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A64450
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A testimony and warning of the Presbyterie of Edinburgh against a late petition tending (in the scope and design thereof) to the overturning of the ordinances and truth of Christ in this Church, Octob. 5. Anno. Dom. 1659.
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Church of Scotland. Presbytery of Edinburgh.
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1659
(1659)
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Wing T807; ESTC R14703
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9,803
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12
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bestir themselves so actively to multiply them and to be encouraged in so doing And if such a Toleration hath produced sad fruits even in Churches where Religion is not setled How much more abominable is it to seek it in this Church which in the great mercy of God is setled in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government to the preservation whereof both Nations are engaged by the Oath of God This certainly is nothing else but to endeavour to pluck up the hedge planted by God about His Vineyard and to open a door to the atheisticall and profane under pretence of new lights publickly to avow their contempt of all Ordinances and Truths of the Gospel to the grief and saddening of all the truly godly It is neither necessary nor possible in this brief Testimony to descend particularly into this Controversie or to condescend upon the many qualifications necessary for the right stating thereof or to propound and vindicate the arguments confirming the truth These are extant in the learned Writings of others before us to be perused by all who desire satisfaction and these Petitioners have saved us a labour in propounding their desires in so large terms that they seclude nothing that beats the name of Christianity except only the names of Popery and Prelacy Nor will it suffice them that any should plead for a permission or forbearance to them unlesse they be encouraged and countenanced also Therefore we shall only give a brief hint of our principles and grounds in this Truth of God for the establishing of the souls of his people We are not ignorant what an odium is cast upon us and the Government of Christ established in this Church as if it were full of rigidity and tyrannically executed by us against all who dissent from us But as we have been very sparing to censure any who have made defection from the Doctrine and Government of this Church So the world and the consciences of these who at any time have been censured will bear witnesse for us that these Censures have been drawn forth with all meeknesse and long-suffering after the use of all previous means enjoyned us by Christ And as to our principles we professe we are very far from that rigour which some would charge upon us as if we held that every lesser difference should bring men presently under the lash either of Civil or Ecclesiastick Censure and that no difference of opinion can be suffered by us We are clear that in many things of common practice in a Church there may be an agreement by Accommodation though difference of judgment remain about the things themselves We acknowledge also that mens opinions do not fall under this Question so long as they do not spread and divulge them to infect others nor endeavour to propagate them by schismatical and scandalous wayes We are also convinced that all matters of difference are not of alike weight and importance so that men must either renounce their opinions or else incur Censure or be denied protection We do readily yeeld that as we all prophesie but in part so men in a Church may compose debates by putting an end to contentions though they be not all of one judgment and herein we judge the Apostle hath set the rule before us 1 Cor. 11.16 We yeeld also that as severest Censures and Punishments are not to be inflicted for every offence So a great difference is to be put betwixt active Seducers and them who in simplicity are misled But judging it needlesse in dealing with these Petitioners to dip any further in this businesse this we hold to be agreeable to the Word of God That Christian Magistrates and Church-judicatories ought to be so far from conniving at or encouraging that they ought in their respective places and with that prudence and meeknesse that becometh endeavour to restrain such grosse and damnable errours as are alreadye vented by some of these Petitioners and may be comprehended under the generall termes of their desire and the promoters thereof and thawhether they erre in the matters of faith or in what relateth to the stan ding of a visible Church which is the pillar upon which truth hangeth and which being overturned exposeth the truth to hazard That this duty is incumbent to every Church in reference to her own members is most clearly asserted in Scripture where stopping the mouths of Hereticks their rejection and excommunication are recommended by precept and example Tit. 1.10 11. and 3.10 1 Tim. 1.19 20. We find Churches censured by Christ himself for the neglect of Discipline against false Teachers Rev. 2.14 20. and others commended for their zeal in this particular though found faulty in other things Rev. 2.2 4. And seing there are no Churches within these Nations though of a different Constitution and Government from ours who do not claim and exercise a power of Discipline over their own members we see not how the like liberty can be denyed to this Church over her own members when they make defection from her As for Civil Powers we are sorrie to find that however the Scriptures promise them as Nursing Fathers to the Church Yet many now would turn them mere Spectators of the wrongs done to Christ and His truth so long as their civil peace is not disturbed as if they should be Gallio's to care for none of those things and as if equall protection and encouragment of errour as well as truth were the only duty of Christian Magistrates which Histories record to have been the great engine of Julian the Apostate for overthrowing the Christian Religion A principle this is contrary to the very light of nature in the most refined Nations none of which would admit Innovations in Religion though some did otherwise upon politicke considerations making Religion a slave to their interests And though they erred in the application Yet in that and the like generall principles the Lord leads them as witnesses against His people in their way of serving the true God Jer. 2.10 11. That the Law of Moses was expresly contrary to this Toleration is we suppose denied by none and yet the most of these plea's now urged for it taken from the fallibility of men liberty of conscience c. were of as great force then as now Nor will they perswade conscientious men that these do not oblige us now till they make it out that moral transgressions such as these are punishable then by God's command must have a law of immunity and encouragement now and that what is enjoyned in the fourth Command is not moral and perpetual that Parents and Masters in their families and Magistrates within their gates should see to the Sanctification of the Sabbath and consequently to the Worship of God publickly performed on that day And this we conceive doth so much the more strongly conclude that we find Law and Practice for this before the judicial Lawes were published Not only Abraham commanding his children and houshold to keep
