminaries of error and heresie when the sheep leave the shepherds tents and the green Pastures of the Lords own Ordinances what wonder if they wander and grow sick and dote about questions 5. In your private converse seek for the things which make for peace and for mutual edification beware ye waste not your time in vain janglings and unedifying debates which distemper the minds and hearts of those who dote upon them and diverts them from edifying purposes When ye meet with those who are given to these janglings if ye can by Scripture and reason reclaim them from that snare essay it with meekness of wisdom If ye find them impatient to be contradicted and not capable through passion and prejudice to receive instruction then fall upon some good edâ—fying purposes wherein you and they agree that whereunto ye have attained ye may walk according to the same rule If you find that they will neither hold off their janglings and that 's very ordinary for a spirit of error or schism to hold people perpetually upon those things which foster error or division nor yet receive instruction your converse with such is not like to be fruitful imploy others to deal with them and be much in praying for them and be ready to do them any good that they will admit or accept of Beware of wasting your time in speaking ill of absent persons remember the words Tit. 3. To speak evil of no man c. Make not that your design to wrong the fame of any person as the word imports hate the way of such whose work it is to render Ministers and those who differ from them in any thing hateful and to put them out of capacity as far as in them lyes to serve the Lord in their generation and station Beware of rash determinations of questions which ye understand not some people are so rash that no question is started but they will presently determine it and having vented their judgment they will not readily retract Meddle not as a busie-body in other mens matters and in things too high for you which are not within the compass of your calling Waste not your precious time as many people do in State-intrigues It belongs to the Representatives of Nations and not to private persons to determine matters of that nature What the Representatives of Nations may do for righting what is wrong in the Government of Nations is a question which the Representatives of Nations and not private persons should move and resolve It 's a trick of Satan and seditious Jesuits to divert people from the duties of their Christian and particular callings and to break and crack their brains in over-stretching them to reach things that are above them and to grasp matters which they can never comprehend and though they could understand them have no call to meddle with them And if private persons take the sword which God hath not given to them to right what they think wrong by strong hand And if private persons take upon them to depose Ministers for real or apprehended faults this is the high-way to all confusion to turn State and Church upside down and to fill the world with murthers and butcheries to turn it into a Butcher-house and to fill the Church with schism and damnable errors These are the methods of the lying and murthering spirit to make havock of the souls and bodies of men 6. Imitate the example of our Lord Jesus Ephes 5.1 Be followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be ye kind one to another tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you Put on therefore as the Elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies kindness humbleness of mind meekness long-suffering forbearing one another and forgiving one another If any man have a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye And above all things put on charity which is the bond of perfectness Love them that hate you Bless and curse not Be not overcome with evil but overcome evil with good Learn of Christ to be meek and lowly in heart shew all meekness to all men The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit is of great price in the sight of God When ye are injured and persecuted learn of Christ to be patient and in your patience possess your souls Look above men who wrong you unto God who is correcting or trying you and be humbled and patient under the mighty hand of God fret not at the prosperity of those who for a while bring evil devices to pass but trust in the Lord and be doing good And delight thy self in the Lord Commit your way to him Wait on the Lord and in well-doing commit your self to him as to a faithful Creator Take heed to your spirit beware that ye be not deluded by Satan and brought to imagine that wrathful revenge is zeal Who is a wise man and endued with knowledg among you let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom hut if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and be not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual devilish for where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work But the wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace The Spirit of Christ opposeth that spirit which lusteth to envy and revenge When James and John would have been at fire from Heaven to consume the Samaritans Christ turned and rebuked them and said Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of for the Son of man is not