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
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
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
who did not think themselves obliged to give in a written or verbal Confession Testimony or Protestation against the Supremacy and the Invasions made upon the Government of the Church and yet the Author of this Epistle urges none of these with his Queries but only the Indulged Ministers though they have somewhat to say for their forbearance of any such Protestation which others had not seeing they were called to the Council in a time when the Magistrate was relenting somewhat as to the severity formerly used and they were called to get some relaxation from the restraint laid formerly upon them and their irritating of the Magistrate might not only have prejudged themselves of that freedom but also have been prejudicial to others who were in expectation of it who might very readily have blamed them for their imprudency in tristing their Protestation with that season not only to their own prejudice but to the prejudice of others And I leave it to the Consideration of indifferent persons whether or not the Magistrate would in all probability have said These men and others of them made no Protestation against us when we turned them out and subverted their Government but now when we begin to shew favour to any of them they grow more insolent and therefore it 's best policy to forbear our favours and to use severities And seeing all these Brethren and the whole Presbyterians in Scotland were concerned in the Invasions made upon the Church and were concerned in the bad effects that might have followed upon the irritation of the Magistrate in that juncture of Affairs if it had been fit for a few private Ministers without the concurrence of all concerned or at lest without their counsel and advice to have given in such a Testimony or Protestation as the Author requires and it 's well known that no such concurrence was offered nor such advice given to these Ministers by the rest of their Judgment who were concerned in this matter I shall not repeat what the Author of the Answer to the Countrey-mans Scruples anent the Indulgence hath said concerning Testimonies in which he hath shewed from Scripture and solid Reason the rashness and unreasonableness of those who have condemned the suffering Ministers and the Indulged Ministers for not giving Testimonies He hath excellently discovered from Scripture when Testimonies are to be given and when not when they are seasonable and when unseasonable He hath also shewed how written Testimonies which Synods had prepared when Prelacy was coming in particularly the Synod of Fife were obstructed by the Magistrates raising of these Synods and that they who had no clearness to make any use of the Indulgence did obstruct the written Testimony which was prepared against the evils which were in the complex acts which related to the Indulgence he hath also shewed how many Testimonies have been given by word in Preaching and before the Council and by suffering and by not obeying the Instructions of the Council I shall only shew that the Ministers who first appeared before the Council at the first Indulgence did witness a good Confession in the presence of the Council They declare that they had received their Ministry from Jesus Christ and after design themselves the Ministers of Jesus Christ They speak of their Ministry as Paul did of his Ministry Acts 22.24 The Ministry saith he which I have received of the Lord Jesus And by the way we may take notice that the Ministry is not a meer Power or Authority but comprehends the exercise of that Authority the exercise of the Ministerial Office for Paul speaks of finishing the Ministry which he had received which unquestionably points at the exercise of his Ministry and they design themselves as Paul designs Ministers 1 Cor. 4.1 Let a man so account of us as of the Ministers of Christ 2 Cor. 11.23 Are they Ministers of Christ I speak as a fool I am more They who quarrel this part of their Confession must fall first upon the Apostle Paul or rather upon the Holy Ghost for the Apostle spoke as he was moved by the Holy Ghost 2. They declare that they had received from Christ full prescriptions for regulating them in their Ministry as they had acknowledged Christ the giver of the Ministry so they acknowledge him the Law-giver from whom they have the prescriptions to regulate them in the Ministry both in their entrance into it and exercise of it then they declare that these prescriptions of Christs are full This excludes all other prescriptions though they had said no more but that they had received prescriptions from Christ to regulate them this would have sufficiently excluded all other prescriptions For the prescriptions being the prescriptions of God we must not diminish from them and so we must not admit any Rules contrary to them or that derogate any way from them and we must not add unto them because they are his words Prov. 30.5 6. Every word of God is pure add thou not to his words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar And then seeing Christ hath given these prescriptions to regulate Ministers in their Ministry this shews that these prescriptions are a perfect Rule a Rule must be perfect else it is not a Rule as our Divines maintain against the Papists in pleading for the perfection of the Scripture seeing Christ hath given prescriptions to his Ministers to regulate them in their Ministry these prescriptions are perfect else they were not sufficient to reach the end of regulating His work is perfect he is faithful in his house as a son over his own house he hath finished all the work that was given him to do But when they further assert that these prescriptions were full this did clearly exclude all other prescriptions for regulating them in their Ministry as superfluous and as Additions to that which God had made full and perfect but last of all this is one of the Lords prescriptions that we should not add to his Word nor diminish from it Deut. 4.2 Again that is another of his prescriptions that they do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus And seeing they are the Ministers of Christ and their work the work of the Ministry received from Christ any that will not shut their eyes may see that they behoved to be regulated by his prescriptions alone in the matter of their Ministry 3. They confess Christ to be their Judge to whom they were countable in the discharge of their Ministry for these are the words which Mr. Hutcheson spoke in their name We have received our Ministry from Jesus Christ with full prescriptions from him for regulating us therein and must in discharge thereof be accountable to him This doth clearly evidence that they behoved upon their greatest peril to adhere closely to these prescriptions which they had received from the Lord Jesus Seeing they were to give an account unto Christ how they had discharged their Ministry according to his full
or Reason but although they who cannot discern betwixt Words and Reason may be tossed to and fro with the windy noise of empty words yet they who can discern the forcibleness of right words and solid arguings from bold and imperious dictates and captious Questions will not be moved with a Mass of words void of the Nerves of solid Reason After his Questions he very earnestly desires the Indulged Ministers to relinquish the Congregations where they have the peaceable exercise of their Ministry To this Petition I give this short answer These Ministers think it their duty to preach in these Congregations and therefore till he prove it to be their duty to relinquish them he cannot expect that they should grant his Petition The reading of the following History which he recommends hath been so far from shaking them that they are more confirmed thereby for his grounds are either so false or so inconcludent of what he would infer from them against the Indulged Ministers that any who understand any thing of the rules of right reasoning are confirmed that the cause he hath taken in hand is evil for if there had been good reasons to have concluded against the Practice of the Indulged Ministers a man of his parts and who had so much spare time to seek them out could hardly have missed them After this Petition and Advice to read the History he saith I am not without hope but you will suffer your selves to be overcome into a compliance with the humble and earnest beseechings not of your poor