Scottish Presbyterie in practice and such they would have it in law too if they could with all their Scripture collusions but once corrupt His Majesties judgement or by their sharpe-pointed swords two edged tongues affright him from a well grounded resolution into what his Royal Father esteem'd it a faint servile ungodlie and unkinglie consent The treasure you call for hath hitherto had God for its defense who hath made know'n and distributed those talents in Scripture which maintain'd the litle familie of the Church and discharg'd the itinerant Gospell of that time The greater mine hath been often discovered by them whose divina virgula hath stouped and put them upon the search of the veine that caried the Episcopal government through the 800. yeares of your account Your soon-shot bolts in many frivolous quaestions have been better feather'd with many wise mens answers and for all the horned impudence you hold out returned very often upon your heads one of whom I shall send you to who not to derogate from the happie endeavours of many others aswell of the learned Laitie as Reverend Clergie hath alone anticipated and fullie with much acutenesse and judgement answered allmost every particular you object Shewing that Christ himselfe hath made the office of Apostle or Bishop distinct from Presbyters Given them power to do some offices perpetuallie necessarie which to others he gave not Asof Ordination and confirmation And superioritie of jurisdiction Bishops by vertue of their office more then called observed as Lords in a more sublime sense then you mention And commended to the service of Kings Saint Chrysostom others imployed in Embassies Saint Ambrose a Praefect and Dorotheus a Chamberlaine to the Emperour Many of them Councellers to Princes and Iudges aswell in ordinarie secular affaires as Chanellors in extraordinarie by appeale Treasurers at least of the Church revenue and undergoing what ever civile charge the conscientious favour of Princes put upon them which was not in gradu impedimenti â—…lericalis Bishops with sole power of ordination and jurisdiction otherwise then as they thought good to call into their subordinate assistance or deputed Presbyters in their Dioceses Of officials and Commissaries I thinke he makes litle mention because he bends his discourse against all interest of Lay elders yet I doe not thinke he would denie that Civilians such as are our Officials and Commissaries might be instrumental to the Bishops especiallie having some learned Presbyter authorized in cases to which the others lay propertie extends not Bishops when necessitie may require using solitarie ordination which is good in nature rci as may be taken for granted by that Canon of the Apostles which as it enjoines no more then one Bishop so makes no mention of any Presbyter which it had quaestionlesse done if of absolute necessitie to the businesse Bishops ordaining not with the fashional but canonical assistance of any two Presbyters that they please by choyce of their owne chaplaines or others where are many or taking any two that chance otherwise to be neare Bishops principal pastours of their whole Dioceses when commanded or countenanc'd by the King to waite at Court not obliged to feed their flockes in their persons which they doe by many learned and religious proxies themselves in the meane time feeding by word or sacrament or ghostlie counsel the great shepheard whose Royal soul is worth 10000. of the peoples All this in effect a great deale more then your Parkers or Didoclaves could have answered hath this one learned Doctour defended as know'n long before the Pope gave over to say his creed which he did surelie when he became the Anti-Christ you call him I could goe up yet once againe helpe you to a third turne from the top of your demands Shew you that the Warner and his friends give the King the same assurance that erthey did that what they stand upon as unalterable in their order hath Scripture and Antiquitie for its warrant That upon the conversion of England to Christianitie the Ecclesiastike government there constituted was not Anti-Christian That a Bishop there is not a Lord in Parliament by vertue of his office as it may be to resolve spiritual doubts he ought to be but by the Baronie call which the favour of Kings hath annex'd unto it That in Scotland when it was decreed that Bishops should have no voyces in Parliament these your selfe-denying men desired of the King that such Commissioners as they should send to the Parliament and councel might from thence forth be authorized in the Bishops places for the Estate That not many protestant English Bishops have been High Treasurers not many Chancellars some that have you have litle reason to finde faultwith That they are not bound in law to devolve all jurisdiction That all which in practice did it are not to be condemned where they found able honest men to exercise it in their names That those which erre must not praejudice the care and deligence in government of the rest That solitarie ordinations were very rare therefore not to be objected as so common Nor did halfe the Bishops live at Court nor most that did halfe their time All these particulars could I enlarge on but that I beleeve the Reader satisfied with the execution done before and hath some what else to doe then to stay to see you stript In what followes you take a great deaie more then is given you naming that a donation from the Court divines conscience for which the Citie Divines chieflie of Edenburgh London forced the temple of God by such sacriledge to furnish the two tabernacles of robbers that then prospered too well in England and Scotland That Royal Saint that upon this most impious violence yeilded up so great a portion of his Ecclesiastike inheritance the Bishops avile imployment Arch-Bishops Arch-deacons with the c which might have been better spar'd did it in angusto comprchensus not upon any compunction of conscience Sed difficulter sed subductis supercilijs… vix exeuntibus verbis And had not his paternal affection prompted him to what your unnatural disobedience litle deserved he had given you not onelie panem lapidosum as Fabius was wont to call a gift very hardlie bestowed upon an hungrie beggar but pro pane lapidem without our saviours censure a stone instead of that bread which was never ordained to stuffe the insataite stomach of every gaping Rebell that call'd for 't Yet whatsoever you had was you know but for a triennal experiment which being exspired in the yeare of libertie that was to succeed according to Gods paterne in Ezekiel if you could then praetend no better title then you had done it was to returne to your Prince and the inheritance of such an inseparable right to be his sonnes who of your adversaries gave this unseasonable advice I know not nor who have acknowledg'd and recanted for errours those divine
and all proceedings in that kinde 2. An ordinance of the Lords and Commons without and against the King is no good narrant to change such lawes during the fitting os the Parliament 3. No law nor lawfull custome of England debarres the King by dissenting to stop that change Untill which three assertions be refuted in law it will be needlesse to debate the qualifications and exceptions which can be none of moment in this case against the Kings consent requisite to turne an ordinance into a law But you take His Majesties concessions to have praevented all can be sayd in the praesent case Behold you that kindled the sire in his breast here compasse yourselves with the sparkes of his consent which charitie would have suffered to exspire with the breath that brought them forth or buried in his ashes which they made Yet can not you walke by the light of this fire unto the full accomplishment of your ends His successour being not yet conveighd into any such place as Holmebye or Carisbrooke Castle where you would â—…ave him some such fatal haereditarie confinement being the fairest apologie if any when he should subscribe so many of your uncâ—…nscionable desires and write after his Father in the extremitie of misfortune who as litle intended what himselfe accounted his failings for his copie as he desired his undeserved miseries should be a patrimonie transmitted to him by your hands As to the obtaining of what is lacking your way is not so faire in which visiblie lies the same Scripture Antiquitie law reason conscience and honour which heretofore hindred your journey to the end of your hopes the obtaining His Majesties plenarie consent Who did not agree to if you meane approve of the rooting out Episcopacie in Scotland That he gave so much way to such wild boares as were in your Presbyterie to doe it he afterward repented and you rewarded him not so well as that his Royal sonne should be encouraged to purchase sorow at so deare a rate 2. He was not willing allthough he yeilded to have them put out of the House of Pâ—…ercs in England and Ireland out of a generous scorne of your uncharitable susspicion that he would have them there onelie because he was to make use of their votes in State affaires 3 He divested them of civile power hoping to perswade such as your Lay Presbyters by the objections maâ—…e against them out of the Ecclesiasticall which they more irrationallie usurped 4. He joined Presbyters with them for ordination because he found it before seldome administred without them But he never made them coordinate in nor aequiparticipant of that power He joined them sor spiritual jurisdiction as being a fit meanes to avoyd… partialities incident to one man And tyrannie which becomes no Christians leaft of all Churchmen And thirdlie to take away from them the burden and Odium of afsaires which was a courteous diminution in such times How sacrilegiouslie you roh the Temple of Memorie of the pillar he set up in the period of your Treatie and erect in the place an impious calumnie of his abolishâ—…ng Episcopacie totallie name and thing will be seen by part of his inscription or ultimate answer to the Rebell Commissioners paper about the Church The words are these… His Majestie doth againe clearlie professle That he can not with a good conscience consent to the total abolition of the function and power of Bishops nor to the intire and abfâ—…lute alienation of their lands as is desired because he is yet perswaded in his judgement that the former is os Apostolical institution and that to take away the later is sacriledge… And if his two Houses shall not thinke fit to recede srom the strictnesse of their aemanas in these particularâ—… His Majestie can with more comfort cast himselfe upon his Saviours goodnesse to support him and desend him from all afflictions how great soever that may besall him then sor any politike consideration which may seems to be a meanes to restore him deprive himselfe of the inward tranquillitie of a quiet minde And some of his last words were I am firme to primitive Episcopacie not to have it extirpated if I can hinder it He sayd indeed that by his former answer he had totallie suspended Episcopal government for three yeares after the sayd time limited the same in the power of ordination and jurisdiction Which the Commissioners he dealt with so litle thought Tantamont to a perpetual abolition that they sayd it met not with their feares nor could praevent the inconveniences which must necessarilie follow upon the returne of Bishops and the power which he reserved to them after that time For that a Bishop so qualified as qualificd as â—…is Majestie expressed should rise againe then they declared whollie in his choyce unavoy dable by Parliament if they agreed not But behold a pretie peice of aequivocation call'd Anti-christian Iesuitisme by these Rabbi Presbyters of old to draw their dull Commissioners out of the mire and as good as inke for ivorie to wash them cleane His Majestie suspended it till he and his Parliament should agree All and every one in both Houses had abjured Episcopacie by solemne oath and Covenant and so in no hazard ever to agree with him Ergo He must either agree with them that is like wise abjure which is abolition or coutinue perpetuallte his suspension which is Tantamont unto it This is very well ordered especiallie if you call to minde somewhat else that was condition'd for viz. That twentie Divines of His Majesties nomination being added unto the Assemblie were to have a free consultation debate whence it might be determin'd by His Majestie and his two Houses how Church government c should be setled after the sayd time or sooner if differences might be agreed A very free debate when all demonstrative reasons should be forespoken to be silenced by an oath And a very conscionable treatie That a faction in both Houses should be without the restitution of the rest that were beter temper'd the men that should continue siting not onelie 3. yeares but 300. if they could live so long because sworne not to yeild a syllable of their owne tearmes Yet because you thinke your selfe so witie in your sophistrie letme aske you What assurance these all and every one in both Houses had to be immortal If they were not what you have that the new elected would be Covenanters and if they were not by what law they could have been excluded the Houses whither they should be sent as Repraesentatives of their Electours If admitted and so reasonable as to hearken to a possible result of the Divines debate in condemnation of Presbyterie and vote according to it what then were likelie to become of your perpetual abolition or the Tantamont unto it Such measure may you have if ever it come to treatie between you and your sectarian brethren now siting in one House who having
change the whole Ecclesiastical pollicy of a Common-wealth to alter the Doctrine and Religion established to take away the legall rights and privileges of the Subjects to erect new tribunalls and courts of Justice to which Sovereigns themselves must submit and all this of their own heads â—…ue of a pretended power given them from heaven contrary to kâ—…own laws and lawfull customs the Supreme Magistrate dissenting disclaiming Synods ought to be called by the supreme Magistrate if he be a Christian c. And either by himself or by such as he shall please to choose for that purpose he ought to preside over them This power the Emperours of old did challenge over General Councels Christian Monarchs in the blindnesse of Popery over National Synods the Kings of England over their great Councels of old and their Convocation of later times The Estates of the united Provinces in the Synod of Dort this power neither Roman Catholick or Protestant in France dare denie to his King None have been more punctual in this case then the State of Geneva where it is expressely provided that no Synod or Presbytery shall alter the Ecclesiastical pollicy or adde any thing to it without the consent of the civil Magistrate Their elders do not challenge an uncontrolable power as the Commissioners of Christ but ate still called the Commissioners of the Signiory The lesser Councel names them with the advise of the Ministery their consent is not necessary The great Councel of 200 doth approve them or reject them At the end of the year they are presented to the Signiory who continue them or discharge them as they see cause At their admission they take an oath to keâ—…p the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of the civil Magistâ—…ate The finall determination of doctrinal differences in Religion after conference of and with the Ecclesiasticks is referred to the Magistrate The proclamations published with the sound of trumpet registered in the same book do plainly shew that the ordering of all Ecclesiastical affairs is assumed by the Signiory But in Scotland all things are quite contrarie the civil Magistrate hath no more to doe with the placing or displacing of Ecclesiastical Elders than he hath in the Electoral Colledge about the Election of an Emperor The King hath no more legislative Power in Ecclesiastical causes than a Cobler that is a single Vote in case he be chosen an Elder other wiâ—…e none at all In Scotland Ecclesiastical persons make repeal alter their Sanctions eyery day without consent of King or Councel King Jonâ—…s proclaimed a Parliament to be held at Edenburgh and a little before by his letter required the Assembly to abstain from making any Innovatioâ—…s in the Policy of the Church and from prejudging the decisions of the States by their conclusions and to suffer all things to continue in the condition they were until the approcâ—…ing Parliamâ—…nt What did they hereupon They neglected the Kings letter by their own Authority they determined all things positively questioned the Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews upon their own Canons For collating to benefices and Voting in Parliament according to the undoubted Laws of the Land Yea to that degâ—…ee of sawcines they arrived and into that contempt they reduced Sovereign power that twenty Presbyters no more at the highest sometimes but thirteen sometimes but seven or eight dared to hold and maintain a General Assembly as they miscalled it after it was discharged by the King against his Authority an Insolence which never any Parliament durst yet attempt By their own Authority long before there was any Statute made to that purpose they abolished all the Festivals of the Church even those which were observed in memory of the Birth Circumcision Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour By their own Authority they decreed the abolition of Bishops requiring them to resign their offices as not having any calling from Gods word under pain of Excommunication And to desist from preacbing until they had a new admission from the General Assembly And to compleat their own folly added further that they would dispose of their possessions as the Churches Patrimony in the next Assembly which ridiculous Ordinance was maintained stifly by the succeeding Synods notwithstanding the Statute that it should be Treason to impugn the Authority of the three Estates or to procure the innovation or diminution of any of them Which was made on purpose to control their vain presumption Notwithstanding that themselves had formerly approved and as much as in them lay established Superintendents to endure for term of life with their numbers bounds salaries larger than those of other Ministers indewed with Episcopal power to plant Churches ordain Ministers assign Stipends preside in Synods direct the censures of the Church without whom there was no Excommunication The world is much mistaken concerning Episcopacie in Scotland for though the King and Parliament were compelled by the clamours and impetuous violence of the Presbyters to annex the temporalities of Bishops to the crown yet the Function it self was never taken away in Scotland from their first conversion to Christianity until these unhappy troubles And these very temporalities were restored by the Act of restitution and their full power was first established Synodically and afterwards confirmed by the three Estates of the Kingdom in Parliament By their own Authority when they saw they could not prevail with all their iterated indeavours and attempts to have their book of discipline ratified they obtruded it upon the Church themselves ordaining that all those who had born or did then bear any office in the Church should subscribe it under pain of Excommuication By their own Authority or rather by the like unwarrantable boldnesse they adopted themselves to be heirs of the Prelates and other dignities and orders of the Church suppressed by their tumultuous violence and decreed that all tythes rents lands oblations yea whatsoever had been given in former times or should be given in future times to the service of God was the patrimonie of the Church and ought to be collected and distributed by the Deasons as the Word of God appoints That to convert any of this to their particular or profane use of any person is detestable Sacriledge before God And elsewhere Gentle-men Barons Earls Lords and others must be content to live upon their just rents and suffer the Kirk to be restored to her libertie What this libertie is follows in the same place all things given in hospitalitie all rents pertaining to Priests Chanteries Colledges Chappelries Frieries of all orders the Sisters of the Seens all which ought to be retained still in the use of the Kiâ—…k Give them but leave to take their breath and expect the rest The whole revenues of the temporalities of Bishops Deans and Arch-Deans lands and all rents pertaining to Cathedrall Kirks Then supposing an objection that the Possessours had Leases and Estates
doubting for conscience sake his Majestie might lay aside Episcopacy and set up the Presbytery so fully as is required in all his dominions though not upon a divine right which the Presbyterians beleeve yet upon Erastus royall right which the Warner here and elsewhere avouches What the Warner puts heere again upon the Presbyterie the usurpation of the temporall sword in what indirect relation so ever its probation in the former chapter was found so weake and naughty that the repetition of it is for no use only wee marke that the Warner will have the Presbitery to be an absolute papacy for no other purpose but to vent his desire of revenge against the Presbyterians who gave in a challenge against the Praelats especially the late Canterburians among whom Doctor Bramble was one of some note to which none of them have returned to this howre an answer that their principles unavoidably did bring backe the pope For a Patriarch over all the westerne Churches and among all the Patriarches of the whole Catholick Church a primacy in the Roman flowes cleerly out of the fountaine of Episcopacy according to the avowed doctrine of the English praelats who yet are more liberall to the pope in granting him beside his spirituall super-inspection of the whole Catholick Church all his temporall jurisdictions also in the patrimony of St. Peter and all his other faire principalities within and without Italy There is no ceremony in Rome that these men stick upon for of all the superstitious and idolatrous ceremonies of Rome their images and altars and adorations before them are incomparably the worst yet the Warners friends without any recantation we have heard of avow them all even an adoration of and to the altar it selfe As for the doctrines of Rome what points are worse then these which that party have avowed in expresse tearmes a corporall presence of Christs body upon the Altar the Tridentine justification free-will finall apostacy of the Saints when no other thing can be answered to this our sore challenge it is good to put us off with a Squib that the Presbyterie is as absolute papacy as ever was in Rome The Presbyterian position which the Warner heere offers not to dispute but to laugh at that Christ as King of his Church according to his royall office and Scepter hes appointed the office-bearers and lawes of the house is accorded to by the most and sharpest of our adversaries whether English or Romish as their owne tenet howbeit such foolish consequences that all acts of Synods must be Christs Lawes c. neither they nor wee doe acknowledge His declamations against the novelty of the Presbyterie in the ordinary stile of the Jesuites against Protestants and of the pagan Philosophers against the Christians of old who will regarde our plea for the Praesbyterie is that it is scripturall if so it is auncient enough if not let it be abolished But it were good that heer also the Warner and his friends would be ingenuous to speake out their minds of Episcopacy Why have they all so long deceived the King in assuring him that English Episcopacy was wel warranted both by Scripture and antiquity Be it so which yet is very false that something of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter had any footing in Scripture yet can they be so impudent as to affirme that an English Bishop in his very flesh and blood in his substantiall limbs was ever knowne in the World till the pope was become Antichrist A Bishop by virtue of his office a Lord in Parliament voycing in all acts of State and exercising the place of a high Thesaurer of a Chancelor or what ever civill charge the favour of a Prince did put upon him a Bishop with sole power of ordination and jurisdiction with out any Presbytery a Bishop exercising no jurisdiction himselfe in any part of his dioces but devolving the exercise of that power wholly upon his officials Commissaries a Bishop ordaining Presbyters himselfe alone or with the fashionall assistance of any two Presbyters who chaunce to be neare a Bishop the only Pastor of the whole dioces and yet not bound to feed any flock either by word or Sacrament or governement but having a free liberty to devolve all that service upon others and himself to wayte at court so many yeares as he shall think fit This is our English Bishop not only in practise but in law and so was hee defended by the great disputants for praelacy in England But now let the Warner speake out if any such treasure can more be defended or was ever knowne in scripture or seen in any Christian Church for 800. yeares and above after the death of Christ. I take it indeed to be conscience that forces now at last the best of our Court-divines to devest their Bishop of all civill imployment in Parliament court or Kingdome in denying his solitarines in ordination in removing his officiall and Commissary courts in taking away all his arches Arch Bishops Arch Deacons deane and Chapter and all the c. in erecting Presbyteries for all ordinations and spirituall jurisdiction It is good that conscience moves our adversaries at last to come this farre towards us but why will they not yet come nearer to acknowledge that by these their to lately recanted errours they did to long trouble the world and that the little which yet they desire to keepe of a Bishop is nothing lesse then that English Bishop but a new creature of their own devising never known in England which his Majestie in no honnour is obliged to mantaine for any respect either to the lawes or customes of England and least of all for conscience While the Warner with such confidence avowes that no text of Scripture can be alleadged against Episcopacy which may not with more reason be applyed against the Presbytery behold I offer him here some few casting them in a couple of arguments which according to his great promises I wish he would answer at his leasure First I doe reason from Ephesians 4. 11 all the officers that Christ has appointed in his Church for the Ministry of the word are either Apostles Evangelists Prophets Pastors or Doctors but Bishops are none of these fyve Ergo they are none of the officers appointed by Christ for the Ministry of the word The Major is not wonte to be questioned the minor thus I prove Bishops are not Apostles Evangelists nor prophets for it s confessed all these were extraordinary and temporary officers but Bishops say yow are ordinary and perpetuall our adversaries pitch upon the fourth alleadging the Episcopall office to be pastorall but I prove the Bishop no Pastor thus no Pastor is superior to other Pastors in any spirituall power but according to our adversary a Bishop is superior to all the Pastors of his dioces in the power of ordination and jurisdiction Ergo. The doubt heer is only of the Major which I prove Argumento Ã
paribus no Apostle is superior to an Apostle nor an Evangelists to an Evangelist nor prophet to a prophet nor a Doctour to a Doctour in any spirituall power according to scripture Ergo no Pastor to a Pastor Againe I reason from 1. Tim. 4. 14. Math 18. 15. 1. Cor. 5. 4. 12. 13 What taks the power of ordination and jurisdiction from Bishops destroyes Bishops as the removall of the soule kills the man and the denyall of the forme takes away the subject so the power of ordination and jurisdiction the essentiall forme whereby the Bishop is constitute and distinguished from the Presbyter and every other Church officer being removed from him he must perish but the quoted places take away cleerly these powers from the Bishop for the first puts the power of ordination in the Presbytery and a Bishop is not a Presbytery the second puts the power of jurisdiction in the Church and the third in a company of men which meet together but the Bishop is not the Church nor a company of men met together for these be many and he is but one persone When the Doctors learning hes satisfied us in these two he shall receave more scripturall arguments against Episcopacy But why doe wee expect answers from these men when after so long time for all their boasts of learning and their visible leasure none of their party hes hade the courage to offer one word of answer to the Scriptures and Fathers which in great plenty Mr. Parker and Mr. Didoclave of old and of late that miracle of learning most noble Somais and that Magazin of antiquity Mr. Blondel have printed against them What in the end of the Chapter the Warner addes of our trouble at King James his fiftie and five questions 1596 and of our yeelding the bucklers without any opposition till the late unhappy troubles we answer that in this as every where else the Warner proclaines his great and certaine knowledge of our Ecclesiastick story the troubles of the Scots divines at that time were very small for the matter of these questions all which they did answer so roundly that ther was no more speach of them therafter by the propounders but the manner and time of these questions did indeed perplex good men to see Erastian and Prelaticall counsellors so farr to prevaile with our King as to make him by captious questions carpe at these parts of Church-discipline which by statuts of Parliament and acts of Assemblyes were fully established Our Church at that time was far from yeelding to Episcopacy great trouble indeed by some wicked States-men was then brought upon the persones of the most able and faithfull Ministers but our land was so far from receiving of Bishops at that time that the question was not so much as proposed to them for many yeares thereafter it was in Ann. 1606 that the English Praelats did move the King by great violence to cast many of the best and most learned Preachers of Scotland out of their charges and in Ann. 1610 that a kind of Episcopacy was set up in the corrupt assembly of Glasgow under which the Church of Scotland did heavily groane till the yeare 1637 when their burdens was so much increased by the English praelaticall Tax-masters that all was shaken of together and divine justice did so closly follow at the heeles that oppressing praelacy of England as to the great joy of the long oppressed Scotes that evill root and all its branches was cast out of Britaine where wee trust no shadow of it shall ever againe be seen CHAP. IX The Common-wealth is no monster when God is made Soveraigne and their commands of men are subordinated to the clear will of God HAving cleered the vanity of these calumnious challenges wherewith the Warner did animate the King and all Magistrates against the Presbyterians let us try if his skill be any greater to inflame the people against it Hee would make the World beleeve that the Presbyterians are great transsubstantiators of whole Common-wealths into beasts and Metamorphosers of whole Kingdomes of men into Serpents with two heads how great and monstrous a Serpent must the Presbytery be when shee is the Mother of a Dragon with two heads But it is good that she has nothing to doe with the procreation of the Dragon with seven heads the great Antichrist the Pope of Rome this honour must bee left to Episcopacy the Presbytery must not pretend to any share in it The Warners ground for his pretty fimilitude is that the Presbyterians make two Soveraignities in every Christian State whose commands are contrary Ans. All the evill lyeth in the contrariety of the commands as for the double Soveraignity ther is no shew of truth in it for the Presbyterians cannot bee guilty of coordinating two Soveraignities in one State though the Praelats may wel be guilty of that fault since they with there Masters of Rome mantaine a true hierarchie a Spirituall Lord-ship a domination and principality in their Bishops above all the members of the Church but the Presbyterians know no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no dominion no Soveranity in Church officers but a meer ministry under Christ. As for the contrariety of commands its true Christs Ministers must publish all the commands oftheir Soveraigne Lord whereunto no command of any temporall Prince needs or ought to be contrary but if it fall out to bee so it is not the Presbytery but the holy Scriptures which command rather to obey God then man Dare the Warner heere oppose the Presbyterians dare he mantaine a subordination of the Church to the State in such a fashion that the cleer commands of God published by the Church ought to give place to the contrary commands of the State if the Warner must needs invert and contradict Christ ruling of this case let him goe on to preach doctrine point blank to the Apostles that it is better to obey men then God It falls out as rarely in Scotland as any where in the world that the Church and State run contrary wayes but if so it happen the commune rules of humane direction towards right and wrong judgement must be followed if a man find either the Church or the State or both command what he knowes to be wrong for neither the one nor the other hath any infallibility their is no doubt but either or both may be disobeyed yet with this difference that for disobedience to the Churches most just commands a man can not fall under the smallest temporall inconvenient without the States good pleasure but for his disobedience to the most unjust commands of the State he must suffer what ever punishment the law does inflict without any releefe from the Church Two instances are brought by the Warner of the Church and States contrary commands the first the King commanded Edenburgh to feast the frensh Ambassadours but the Church commanded Edenburgh to fast that day when the King desired them to feast
for what I thinke in my judgement best I may not thinke so absolutelie necessarie for all places at all times Not so rooted setled not so absolutelie necessarie implies no act of everting the foundations both of Religion Government c. nor can such an act be so pleasing to Kings nor that order which is wholelie imployed therein win so much upon their affections judgements as to make them professe to the world they thinke it best as you see our King of blessed memorie hath done When England thereafter as you terme it did root out that unhappie plant they danc'd after the Scotish pipe though England was neither in that thing calld an assemblie nor in any full free Parliament that did it They were but a few rotten members that had strength enough then to articulate their malice in a vote but have since given up the ghost being cut downe by the independencie of the sword their presbyterie with them for a Stinking weed throw'n over the hedge or Severu's wall into Scotland where they their blew-bottle brethren are left to lie unpittied on the dunghill together The rest of the ReformedChurches otherwhere did never cast out what they never had such an happie plant as regular Episcopacie in their grounds those that have as some such I have told you there are carefullie keep it The one part hath been more wise in their actions the other more charitable to us in their words Let the Scots applaud or clap their hands when they please there is an act behind the plays ' not yet done CHAPTER II. The Scottish Discipline overthrowes the right of Magistrates to convocate Synods otherwise to order Ecclesiastical affaires THe Bishop doth not forget his challenge about the Magistrates right in convocating Synods But if Mr. Baylie's eyes be too old to see a good argument in an enthymem let him take it out of an explicite syllogisme which may fairlie be draw'n out of His Lordships first second paragraph in this Chapter MAJ. That Discipline which doth countenance the Church to convene within the Magistrates territories whensoever wheresoever they list To call before them whomsoever they please c. doth overthrow the Magistrates right to convocate Synods to confirme their Acts c. MIN. But this new Discipline doth countenance the Church to convene within the Magistrates territories whensoever wheresoever they list c. Ergo CONCL. This new Discipline doth overthrow the Magistrates right to convocate Synods c. The Major his Lordship proves from that know'n Soveraignite of power wherewith all Princes States are indued From the warinesse of the Synod of Dort Can. 50. From that decree out of Ench. Cand s. min. Synods ought to be called by the supreme Magistrate if he be a Christian c. From the power the Emperours of old did challenge over General Councels Christian Monarches in the time of Poperie over National Synods The Kings of England over their Convocations The Estates of the Vnited Provinces From the professions of all Catholikes Protestants in France very particularlie liberallie the State of Geneva where the ordering of all Ecclesiastike affaires is assumed by the Seigniorie The Minor he takes for granted is know'n out of all the proceedings in the Presbyterie which from time to time have thus conven'd convocated themselves therefore His Lordship onelie intimates it in his first paragraph yet afterward proves it in part by an Assemblie meeting when it had been prohibited sitting after it was discharged by the King which the 20. Presbyters did at Aberdene Anno 1600. And all this with the Reviewer is to forget the challenge because he hath forgot his logike the new light hath dazeld the eye of his old intellectual facultie to discerne The truth of it is this was a litle too hot for Mr. Baylies fingars because it makes such cleare instances about the Synod of Dort Geneva wherein they differ from the Scotish Presbyterie which he will not owne because he every where denies therefore takes no notice of it as he goes Nor can any ignorance of the way of the Scotish Discipline be imputed to the Bishop who produceth so numerouslie the practical enormities thereof strikes at the very foundation as infirme because contrarie to the know'n lawes lawfull custome the supreme Magistrate dissenting disclaiming For what he pretends to have been unquestionablie authentike by vertue of Parliament Acts the Kings consent since the first reformation I have otherwhere successivelie evidenc'd up as farre as the unhappie beheading of Marie Queen of Scots in England to which the rest may be hereafter annexed to have no other strength then what rage violence could afford it The power which he sayth every man in Scotland gives the King without controversie to call extraordinarie Assemblies when he pleaseth takes not away in its hast the maine part of the Bishops objection implying no negative to this That the Presbyteric hath often extraordinarilie assembled without the Kings leave nay against his command nor will they be checkt in that rebellious license by his power What the Bishop meanes to speake of the Kings power in chusing Elders c. Mr. Baylie might know but that still he hath no mind to take notice That in the former paragraph His Lordship spake of a seigniorie a Civile Magistrate at Geneva to which at the end of the yeare are presented the Elders by that continued or discharged The Civile Magistrate in Scotland hath no more power in placing or displacing which before was calld continuing or discharging the Elders then in the election of the Emperour whose inhaerent right he conceives to be as good there as at Geneva therefore if the lawes do not expresselie provide it they are such he thinkes as tend to the overthrowing of that right This His Lordship meanes as part of that he was to prove being a clause in the title of this Chapter Your closing with the Parliament which the Bishop hath not mention'd is but to beget a wonder by making an hermaphroditc of the question which before was but single in your sexe You are not so united but that I can untwist you though against your will consider in this case the Presbyterie by it selfe The making of Ecclesiastike lawes in Scotland as for England it shall not be here disputed as desirous as you are to be wandring from home was never in justice nor with any Kings content referred so absolutelie to Ecclesiastike Assemblies as not to aske a ratification from the crowne What the Bishops minde is about the head of the Church will be clearlie rendred when just Authoritie demands it but His Lordship thinkes not good to be catechiz'd by every ignorant Scotish Presbyter nor give answer to every impertinent question he puts in If your fingars itch to be handling the extrinsccal power in the Minister derivative from the supremacie