come to destroy mens lives but to save them Let that be your constant design and endeavour to express the praises the vertues of Christ in resembling him in loveliness in love in bowels and mercies in humility lowliness of heart in self-denial in gentleness meekness patience long-suffering forbearance forgiveness that the same mind may be in you that was in Christ Jesus that ye may be in the world as he was in the world that ye may walk in his steps that ye may be conformed to the Image of the Son of God and Christ formed in you He countenanced the Ordinances he heard John was baptized of him when the people were baptized he was Circumcised he Prayed Preached and eated the Passover when Judas the Traytor was present he directed the Lepers whom he cured to shew themselves to the Priest he was subject to Joseph
and worse continued contests Our nakedness-discovering writings what have they done but added oyl to the flame For Christs sake my reverend and dear Brethren hearken to this word in season from the Oracles of God and treasures of pure antiquity pointing out the way of a godly and edifying peace It will be no grief of heart but sweet peace and consolation when we are to appear before the Judg of the quick and the deed Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus So heartily prayeth your Brother and fellow-â—ervant ROBERT BLAIR Thus far Reverend Mr. Blair who was both a Son of Thunder â—nd a Son of Peace a Peace maker O with what authority and seriousneâ—s did I hear him press unity in Preaching before a Synod from these words Phil. 2.1 If there be therefore any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the spirit if any bowels mercies fulfil ye my joy that ye be like minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind And I heard him say upon Preaching before a general Assembly That he could be content to be carried from the place in which he was Preaching to his grave to have the rent that then was in the Church cured Ignorant and rash youths who have not experience and consider not what an abominable sin Schism is and what are the mischievous consequences of it and how it ordinarily ends in the ruin desolation of a Church they know little what they are doing when they are blowing up the fire of contention and it 's a sport to some to cast such fire-brands But they who have Heavenly wisdom see that that sporting is mischievous madness that it will be bitter in the latter end It is not for nought that the Spirit of God directed the Apost Paul in writing to the Church of the Corinthians in which there were many things wrong to fall first upon the ill of divisions 1 Cor. 1.10 and when he is shutting up that Epistle he exhorts that all these things be done with charity and to greet one another with an holy kiss And when he is shutting up the 2 Epist he concludes Finally Brethren farewell be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind live in peace and the God of love and peace shall be with you Greet one another with an holy kiss So thus he begins and ends with this unity and peace 9. And because no speaking nor reasoning will prevail against the working of a spirit of error and schism without the effectual working of the pirit of the Lord let us humbly and earnestly pray that the Lord would have mercy upon us for his Sons sake who came to destroy the works of the Devil pour upon us the spirit of grace and of supplications the spirit of faith repentance that we may look on him whom we have pierced mourn the spirit of a sound mind the spirit of love peace And that every one Magistrates Ministers and people may be made sensible of their own sins We should pray that the Lord would send his Spirit that convinces the world of sin to let us see our sins and to let us see them written in our judgments that we may accept of the punishment of our sins justifie the Lord when he judges The Lord often writes the sins of men in so great and legible letters in their judgments that they who run may read them David despised the Lord and occasioned the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme by his adultery and murther incestuous filthiness breaks out in his house the sword departs not from his house his people despise him and follow Absalom Shimei an exasperate Benjamite is let loose upon him to revile and curse him and cast stones at him he disowns him as no King gives him no title of honour but only calls him a man and which was worse a bloody man a man of Belial and does not cry and then flee but goes along in the sight and hearing of the King Courtiers and Soldiers cursing casting stones and dust David sees that tho' Shimei did this contrary to the Law of God which says Thou shalt not revile the Gods nor curse the ruler of thy people Yet that he did it not without the over-ruling Providence of God he saw that the Lord had let Shimei loose upon him is humbled under the hand of God Uzziah will needs go to the Temple exercise the Priests Office the Lord by Leprosie cuts him off from the House of the Lord and from the exercise of his Kingly Office When the Priests did not impartially apply the Law of God to reclaim the people from their sins no doubt they thought thus to keep in with the people but this brought them to be base contemptible before all the people Mal. 2.9 The Jews that