Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
lord_n church_n day_n sabbath_n 20,024 5 9.8526 5 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A77478 A review of the seditious pamphlet lately pnblished [sic] in Holland by Dr. Bramhell, pretended Bishop of London-Derry; entitled, His faire warning against the Scots discipline. In which, his malicious and most lying reports, to the great scandall of that government, are fully and clearly refuted. As also, the Solemne League and Covenant of the three nations justified and maintained. / By Robert Baylie, minister at Glasgow, and one of the commissioners from the Church of Scotland, attending the King at the Hague. Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662. 1649 (1649) Wing B467; Thomason E563_1; ESTC R10643 69,798 84

There are 5 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

any honest man THe bounds and compass of the Warners rage against the Presbytery is very large There is no rig●ur at all in the Presbytery not being content to have incensed the King and Parliament against it he comes down to the body of the people and will have them beleeve the special enmity of the Scots Discipline against them first because it inflicts Church-Censures upon every one for the smallest faults Ans The faults which the Warner mentions may well be an occasion of a private advice in the ear but that any of them did ever procure the smallest censure of the Church it is a great untruth no man who knows us will complain of our rigour here we wish we were able to refute upon as good reason the charge of our laxness in the mouth of Sectaries as we are that of our strictness in the mouth of Erastians We would know of the Warner what are these Sabbath Recreations which he saith are void of scandal and consistent with the duties of the day are they not the stage plays and the other honest pastimes wherewith his friends were wont to sanctifie the Lords Day as no more a Sabbath then any other day in the year and much less then diverse Popish Festivals An Aposteme in the lowest gut will shew it self by the unsavory vapors which now and then are eructate from it That ever in Scotland there was one word of debate about Starch and Cuffs is more then the Warner can prove Crimes till repented of ought to keep from the holy table The second oppression whereby the Presbytery treads the people under foot is a rare cruelty That persons for grievous crimes whereof the Magistrate takes notice are called to Ecclesiastick repentance Will the Doctor in his fury against us run out upon all his own friends for no appearance of a fault Will either the English or Popish Prelates admit Murderers Whores or Theeves to the holy Table without any signs of repentance Is not the greatest crime the ground of the greatest scandal Shall small scandals be purged away by repentance and the greatest be totally past by 〈◊〉 The Warner here may know his own meaning but others will confess their ignorance of his mind Excommun●cation in Scotland is not injurious to any The third grievance he would have the people conceive against the Presbytery is The rigour of their excommunication in this also the Warner seems to know little of the Scots way let excommunication be so severe in Scotland as is possible yet the hurt of it is but small It is so rare an accident men may live long in Scotland and all their life never see that Censure executed I have lived in one of the greatest Cities of that Land and for forty seven years even from my birth to this day that Censure to my knowledg or hearing was never executed there in my days but twice first upon one obstinate and very prophane Papist and next on some horrible scandalous Prelates Again when any is excommunicated by the Church we go no further with them then Pauls command 2 Thes 3.14 only they who are not tyed to them by natural bonds abstain from familiar and unnecessary conversation to bring them by the sence of this shame to repentance for their sins Thirdly The civil inconveniences which follow that Censure come along from the State and the Acts of Parliament for which the Church ought not to be challenged especially by Prelates who wont to allow their Officials to excommunicat whole incorporations of people for a small debt of mony and to presse the contemners of that frivolous and profane sentence with all the civill inconveniences they could Fourthly what ever be the lawes in Scotland against them who continue long in the contempt of Excommunication which is not inflicted but for great sins and after a long processe yet certainly their executon is very farre from all cruelty as they who know the proceedings of that land will beare witnesse What he objects about fugitives it is true when a processe is begunne a fugitive may have it concluded and sent after him but we count not that man a fugitive from discipline or contumacious as the Warner quarrels us who upon just feare to hazard his life does not compear CHAP. XII