anomia ergapiria the very shops or Laboratories of rebellion The Church is not dissolv'd where dissipline's not executed if it were it should be where it is at the pleasure of the Magistrate suspended To imagine a final ineapacitie of meeting by perpetual succession of Tyrants hath litle either of reason or conscience it assaults the certitude of fayth in Gods promises advanceth infidelitie in his providence But to give you at length your passe from this paragraph Such as you in a schismatical Assemblie may have frequentlie in Scotland pinn'd the character of erroneous upon an upright Magistrate a Disciplinarian rebell to save his credit call'd a Royal moderate proclamation a tyrdnous edist The Bishops third allegation you finde too heavie therefore let fall halfe of it by the way You have too good a conceit of your Parliaments bountie though had they been as prodigal as you make them it litle becomes you to proclaime them bankrupts by their favour Their Acts were allwayes ratified by your Princes any which whom tell me one wherein this right Royal was renounc'd of suspending seditious Ministers from their office or if cause were depriving them of their places It were a senselesse thing to suppose that the Bishop would denie to the Church a proprietie to consult determine about religion doctrine haeresie c. Yet its likelie His Lordship allowes it not in that mode which makes her power so absolute as to define consummate authorize the whole businesse by her selfe He hath heard the King to be somewhere accounted a mixt person thinkes it may be that the holie oyle of his unction is not onelie to swime on the top be sleeted off at the pleasure of a peevish Disciplinarian Assemblie but to incorporate with their power The lawes of England have not been hitherto so indulgent of libertie to our Convocation but that the King in the cases alledged did ever praedominate by his supremacie And the Parliament hath stood so much upon priviledge that if Religion fetch'd not her billet from West-minster the could have but a cold lodging at St. Pauls The booke of Statutes is no portable manual for us whom your good brethren have sent to wander in the world yet I can helpe you to one An. 1. Eliz. that restor'd the title of supreme to the Queen withall provided that none should have authoritie newlie to judge any thing to be haeresie not formerlie so judged but the High Court of Parliament with the assent of the Clergie in their Convocation Where the Convocations assent by the sound should not be so determinative as the Parliaments judgement which right or wrong here it assumes As touching appeales because you will have somewhat here sayd though it must be otherwhere handled No law of Scotland denies an appeale in things Civile or Ecclesiastike to the King One yet in force enjoines subjection unto them the Act of Parliament in May 1584. which was That any persons either spiritual or Temporal praesuming to decline the judgement of His Majestie His Councel shall incurre the paine of treason What you call a complaint is in our case an appeale what taking order is executing a definitive judgement without traversing backe the businesse to Ecclesiastike Courts or holding over the rod of a coercive power to awe them into due regular proceedings I confesse this the Presbyters in Scotland never made good by their practice Their appeales were still retrograde from the supreme Magistrate his Councel to a faction of Nobles or a seditious partie of the people Such is that of Knox printed at large Or which in effect is the same The Scotish Assemblies when they had no power appeald to providence when they had whereupon they might relie unto the sword In case of Religion or doctrine if the General Assemblie which is not infallible erre in judgement determîne any thing contrarie to the word of God the sense of Catholike Antiquitie the King may by a court of Orthodoxe Delegates consisting of no more then two or three Prelates if he please receive better information of truth establish that in his Church Or which often hapens in Scotland If the Presbyters frame Assemblie Acts derogatorie to the rights of his Crowne prejudicial to the peace of his people the King may personallie justifie his owne praerogative and keep the mischiefe they invented from becoming a praecedent in law This doth not the word of God nor any aequitie prohibite The judgement of causes concerning deprivations of Ministers in the yeare 1584 you would have had come by way of appellation to the General Assemblie there take final end but this you could not make good within yourselves nor doe I finde upon your proponing craving it was then or at any time granted you by the King Two yeares before you adventurd not onelie for your priviledge in that … but against the Magistrates puting preachers to silence…hindering staying or disannulling the censures of the Church in examining any offender Rev. In the Scotes Assemblies no causes are agitated but such as the Parliament hath agreed to be Ecclesiastike c. Ans If any Parliament have agreed all causes of what nature soever to be Ecclesiastike by reduction so of the Church cognizance you have that colour for your pragmatical Assemblies but if you admit of any exception you have for certaine transgressed yourlimits there being no crime nor praetended irregularitie whatsoever that stood in view or came to the knowledge of the world that hath escaped your discussion censure not been serv'd up in your supplicates to be punished Rev. … No processe about any Church rent was ever cognosced upon in Scotland but in a Civile Court Ans. Your imperious though supplicatorie prohibition 1576. I allreadie mention'd In the Assemblie at Edenburgh April 24. 1576. You concluded…That you might proceed against unjust possessours of the patrimonie of the Church…by doctrine admonition last of all if no remedie be with the censures of the Church In that at Montrosse June 24. 1595. About setting Benefices with diminution of the rental c. you appointed Commissioners with power to take oaths call an-inquest of men of best knowledge in the Countrey about to proceed against the Ministrie with sentence of deposition Master Tho. Craig the Solicitour for the Church to pursue the Pensiionars in Caitnes for reduction of their pensions If in no particular you actuallie proceeded to Church censures It was because you foresaw they would not restraine the corruption no more of the laitie then the Clergie then your menasing petitions sometime obtein'd strength from some partial or pusillanimous Parliament or when you praevail'd not you wrapt this up with the rest of your discipline put all to the processe of a warre And this was you know the mysterious sense of Knox's method upon good experience praescrib'd on his death bed First
Aderton his slander against the two reverend Bishops of Downe London Derric The Ministers rigour vindictive pleading hath ever multiplied in Scotland the widowes fatherlesse the deadlie feuds having been ever continued received by them when they saw it tend to their advantage so that the bloud shed by murderers of their making may be trulie aesteem'd the seed of their Church Which duelie considered demonstrable in their storie should deterre any cautelouc Christian from their communion who by that partaking in their guilt can exspect from heaven no benefit of his prayers Gods curse in the Prophet concerning them nearer then any ministrie in the world When ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you yea when ye make many prayers I will not heare Your hands are full of bloud The historie of that time though very partiallie falselie related by the Reviener were it not can not justifie the insolence in their discipline wherein they do not occurre to the inconvenience praetended the impunitie of murder procur'd then by some importunate powerfull solicitours but despightfullie scratch out the image of God in his Anoynted pull downe his praerogative attribute of mercie which hath a season of priviledge above justice if that passe with Mr. Baylie for any of his workes What I meane I collect from this clause In the feare of God we signifie unto your Honours that whosoever perswades you that ye may pardon where God commandeth death deceives your souls provokes you to offend Gods Majestie where not onelie the act of impunitie is condemn'd but all power to pardon in any case denied Which God never practis'd himselfe nor exacted in the rigour from his Kings Beside the case hath been know'n when the Presbyters themselves became the powerfull sollicitours to the King drew a pardon for murder from his hand against his heart as they did from K. Ch. 1. for Mr. Thomas Lambe a preaching brother who stab'd a young man of Leith with a ponyard betwixt Leith the Abbey of Haliryd House upon the Lords day in the afternoon in the time of the Assemblie Parliaments sitting To whom the King used this speach Ministers must be pardoned though slaughterors 〈◊〉 other men must suffer for a words speaking reflecting upon one Mr. Iohn Stuart who suffer'd for saying that Argile had spoken about deposing the King How they professed their Church to be reformed by the murder of David Rizio the King called a weake man because he would not vouch it I have shewed more particularlie in their storie Yet I hope Mr. Baylie who is too rigid when he comes next in the Rebell-Commission will be no sollicitour for any act of oblivion That if the King gives not what satisfaction they finde necessarie due he the other bloud-hounds will articulate their crie into justice justice or lie downe in their armes to execute it themselves even upon His Majestie himselfe for he hath allreadie encircled him within the object of the Discipline may be fairlie collected from hence as from what he told us in his Epistle That you may preach unto Magistrates that according to Scriptures murderers â—…ught to die even Erastus will grant you Yea that in some cases you may rebuke exhort admonish threaten denounce judgements aswell as preach promises according to the examples of the Prophets But he puts you in minde that this they did onelie under impious Kings no Davids no Salomons no more must you assume this libertie under Iame's Charle's pious prudent just Kings If you should have an unhappie occasion to exercise it under other you must goe no faâ—…ther no excommunication which is order'd in your Discipline He calls for your texts he answers your arguments he helpes you to instances of Ioab whose murder could not safelie be punished of Absalom whose for some reason was neglected He demands whether these men went not into the Temple nor communicated in the Sacraments with this impunitie about them I have no way to be rid of you but as Mr. Selden they say was of the whole packe of your clamouring brethren at London who layd Erastus booke open before them bid them answer him Which dismounted their tailes put a gag in their mouthes so that I heare he was never troubled with them afterward E. Huntley's case hath been caried to the mint comes now out with a new stampe of the Assemblie at a losse till their Father behind them scatters his kindnesse among his prodigal sonnes bids them lavish out his inexhaustible stocke of calumnies as they please What the Bishop hath granted you about the guilt of the three Lords I have no commission to retract What you aggravate about E. Huntley's apostacie after seeming repentance frequent relapses doth at the worst but argue his adhaerence in heart to the Romish religion This added to his banding with the King of Spain which you pricke into some blanke papers subseribed with his hand the rest taken out of Dr. Kerre's pocket as he was shiping over upon your excommunicating banning picke out of some other such as litle could be made of at that time when it should have been most advantageous is not enough to justifie that rigour alleadged by the Bishop The truth of what followes shall be left to the ingenuitie of your judicious aequitable comparers by laying your relation to that of more authentike historians whose record is this Bothwell after many murders misdemeanours having broke prison endeavours to get the King Chancellar Maitland into his power to which end he sets fire to both their chambers by violence makes his entrance into the Queenes For this some of his complices were hang'd the Kings proclamation publish'd against him prohibites any man to harbour him The Earle Huntley upon the Chancellars intreatie raiseth some power to surprice him with which he besets Earle Murray's house where Bothwell was entertaind Murray in defense of him slaine For this soon after was E. Huntley imprison'd till having put in caution to appeare at a publike trial he had his libertie given him to goe home Murray's friends had not patience to wait the leisure of the law but worke revenge upon all advantages they could get Bothwell having been this while conceal'd in England enters Scotland in armes assaults the King in his palace at Fawlkland but being beaten off makes another escape The Assemblie failing of the successe they hop'd for in Bothwells attempt praevaile for the banishing of Papists confiscation of their goods Bothwell finding no good welcome in England gets away gaines a private opportunitie by his friends to be secretlie conveigh'd into the Kings chamber where he begs his pardon upon his knees obtaines it yet the next day makes a tumult in the Court caries away diverse of the Kings servants The King which may seem strange for the safetie of
If her Majestie complained that this was done without her Majesties commandement so had all that God had blessed within the Realme from the beginning of this action meaning the Presbyterian Reformation That he was a watchman both over the Realme and over the Church of God gathered within the same by reason whereof he was bound in conscience to blow trumpet publikelie so oft as ever he saw any appearance of danger either of the one or of the other This Act thus related the Bishop will have what you can not disprove to be a huge rebellion not onelie in the Actours but also in Iohn Knox who was praesent if not in person by full consent and approbation To breake open the Royal Palace to bring any delinquent to trial is according to no law but what your Rebellious Assemblie hath framed That this Priest saying Masse within the Liberties of the Court did contrarie to law the Queen having ever reserved that priviledge to her familie remaines yet to be proved You did the like to the Arch-Bishop of Saint Andrewes which Camden tells you was permitted by law and though you had Murrays authoritie for it accounts you no better then Rebells for your paines… Servidi Ecclesiae Ministri Moravij authoritate suffulti vim facerent impune sacerdoti qui missam in aula quod lege permissiâ—…m erat doe you marke it celebrârat Iohn Knox's confession which I gave you under his hand may be the harbinger to lodge credit enough to the next storie that followes in any man that knowes what superstitious observers your Assemblies have been of all the principles and praecedents he gave them Nor need you be so coy in taking upon you here the defense of their Convocating the people in armes which you are forc'd to do other where as well as you mince it into god'lie directions and conscientious advertisement and upon lesse colourable occasions approve it every where when done Though Mr. Spotswood's testimonie can not be refused in the particular evidence he gives in yet I 'll be confined for once to your owne brother in Evill that confutes him When his Grace relates the Ministers commanding the people to armes Your brother playes the Critike upon the word but grants the matter in controversie between them and justifies it from the danger that was at hand from the Popish Lords whom he makes Conspiratours with Spaine Hortate sunt nam jubere aut imperare non poterant quod â—…um in tanto periculo constitutae essent respublica Ecclesia illus vitio vertendum non est When his Grace sayth planilie The King praefixed a day for their trial the menacing libells put up in the name of a national Synod the tumultuarie meeting of the faythfull deferr'd it and made the onelie remedie a necessitie of his remitting their exile Your brother denies not one clause of all this but onelie moderates the termes and enlargeth in some particular circumstances that aggravate the fact viz. That they appointed a fast this I hope was done by the Assemblie That they moved the King to appoint a day for their trial the Barons those of Perth not to admit them which advice or injunction they followed till they had received letters from the King which because they obey'd the brethren tooke pet armes for the defence of religion by whose advice let any man judge That the King commanded the Conspiratours to submit themselves in a small number to a judical proceeding That upon the 12. of November they met at Edenburgh The Conspiratours pleade by their lawyers c. Propound their conditions The King declares in a speach the inconveniences very likelie to followe if the Lords were not restored That an Ast of oblivion was voted which offended the brethren What Seditious Sermons and actions ensued appeares undeniablie in your storie Let this be compared with the Bp of Derries relation That the King was forced to take armes come upon a fatal necessitie by your rebelling when your importunitie praevaild not How farre he pursued them What acts of grace he afterward vouchsafd them you there fore conceale because it confutes what your imperfect historie imports CHAPTER VIII The divine right of Episcopacie better grounded then that praetended in behalfe of Presbyterie HAd I any hopes to keep you in your wits when you were revived I would here sprinkle a litle cold water pitie upon your faynting spirits who any man may see are giving up the ghost by your grasping and catching at what you finde within reach and not liking the lookes of that spirit which appeares readie at hand to conduct you would have you care not whether Anti-Christian Bishop or Papist to secure you His Lp. having remonstrated at large your exorbitand power here summarilie shewes how by the divine right you praetend to this sore is incurable your selves incorrigible and how Princes must necessarilie despaire of recovering or keeping thairs while Christs Kingdome is yours and you have Christs Scepter in your hand The streame of divine Rhethorike and reason he brings for it you and your Companie whom the prophet Isai. Describes to be a troubled sea that can not rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt hope invisiblie to swallow To which if Mercurius Aulicus must be initled Let Britannicus be more properlie to yours whom I have often heard to be a Common lawyer but must now take him for some classical divine since you have grac'd him so much as to serive most of his mater language into your booke How unhappie soever you make the Bishop in this chalenge as in the rest he caries fortune enough in his argument to confute you Misero cui plura supersunt Quam tibi faelici post tot quoque funera vinâ—…et Those of his brethren who stand for the divine right of the Discipline of the Church doe it chieflic in reference to that power of order and the distinction they finde of Bishop from inferiour Presbyters in the text They that draw in the other power of jurisdiction relate onelie to what they finde practic'd by the Apostles or by God in them going under the name of excommunication and the keyes How many circumstancials must passe for substancials when determind by the judicatories of your Church and be made adaequate in divine right to the general rules to which you reduce them need not here to be numberd being scatered every where in this discourse and very obvious to the Reader in your storie But in answer to what the Bishop objects of geting both swords spiritual and temporal into your hands the one ordinarilie by common right the other extraordinarilie the one belonging directlie to the Church the other indirectlic the one of the Kingdome of Christ the other for his Kingdome in order to the propagation of religion and to let the Papist a lone whom out of what mysterie I know not you very often me thinkes call to your assistance I pray name
Scripturas revelantes the ablest interpreters of Scripture or speakers of mysteries in the spirit to aedification exhortation and comfort though not foretellers of things to come Nam quicquid latet sive id futurum est sive praesens mysterium diâ—…itur The reason why your adversaries pitch upon the fourth is to decline your trivial objections against the other three Your syllogisme that labours to prove Bishops no Pastours hath no doubt but a certaintie of falshood in the major which your argumentum a paribus comes some what improperlie to make good you having spoke of a confess'd imparitie but just before But for once a bargaine no bargaine pactum non pactum sit non pactum pactum quod vobis lubet It would be a rare invention surpassing Aristoles Logike if without a reserve you could get a conclusion to creep out of a single proposition for take it on my word your lucke is bad in majours which whether you play at even or odde are all pariter falsae sicke of a disease and this here left desperate without any remedie to recover it No Apostle you say is superiour to an Apostle This is contrarie to what one Walo Messalinus whom under another name you mistake to be your friend hath frequentlie asserted That they were primi secundi majores minores The second and lesse subordinate in spiritual power to the first and greater This he gathers out of Theodoret and others The greater he explaines to be the twelve the lesse those deputed by them for teaching and governing Nay he discovers a third order inferiour to them both of which was Epaphroditus subordinate to Saint Paul who himselfe was but minor Apostolus being none of the twelve So that here being three degrees I tell you from him what I might from others or with them rather collect from the text That an Apostle is superiour to an Apostle As much might besayd for Euangelists whereof foure were principal or if not it is because they were by their office of the lower classe or Coadiutours to the Apostles Such were Titus Timothie Apollos c. Saint Hierom sayth all Apostles were Euangelists but not all Euangelists Apostles And so likewise that all pastours were Doctours but not vice verse The learned Grotius That Doctours were Bishops or Arch-Bishops rather the same with those call'd Metropolitans afterward Pateres Kai didascaloi are Epiphanius titles for them To prove majour minor prophets under the new Testament is needlesse till you answer what I have brought about Apostles or strengthned the majour in your argument which I absolutelie denie And besides remit you to a learned Doctour who proves the word Pastor to be the Bishops peculiar among the Ancients and frustrates that imparitie from which you argue Your second reason out of Saint Matthew and Saint Paul hath a litle Philosophical Soul and forme in the majour but no divine one in in the minour and so according to your similitude in the moment of removal or separation must perish The first text 1. Tim. 4. 14. puts no power more then approbant or assistent of ordination in the Eldership a Bishop is as much a Presbyterie and no more a Presbyter I meane in your sense of diminution then Saint Paul who seemes to make that act of ordination solitarie and personallie his owne 2. Tim. 1. 6. And the Greeke Scholiasts say the Elders here were Bishops excluding interminis all presbyters from that power oâ—… gar hoi Presbyteroi echeirotonoun ton Episcopon say both Theophylact and Oecomenius For the word which you will needes have to be classical not personal perchance somewill say it may denote the order or office the Episcopate they meane and be put figurativelie here for the single person of the Apostle comparing these words together meta Epitheseoos toon cheiroon tou Presbyterion dia tes epithescoos toon chciroon mou But let it be what it will the power of ordination must continue in the Bishop so long as Christians keep to the New Testament and Fathers and fetch us not a fift Gospel or some newer Apostle from Geneva That the second Saint Matth. 18. puts the power of jurisdiction in the Church is gratis dictum your authoritie not so great as that your autos ephen will be able to carie it First therefore you are required to prove that excommunication the act of jurisdiction you meane is here at all intended and not rather no more then the three degrees of fraternal correption the highest whereof is that elegsis enoopion pantoon a rebuke before all 1. Tim. 5. 20. Vt qui non potuit pudore Salvari Salvetur opprobrijs sayth Saint Hierom he sayth not damnetur or eijciatur censuris That he which could not be saved by private shame might by more publike reproach Secondlie That the Church here was a judicial Assemblie call'd to that purpose or if met to other that a formal processe was brought before it And that they were not rather some greater number then the two or three witnesses upon what occasion soever met together which may very well be call'd Ecclesiae with out the signal meaning of the word Coram multis Lib. Musar keta Koinon Justin tunc multis dicendum est in Saint Hierom. Nor is it likelie a deliberate judgement in Court into which a Christian Congregation converted should be after processe in hazard to be slighted or neglected by one Member delinquent ean paracouse Nor that to be such which relates rather to the person of the plaintiffe then Iudges estoo soi Let him be unto thee… Thirdlie If it be such a Congregation or Church as you would have it whether the complaint were to be repraesented to them in general and not rather in their hearing to their superintendents or praesident above them Epi toon tes Ecclesias proedroon demosiseoson to ptaisma sayth Theophylact. Fourthlie That sit sicut Ethnicus publicanus Let him be unto thee as an heathenman and a publicane is undoubtedlie a sentence commanded to be pronounced by those superintendents or that Church or an injunction rather then permission to the partie injur'd to have no farther familiaritie or friendship to have no more to doe with him then with heathen and publicanes a voluntarie declination of whose companie was no scandal to the charitie Christians professed any civile office out of common humanitie left arbitrarie and not censur'd if tend'red Fiftlie whether binding and loosing vers 18. Be asserted with reference to this Church and not rather to the Apostles as your friend Erastus will have it or more probablie to any partie against whom the trespasse was committed Potestatem tribuit Apostolis sayth Saint Hierom. Vu garmonon hosa lyousin boi hiereis eisi Celymena all' hosa kai hemets hoi adiketentes and Theophylact. And si Fratrem habes pro Ethnico publicano ligasti illum in terra
that can not constitute can abrogate no lawes But they will tell you in constituting the King can not be excluded And we inferre that no more he can be in repealing If your minde serve you to engage farther in this dispute you were best answer the learned Grotius 8. chap. De Imper. Sum. Pot. to which I promise you my replie In the next place as if you were moderating a matachin dance from seting the King and Parliament atoddes you turne both their faces and powers agaâ—…nst the Praelates whom I doe not finde His Lordship puting in competition with the King about the right of making lawes but aggravating the injurie done them by your partie in the Parliament and appealing to their conjcience with what justice they could covenant against the rights of a third order of the Kingdome without either their satisfaction or consent If the whole Repraesentative of the Kingdome have thus priviledg'd the Bishops one lame part can not deprive them of it Their prioritie and superioritie hath been so ancient that no Lords no Commons would scruple at it but such as likewise at the original supremacie of their King And therefore you may know the bill against their priviledges was five times rejected in the upper House the beter Court of honour of the two and when the sixt time it was caried by a few voyces it was when the most honourable persons were forced to be absent Their share in the Legislative power hath been so great that since any was allotted them your forefathers never heard of a law made in Parliament without them The King may passe what he pleaseth and what he doth so is a â—…an The two Temporal States with his baâ—…e name without his power can make none nor yet having it as they account it derived from his Regalitie not his person Ius enim serendarum legum sive generalium sive spâ—…ciaiium samma poteslas communicare alteri potest a se abdicare non potest What one orth ' other passe to the injurie of persons fundamentallie concern'd be it law can not be justified in conscience which is all J take to be urged by the Bishop But what would you have sayd if there had been such a law in behalfe of Episcopacie in England as there hath been in spaine That no King could reigneâ—… which is more then a Parliament sit and vote without the suffrage of the Bishops Which made Ervigius upon the resignation of Bamba that turn'd Monke call a Councel of them at Toledo to have a confirmation of his crowne And the time hath been in England when a difference fell between Edward and Ethelred about succession to K. Edgar a devolution of it unto the arbitrement of the Bishops The humble protestation of the twelve Bishops rudelie menaced and affronted did not pronounce the lawes acts after their recesse null and of none effect in derogation to the praerogative of the King either solitarie or in conjunction with what persons soever he pleas'd to make his Legislative Councel but in saving to themselves their rights and interests of siting and voting in the House of Peeres the violation of which they conceived to invalidate a Parliament at least without the Kings passing a rescissorie Act and an Act of new constitution Because in law and practice it is usual to any who conceive themselves praejudg'd even in those things where Acts of Parliament passe against them to protest Which if you remember were the words and part of a long plea to another purpose though upon the same advantage of the Bishops right in Scotland used by those your Countreymen that alike intended their ruine but could not colourablie offer at it without the Act anext the constitution of the Parliament Whether the Bishops being a third order of the Kingdome and by that craving their share in the Legislative power be more humble then the Presbyters who take themselves to be absolute without King and two states in making all Ecclestastike lawes and against King two states in abrogating all civile statutes Ordinances concerning Ecclestastical maters that are sound noysome and unprofitable and agree not with the time … And censuring punishing all persons King and Parliament not excepted I file up with the other references to your aequitable comparers let them be the Lords and Commons you here pleade for You may chuse whether you will grant what the Bishop takes as demonstrable That his brethren had harder measure from the thing call'd King and Parliament then the Abbots and Friars from Henry 8. When he devested them of their estates Your consecutorie Beleese hath no article made up out of any of the Bishops words Who though he could not keepe intruder out of his palace and possessions meanes to have no such troublesome inmates in his minde And since you have sequestred him from his gardens keepes out of your reach a Tarasse to exspatiate in his thoughts He commends your eyes that can see so distinctlie such Platonical Idea's as never had existence yet when you draw too neare commands you to your distance with the same answer that Bacchus did Hercules in the Comoedie for all his club Meton â—…mon oikei noun echeis gar oikeian The Bishops last reasoning is as sound as those before and in all is there a connexion of those parts which any demonstrative integral can require To your first impeachment by quaestion I answer That article of the Covenant beares the seting up of the Scotish Presbyterian government in England which is for a uniformitie in both Kingdomes if taken with the next that extirpates praelacie viz. Church government by Bishops For when Praelacie is downe I pray what remaines according to your principles but Presbyterie to set up As for Scotish Presbyterie you have often told us 't is the same with that of all Reformed Churches And if alltogether be not according to the Word of God after so many yeares Synods Conferences and Letters what blinde Covenanters you are to sweare a league of life death upon the like or more uncertanitie of future discoverie by a few unskilfull persons whose petie phantastike lights put together must be made a new imaginarie milkie way surpassing in a fermed singularitie of splendour any among the greater truer luminaries in the firmament of the Church But I have allreadie shewed how in vaine you aequivocate about that clause which hath cost your friend Rutherford and others so much paines What the oath of supremacie imports is evident by the words in it The varietie of sences to catch advantages like side windes in paper sailes which are subject to rend in pieces being the poor policie of Presbyters that dare not stand to the adventure of plaine dealing supreme Governer of this Realme c. Aswell in all spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal Which the Bishops you see conceald not though you gratâ—…e your selfe with the observation