remained in the land after the ruin of the Temple though they had but one Prophet yet they despise him they will not hear the word which Jeremiah spoke in the name of the Lord but they would do what went out of their own mouth and therefore the Lord leaves them to live like Pagans swears by his great name that his name should not be named any more in their mouths they should not have so much as the form profession of the worship of the true God Jer. 44.16 26. they would not be reproved by Ezek. ch 3.26 they are plagued with the want of a reprover When people will reject the counsel of the Lord will not hearken to his voice nor take his gracious offer made in the Gospel when they will not endure sound Doctrine nor desire the sincere milk of the word nor receive the truth in love the Lord justly gives them up to their own hearts lusts to walk in their own counsels to strong delusions to believe lyes to be tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine to turn aside to fables When they despise his servants will not receive his mâ—ssengers their message count them enemies for telling the truth the Lord removes his servants from them leaves them to be deluded with teachers which are after their own humours and lusts When people refuse to hear the Lords words and walk after the imaginations of their own heart Jer. 13.10 the Lord fills them with drunkenness that they destroy one another like drunken men who know not what they are doing v. 13. Behold I will fill all the Inhabitants of this Land even the Kings that sit upon Davids Throne and the Priests and the Prophets and all the Inhabitants of Jerusalem with drunkenness And I will dash them one against another even the Fathers and the Sons together saith the Lord I will not pity nor spare nor have mercy but destroy them Hear ye and give car be not proud for the Lord hath spoken Give glory to
the Lord your God before he cause darkness and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while ye look for light he turn it into the shadow of death and make it gross darkness When folk will follow their own imaginations and will not walk in the light of the word of God the Lord fills them with drunkenness and leaves them to dash upon one another and destroy one another like drunken men fighting in the dark But neither words nor rods will be rightly understood or laid to heart till the Spirit be poured from on high If the Lord would pour out his Spirit we would not only be brought to see our sins but to be ashamed of them to take shame and confusion of face to our selves we would sorrow and mourn and lament after the Lord we would turn from our sins to the Lord and joyn our selves to the Lord and we would joyn together in seeking the Lord in his Ordinances then the Wilderness would be a fruitful field the dead and scattered bones would be joyned together and live then Judah and Israel would be one stick in the hand of the Lord Ezek. 37. Then the Children of Israel and Judah would come together going and weeping seeking the Lord their God asking the way to Sion with their faces thitherward saying Come and let us joyn our selves unto the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be forgotten Jer. 50.4 5. When the Spirit is poured out from on high upon his people then the Lord turns to them a pure Language that they may call upon the Name of the Lord to serve him with one consent then they turn humble Suplicants and pour out their hearts in groans and sighs that cannot be uttered then Pride and Haughtiness is taken away and people become poor in Spirit and have no confidence in the flesh but trust in the Lord and rejoyce in the Lord Jesus Zeph. 3.9 10 11 12. Rom. 8.26 27. Phil. 3.3 Till the Lord come till he return with mercy and loving-kindness and turn us again and cause his face to shine and see our ways and heal us we will but wax worse and worse there is no remedy for us but in his Sovereign Gracc and those mercies that have been of old and endure for ever Let us look to him who is exalted to give Repentance to Israel and Remission of sins that he would turn us that we may be turned and heal our backslidings and heal our breaches that he may utter that quickning word Ezek. 37.9 Come from the four winds O breath and breath upon these slain that they may live O Lord come and overcome our evil with thy goodness for who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passes by the transgression of the Remnant of thy heritage and retains not anger for ever because thou delights in mercy who will turn again and will have compassion upon us he will subdue our iniquities and thou wilt cast all their sins in the depth of the Sea thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham which thou hast sworn to our Fathers from the days of old Micha 7.18 19 20. We have not remembred our Covenant but have spoken words falsly in making a Covenant Nevertheless O Lord remember thy Covenant and establish to us an everlasting Covenant that we may remember our ways and be ashamed Establish thy Covenant with us that we may know that thou art the Lord that we may remember and be confounded and never open our mouth any more because of our shame when thou art pacified toward us for all that we have done O Lord Righteousness belongs to thee but unto us confusion of faces as it is