Brother only but of many who are presenting you to God and dare seek nothing for you till this be obtained do not offend at this last word for if it were my last I must both confess unto you I never had confidence to seek any thing for you since you embraced the Indulgence save this and I know since that day you have been out of the Prayers of many serious Prayers to whom you were and yet are dear which hath been none of your advantage yea whatever use you may make of it yet fidelity to you put me to use this freedom that I have not only found my self in fetters but I have observed more fervent judicious and gracious persons to whom it was a case of Conscience yea who had no confidence to represent you to God as a part of that suffering remnant for whom they assayed to pour out their heart before him whereat you will cease to wonder when you consider that to them the Indulgence was defection Ans If his Petition prevail not to draw the Indulged Ministers to relinquish what they have embraced he essays to drive them from these Congregations where they exercise their Ministry by a new kind of Excommunication for till this which he desires be obtained he shews that himself and others dare seek nothing for them if he had said that in their Prayers for the Indulged they did in the first place seek that they might relinquish what they had embraced and then subjoyned other Petitions to that it had been hard enough to have justified this Method and Order of praying as the only right Method of praying for them but that they dare seek nothing for them till they first relinquish what they have embraced till his Petition to them be obtained is a new piece of practical Divinity I am sure the Lords Prayer is not his Directory in this new Method of Praying or rather of this new Method of restraining Prayer is there no way of hallowing of the Name of God and promoving of the coming of the Kingdom of God and doing the will of God which they are bound to by the command of God till his Petition to them be obtained I think he will not say that their continuance in these charges do make void the obligation of the command of God and if they be obliged to other duties suppose this granting of his Petition to be a duty which it is not even before this which he desires be performed by them why may he not pray for Grace to them to enable them to hallow the name of God and do his will in these duties May he not pray for daily bread for them and that their sins may be forgiven them and that they be not led into temptation c. May not a godly man dye without any doubt of the lawfulness of his exercising his Ministry in his own Parish or in any other destitute Congregation that invited him May not a godly man dye in one yea in many errors that are not fundamental Would this Author if he were at the death of such refuse to seek any thing for them till they explicitely repent of these errors and actually quit them I say explicitely for every good man who hath true Repentance doth virtually and interpretatively repent of every one of his sins This Author will have an actual relinquishing what they have embraced before he seek any thing for them Our Saviour prayed that the Father would forgive those who were persecuting him to death and mocking him when on the Cross Stephen prays That the Lord would not lay the sin of those who were stoning him to their charge These Persecutors were far from Repentance and Reformation when these prayers were put up for them The Author acknowledges the Indulged to be godly men and so he cannot deny that Christ intercedes for them in Heaven doth he think that the Intercession of Christ for them is interrupted till that be obtained which the Author petitions He knows that Christ intercedes for the Elect before they believe for he prays for them who shall believe that they may be one c. Joh. 17.20 21. If their unbelief doth not hinder his Intercession for by his Death and Intercession they are brought to believe doth he think that their miscarriages after their Conversion doth interrupt his Intercession and that he intercedes for nothing for them till they actually reform what is wrong I would desire the Author and these persons who take this method in this restraining Prayer to think seriously how they can clear this method of theirs from a discord and discrepancy with Christs Intercession and if he hath not fallen into that fault which he without just ground alledged against the Indulged Ministers What warrant he and these he speaks of have to cast the Indulged Ministers out of their Prayers he and they would do well to examine this is a new sort of Excommunication to cast those whom he acknowledges to be godly men out of this part of the Communion of Saints And I perceive by what he says that this new censure is no warrantable censure and proceeds not from that Authority which is given for edification and not for destruction for even the sentence of excommunication is for the good and advantage for the Salvation of the person excommunicated But this new censure hath beeen as he says none of the advantage of the Indulged Ministers A censure
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
consider how to deliver the Church from this evil and their Brethren out of the snare and themselves from giving this evil any interpretatite countenance withal that they will henceforth appear more friendly towards the real Lovers of them and the Cause It 's needless to make any Answer to this but that I see no appearance that this History is like to take any of the Indulged Ministers off upon the contrary there are so many false aspersions and uncharitable wrestlings and so much bitterness that it makes even indifferent persons suspect his Cause bad which is managed by so ill means and methods As for those lovers of the Non-indulged and the Cause whom he designs holders fast of their integrity in whom he seems afterwards to grant that there are excesses he means I suppose the young man of whom he spoke before and if there be any other of his way I like well of friendliness and of shewing of all meekness to all men but those whom he seems to mean have given no great evidence that they are lovers of the cause if by the cause he mean Presbytery for their way was directly destructive to the way of Presbyterian Government for they would not and thought they should not be subject to the Ministers and their work was to kindle the fire of Contention if he and the Author of the History had had as much charity for the Indulged Ministers as they had for those young men they would have found other names for their supposed faults than blak defection and betraying of the cause c. When all that he says of these young men is that they had excesses which are incident to the Zeal of the best Saints out of Heaven He requires a just discountenancing of the defection of the Indulged Ministers but he says these young men ought to be countenanced cherished and encouraged for their uprightness and after real affection and tenderness witnessed to them then to procede to curb or cure their excesses Curbing it seems seemed too rash a word and therefore he mollifies it by the alternative of curing And yet I cannot understand how he comes to condescend to the cure of their excesses for if I be not misinformed he and the Author of the History Commended them for these Practises which were looked upon as their greatest excesses As for example a confident asserting an immediate Call from God to preach upon a particular Text in a particular place before any Invitation from the People or Minister But now I remember that one of them had some strange Enthusiastical Doctrine it may be he hath heard some such things which he designs excesses I have been much longer detained in reviewing this Epistle to the Reader than I designed for I really designed to have made my Observation upon it no longer if not shorter than the Epistle I did not set my self to seek out all that might have been excepted against but only took notice of those things which were obvious and offered themselves at first view I thought my self the more obliged to note those obvious errors which I found in it both for the peoples sake some whereof I hear read this book on the Lords day instead of the Bible and for the Authors sake that he if he shall see what is written may see himself to be fallible and that he may be better advised before he put such Papers as this to the Press and that he may know his own measure and not look on himself as one fit to censure the generality