E Huntley's case truelie related 61 I. K. Iames a greater Anti-Presbyterian then Anti-Erastian 64 The Praelates title to Impropriations and Abbey lands beter then that of Presbyters 137 Presbyterian indulgence in cases of sedition and rebellion 47 Their monstrous ingratitude for the too liberal graces of K. Ch. I. 104 The Kings concessions to the Irish more justifiable then the other could be to the Scotish Presbyterian demands 146 The Pr. Scots endeavours to impose their Discipline upon England 5 The Assemblie at Westminster having no power to authorize it 6 Many of the Presbyteries in Scotland have very unfit unable Iudges 174 Iurisdiction Ecclesiastical sloweth from the Magistrate 34 Sc. Presbyters usurpe Civile jurisdiction 69 No power of jurisdiction in what the Reviwer misse interprets the Church 108 Nor in a companic mot together 109 K. THe election of a King not originallie justifiable in any people 164 K. Ch. I. not inclinable though by counterseit promises praevail'd with to cast himselfe upon the Presbyterian Scots Ans. to Ep. Ded. 12 His writings not interlined by the Bishops The Reviewers commendation of them unawares Ibid. 〈◊〉 K. Ch. II. hath expressed no inelination to the Covenant If any praeventive disswasion of His Majesties from it hath been used by the Praelatical pattie it was a dutifull act of conscience and prudence 149 His Majestie can not so easilie will not so readilie grant what his Royall Father denied 191 Scots Presbyterians never seriouslie asscribed any good intentions to K. Ch I. nor 2. 197 L. MOre learning under Episcopacie then Presbyterie 150 The King supreme Legislatour 193 The Bishops share in making lawes as great as any one of the three Estates Ibid. Our Liturgie why read A parallel of it with primitive formes fiter then with the Breviarie 156 The Church of Scotland hath had a liturgie not onelie for helpe but practice 160 The Presbyterians hypocritical use of it 161 M. THe Magistrates definitive judgement in Synods owned by the Reformed Divines both Praelatical and Presbyterian 28 Sc. Presbytetie will have Magistrates subject to the Kirke 120 Presbyters why against clandestine marriages 166 Consent of Parents how to be required Ibid. No obedience due to them commanding an unjust marriage 169 The Bishops cautelous in giving license for clandestine marriages 170 Gods mercie in praeserving Arch-Bishop Maxwel falsified by the Reviewer 3 The businesse about the Spanish Merchants sophisticated 80 Sc. Presbyters controllers in the Militia 79 The power of it in the King 186 Pr. Ministers rebellious meeting at Mauchlin moore 119 They exceed their commission 121 Their power with the people dangerous to the government 122 Their rebellious proceeding in the persecution of Arch-Bishop Montgomerie and Arch-Bishop Adamson 43 The murders other prodigious impieties acted by the Sc. Presbyterians in prosecution of their ends 82 The scale of degrees whereby they asscended to the murder of K. Ch. I. 38 Which might have been foreseen by their propositions never repealed 76 Murder may be pardoned by the King who hath been petitioned in that case by the Disciplinarians themselves 60 N. THe King 's negative voyce justified as well in Scotland as England 77 What is the power of his affirmative 78 The Sc. Presbyters gave the occasion and opportunitie for the Nobles to get the Ecclesiastike revenue The Episcopacie more then titular they kept up 15 Presbyterie more oppressive to the Nobilitie Gentrie then Praelacie 130 Noblemen why chosen Elders 〈◊〉 131 Where such how slighted by the Presbyters 139 O. SC. Presbyters assume the arbitration of oeconomical differences 68 The Officers appointed by Christ in his Church need not be restrained to the number of five Nor those taken to be the same the Presbyterians would have them 106 The Officials Court a more competent Iudicatoric then the Classical Presbyterie 132 No power of ordination in the Presbybyterie 108. 142 No comfortable assurance but from Apostolical succession Episcopal ordination which Presbyterians want Ibi. The Sc. Presbyterians trial before ordination more formal then truelie experimental of abilitie in the persons 150 The qualification different from that required by the Bishops 152 The original of the pretended oath taken by the King for securitie of the Sc. Discipline 163 P. THe Sc. Assemblies decrees to be ratified by Parliament 24 As those of our Convocations 32 Presbyterie makes Parliaments subject to Assemblies 120 The Parliament of Scotland in no capacitie to make demands after the murder of the King 163 Presbyterie hath no claime to the Church patrimonie given by Episcopal founders and benefactours 25 Their disputes with Princes about Church revenue 63 The original right of patronage in Lay persons 136 Peirth Assemblie 1596. 111 Provision under Episcopacie against the povertie of such as are ordained 153 The Praelats still of the same minde rhey were about the rights and priviledges of Bishops 103 Reason of bidding prayer before sermon 159 In the Canon forme is no prayer for the dead 160 Set formes of no use to beginers that pray by the spirit 161 The gift of prayer in the Pater Noster Ibid. Presbyterians divided about prayer 162 The injuries by extemporarie prayer Ibi. Presbyteries when and how erected in Scotland Bishops to praeside in them 20 Christianitie at its first entrance into Scotland brought not Presbyterie with it 22 Fallacie in the immediate division of religion into Presbyterian Popish 53 No authoritie of Scripture for the many practices of Scotish Presbyterie 101 Litle knowledge labour or conscience shewed in Presbyterian preaching 154 Scotish Presbyterians beter conceited of themselves then of any other Reformed Church to which yet they praetend a conformitie in their new model 198 K. Iames's speach concerning Scotish Presbyterie 30 How a King may and when exercise the office of a Priest 195 Sc. Presbyteries processe for Church rents 33 The same fault under a different formalitie not to be twice punished 126 Q. K. Iames's 55. Quaestions 111 R. REading Ministers usefull and justifiable in our Church 154 The Praelats doe not annull the being of all Reformed Churches 143 Though they have no full assurance 144 The Reviewers speach of Bishops and Peirth articles 199 The Church of Rome true though not most true 145 A rigid separation from her in many things needlesse 146 Assemblies can reforme onelie according to canon not the canon 84 The Primitive Christians reformation different from that of Sc. Presbyterians 85 That of the Church of England began rather at K. Edw. VI. then Henr. VIII 86 The Parliament can noâ—… reforme without the King 188 Resistance against the person of the Magistrate can not be made inobedience to his office 35 Reviewer willfullie missetakes the scope of the Bishops booke 45 His barbarous implacable malice against the dead 49 A riot under praetense of taking a Priest at Masse 91 Abetted by Knoxe with his confessed interest in many more 92 The Pr. Scots must bring beter markes then their bare words for revelations 201 S. FOraigne
jurisdiction Their eoconomical superintendencie Preaching personallie against Princes Knox Hist. Lib. 2. Their proceedings in the late engagement St. Matth. 12. 43. Declar. Iul. 21. 1649. Isai. 63. 15. Prov. 12. 5. Ps. 50. 16. Isai. 61. 2. 11. Isai. 8. 20. Prov. 13. Ianuar. 6. 29. 1649. 1. Tim. 4. 2. 1. Kings 22. Heb. 12. 16. Scot. Mist. dispell'd I crem 9â—…1 Isai. 58. Edenb 12. May. 1649 postser Scottiâ—…h mist Dispell'd Hendersons Prophesie Pap. to K. Ch. 1. Iun. 3. 1646. Esih. 4. 12. Preâ—…yters Deâ—…aring against Parliament debates The Kings negative voice proper to be debated in a Scottish Parliament Ans to both Houses upon the new propositions and the 4. bills 1647. Why opposed by the Presbyters Eic Bas. Ch. 11. The Kings affirmative voice Hug. Grot. De Imper. Pot. cap. 8. No such vicitie need be us'd about mominating ofsicers Ch. 4. The Presbyters destructive demurres Scot. Mist. disp The Reviewers impertinencie in the successe of the Spanish Merchants As. Dund 1493. The Presbyterian zeale for the 4. Commandment bypocritical cover for their breach of the rest Prov. 11. 9. Recreations resections to fit us for spiritual duties Rob. Bruc'es motion to alter the Sabbath The Bruc'es Sunday toleration not so large as the Reformed Church's abroad The monsirous impietie of the Presbyterians in prosecusion of their ends Lib. 5. 1560. Lib. 3. Assemblies have no power to summâ—…n contrarie to the Kings proclamation Cantic 8. 6. 7. Contradiâ—…iion The Assemblies can reforme onelie according to canon not the canon 2. Tim. 2. 23. 24. Ancient Assemblies reversed no Civile lawes Euseb. Reformed no haresies â—…ith out the Emperour Henrie the eight's reformation the occasion not the original of ours Scotish Presbyterians from the begining sâ—…hisme None but they have declared Bishops ceremonies unlawfull Ch. 6. 28. Ch. 9. 3. Capt I. Siuart vindicated The treason at Ruthuer Saint Iam 4. 16. S. Macth 11. 12. The King can not be sayd to invade the Presbyter Consistorie Rev 1. 18. Prov 24. 2. c. 27. 20 Tert De Praeser advraeser haeret c 42. Arch-Bp Lauds Armenianisme Pâ—…perie the doctrin of scripture and the Fathers Prov. 25. 23. Advers hares cap 16. Ariote under praetense of taking Priest at Masse Abetted by Knoâ—… improid to a rebellion Vit Eliz. 〈◊〉 â—…563 Assemblie's summoning the people in Armes upon the trial of Popish Lords Isai. 57. 20 Power of order and jurisdiction The midd le Apostolical right of Episcopacie Conscience not bottom'd onelie upon a divine Right Rom. 1. v. 2. ch Alterations unsate and sinfull while conscience is doubtfull The reasons of K. Ch 1. against a change Peace Antiquitiâ—… Vniversalitie The considerable approch of Church discipline to doctrine Paternal government Communion with Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ch 17. Ius divinum of Presbyterie srustrates all treaties excommunicates all Christians threatens all Princes Isai. 40. 23. 24. The Reviewers perverting the Bisâ—…ops doctrine Erastus's Royal right abused in a Sophisme Sen De Clem l. 1. c. 20. The consequences from Episcopal principles not such as praetended S. Matth. 4. 9 Difference between us and Rome bout ceremonies Prov. 10 31. Real Praesence corporal disserent Hist. Mot. Iustification S. Matth. 13â—…45 Free will Deut. 30 19. Final Apostasice 1. Cor. 10. 12. Phil. 2. 12. A quaestion about Davids case Rubrike in the consirmation Christ as King of his Church appoints lawes c. H. Grot. Hane none magis licet Ecclae mutare quà m mutare licet ipsam scripturam V indic Eplae Philad By whom his Seepters is to be swayed Vincent Lyrin advers haeres cap. 14. English Episcopacie out done by the more for ward Presbyterie B. Discips 4. head The treasure thereof to be found as well before as after the years 800. Dr. Ierm Taylor Can. 2. The Praelates still of the same minde they were Declar. B. 2. Dang Posit Not the Court but Citie Divines devest Bishops Sen De Benef. lib. 2 cap. 7. S. Matth. 7. 9. 46. 17. The Reviewers detestable ingratitude De Ben. lib 3. cap. 16. The texts of scripture against Episcopacie discussed Prov. 26. 4. 5. Act. 20. Beshosp are Apostles Lib. advers haeres cap. 32. May be call'd Euangelists H. Grot. Proleg ad Matth. Should be prophets In 1. Cor. 12. H. Grot. Why Pastours Apostles superiour to Apostles Euangelists Coadjutours Doctours Bishops haeres 75. Dr. Tayler Episcop assert No power of Ordination in the Presbyterie 2 Tim. 1. 6. No power of Iurisdiction in the Church Confirma Thes. lib. 4. c. 5. De Verb. Dom. hom 15. Iohn Morell excommunicated for this doctrine No power of jurisdiction in a Companie met together Delivering to Satan what Why Blondel c. are not answered Somais fare well to the Presbyterie The Scottish presb may be contracted out of their owne storie Revel 20. 12. K. I.'s 55. quaestions non plus'd them Episcopacie recovered ground in Scotland Vindic. Epist Philadelph Whence they had not been legallie ejected Psalm 137. Psalm 1. Revel 2. 7. The Reviewers slender shiss Icr. 8. 17. The Preshyterians not Praelates coordinate two Soveraignaties in one state Two Kings in Scotland Not God onelie but his Anoynted likewise to be obeyed St. Matth. 26. 25. St. Luke 9. 23. Contrarietie of Commands very frequent in Scotland The Revicwers fallacie Humble petitions c full of threats The Church-chasing and exeommuniting for the late engagement The untruths are the Reviewers Prov. 6. 28. The Rev. eares not for hearing of the late engagement Ps. 69 23. The 8. desires of the Church neither just nor necessarie The Ch. of Scotland hath no libertie to declare against King and Parliament Job 5. 13. Prov. 17. 24. Heb. 11. 39. Ephes. 2. 2. Gal. 1. 8. 9. Lament 4. 20. Contradiction between the Revic margin and text The levie was offered to be stopped May 11. 1649. Lib. De Ir. cap. ulr Ministers â—…in armes Not cens by the Commissioners of the Kirke S. Pet. 2. 16. v. 13. Presbyterie makes Parliaments subject to the Assemblies 2. Book discipl 1. ch Heb. 1. 14. Ps. 104. 4. Ier. 14. Isai. 42. 19. Ministers power with the people dangerous if seditiouslie bent Th. Capâ—…nel eap 18. Ps. 45. 5. â—…psis Cardinalibus and P. P. maxformidabilis fuit diremita aut unyt principes subditos suos arbytratu Ps. 12. 4. Eik Bas cap. 17. St. Liturg. p. 87. V. 18. Isai. 66. 24 No in haerent right in Courts to nominate Commissioners for intervalls Haggai 1. 6. The Presbyterie a tyrannie over the consciencies of thepeople Censures upon slight grounds Scot. Lit. Rom. 8. 15. Prov 1. 26. Spiritual crueltie in the prayers of Presbyters Sc. Lit. p. 196. 1. Pet. 5. 8 Our Sabbath recreations shorst of those in other Reformed Curches Trivial debates and articling against habiss Knox Hist. The same fault under a different formalitie not to betwice punished Lib. De Fid. Op. cap. 2. Offenders quitted to be admitted to the H. Sacrament without publike satisfaction in
they answer That those who made them were theeves murtherers had no power so to alienate the common Good of the Kirk They desire that all such Estates may be anulled and avoided that all Collectours appointed by the King or others may be discharged from intermedling therewith and the Deacons permitted to collect the same yea to that height of madnesse were they come as to define and determin in their Assembly judge whether it be not a modest constitution for a Synod That the next Parliament the Church should be fully restored to its Patrimony and that nothing should be past in Parliament until that was first considered and approved Let all Estates take notice of theâ—…e pretensions and designs If their project have not yet taken effect it is onely becauâ—…e they wanted sufficient strength hitherto to accomplish it Lastly by their own Authority under the specious title of Jesus Christ King of kings and Lord of lords the onely Monarch of his Churcâ—… and under pretence of his Prerogative Royal they erected their own Courts and Presbyteries in the most parts of Scotland long before they were legally approved or received as appeareth by their own Act alledging that many suites had been made to the Magistrate for approbation of the Policy of the Kirk which had not taken that happy effect which good men would crave And by another act acknowledging that Presbytertes were then established Synodically in most parts of the Kingdom And lastly by the Act of another General Assembly at Edenburg ordaining that the Discipline contained in the acts of the General Assembly should be kept as well in Angus and Mernis as in the rest of the Kingdom You see sufficiently in point of practice how the Disciplinarians have trampled upon the Laws and justled the civil Magistrate out of his Supremacy in Ecclesiastical affairs My next task shall be to shew that this proceeds not from Inanimadvertence or Passion but from their Doctrine and Principles First they teach that no persons Magistrates nor others have power to Vote in their Synods but onely Eccl siâ—…tical Secondly they teach that Ecclesiastical persons have the sole power of convening and convocating such Assemblies All Ecclesiastical assemblies have power to convene lawfully together for treating of things concerning the Kirk They have power to appoint times and places Again National Assemblies of this Countrey ought alwayes to be retained in their own liberties with power to the Kirk to appoint times places Thus they make it a Liberty that is a Priviledge of the Church a part of its Patrimony not onely to convene but to convocate whomsoever whensoever wheresoever Thirdly for point of Power they teach that Synods have the judgement of true false Religion of Doctrine Heresies c. the election admission suspension deprivation of Ministers the determination of all things that pertain to the Discipline of the Church The judgement of Ecclesiastical matters causes beneficiary matrimonial and others Jurisdiction to proceed to excommunication against those that rob the Church of its patrimony They have legislative Power to make rules and constitutions for keeping good order in the Kirk They have power to abrogate and abolish all Statutes and Ordinances concerning Ecclesiastical matters that are found noisom and unprofitable and agree not with the time or are abused by the people And all this without any reclamation or appellation to any Jâ—…dge Civil or Ecclesiastical Fourthly they teach that they have these priviledges not from the Magistrate or People or particular Laws of any other Countrey The Magistâ—…ate can not execute the censares of the Church nor prescribe any rule how it should be done but Ecclesiastical power floweth immediatly from God from the Mediatour Jesus Christ And yet further The Church cannot be governed by others than those Ministers and Stewards set over it by Christ nor otherwise than by his Laws And therefore there is no power in earth that can challenge to it self a Command or Dominion upon the Church And again It is prohibited by the Law of God and of Christ for tho Christian Magistrate to invade the Government of the Church and consequently to challenge to himself the right of both Swords spiritual and temporal And if any Magistrate do arrogate so much to himself the Church shall have cause to complain and exclaim that the Pope is changed but the Papacy remains So if Kings and Magistrates stand in their way they are Political Popes as well as Bishops are Ecclesiastical Whatsoever these men do is in the Name of our Lord Jesus and by Authority delegated from him alone Lastly they teach that they have all this Power not onely without the Magistrate but against the Magistrate that is although he dissent send out his prohibitions to the contrary Parliamentary ratifications can no way alter Church canons concerning the worship of God For Ecclesiastical Discipline ought to be exercised whether it be ratified by the civil Magistrate or not The want of a civil Sanction to the Church is but like Lucrum cessans non damnum emergens As it addes nothing to it so it takes nothing away from it If there be any clashing of Jurisdictions or defect in this kind they lay the fault at the Magistrates door It is a great sin or wickednesse for the Magistrate to hinder the exercise or execution of Ecclesiastical Discipline Now we have seen the pernicious practices of their Synods with the Doctrines from which they flow it remains to dispel umbrages wherewith they seek to hide the uglinesse of their proceedings principles from the eyes of the world We say they do give the Christian Magistrate a political Power to convocate Synods to preside in Synods to ratifie the Acts of Synods to reform the Church We make him the keeper of both tables Take nothing and hold it fast here are good words but they signifie nothing Trust me whatsoever the Disciplinarians do give to the Magistrate it is alwayes with a saving of their own stakes not giving for his advantage but their own For they teach that this power of the Christian Magistrate is not private and destructive to the power of the Church but cumulative and onely auxiliary or assisting Besides the power which they call abusively authoritative but is indeed ministerial of executing their decrees contributing to their setlement they ascribe to the Magistrate concerning the Acts of Synods that which every private man hath a judgement of discretion but they retain to themselves the judgement of Jurisdiction And if he judge not as they would have him but suspend out of conscience the influence of his political power where they would have him exercise it they will either teach him another point of Popery that is an implicite faith or he may perchance feel the weight of their Church censures and find quickly what manner of men they be as our late gracious King Charls
not of this world Their determinations passe for the Sentences of Christ. Alas there is too much faction and passion and ignorance in their Presbyteries Their Synodall Acts go for the Lawes of Christ. His Lawes are immutable mortall man may not presume to alter them or to adde to them but these men are chopping and changing their constitutions every day Their Elders must be looked upon as the Commissioners of Christ. It is impossible Geneva was the first City where this discipline was hatched though since it hath lighted into hucksters hands In those dayes they magnified the platform of Geneva for the pattern sbewed in the mount But there the Presbyters at their admission take an oath to observe the Ecclesiasticall Ordinances of the small great and generall Councels of that City Can any man be so stupid as to think that the high Commissioners of Christ swear fealty to the Burgers of Geneva Now forsooth their Discipline is become the Scepter of Christ the Eternall Gospel See how successe exalts mens desires and demands In good time where did this Scepter lye hid for 1500. yeers that we cannot finde the least footsteps of it in the meanest village of Christendome This world drawes towards an end was this discipline fitted and contrived for the world to come Or how should it be the Eternal Gospel When every man sees how different it is from it self in all Presbyterian Churches adapted and accommodated to the civill policy of each particular place where it is admitted except onely Scotland where it comes in like a Conqueror and makes the Civill Power stoop and strike topsaile to it Certainly if it be the Gospel it is the fifth Gospel for it hath no kindred with the other foure There is not a Text which they wrest against Episcopacy but the Independants may with as much colour of reason and truth urge it against their Presbyteries Where doth the Gospel distinguish between temporary and perpetuall Rulers Between the Government of a person and of a corporation There is not a Text which they produce for their Presbytery but may with much more reason be alledged for Episcopacy and more agreeable to the analogie of faith to the perpetuall practice and belief of the Catholick Church to the concurrent Expositions of all Interpreters and to the other Texts of holy Scripture for untill this new modell was yesterday devised none of those Texts were ever so understood When the practise ushers in the doctrine it is very suspicious or rather evident that the Scripture was not the rule of their reformation but their subsequent excuse This jure divine is that which makes their sore incurable themselves incorrigible that they father their own brat upon God Almighty and make this Mushrome which sprung but up the other night to be of heavenly descent It is just like the doctrine of the Popet infallibility which shuts the door against all hope of remedy How should they be brought to reform their errors who beleeve they cannot erre or they be brought to renounce their drowsy dreams who take it for granted that they are divine revelations And yet when that wise Prince King Iames a little before the Nationall Assembly at Perth published in print 55. Articles or Questions concerning the uncertainty of this Discipline and the vanity of their pretended plea of divine right and concerning the errours and abuses crept into it for the better preparation of all men to the ensuing Synod that Ministers might study the point beforehand and speak to the purpose they who stood affected to that way were extremely perplexed To give a particular account they knew well it was impossible but their chiefest trouble was that their foundation of divine right which they had given out all this while to be a solid rock should come now to be questioned for a shaking quagmire And so without any opposition they yeelded the bucklers Thus it continued untill these unhappy troubles when they started aside again like broken bowes This plant thrives better in the midst of tumults then in the times of peace and tranquillity The Elme which supports it is a factious multitude but a prudent and couragious Magistrate nips it in the bud CHAP. IX That this Discipline makes a monster of the Commonwealth VVE have seen how pernicious this Discipline as it is maintained in Scotland and endeavoured to be introduced into England by the Covenant is to the supreme Magistrate how it robâ—… him of his Supremacy in Ecclesiasticall affaires and of the last appeals of his own Subjects that it exempts the Presbyters from the power of the Magistrate and subjects the Magistrate to the Presbyters that it restraines his dispensative power of pardoning deprives him of the dependance of his Subjects that it doth challenge and usurp a power paramount both of the Word and of the Sword both of Peace and War over all Courts and Estates over all Laws Civill and Ecclesiasticall in order to the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ wherof the Presbyters alone are constituted rulers by God and all this by a pretended divine right which takes away all hope of remedy untill it be hissed out of the world in a word that it is the top-branch of Popery a greater tyranny then ever Rome was guilty of It remains to show how disadvantagious it is also to the Subject First to the Common-wealth in generall which it makes a Monster like an Amphisâ—…baina or a Serpent with two heads one at either end It makes a coordination of Soveraignty in the same Society two supremes in the same Kingdom or State the one Civill the other Ecclesiasticall then which nothing can be more pernicious either to the consciences or the estates of Subjects when it falls out as it often doth that from these two heads issue contrary commands If the Trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself to the battel Much more when there are two Trumpets and the one sounds an Alarm the other a Retreat What should the poor Souldier do in such a case or the poor Subject in the other case If he obey the Civill Magistrate he is sure to be excommunicated by the Church if he obey the Church he is sure to be imprisoned by the Civill Magistrate What shall become of him I know no remedy but according to Solomons sentence the living Subject must be divided into two and the one half given to the one and the other half to the other For the Oracle of Truth hath said that one man cannot serve two Masters But in Scotland every man must serve two Masters and which is worse many times disagreeing Masters At the same time the Civill Magistrate hath commanded the Feast of the Nativity of our Saviour to be observed and the Church hath forbidden it At the same time the King hath summoned the Bishops to sit and Vote in Parliament and the Church hath forbidden them In the year 1582. Monsieur-le-mot a Knight of the Order
Churches had not the Scotes all the reason in the World to applaud such pious just and necessary resolutions of their English Brethren though the warner should call it the greatest crime CHAP. II. The Presbiterians assert positively the Magistrats right to convocat Synods to confirme their acts to reforme the Churches within their dominions IN the second Chapter the warner charges the Scotes presbytery with the overthrowing the Magistrats right in convocating of Synods When he comes to prove this he forgets his challenge and digresses from it to the Magistrates power of choysing elders and making Ecclesiastick lawes avowing that these things are done in Scotland by Ecclesiastick persons alone without consent of the king or his counsel Ans. It seemes our Warner is very ignorant of the way of the Scotes discipline the ordinary and set meetings of all assemblies both nationall and provincionall since the first reformation are determined by acts of Parliament with the Kings consent so betwixt the King and the Church of Scotland there is no question for the convocating of ordinary assemblies for extraordinary no man in Scotland did ever controvert the Kings power to call them when and where he pleased as for the inhaerent power of the Church to meet for discipline alswell as for worship the Warner fals on it heereafter we must therefore passe it in this place What hee meanes to speake of the Kings power in choysing elders or making Ecclesiastick Lawes himselfe knowes his Majestie in Scotland did never require any such priviledge as the election of elders or Commissioners to Parliament or members of any incorporation civill or Ecclesiastick where the Lawes did not expresly provide the nomination to be in the crowne The making of Ecclesiastick Lawes in England alswell as in Scotland was ever with the Kings good contentment referred to Ecclesiastick assemblies but the Warner seemes to be in the mind of these his companions who put the power of preaching of administring the Sacraments and discipline in the supreame Magistrat alone and derives it out of him as the head of the Church to what members he thinks expedient to communicat it also that the legislative power alswell in Ecclesiastick as civill affairs is the property of the King alone That the Parliaments and generall assemblies are but his arbitrary counsels the one for matters of the state the other for matters of the Church with whom or without whom hee makes acts of Parliament and Church cannons according to his good pleasure that all the offices of the Kingdome both of Church and State are from him as he gives a Commission to whom he will to be a sheriffe or justice of peace so he sends out whom he pleaseth to preach celebrate Sacraments by virtue of his regal mission The Warner and his Erastian friends may well extend the royall supremacy to this largenes but no King of Scotland was ever willing to accept of such a power though by erroneous flaterers sometimes obtruded upon him see Canterburian self conviction cap. ult The Warner will not leave this matter in generall he discends to instance a number of particular incroatchments of the Scots Presbiters upon the royall authority wee must dispence in all his discourse with a small peckadillo in reasoning hee must bee permitted to lay all the faults of the Presbiterians in Scotland upon the back of the Presbitery it selfe as if the faylings of officers were naturall to and inseparable from their office mis-kenning this little more of unconsequentiall argumenting we will goe through his particular charges the first is that King James anno 1579 required the generall assembly to make no alteration in the Church-Policy till the next Parliament but they contemning their Kings command determined positively all their discipline without delay and questioned the Arch-Bischop of Sainct Andrews for voting in Parliament according to the undoubted Lawes of the Land yea twenty Presbiters did hold the generall assembly at Aberdeen after it was discharged by the King Ans. The Warner possibly may know yet certainly he doth not care what he writes in these things to which hee is a meere stranger the authentick registers of the Church of Scotland convinces him heire of falshood His Majestie did write from Stirling to the generall assembly at Edinburgh 1579 that they should ceasse from concluding any thing in the discipline of the Church during the time of his minority upon this desire the assembly did abstaine from all conclusions only they named a committee to goe to Striveling for conference which his Majestie upon that subject What followeth thereupon I. Immediatly a Parliament is called in October 1579 and in the first act declares and grantes jurisdiction unto the Kirk whilk consistes in the true preaching of the word of Jesus Christ correction of maners and administration of the true Sacraments and declares that there is no other face of Kirk nor other face of Religion then is presently by the favour of God established within this realme and that there be no other jurisdiction Ecclesiastical acknowledged within this realme then that whilk is and shal be within the samen Kirk or that which flowes therfra concerning the premisses II. In Aprile 1580. Proclamation was made ex deliberatione Dominorum Consilii in name of the King charging all Superintendentes and Commissioners and Ministers serving at Kirkes To note the names of all the subjectes alsweel men as women suspected to be Papistes or and to admonish them to give Confession of their faith according to the Forme approved by the Parliament and to submitte unto the discipline of the true Kirk within a reasonable space and if they faile that the Superintendents or Commissioners presente a role or catalogue of their names unto the King and Lords of Secret Counsell whereby they shal be for the time between and the 15 day of Iulie nixt to come to the end that the actes of Parliament made against such persones may be execute III. The shorte Confession wes drawen up at the Kings command which was first subscrived by his royall hand and an act of Secret Counsell commanding all subjectes to subscrive the same as is to be seen by the Act printed with the Confession wherein Hierarchie is abjured that is as hath been since declared by Nationall assemblies and Parliamentes both called and held by the King episcopacie is abjured IV. In the assemblies 1580 and 1581 that Confession of faith and the second book of discipline after debating many praeceding years were approved except one chapter de diaconatu by the Assemblie the Kings Commissioner being alwayes presente not finde we any thing opposed then by him yea then at his Majesties speciall direction about fifty classical Presbyteries were set up over all Scotland which remaine unto this day Was there heer any contempt of the royall authority About that time some noble men had gote the revenues of the Bisshop-rickes for their private use and because they could not enjoy them
The fourth hurt is that every ordinary Presbyter wil make himselfe a Noblemans fellow Ans. No where in the World does gracious Ministers though meane borne men receive more respect from the Nobility then in Scotland neither any where does the Nobility and gentry receive more duely their honour then from the Ministers there That insolent speach fathered on Mr. Robert Bruce is demonstrat to be a fabulous calumny in the historicall vindication How ever the Warner may know that in all Europe where Bishops have place it hes ever at least these 800 yeares been their nature to trample under foot the highest of the Nobility As the Pope must be above the Emperour so a little Cardinal Bellarmin can tell to King Iames that hee may well be counted a companion of any Ilander King were the Bishops in Scotland ever content till they got in Parliament the right hand and the nearest seates to the throne and the doore of the greatest Earles Marquesses and duks was it not Episcopacy that did advance poore and capricious pedants to strive for the whyte staves great Seales of both Kingdomes with the prime Nobility and often overcome them in that strife In Scotland I know and the Warner will assure for England and Ireland that the basest borne of his brethren hes ruffled it in the secreet counsel in the royall Exchequer in the highest courts of justice with the greatest Lords of the Land it s not so long that yet it can be forgotten since a Bishop of Galloway had the modesty to give unto a Marquise of Argile tanta mont to a broadly in his face at the counsel table The Warner shall doe well to reckon no more with Presbyters for braving of Noblemen The nixt hee will have to bee wronged by the Presbytery are the orthodoxe clergy Ans. All the Presbyterians to him it seemes are heterodoxe Episcopacy is so necessary a truth that who denies it must be stamped as for a grievous errour with the character of heterodox The following words cleere this to be his mind they losse saith hee the confortable assurance of undoubted succession by Episcopall ordination what sence can be made of these words but that all Ministers who are not ordained by Bishops must lie under the confortlesse uncertainty of any lawfull succession in their ministeriall charge for want of this succession through the lineall descent of Bishops from the Apostles at least for want of ordination by the hands of Bishops as if unto them only the power of mission and ordination to the Ministry were committed by Christ because of this defect the Presbyterian Ministers must not only want the confort of an assured and undoubted calling to the Ministry but may very well know and be assured that their calling and Ministry is null The words immediatly following are scraped out after their printing for what cause the author lest knoweth but the purpose in hand makes it probable that the deletted words did expresse more of his mind then it was safe in this time and place to speake out it was the late doctrine of Doctor Brambles prime friends that the want of Episcopall ordination did not only annuall the calling of all the Ministers of France Holland Zwit-zerland and Germany but also did hinder all these societies to be true Churches for that popular Sophisme of the Jesuits our praelats did greedily swallow where are no true Sacraments there is no true Church and where is no true Ministry there are no true Sacraments and where no true ordination there is no true ministry and where no Bishops there is no true ordination and so in no reformed country but in England and Ireland where were true Bishops is any true Church When Episcopacy comes to this height of elevation that the want of it must annull the Ministry yea null the Church and all the Reformed at one strock is it any mervaill that all of them doe concurre together for their own preservation to abolish this insolent abaddon and destroyer and notwithstanding all its ruine have yet no disconfort at all nor any the least doubt of their most lawfull ordination by the hands of the Presbytry After all this was writen as heer it stands another copie of the Warners book was brought to my hand wherin I found the deleted line stand printed in these distinct tearmes and put it to a dangerous question whither it be within the payle of the Church the deciphering of these words puts it beyond all peradventure that what I did conjecture of the Warner and his Brethrens minde of the state of all the reformed Churches was no mis-take but that they doe truely judge the want of Episcopall ordination to exclude all the Ministers of other Reformed Churches and their flocks also from the lines of the true Church This indeed is a most dangerous question for it stricks at the root of all If the Warner out of remorse of conscience had blotted out of his book that errour the repentance had been commendable But he hes left so much yet behind unscraped out as does shew his minde to continue what it was so that feare alone to provoke the reformed heere at this unseasonable time seemes to have been the cause of deleting these too cleare expressions of the praelaticall tenet against the very being and subsistence of all the Protestant Churches which want Episcopacy when these mē doe still stand upon the extreame pinacle of impudency and arrogance denying the Reformed to be true Churches and without scuple averring Rome as shee stands this day under the counsel of Trent to be a Church most true wherin there is an easy way of salvation from which all separation is needlesse and with which are-union were much to be desired That gracious faction this day is willing enough to perswade or at least to rest content without any opposition that the King should of himselfe without and before a Parliament though contrary to many standing Lawes grant under his hand and seale a full liberty of Religion to the bloody Irish and to put in their hands both armes Castles and prime Places of trust in the State that the King should give assurance of his endeavour to get all these ratified in the nixt Parliament of England these men can heare with all moderation and patience but behold their furious impatience their whole art and industry is wakned when they heare of any appearance of the Kings inclination towards covenanting Protestants night and day they beate in his Majesties head that all the mischieves of the world does lurke in that miserable covenant that death and any misfortune that the ruine of all the Kingdomes ought much rather to bee imbraced by his Majestie then that prodigious Monster that very hell of the Covenant because forsooth it doth oblige in plane tearmes the taker to endeavour in his station the abolition of their great Goddesse praelacy The nixt hurt of Ministers from the Presbytry is that by it they