this day to all of us to our Kings Princes Fathers Ministers people of all ranks belongs Confusion but to the Lord our God belongs mercies and forgiveness tho' we have sinned against him Lord give us Repentance and turn us and we shall be turned Let thy power be great according as thou hast spoken saying The Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy forgiving iniquity and transgression Lord humble our uncircumcised hearts that we may take with our sins and accept of the punishment of them that we may remember them with shame and sorrow but do not thou remember against us former iniquities but according to thy mercy remember us for thy goodness sake O Lord remember for us thy Covenant and repent according to the multitude of thy mercies and for thy names-sake pardon our iniquities for they are many and great And when Wisdom and Council and Strength when Light and Life is gone and when Unity is gone when there is none to help and none of the Sons of Zion to take her by the hand in her distress when there is none to make up the breach no Intercessor let thine own arm bring salvation When all earthly Glory is stained blasted and gone appear in thine own Glory in the glory of thy wisdom power and Sovereign grace in building Sion build the house and bear the glory that when thou hast done the work by thy Spirit grace grace may be glorified and that this may be written for the Generations to come that the people which shall be created may praise the Lord. We do not present our Supplications before thee for our righteousness for we are all as an unclean thing and our righteousness as filthy rags but for thy great mercy O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and do defer not for thy own sake O our God! for this people are called by thy Name O Lord the hope of Israel the Savior thereof in the time of trouble though our iniquities testifie against us do for thy name sake if thou mark our iniquity we cannot stand but there is forgiveness with thee that thou may be feared there is mercy with thee and plenteous redemption and thou redeemest Israel from all his iniquities and troubles O remember not against us former iniquities let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us for we are brought very low help us O God of our Salvation for the Glory of thy name and deliver and purge away our sins for thy name sake save this people bless thy Inheritance feed them also and lift them up for ever Save us O Lord our God and gather us to give thanks unto thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting and let all the people say Amen Praise ye the Lord. Unto the King eternal immortal invisible the only wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and and ever Amen FINIS
Indulged Ministers which begins pag. 128. and continues to the end of his Book He makes some fashion here of staring a Question 1. He grants That the Indulged Ministers are Ministers of the Gospel And in his 28 Questions which were as vant-couriers sent before this History where the main body of his forces are drawn up he says he chearfully grants them to be Ministers and nothing doubts but the people would willingly hear these same Indulged men if they would relinquish the Indulgence and go to the fields and Preach with the rest He says here That he doth not make this the Question whether or not these Indulged Ministers are true Ministers of the Gospel or ought in any case to be acknowledged and looked upon as such 2. He grants That it is not simply unlawful to hear these Indulged In his 28 Questions he says He durst not say that it were simply unlawful to hear the Curats 3. He grants That they may be lawfully heard at some time and in some Circumstances as for example if there were no other to be heard in all Scotland In his 28 questions he says I should readily grant that in some cases and in some circumstances they might not onely be Lawfully heard and joyned with but also should and ought be heard As for example if there were no other in all Scotland to be heard but such as were settled by the Councils Orders And I would says he yield as much even as to the Curats I mean such of them as were not openly flagitious and profane or are not notoriously ignorant If there were no other in all Scotland to be heard The Reason moving him to make these concessions is that they have the essentials of the Ministerial Office and so their Ministerial Actings are valid and are not nullities for so says he if they are not Ministers all the Children whom they have Baptized are yet unbaptized and all their Ministerial Acts are null And to evite this Absurdity he will not say that they are not Ministers We have heard what he grants let us hear what he denies 1. He denies That the People among whom the Indulged Ministers are settled are to own these Ministers as their Ministers their Pastours or Overseers set over them by the Holy Ghost 2. He denies That it 's Lawful and expedient to hear them when there are other Ministers in Scotland to be heard Then he affirms That it is these Peoples Duty to withdraw from the Indulged to hear and countenance other Ministers who are not Indulged and he insinuates Reasons why they are to withdraw from the one and countenance the other 1. The Non-indulged Preach upon Christs call but the Indulged Preach not