of the Ministers of the Church of Scotland and to obtrude his dictates upon them when one of the unworthiest of these Ministers who hath so little leisure for such work hath in a hasty glancing through his Epistle observed in a few pages so many dangerous Errata's in Doctrine Worship and Christian Practice and in Civil and Ecclesiastical Government I come now to the History of the Indulgence I have not so much leisure as the Author of it had and therefore I purpose not to follow him foot for foot as that would be tedious so it would be needless seeing the Author serves us not only twice but thrice with the same Coleworts Occidit miseros crambe repetita magistros I looked for a state of the Question but in vain The true state of the Question according to the mind of the Author of the Epistle and the Author of the History is Whether any Indulgence or Permission though it were for every Minister to return to his own charge if granted by the present Magistrate could be made use of Both these Authors are for the negative We heard the Author of the Epistle's mind before the Author of the History goes the same way Pag. 121.5 If it should be free of all these inintanglements and grounds of scrupling I leave it to Christian Prudence to consider whether as matters now stand the Lord be not rather calling them to preach his Name on the Mountains seeing this way hath been so signally blessed of the Lord and is daily more countenanced of him than their labouring in their particular respective charges usually have been And seeing it 's undeniable that the Adversaries are not yet really repenting of their opposition to the Work of God and therefore that any such permission if granted could not be supposed to flow from any love to the prosperous progress of the Gospel but rather from the contrary as is clear in the Indulgence already granted and to flow from a purpose to entangle and ensnare yea and endanger both soul and body if not from a purpose and design to destroy all at once He hath a hint of it also pag. 18. knowing that favours granted by standing and stated enemies could not be for advantage but for hurt Ans I think it was well done that he left the matter to Christian Prudence but it was not to the purpose he designs for seeing it was necessity that put prudent Ministers and Christians to the fields and mountains because they were there most free from hazard I suppose the Christian Prudence of the one and other would advise not to go to the fields and mountains if the Magistrate granted so free a permission as he there supposes And I know not if Ministers and people could expect the Lords approbation and blessing if needlesly they would clash with the Magistrate in going to the mountains for if Fathers should not provoke their Children to wrath then certainly Children and Subjects should not provoke their Parents and Rulers to wrath His suspending of use-making of a liberty granted by the Magistrate though free of entanglements and ground of scruple upon the Magistrates real Repentance and love to the prosperous progress of the Gospel is as unreasonable as the Author of the Epistle his suspending of his Prayers for the Indulged Ministers till they quit their charges and it savours strongly of that error That Dominion is founded in grace May we take
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
the Parish and withal where was the Act of the Presbytery giving them Ministerially a potestative mission The Council both called choosed and sent and so were both the flocks and Presbytery Ans He still playeth the Dictator and what he should prove he alledgeth that it is sufficienly known It 's well known that there could be no access to the peaceable exercise of the Ministry without the Magistrate 2. Ministers could not prescribe to the Council when they should make their Acts of Indulgence had it been fit for them to have desired the Council to make no Acts in reference to any Ministers until the Election of the Parish and the Act of the Presbytery had gone before the Presbyteries were dissolved and to quarrel that there was no Presbyteries is but to quarrel against the holy Providence of God who had deprived us of these Courts and to have declared that they would not have the Council make any such Act till Presbyteries were again setled would have been to have refused any thing from the Council except they would give all and this as matters then stood had been a refusal of any thing from the Magistrate this had been very sutable to the design of the Author and the Author of the Epistle to the Reader and Cup of cold Water who are for receiving nothing from the Magistrate But when it 's exeamined by reason it will be found to be nothing but unreasonable humor That the Councils Act which made way for the peaceable exercise of their Ministry in such places went before the peoples invitation flowed from the Councils pleasure which was not in the power of the Indulged Ministers But after the Council had passed their Act it was in the power of the Parishes to have invited there Ministers or not to have invited them as they saw fit Mr. Thomas Wylie hath in that Paper which he emitted for Vindication of the Indulged Ministers cleared the freedom of the peoples invitation it was in their power to have invited or to have forborn to invite and though they had forborn to invite they would have been but in the condition they were formerly in And it was in the power of these Ministers in these bounds to have consented or not consented to the invitation of the Parishes and it was in the power of the Indulged Ministers when they saw the Invitation of the people to have gone or not to have gone to these Parishes as they saw reason for though the Councils Act made way for their going yet it did not settle them in these Parishes nor make any relation betwixt them and there Parishes Now when it is considered that all Ministers are Ministers of the Church Universal and in a special manner of the National Church in which they were ordained Ministers and many exercise their Ministerial Offices in other Congregations than those where they were ordained as Presbyterians maintain against Independents if there be no just Impediment nor wrong done to any by the exercise of their Ministry and that these Congregations who invited them were destitute and earnestly desired their help and that the Ministers of these bounds consented or acquiesced to the peoples inviting them and their coming upon the peoples invitation When these things are considered I suppose every judicious unperjudiced person will acknowledge that these Ministers had a sufficient call to help these destitute people who earnestly desired their help until they might have regress to their own Congregations where they were ordained Ministers He saw that if the call of the Indulged Misters were questioned then the call of these who preach in the Fields would be questioned also therefore having moved that question What shall then be said of them who preach in the Fields pag. 89. Sect. 3. he answers Every one may see how impertinent this question is for this preaching in the Fields or Houses is no fixed stated oversight over a distinct company as is that of a Minister over a particular flock but a meer occasional act depending upon a providential Call from God and the cordial intreaty of this persecuted people which is all that is requisite thereunto Ans This is a piece of art in some Disputers to slight that as clearly impertinent which they cannot answer there is no doubt of a difference betwixt fixed and occasional Preaching for a fixed stated preaching hath many advantages which an ambulatory occasional preaching wants but the question is whether they who preach in the Fields be called of God to preach and to take as much inspection as they can for that occasion of the peoples case to whom they preach and if their call be good as I hope he will not deny the call of the Indulged Ministers must be good also For the Indulged had a more deliberate Invitation and intreaty than these Preachers ordinarily can have and a more general invitation from these concerned than these Preachers have or can wait for And the Ministers of the bounds knew of the invitation given to the Indulged Ministers a considerable time before they came so that if they had been disposed to have excepted against it they had opportunity to have acquainted the people or the Indulged Minister with their exceptions but these occasional Preachers are often come and gone before Ministers