The Presbytery is hurtfull to no order of men PRaelaticall malice is exorbitant beyond the bounds of all shew of moderation The warners outrage against the Presbytery was it not enough to have calumniate the Presbytery to Kings Princes and Soveraignes to Parliamen●s and all Courts of Justice to people and all particular persons but yet a new chapter must be made to shew in it the hurtfulnesse of Presbytery to all orders of men we must have patience to stand a little in the unsavoury aire of this vomit also Unto the nobility and gentry the Presbytery must be hurtfull The Praelates were constant oppressors of the Nobility and gentry because it subjecteth them to the censures of a raw heady novice and a few ignorant artificers Ans It s good that our praelats are now turned pleaders against the oppression of the Nobility and gentry it s not long since the praelatical clergy were accustomed to set their foule feet on the necks of the greatest peeres of the three Kingdomes with so high a pride and pressure that to shake of their yoks no suffering no hazard has beene refused by the best of the Nobility and gentry of Britaine but natures and principles are so easy to be changed that no man now needs feare any more oppression from the praelates though they were set downe againe and well warmed in their repaired thrones The way of the Scotes Presbytery is incomparably better then that of the English Episcopacy But to the challenge we answer that the meanest Eldership of a small Congregation in Scotland consists of the Pastor and a dozen at least of the most wise pious and learned that are to be found in the whole flock which yet the Warner here makes to be judges but of the common people in matters of smallest moment But for the classicall Presbytery to which he referres the Ecclesiasticall causes of the Nobility and gentry and before whom indeed every Church processe of any considerable weight or difficulty does come though it concern the persons of the meanest of the people this Presbytery does consist ordinarily of fifeteene Ministers at least and fifeteen of the most qualified noblemen gen●lemen and Burgesses which the circuit of fifteen parishes can afford these I hope may make up a judicatory of a great deale more worth then any officiall court which consists but of one judge a p●tty mercenary lawyer to whose care alone the whole Ecclesiastick jurisdiction over all the Nobility and gentry of divers shires is committed and that without appeale as the Warner has told us except it be to a Court of delegates a miserable reliefe that all the Nobility Gentry and
A REVIEVV OF THE Seditious Pamphlet lately published in HOLLAND by Dr Brambell pretended Bishop of London-Derry ENTITLED His faire Warning against the SCOTS DISCIPLINE In which His malicious and most lying Reports to the great scandall of that Government are fully and clearly refuted As also The Solemne League and Covenant of the three Nations justified and maintained By Robert Baylie Minister at Glasgow and one of the Commissioners from the Church of Scotland attending the KING at the Hague Printed at Delph by Mich. Stait dwelling at the Turf-Market 1649. For the Right Honourable the Noble and Potent Lord John Earle of Cassils Lord Kennedy c. one of His Majesties Privy-Counsell and Lord Iustice generall of Scotland Right Honourable MY long experience of your Lordships sincere zeale to the truth of God and affection to the liberties of the Church and Kingdome of Scotland against all enemies whomsoever hath emboldened me to offer by your Lordships hand to the view of the publick my following answer to a very bitter enemy of that Church and Kingdome for their adherence to the sacred truth of God and their owne just Libert es At my first sight of his Book and many days thereafte● The Authors reasons of his writing I had no purpose at all to meddle with him your Lordship knowes how unprovided men of my present condition must be either with leisure or accommodations or a mind suitable for writing of Books Also Doctor Bramble was so well knowne on the other side of the Sea the justice of the Parliament of England and Scotland having unanimously condemned him to stand upon the higgest pinacle of infamy among the first of the unpardonable incendiaries and in the head of the most pernicious instruments of the late miseries in Britaine and Ireland and the evident falshood of his calumnies were so clearly confuted long ago in printed Answers to the Infamous Authors whence he had borrowed them I saw lastly the mans spirit so extreme saucy and his pen so waspish and full of gall that I judged him unworthy of any answer But understanding his malicious boldnesse to put his Booke in the hand of His Majesty of the Prince of Orange and all the eminent Personages of this place who can read English yea to send it abroad unto all the Universities of these Provinces with very high and insinuating commendations from the prime favourers of the Episcopall cause hearing