upon Christs call but by mans Order The Indulged Ministers are not over the People in the Lord are not set over them to be their Pastours and Overseers by the Holy Ghost but the Non-indulged are over them in the Lord and set over them as Pastours and Overseers by the Holy Ghost The Non-indulged Preach contrary to mans Order or as it is in his 28 questions they Preach upon the call of Christ and not upon the Warrant and Order of the Council but contrary thereto but the Indulged Preach not contrary to the Warrant and Order of the Council There are not such exceptions against the Non-indulged as there are against the Indulged The Non-indulged are owned and countenanced of the Lord in a remarkable and wonderful manner The Indulged are not so countenanced c. Though he do not expresly deny all to the Indulged which he ascribes to the Non-indulged and though he do not expresly ascribe to the Non-indulged what he denies to the Indulged yet seeing he is making a comparison to shew the difference betwixt the Indulged and not Indulged and seeing he is in this comparative balancing the Indulged and not Indulged whatever he puts as ponderous and advantageous in the one Scale he must keep it out of the other and upon the contrary what is wanting or naught in the one must be or be right in the other or else his comparison would not be fair and his Weights and Balance false Thus we have the state of the Question before us let us examine how it stands and if it be consistent with the Historians tenets 1. He grants the Indulged Ministers to be Ministers of the Gospel then his own mouth condemns him for if they be Ministers of the Gospel they have not renounced their Ministerial mission and their dependance upon Christ And therefore the Historian grants that he said false when he said they had done so They who renounce that which essentially constitutes the Ministerial Office they are not Ministers of the Gospel and they who are Ministers of the Gospel have not renounced what is essentially constitutive of the Gospel-Ministry Thus the Historian hath eaten in all these horrid calumnies of this nature which in his Letters and this History he hath cast upon the Indulged Ministers 2. If they be Ministers of the Gospel they ought to Preach the Gospel But this Historian says they should not Preach for he says none should hear them but all should withdraw from them and thus they should Preach the Gospel because they are Ministers of the Gospel and they should not Preach because none should hear them and Ministers are not obliged to Preach where there are none to hear and when none should hear And thus he makes them Ministers and no Ministers for a Minister who should Preach and whom none should hear is a Minister and no Minister He grants that the Ministerial Acts which they have done are valid they are not nullities but if this Historian get his will they shall be incapacitate to Baptize c. any more and thus he turns them into meer insignificant cyphers The onely comfort in this sad case is that if they will but come out of the Kirk to the Fields and so change the place of their Preaching they shall make as significant figures as the Non-indulged For he who is but a cypher in the Kirk will make a great figure in the Fields though he stand there alone and no other Minister be with him This is a new Arithmetical invention to make a cypher which signified nothing by a meer local removal to become a very significant figure though no figure be prefixed to it to add any virtue to it I wonder whence it comes that the Fields and Mountains in Scotland have such virtue and have it not in any other part of the World that we hear of for in Scotland according to this Authors Opinion a Minister who signifies nothing in a Kirk where the Magistrate allows him the peaceable exercise of his Ministry if he will take the Fields he shall not only be a man a Minister in the Fields but chearfully heard and countenanced and owned not onely of men but of the Lord in a wonderful manner And the Blessing which was with-held from the
People in the Kirk justly because of their sin they shall find it in the Fields notwithstanding of their provocations See pag. 133. Or if the Author thought that the Fields had this force every where I wonder how he did not take the Fields in Holland where they say the Magistrate claims more Power in reference to matters of Religion than the Historian allows but on the contrary he stayed with in the Kirk as long as the Magistrate allowed even when the Magistrate would not suffer him to Preach in the Kirk he never went to the Fields for any thing we could hear but kept himself within doors I see the change of places makes a change in some mens minds and therefore that doth not hold always Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt And that the Fellow who said Si tu hic esses aliter sentires was not altogether senseless But again if the Indulged Ministers be Ministers of the Gospel and do indeed Preach the Gospel then the People who received them as their own Ministers formerly ordained by the Presbytery to take the charge of them or who in their destitute condition invited them as Ministers ordained to come and Preach the Gospel to them are obliged to own them as Ministers of the Gospel and to countenance them in Preaching and if they