concerned in these bounds hear any thing of it and therefore if the one be good the other cannot be evil The fixedness of the Indulged Ministers makes not their call bad I suppose those people did intreat one of these who preaches in the Fields to stay with them and take inspetcion of them as long as he could with safety would his continuing to labour among them make his Call which was at first good become bad afterwards if it was good the first time he preached why should it be ill the next if he may preach for a month why not for a year c. The term of a providential Call is a kittle word and some have said That only Providential Ministers are the Ministers that should be heard We had need to beware of new words in a time when folk are so much addicted to Novelties ordinarily new words are big with Novelties new Conceits and new things how he would define a Providential Call I know not but if that be the thing he means That the Lord in his Providence makes way for and gives an opportunity of occasional Preaching then it may be said that the Lord in his Providence made way by what the Magistrate did for the peaceable exercise of the Indulged Ministers Ministry in the Congregations where they are setled I shall say no more of this but for any thing I can see if this Author be believed neither Presbyterians that preach fixedly nor these who preach occasionally can say that their Ministerial oversight or inspection is by the Holy Ghost for he affirms this of the Indulged and does not think it requisite in those who preach occasionally and of how
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
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
that command follow peace with all men and if it be possible as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men 6. The refusing to make any use of the Indulgence upon the grounds that these Authors go upon would make the refusing scandalous because refusing upon their grounds would establish several scandalous errors as for example the Author of the Cup of cold Water and of the Epistle prefixed to this History of the Indulgence alledges That no use should have been made of the Indulgence because no Proposals made by the Magistrates should be listned to no Proposals should be made to them nothing should be sought or taken from them that there should be no making or medling with them and further he asserts That this course is that which God calleth us to and that this is the way wherein alone we can expect Gods approbation And he builds these errors upon false grounds which we have before refuted and the principal ground upon which he builds these wild conceits is because the Magistrate hath assumed an unlawful Supremacy which establishes this error in the minds of those that believe him That when the Magistrate assumes any such Supremacy it makes void that Authority which he hath from God The Author of the History goeth upon the same ground and alledges no liberty though free of all entanglements and grounds of scrupling should be made use of seeing Adversaries are not really repenting and that any such permission could not be supposed to flow from right principles and right designs which fixes that error in the minds of those who will believe him That except the Magistrate be really penitent and act from right principles and designs no use can be made of any permission to preach the Gospel granted by him These are errors scandalous and of dangerous consequence he also goes upon this ground That the indulgence should be refused because the Magistrate appoints or permits to preach in a certain place Now we saw from the first Book of Discipline that the Magistrate may in some cases appoint Ministers to preach in some places and in the second Book of Discipline That the Magistrate may in some cases place Ministers and if a Magistrate might in no case appoint a Minister to preach in a certain place but only might appoint him to preach then a Minister if he were ill-disposed might elude the design of a godly Magistrate for he might preach where there were no need of his preaching and not there where the Magistrate findeth greatest need or he might preach where there were few or none to hear him and so render the appointment and the design of the Magistrate who intended the edification of his Subjects of no effect His concluding that no use could be made of the Indulgence because the Magistrates wrote Instructions for the indulged Ministers does establish that error That the Magistrate by writing Instructions for Ministers may bind up the Ministers Conscience that he cannot preach any where where the Magistrate permits him to preach and writes Instructions for him To have refused to make any use of the Indulgence upon these grounds had been to give a great number of dangerous offences and to fix these errors which are of dangerous consequence But the acceptance of the Relaxation and of the Protection of lawful Authority did not give offence but was for edification If he object as he doth elsewhere That there was no absolute necessity of their peaceable preaching for they might have preached with hazard as others did in the mountains and therefore there was no absolute necessity of their acceptance of the Indulgence and therefore in accepting it they gave scandal I answer That it will not follow that the acceptance did give scandal because there was no absolute necessity of acceptance for there is no absolute necessity of making use of the Churches builded in the times of Popery to such or such Saints nor is there an absolute necessity of making use of Bells to convene the people because the people may meet elsewhere than in these Churches and they may be convened though not so conveniently without Bells And yet Mr. Rutherford sheweth That there is no offence given â—y making use of these Churches and Bells because they have a real usefulness and are in a sort though not simply necessary Again I retort Preaching in the Mountains iâ— not absolutely and simply necessary for if that were true all people though all the Reformed Churches behoved to forsake the Kirks and go to the fields and there ought to be no preaching in any place of the World but in fields and Mountains But I suppose he would have been far from saying that the preaching in the Mountains did give offence to those who took offence at it so that a less necessity than that which is simple and absolute is sufficient to prevent an active scandal Again though there be not an absolute necessity of peaceable preaching because the Gospel hath been and may be preached where the Magistrate is Pagan and doth not permit it yet the peaceable exercise of the Ministry is very desireable and as we heard before the fixed peaceable exercise of the Ministry is very necessary in order to many good uses and to prevent many ills and therefore when the Lord inclines the heart of Rulers to grant it it is necessary not to neglect it The disputes of our Predecessors against the English Popish Ceremonies does no way quadrate with his disputes against the acceptance of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority for our Predecessors proved That these Ceremonies were the meer Inventions and Devices of men will-worship contrary to the second Commandment and that they were nocent and hurtful but he hath not proven by his foregoing Arguments That the aforesaid acceptance was sinful he says indeed That he hath sufficiently done it but we have seen the insufficiency of his proofs Again they who pleaded for these Ceremomonies granted that they were indifferent and the Nonconformists argued against them upon this supposition but the peaceable exercise of the Ministry and the protection of lawful Authority are not the Inventions of men but Ordinances of God and not indifferent but many ways expedient and necessary He says also That there was a manifest appearance of evil in this acceptance but he doth not prove it That place 1 Thes 5.17 is rendred by some thus Abstain from all kind of evil If it be rendred appearance the ill appearance must be in the object and not in the distempered eye and conceit Some folk apprehend appearances of evil in things which have no appearance of evil in themselves but all the appearance is in their own phansie and conceit Mr. Durham in his Treatise of Scandal pag. 6 7. gives for example of this appearance of evil dangerous and doubtful expressions of Doctrine that have been or use to be abused and practices which are not becoming that honesty