the way of the Lord Gen. 18.19 and Jacob suppressing false worship in his family Gen. 35.2 3 4. But even in Job's time and Countrey it was a received Maxime that Idolatry as well as Adultery was punishable by the Magistrate Job 31.9 10 11. It is not to any purpose to except that these Laws of Moses did chiefly strike if not only against grosse Idolatry and blasphemies For neither do we urge that every errour should be punished nor do we know what height of Blasphemies men may come unto as we see by too sad experience who yet may professe all that is requited by these Petitioners in men to be encouraged And withall we finde godly Kings of Judah have extended these Laws further than to such grosse abominations for godly Josiah did not only cut off the Priests who sacrificed to Idols on the high places 2 King 23.20 but degraded these who sacrificed there even to the Lord only 2 King 23.8 9. as these differences of high places may be further cleared from 2 Chron. 14.3 5. with chap. 15.17 and chap. 33.17 As for the dayes of the Gospel albeit Magistrates were not Christians when the New Testament was written yet we finde sufficient ground to clear us yet further that these Laws given of old by God are still in force For it is fore-prophesied that the Kings of the earth shall destroy Antichrist Revel 17.16 And why ought they not also suppresse other errours which are but limbs of Antichristian Doctrine and the promoters thereof little Antichrists 1 Job 2.18 And we finde that in times when Christian Magistrates were wanting it did please the Lord to interpose in a more immediate way for punishing obstinate offenders whether in the matter of faith or manners We finde also that the Magistrate's power under the New Testament is given him for the punishment of evil doers Rom. 13.3 4. Now Seduction being an evil deed 2 Job 10 11. and the Text speaking indefinitly of all such we would take heed of obtruding our distinctions upon it And that so much the rather as Christians are to pray for this benefit by Magistrates that they may live under them not only in all bonesty but in all godlinesse also 1 Tim. 2.1 2. which can never be without soundnesse in Doctrine and purity in Worship And whereas some except that unbelief and covetousnesse are also evil deeds and yet not punished by the Magistrate We grant that unbelief and covetousnesse in the heart do not fall under the cognition of the Magistrate as neither is he to cognosce on simple opinions in the mind Yet unbelief professed and propagated and covetousnesse put in practice to the prejudice of others ought to be punished by him We know this truth of God is traduced as a persecuting of men for their conscience and an encroachment upon the liberty purchased them by Christ But as we disclaim troubling of men for the simple light of their Consciences if it break not forth in doctrine and Practices So the Scripture hath taught us that persecution is only a putting men to suffer for righteousnesse and not the restraining of abominable errours And as we know mens consciences are not their supream rule nor lawlesse things So liberty to erre and seduce to vent lies and father them upon the God of truth c. is no part of that liberty purchased to us by the death of Christ But it is in effect a captivity and snare to be entangled therewith 2 Tim. 2.25 26. and chap. 3.6 7. and to be servants to corruption under pretence of liberty 2 Pet. 2.19 Yea to father this upon Christian liberty favoureth rankly of that old way of turning the grace of our God into lasciviousnesse We are not insensible how this truth of God hath been abused and put to the rack by Antichrist and his followers to crush the professours of truth But we have learned that no truth though abused must be cast away nor yet because truth is suppressed by the enemies of the Gospel must therefore errours be spared by the friends of Christ We acknowledge also it is a mercy if in sad times truth get were it but a Toleration Yet we cannot therefore allow that errour should have so much Nor do we look upon it as any convincing argument to tell us that were our selves at the like disadvantage with our Profession we might be as ready to plead for a Toleration as others For we find Christ and his Apostles when conveened before Magistrates never made use of that defence That a Toleration in Religion be what it will was due from the Civil Magistrate but pleaded still the truth of their Doctrine And though Paul was frequently under persecution yet we find him against Toleration Gal. 5.11 with 12. Nor was Elijah the lesse zealous against false Prophets 1 King 18.40 that there was a Jezebel ready to persecute himself 1 King 19.2 And though we be encompassed with infirmities yet in so far as we have obtained mercy we are ready to say as Paul did Act. 25.11 That if we followed any errour we refuse not to be restrained in it and should count our selves most unhappy if we were instrumental to propagate any errour and set our selves to overturn a blessed work of Reformation in the prosecution thereof Having thus briefly pointed at the sinfulnesse of this course We do in the fear of the Lord warn all these especially within our charge who have an hand in this matter to consider from whence they have fallen and to repent and do exhort them in the bowels of Christ that they do examine impartially what their designs are upon which they have engaged in this course so destructive to their Mother-Church and the Truths of Christ established in her and that they forbear to prosecute the pulling down of an hedge to let in Popery and Atheism lest a Serpent bite them We are not ignorant how pleasing licentious liberty is to the flesh yet their consciences will easily tell them that it was none of Adam's happinesse to have more room out of Paradise than within it And that it is no mercy for men to have liberty to do every one what is right in his own eves which hath been the plague and sad posture of the Church of God in her declining times We do likewise exhort all the Lord's people within our bounds as to mourn before the Lord in behalf of those who have declined and that such abominations should find any to owne them among us So also rightly to improve such humbling dispensations That they study sobriety of mind the want whereof hath miscarried so many That they receive the love of the Truth for the neglect whereof God is provoked to send strong delusions That they converse more in the study of their own sinfulnesse and the sufficiency of Christ which being still savoury will keep them from gadding after novelties in Religion That they improve Ordinances as becometh lest rested-in formality draw on contempt of Ordinances That they would unite among themselves in matters of inferiour differences that so they may joyntly lay forth themselves in their stations for obstructing the progresse of this deluge which is ready to swallow up all Religion And that they imploy Christ much who is the King and Head of his own Church that by His own Spirit he would interpose to stop the current of these Delusions and Defections that Truth and Peace and Holinesse may yet flourish in the midst of us Even so Come Lord Jesus FINIS