also the threats of that faction to put this their excellent and unanswerable peece both in Dutch French and Latine that in the whole neighbouring World the reputation of the Scots might thereby be wounded killed and buried without hope of recovery I found it necessary at the desire of divers friends to send this my review after it hoping that all who shall be pleased to be at the paines of comparing the Reply with the challenge may be induced to pronounce him not only a rash untimous malicious but also a very false accuser This much justice doe I expect from every judicious and equitable comparer of our wrytes upon the hazard of their censure to fall upon my side The Prelate are unable by reason to defend Episcopacy His invectives against us are chiefly for three things our Discipline our Covenant our alleaged unkindnes to our late Soveraigne My apology for the first is that in discipline we maintaine no considerable conclusion but what is avowed by all the Reformed Churches especially our Brethren of Holland and France as by the approbatory suffrages of the Universitie● of Leyden Utrecht and others to the theorems whereupon our adversary doth build his chiefe accusations may appeare If our practise had aberred fro● the common rule the crookednesse of the one ought not to prejudge the straitnesse of the other though what our adversary alleadgeth of these aberrations is nothing but his owne calumnious imputations the chiefe quarrell is our rule it self which all the Reformed harmoniously defend with us to be according to Scripture and the Episcopall declinations to be beside and against the line of the word yea Antichristian If our Prelates had found the humor of disputing this maine cause to stir in their veines why did they not vent it in replyes to Didoclavius and Gersome Bucerus who for long thirty years have stood unanswered or if fresher meats had more pleased their tast why did not their stomacks venture on Salmasius or Blondels books against Episcopacy If verball debates had liked them better than writing why had none of them the courage to accept the conference with that incomparably most learned of all Knights now living or in any bygone age Sir Claud Somayis who by a person of honour about the King did signifie his readinesse to prove before His Majesty against any one or all his Prelaticall Divines that their Episcopacy had no warrant at all in the word of God or any good reason Their strongest Arguments are tricks of Court But our friends are much wiser then to be at the trouble and hazard of any such exercise the artifices of the Court are their old trade they know better how to watch the seasons and to distribute amongst themselves the houres of the Kings opportunities when privately without contradiction they may instill in his tender mind their corrupt principles and instruct him in his cabine how safe it is for his conscience and how much for his honor rather to ruine himself his Family and all his Kingdoms with his own hands then to desert the holy Church that is the Bishops and their followers then to joyne with the rebellious Covenanters enemies to God to his Father to Monarchy that the embracing of the barbarous Irish the pardoning of all their monstrous murders the rewarding of their expected merits with a free liberty of Popery and accesse to all places of the highest trust though contrary to all the Lawes which England and Ireland has known this hundred yeares all this without and before any Parliament must be very consistent with conscience honour and all good reason Yea to bind up the soule of the most sweet and ingenuous of Princes in the chaines of their slavery for ever they have fallen upon a most rare tricke which hardly the inventions of all their Predecessors can paralell They rest not satisfied that for the upholding of their ambition and greed The Bishops unlucky foot is visible in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they did harden our late Soveraigne to his very last in their Errours and without compassion did drive him on to his fatall praecipice unlesse they make him continue after his death to cry loud every day in the eares of his Sonne in his later will and testament to follow him in that same way of ruine rather than to give over to serve the lusts of the Prelaticall Clergy They have gathered together His Majesties last papers and out of them have made a Booke whereupon their best pens have dropped the greatest eloqution reason and