to his own Charge because the Magistrate hath an ill design in permitting him by the same reason a Prisoner should not go home to his Wife and Children because the Magistrate hath an ill design in letting him go home He says This is contrary to our Covenants it 's strange how any man could imagine that Ministers going to their places and stations could be contrary to the Covenant which supposeth that every man should keep him within the bounds of place station and vocation such wild conceits tend to render the Covenants ridiculous He grants that the Ministers permitted would be freed from trouble and the Congregations receive some advantage yet the publick good of the Church would be prejudged but what advantage could Congregations receive from them if that were true that they were not the Ministers of Christ but of men c He destroys what he had formerly builded but he does well in casting down what he had sinfully builded The publick good of the Church is nor to be measured by any particular mans phansie and Ministers must not leave their stations or refuse to go to them because this or that particular person judges that the Church is prejudged by their so doing and their returning to their own Charges does no way tend to confirm the Magistrate in usurpations or encroachments but to confirm him in doing his duty in setting Ministers in their Charges as Josiah set the Priests in their Charges 2 Chron. 35.2 In his 3d. he thinks That the Ministers should not go to their own Charges if they were confined though the liberty were granted to them all because of the ill design of the Magistrate and many inconveniencies that would follow We have spoken enough of the Magistrates intention The inconveniences do no way urge the indulged Ministers who never promised to keep their confinement Their returning to their proper Charges does not incapacitate them for preaching elsewhere they may with hazard after their returning preach elsewhere if it be found necessary by those to whom it is competent to determine matters of that nature If his reasons conclude they will not only conclude That outed Ministers should not return to their Charges but that though they had not been outed they should have outed themselves to preach in other Congregations where there was so great ignorance c. If a corruption of a great part of the Land be a good reason for Ministers not fixing then how comes it that the Apostles fixed Ministers when the whole World almost was corrupt with Paganism and it 's loose work to loose every one and let them go and preach where they list In his 4th he says Though this liberty were without confinement yet if any one or other of those Prescriptions were added with which the indulgence was clogged that the liberty could not be accepted for the reasons against the indulgence would militate against that liberty But may not rational men make use of a grant of due liberty and yet not take on clogs The Magistrates making clogs does not clog them except they take on the clogs may not a man return to his own house to do the Duty of the Master of a Family though the Magistrate prescribe Injunctions to him which he cannot in Conscience obey We have seen the vanity of his militating Reasons which fight against the wind and conclude nothing against the indulged Ministers In his 5th he says That though the grant of liberty were Universal and without intanglements and grounds of scrupling that he leaves it to Christian Prudence to consider whether as matters now stand the Lord be not rather calling them to preach his Name on the mountains seeing that way hath been so blessed and Adversaries are not really repenting and that such a Permission could not flow from good but ill Principles I remember I have answered to this before and shewed the vanity of these Reasons and hence it appears that his design is to put Ministers and people in a State of Hostility with the Magistrate he is not for receiving from them according to the dictates of the Author of the Cup of cold Water but enough of this before I hope no judicious person will imagine that such wild conceits viz. That it 's unlawful for Ministers to settle in any particular Charge when a great part of the Land is prejudged against the work of God that the peaceable exercise of the Ministry granted by the lawful Magistrate is to be refused if the Magistrate be not a real Penitent and if he have not gracious Principles and good designs in granting that which he ought to grant I say I hope that no judicious person will imagine that because the Author is designed a Presbyterian in the Title-page that these and the like Conceits scattered through the History are the opinions of Presbyterians The 8th Objection may be thus proponed The peaceable safe exercise of the ministry graned by the Magistrate is a mercy promised by the Lord and of great import to Souls c. and therefore it should not be rejected but accepted What he answers That the Gospel may be preached though the Magistrate grant not the peaceable exercise of preaching as it was by Christ and the Apostles is true but it is nothing to the purpose he should have shewed That Christ or his Apostles refused the Magistrates Permission to preach when it was granted Paul was so far from rejecting such a grant that he intreats for it Act. 21.39 I beseech thee suffer me to speak unto the people 2. He would make the world believe That the outed Ministers had left their Charges out of a Principle of reasonless fear and were like Solomons Sluggard who imagines a Lyon to be there where Lyons use not to be Lyons use not to haunt Ways and Streets but the hazard of those Ministers was not feigned they did not fear where no fear was he should have remembred how this Lyon frighted himself so far that in his fear he engaged to put the broad Sea betwixt him and that Lyon He says The Gospel might have been preached without this Indulgence though with less ease peace and quietness to the Preachers and Hearers yet he is sure with more inward quietness of mind and acceptance with God and with more ground of hope of a rich Blessing to follow their pains as experience hath proven Ans 1. These are his own imaginations 2. Experience hath not proven that they who have rejected the peaceable exercise of their ministry when they might have had it in a lawful way have had more success in preaching or more inward peace in chusing a way of preaching that exposed them to molestation than they would have had if they had embraced the peaceable exercise of their ministry Indulged Ministers could not have peace and quiet in their minds to reject the offer of the peaceable exercise of their ministry And the assurance of this Author That they would have had more quietness
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
prevent Division his heart should have smitten him who hath been so untender and so careless in this matter It 's true light is light but 1. There may be an unseasonable bringing forth of light as if a man would bring a light to a large dark Room where a man fleeing for his Life had hid himself to let the pursuer see to find and murder the lurking man Or if one told what way an innocent man had fled to his Enemy who were pursuing for his Life though Light be Light and Truth Truth yet that Light was unseasonably brought in to the dark Room and that Truth unseasonably brought forth But ye will say that doth not hold as to truths revealed in the Scripture I shall Answer in the words of Mr. Durham whose memory is precious in the Churches in his Treatise concerning Scandal which was his Testament to the Church of Scotland Part 4. Chap. 11. Pag. 358. A second way of composure is when such agreement in judgment cannot be obtained to endeavour a harmony and keep Unity notwithstanding of that difference by a mutual forbearance in things controverted which we will find to be of two sorts The first is to say so total that is when neither side doth so much as Doctrinally in writ word or sentences of Judicatories press any thing that may confirm or propagate their own Opinion or condemn the contrary but do altogether abstract from the same out of respect to the Churches Peace and for the preventing of Scandal and do in things wherein they agree according to the Apostles direction Phil. 3.16 Walk by the same Rule and mind the same things mutually as if there were no such differences and waiting in these till the Lord shall reveal the same unto them This way is safe and where the Doctrine upon which the difference is is such as the forbearing the decision thereof