a long time was willing to acknowledge the Parliaments jointe interest in the militia yea to put the whole militia in their hands alone for a good number of yeares to come so farre was his Majestie from the thoughts that the Parliaments medling with a parte of the militia in the time of evident dangers should be so certainly and clearly the crime of rebellion The Warners second demonstrative ground wee admit without question in the major that where the matter is evidently unlawfull the oath is not binding but the application of this in the minor is very false All that hee brings to make it appeare to be true is that the King is the supreame Legislator that it is unlawfull for the subjects of England to change any thing established by Law especially to the prejudice of the Praelats without their own consent they being a third order of the Kingdom otherwise it would be a harder measure then the Friers and Abbots received from Henry the eight Ans. May the Warner be pleased to consider how farre his dictats heere are from all reason much more from evident demonstrations That the burden of Bishops and ceremonies was become so heavy to all the three Kingdomes that there was reason to endeavour their laying aside he does not offer to dispute but all his complanit runnes against the manner of their removall this say I was done in no other then the ordinary and high path-way whereby all burdensome Lawes and customes use to be removed Doth not the Houses of Parliament first begin with their ordinance before the Kings consent be sought to a Law is not an ordinance of the Lords and Commons a good warrant to change a former Law during the sitting of the Parliament The Lawes and customes of England permit not the King by his dissent to stoppe that change I grant for the turning an ordinance to a standing Law the Kings consent is required but with what qualifications and exceptions wee need not heere to debate since his Majesties consent to the present case of abolishing Bishops was obtained well neere as farre as was desired and what is yet lacking wee are in a faire way to obtaine it for the Kings Majestie long agoe did agree to the rooting out of Episcopacy in Scotland he was willing also in England and Ireland to put them out of the Parliament and all civil courts and to divest them of all civil power and to joyne with them Presbyteries for ordination and spirituall jurisdiction yea to abolish them totally name and thing not only for three yeares but ever till he and his Parliament should agree upon some setled order for the Church was not this Tantamont to a perpetuall abolition for all and every one in both houses having abjured Episcopacy by solemne oath and Covenant the Parliament was in no hazard of agreing with the King to re-erect the fallen chaires of the Bishops so there remained no other but that either his Majestie should come over to their judgement or by his not agreing with them yet really to agree with them in the perpetuall abolition of Episcopacy since the concession was for the laying Bishops aside ever till hee and his houses had agreed upon a settled order for the Church If this be not a full and formall enough consent to the ordinance of changing the former Lawes anent praelats his Majestie who now is easily may and readily would supply all such defects if some of the faction did not continually for their own evill interests whisper in his eares pernicious counsel as our Warner in this place also doeth by frighting the King in conscience from any such consent for this end he casts out a discourse the sinshews whereof are in these three Episcopall maximes First that the legislative power is sollie in the King that is according to his Brethrens Cōmentary that the Parliament is but the Kings great counsel of free choyce without or against whose votes hee may make or unmake what Lawes he thinks expedient but for them to make any ordinance for changing without his consent of any thing that has been or instituting any new thing or for them to defend this their legall right and custome time out of mind against the armes of the Malignant party no man may deny it to be plaine rebellion II. That the King and Parliament both together cannot make a Law to the praejudice of Bishops without their own consent they being the third order of the Kingdome for albeit it be sacriledge in the Lords and Commons to clame any the smallest share of the legislative power this i◅ them were to pyck the chiefest jewel out of the Kings Crowne yet this must be the due priviledge of the Bishops they must be the third order of the Kingdome yea the first and most high of the three far above the other two temporall States of Lords and Commons their share in the Legislative power must be so great that neither King nor Parliament can passe any Law without their consent so that according to their humble protestation all the Lawes and acts which have been made by King and Parliament since they were expelled the house of Lords are cleerly voide and null That the King and Parliament in divesting Bishops of their temporall honour and estats in abolishing their places in the Church doe sin more against conscience then did Henry the eight and his Parliament when they put down the Abbots and the Fryers Wee must beleeve that Henry the eight his abolishing the order of Monks was one of the acts of his greatest Tyranny and greed wee must not doubt but according to Law and reason Abbots and priours ought to have kept still their vote in Parliament that the Monasteryes and Nunryes should have stood in their integrity that the King and Parliament did wrong in casting them down and that now they ought in conscience to be set up againe yea that Henry the eight against all reason and conscience did renounce his due obedience to the Pope the Patriarch of the West the first Bishop of the universe to whom the superinspection and government of the whole Catholick Church in all reason doth belong Though all this be heere glaunced at by the Warner and elsewhere hee prove it to be the declared mind of his Brethren yet we must be pardoned not to accept them as undenyable principles of cleare demonstrations The last ground of the Doctors demonstration is that the covenant is ane oath to set up the Presbyterian government in England at it is in Scotland and that this is contrary ◅o the oath of Supremacy for the oath of Supremacy makes the King the only supreame head and governour of the Church of England that is the civil head to see that every man doe his duty in his calling also it gives the King a supreame power over all persons in all causes but the Presbytery is a politicall papacie acknowledging no governours but
with the Act you pretend to at your leisure The approbation of the Assemblie was but the harmonie of a faction such being excluded as were not prejudged approvers or if praesent overaw'd by a praevalent partie in their vote as much as other Ministers abroad by Philadelphi Vindicatours confession in their consent Quis credat quenquam qui rem sacram administrabat…ausum fuisse calculo suo non probare Or if they were free did approve it they did it in that sense that many Orthodoxe persons did sweare or subscribe it …in eam confessionem jurâsse neminem Presbyteriorum regimini alligat Which King Ch. 1. in his large Declaration tells you to be consistent with Episcopaâ—…ie it unqu-estionablie true Or it may be the register of your approvers was handled as the roll of subscribers wherein were a great many more names then had been hands … adde Episcopos nunc sedentes magnam partem Ministrorum subscriptiones illas inficiari The opposition Of the Kings Commissioner it may be was ingrossed in the two leaves torne out of your publike records if not left out as impertinent to the proceedings of that Assemblie If he gave a passive consent by his silence it was in conformitie to his Masters subscription command which you mention'd The direction of His Majestie for the 50. Classical Assemblies was specializ'd by your power which did direct him The crecting of them was with no intent to pull downe Episcopacie as may be in effect gather'd from your words For if they remaine to this day the same stood while the Bishops were in power as subordinate chapters or consistories unto them These some Noble men you speake of were most of the Nobilitie as your Brother Andr. Melvin doth acknowledge … reluctantibus nobilium plerisque And these did not now erect of new a titular Episcopacie but maintained that which had been legallie established And this they did not onelie to hold fast their Ecclesiastical revenue but upon other more conscientious grounds as he ingenuouslie confesseth Viz. To keep the state of the Kingdome entire from being rent in pieces sublato enim Episcopatu I l'e leave the lie for his heires to licke up regni statum convelli To praeserve Majestie due to the King constitutis Presbyteriis regiam Majestatem imminui And by asserting his right to some Church revenues to prevent the utter exhausting of his exchequer … bonis Ecclesiasticis … restitutis Regis aerarium exhauriri causantur That the Nobilitie enjoyed so much of the revenue beside what was payd in to the King came upon the perpetual divisions rais'd by the Presbyterie in the Kingdome which perturbing ever the establishment of the Episcopal order voting them to have no more right to the meanes then they had to the office the learned at least prudent Nobilitie having better assurance that neither power nor meanes belong'd de jure to the brethren of the discipline it is not unlikelie till the controversie should be ended they framed a kind of plausible argument to continue the steward ship in themselves Yet in the meane time by your leave they did effectuate more then a title to this tulâ—…han Bishop And this kind of Prelates pretended right to every part of the Episcopal office exerciz'd much more then you mention'd Which having been made good against you in several volumes I shall onelie bring an undeniable argument by producing confitentes reos the whole packe of Covenanters of all orders qualities aswell Ministers as others Who in their publike bill or Complaint upon which an Act of the Presbyterie of Edenburgh passed Octob. 24. 1638. have these Words Whereas the office of a Bishop as it is now used within this Realme was condemned by the booke of policie by the Act of the Assemblie holden at Dundee Anno 1580. Whereof these are the words For asmuch as the office of a Bishop as it is now used commonlie taken within this Realme hath no sure warrant from Authoritie c. Hence I argue thus The office of a Bishop now used in the yeare 1580. the office of a Bishop now used in the yeare 1638. is ex confesso the same But the office of a Bishop 1638. consisted in the power of ordination jurisdiction Ergo so did the office of a Bishop 1580. And as much is implied by the Act of that Synod which condemnes expresselie the power as well as the title of Bishops that with reference to the persons of the Bishops then living that had executed this power were to lay it downe or become excommunicate Therefore you shew us but the halfe face in your discovrse about their voting in Parliament Into which imployment they crept not but came upon considence of better authoritie then any general Assemblie could give them as shall be proved hereafter particularlie in the case of Rob. Montgomerie Arch-Bishop of Glasgow whom you name That there was some debate takes of somewhat from the Kings forwardnesse in commanding subscribing directing in special That he shew'd his good satisfaction I beleeve not when you publish it with a blancke Reviewer But the Warner heere jumps over no lesse then 27. yeares time c. Ans. The Bishop undertooke no continued historie of your Disciplinarian rebellions Therefore in passing over 27. yeares he sav'd himself a trouble but hath done too great a courtesie for you unlesse you were more thankefull for his silence Though indeed this signal rebellious Convention of a few stubborne ignaro's at Aberdener shewes to what an height maturitie of mischiefe your other sucking Conspiracies had come to if Royal presence had not been at hand to suppresse their growth nip these blacke boutefeus in the bud That King Iames at that time was by his English Bishops perswasions resolv'd to puâ—… downe the general Assemblies of Scotland is disavowed in words by publike proclamation bearing date the 26. Septemb. in act by appointing one to be holden at Dundee the last Tuesday of Julie Yet if he had with the grave advice consent of his three Estates your Church lanes constant practice must have strooke saile as it afterward did unto the supremacie of that power Himselfe telling you That no Monarchie either in Civillor Ecclesiastical policie had then attained to that perfection that it needed no reformation Nor that infinite occasions might not arise whereupon wise Princes might foresee for the benefit of their Stâ—…es just cause of alteration For what immediatelie followes take His majesties answer out of a Declaration penned with his owne hand As to the nature of their particular priviledge in holding of Assemblies they have in this their last praetended Assemblie broken the limitations of that priviledge that is clearlie set downe in the first Acte of the Parliament in the 92 yeare which is the latest clearest warrant for their Assemblie For there it is speciallie provided That as We give
he that is read in your opinions actions will take it for granted that you must pay the acknowledgement of your Presbyterie to the Sanhedrin your sects conversion to the lewes If you will impudentlie crowd it into the companie of the first Christians that came into Scotland you can not denie but that for some part of the Centuries you speake of it was confin'd to the monkes colls never came to clamour at the Court the poore Culdiis with a great deale more humilitie pietie then the Covenanters caried it in their cowles Rev. … after the reformation there was no Bishop in that land Ans. The reformation you meane began the day before or after the Greeke Calends if you will helpe me to an account of the one I shall know how to order the aera of the other Many yeares confusion there was of Poperie Presbyterie Superintendencie The reform'd Episcopacie could never get ground till King James set it forward then it went not far before it met with your violent encounter by Sword Covenant which never suffered the crowne nor Miter to stand long unshaken till both were held up by the Armes of England the Kings person secure at a distance to command you That ever such a thing as reformed Presbyterie according to the Canon in your Discipline had the free positive consent of King Parliament without which it can not legallie passe for the Religion of your Kingdome I denie to be visible any where in your storie Rev. … till the yeare 1610. Ans. That yeare did indeed complete the Episcopal power which King James had by degrees piouslie industriouslie promoted many yeares before Rev. … When Bancrost did consecrate three Scots Ministers c. Ans. A brother of yours tells us they were consecrated by Bishop Abbot As evil as their report was the men were not so bad as their names need be in charitie conceled They were Iohn Spotswood Andrew Lamb Gawin Hamilton Bishops of Glasgow Brechen Galloway Who enjoy now their reward in heaven for the râ—…viling they had on earth it being for Gods sake his Church according to our Saviours promise St. Matth. 5. 11. The first was a man for zeale to the Church fidelitie to the King prudence in Government constancie under affliction singular inimitable indeed for his excellent gifts onelic hatefull to the Disciplinarians though especiallie because he through long experienec was of all Scotish men best acquainted with ablest to detect their crosse wayes to the King all Soveraigne Magistracie He died piouslie peaceablie at Westminster in the second yeare of this rebellion was buried in the Abbey Church The second was a great assiduous preacher even when he was blinde through extreme age He also died in peace with the good report of all except these calumniatores who hold that no Bishop can be an honest man whose invention is so rich of nothing as reproaches against better men then themselves The third was a reverend Praelate of great parts singular learning a most constant preacher who lived in peace died in his bed Rev. … that violent Commissioner the Earle of Dunbar Ans. His violence did not carie him beyond his Commission because he executed that upon the rebellious Aberdene Assemblers would not take off some of his kindred or acquaintance who were in the jurie that deliberatelie cast them in their verdict nor intercede for their stay in Scotland being desir'd you here meet with him at the Synod of Glasgow Which being at large prov'd legitimate in every circumstance required by law is in vaine condem'd as null by your faction Nor was it corrupt in any more then three members of about 140. who being rotten drop of from the close union harmonious suffrage of the rest Rev … got authorized in some part of the Bishops office Ans. I hope you will not denie that Bishops were authorized to ordaine in this Synod And into how many particulars their power of jurisdiction was branched your brother very pittifullie complaines… jurisdictio in omnibus offendiculis sive in doctrina sive in moribus … Armantur … potestate exauctorandi ministros suspensionis censuram irrogandi excommunicationem decernendi c. you may reade the rest then tell us what part of their office was left out Rev. Superintendents are no where the same with Bishops much lesse in Scotland Ans. That they are aequivalent to Bishops is evident by the conformitie in their offices power The particulars whereof His Lordship recites out of the fourth sixt heads of your 1. Book Discipl To which upon my Review I could adde some more if those were not enough Their ambulatorie commission was no other then our Bishops ambulatorie visitation If your onclic in the time before have any influence here exempt them from all duties in their visitation but preaching the word c. you cut of three parts of their injunction in the Discipline If they were onelie as you say for a time it concerneâ—… you to tell us where they ceas'd denie there were any since or ever shall be more but upon some future new plantation in your Churches Being pressed about obtruding your Discipline you tell us For the Eâ—…clesiastike enjoyning of a general Assemblies decrees a particular ratisication of Parliament is unnecessarie Which holds not where the particular decrees of your Assemblie transgresse the general intent of that Act whereby you are authoriz'd to meet That relates to the times and matters to be treated of In the former you are limited to custome or praescription In the later to the doctrine discipline receiv'd Which are therefore ratified in such Acts together with your Assemblies Presbyterie Sessions that obedience might be render'd upon the visible conformitie of your decrees injunctions to that rule But to make any Act of Parliament so general as to ratisie at adventure all possible arbitrarie commamds of your Assemblie to the altering of the doctrine or discipline established were to praecontract affinitie with all sects haeresies to enter into an implicite league or Covenant with the Devil about his worship so it may be de futuro ad placitum Synodi generalis Let me put this case suppose a general Assemblie should by an Ecclesiastical decree enjoyne the canons of that Antichristian government against which you praetend your discipline is framed Whether or no is that injunction authentike upon the general A of Parliament for their Assembling without a particular ratification thereof I might adde how ridiculous it is for you to make the power of your Assemblies so absolute yet trouble King Parliament so often with your importunate petitions to passe what is fullie ratified before that by their owne General Acts including that very particular for which you supplicate The debates about the second booke of Discipline I
had authoritie to shew for it I have given you as much as that you brought will beare What His Lordship brings here is another discoverie That you did erect them in your Assemblie Acts put them in execution as farre as you durst before any Parliament had pass'd them And Synodicallie established such as no Parliament had passed For this he cites your Acts of several Assemblies which you must either disavow or unriddle what the mistake is you impute Vnlesse you thinke good to save that labour confesse aswel as other your Brethren what is so manifest in your storie The particulars of your proceedings herein Arch-Bishop Bancroft long since collected in his booke of Dangerous Positions Where he shewes how you not onelie acted your selves at home but sent your emissaries into England to see the like practice there in the very face of Episcopal Government What other reasons beside the recalling the Church patrimonie caus'd the refusall of your second booke of Discipline I told you before Which with the rest may suffice to the vindication of what the Bishop premiseth in proofe of the conclusion he makes That the Dissiplinarians by their practies have trampled upon the lawes justled the Civile Magistrate out of his Supremacie in Ecclesiastical affaires His Lordship proceedes to his scrutinie of your doctrine wherein if he yet be more happie as you courteouslie tell us possiblie he will I shall take you to have the spirit of Tirestas having justlie lost your eye-sight for rash judging to be now better at prophesying then reviewing Which immediatelie appeares by your wandring at noonday being at a losse for that which every man may finde in the very place cited by the Bishop None are subject to repaire to this the National Assemblie to vote but Ecclesiastical persons c. This His Lordship conceives to crosse the Kings supremacie which being aswell Ecclesiasticall as civile gives him a power of voting presiding in Assemblies Nor was there ever act of free Parliament in Scotland old or late nor any regular justifiable practice of that Church but reserv'd this power to the King his deputed Commissioner without being chosen member of any Presbyterie or made a ruling elder in a National Assemblie which your booke of Discipline calls the generall Eldership of the Kirke Your hypercriticizing upon his thoughts while the spirit of divination comes upon you makes his Lordship no Super-Erastian in his doctrines Though what transscendent haeresie there is in a moderate answer to the malice in your question any of your aequitable comparers may reade in what Vedelius and Paraeus no herctikes I hope have published to that purpose as the doctrine of all reformed Churches the one quoting Bellarmine the other Stapleton as proper patrons of the Sub-Erastian principles in the Discipline Vedelius in his preface giving the world a caveat of the danger by the mischiefe it had brought upon England Scotland in the yeare 1638. How opposite they were to the Disciplinarian language sense in that particular which the Bishop remonstrates these single propositions can evidence Multo magu est Christiani Magistratus non solùm apprehensivè discretivè sed definitivè de religione judicare Here a definitive vote is asserted to the Magistrate …ad Magistratum pertinet judicium de religione seu rebus fidei causis Ecclesiasticis…tum formaliter tum objectivè Hereby a formal judgement in religion is attributed And this Doctor Rivet who I am told is call'd reverenc'd in the French Dutch Churches as the Calvin of these times hath vouched under his hand to be the Catholike doctrine of the Reformed If he had not we are sure it was the primitive practice of the good Christian Emperours to assume it to whom our conformitie is requisite Of Constantine the great who was personallie present in the Councel of Nice is sometimes called koinonos épiscopoumenon for his communite of suffrage with the Bishops Of the Emperour Theodosius who in the Councel of Constantinople sifted the several Confessions of the Arians Macedonians Eunomians as Brentius relates it cast himselfe upon his knees craving the assistance of Gods spirit to direct him in the choyce of what was most consonant to the doctrine of the Apostles Which epicrisis or completive judgement submitted unto by the Ancient Synods had these authoritative termes to expresse it Bebaioun épipscphizesthai épisphragizesthai cratinein cratioun epikyroun tà pepragmena To the exercise hereof the Discipline of your Reformed Brethren in these Countreyes not onelie admits but craves the presence suffrage of Delegates from the supreme Magistrate without which their Synodical Acts are not establish'd Quin etiam summi Magistratus delegati sunt postulandi ut in ipsorum praesentia eorumque suffragio Synodi Acta concludantur Nor did K. James any more in the Conference at Hampton Court then when in freedome He would have done in any Scotish Presbyterian Assemblie though he hated the name thought of the thing when somewhat was propounded that did not like him put it of with Le Roy Pavisera Rev. Yet the most of the prelatical partie will not maintaine him heerin Ans. Bishop Andrewes will in his Tortura Torti Bishop Field whom your friend Didoclave calls Hierambicorum eruditissimum in his volume of the Church beside many others And possiblie those that seem to be opposite may be reconcil'd if you have the maners to let them state the question among themselves The chiefe case wherein they not you instance of Leontius Bishop of Tripolis in his answer to Constantius the Emperour may be attended with circumstances which may terminate the dispute if not we must not take it on their word that for that as well as his other more regular demeanour he is own'd by Antiquitie to be kánon ecclesias as Suidas records The rule of the Church However it behoves you to cite your lawes to which the Bishops assertion is contrarie And I shall cut you short of that pompous traine which your vanitie holds up in the universal of all the Princes that have lived in Scotland confine you to two the rest being by their Religion unconcern'd in voting though not in permitting any Disciplinarian decrees King Iames the holie martyr King Charles the first who I hope you have not the impudence to say ever made profession so derogatorie to their right In what followes you practise over the fisher-man in the fable from whom you know that unlesse you trouble the water it is in vaine for you to cast in your net if you catch nothing for the Discipline you must sterve The whole paragraph is naught but a malicious seditious inference of your owne whereby you affixe an odious sense to the dutifull attributes of Royal prerogative your owne guilt causing a trembling in your joyuts at the thought of a scepter you buselie creep
protest then denounce vengeance then to the execution thereof seeke redresse of God man Of God by fasting as you did order for this very cause wasting of the Church rents without remedie in the Assemblie at St. Andrewes 1582. Of man by rebelling which you practis'd not long afterward With which godlie advice that saint shut his teeth departed if not after a minutes repentance as I hope in litle better peace then he had liv'd To what followes in the Bishops charge the legislative power they praetend to To make rules constitutions for keeping good order in the Kirkc To abrogate abolish all statutes ordinances concearning Ecclesiastical matters that are found noysome unprofitable agree not with the time or are abused by the people And all this without any reclamation or appellation to any judge Civile or Ecclestastical we have not one word in answer from Mr. Baylie Andindeed being taken up so much with his seemings fallacious apparences he may sometimes overlooke the realities of what allegations he dislikes for this indeed he had very good reason knowing the natural inseparable connexion to be such between it the power of jurisdiction that to whomsoever belongs the supremacie of the one upon him necessarilie descends the praerogative of the other For the fourth objection If the Reviewer had minded the ill consequences upon the antecedent of Ecclesiastike jurisdiction by divine right he would not have held that conclusion at large without professing an infallible assurance that it is haereditarie to the Presbyterie Some danger there may be of drawing after it an adaequate right in that ominous Episcopal order which with no great difficultie may be prov'd from time to time to have executed this jurisdiction he meanes How soever this inconvenience he gaines by it That if it be such it is indispensable turnes all the confessed indulgence of the Scotish Assemblies into sinne for Nulli homini licet cuiquam juris aivini gratiam facere What divines there have been in the world of another minde which are all except Donatus the haeretikes disciples among the rigid Papists Anabaptists Scotish Scotizing Presbyterians who demand as boldly as their Master Quidest Imperatori cum Ecclesia he may reade though I looke not that he nor all his brethren should muster up abilities to answer in the nineth chapter of the fore-cited famous Grotius's booke Vnder the safe conduct of whom the Bishop may travaile with the truth of these contradictions about him through all the Assemblies highway men of the Scots That all Ecclesiastike power flowes from the Magistrate…penes Ecclesiasticos judices per Archiepiscopos Episcopos derivata a Regia potestate Jurisdictio Ecclesiastica consistit That the Magistrate may praescribe a rule how Ecclesiastike censures should be regulated in case of resistance see them executed by his power Constitutum fuit eis ergon â—…d krinomena para ton episcopon agein tous archontas kai tous diaconoumenous autois stratiotas That all the ofsicers praetended to be appointed by Christ for the Government of his Church if they governe it not according to his Apostolike example may be lay'd aside such a kind of Governers be put in their place as the Magistrate shall be pleased to appoint as more just upright stewards in that trust Non frustra gladium gerit potestas sed vindex est in omnes male agentes ergo etiam in eos qui circa sacra delinquunt…Iurisdictionis enim est relegare 〈◊〉 loco sive in locum…That it is not yet universallie unquaestionablie defin'd that the spiritual sword Keyes are in any other then the hand of Christ. Nor that ever his Apostles Priests layd claime to an absolutelie intrinseâ—…al right to execute the power of either Vtinam exscindantur qui vos perturbant Videtur non imperantis sed optantis Apostoli That for the sword Sacerdos quidem officium exhibet sed nullius potcstatis jura exercet That he cites out of St. Ambrose for the Keyes him I cite but doe not being not oblig'd assert any thing Your difference herein I meane the power of the Magistrate from the Warner is Donatisme an haecesie so great as deserv'd it seemes to be anathematized by the Catholike Church your practice schisme whereby you rend your selves from the Congregations of all the Reformed as Vedelius hath shew'd you And whether it be not rebellion by your lawes I leave to the verdict of your 15. Godfathers who gave it in to be such against your differing brethren at Aberdene Had Mr. Baylie in his answer to what he calls the last challenged principle tooke upon him to alter that axiom in Ethikes make it Nolenti non fit injuria the dispute had been onelie whether his authoritie or Aristotles should have caried it But when he deletes the commentarie upon it he conjures the sense into a circle of his owne by such language as none but himselfe his spirits understand Indeed for a madman to have his hands bound who were they at libertie would doe himselfe mischief For a sicke man to have physike forc'd into his stomake which may worke his recoverie otherwise desperate if his aversion be countenanc'd may be courteous violence improv'd to their good But to contervene a Magistrates commands praetending punctual obedience thereby if not an advancement of his power To wrest the sword out of his hands disarme him for the securitie of his person is a piece of invisible justice a favour left by all law and reason to be whollie at the disposal of the Discipline But in Scotland you say there is no such case c. Which must relate to mater of fact or right If to the former I must crave libertie to averre That scarce any one of your Synods proceedings was ever freelie justified by the consent of the Magistrate for the time That most were not I have shall sufficientlie prove here otherwhere If to the latter your selfe confesse that your booke of Discipline which includes the jurisdiction you have could not passe the Parliament 1590. Nor can you make appeare where ever after it did with an exception onelie against the chapter Dâ—… Diaconatu In what followes you pretend too much acquaintance with the King to know what His Majestie controverts in his thoughts with whom I have hear your late treatie was not so particular closse as to make what discoverie you wished aim'd at And what you did is not so authoriz'd as to strengthen your proofe His Royal too gracious concessions having met with such unworthie imprudent refusal by persons through habitual rebellion not yet disposed to their good As touching the case which the Bishop intimates I can not wonder the account of it so odious as not to be met with by your answer since it sets in your sight the horrour of your many yeares sinne with the
guilt of which you would gladlie runne into dens caves or move the hills mountaines to cover you In the meane time in vaine you hope to have any the anâ—…nt Christians companie Who in times of their persecution never held publike Assemblies in their Edenburghs Imperial Cities never arm'd themselves to maintaine the divine ordinance of the Discipline Though had they done it litle would their praecedent availe you the just imposition of a Christian King being very unlike the heathen Emperous persecution Nor was the Presbyterie that divine ordinance of Discipline practiz'd by the persecuted in the wildernesse Mr. Baylie in this time by his affected diversions devious mazes having run himselfe halfe out of breath begins to thinke on the shortest way home to finde which he takes a large leape over the hedge by vertue of some Disciplinarian priviledge passeth two whole pages of consequence unanswer'd Perit libertas nisâ—…tlla contemnis quae jugem imponunt yet not so cleare but that one bramble hath catch'd him by the sleeve if the truth were known I beleeve many more have prick'd him to the heart for one of most danger I advise him to seeke out a timelie remedie stand to the charitie of his aequitable comparers for the rest 't is that sharpe quaestion which the Bishope propounds Who shall judge when the Church is corrupted the Magistrates or Church-men If the Magistrates why not over you aswell as others If the Church-men why not others aswell as you Mr. Gilespies Theorem because pressing such downright rebellion he without any brotherlie love leaves on the shoulders of a single Presbyter will not afford one fingar of the Presbyterie to ease him though the tantamout be not so unconsequential as to need a stake to helpe it downe in a swallow It being very well know'n that if Mr. Baylie should not tantamont in this businesse the Assemblie brethren would give him a drench in the Scotish horne send him to grasse with the long-eard creatures as being no fit companie for the late more rational rebells in a Synod The consequence if it must need be such from one particular denied by none to a universal affirmative as strange as it lookes may be made good by the new Disciplinarian logike Mr. Baylie himselve having more then once profess'd an identitie in the Scotish with the Reformed disciplines abroad in the harmonie of which I finde such a canon as this Si Minister donum habet aliquid ad aedificationem conscribendi illud typis non mandabit quin prius a classe examinetur probetur From the Classe he knowes it takes a remove to the provincial Synod thence to the national Assemblie Now if the Reviewer will not tell us in what Assemblie Mr. Gilespie was censur'd or this theoreme of his disavow'd because it will be such a singular case as never was heard of Rebellion disclaim'd in a Scotish Presbyterian Assemblie otherwise then in a Catholike mist which never drops in any particulars he shall have the reputation of catching this unconsequence for once But as the Bishops sayth Take nothing hold it fast if he can Beside he knowes there are many other such theoremes of Mr. Gilespies upon which the Bishop hath built many high accusations which the Discipline must acknowlege must be meant to be of that number which had the approbatorie suffrages of the Vniversities in Holland viz. Leyden Vtrecht or else he spake litle truth and as litle to the purpose in his Epistle Yet to helpe him to somewhat of better authoritie He is desir'd to take notice That the substance of this theoreme was not declin'd in a protestation made he knowes by whom in Edenburgh Parliament 1558. In the dutifull letter to the Queen Regent from the faythfull Congregation of Christ Iesus in Scotland 22. May 1549. In another from the Lords of the Congregation 2. Jul. 1559 In an answer to the Queenes proclamation by the Lords Barons other brethren of the Congregation 1559. In a declaration of the Lords against another proclamation of the Queenes 1559. To all thesé 't is undeniable that the Assemblies adhaer'd or indeed rather the Lords c to them In the Church Assemblie's supplication 28. May 1561. In the vote of the whole Assemblie 1563. In the Superintendents Ministers Commissioners letter to the Bishops and Pastours in England they write If authoritie urge you farther ye ought to oppose your selves boldlie not onclie to all power that dare extol it selfe against God but also against all such as dare burthen the consciences of the faythfull they mean'd the same opposition themselves made in Scotland In the seventh article fram'd by the Assemblie 1567. Beside what was very particularlie pressed by Knox in Sermons Conferences letters c all acknowledge the sense of several Assemblies But all these authorities are absolet the several ends of such speaches actions being long since accomplish'd in Scotland However M. Baylie denies that the maxime in hand was the fountaine of any our late miseries or the cause at all of the losse of our Soveraigne Fati ista culpa est nemo fit fato nocens If he had but in kindnesse delivered his meaning at large quitted aswell his independent brethren of their bloudie performance in the fift act as he doth the Presbyterian properties that caried on the rebellion in the foure first of the Tragoedie they might have masked merrilie together in their antike disguises of innocencie pointed out to some sillie credulous spectators the guilt of this horrid murder in the starres But I shall reach him a ladder where by he may ascend to the top of this truth not aninch higher then Edenburgh Crosse what else he wants when he comes there to doe justice accordinglie as he shall be enlightned upon his owne selfe for his share in this maxime unpardonable mischiefe The first step hereof begins neare the ground with the meane baser sort of the people who on the 23. Jul. 1637. when by his Blessed Majesties command the service booke was to be read in Edenburgh Great Church fell into the extraordinarie wayes of clapping hands cursing outcries throwing stones at the windowes aiming at the Bishop with a stool Continuing this hubbub in the streets besetting the counsel house whether the reverend learned worthie Bishop of Galloway was forced to flie for his refuge Their outcries being commonlie such as this God defend all those who will defend Gods cause God confound the service booke all the maintainers of it of whom the King must needs be mean'd to be one who had expressclie authoriz'd it Vpon this follow two extraordinarie petitions one in the names of the Noblemen Gentrie Ministers Burgesses against the service booke booke of Canons which being not answerd to their mind at Sterlin otherwhere themselves in protesting did the same thing which they had call'd the uproare