attempt of the royal authority About that time some noble men had got the revenues of the Bishop-ricks for their private use and because they could not enjoy them by any legal right therefore for eluding the Law they did effectuate that some Ministers should have the title of this or that Bishoprick and the revenues were gathered in the name of this titulare or tulchan Bishop albeit he had but little part e. g. Robert Montgomery Minister at Sterline was called Arch-Bishop of Glasgow and so it can be instanced in other Bishop-ricks and Abbacies Now this kind of praelats pretended no right to any part of the Episcopal office either in ordination or jurisdiction when some of these men began to creep in to vote for the Church in Parliament without any Law of the State without any commission from the Church the General assembly discharged them being Ministers to practise any more such illegal insolencies with this ordinance of the Church after a little debate King James at that time did shew his good satisfaction The innocency of the much maligned assembly of Aberdeen But the Warner here jumps over no less then twenty seven years time from the assembly at Edingburgh 1579. to that at Aberdeen 1605. then was King James by the English Bishops perswasion resolved to put down the general assemblies of Scotland contrary to the Lawes and constant practice of that Church from the first reformation to that day The act of Parliament did bear that once at least a year the assembly should meet and after their business was ended they should name time and place for the next assembly When they had met in the yeer 1602 they were moved to adjurn without doing any thing for two whole years to 1604 when then they were conveened at the time and place agreed to by his Majestie they were content upon his Majesties desire without doing any thing to adjourn to the next year 1605 at Aberdeen when that dyet came his Majesties Commissioner offered him a Letter To the end they might be an Assembly and so in a Capacity to receive his Majesties Letter with the Commissioners good pleasure they sate down they named their Moderator and Clark they received and read the Kings letter commanding them to rise which they obeyed without any further action at all but naming a dyet for the next meeting according to the constant practise of Scotland hereupon by the pernicious counsel of the Arch-Bishop Banckroft at London the King was stirred up to bring sore troubles upon a number of gratious Ministers This is the whole matter which to the Warner here is so tragick an insolence that never any Parliament durst attempt the like See more of this in the Historicall vindication * Christmas and other superstitious festivals abolished in Scotland both by Church and State The next instance of our Presbiteryes usurpation upon the Magistrate is their abolition before any statute of Parliament thereupon of the Church festivals in their first book of discipline Ans Consider the griveousness of this crime in the intervall of Parliaments the great Councel of Scotland in the minority of the Prince entrusted by Parliament to rule the Kingdom did charge the Church to give them in write their judgement about matters Ecclesiasticall in obedience to this charge the Church did present the councel with a write named since the first book of discipline a which the Lords of councel did approve subscribe and ratifie by an Act of State a part of the first head in that write was that Christmas Epiphany Purification and other fond feasts of the Virgin Mary as not warrented by the holy Scriptures should be laid aside Was it any encroachment upon the Magistrate for the Church to give this advice to the privy councel when earnestly they did crave it the people of Scotland ever since have shewed their ready obedience to that direction of the Church founded upon Scripture and backed from the beginning with an injunction of the State His third instance of the Church of Scotlands usurpation upon the Magistrate is The friends of Episcopacy thryves not in Scotland their abolition of Episcopacy in the assembly 1580 when the Law made it treason to impugne the Authority of Bishops being the third estate of the Kingdom Ans The Warner seems to have no more knowledge of the affaires of Scotland then of Japan or Utopia the Law he speaks of was not in being some years after 1580 however all the general assemblies of Scotland are authorised by Act of Parliament to determin finally without an appeal in all Eclesiastick affairs in the named assembly Lundie the Kings Commissioner did sit and consent in his Majesties name to that act of abolition as in the next assembly 1581 the Kings Commissioner Caprinton did erect in his Majesties name the Presbyteries in all the Land it is true three years thereafter a wicked Courtier Captain James Stuart in a shadow of a close and not summoned Parliament did procure an act to abolish Presbyterie and erect Bishops but for this and all other crimes that evil man was quickly rewarded by God before the world in a terrible destruction these acts of this Parliament the very ●●●t year were disclaimed by the King the Bishops were put down and the Presbytery was set up again and never more removed to this day The Warners digression to the perpetuity of Bishops in Scotland to the acts of the Church and State for their restitution is but to shew his ignorance in the Scots story what ever be the Episcopall boasting of other Nations yet it is evident that from