withdraw from them and break off that Communion in the publick pure Worship of God in which they formerly joyned they are guilty not only of ingratitude in deserting the Ministers of the Gospel who come upon their invitation to help them in their destitute condition but they are guilty of Separation or Schism 2. He grants That it is not simply sinful to hear the Indulged Ministers Then he said false when he said These Ministers were not Christs Ambassadours for to hear these as Ministers as Christs Ambassadours who are not sent by him but sent by men Usurping Christs Authority were simply sinful if they have renounced their dependance on Christ c. 2. And he speaks a gross untruth when he says That the hearing of Indulged Ministers is an homologating countenancing approving of a sinful Supremacy and that the hearing of Curats is an approving of Prelacy for the approving of that which is sinful and in its own nature sinful is simply sinful the approving of that which is in it self ill and always and at all times evil that is not only now and then but always and in all cases sinful and simply sinful 3. He grants That if there were no other Ministers in Scotland that none would scruple to hear the Prelates Curates And in his 28 questions That in that case not only might the Indulged and the Curats be heard but they should and ought to be heard Then he must quit that conceit that the hearing of Indulged Ministers and of Curats is an approbation of sinful Supremacy and Prelacy for men should never approve that which is in its self evil 2. He miserably torments the Consciences of the poor simple People who will believe him for he tells them it 's unlawful to hear Indulged Ministers while there are others in Scotland to be heard but if there be no others then it 's not only Lawful but a Duty to hear the Indulged Ministers So that the People in Order to the resolution of this case of Conscience whether they do right or wrong in hearing or not hearing the Indulged Ministers they must inform themselves whether there be any other Minister alive in Scotland and so long as they hear there is any one alive though he were living in the Mull of Galloway and they were living at John a Grots it were sinful for them to hear Indulged Ministers but if he were dead it were a sin not to hear And so the People would be in Conscience obliged to keep up a constant Intelligence that they might know how soon that Minister died that they might not neglect their Duty in hearing Indulged Ministers His advice to hear the Curats or Indulged Ministers in case there were no other to hear comes too late to the People whom he commends for their leading of Ministers arid breaking the ice for they are far before him here for they will choose rather to hear none at all than to hear either Bishops Curats or Council-Curats and some of them say they like the last worse than the first And if the Historian were living there are some of these People who would not hear himself if they knew he were of that Opinion that either Indulged Ministers or Curats should be heard in any case Some of them would tell him that he is all mistaken when lâ—t thinks that the Baptism administred by Curats is valid and is not a nullity for they judge it to be much worse than a nullity to be even the mark of the Beast And seeing he acknowledges the People for Guides he must follow them they will not come back to him if he cry after them that he meant not flagitious and ignorant Curats but those who are knowing and of sober conversations they will cry back we who are common People are not for distinctions as ye your self said We will hear none of them in no case whole Sale is good Sale And therefore follow us who have guided you who are Ministers now a long time and ye your self have commended us for good Guides and if ye will not follow us we and you will shed for ye are slipped aside we are where we were ye are fallen off and so we are not to be blamed for the breach And if the Historian have no other Reason for hearing the Indulged or the Conformists when folk can do no other ways but that which he mentions viz. the shunning of that absurdity that if they were no Ministers their Baptisms c. would be nullities and the Children were unbaptized If this be all it may be made use of to perswade the People in a mister to hear a Popish Priest for the Baptism that he administers is not a nullity and Papists when they turn Protestants are not rebaptized and where away this will lead let any who have any discerning in these matters judge The Reasons for which he would have the People with-drawing are 1. That they are not called by Christ nor set over the People by the Holy Ghost but by the Council If it be reduced to form and candidly proposed it must run thus The Council permitted and allowed the Indulged Ministers the peaceable exercise of their Ministry in such and such Congregations and therefore they were not called by Christ nor set over these Congregations by the Holy Ghost The consequence is manifestly false for if the Magistrates Civil allowance of the publick peaceable exercise of the Ministry do make void the potestative mission which Ministers have from Christ in their Ordination and if it destroys the Peoples invitation and the advice and consent of Ministers concerned all which the Indulged