Grotius that had better skill in the lawes then you or I sayth That in causes of Delegacie semper appellasio conscssa fuit ad Imperatorem si ex Imperiali jussione judicatum esset aut ad Iudicum quemcunque si ex judiciali praecepto which holds good against your general Assemblie if that judgeth earegali jussione that it doth so is cleare from your Assemblie Act April 24. 1578. wherein it petitioneth the King to set establish your policie a part whereof is your Assemblie judication That it is for the most part order'd to the King in his Courts is not any way to confine his power but to free him from frequent impertinencies unseasonable importnnities of trouble or it may be a voluntarie but no obligatorie Royal condescension to avoyd your querulous imputation of arbitrarie partialitie tyrannie in judicature Therefore you injure the Bishop by converting his assertion into a negative confession As if when he sayth it is to the King in Chancerie he must needs acknowledge It can be neither to the King out of Chancerie nor to him there but with collaterall aequipotential â—…ssistants Whereas your friend Didoclave complaines that our appeales are ever progressus â—…b unico ad unicum wherein whether he mean'd an aggregate or personal unitie I leave you to interpret That an appeale is not permitted from your Lords of session or Parliament in Scotland is because whatsoever is regularlie determin'd there receives its ratification from the King But if one or other in their session without him should determine a case evidentlie undeniablie destructive to the rights of his crowne or liberties of his people whether His Majestie may not admit an appeale assume his coercive power to restraine their license I thinke no loyal subject in Scotland will controvert As touching your Assemblies King Iames tells you It is to be generallie observed that no priviledge that any King gives to one particular bodie or state within the Kingdome of convening consulting among themselves which includes whatsoever they doe when they are convened consulting is to be understood to be privative given unto them so the King thereby depriving himselfe of his owne power praerogative but onelie to be given cumulative unto them as the lawyers call it without any way denuding the King of his owne power authoritie This His Majestie alledged against the Ministers at Aberdene whom he accuseth not onelie of convening but acting after they were convened He particularlie mentions their setting downe the dies of the next Assemblie His Councel addes their endâ—…vour to reverse overthrow all those good orders godlie constitutions formerlie concluded for keeping of good order in their Church If you alledge that His Majesties Commissioner was not there then you grant me their acts are not justifiable without him And that all are not necessarilie with him I argue from the language of the Commission whereby they meet which limits them thus secundum legem praâ—…im against which if any thing be acted upon appeale the Kings praerogative may rectifie it at pleasure if not any judge may praetend to be absolute then the King must be absolutelie nothing having committed or delegated all power from himselfe What civile law of Scotland it is that prohibites appeales from the General Assemblie you should doe well to mention in your next I know none nor did King Iames thinke of any when he cited his distinction from the Scottish Lawyers aswell as any other Where an Assemblie proceeds contrarie to the lawes of God man Which is not impossible while it may consist of a multitude men neither the best nor most able of the Kingdome the Bishop thinkes an appeale to a legal Court of delegates constituted by a superiour power might be neither unseeming nor unreasonable The law of old never intended they should be the weakest of all Court Where it hath so happened by your owne rule pag. 22. The Delegates not Delegacie are to be charged Such heretofore in England as imployed mercenarie officials for the most part were mercenarie Bishops if they had been cut to the core would have been found I doubt Disciplinarian in heart though Episcopal in title The Scots way of managing Ecclesiastical causes is not more just because more derogatorie to the right of the King And the late Martyr'd King found it not more safe therefore told Mr. Henderson plainlie the papacie in a multitude might be as dangerous as in one how that might be Gualter writ to Count Vnit-glupten in a letter Emergent hinc novae tyrannidis cornua paulatim cristas attollent ambitiosi Ecclesiarum pastores quibus facile fuerit suos assessores in suas partes attrahere cùm ipsii inter hos primatum teneant He might have found the experiment of it in Scotland Nor can it be more satisfactorie to those rational men with whom the Bishops arguments are prevalent beside what else may be effectuallie alledged against it Allthough the two instances the Bishop brings for stopping appeales were accompanied with so many treasonable circumstances as might have enlarged his chapter into a volume deleted the credit of a Scotish Disciplinarian Assemblie out of the opinion of all the Cristians in the world Yet His Lordship thought good to furnish his reader with better authoritie from the second Booke of Discip. ch 12. which shall here meet you againe to crave your acquaintance From the Kirke there is no reclamation or appellation to any Iudge Civile or Ecclesiasticall within the Realme The reputation of the two Reverend Arch-Bishops Montgomerie Adamson depends not upon the sentence of a turbulent envious Synod much lesse any single malicious Presbyter in a pamphlet with whom we know 't is crime hainous enough to be a Bishop shall not want his vote to make them excommunicate Their manifold high misdemeanours are mention'd in the censure of the Presbyterie of Striveling for admitting Montgomerie to the temporalitie of the Bishoprike of Glasgow his owne for aspiring thereto Assemblie 1587. And of the other for taking the Kings commission to sit in Parliament 1584. In the last Act of which his commission is printed to register â—…his guilt The principal of their evil patrons among the wicked States-men I meane next under the King to whom you yeild that praerogative at least is sayd to be the Earle of Arran who deserves that character for being second at that time in His Majesties favour he is sayd by your brethren to have taken them into the Parliament So that lay their commission Earle Arrans courtesie together which without the other had implied the pleasure of the King they tooke not without authoritie upon themselves as you sayd the Episcopal office nor place in that Parliament Whether the pride contempt of the Prelates or Presbyters were greater may be judg'd in the case of Arch-Bishop Montgomerie by the Assemblies slighting not onelie
His Majesties letters but Messengers such as were two Heralds at Armes His Master of Requests who in the Kings name inhibiting their proceedings they send him word by Macgil they can salve their obedience yet goe through with the businesse Setting up Durie Belcanqual two Edenburgh Ministers to raile against the E Lenox when they are accus'd quitting them by their Ecclesiastike praerogative Putting their scholars at Glasgow in Armes occasioning bloudshed in resistance of the Principal Magistrates of that place against whom they afterward proceeded His Majestie summous them to his judicature at St. Andrewes they send their oratours instead of comming themselves The King exchangeth a promise of securitie for theirs of suspending the censure They admit the condition but collude with His Majestie leaving an underhand power with some select brethren to give sentence as occasion should serve When they get loose they contest with his Majestie by a serpent-supplicate which when it creepes at the foot wounds to the heart Tell him boldlie he playes the Popeâ—… takes a sword in his hand more then belongs to him The Earle of Arran demanding who dares subscribe such a paper Andrew Melvin answers undauntedlie for himselfe some others for hast snatcheth the pen out of a scribes hand that was neare him writes his name exhorts his complices ro doe the like By letter to His Majestie they shew how farre His Majestie had been uninformed upon miâ—…nformation prâ—…judg'd the praerogative of Iesus Christ the liberties of his Church what becomes of the Kings when this is pleaded They enact ordaine that none should procure any such warrant or charge under the paine of excommunication Where K. Iames did acknowledge the aequitie of the Church proceedings in these cases I desire to be inform'd I am sure K. Charles 1. many yeares since hath writ That they did wickedlie that which they could not doe And that it is a very reproveable instance Which to have been ever his fathers opinion I have under the hand of one of the most learned knowing men eminent historians in your Kingdome As likewise that they did never confesse their crimes nor renounce their Bishop-rikes c but that they were most cruellie persecuted by that firebrand of schisme in the Kirke sedition in the state Andrew Melvin his subscribing Associates made so odious to the people by their excommunication that they suffered most grievous penurie in the end were sterved to death which did not quench the malice of their mercilesse enemies who after their death continued persecuting their names memories making them infamous by false supposititious recantations whereof they themselves were the authours publishers Others that acknowledge a word or two to this purpose that drops from Arch-Bishop Adamson say he did it when set on the racke by his hunger being faine to beg bread of his enemies who glad of the occasion sold their charitie by weight for his selfe seeming-conviction when they had it being too greedie to gaine damnation to themselves did sophisticate every syllable with a lie The Bishops in their Declinatour against the Assemblie of Glasgow if you remember well appeale to no general Assemblie otherwise then as it shall pleace His Majestie to constitute it personallie be present or by his Commissioner without whom they acknowledge no authoritie it hath They referre it to His Majestie to call one to repaire their injurie by way of humble desire or direction no way derogating from nor impairing his separate absolute praerogative to redresse all personallie if he please Their expressions relating to Royall power in this particular are such as follow … So that they praeventing not proceeding by warrant of Royal authoritie … May we not therefore intreat my Lord Commissioner His Grace in the words of the Fathers of the fourth General Councel at Chalâ—…don Mitte foras superfluos For discharge of our dutie to God to his Church to our sacred Soveraigne lest by our silence we betray the Church is right His Majestics authoritie our owne consciences … And we most humblie intreat His Grace to intercede with the Kings Majestie that he may appoint a sree lawfull Generall Assemblie… to whom Dr. Rob. Hamilton by these praesents we give our full power expresse mandate to praesent the same in or at the sayd Assemblie or where else it shall be necessarie to be used where 's that Mr. Baylie with all submission obedience due to our gracious Soveraigne His Majesties High Commissioner All which are clauses assertive of His Majesties supremacie over General Assemblies implie his power to take cognizance of their demeanour Though after all this compliance with your method countenancing a seeming pertinencie in your arguments I must seasonablie put you in minde that you are very much mistaken in the Bishops meaning here as otherwhere maintaine a blindeconflict which your selfe For allthough His Lordship often take advantage of your Assemblie proceedings as contrarie to your lawes justifiable establishment of the Ecclesiastike power in your Kingdome yet where there is a concordance of your practice with your rule if accompanied with inconvenience of state incroachment upon that just praerogative which Monarchs otherwhere doe or may assume if destructive to that libertie of the people which is given them by the Gospell Christian freedome sealed to them in their baptisme if disagreeing with the primitive practice for the first five or sixe hundred yeares after Christ you lie open to the force of his arguments though you ward the blow from falling upon your Church in its owne peculiar as constituded in your Countrey For his Lordships endeavour is not onelie though in part to shew how tyrannical your discipline is to your selves but how praejudicial destructive it may prove to us in England if through want of caution or a facile yeilding to your insolent attempts way should be made for you to propagate what you call the Kingdome of Jesus Christ but is indeed the tyrannie of Satan the second practice of Lucifers ambition To banish Gods Anoynted from the earth since he faild in his project of turning God himselfe out of heaven we be ensnared in the like Presbyterian slaverie with the Scots Therefore you see he entituled his booke A Warning to take heed of the Scotish Discipline c. And were it not that you would clamour in vour next pamphlet you were unanswer'd this advertisement might passe with any rational reader for a refutation of at least halfe your booke If I should prosecute you with the many appeales that have been made before the Bishops declinatour of the Assemblie at Glasgow I know you would runne to your cover of complaints pag. 20. of your booke What others have been since will be brought to yourremembrance in such a flying roule as the Prophet Zacharie mentions unlesse a gracious pardon
confesseth that somewhat Blacke had sayd though he hath no great minde to take notice what nor when He complaines of Rutherfort his accuser because oblig'd for private courtesies who deserves to be commended for praeferring publike dutie in that appeares to have been one of the most honest hearers there The Courtiers can not be blamed for intending to stop the mouthes of such Ministers as layd the Devil with his bairnes at their doores put them in afright that they should afterward be charg'd with keeping all the blacke brats of the Assemblie The advice of the Brethren was adjudg'd treason by the law of Scotland produc'd against the Aberdene Ministers your Edenburgh Bibles have not one text to justifie that appeale The words layd to Mr. Blackes charge I hope will be confessed to be trulie seditious All the quaestion you make is whether he spake them or no which though doubtfull as it is not being proved before the Assemblie who gave this reason for his exemption from punishment They knew not with what spirit he was overruled must be acknowledg'd a mater of civile cognizance because no point of religious aswell as the punishment if prov'd Constat Episcopos Presoyteros forum legibus non habere nec de aliis causis … prâ—…eter religionem posse cognoscere The Brethrens reason or rather mis-apprehension must not be made the measure of the lawes If the King yeided so much toward an amicable conclusion what can justifie the Presbyters in continuing the breach who say what you will were bound to subscribe a band for that silence which was required Pessimus est mos suggestum in scenam vertere dulcisâ—…imam Euangelii vocem in Comaediam veterem What the learned Grotius enlargeth upon this subject I will not transcribe but call upon you to answer being that which I assume to make good upon the same texts proofes he produceth The truth was you durst neither have advised Blacke to appeale nor your selves have shew'd such contumacie to the King but that you had felt the pulse of the people made it beate high in your behalfe This your brother confesseth though in Gypsie language calling it the great concord authoritie in the Church such as made the Courtiers to tremble though never so much in favour with the King Which concord when so magnified in your storie we know was ever a covenant to rebell awe the King aswell as the Court by your usurp'd authoritie of the sword Yet whatsoever is your practice profession by sits sometimes you are more serious though seldome more loyal the result of your councel apparels it selfe in such a sentence as this Our obedience bindeth us not onelie reverentlie to speake write of our Soveraigne but also to judge thinke Which if the Edenburgh Ministers had practis'd they had not come under that severe sentence pronounced against them for raising a dangerous mutinie among the people If I would like you turne diviner I might easilie guesse out of what un printed register you have that prettie legend that followes which yet is not so decentlie dress'd as to make good the chast credit of the discipline Who was this villaine By whom was he Suborn'd Avillaine They suborne without particular instance of either will not passe upon publike fayth If the Commotion was innocent why not approv'd If not approv'd how appeares it to be innocent The best way to have quit the Ministrie from being authours or approvers had been to be censurers but here they could keep silence without a band I can not yet let goe this singular storie my dutie forbids my charitie any where to favour you with my silence And because you are so praejudic'd against unprinted traditions I will give it you for the most part out of some printed registers I have met with King Iames desirous to set off his Court with what luster he could to foraigne Ambassadeurs had in a provident magnificence retrench'd some allowance formerlie issued for his Courtiers attendants contracted their tables to enlarge his owne entertainments For the managing of this somewhat else concerning his revenue he had appointed eight officers of State where of some were Papists but of know'n intergritie The Resormado Courtiers by way of scorne call'd these Octavians made an easie impression into their Ministrie by suggesting that they had a designe to introduce Poperie subvert the whole discipline of the Church After private conference a fast for the smiting with the fist of wickednesse soon after was kept at Edenburgh Balcanqual preacheth spares neither King nor Councel in his virulence infuseth all the unpleasing particulars he could thinke of to imbitter his Satyr humblie beseecheth the Edenburgh Citizens at a certaine houre to meet in the New Church tells them how much it concern'd their reformed Euaugel His reservednesse sharpend their expectation caus'd their punctual assembling almost to a man where they found their Ministers in a formal Synod having chosen a violent Presbyter Mr. Robert Bruce their Moderator Here Mr. Blackes sufferings were aggravated the Kings violating the praerogative of the Church One Watson comes in addes oyle to the flame remonstrates his late repulse at Court denial of accesse to the King being sent with some Rebell-supplicate from the Brethren The Moderator with as much malice as my be comments at large upon every instance in a speach Makes it Gods cause engageth the people to assert the libertie of his Gospel if not by petition by power Some Commissioners are sent to the King then in the Tolbuith who receiving some checke for their unjustifiable proceedings come backe with their angrie account to the Assemblie One Alexander Vaux being as the Presbyters had praedesign'd mounted up above the congregation by a pillar with stretched out arme cries The sword of God of Gideon bid them to follow him in the vinaication of God his Church They take it out of his mouth in confusion clamour Arme Arme for God the Church They doe accordinglie rush violentlie into the streets beguirting the place where His Majestie was Mr. Thomas Hamilton afterwards Earke of Haddington takes an halberd in his hand with some of his friends keepes the multitude from entring Alexander Hume of Northborvick for the time Provest of Edenburgh Roger Mackmath whom the King ordinarilie called his Baylisse raise what power they can upon a sodaine the honest Hammermen come in to their assistance They demand first whether the Kings person be in safetie then by a mixture of faire words menaces make the rowt quit the place but not their riot for they by by rallie in the Mercate place The Captaine of the Castle turnes some canon upon the Towne by that militarie argument praevailes with rhem to disband The King is safelie guarded to his palace at Halyrud Howse For all this Brucc sends abroad his
writs to callâ—…in the Nobilitie to their succour some of whom had in zeale abetted the late tumult The Lord Forbes payd his sine for going into the street The Lord Hamilton hath an invitation to be General should have had his commission from the Synod no quaestion if he had signified his acceptance He very noblie loyallie delivers up his letter to the King detects the Rebellious project of the Discipline Some of the Ministers are sent for convicted obtaine pardon of the King but no actual oblivion from any his good subjects who ever after detested that disloyal sect branded the 17. day of December with the indeleble infamie of that prodigious attempt How like this lookes to an halfe houres tumult or petie fray How Ignorant were the People how innocent the commotion How free the Ministrie from being authours or approvers Let the Reviewers aequitablâ—… tomparers determine CHAPTER V. The Discipline exempts not the supreme Magistrate from being excommunicate TVatim agis The Bishop argues about excommunicating Kings you answer about censuring officials that pronounce sentence for non-payment of money wherein yet you are not more impertinent then malicious For you know well enough that sentence was not executed for that but for obstinacie against the power commands of the Church Wherein if any officials inconsideratelie proceeded it must not bring in quaestion the more deliberate prudence of them that made the constitution to that purpose The rash praecipitancie of the Scotish Presbyterian rule practice though many times very reprovable in the later I sinde not heere in the Bishops allegation nor of what magnitude the sinnes are for which they excommunicate though we have know'n a desertion of the Brethren in conspiracie against their Prince or a glance through their fingars an interpretative neutralitie hath been made the great sinne threatned with this censure Neither the Praelatical partie nor any orthodoxe Christians in the world come into your communion in the point of excommunicating their Kings nor comprehend them within the object of their Discipline by which though they have kept the sonnes of the Church in a filial awe yet ever reserv'd a paternal priviledge for their Kings the Nursing Fathers of the same Imperatoria unctione toâ—…stur poenitentia And the learned Grotius assures us that the Kings of France for many ages have expresselie challenged this exemption for themselves No poâ—…sint excommunicatâ—…i Rev … did never so much as intend the beginning of a processe against their King c. Ans. Christian prudence admits no such charitable glosses upon the Scotish intentions where is no colour of ambiguitie in their words In which if the King be a man or a Magistrate he must be necessarilie included made subject aswell to Church animadversion as admonition If Mr. Baylie hath a perspective for the thoughts of all his praedecessours he may enjoy the pleasure of such spiritual reviewes or revelations to himselfe but can have no demonstrative evidence to propagate the like confidence among others True causes of citation of Princes to an Assemblie is the peculiar language of the Discipline no such truth is implied in this truer text of Scripture Where the word of a King is there is power who may say unto him what dost thou The beginning of the next verse is not the Scotish Assemblie in answer to that quaestion What these true causes have been I have partlie manifested out of their storie their owne Registers justifying their successive meeknesse indulgence wherein though no King may be found excommunicateâ—… because their spiritual sword wanted luster and brightnesse to strike such amazement into Princes as to make them let fall the temporal one out of their hands yet not any one of them hath there been since the Assemblies were possess'd of their infernal commission but have been personallie threatned imprison'd depos'd or murdered they should have tasted the meeknesse of the Discipline in them all if the season had served they could have catch'd or kept them in their power Against which universal experience whether Mr. Baylie's single word may be taken for the future securitie of His Majestie his successours I submit with silent reverence to be debated in their Councel Rev. We love not the abused ground c. Ans. We are as litle in love with the Reviewers affronting of Kings as they with what he calls the Warners flatering of Princes To the quaestion he so magisteriallie propounds St. Ambrose notwithstanding his Act to Theodosius makes answer upon that speach of David cited by the Bishop addes the reason in such language as Mr. Baylie will not heare from any Canterburion-Praelate Quod nullis ipsi Reges legibus tenebantur quia liberi sunt Reges a vinclis delictorum The same is to be found in Isiodore Pelus And Tertulian to this purpose many hundred yeares before Presbyterie was hatch'd Sciunt Imperatores quis illis dederit imperium … sentiunt Deum esse solum in cujus solius potestate sunt a quo sunt secundi post quem primi ante omnes super omnes Deos homines And because the Reviewer calls this doctrine Episcopal let him take St. Hieroms note too by the way Rex ipse David alium non timebat This Catholike doctrine praeserves the Majestie of Princes de jure inviolable from the insolencle of Assemblies Where the abuse of it spurres them on to any dangerous praecipiâ—…es they are to stand or fall unto themselves The poor oppressed people would many times worke out their deliverance by prayers patience if the outragious Presbyters did not thrust them downe with the hazard if not destruction of their persons dash all civile government in pieces CHAPTER VI. Kings may sometime pardon capital offenders which the Disciplinarians denie As they doe their Royal right to any part of the Ecclesiastike revenue WEre your reasoning as methodical as the Bishops I should not be so in every Chapter at a losse to find out more to what then what to answer having hitherto met with none but Socrates's three darke principles in your booke tò chaos touti kai tas nephelas kai ten glottan confusion clouds tongue which among them have made such a mist in your own eyes such a clatering in your eares as you can neither see nor heare a good logical argument brought before you We that are above this disturbance at a distance observe his Lordship laying out the doctrine of your Discipline for so I 'll speake for once received by you all then illustrates it by your practice wherein if he had roome enough he would muster up so many particulars as with an c. might conclude an inductive universal Though the other way of acconsequential arguing hath been thought tolerable in Mr. Baylie no Doctour as I take it as not long since in his uncharitable mention made of Bishop
his person was faine to put away his friends of greatest trust the Chancellor Treasurer Baron Humes c. but within a moneth repents him appeales to his Nobles by their advice recalls them yet permits Bothwell to depart The Ministers are angrie that the Papists are not persecuted by fire sword They assemble without the Kings order call together the Barons Burgers Bothwell enters againe with 400. Horse as farre as Leith makes proclamation summons all in to defen'd religion put away evil Counsellers sends it to the Synod at Dunbar which favour'd it The same day he marcheth against 3000. of the Kings forces neare Edenburgh fainteth in his businesse and gets away to the borders Queen Elizabeth sets out a proclamation against him yet presseth the King for proscription of Papists The Lords are but few that meet expresse some reluctance at it The Ministers Burgers are many which vote it take their armes downe out of the windowes c. Argile is sent against them beaten The King drawes toword them permits three of Huntley's houses to be pull'd downe Huntley escapes to his Aunt in Sutherland thence into France These were Huntley's notorious crimes multiplied outrages which cryed up to the God of heaven Out of which let the world judge what reason the Ministers those mercifull men of God had to give such warning crie to the Iudges of the earth to shed his bloud That appearance with display'd banner against the King in person should be made an article against him by Mr. Baylie a loyal peaceable assertour of ten yeares armed rebellion in three Kingdomes I dare not adventure my spleen to discourse on but in Mr. Baylies language hope by his good advise the Prelates will no more Lull ' Princes asleep in such a sinfull neglect of their charge but breake off their slumber by wholesome seasonable admonitions from the word of God such as that Prov. 10. A wise King seatercth the wicked bringeth the wheel over them Or what other texts their Lordships better know applicable to the most just necessarie chastisment of schismatikes Rebells About E. Angus Errol you thinke your selfe not concern'd to make answer because your brother Presbyter Mr. Rob. Bruce gave King Iames leave to recall them but with this considerable sentence against E. Huntley Well Sir you may doe as you list But chuse you you shall not have me the E. Huntley both for you Pretie humble soules who can weigh downe the chiefest Earles in the ballancing of a state In the next paragraph you dawbe with untemper'd morter such as can never keep the Kings right to any Ecclesiastike revenue the claime of the Discipline together For having comprehended in the patrimonie of the Kirke all things without exception given or to be given to that the service of God All such things as by law or custome or use of Countreys have been applied to the use utilitie of the Kirke 2. book Disc. ch 9 And call'd them theeves murderers without exception of persons that alienate any part of this patrimonie 1. books Disc 6. head you are the innocent dove that here bring us newes That the Church never spoyld the King of any tithes while those birds of spoyle your forefathers have left him neither eare nor straw to possesse But to deale with you at your owne weapon in your words If the King never had any first fruits then as the Bishop sayth you are the Popes that with-held it by you that were the Reformers was that point of papacie maintained If he neither had nor demanded to what purpose toke you such paines to obtaine in favour of the Church to have it declar'd in Parliament That all benesices of cure under Praelacies shall in all time coming be fee of the first yeares fruits fift penie the Ministers have their significations of presentation past at the Privie seale upon His Majesties owne subscription his secretaries onelie without any payment or caution to his Treasurer for the sayd first fruits fift penie About tithes you say His Majestie the Church had never any controversie in Scotland How agrees this with your Declaratour in his appendix to the maintenance of your sanctuarie When the minor-age of a good King had been abused to the making of a law whereby the most of these rents first fruits Tithes the lands belonging to Bishoprikes were annexed to the crowne the Church very earnestlie do labour for restitution never gave over till these lawes were repealed If you review your records you will finde in the yeare 1588. that you had a plea with which you call an earnest suit to His Majestie about patronages such considerable opposition as put you upon inhibiting all commissioners Presbyteries to give collation or admission to any person praesented by authoritie from the King And to omit many a greater you had before with the Queen Anno 1565 The Nobilitie Gentrie were more beholding to your impotencie then patience for peace What gracious men yon have shewd your selves since your Rebell-Parliament got that incumbent power into your hands your congregations would speake if they durst whom you feed with the bread of violence with that you cover them as a garment So that whether the Presbyterie be not as good patrons of the people as they are vassals to the King need never more be quaestion'd in Scotland Whether by the wickednesse of Praelates or Presbyters the King Church were cousin'd of the tither will appeare by them that bragg'd most when they were most endanger'd by the sequestring the other patrimonie from the Church which I finde to be the Presbyters that could not keep councel but boasted they had given a seasonable blow unto the Bishops That legitimate power in the Magistrate the Bishop pleades for King James never declared to be a sinne against Father Son or Holy Ghost nor did ever the patrons of Episcopacâ—…e oppose it That changeling you here substitute in the roome calls you Father by the ridiculous posture in which it stands your friend Didoclave had more ingenuitie then to inferre a claime to the power of preaching celebrating the Sacraments upon the power of iurisdiction over Ecclesiastical persons derived upon the King from his praedecessours in England given them by a statute Verba statuti de jurisdictione non de simplici functionum sacrarum administratione intelligenda esse quis dubitat The well grounded consequences which you call Castles in the aire will hereafter batter your Presbyterie to the ground when Princes shal retract their too liberal indulgence take a courageous resolution to claime their own relie upon Gods providence to maintaine it King Iames had given you the practical meaning of his wise sentence seven yeares before he spake it at St. Andrews For as you may very well remember when His