doth neither marr any Duty that the Church in general is called to nor endanger the Salvation of Souls through the want of clearness therein nor in a word infer such inconveniences to the hurt of the Church as such unseasonable awakening and keeping up of differences and divisions may have with it Because the scope of bringing forth every truth or confirming the same by any Authoritative Sanction c. is the Edification of the Church and therefore when the bringing forth thereof doth destroy more than Edifie it is to be forborn Neither can it be ground enough to plead for such decisions in Preaching that the thing they Preach for is Truth and the thing they condemn is Error Because 1. It is not the Lawfulness of the thing simply that is in Question but the necessity and expediency thereof in such a case now many things are lawful that are not expedient 1 Cor. 10.23 2. In these differences that were in the Primitive times concerning Meats Days Genealogies c. there was a truth or an error upon one of the sides as there is a right and a wrong in every contradiction of such a kind yet the Apostle thinketh fitter for the Churches Peace that such be altogether refrained rather than any way at least in publick insisted upon or decided 3. Because no Minister can bring forth every Truth at all times he must then make choice and I suppose some Ministers may die and all do so who have not Preached every truth even which they knew unto the People Beside there are no question many truths hid to the most Learned neither can this be thought inconsistent with a Ministers fidelity who is to reveal the whole Counsel of God because that Counsel is to be understood of things necessary to mens Salvation and is not to be extended to all things whatsoever for we find the great Apostle expounding this in that same Sermon Acts 20.20 I have kept back nothing that was profitable unto you which evidenceth that the whole Counsel of God or the things which he shewed unto them is the whole and all that was profitable for them and that for no by-respect or fear whatsoever he shunned to reveal that unto them Also it 's clear that there are many truths which are not decided by any Judicial Act and among other things sparingness to decide truths which are not fundamental judicially hath been ever thought no little mean of the Churches Peace as the contrary hath been of Division The third way which is the second sort of the former of composure is mixed when there is some medling with such questions yet with such forbearance that though there be a seen difference yet there is no Schism or Division but that is seriously and tenderly prevented as upon the one side some may express their mind in Preaching and Writing on a particular Question one way others may do it differently yet both with that respect and meekness to those they differ from that it doth beget no rent nor give just ground of offence nor marr Union in any other thing or it may possibly come to be decided in a Synod yet with such forbearance upon both sides that it may prove no prejudice to Union Those who have Authority for them not pressing it to the prejudice of the Opinion Names Consciences of the other or to their detriment in any respect but allowing to them a liberty to speak their minds and walk according to their own light in such particulars and on the contrary the other resting satisfied in the Unity of the Church without condemning them or pressing them to condemn themselves because so indeed their Liberty is no less than others who have the decision of a Synod for them And he adds an instance in the Church of Africa where that Question was first debated If Hereticks after their Conversion should be again Baptized And a Synod of 300 Bishops concluded that they should be re-baptized yet that Synod carried so that they did not onely not censure any that dissented nor pressed them to conform in practise to their judgment but also did entertain most intimate respect to them and formality with them And upon the other side we do not find any in that Church making a Schism upon the account of that Judicial erroneous decision though at least by three several Synods it was ratified but contenting themselves to have their Consciences free by retaining their own judgment and following their own practice till time gave more light and more occasion to clear that truth And we will never find in the Writings of any time more affection among Brethren and more respect to Peace than was in that Church at that time amongst those that differed And there is not any practice more commended in all the Church-History and Writings of the Fathers than this practice and partly may be gathered from what was formerly touched out of Augustine And if we will consider the case rationally we will find that it is not impossible to have Union in a Church where there is such a difference and
Authoritative decision even supposing that side on which the Error lies to be approved For first there is no necessity for such as have Authority for them to press others in their judgment and practice in such things neither can it be thought that such a decision can of it self satisfie all scruples neither yet that men doubtingly may follow Nor lastly that such Controversies can bear the weight of troubling the Church by censuring such as otherways may be faithful seeing sometimes even unfaithful men have been spared with respect to the Churches good as hath been said And Secondly upon the other side such a constitution of the Church doth not involve all that keep Communion therein in the guilt thereof if personally they be free as in the instance of the Jewish Church is clear where no question many corrupt Acts have been established yet did it neither make Communion in Worship or Government to be unlawful where the matter and manner of carriage was Lawful Beside this would infer that no Judicatory could keep Union where there were contrary votes or a Sentence passed without unanimity because that is certainly wrong to them who think otherwise and if so there could be no Judicatory expected either in Church or State for it cannot be expected that they shall be still unanimous or that the greater part shall cede to the lesser and rescind their own Act. And suppose there should be such a Division upon one difference can it be expected that those who unite upon the divided sides respectively shall again have no more difference among themselves and if they have shall there not be a new Division and where shall this end And seeing men must resolve to keep Unity where there are faults of such a nature or to have none at all it is as good to keep it at first as to be necessitated to it afterward The Orthodox urge this Argument against the Donatists who would not keep Union with them because of pretended corruptions in the proceedings of Judicatories and Ordinations yet were constrained to bear with such amongst themselves and particularly to receive and unite with the Maximinianists whose Communion they had once rejected though a branch of their own Faction because they saw no end of Divisions if they did not resolve to dispense with such things amongst themselves And Augustine often asserted that they were never able to Answer this Argument when it was propounded to them to wit why they did not give them that same Latitude in keeping communion with them which they had given to the Maximinianists who were guilty of such things as they imputed to them We conceive then that even in such a case there may be Union for prosecuting the main work of the Gospel notwithstanding of such a Circumstantial difference if men otherwise set themselves to it and the general grounds formerly laid down do confirm this Thus far I have transcribed the words of the Godly Learned Peaceable Mr. Durham I would desire the Reader to read also his 12th Chapter and his whole Book which is a precious Treasure which if the Historian had pondered and practised he and they who follow him might through the Lords Blessing been kept out of these divisive and destructive ways If the Historian would have followed Mr. Durham's Advice first he might have forborn to vent and to press others to vent this which he calls Light thought it had been Light indeed For it is no Fundamental truth that he and they call Light He cannot charge the Indulged Ministers that they maintain Doctrinally any Erastian Error All that he alledges upon them when he explains himself is that they have by their practice Interpretatively homologate the Supremacy Now