the first entrance of Christian Religion into Scotland Presbyters alone without Bishops for some hundred years did govern the Church and after the reformation there was no Bishop in that Land but in tittle and benefice till the year 1610 when Bancroft did consecrate three Scots Ministers all of them men of evil report whom that violent Commissioner the Earl of Dunbar in the corrupt and nul assembly of Glasgow got authorised in some part of a Bishops office which part only and no more was ratified in a posterior Parliament Superintendents are nowhere the same with Bishops much less in Scotland where for a time only til the Churches were planted they were used as ambulatory Commissioners and visitors to preach the word and administer the Sacraments for the supply of vacant and unsetled congregations The second book of discipline why not at all ratified in Parliament The fourth instance is the Churches obtruding the second book of discipline without the ratification of the State Ans For the Ecclesiastick enjoyning of a general assemblies decrees a particular ratification of Parliament is unnecess●ry general acts of Pa●liament commanding obedience to the acts of the Church are a sufficient warrant from the State beside that second book of disciplin was much debated with the King and at last in the General assembly 1590 his consent was obtained unto
of the Commanders to whom the managing of that great trust should be committed for after the right stating of the War the next would be the carying on of it by such men who had given constant proof of their integrity To put all the power of the Kingdom in their hand whose by-past miscariages had given just occasion to suspect their designes and firmness to the interest of God before their own or any other mans would fill the hearts of the people with jealousies and fears and how wholsome an advice this was experience hath now too clearly demonstrated To make the world know our further resolutions to meddle with civill affaires the Warner is pleased to bring out against us above 80 years old stories and all the stuff which our malicious enemy Spotswood can furnish to him from this good Author he alledges that our Church discharged Merchants to traffique with Spaine and commanded the Change of the market-dayes in Edenburgh Ans Both these calumnies are taken off at length in the Historical Vindication After the Spanish Invasion in the year 88 many in Scotland kept correspondence with Spaine for treacherous designs the Inquisitors did seduce some and persecute others of our Merchants in their traffique the Church did deale with his Majesty to intercede with the Spanish King for more liberty to our Countrey men in their trading and in the mean time while an answer was returned from Madril they advertized the people to be wary how they hazarded their souls for any worldly gaine which they could find about the Inquisitors feet The Church me●led not with the Munday Mar●et bu● by way of supplication in Parliament As for the Market days I grant it was a great grief to the Church to see the Sabbath day profaned by handy labor and journeying by occasion of the Munday-markets in the most of the great Towns for remedy hereof many supplications have been made by the Assembly to the Parliament but so long as our Bishops sate there these petitions of the Church were alwaies eluded for the Prelates labor in the whole Island was to have the sunday no Sabbath and to procure by their Doctrine and example the profanation of that day by all sorts of playes to the end people might be brought back to their old licentiousness and ignorance by which the Episcopall Kingdom was advanced It was visible in Scotland that the most eminent Bishops were usual players on the Sabbath even in time of divine Service And so soon as they were cast out of the Parliament the Churches supplications were granted and acts obtained for the carefull sanctification of the Lords day and removing of the Markets in all the Land from the Munday to other days of the week The Church once for safty of the infant Kings life with the concurrence of the cret Counsel did call an extraordinary meeting The Warners next challenge of our usurpation is the Assembly at Edenburgh 1567 their ratifying of Acts of Parliament and summoning of all the Countrey to appeare at the next Assembly Ans If the Warner had known the History of that time he would have chosen rathet to have omitted this challenge then to have proclaimed to the world the great rottenness of his own heart At that time the condition of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland was lamentable the Queen was declared for Popery King James his Father was cruelly without any cause murthered by the Earl of Bothwel King James himself in his infancy was very neare to have been destroyed by the murtherer of his Father there was no other way conceivable of safety for Religion for the Infant King for the Kingdom but that the Protestants should joyn