men most likelie to make good the interest you aim'd at This you were before practising in England where your Sectarian Masters that had set you on horsebacke mean'd not to take your bridle in their mouthes and be rid by your ambition to their ruine Though you advis'd them faire for 't in your Papers March 3. 1644. requiring to have the officers in their armie qualified to your purpose… men know'n to be zealous of the reformation of religion and of that uniformitie Which both Kingdomes are obiiged to promote and maintaine c. As in September the yeare before you told them you could not conside in such persons to have or execute place and authoritie in the armie raised by them who did not approve and consent to the Covenant Which I sinde by one well acquanted with your meaning interpreted thus You desired to have zeaious hardic men out of the North whose judgement about the Covenant and treatie had concurred so as to introduce your Nation to be one of the Estates of England to have a negative voice in all things who would have pleaded your cointerest with the Parliament of England in the Militia of the Kingdome disposal of places and officies of trust c. Having faild there of your cointerest with the Parliament you straine here for your cointerest with the King and would have the commanding power of his militant Kingdome in their hands that should have held His Majestie like a bird in a string which if he once stretch'd for recovering his own just liberties or his peoples they could have pluck'd him in to clip his troublesome wings or cage him at their pleasure The firmnesse of your Covenanting Commanders to the interest of God the Dispeller reveales in his experience of their striking hands with hell in cursing and swearing plundering and slealing which might have sill'd the hearts of the people had your poison not been administred under the guilt of wholesome advice with more rational jelausies and feares then any by past miscariages of them whose designe at that time was very hopefull and honourable otherwise then as it caried the fatal praetext of your Covenant before it To let the world know how long your mysterie of iniquitie hath been working in the bowells of the State the Bishop alledgeth ancient praecedents of So. yeares standing from more impartial more credible relations then those in yourRomance falselie intitled An Historical Vindication What you shovell in here about treacherous correspondence with Spaine is but an handfull of sand without lime adhaeres not at all to the Inquisitours troubling the Merchants in their religion nor that to your admonishing the people to be warie in their trade nor all at all to the truth which the Bishop tells you was a Synodical Act prohibiting their traffique under the rigid poenaltie of excommunication which all the art you have can not melt into a friendlie advertisement Those of the Merchants whom you say the Inquisitours seduced required no relaxation Nor were the rest so persecuted as to be discourag'd in their trade when they petition'd the King to maintaine that libertie where of your spiritual chaines had depriv'd them Therfore all your courteous mediation was but a disguis'd Imperious prohibition whereby you checkt the King and in ordine ad spiritualia tooke it for granted you mated him by the Merchants weake submission to your Censure Could we but once take it your Church in agrieving fit for her owne so publike profanesse in the daylie breach of the 5 6 other commandaments that follow we would tolerate her zeale though not commend her discretion in her will worship superstitious nicitie touching the violation of the fourth But when we finde her enlarging her conscience to laugh at rebellion murder c. We guesse her crocodiles teares to be more out of designe then compastion her mouth open for the destruction of them that are not through knowledge of her hypocritie delivered The profanation of the Sabbath is not so in conjunction with à Monday mercate but that à Saterdays journey with some sixpeenie losse or à Sunday nights watch and labour might separate them Your holie supplications were leven'd with Iudaisme which had not the Bishops in Christian libertie eluded as your advantage might lie the Parliament might have next been importund to Dositheus's follie to erect à rediculous statuarie Sabbath in your Countrey Though I heare all were not so hard hearted as you make them but that Patrike Forbes Bishop of Aberdene did translate the mercates which are none of the least in his diocese to wednesday as the provincial records of that place will testifie From the obstruction made by the rest to your petitions you cannot inferre what you have formd in a calumnie about their doctrine example on that day What sorts of playes which were not all if you reckon right the most emminent Bishops either us'd or tolerated were such as consisted with and spirited the Dominical dutie of publike and private devotion wherein they had the authoritie and praecedent of otherguesse Christians then any scotish Assemblie praecisians and seconded with reason such as hitherto you never seriouslie and solidelie answered If they endeavoured to make the Sunday no Sabbath they did it in a farre better sense and on better grounds then Rob. Bruce could have changd it as you know he endeavoured to Wednesday or Friday and Lent from spring to Autumne on purpose to priviledge the pure brethren ' in the singularitie of their worship and free them from a profane communion though not in the time with Papists and Praelates If the Bishops had a designe to advance their Kingdome by such old licentiousnesse and ignorance as this innocent libertie might be feard to reduce We know to whom the Presbyters somewhere are beholding at least for their Sabbath policie though they thinke good to enlarge it beyond Episcopal sports and playes to publike mercates to brewing fulling grinding carying beer corne dung and indeed what not except opening whole shops and wearing old clothes For redressing which I doe not finde your compassionate prayers to god or advice to them which I remember you us'd so effectual as to make any amendment or gaine any proselytes to your circumcised severitie Therefore till you praevaile I pray let the Bishops be troubled no more with what all your flintie fac'd malice can not appropriate to the times or places of their government What hath been granted since you cast them out of the Parliament was by them that had no more power in one sense to giue then in another to denie Yet had all your demands meant no worse then you spake in that about the due sanctification of the day you might have let them sit still have had the Souters your friends reconcil'd and made a better mercate of those Royal concessions which met too farre unlesse your gratitude had been greater your unlimited reguests For the
Religion the ordinarie reformation whereof is referred to your Ecclesiastical Assemblies are such onelie as appeare to be peccant against the ordinarie rule or canon by just authoritie established But that the Canon it selfe should be alterable at the pleasure of subjects in a combined Assemblies declining their subordination to a superiour power in King and Parliament and making them selves not onelie absolute to act but supreme to praescribe is contradictorie to all law and aequitie nor can any necessitie countenance it What you finde wrong in the Church according to your method must be no other then that which had been formerlie decreed in some of your Assemblies which must implie a fallibilitie in their application of the rule This errour when you goe about to rectifie from the word of God you may chance to have no clearer evidence then your praedecessours nor the people assurance that your eyesight is better So that for ought they know one blinde Assemblle may leade another by the hand and both with their followers fall into the ditch Beside It may so hapen that religious Acts answerable to the word may be offensive to some wicked Assemblie that have not the feare of God before their eyes These if they have the power to be sure they want not perversenesse to abolish for which I finde no cautionarie restraint in your discipline For after you have praetended to rectifie if upon your dissembling petition a following Parliament refuseth to ratifie that you have power to abolish and establish what you please I finde every where confessd by your faction And this indeed as you say is your ordinarie method of proceeding in Scotland but in no other Reformed Countrey who every where attribute to the Magistrate an Architectonike power in the Church and but a ministerical or instrumental to any Synod or Assemblie Videlius and other your brethren of note on this subject making you Bellarmines papists though when your Kings stand publikelie in opposition against you for the maintenance of their right 't is quaestionable whether his most plausible reasons will as well priviledge you in his doctrine The legal method of England you know well enough is otherwise and therfore can not ad mit of your Discipline without altering the fundamental lawes the most essential part of gouverment in our kingdome The three foolish unlearned quaestions that follow tell us you are in the mind to gender strises rather then according to Saint Pauls counsel follow righteousnesse fayth charitie or peace To the first I answer Christians of old before the Emperial lawes for paganisme were revoked were more or lesse hindred from embracing the Gospell according to the zeale rigour remissenesse or clemencie of the Emperours that reigned Those that obeyd not their commands suffer'd their punishments resisted no powers reversed no lawes Nay it s as high a trial as can well be instanc'd when Maximilian Diocletian publishd an edict to demolish their Churches and burne their Bibles because one was found that in great in dignation tore the paper in peices being condemned to die all Christians that heard it approved the sentence and commended the justice of the pagan Magistrate in his execution To the second thus The oecumenical and National Sâ—…nods of the ancients had ever the praesence or authoritie of the Emperour without which they reformed no haeresies nor corruptions in religion Who by ratifying their canons did cancel all the lawes of state which did protect those errours When this could not behad but with praejudice to religion the Emperours them selves being draw'n in by the haeretikes to their partie they onelie declared their different opinion submitted to censure were disspersed in exile nor did they countermand by the terrour of excommunication and cursing but when summond by the Emperour to rectifie any abuses in the Church This may be seen in the time of Constantius addicted to the Arians To your third I answer thus The civile lawes in Britanie I meane for our part in it whereby Poperie was established were annull'd by the King whom we make absolute in that power If the reformation begun by Hen 8. be thought clogg'd with any seeming violence sacriledge or schisme which some ties on his conscience that requir'd a more deliberate solution and some indirect passionate procedings give the Papists a kinde of coloural argument to object I see not how you are justified that imitate it nor we bound to susteine the inconveniences that attend it who may fairlie make the reigne of K. Edward our epoch and from him in his first Parliament fetch our authoritie for the change On your side of Britain I finde naught but a continued rebellion in the reforming partie as you meane it till K. Iames grew up to a judgement of discerning and some resolution of restraining Nor till that time though I hope well of many thousand persons under a Presbyterian persecution can I in reason quit the praevalent part of your Church from a succession in schisme For Germanie and France I have no more to do at this time to be their judge then their advocate seeing no where His Lp. joyning with his brother Issachar in impleading then for rebellion All you can logicallie collect is such a major as this They who reforme according to the Presbyterian Scotish metâ—…od by abolishing Acts of Parliament in a surreptious or violent Synod by framing Assemblie Acts for religion and giving them the authoritie of Ecclesiastical lawes without or against the consent of the Magistrate cheate the Magistrate of his civile power in order to religion If you will needs be assuming in behalfe of your brethren in Germanie and France they must put you to prove it or quit them selves of your conclusion as they can In the meane time I see your pasture is bad that you turne your catell so often grazing abroad For the foole in the next line you send to the Bishop I guesse it may be his minde to have him return'd by the creature that caries his brother Issachaâ—… burden expecting a wiser answer by the next paper Mercurie you imploy which can not be without bringing to light that law that praeauthoriz'd the Ministers protestation against the Acts of Parliament 1584. And that Act of Parliament since the null Assemblie of Glasgow yet standing in force that made Bishops and ceremonies vnlaw full The former beside the contradiction it caries with it devolving the legislative power upon the Kirke which according to you can keep the Parliament in awe not by petitioning but protesting and so ratifie or null all lawes declared at her pleasure The latter beside the long perseverance in sinne it imputes to the Latin and Greek Churches as well before as after the corruption in either the late warmnesse to all Reformed Churches abroad which never hitherto in any National Assemblie declared regular Episcopacie and ceremonies unlawfull outdoing the very Act of abolishing which his Majestie in Parliament ratified
with reference to no unlawfullnesse but inconvenience retracted that too in his too late yet seasonable repentance afterward Though for what His Lp. objects were there too after Acts of Parliament to ratifie the substance of what the Kirke repraesents no one of them thereby justifies the circumstance of Ministers mutinous protesting against lawes made in houres of darkenesse upon what misinformation soever which is treason against man and excusable by no formal obedience toward God This for the Bishop to publish being one of the Governers of that Church which strangers plot what they can to seduce into the same rebellion with their owne is no contemning of law but discharging his conscience and dutie in his place By the next storie the Bishop will gaine a more perfect discoverie of your resembling those grievous revoiters in Jeremie who walke with slanders being brasse iron Who bend your tongue like a bowe for lies and yet when the true case is know'n be accounted by Solomon but a fool for your labour In King James's minoritie who stole his name though they ner had his heart to act by it the most unnatural oppresion of that most gallant Queen his vertuous and gracious mother to murder and banish many noble assertours of the reformed orthodoxe religion lawes appeares upon publike record in your storie This one Capt. Iames Stuart very noblie with standing your divellish temptations to have him maintaine a distructive dissention at Court with Esme Stuart E Lenox a faythfull subject most deserving favourite of the Kings improving that litle interest you helpt him to to a more Christian conjunction in love and loyaltie and a double vigilancie over the Kings person exposed too often to your treacherous designes is unlikelie to have any better character at your hands then what you commonlie give to persons of such sidelitie and honour His advancement to the titles estate of E. Arran Chancellar of Scotland was partlie in reward of his guardian care over him whom somwhat else beside sicknesse had made unfit for the management of either Yet were not these taken by force But on free session then desperate to whom if the King were nearest in bloud not to mention a third which your zealous professours commonlie finde him his Majestie had a double title to his lands a power undisputable to dispose of the Chancellars office at his pleasure What beside Capt. Iames's unheard of oppressto is which dirt his zeale for religion contracts when it passeth through the uncleane chanell of any Presbyters mouth troubled the Nobilities Patience the reader may finde somewhat more trulie and impartiallie related not onelie in the Apocriphal histories of the two Rt. Reverend Arch-Bishops of Canterburie and Saint Andrewes but even in the Canonical tradition of Philadelphs Vindicatour who praemiseth some repulse your Church Delegates had about their querulous petitions A difference that fell out between E. Lenox Gowrie about some point of honour to revenge which he calls Murre Glame and diverse other disquiet discontented spirits into a confaederacie whom you call a number of the prime best affected nobiiitie which improper title he more ingenouslie declines in a peice of Rethorical ignorance putting his hand more modestlie before his eyes as loth to looke on their sinfull rebellious demeanour Qualcscunque fuerint plerique eorum non multum laberabo … qualis quisque corum suerit nescio applies the blinde mans speach ' in the 9. of Saint Iohn to the authours of the miracle in this change And beside the mere boast no violence you rejoyce in confesseth diverse of the Kings servants were wounded among the rest William Stuart the newes whereof brought Capt. Iames thither Who was not chaced away by their strong breath but clapt up into a castle by their power the Kings guard being before remov'd from him and His Majestie taken by Gowrie and his conspiratours into custodie The E. Lenox banished into France where with in a short time he died whether by griefe principallie or his sicknesse he defines not He addes That the Heads of this faction sent the Abbot of Paslet to your Assemblie at Edaenburgh for their approbation who what soever they did afterward at that time onelie thanked God for deliverance viz from the imminent instice of the law to which most of their Members were lyable durst not approve the businesse or appeare to doe it at least put up a non'sense petition to God praying him it were well done after it was done and whether well or ill then unalterable by their prayers or indeed by devine power whose omnipotencie is not limited when denied to make good moral contradictions to pleasure an hypoeritical Assemblie He speakes nothing of the Kings sending to his Councel or judicatories to declare the act of the Lords convenient and lawdable for which he expected no reasonable mans credulitie nor patience unlesse so farre as to spit it backe into his face Nor yet of His Majestics entreating the Assemblie but of their sending Delegates to him The answer he gave them if any or such as the Vindicator hath helpt us to is much different from yours and though not extorted by the terrour of death which may well be suspected by the successive treasonable attempts of the same Gowrie and his sonne afterward gives litle approbation of the fact being onelie his acknowledgement of a blessing from God for delivering his person and the Commonwealth from mischiefe by which doubtlesse he meant the happie praeservation of his life So that I againe appeale to your aquitable comparers what historical truth we are likelie to have of your penning when seting one Disciplinarian brother against another without consulting unprinted records we can confute you line by line among your selves The letter His Majestie sent to Q. Elizabeth was forced Regem invitum compulerunt sayth Camden where by he allowed no more that act for good service then he would have done a thiefe for taking but his purse when he might likewise have had his life But to proceed Capt I'ames shortlie after crept not in but was calld Revocatur Aranius sayth your brother Therevenge whether obtaind by him or no was but the justice of the law executed with litle severitie upon any but moderated by the mercie of a gracious King and tenderd to all upon submission But traitourous Assemblies giving universal allowance for possible misfortunes had ever an aftergaime of treacherie in reserve Therefore the Ministers running at this time into a voluntarie exile was upon the apprehension of their guilt diffidence even in the word of a King for their impunitie if not rather a designe to make His Majestie secure and so to praepare for the treason at Striveling that followed few moneths after where not onelie Capt I ames was chac'd away but the Kings life endangerd for which Gowrie very justlie payd his owne These their actions were ratified by no Parliament but a partie nor
truths ordained for peace but encountred with troubles and their abettours expos'd to susteime the envie and obloquie of the world Therefore alasse its in vaine for you to invite them to come nearer to hang out like a dead cat in her skin unlesse you meane to have every one of them moral the rest of the fable with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But to leave off speaking in parables I desire the reader in plaine English to marke the base ingratitude of an unworthie Presbyter In that when a most ingenuous peace-desiring Prince for him he meanes when he speakes of his Praelatical adversaries invaded by audacious importunitie encompassed with all external visible necessitie placing himselfe upon the very pinacle of Christi-an charitie shall yeild all that the softest gentlest Casuist can indulge and that upon such conditions as how easie soever the perfidious contractours litle thinke to make good he must be argued with upon the ominous advantage of hiâ—… owne gratuitie praetended from his adventurous kindnesse to be demonstrativelie convinc'd to give up the rest of that which rebellious license schismatical singularitie and degenerate malice have now so devested into a new creature as neither law custome nor honour can call that English Bishop which religion instituded and reformation confirmed But a crou'd of guiltie conjured malefactours presseth shame and the proverbe to nothing so that ingratum si dixeris nihil dixeris Seneca knew it who had studied the point and experienc'd the practice Pudorum tollit multitudo peccantium desinet esse probri loco commune maledictum But to send you backe some of your owne logike and language If this naked bird which you so pleasantlie play with be a new creature because the feathers are pluckt then you must confesse that old creature revested with those Euaugelical beauties and Royal graces which once it possessed to be that know'n true English Bishop that in honour law custome if not in conscience which I need not suppose is to be inviolablie maintain'd when it shall be made to appeare as it may very easilie and hath been very frequentlie that such an order not much differentlie fashion'd and habited ever was and ever is to be in the Christian Church To make good the mutual toleration indented for between your sectarian brethren and your alltogetheras sectarian selves you closelie decline the warners confidence which avowes those texts of Scripture you wrest against Bishops with as much colour of reason and more truth the Independents may urge against Presbyters being resolv'd since you finde they can make you their province at pleasure if not command a transmigration of your Euangel to argue no more against them then to fight The triumph you make in two painted Syllogismes is very improperlie plac'd before the victorie where though you ride like a George on horsebacke in a pageant you will passe for no beter then a dumbe shew and with your wooden launce be mistaken by none but children and fooles for that primitive armed Saint that kill'd the dragon If you cast not your texts in a couple of better molds your workemanship will beare as litle the image of Gods word as your selves doe of the reasonable men that he created Were His Lp. at better leisure his great promises would reengage him in more necessarie imployments then answering every silie Presbyter in his follie but his Acolythus servant if not because he hath taken up so much of the similitude allreadie will for once and it may be oftner follow Solomons advice in the next verse seeing you so very wise in your owne conceit The first text you are medling with is Ephes 4. 11. whence your imaginarie argument not to be denied adoration is this Maj All the officers that Christ has appointed in his Church for the ministrie of the word are either Apostles Euangelists Prophets Pastours or Doctours Mi But Bishops are none of these five Ergo. You pleade custome for the free unquaestionable passage of your major which you must give me leave to obstruct first excepting against the improprietie of your termes being such as may evacuate your argument the Ministrie of the word when the Bishops discourse is about the regiment of the persons to whom the word allreadie is ministred Secondlie demanding to have it under Saint Pauls hand whether the offices he mentions of Apostolate prophecie c were by Christs institution for the personal perfecting of Saints in a Church established and not as the word seemes rather to signifie Pros ton Catartismon toon hagioon for jointing or knitting new Saints to the Church new membres to the bodie of Christ in the propagation of his gospel so aedisying the bodie of Christ by the worke of the Ministrie which in the next verse seemes to end in the unitie of fayth that is the general conversion of nations to Christianitie Thirdlie whether this enumeration of the Apostle's be universal to which 〈◊〉 finde more particulars added 1. Co. 12. 28. among them dynameis Kyberneseis Powers governments the former of which that you may not cavill about superinfused gifts he makes as much personal or persons as that of Apostle prophet Teacher vers 29. Besides that he expresselie calleth the Elders of the Church of Ephesus Bishops tells them they were instituted by the holie spirit which we know came downe to fulfill the promise by the mission of the sonne so they must passe upon account as officers appointed by Christ. Three fifths of your Minor thus you prove Bishops are not Apostles Euangelists nor prophets because they are confessed extraordinarie temporarie Bishops ordinarie perpetual To which I answer First That Bishops are Apostles in their ordinarie power of ordination jurisdiction though not in their extraordinarie of working miracles speaking with diverse tongues c. And this Tertullian hath sayd above 1300. yeares since who arguing with the haeretikes about succession bids them turne over their records shew that their first Bishop was an Apostle or Apostolical because personallie ordained by one of them This the Apostolical Churches could doe as that of Smyrna shewes Polycarp because placed there by Saint Iohn That of Rome Clement because ordained by St. Peter And such Bishops as these he calls Apostolici seminis traduces If they be Apostolical grafts good Mr. Baylie from what tree thinke you were they taken and of what may they without arrogancie beare the name Other of the Ancients call'd Timothie Bishop of Ephesus an Apostle among whom what enterfeering there was of these two termes you may reade in Theodoret upon 1. Tim. Jn the like sense may they be sayd to be Euangclists aswell as in the Revelation they are called Angele who praeside over the preaching of the Gospell and publication of it to them that have not heard Euangelion Kerygma being the same And they either are or should be Prophets in one kinde according to Saint Ambrose
si correxeris fratrem solvisti eum in terra Sainr Austin which seemes to be the proper meaning of the place After all which I expect you should make some apologie for your brethren abroad that in the yeare 1563. Sept. 6. excommunicated Iohn Morell the Frenchman for writing this doctrine burn'd his booke and interdicted under a great poenaltie the reading any copie of it that might escape them The third 1. Cor 5. appeares not evidentlie to put the power of jurisdiction in a companie of men met together Theophylact taking it for a modest condescension in Saint Paul to joine the Corinthians with himselfe whose solitarie power was absolute Hiname doxe autades Kai autous proslambanei Koinoonous And the context importing the sentence such as it was to be but declarative in them them by the vertual praesence of the Apostles spirit and judicial in Saint Paul who had passed it before ede Kekrika sayth he vers 3. Though it will trouble you to prove that here was any jurisdiction exerciz'd delivering to Satan being probablie but a desertion of the partie peccant using no intercession in his behalfe but leaving him naked for Satan to assault him with corporal torments which prodigious punishment was usual in those times Excommunication it can not be because it limits his censure to the destruction of the flesh deprives him not of the Sacraments the want whereof is destructive to the spirit The twelfth verse addes no strength to your argument the sense seeming to be onelie this I have nothing to doc to judge them that are without but leave them to God I have to doc to judge them that are within worthie of deliverance up to Satan And ye judge them that is deliver them up when ye are gathered together my spirit As he had sayd vers 4. So it is Saint Pauls spirit that is principal in this jurisdiction and the companie of men met together but his delegates or assistants convocated at his pleasure To Your assumption I likewise answer That the Bishop is as much the Church as Saint Paul in this case and hath as much of the ordinarie power transmitted to him So that you see it requires not the Doctours learning but the search of his Acolythus and servant to satisfie you if you will be with antiquitie reason Which being done you may send more scirptural arguments against Episcopacie by your brethren of the next Commission Touching those you have brought allreadie you need not be so confident in calling for their answer unlesse they were somewhat better The visible leisure is in none but such as you your courteous Disciples in England have procured to be imprison'd in severall goales of both Kingdomes others having businesse enough by shifting from one place to another to secure their persons and save their lives from your crueltie The poor prisoners have few visible helpes to that purpose If you will finde courage or conscience enough to undertake their free accesse to the Fathers and other authours that are visiblie necessarie to that purpose I have enough left still to assure you in the name of them that have more learning then they boast of that whatsoever becomes of your punie Clerkes Master Parker and Didoclave who may be easilie turn'd of with some carefull quotations and references to a multitude of bookes allreadie printed Master Blondels magazine of antiquitie shall be seiz'd on and what in it is upsie Scotch which is not all for the presbyterie you bragge of shall in spight of your power be rescued for the true owners that is the Bishops For your meracle of learning the most noble Somais we wish he may worke more such wonders as he hath of late and send his petie advocate a new blew bonnet at parting trimmed with a distick begining if he pleaseth Ille ego qui quondam for his fee. Were publike masters of fact as mysterious as the intrigues in your spiritual Iunto and Consistorian Caballs some Endor oracle must perchance have been consulted and one of your blacke guardant Angels been superstitiouslie worship'd or ceremoniouslie waited upon for revelation But when the bookes of the dead are before their day opened by your hands and their workes of darknesse registred by your pennes the warner may every where without an ironie proclaime his knowledge in your storie as great as his strictest search and as certaine as your rash consession could create King Iames's 55. quaestions so troubled the Scotish divines that they finding their plea of divine right and immutabilitie of their discipline to be disputed the Perth Assemblie indicted principallie for that purpose to divert the King if not otherwise to praevent his multiplying such problemes to which David Blackes processe the businesse about the banish'd Lords may be annexed they rais'd a desperate sedition on the 17. of December which allreadie is discours'd on Their if you meane the Synods answer was not so round but that they first protested parlied about their priviledge at the conference with His Majestie and the Estates required time to returne reason vote resolve in all points If thereafter the propounders were speachlesse in the businesse it might be because the Synod caried it for the King and determined the problemes in his sense which for ought I know is that the Bishop meanes by yeilding the bucklers without any opposition The maner and time might very well perplexe them being in a free Synod and meeting with their bold contestation for David Blacke Nor were they troubled onelie at the Erastian Praelatical Counsellers about the King but at Patrike Galloway and Iames Nicolson of late Saints but now it should seem become Apostate presbyters in the Synod The quaestions put by the King were not captious and carping at the parts of Church discipline but a just controversie raised about the whole fairlie propounded freelie discussed deliberatelie resolved to the satisfying his conscience and silencing schismatical scruples for the future I have often told you no statutes of Parliament nor Acts of any but factious Assemblies authorisd your Discipline though were it ratified as you would have had it by any other set your jusdininum aside and fetch not your praecedent from the Medes and Perâ—…ans a power aequivalent to that which did it might reverse it The visible Church in your countrey at that time was not so farre from yeildino to Episcopacie but that your brother confesseth the cranie was then made by which it afterward crept in though I am at a losse for so much day light in your storie as to see the yeare when legallie it was thrust out Perhanerimam sayth he ad essentialia ipsa externi regiminis impetendum extruendum Episcopatum aditum sibi patefecerunt You can not denie but that it brought them thus farre on their way to the title of Praelates and voting in Parliaments Wicked states men at that time beares the same signifiancie with
Reader makes the incongruitie none of mine disregard the High Priests commands of a disterent Religion and obey God rather then man The contrarie wayes taken in Scotland by Church and state so King or Queen may he accounted head or Member of the later have not been so rare if the Historie of your foure last Princes be reviewed Against three of whom Pope Knox personallie and in his Synod made very frequent opposition which he bragges of in print I shall not need to number your rebellious Acts and papers against the fourth In the possibilitie of such cases which you tenderlie admit your modestie being great to acknowledge the fallibilitie of Assemblies the common rule of humane direction's very good had it been not onelie know'n by you but followed The difference upon disobedience to either is not fairlie repraesented temporal inconveniences in seditious tumults to the hazard of life often befalling men by the displeasure of the Church And by terrour or force a rescue from punishment legallie to be inflicted contrarie to the good pleasure of the state Your interdiction of festivals viz. Our Saviours Nativitie to be observed and Bishops to sit in Parliament when summon'd by the King seemes in your sense to implie no contrarietie of command and are therefore slighted as impertinent objections The other two you speake to but not answer Not the former but in a fallacie somewhat like that which Logicians call of composition and division The Magistrates that were to attend the French Ambassadours being not excepted in your indiction of the fast but included with the people and yet as excusable divided by you in the observance The truth of Church ceâ—…sure intended can be no calumnie the Major and Aldermen being cited and convented for their feasting nor had the processe fallen to ground but through the prudent delayes interposed by the King I must here put you in minde that your Brethren in Holland indict no fasts but by the Magistrates consent and your discipline being praetended to be the same you could not doe it at this time when the King commanded feasting without coordinating Soveraignities or which is worse abolishing his to ordaine your owne In your answer to the later instance you must cut the tails of your humble petitions and remonstrances which were tipt and turn'd up with defiances and threats under the notion of portents to the Kings person his familie And throw your covenant into the fire which engaged the takers in pursuance of your contrarie commands by opposing Acts and Persons of state too beyond a declaration of their dislike The watchman in Ezekiel whose example you counterfeit and whose authoritie you abuse was to warne when God brought the sword upon a land not to arme nor remonstrate when he sent it out The falshood of your Church-chasing and excommunicating persons in the late engagement were it any could at most be fayd but to be antidated by the Bishop we since daylie conversing with such persons who live not very comfortablie in these parts yet dare not returne home And your publike papers ranking them in 4. classes or divisions excluding them out of places of trust or power censuring them to sackcloth banishing excommunicating all that repent not for their active loyaltie as a sinne The Bishop chargeth no man with detracting from the freedome of the Parliament that engaged them He onelie anticipates by his answer such a probable praetense In the place whereof since you frankelie give us the advantage of your confession in your next you must shew upon what sure grounds you protest preach warne declare against the power of the Kingdome in a sree Parliament in publike Iudicatories and armies which you confesse you did in your paper May 11. as I take it 1649. As likewise how your declaring of became censuring in judgement and your dissatisfaction transformed into a sentence The heapesof untruths when your spectatours wipe their eyes will be easilie discerned cast on your side of the way So that they will not wonder at your falsifying Histories of old times when the relation of your latest know'n practices is by your fierie tongue branded with the ignominie of a lie The generation you speake of who keep up their credit according to the rate of too many mens idlenesse or in advertence can draw no clearer pedegree then from your Synod whose words can no more weigh with truth in the ballance then their teeth whence they are lightlie flow'n can with the Silesian boyes endure the touch CHAPTER X. No concord between Parliament and Presbyterie THe harmonie betwixt your Presbyterie and Parliament when any is discors concordia and but still musike at best such as once was made between Parma and Placentia by the concurrent identitie of the capital leters in thier names So that when their Duke writ himselfe Dux P. P. and no more their ambition was silenced about prioritie in his title And if we looke any farther into yours we are encounterd caninâ literâ wish that mastiue leter which it may be mysticallie snarles as much against the name as your power assaults the authoritié of the other And when you take upon you the writing both at large your humilitie and Courtship is such as here ever to give praecedence unto your selves Your constitution must be look'd upon as no other then a caelestial quintessence Your end know'n to be compassing a temporall aswell as a spiritual tyrannie your daylie practice subduing swaying both scepters of Jesus Christs The Praelatical learning you see takes no higher flight then the next instance to prove the conclusion in hand And he whose fayth must be forced to credit such unanswerable arguments hath indeed litle or no common sense or reason in him but mistakes snow to be blacke because he lives in a dungeon goes upon hot coales and feeles not his benummed seet to be burnt the light in him is darknesse because of his evil eye quantae tencbrae how great is that darkenesse S. Matth. 6. 23. What perpetual iarrings hath been between you I have otherwhere shewed which never failed but when you tamper'd with the strings tuned both instruments to your eare I see the late engagement often serv'd up is enough a lone to take off your stomake yet that insipide colewort must be set upon your table while your table contimues a snare to eatch your selves withall and that bill of fare though but one dish repeted till it choke the rebellious guerts of the Assemblies your paper of eight desires contained 8. very insolent demands in place of that submission which the Parliament sent for I can not say expected What justice and necessitie may be in them was not at any time by you nor by any at that time to be expostulated to the retarding that more just and necessarie designe If the Parliament counted upon any it reckoned withall the satisfaction it had render'd Wherin it had been rather