seeing these Ministers taught no erroneous Doctrine concerning the Magistrates Power about Church-matters but maintain the Principles of all Orthodox Anti-erastian Divines And seeing they are known to be conscientious men and declare upon all occasions that their practice in making use of the Indulgence is not contrary to but consistent with and according to the Principles of these Anti-erastian Divines The most that the Author could make out of this was that they were mistaken in the application of these Principles to that particular Fact of acceptance of the Peaceable exercise of their Ministry from the Magistrate Now what necessity was there in venting this Light This Interpretative homologation of the Supremacy which yet is but confounding darkness to the poor People who know not what he means by these words by which he explains how these Ministers are guilty they cannot Interpret his Interpretative homologation His light is to them darkness He clears these Indulged Ministers of having any Erastian Error in their Head he grants they had no ill intention in their mind and heart when they accepted the Indulgence He grants there was no ill intention in the worker but in the work done by them and that what they did did not formally and explicitly import any approbation of any sinful Supremacy but onely implicitely virtually and interpretatively What necessity was there of telling the People this implicite Error in a matter of Fact seeing when he tells it most distinctly it 's so subtil a kind of fault that the People cannot understand it it 's so wompled up in Latine implicite perplexed words that they cannot get a sight of it And though the Historian did really intend to diminish the sin of the Indulged Ministers when he said they themselves did not intend any ill in their acceptance but it was onely the intention of the work And when he said that the work did not formally and explicitely tend to ill but virtually implicitely and interpretatively Yet the People are not capable of understanding these diminishing terms and so thinking it to be some ill thing these words that are unintelligible by them increases the apprehension of the ilness or evil of it even as when simple People knows that the thing commended is good if ye commend it in words that they do not understand it heightens their conceit of the goodness of it What effect could the Historian think that this dark light could have upon the minds and affections of the poor People but to beget an ill Opinion of and prejudice against and hatred of these honest men who as he grants himself meant no ill Now did this any way tend to the Peoples Edification Did it not upon the contrary tend to their hurt For whereas before they were Edified by the Ministry of these Ministers they are put in an incapacity of getting that good by their Ministry which they were wont formerly to get so that they are no way Edified but prejudged and their Edification hindred But 2. If he would have been Advised by Mr. Durham he might well have forborn to have vented this light because the forbearance of venting it could no way have endangered the Salvation of the Souls of the People nor marred them in any Duty that the Church
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
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
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
Councils ministerially to determine controversies of Faith and cases of Conscience to set down Rules and Directions for the better ordering of the publick Worship of God and government of his Church Art 5. Synods and Councils are to conclude nothing but that which is Ecclesiastical and are not to meddle with Civil affairs which concern the Commonwealth unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary or by way of advice for satisfaction of conscience if they be thereto required by the Civil Magistrate Chap. 23. Art 3. The Civil Magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of word and Sacraments as the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven yet he hath authority and it is his duty to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church that the truth of God be kept pure and intire that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed all corruptions and abuses in worship or discipline prevented or reformed and all Ordinances of God duly setled administred and observed for the better effecting whereof he hath power to call Synods to be present at them and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the word of God These Articles and the Scripture-proofs do clearly hold out and confirm That Christ not the Magistrate is the Head King Lord of the Church which is the Body House and Kingdom of Christ that Church and not the Magistrate is the Fountain of the Spiritual Power of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven that the Offices in the Church are of divine institution given by Christ and that these Offices which Christ hath given are sufficient for gathering and perfecting the Church seeing he hath given them for that end and that they are Ministerial and not Lordly and hence it follows that the Office of a Prelate who claims a majority of Directive and Coercive power over Ministers who not only takes upon him without election to moderate Synods but also is above the censure of the Synod and who can hinder the Synod from concluding any thing how necessary soever they find it and without whose Authority the Synod is no Synod who imposes Moderators upon the meetings for exercise and to whom these meetings are countable for their actings without whom there can be no ordination deposition excommunication relaxation from it who exacteth an Oath of Canonical obedience from Ministers not being in the Rolls of the Offices and Officers given by Christ and being a Lordly and so more than a Ministerial Office Presbyterians cannot own it nor judg it useful for gathering or perfecting of the Church They shew also that the Magistrate to whom God hath given the Lordly power of the sword is so far from having a spiritual Supreme power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven that he hath not the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven given to him at all for the power of the keys which Christ hath given is Ministerial and makes those who are invested with it Ministers of the Church but the power of the Sword is Magistratical and a Lordly Dominion and that it belongs to Synods and Councils and not to Magistrates to make Ecclesiastical Rules c. and that none neither Magistrates nor Ministers may order Ecclesiastical matters according to their mind and pleasure but those things must be ordered according to the mind and will of God revealed in his word And all true Presbyterians believe That seeing both the Lordly Power of the Magistrate in general and in special the Kingly Power and the Ministerial Power of Church-Officers are of God and his Ordinances that they are not contrary to one another for the Ordinances of God do not justle one against another but sweetly agree and any justling or clashing which hath proceeded from the corruptions of Magistrates or Ministers are not to be imputed to the Lords Ordinances and it 's the earnest desire of all truly godly and loyal subjects who seek the glory of God and the Magistrates true honour and interest That whatsoever in the actings of their rightful Magistrates hath exceeded the bounds which the Lord hath set to them may be in mercy discovered to them and in time reformed That all occasions of grief and stumbling may be taken out of the way of truly loyal subjects and all occasion of doing mischief may be cut off from those who take advantage from those excesses to render the Magistrate contemptible and to overthrow that Power which they have from God As for what they say of Ministers hindering those who would have given a testimony and censuring others who did give it the truth is Presbyterian Ministers endeavoured to restrain some young men who instead of preaching the Gospel made it their work to revile the Magistrate and Ministers who made use of the liberty granted by the Magistrate but these youths discovered themselves not to be of Presbyterian Principles by their refusing to be subordinate to the Ministers and by reproaching them who would have reclaimed them from their disorderly and Schismatick practices By this the Magistrate may perceive if the Presbyterian Ministers who are Presbyterians indeed had by allowance of the Magistrate