together for the defence of King James against these Popish murtherers For this end the general Assembly did crave conference of the secret Counsel and they with mutual advice did call for a meeting of the whole Protestant Party which did convene at the time appointed most frequently in an extraordinary and mixed assembly of al the considerable persons of the Religion Earls Lords Barons Gentlemen Burgesses and Ministers and subscribed a bond for the revenge of King Henries death and the defence of King James his life This mixed and extraordinary Assembly made it one of the chiefe Articles in their bond to defend these Acts of the Parliament 1560. concerning Religion and to endeavour the ratification of them in the next ensuing Parliament As for the Assemblies letter to their Brethren for so frequent a meetting at the next extraordinary Assembly it had the Authority of the secret Counsel it was in a time of the greatest necessity when the Religion and liberties of the land were in evident hazard from the potent and wicked counsels of the Popish Party both at home and abroad when the life of the young King was dayly in visible danger from the hands of them who had murthered his Father and ravished his Mother Lesse could not have been done in such a juncture of time by men of wisdom and courage who had any love to their Religion King and Countrey but the resolution of our Prelates is to the contrary when a most wicked villain had obtained the connivance of a Queen to kill her husband and to make way for the killing of her Son in his Cradle and after these murders to draw a Nation and Church from the true Religion established by Law into Popery and a free Kingdom to an illegal Tyranny in this case there may be no meeting either of Church or State to provide remedies against such extraordinary mischiefs Beleeve it the Scots were never of this opinion What is subjoyned to the next Paragraph of our Churches presumption to abolish Acts of Parliament By the laws customs of Scotland the assembly procedes the Parliament in the ●fo●mation of Ecclesiastical abuses is but a repetition of what is spoken before Not only the laws of Scotland but equity and necessity refers the ordinary Reformation of errors and abuses in Religion to the Ecclesiasticall Assemblies what they find wrong in the Church though ratified by acts of Parliament they rectifie it from the word of God and thereafter by Petition obtaines their rectification to be ratified in a following Parliament and all former Acts to the contrary to be annulled This is the ordinary Method of proceeding in Scotland and as I take it in all other States and Kingdoms Were Christians of old hindred to leave Paganisme and embrace the Gospel till the Emperial Laws for Paganisme and against Christianity were revoked did the Oecumenical and Nationall Synods of the Ancients stay their reformation of heresies and corruptions in Religion till the laws of State which did countenance these errors were cancelled Was not Popery in Germany France and Britaine so firmly established as Civill Laws could do it It seems the Warner here doth joyn with his brother Issachar to proclaim all our Reformers in Britaine France and Germany to be Rebels
Magistrates against the Presbyterians let us try if his skill be any greater to inflame the people against it He would make the world beleeve that the Presbyterians are great transubstantiators of whole Commonwealths into beasts and Metamorphosers of whole Kingdoms of men into Serpents with two heads how great and monstrous a ●erpent must the Presbytery be when she is the mother of a Dragon with two heads But it is good that she has nothing to do with the procreation of the Dragon with seven heads the great Antichrist the Pope of Rome this honor must be left to Episcopacy the Presbytery must not pretend to any share in it There is no Lordship but a meer service and ministry in the Pastors of the Church The Warners ground for his pretty similitude is that the Presbyterians make two Soveraignties in every Christian state whose commands are contrary Ans All the evil lieth in the contrariety of the commands as for the double Soveraignty there is no shew of truth in it for the Presbyterians cannot be gui●ty of co-ordinating two Soveraignties in one State though the Prelates may well be guilty of that fault since they with their Masters of Romae maintain a true Hierarchy a Spiritual Lordship a domination and principality in their Bishops above all the Members of the Church but the Presbyterians know no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no dominion no Soveraignty in Church Officers but a meer ministry under Christ As for the contrariety of commands its true Christs Ministers must publish all the commands of their Soveraign Lord whereunto no command of any temporal Prince needs or ought to be contrary but if it fall out to be so it is not the Presbytery but the holy Scriptures which command rather to obey God then man