because they are the men that ought to speake just like you denie all supremacie Their first language is this Quis dominus Who is Lord over use The Politician I spake of hath a discourse worth your reading wherein he shewes you how Maliomet stirred up the people against Heraclius the Emperour He sayth as much for Calvin your protoplast which whatsoever may be apologiz'd for him I am sure is inexcusable in Knox and you that are the workemanship of his hands This made Charles the good so prudent and resolute who being become too unhapie in nothing more then in suffering your Babel building to be finished in Scotland when he beheld the like worke of your fellow Rebell Architects in England would not exclude himselfe out of doores nor part with that power whereby he might best restraine the seditious exorbitances of Ministers tongues who with the keyes of heaven have so farre the keyes of the peoples hearts as they praevaile much by their oratorie to shut in and let out both peace and loyaltie While the Warner scosfes at your threats his meaning is to have deluded people to scorne them and know in your words that the thundrings of the Scotish aswell as that Roman Anti-Christ are but vanitie and â—…inde To tell them in a figure that hell and death are no more in your keeping then the gaole in the prisoners that walkes abroad in the streetes with his shakels about him but must render himselfe at the end of his covenant The Praelates proclamation of such Atheisme as this is a printed copie out of the original writ by the fingar of God in the 10. S. Matth. Whereby is to be banished out of the hearts of the people all feare of them which kill the bodie but are not able to kill the soul for all their kirke-bulls and censures that threaten it To the quaestion you close with I answer That Satan hath driven allreadie the first instruments of his Republike in Britaine into a very narow roome in the North where Cromwell and other his more usefull instruments at praesent are likelie to keep them till if God neither convert nor by a miracle otherwise confound them his worke being done he may lash them with whips of their owne making topt ' with Serpents heads and Scorpions tailes and at last deliver them to the worme that shall not die cast them into the fire that shall not be quenched and make their stinking memorie an abhorring unto all slesh The third part of the parallel hath been in every particular justified and were more instances requisite to evidence the truth they might be a numberlesse number of such imputations as you are never able to refute The charge which the Bishop subjoines is not so poore but that it enricheth his proofe with the best argument of your spiritual supremacie The daylie practice of the Parliaments of Scotland such as have been of late and heretofore when your Reformation tooke place constitutes no right confirmes no power os nominating commitees for intervalls Nor is there any inhaerent right in Courts to nominate interreigning Commissioners but by Royal favour in such as except their intertearming vacations are perpetual and standing not call'd by fits ad placitum Domini Regis no not in the Parliament it selfe Which to omit other proofes was the ground of this clause in their Act of oblivion 1641. That the peace to be now established may be inviolablie observed in all time to come It is agreed that some shall be appointed by His Majestie and the Parliaments of both Kingdomes who in the interim betwixt the sitting of the Parâ—…ments may be carefull that the peace now hapilie concluded may be tontinued c. … And it is declared that the power of the Commission shall be restrained to the articles of peace in this treatie As likewise of that fatal Act for perpetuating the last blacke Parliament in England which had probablie neâ—…r been required if it might have nominated a Committe of state that idol to which it now sacrificeth in bloud to sit till the next summons upon any inhaerent right in that Court. For the Iudicatories of your Church I am tired with telling you that no law of the Kingdome doth privativé authorize them to meet their Assemblie being illegal without the King or his Commissioner neither of which are to come upon course or at call And their power of appointing Committees hath as often been quaestion'd and how often is that as it ever was executed without or against the positive consent or command of the King or Queen for the time And trulie the committees in the times os your late troubles were the Ambuscado wherein you lay closelie in wait to disturbe both Church and state while your armed bodie in Parliament retired Whose frequent meetings were forced no otherwse then by the incessant zeale in their Members to persecute Religion and loyaltie Whose diversion from their particular charges for attendance on the publike rebellion was join'd with so great fascherie and expense to fullfill their lusts at other mens cost Which with all their heart they will in Sempiternum continue if feare of their neckes make them not at length slip out of the collar or their grey haires and withered carkasses after many a surfeit call them not to some other account or their Chiefe in whose service they made these necessarie meetings pay them not their necessarie wages in pertusum sactulum into a bag full of holes which shall never be filled no more then was the measure of the iniquitie they acted CHAPTER XI The Presbyterie cruel to particular persons IF King and Parliament be as they may very well incenced against the Presbyterie at sight of the Bishops reason more then out of sympathie with him in his anger his warning hath taken in part the effect that he wished and aim'd at Yet in vaine shall they vindicate all just authoritie to themselves if the people be kept in a servile observance of a tyrannous discipline pay their blinde obedience to the Kirke Therefore the Warner excedes no bounds in his rage but en largeth his bowels of pitie to them who for the most part having disarmed their soules of that judgement which should dictate their freedome from Church censures upon acts indifferent or sinfull in an inferiour degree their due submission to an arraignment of thoughts onelie in the Court of a poenitent conscience or hereafter before the tribunal of heaven where sits the onelie Iudge of hearts the discerner of perverse inclinations expose themselves naked to the boundlesse furie of mercilesse Reviewers to the sharpe scrutinie of malicious Inquisitours to the arbitrarie sentence of most sinful Iudges and therefore most suspicious surmisers The Bishop mentions no faults but such as toward which your Discipline mentions no favour limited to the privacie of the care Nor yet doe all those give occasion for that which you take to shew
praecedent or reason The Kings Majesties person or in his absence his high Commissioner is there onelie you tell him to countenance not vote in your meetings and proesides in them for exernal order not for any intrinsecal power So that when you goe on calmelie in your businesse he findes litle to doe without Domitians flie-flap of more use by farre in a summer Synod then a Scepter among you which you often times wrest out of his hand and continue your meetings after he hath dissolv'd them You can denie him or his commissioner the sight of publike papers brought into the Court which libertie the meanest subject may challenge And twhen he hath any thing to object against suppositions or at best suspicious Registers the E. Rothes can tell him boldlie in your names he must speake it praesentlie if at al and because he doth not you wait no longer but proimperio vote them to be authentike Beside to deminish as well the Kings state as authoritie you send Assessours or Assistants to your Elders and invest them with power aequivalent to his Councel This meeting thus disordered sits too long by a monâ—…th when no more and Assembles too often when but once in a yeare The number of such Members no more hindereth an appeale then a multitude of Malefactours can sentence a necessitie of becoming their followers in doing evil Their wisdome is such as his to whom a wiser man tells us it is a sport to doe mischief Their eminencie like Sauls head and shoulders higher then the common people in Rebellion And their honour somewhat like Absoloms mule beares them up to the priviledge of the great oake in the wood for their hanging in beter aequipage then their fellowes So that beside the justice there 's an absolute necessitie of appeal to the Parliament or in that to the King from himselfe to himselfe who sits there as supreme here in no other capacitie but of your servant Which is farre more justifiable and necessarie then vour appeale from both Parliament and Assemblie to the bodie of the people which I tell you againe is the final appeale you make when Assemblies are not modell'd to vour minde The number and qualification of Knights and Burgesses is therefore large and as great in your Assemblie as Parliament that your power may be as large and great in the State as the Church and the Nobilitie sit in one by election because they sit in the other by birth and so in a condition to unite the counsels of both according to the instructions of some few Presbyters that by Sycophantike infinuations have got possession of their soules and by their Spiritual Scepter dominion of their suffrages Headie zeale craft and hypocrisie got in commission or Covenant together we finde by experience can fit them to judge in Ecclesiastike affaires when age wisdome and pietie are sentenc'd If â—…he hundred choyce unparliamentarie pastours make up the oddes of some absent Noblemen it should seem you and the Nobilitie are even pares cum paribus Peeres alike in your honourable Assemblie Which they must not disdaine since Christ himselfe I meane not his Anoynted that you take to be out of quaestion goes but for a single Elder or Moderatour at most So Cartwright and his Demonstratour cajoles them together when he sayth If they the Princes and Nobles should disdaine to joine in consultation with poore men they should disdaine not men but Christ himselfe So that Christ being in his name made your Assembly Praesident or Prolocutour the King in his Commissioner your protectour the Nobilitie your aw full subvoters or suffraganes I see nothing wanting can conciliate a tyrannie to your Presbyterie nor keep your foot of pride from trampling as basely as may be upon the people But not to forget at last what you set in the front as first to be answered The Presbyterian course as you or I more trulie have describ'd it is not much more readie then the Praelatical because the benefit of appeale is to be had ordinarilie but once or twice in a yeare not much more solide because most of your Iudges can reasonablie be thought neither good Civilians nor Casuists not much more aequitable because as you order them many more of the laitie then Clergie In the second hurt your Nobilitie sustaine the Bishop lookes not upon the judgement of foreigne Reformed Devines you doe not say of Churches nor yet on their practice which I have know'n some time a great deale too sawcie with Princelie Patrons but upon the aequity of the thing upon the priviledge our Nobles in England enjoy the right yours have to the same by many yeares praescription and the lawes of your land The first will be found if the original be searched The right of patronage being by the due gratitude or favor of Kings Bishops reserved to such as either built Churches or endowed them with some considerable revenue as likewise for the encouragement of others to propagate meanes and multiplie decent distinct places for Christian conventions Hoc singulari favore sustinetur ut allectentur Laâ—…ci invitentur indâ—…antur ad constructionem Ecclesiarum The exercise hereof in Iustinian is expressed by the termes Epilegein or onomazein which signifies an addiction or simple nomination to stand good or be null'd at the just pleasure of the Bishop and therefore accounted no spiritual act in the Patron but a temporal annexed to that which is spiritual in the Bishop and therefore not simonaical as your brother Didoclave would have it Nor is there that absurdâ—…ie he mentions of arrogating to one what belong to all the Members of the Church as is praetended but can never be proved Nor that danger in transmitting this right from one to another if the care of the first patron desâ—…end not with it which defect the care of the praesent Bishop must supplie Nor is it requisite he should be a Member of the same parish to which he praesents since the Bishop is head of the same diocese to whom That this is contrarie to the libertie of the Primitive and Apostolike Kirke to the order which Gods word craves and good order is onelie sayd but not argued in your Discipline no more then by you when and to whom it became a grievance Your patience in enduring it goes for no heroical vertue being peevish enough soon after the Act of annexation had passed as appeares by your cariage in the Assemblie at Edenburgh 1588. and turned into a Rebellious Conspiracie allthough painted with the name of a Parliamâ—…nt that now at last because it could not at first hath taken it away The Nobilities losse of their Impropriations and Abbey lands is very considerable when they bethinke themselves upon what false pleas and to what unconcern'd persons they must part with them Touching which as Sycophantike as is the Bishops accusation he 'll not abate a sig of his right for
the Presbyters answer nor I a leter take which he will in exchange for his name Aedepol nugatorem lepidum lepidé hunc pactu'st… Calophantam an sycophantam hunc magis esse dicam nescio That the whole generation of the praelatike faction as your style it did hyperbolize in zeale against that which they call sacriledge is an argument they were all true bred no bastard children of the Church not so meane condition'd as to sell their spiritual birthright for potage Were your title as good which can appeare to be nothing but your rough hands and red soules with the bloud of the Martyrs of your owne making we should commend so farre as we act our selves your strugling aswell for the inheritance as primogeniture But when we compare our professions or evidences finde our brethren to say that the benefactours and founders of these Ecclesiastike possessions were true Christians though mistaken we thinke in many maters of doctrine and worship yours that that they were Members of Anti-Christ undoubted Idolaters and haeretikes Ours that the Churches which they endowed were Episcopal such as we continue them or to our utmost endeavour it From which you degenerate schismaticallie separating and arming your selves with all resolution rage to demolish beside what other advantage we may use of a nearer union uniformitie in religion more consonant to the minde of the doners at least if such as your malice doth render it litle thinking it may be to have it so unhapilie retorted in that which is the chiefe drift of all your rebelling and covenanting when we thinke of no other restitution but by the possessours consent when it may be transferred to us by the same supreme hand that conserr'd it on them out of which you no sooner get opportunitie and power but you violentlie ravish it calling Princes nobles sacrilegious robbers while they over-power you and deteine it I beleeve all our Religious and prudent Nobilitie will unanimouslie grant our plea more just our proceedings more moderate when God shall if ever touch their consciences not we the skirt of their estates and livelihoods with an humble feare that such an inheritance with-held from such a Church may be sacrilegious indeed with assurance that if it be so 't is sinfull they will not value their lands at so deare a rate as to pay their soules for the purchase but with courage confidence in a blessing from God to be multiplied on their undevoted temporal possessions returne them to him the King I meane from whom they receiv'd them and be beter content that Episcopal Christians then Presbyterian counterfeits should repossesse them But if such of them as are not perswaded in conscience they are oblig'd to restore them upon the arguments we bring which would ne'r be convictive if our plea were no beter then yours shall adventure to leave the suit depending till the Court of heaven give final sentence upon it at their peril be it the Praelates their followers use no violence nor course of law here below to put them out of these their possessions no threats but those against sacriledge in Scripture fearing this may be such no activitic but that of a swift charitie to catch hold of their soules and snatch them out of the snare when they finde them devouring the bate and to put them ante vota before vowes upon making enquirie or if post vota to retract them Therefore such of the Nobilitie and Gentrie as were wakened hereby to take heed of their rights were best have a care they slumber not in the wrong and take Solomons counsel intended Prov. 16. 8. Beter is a litle with righteousnesse then great revenues without right But which requires the Readers advertence for you here to call those the rights of the Nobilitce and Gentrie which so many Assemblies have declar'd to belong jure divino to the Church which in your first booke of Discipline you tell them they had from theeves and murderers and hold as unjust possessions or indeed no possession before God which in your second you hold a detesiable sacriledge before God For you to twit the Praelates with violence threats who are bound in Iohn Knox's bond not onelie to withstand the mercilesse devourers of the Church patrimonie… but to seeke redresse at the hands of God man That declare the same obligation upon you to root out of the Kingdome aswell the monster of sacriledge as that of Episcopacie and so aswell the persons of most your Nobles as the Bishops For you to object a â—…ourse of law and activitie who by incessant demands and praeter legal devices never gave over till the lawes that annexed lands to the crowne were repealed For you to bragge of your last Parliament's conâ—…irmation of titles because your last Assemblie power could not reach beyond the destruction of patronages What is this but apertlie Sucophantein calophantein to fawne accuse dissemble destroy flater your with mouth while you spread a net for their feet and worke the ruine of their persons and estates If Noblemen once abase themselves to be Elders of every ordinarie Presbyterie it 's not to be doubted but evey ordinarie Presbyter takes himselfe for their fellow if not their superiour which they finde to their griefe Therefore all or most respect that they give to their gracious Ministers is alas a litle Court holy water cast on the flame of their zeale a sacrifice made for their owne securitie from your tonâ—…ues and pennes and from the armes of the people that serve youâ—… warrants oft times in tumults upon their persons For the honâ—…ur on pay them they are faine like wretches to morgage their conscience those that doe not gaine the honourable titles of Traytours of Gâ—…d are cashier'd your companie and then passe for no 〈◊〉 honourable heathen publicans and sinners If they becomâ—… 〈◊〉 hmen between a single Presbyter and a Prince when he 〈◊〉 with his I require you in my name c. Before every charge no very humble forme as I take it they â—…all be called abusers of the world neutral livers aâ—… their pleasure if not shedders of Scotch bloud And some that draw on themselves their Prince's displeasure for a Rethorical libertie used in their behalfe shall be pay'd for their paines with the honourable essay of men sold unto sin enemies to God and all godlinesse the L. Sempils reward which he had from Iohn Knox as this gratefull Presbyter hath registred in his storie They that bridle the rage of their Princes the phrase usd as occasion serves will not sticke to halter the heads of their Nobles if they will neither leade nor drive but molest the progresse of their Presbyterian designes Your Historical Vindication I hope is no new nam'd Logike to prove negatives of fact your detraction from the credit of many irrefragable authours that Historize that insolent speach
uttered by Bruce lookes more like a calumnie then their relation to a fable And yet such a superstitious reverence is payd by your fond brother Didoclave to the memorie of his name that he could be content to pin his fayth on his sleeve and hang his soul at his girdle Anima meâ—… cumanima tua Bruci si ex aliena â—…ide esset pendendum and were there to be but one priviledge of aeternal residence in heaven he thinkes neither Patriach nor Prophet Apostle nor Martyr no nor the Virgin Mary her selfe were likelie to carie it from Bruce Which compar'd with King Iames's opinion of him as a perfidious madman that had a whirligigge in his head delivered after to many experiments of his rebellious zeale and frantike restivenesse is enough to condemne both saint and votarie to some bedlam purgatorie before imposture can fixe or facilitie of fancie finde these new imaginarie lights among the starres Your following invective is writ with Arrius's quill and by such scribling you gaine the title that Constantine gave him patroctonos epiâ—…iceias discovering your selfe to be a parricide of aequitie murdering truth in your relation and justice in your parallel His Lordship takes himselfe not concern'd in this case to recollect 800. yeares Historie of Europe to picke out of the pietie humilitie of many Reverend Bishops the pride and passionate errours of some few Noâ—… hath he malice enough with you to make that the nature of their office which hath been some litle monstrositie of minde by ill habits accidental to their persons Beside what among the Papists the nobilitiâ—… by birth of many Bishops concurring with the received dominion and large revenve of their Spiritual pâ—…aeferment may elevate their thoughts and enhaunce their owne opinion of themselves if impaâ—…donable addes litle to the condemnation of ours which partake in litle with them but their titles The universal supremacie which the Pope arrogates aswell over Kings as Bishops may puffe up a litle Cardinal that is neare him in his purple possesse him with a conceit that he may Write himselfe companion to a King whom he thinkes but is mistaken oblig'd in Spiritual humilitie to lie prostrate at his holinesse foot and kisse his slippeâ—… But the same Kings soveraigntie in Ecclesiasticiâ—… at home secur'd him from all such conâ—…estation with his Bishops Though had it not the argument from a Cardinal in Rome to a Praelate in England will hardliâ—… finde a topike Those in Scotland take themselves as capable of honour conferr'd upon their order as their Popish praedecessours Nor are such legal establishments if not of right of Princelie favour to becast away in complement Nor were they to make an unnecessarie distance out of forme when the material meaning of their vicinitie to the throne was the neare concernment of their counsel to the King Orthodoxe Monarchs as well as Papists having doubting consciences and orthodoxe Bishops as good abilities to resolve them I have not heard they crowded much or quickened their pace to get the doore of the Earles c. Their Provincial that with much humilitie and respect unto their H. H. tooke it was lead to it by the hand that had exalted them or their progernitours But for the reason of praecedence which I guesse to be your meaning you were best review the Heralds office and reforme it Poor podants are not to be reproached for making a litle diocese of their Schooles Priests being charged to make such of their houses and from the experimental regiment of boyes raising their abilities by honest endeavours to the meriting an higher Episcopate of men Nor their conscientious demeanour in that office to be aesteemed the arroganciâ—… of their order if it move Kings to commit the white staves to the crosiar and great seales to be under the keyes of the Church The most capricious of them all and most contentious for the honour which I thinke were none but such as did you too much service when they had it were many straines below your Presbyterie of Knoxes Bruces c Who have contested with Kings for their Scepters which with white staves and seales they brought under the pedantike jurisdiction of their rod. Never have Bishops so ruâ—…led it as many base borno Presbyters with the secret Counsel To whose Consistories all Courts of Iustice were faine to doe homage the greatest Lords of the land become subordinate Elders to the parson of their parish It 's not so long that yet it can be forgoten since a most violent and malicious man call'd the Goodman of Earlstounne a client of the E. Argile for interrupting of divine service forceable overturning the Communion Table in his Parish Kirke thâ—…eatning and abusing the Minister with many other such enormous crimes was fined but the fine never exacted by the High Commission and confined for a season The E. Argile complain'd of his hard usâ—…ge to the Lords of Counsell and enformed against the Bishop of Galloway that he promised to him somewhat which he had not perfâ—…rmed The Bishop denied the promise gainsayd what the Earle alledged whereupon sayd the Earle If you say so 't is as much as if I liâ—… The Bishop modestlie replied I doe not say so but I beseech your Lp. to call your selfe beter to minde you will finde it as I say This is giving the lie because he would not take it on himselfe and ruâ—…ling with a great Lord because he would not be ruâ—…led out of a just vindication of the truth yeild his consent that a Counsel Table should approve turning the communion table out of the Church The Reviewers should doe well to bring in his accounts fuller when he reckons with Bishops for braving of Noblemen All Presbyterians are heterodoxe to all good Catholike Christians with whom Episcopacie is so necessarie a truth as next to the divine institution Vniversalitie Vbiquitie and perpetuitie can render it Confingant tale aliquid haeretici … nihil promovebunt Could your invention seigne such authoritie to Presbyterie yet your doctrine would diversifie you into a sect What the Bishops following words cleare shall not one whit be clouded by any obscuritie in my replie though the strongest eradiations that come from them would sinke themselves silentlie in the deep playd you not the malignant Archimede though no such exact Mathematical Divine to reflect them into a flame that may set the ship of the Church on fire about our earâ—…s some coales of this fire I shall heape on your head cast backe into your bosome which if you meane not to quench you may blow up to what faâ—…ther mischief you thinke good The Apostles were Bishops who did undoubtedlie delegate the power of ordination to none but such as were constituted Bishops by them to that purpose This power appeares not undoubtedlie to have been exerciz'd by any but Bishops in the Historie of the Scripture This power was
not a proposition is there in prosyllogisme or syllogisme that is seemes you can denie though you scarce any where shew ingenuitie to grant For the second which you thinke so hard to prove let it be adventur'd thus He that by covenant disposeth of himselfe and armes contrarie to the established lawes which by the Kings right in him he is obliged to maintaine disposeth of them against that rights But every Covenanter disposeth c. For the established lawes enjoine him to defend the Kings person without limitation or reference to religion at least not to fight against it which the Covenant by your practike interpretation doth oblige to Where the power of the Militia resides His Maâ—…esties unanswerable Declaration for the Commission of array will best satisfie you And himselfe tells you trulie it is no lesse his undoubted right then is the crowne In the exercise of it though the Parliament be not excluded yet their power is never legallie considerable but when they are as the bodie with the soul in stain conjunctâ—… with the King Defense of liberties hath no law to arme them against praerogative nor is there a cause imaginable impowering them to take up armes against a partic countenanced by the Kings praesence which can be according to no law but what is call'd such by rebellious people that offer violence to Royal right If any such there be let us have but one impraegnable instance and we 'll shake hands I beleeve you are not much in love with that old custome of the Frisians long before they became Presbyters who chose their Earle carying him upon their bucklers and crying alowd Haecest potestas Frisiae You can now adayes beter indoctrinate them according to the custome of yourfaction when praevalent which is to admit no new King but at the swords point and there to keepe him crying after this maner or somewhat like it in your proclamational libells Haec est libertas Presbyteriales Scotiae Yet your Commissioners when in the mood can praesent the hilt to his hand and argue with both houses as they did upon the new propositions why the power of the militia should be in the crowne asking How Kingâ—… otherwise can be able to resist their enemies and the enemies of the Kingdome protect their subjects keep friendship or correspondence with their allies … asserting that the depriving them of this power rootes up the strongest foundations of honour and sasctie which the crowne affords will be interpreted in the eyes of the world to be a wresting of the scepter and sword out of their hands So that the Bishops friends may take from yours aswell as from him the same demonstrable conclusion he layd downe And this for all the Kings acknowledgement which was never any of the Parliaments joint interest in his authoritie against his person which is the true case though you shamefullie conceale it Nor did His Majestie so put the whole Militia in their hands as to part with his right when he bound his owne from the exercise Nor was he sure he was not or might not seeme to be perjur'd for his courtesie which all Kings will not hazard though he layd the guilt or dishonour at their doores whither God hath brought allreadie a portion of their just punishment that constraind him saying I conceive those men are guiltic of the enforced persurie if so it may seem who compell me to take this new and strange way of discharging my trust by seeming to desert it of protecting my subjects by exposing my selfe to danger or dishonour for their safetie and quiet Therefore what thoughts he had of your parties medling with the Militia may be best judg'd by his words How great invasion in that kinde will state rebellion in a Parliament when there 's any as there was none at that time nor since shall be told you when the Bishop gives you occasion to demand it Or if you can not stay so long I must send you againe to the judicious Digges to satiate your too curious and greedie appetite of such fare as will not well be digested in many stomackes To the nulling yourCovenant by His Majesties proclamation you say nothing because it separates him from the partie to which you attribute all malignance and you know you can not securelie medle with him but in a croud In the Bishops second demonstration we must be beholding to you for giving what you can not keep with any credit which more awes you then conscience That where the mater is evidentlic unlawfull the oath is not binding The application of which up to your covenant will be justified when brought to the touch by Gods lawe or the Kingdome 's But you first summon it before reason which helpes you with no rule To lay aside what might be otherwise rectified were there cause for 't Nor any evidence that the burden of Bishops and ceremonies was so heavie as to presse you into the necessitie of a Covenant This his Lordship need not offer to dispute since the King ever offerd a regulation of that order and those rites by the primitive paterne wherein it otherwise differed then in a necessarie innocent compliance with the politike constitution of his Kingdome And the Church had render'd all rational satisfaction aswell for the ceremonies reteined as those abolish'd And both by particular men most eminent in learning and judgement had been unanswerablie maintained in every graine or scruple that could be quaestion'd or complaind of Yet the praesent government how light soever is burdensome especiallie to men that looke for advantages by the change And the worst of men can seeme as serious in complaint as if their vertues had been the onelie martyrs to crueltie and the very common hackneyes for oppression Quid reliqui habemus praeter miseram animam came out which a sad sigh from Catiline before his bankrupt Comrades who had left no such subject for rebellion to thetoricate on if their lives had been as good pawnes in the midst of their prodigalitie as their lands This your method of reformation whereof the Bishop complaines for which you plead custome failes not onelie in the maner but of the power the most material requisite to effect it And the high path way is not so ordinarie as you can name the Parliament that ever trod in it before We in England having no such custome nor indeed any where the true Churches of God as to alter religion and government without the King To your quaestion which ever shelters fraud in universals I particularlie answer and to our purpose 1. That the Houses of Parliament are not to begin with an ordinance for a covenant or oath to change the lawes of the Realme to abolish the Discipline of the Church and the Liturgie lawfullie established by the sword which are the Bishops words before the Kings consent be sought to that beginning much lesse when his dissent is foreknow'n of that
aâ—… much abjured Presbyterie that praetends for Royaltie by the engagement that hath renounc'd it as you Episcopacie by the Covenant may they condition for their owne confused Jndependencie three yeares and as much longer as till you and they agree may they tell you that can never be because they are engag'd and in no hazard to reerect the roten stooles of English Scotizing repentance the corrupt classes of your Presbyters which the same sword hath ten times more justlie cut downe then it set them up But I see your full and formal consent findes no such good footing in your fallacie and therefore falls at length to a possibilitie of defect which you praesume with much facilitie to have supplied His Majestie that now is hath much to thanke you for that at the first you will make him as glorious a King as you made not his Royal father but after so many yeares experience of his reigne That being at libertie not onelie in his person from your prisons but in his reputation from the clogges of those calumnies you cast upon the guiltnesse innocencie of his Praedecessour you will advance him beyond all those sufferances that were Solemne praeparations to his murder and in primo imperij momento as in ultimo you did before hold him by the haire onelie not as yet permit the Independent hand to cut his throat untill forsooth he hath taken breath to supplie that wherein his too scrupulous too pusillanimous father fainted And then crowne him with ribbons and flowers for the fater sacrifice of the two by the giving up his honour and salvation beyond a life the onelie leane oblation of Charles the first But may His Majestie say you easilie supplie what his father travaild for without satisfaction to the uttermost limits of reason and conscience beyond the farthest excusable adventures of any Praedecessours in his three Kingdomes or out of them hazarding allmost to despaire his memorie with pious posteritie especiallie at that distance as shall not repraesent distinctlie every angle of the necessitie he was driven to and his soul to no other assurance of pardon then what the integritie of his repentance not so infalliblie haereditarie as his miseries and his glorious martyrdom afterwards helpt him to Would he thinke you so readilie but for a whisper of pernicious counsel in his eares passe by unregarded his fathers charge to persevere in the orthodoxe religion of England and hearken to the Devill of Rebellion whom he knowes well enough though turnd into a Angel of Reformation Can he so easilie after three or fower weekes conference at the Haghe with two ignorant Presbyters and but twice as many leaden headed Laikes have his reason convinc'd his consience satisfied which is Royal Father could not in so many yeares conversation with the ablest Divinâ—…s devout consultations had with the Living God himselfe by his prayers and his dead Yet livelie oracles of the Holie Word in his watches Or would he so readilie without it give up his Fathers invincible reserve to the irrcparable injurie of the Church his people his heire or successour in his Kingdomes Was he requir'd and intreated by Charles the first as his Father and his King in case he should never see his face againe not to suffer his heart to receive the least checke against or disaffection from the true Religion established in the Church of England And can he so easilie even while that pretious bloud hath dyed his garments in purple and being the Defender's of the fayth speakes the same language and calls every morning he puts them on for the same vengeance as once did the firstborne of the faythfull cast such requests and requisites behind him quit the true Christian guard he is charg'd with and desert all his constant subjects that must persevere in their religious profession according to the puritie of our canon Will he rather then want weare a crowne which is not wortb taking up or enjoining upon such dishonourable unconscionable termes And will he so readilie beare the infamous brand to all posteritie of being the first Christian King in his Kingdome who consented to the oppression of Gods Church and the Fathers of it exposing their persons to penvrie and their sacred functions to vulgar contempt Will he so easilie because his treasure exhausted his revenâ—…e deteind be tempted to use such prosane reparations if not acting consenting to perjurious and sacriligious rapines Or will he so readilie instead of huckes give holy things unto sivine and the Church's bread not onelie the crumbes of it unto dogs This his Royal Father durst not for feare a coale from Gods alter should set such a sire on his throne and his consience as could hardlie be quenched Nor in all likelihood will this ever obsequious sonne whom you call I hope in expectation of no such concessions the most sweet and ingenious of Princes unlesse such furies as you fright his conscience away while his tongue doubleth in an uncertaine consent having from your pens practices nothing but insuperable horrour and inevitable destruction in his sight Where in if ever you unhapilie praevaile may the same Royal tongue be seasonablie touch'd with a coale of a beter temper before the unquenchable fire of despaire catch hold of his soul or that of vengeance of his throne May it call for the fountaine of living waters to wash away the bloud of his slame subjects whose soules lie under the altar crying aloud for judgement and quaestioning its delay May that ountaine deriue it selve into the head and heart of this otherwise innocent King and day and night flow out at his eyes in torrents of teares for himselfe in no soloecisine the Virgin Father of his people And may at last his robes be wash'd white in the bloud of the Lambe and God wipe away all teares from his eyes Having payd in dutie this conditional devotion which I wish as frivolous and needlesse as your praesumption is malicious unlikelie I proceed to vindicate the Bishops discourse which J can not see how in sense may be sayd to fright the Kings conscience by asserting his right and undeniable praerogative the sinewes whereof you would shrinke up into nothing The Legislative power is not here stated or determined by his Lordship onelie the King call'd supreme Legislatour which he is What comment tries have been made of it to the praejudice of the right and custome of Parliaments shall be spoken to when you tell us which of his brethren and what in their writings it is you meane No right nor custome can be adjusted to them in your case which is vowing to God and sweating one unto another to change the lawes of the Realme c. by the sword without and against the King different from the sense of your Commissioners who would have the Legislative power aswell as the Militia to be the Kings For that power