the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and liberty of meeting for regulating their own actings and the actings of those who profess themselves to be Presbyterians such unruly persons who stir up the people to Schism and Sedition would not be admitted to the Ministry or if they after their admission discovered themselves to be of pernicious principles they would be put from the Ministry and so the people who are true to Presbyterian Principles would not own them and so they would not have access to pervert the people with Seditious and Schismatick doctrine this would be found the most proper Remedy for these distempers But what wonder is it if young men who are ordinarily rash being but Novices who have not studied the Body of Divinity and who have no experience and know not the Principles and Practices of Presbyterial Government who are not put ro Presbyterial Exercises for their trial and instruction and who it may be have never seen any thing of the Exercise of Presbyterial Government in Presbyteries or Synods and who are not under the iâ—spection of meetings of Presbyterians but wander to and fro at random not thinking themselves accountable to any meeting of Ministers nor censurable by any What wonder is it if such persons when they are blown up with the vain applause of some ignorant and humorous people who under their sad sufferings have taken up such prejudice against the Magistrate and all to whom the Magistrate shews any favour that they think what is most cross to the Magistrate is most right and any thing which the Magistrate allows they think it wrong and so they cry up those Preachers most who speak most invectively against the Magistrate and against those Ministers to whom the Magistrate shews any favour I say what wonder is
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
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 his Mother he payed tribut to Caesar and directed others to do so It adorns the Doctrine of God when those who profess it are dutiful in their several places and Stations when they join Righteousness with Religion when they fear God and honour the King when they are subject to Magistrates out of a principle of Conscience when they are obedient Children faithful servants doing their work heartily as to the Lord. And when it is other ways the name of God is blasphemed and the way of God is evil spoken of 7. Beware of the first beginnings of sinful courses beware left any root of bitterness spring up if ye give way to the first motions of evil they will encrease to more ungodliness if the desire after the sincere milk of the word begin to languish if ye look not to it in time ye may come to an indifferency whether you hear the word or not and that may increase to a loathing and lightlying of the word and that may increase to a contempt of the Preaching of the word and then God in his righteous judgment may leave you to be plagued with Papers and Pamphlets and Teachers after your own lusts which will foster you in the contempt of the Ordinances and make you imagine that it's tenderness and zeal and a testimony to despise the Lords Ordinances and so far delude you as to make you imagine that profanity is Religion If you let that honour and respect which by the command of God is due to Magistrates decay you may come next to despise them and curse them in your heart and thought and then mutter out these revilings in private and then vent them openly and from virulent words come to open violence to design and endeavour to turn them out of their places and murther them and then be plagued with Papers and Doctrines deluding you to that height as to bring you to think that this fury is the zeal of God If ye lose the esteem and love that ye should have to the Ministers of Christ ye may come by degrees to despise them and revile them and to think it good service to God to make their Ministry useless and contemptible yea ye may come to that to think it good service to God to kill his servants and in the righteous judgment of God you may be left to the delusions of Satan to imagine that these abominations make you holier than others tremble at the deceitfulness of the desperately wicked heart of man and at the dreadful but holy judgments of God who gives over the backslider in heart to be filled with his own ways and plagues those who receive not the truth in love and who harbours and entertains lusts contrary to the word of God with strong delusions and with deluding Teachers who tickle the itching ears of those who after their lusts heap up Teachers to themselves with Doctrines which are suitable to their lusts 8. That you may see the mischief of error and schism and be guarded against it Read Mr. Durham's excellent Treatise of Scandal and the Preface prefixed by Mr. Robert Blair that eminent Servant of the Lord in whom holiness learning wisdom prudence zeal experience Ministerial authority and gravity were contemperate in an eminent degree in the end of that Preface he saith 〈…〉 much longer the Reader from the Treatise it self having added these few considerations for heart-uniting in the Lord which of all other I conceive ought to be most weighty in the judgment and on the affections of all the lovers of our Lord Jesus Christ 1. From Eph. 2.14 15 16 17. the great peace-maker in offering up himself in a sacrifice for the sins of the Elect intended with the reconciling of them to God to unite them in one body among themselves yea even those who were at furthest distance and greatest enmity Jew and Gentile and consequently other his Elect in their several differences and divisions throughout their generations He took on him the debt of their sins and enmities and lâ—fâ—ed up with himself these on his Cross representatively virtually and meritoriously to expâ—â—te them in his flesh and by his Spirit efficiently to slay and abolish them in due time by making them one 〈…〉 in himsâ—lf Mark I pray from that Scrâ—â—â—â—re cited that this complex business is the grâ—at 〈◊〉 of our blessed and great peace-maker 〈◊〉 2ly in the Sacrifice-feast of his Supper this is still represented and exhibited till he come again So that this standing Ordinance destinated and appointed of God to carry on and seal up uniting with God and one with another till he come again at his coming will stand up and testifie against all who comply not with Christ but following their own inclination act rather against his design And 3ly in his solemn prayer Joh. 17. which is a Specimen of his future Intercession he mainly presseth after the Salvation and Sanctification of those that are given him v. 21. That they also may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me Do not these words significantly and shiningly hold out what the Mediator is still about and that uniting in God is his design still And 4ly upon the same very ground the great Apostle speaking to Jews and Gentiles who had embraced the Gospel and in them to all dissentients who love the Gospel-truths and Ordinances saith Rom. 15.7 Wherefore receive ye one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God Meritoriously and virtually the Elect are received to the glory of God And to the end they may be actually received Receive one another saith the Apostle as it were suspending the one upon the other And now upon these grounds Christ our Lord his grand design being so conspicuous his Supper-Ordinance standing as a land-mark in the way having this engraven upon it Union Communion the Glorious Mediator his Intercession running in the same channel and the blessed Apostle making â—his the upshot of his Doctrine what lover of our Lord well advised and recollecting himself dare stifly stand out from complying with him to satisfie their own inclination and habituated custom and carriage My fear is that every one of us will look to some others rather than themselves as obstructing the desired uniting in the Lord. But upon mature after-thoughts it will be found the mind of Christ that we narrowly search our selves every one of us how we have provoked the Holy One to smite us so in his displeasure and accurately to try what yet remains in us obstructive to this union and withal to flee to our slighted duty as in a city they run to the quenching of a publick burning laying this evil to heart more than Sword or Pestilence All the writings and actings against Presbyterian Government which is the wall of the house of God have never wronged or hurt it so much as our ill-raised
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