Dare the Warner here oppose the Presbyterians dare he maintain a subordination of the Church to the State in such a fashion that the clear commands of God published by the Church ought to give place to the contrary commands of the State If the Warner must needs invert and contradict Christ his ruling of this case let him go on to preach doctrin pointblank contrary to the Apostles that it is better to obey men then God It falls out as rarely in Scotland as any where in the world that the Church and State run contrary ways but if it so happen the common rules of humane direction towards right and wrong judgment must be followed if a man find either the Church or the State or both command what he knows to be wrong for neither the one nor the other hath any infallibility there is no doubt but either or both may be disobeyed yet with this difference that for disobedience to the Churches most just commands a man cannot fall under the smallest temporal inconvenience without the States good pleasure but for his disobedience to the most unjust commands of the State he must suffer what ever punishment the law doth inflict without any relief from the Church Two instances are brought by the Warner of the Church and States contrary commands the first the King commanded Edenburgh to feast the French Ambassadors but the Church commanded Edenburgh to fast that day when the King desired them to feast Ans Here were no so contrary commands but both were obeyed the people did keep the humiliation and some of the Magistrates that same day did give the banquet to the French Ambassadors as the King commanded that for this any Church censure was intended against them it is a malicious calumny according to the author of this fable his own confession as at length may be seen in the unloading of Issachars burden As for his second instance The Warner is full of calumnious untruths the difference of the Church and State about the late ingagement we have spoken to it in the former Chapter at length the furthest the Church went was by humble petitions and remonstrances to set before the Parliament the great danger which that ingagement as it was stated and managed did portend to Religion the Kings person and whole Kingdom when contrary to their wholesom advices the ingagement went on they medled not to oppose the act of State further then to declare their judgment of its unlawfulness according to the duty of faithful watchmen Ezek. 33. It is very false that the Church have chased any man out of the Countrey or excommunicated any for following that engagement or have put any man to sackcloath for it unto this day Neither did ever any man call the freedome of the late Parliament in question how unsatisfied soever many were with its proceedings When the Warner heaps up so many untruths in a few lines in things done but yesterday before the eyes of thousand we shal not wonder of his venturing to lye confidently in things past long before any now living were born but there are a generation of men who are bold to speak what makes for their end upon the hope that few will be at the pains to bring back what hath flown from their teeth to the touchstone of any solid triall CHAP. X. The nature of the Presbytery is very concordant with Parliament IN the 10 Chapter the Warner undertakes to shew the antipathy of Presbyteries to Parliaments albeit there be no greater harmony possible betwixt any two bodies then betwixt a general Assembly and Parliament a Presbytery and an inferiour Civil Court if either the constitution or end or dayly practise of these judicatories be looked upon but the Prelatical learning is of so high a flight that it dares undertake to prove any conclusion yet these men are not the first that have offered to force men to beleeve upon unanswerable arguments though contrary to common sence reason that snow is black the fire cold and the light dark The eight desires of th● Church about the ingagement were just and necessa●y For the proof of his conclusion he brings back yet again the late engagement how often shall this insipide Colwort be set upon our table Will the Warner never be filled with this unsavoury dish The first crime that here the Warner marks in our Church against the late Parliament in the matter of the ingagement is their paper of the eight desires upon this he vapoureth out all his good pleasure not willing to know that all ●hese desires were drawn from the Church by the Parliaments own messages and that wel-neer all these desires were counted by the Parliament it self to be very just and necessary Especially these two which the wise Warner pitches upon as most absurd for the first a security to religion from the King upon oath under his hand and seal here the question among us was not for the thing it self but only about the time the order and some part of the matter of that security And for the second the quallification of the persons to be imployed that all should be such who had given no just cause