No Bishop No King d Ovid. Met. lib. 5. fab 1. e The Reviewers false profession in publike contrarie to conscience vulgar knowledge f The same speach now printed in effect No necessitie for the Scots to enter into a Covenant which is No oath of God but the Devil No wonder why the lovers of the King are no Covenanters a The Cheat of the Covenant b The Scot-Presbytirian open unkindnesse that is treason against the late King c Bishops in other Reformed Churches d The Reviewers in constancie a K. Ch. 1 never justified the Scotish contests b Eikôn Basilikè Ch. 13. c The King may bring an armie to the Scotish borders d Alawe above Dunce law e Liturgie Canons contrarie neither to the lawes of God nor Scotland f The Reviewers brag K. Ch. 1. gave the Scots too easie conditions a He had good reason to raise a secound armie against them b The Scots successe at New bourne opened not a passage for them to London c The Pr. Scotish Rebellion copied by the English d K. Ch. 1 his raising an armie a signe of divine providence e The Rebells faint in their faith notwithstanding the revelations they pretend to f The Prerb Scots coming in no condition of the peace a Their guilt made them feare a third warre b Their worke of supererogation in interceding c Their Remonstrance d They mediate for no reasonable accommodation e Were never slighted nor rejected f Were justlie denjed g Covenants the common road for faections h Remonst about the Treaty in the Isle of wight The Covenant destructive to all the Royal line The charge Against K. Ch. 1. taken out of the Pr. Scots Remonstrance The Presb. Scots wicked Impostours no messeangers of Christ. The Kings partie not subdued when His Majestie left Oxford The King not necessitated to cast himselfe upon the Scots He had promised all reasonable satisfaction before His Religious adhe rence to his old oathes The Kings presence might best have composed the divisions in Scotland Isai. 32. 17. His garrisons surrendered upon the counter feit professions of the Pr. Scots They obteine no termes satisfactorie to the King Their injustice unkindnesse imprudence Their deliverie of the Kings person was a selling him to his Enemies They might have prevented the murder thaâ—… followed Ier. 51. 7. They were not readie to the utmost of their power An old grudge the reason why they were not S. Matth. 27. 24. The Kings not granting all demands They beare the like grudge against K. Ch. 2. * In libro Cap. 1 The Reviewers politike staterie Ecclesiast 12. 6. The unseasonablenesse of the Scots coming to the King at the Hague Iob 26. 9. Iob 16. 16. The seasonable successe of the Bishops Warning The Scotish Presbyterians an inconsiderable partic Sen Conâ—…rov Iob 8. The Bishops method apposite to his matter His proose â—…o by tenets His allegations confirm'd by others The Reviewers rash uncharitable judgement about the ends af Mr. Corbeâ—… Arch-Bishop Maxwell His vanitie in mentioning the frequent impressions of his book His language more bitter then the Bishops his hast greater to vent it No regard wanting in the Bishop to Scripture nor reverence to th Reformed Churches Nor respect to the Magistrate and lawes The Bishop no slanderer of the King nor his Royal Father Eikôn Basilikôn ch 17. The Reviewers seasonable advertissement abouâ—… the Kings late offer to the Scots No râ—…sb presumption in the Bishop The Scots endeavours to impose their discipline upon England K. Ch. 1. in no barmonie with the Prcâ—…byterians All Protestants implied to be Erastians as well as the Episcopal by Mr. Baylic The Reviewer not acquainted with the late controversie between us the Papists No Canter-burian designe but what was forged at Edenburg Basilik dor The Scots heretofore gave no so bad language to the English Bishops 1. Pet. 5. 2 Though they acted enough against their Bishops at hâ—… Ierr. 8. 22. The crimeâ—… alleged not the grounds of K Ch. 1. his concessions against Episcopacle in Scotland Episcopacie in England not put downe by a legal Assemblie Parliament The Reviewer knowes not good logike when he meetes with it The Bishop not ignorant of the way of the Scotish Discipline The Reviewers Sophystrie The Bishops meaning about the Kings power in chusing Elders Ecclesiastike lawes The head of the Church Assembies are the Kings arbitrarie Counsels The Bishop had reason to instance in particulars The Assemblie contest with the King about his command Conf. as Hapt Court And. Melvin Epist. ad Th. Bez. 1579. K. I. his Nobilitie against the Discipline Vindic. Epist. Hieron Philadelph The Reviewer his brethren agree not in their storie Duo folia dilac erata in ignem conjecta Gâ—…or Con. De duplic stat Relig. apud Scot. lib. 2. … ministri cu omnia ex suo suorumque arbitrio pendere savente annitente imprimis Buchanano cerncrent c. K. 1. his dislike of the short Confession Many unjustisiable praciices about it Vindic. Epist Hieron Philadelph Archiepis Fan S. Andr. Pa. 1 77 Archiepis Fan. S. Adr. Epist. ad Theod. Bez. The reason upon which the Nobilitie maintaind Bishops Pseudo-Episcopatu The Presbyterie the Cause of the Nobilities kceping the revenue of the Church Episcopacie more then titular by the Covenanters acknowledgement The Bishop too courteous in passing over 27. yeares storie meane base abject persons who were never any way remarkable as â—…en of great gifts Decl. of His Majesties Counc Imperfect policie alterable at the Kings pleasure The Priviledge of Assemblies limited The Legal proceedings against the Aberdene Assemblers Their obstinacie The Church festivals abolished in Scotland by no just Authoritie The primitive Christians observ'd thom Orat of the Protest of Scotl. to the Q. Reg. 1558. The Bishop not mistakeÌ„ in the Scottish Chronologic What kinde of Presbyteries were erected by K. Iames his Commissioners to what purpose Bishops to praeside in them Declar. 15â—…2 The abuse of the Kings indulgence by the Presbyters The E of Arran no wicked Courtier His bloud reveng'd Bishop Bancroft Dang Posiâ—… b. 1. Gibsons bold speaches to the King Perpetuitie the Bishops in Scotland The Reviewers long reach for the antiquitic of Presbyters … facile est credere Victorem Pontisicem …in Scotia reperisse multos quos salutaribus undis expiaret alios quos Judaizantium in feâ—…erat error G. Con. De dupl stat Rel. apud Scot. lib. 1. Multi ex Britonibus Christiani savitiam Diocletiani tiementes ad eos Scotos confugerant è quibus complures doctrina vitae integritate clari in Scotia substiterunt vitamque solitariam tanta sanctitutis opinione apud omnes vixerunt ut vita sanctorun cellae in templa commutareniur Ex eoque consuetuao mansit apud posteros ut prisci Scoti templa cellas vocent Hoc genue Monaâ—…horum Chaldeos appellabant mansitque nomen institutum donec Monachorum genus rocentius
and before him his Father his Grandmother his great Grandmother did all to their cost Then in plain English what is this political Power to call Synods to preside in Synods and to ratifie Synods which these good men give to the Magistrate and magnifie so much I shall tell the truth It is a duty which the Magistrate ows to the Kirk when they think necessary to have a Synod convocated to strengthen their summous by a civil Sanction to secure them in comming to the Synod returning from the Synod to provide them good accommodation to protect them from dangers to defend their Rights and Priviledges To compel obstinate persons by civil Laws and punishments to submit to their censures and decrees What gets the Magistrate by all this to himself He may put it all in his eye and see never a whit the worse For they declare expresly that neither all the power nor any part of the power which Synods have to deliberate of or to define Ecclesiastical things though it be in relation to their own Subjects doth flow from the Magistrate but because in those things which belong to the outward man mark the reason the Church stands in need of the help of the Magistrate Fair fall an ingenuous confession they attribute nothing to the Magistrate but onely what may render him able to serve their own turns and supply their needs I wish these men would think a little more of the distinction between habitual and actual Jurisdiction After a School-master hath his license to teach yet his actuall Jurisdiction doth proceed from the Parents of his Scholars And though he enjoy a kind of Supremacy among them he must not think that this extinguisheth either his own filial duty or theirs Like this power of presiding politically in Synods is the other power which they give him of reforming the Church that is when the State of the Church is corrupted but not when it is pure as they take it for granted that it is when the Jurisdiction is in their own hands Although godly Kings and Princes sometime by their own Authority when the Kirk is corrupted and all things out of order place Ministers and restore the true service of the Lord after the example of some godly Kings of Judah and divers godly Emperours and Kings also in the light of the New Testament yet where the Ministery of the Kirk is once lawfully constituted and they that are placed do their office faithfully all godly Princes and Magistrates ought to hear and obey their voice and reverence the Majesty of the Son of God speaking in them Leave â—…his jugling who shall judge when the Church is corrupted the Magistrates or Church-men if the Magistrates why not over you as well as others If the Church-men why not others as well as you here is nothing to be answered but to beg the question that they onely are the true Church Hear another witnesse in evil and troublesome times and in a lap ed state of affairs when the order instituted by God in the Church is degenerated to Tyranny to the trampling upon the true Religion and oppressing the Professours of it when nothing is sound the godly Magistrate may do some things which ordinarily are not lawfull c. But ordinarily and of common right in Churches already constituted if a man flie to the Magistrate complaining that he is injured by the abuse of Ecclesiastical Discipline or if the Sentence of the Presbyteries displease the Magistrate either in point of Discipline or of Faith he must not therefore draw such causes to a civil tribâ—…nal nor introduce a Political Papacy And as the Magistrate hath power in extraordinary causes when the Church is wholly corrupted to reform Ecclesiastical abuses so if the Magistrate shall Tyrannize over the Church it is lawfull to oppose him by certain wayes and means extraordinary how ever ordinarily not to be allowed This is plain dealing the Magistrate cannot lawfully reform them but in cases extraordinary and in cases extraordinary they may lawfully â—…eform the Magistrate by means not to be ordinarily allowed that is by force of arms See the principles from whence all our miseries and the losse of our gracious Master hath flowed and learn to detest them They give the Magistrate the custody of both tables so they do give the same to themselves they keep the second table by admonishing him he keeps the first table by assisting them they reform the abuses of the first table by ordinary right of the second table extraordinarily He reforms the abuses against the second table by ordinary right and the abuses against the first table extraordinarily But can the Magistrate according to their learning call the Synod to an account for any thing they do can he remedy the errours of a Synod either in Doctrine or Discipline No if Magistrates had power to change or diminish or restrain the Rights of the Church the Condition of the Church should be worse and their liberties lesse under a Christian Magistrate than under an Heathen For say they Parliaments and supreme Senates are no more infallible then Synods and in matters of Faith and Discipline more apt to errâ—… And again the Magistrate is not judge of Spiritual causes controverted in the Church And if he decrâ—…e any thing in such businesses according to the wisdom of the flesh and not according to the rule of Gods Word and the wisdom which is from above he must give an account of it unto God Or may the supreme Magistrate oppose the execution of their disciplin practised in their Presbyteries or Synods by Laws or prohibitions No it is wickednesse If he do so far abuse his authority good Christians must rather suffer extremities than obey him Then what remedy hath the Magistrate if he find himself grieved in this case He may desire and procure a review in another National Synod that the matter may be lawfully determined by Ecclesiastical judgement Yet upon this condition that not withstanding the future review the first sentence of the Synod be executed without delay This is one main branch of Popery and a grosse incrochment upon the right of the Magistrate CHAP. III. That this Discipline robs the Magistrate of the last appeal of his Subjects The second flows from this The last appeal ought to be the Supream Magistrate or Magistrates within his or their Dominions as to the highest Power under God And where it is not so ordered the Common-wealth can injoy no tranquillity as we shall see in the second part of this discourse By the Laws of England if any man find himself grieved with the sentence or consistoriall proceedings of a Bishop or of his officers he may appeal from the highest judicatory of the Church to the King in Chancery who useth in that case to grant Commissions under the great Seal to Delegates expert in the Laws of the Realm who have
power to give him remedy and to see Justice done In Scotland this would be taken in great scorn as an high indignity upon the Commissioners of Christ to appeal from his Tribunal to the judgement of a mortal man In the year 1582 King James by his letter by his messenger the Master of Requests and by an Herald at Arms prohibited the Assembly at Saint Andrews to proceed in the case of one Mongomery and Mongomery himself appealed to Cesar or to King and Councel What did our new Masters upon this They sleighted the Kings letter his Messenger his Herald rejected the Appeal as made to an incompetent Judge and proceeded most violenlty in the cause About four years after this another Synod held at Saint Andrews proceeded in like manner against the Bishop of that See for Voting in Parliament according to his conscience and for being suspected to have penned a Declaration published by the King and Parliament at the end of the Statutes notwithstanding that he declined their judicature and appealed to the King and Parliament When did any Bishops dare to doe such acts There need no more instances their book of Discipline it self being so full in the case from the Kirk there is no reclamation or appellation to any Judge Civil or Ecclsiastical within the Realm CHAP. IV. That it exempts the Ministers from due punishment THirdly if Ecclesiastick persons in their Pulpits or Assemblies shall leave their text and proper work to turn incendiaries trumpeters of sedition stirring up the people to tumults and disloial attempts in all well ordered Kingdoms and Common-wealths they are punishable by the civil Magistrate whose proper office it is to take cognisaâ—…ce of treason and sedition It was well said by a King of France to some such seditious Shebas that if they would not let him alone in their Pulpits he would send them to preach in another climate In the united provinces there want not examples of seditious Oratours who for controlling their Magistrates too sawcily in the Pulpit have been turned both out of their Churches and Cities without any fear of wresting Christs Scepter out of his hand In Geneva it self the correction of Ecclesiastical persons qua tales is expresly reserved to the Signiory So much our Disciplinarians have out-done their pattern as the passionate writings of heady men out-do the calmer decrees of a stayed Senate But the Ministers of Scotland have exempted themselves in this case from all secular judgement as King James who knew them best of any man living wirnesseth They said he was an incompetent judge in such cases and that matters of the Pulpit ought to be exempted from the judgement and correction of Princes They themselves speak plain enough It is an absurd thing that sundry of them Commissaries having no function of the Kirk should be judges to Ministers and depose them from their rooms The reason holds as well against Magistrates as Commissaries To passe by the sawcy and seditious expressions of Mr. Dury Mr. Mellvill Mr. Ballcanquall and their impunity Mr. James Gibson in his sermon taxed the King for a persecutor and threatened him with a curse that he should die childlesse and be the last of his race for which being convented before the Assembly and not appearing he was onely suspended during the pleasure of his brethren he should have been suspended indeed that is hanged But at another Assembly in August following upon his allegation that his not appearing was out of his tender care of the rights of the Church he was purged from his contumacy without once so much as acquainting his Majesty The case is famous of Mr. David Blake Minister of St. Andrews who had said in his sermon that the King had discovered the treachery of his heart in admitting the Popish Lords into the countrie That all Kings were the devils barus that the devil was in the Court and in the guiders of it And in his prayer for the Queen he used these words we must pray for her for â—…ashion sake but we have no cause she will never do us any good He â—…aid that the Queen of Englanâ—… Queen Elisabeth was an 〈◊〉 eist that the Lords of the Session were miâ—…creants and bribers that the Nobility were degenerated godless dissemblers and enemies to the Church that the Councel were holly glasses cormorants and men of no Religion I ap eal to all the Estates in Europe what punishment could be evere enough for such audacious virulence The â—…ish Ambassadour complains of it Blake is cited before the Councel The Commissioneâ—…s of the Church plead that it will be ill taken to bring Mâ—…ers in question upon such trifling delations as inconsistent with the liberties of the Church They conclude that a Declinatour should be used and a Protestation made against those proceedings saying it was Gods cause wheâ—…ein they ought to stand to all hazards Accordingly a Declinatour was framed and presented Blake desires to be remitted to the Presbytery as his Oâ—…dinary The Commissioners send the copie of the Declinatour to all the Presbyteries requiring them for the greater corroboration of their doings to subscribe the same and to commend the cause in hand in their private and publick prayers to God using their best credit with their flocks for the maintenance thereof The King justly incensed herewith dischargeth the meeting of the Commissioners Notwithstanding this Injunction they stay still and send Delegates to the King to represent the inconveniences that might insue The King more desirous to decline their envy than they his judgement offers peace The Commissioners refuse it and present an insolent petition which the King rejects deservedly and the cause was heard the very day that the Princâ—…sse Elisabeth now Queen of Bohemia was Christened The witnesses were produced Mâ—… Robert Ponte in the name of the Church makes a Protestation Blake presents a second Decliâ—…atour The Councel decree that the cause being treasonable is cognoscible before them The good King still seeks peace sends messengers treats offers to remit But it is labour in vain The Ministers answer peremtorily by Mr. Robert Brace their Prolocutor that the liberty of Christs Kingdom had received such a wound by this usurpation of the rights of the Church that if the lives of Mr. Blake and twenty others had been taken it would not have grieved the hearts of good people so much as these injurious proceedings The King still woos and confers At last the matter is concluded that the King shall make a Declaration in favour of the Church that Mr. Blake shall onely make an acknowledgement to the Queen and be pardoned But Mr. Blake refuseth to confesse any fault or to acknowledge the King and Councel to be any judges of his Sermon Hereupon he is convicted and sentenced to be guilty of false and treasonable slanders and his punishment referred to the King Still the King treats makes propositions unbeseeming his Majesty once or twice The
only the Presbyters it gives the King power over all persons as subjects but none at all in Ecclesiastick causes Ans. Is there in all this reasoning any thing sound First what article of the covenant beares the setting up of the Presbyterian government in England as it is in Scotland II. If the oath of supremacy import no more then what the Warners expresse words are here that the King is a civil head to see every man doe his duty in his calling let him be assured that no Presbyterian in Scotland was ever contrary to that supremacy III. That the Presbytery is a papacy and that a politicall one the Warner knowes it ought not to be graunted upon his bare word IV. That in Scotland no other governors are acknowledged then Presbyters himselfe contradicts in the very nixt words where he tells that the Scots Presbytery ascribes to the King a power over all persons as subjects V. That any Presbyterian in Scotland makes it sacriledge to give the King any power at all in any Ecclesiastick cause it is a senselesse untruth The Warners arguments are not more idle and weake then his triumphing upon them is insolent for he concludes from these wise and strong demonstrations that the poor covenant is apparently deceitfull unvalide impious rebellious and what not yea that all the learned divines in Europe wil conclude it so that all the covenanters themselfes who have any ingenuity must grant this much and that no knowing English man can deny it but his owne conscience will give him the ly Ans. If the Warner with any seriousnesse hath weighed this part of his owne write and if his mind goe along with his pen I may without great presumption pronounce his judgment to be none of the most solide His following vapours being full of aire we let them evanish only while he mentioneth our charging the King with intentions of changing the Religion and government we answer that we have been most willing alwayes to ascribe to the King good intentions but withall we have long avowed that the praelaticall party have gone beyond intentions to manifest by printed declarations and publick actions their former designe to bring Tiranny upon the States and popery upon the Churches of all the three Kingdomes and that this very write of the Warners makes it evident that this same minde yet remaines within them without the least shew of repentance So long as the conscience of the court is mannaged by men of such principles it is not possible to free the hearts of the most understanding from a great deale of Jealousy and feare to have Religion and lawes still overturned by that factione But the Warner commands us to speake to his Dilemma whither we think it lawfull or unlawfull for subjects to take armes against their prince meerly for Religion We answer that the reasons whereby he thinks to conclude against us on both sides are very poor if we shall say it is unlawfull then he makes us to condemne our selfes because our covenant testifies to the world that we have taken up armes meerly to alter Religion and that we beare no alleadgance to our King but in order to Religion which in plaine tearmes is to our owne humours and conceits Ans. There be many untruthes here in few words first how much reality and truth the Warner and some of his fellowes beleeves to be in that thing which they call Religion their owne heart knowes but it can be no great charity in him to make the Religion of all covenanters to be nothing but their owne humours and conceits Secondly it is not true that Covenanters beare no alleadgance to the King but only in order to religion III. The Parliament of England denied that they took up armes against their King though to defend themselves against the popish praelaticall and malignant faction who were about to destroy them with armes IV. They have declared that their purpose was not at all to alter Religion but to purge it from the corruptions of Bishops and ceremonies that to long had been noxious unto them V. They have oft professed that their armes were taken for the defence of their just liberties whereof the preservation and reformation of Religion was but one The other horne of his Dilemma is as blunt in pushing as the former If we make it lawfull saith he to take up armes for Religion we then justify the independents and Anabaptists wee make way for any that will plant what ever they apprehend to be true Religion by force and to cut the throat of all Magistrats who are in a contrary opinion to them that it is a ridiculous partiality for any to priviledge their own Religion as truth and Gospell Ans. Whether will these men goe at last the strength of this reason is blak atheisme that their is no realty of truth in any Religion that no man may be permitted to take his Religion for any thing more but his owne apprehension which without ridiculous folly he must not praeferre to any other mans apprehension of a contrary Religion this is much worse then the pagane Scepticisme which turned all reality of truth into a meer apprehension of truth wherein their was no certainty at all this not only turnes the most certaine truths even these divine ones of Religion into meer uncertaine conceptions but which is worse it wil have the most orthodoxe beleever so to think speake and act as if the opinions of Independents Anabaptists Turks Jews Pagans or grosse Atheists were as good true and solide as the beleefe of Moyses or Paul were of the truths revealed to them from heaven Secondly we say that subjects defence of their Religion and liberties established by Law against the violent usurpation of Papists Praelats or Malignants is not the planting of Religion by arms much lesse is it the cutting of the throats of al Magistrats who differ in any point of Religion III. In the judgement of the praelaticall party the defensive armes of the Protestants in France Holland and Germany must be al 's much condemned as the offensive armes of the Anabaptists in Munster or of the sectaries this day in England Can these men dreame that the World for their pleasure will so farre divest themselves of all Religion and reason as to take from their hands so brutish and Atheisticall maximes He concluds with a wish of a generall counsel at least of all protestant Churches for to condemne all broatchers of seditious principles Ans. All true covenanters goe before him in that desire being confident that he and his fellowes as they have declined al ready the most solemne assemblies of their owne countries upon assurance of their condemnation so their tergiversation would be al 's great if they were to answer to an oecumenick Synod What I pray would the Warner say in a counsel of protestants for the practise of his party pointed at in his last words I meane their
the infinite extent the interminate divisibilitie of your power In the booke that he cites is the greatest censure of the Church praescribed and more methodicallie then mercifullie shewed how a small offence or sclaunder may justlie deserve excommunication by reason of the contempt and disobedience of the offender Pag. 60. And lest any should thinke that the osfenses named are not so hainous as that of the Corinthians incest whence you take your paterne and Saint Pauls authoritie for your processe you give such to understand that mercie and favour may rather be granted to any other sinne then to the contempt of wholesome admonitions and of the just and law full ordinances of the Church Pag. 80. Which if as you say it never procured the smallest censure you have been a great deale too profuse of your pardons Where you professe your obligations so great to the performance of the commandement of God Or if you thinke it not such may be justlie required by any Erastian to render a reason why that ignis fatuus that foolish spirit of bondage walkes in your Discipline from generation to generation while they laugh at the calamitic you threaten and moâ—…ke when your feare cometh upon the people But he that knowes you will never mistake you for such meeke lambes in this mimike disguise of lions when he findes you aswell preying as roaring And how any the most charitable man will have just cause to complaine of your rigour let your aequitable comparers judge observing with me but one passage of multitudes in your forme that one which speakes you the most savage petitioners that ever invocated the name of Christ whom you humblie beseech for feare his mercie that is written to be above all his owne workes should be above that of yours the inhumanitie you are about that whatsoever in his name you pronounce in earth meaning the sentence of excommunication though but for susspicions and jealousies if not confessed to be as real faults as any peevish brother shall construe them he Would ratifie the same in heaven Which can not be paralleld in the Turkish Aicaron nor among all the superstitions rites and cruel offices of the heathen per formed to the most bloudie most insatiate of divels who doth nothing else but goe about seeking whom he may devoure Where as if this be your slacknesse wherewith sectaries charge you which you are soric you are not able to refute it should seem you are sorie there are no more hells then one no pluralitie of soules in your single Impaenitents no imaginable protraction of punishment beyond aeternitie for the execution of your censures The Sabbath recreations which the Bishop sayth are voyd of scandal are likelie to be at most but those mention'd in the booke of toleration so much decried by the brethren of your faction among which were no stage playes nor in my memorie any allowed to be acted on Sundays and so not frequented by his friends The greater license on the Sabbath Kirmasses you slide over without any of that zeale which His Lordship prophesieth though your selfe have been a spectatour of it in these Countreys So that in your owne words which I am a frayd will too often be mistaken for mine and bring upon me the imputation of a sloven If the Aposteme in your lowest gut had not chang'd places with your braines your words had been wiser and your unsavourie breath which you too often eructate somewhat sweeter The debate among some of your sect Whether in Scotland or no which is not expressed about starch and cuffes may very well passe upon the credit of the Warner that asserts it your putting him upon the poofe makes me guesse you are not in a readinesse to denie it Howsoever we know the curses of the Laundrie have been through two or three descents a traditional legacie to the brethren of your order in England for the counterscuffles they made about the former And the debate on the later hath produc'd an injunction to your Societie somewhere else to cast away those litle idolatroue ragges which could scarce be taken for any reliques of Rome their gloves too it may be upon better reason lest the cleanlinesse of their hands might beget a jealousie of some superstition in washing them before their publike officiating on their unhandsome distributing of the word What litle latitude of discretion you allow how your superiours must be your slaves or pupils in the attire aswell of their bodies as sules is evident by your preaching and articling against the apparell even of the Ladies of Honour that waited upon your Queenes Majestie three sundrie dayes when she rode in great state and solemnitie to the Tolbuith in Parliament time Ao 1563. Of the second oppression which the Bishop objects you give up a very imperfect account leaving the greatest weight to he as heavie as it can upon the head of your Synods in calling the Magistrate fool for his mercie and knave for his briberie which you onelie suspect because he is not as rigid as your selves In enjoyning publike satisfaction after the Defendant hath given it at an assize c. What you bring is litle to the purpose and if it were hath been packt away with its answer long a goe Wherewith yet if gou will not be satisfied you must be set to reviewe Erastus and answer him When he tells you of old no notice was taken of your double formalitie viz of crime and scandal so as to subject the delinquent for the same fact to the censure of two distinct Courts Civile and spiritual He calls ad raucedinem usque for one text or example in Scripture to justifie it He proves out of St. Austin c. That the Church used the spiritual sword onelie when the temporal was not in Christian hands He puts you to make good your maine consequence That if the Magistrate doth not his dutie an Assemblie Court is required to constraine him or as youe Liturgie speakes to admonish him and that too as the Bishop urgeth when he hath discharg'd it according to his Iudgement and conscience From your proceedings of this kinde His Lordship drawes 3. observations which you cannot denie and yet dare not acknowledge and therefore say nothing but worke in a whimzie of his excursions upon his owne friends not any of whom approve the injustice the irrationalitie much lesse imitate the cueltie of your practice The Popish Praelates are not so neare allied unto the Doctour nor doe they need to be taken into his protection The English are and can vindicate themselves against you for admitting to the holie table with signes of repentance without Ecclesiastike publike satisfaction murtherers that are either quit by their jurie or have their pardon sealed by the King whores that either are spared out of hopes of amendment or have had the whip at Bridewell and theeves burn'd in the hand at Newgate
exerciz'd canonicallie by none but Bishops in the Historie of the Primitive Church According to the second canon of the Apostles Presbyter ab uno Episcopo ordinetur Diaconus reliqui Cleriâ—…i The laying on of hands of the Presbyterie both in Scripture and Ecclesiastike storie was onelie for external forme no intrâ—…secal power the efficacie of the act being in the Bishops benediction which I never finde attributed to the Priest As in the third Canon of the fourth Councel of Carthage Episcopo eum benedicente nowhere benedicente Presbytero Therefore your friend Didoclave is faine to acknowledge a great difference Magnum discrimen between St. Pauls imposition of hands and that at the same time of his Presbyterie whatsoever is mean'd by it Nam per imposâ—…tionem mannum Apostolorum Deus conferebat charismata non autem per imposâ—…ionem mannum Presbyterorum distinguishing in the ordination of Timothie between dia meta the former relating to Saint Paul the later to the assistent Priests Which is another interpretation of the texâ—… then you were pleas'd to make of it chapt 8. So that I see the bâ—…ethren agree not upon the point Succession through the lineal descent of Bispops from the Aposiles aâ—…d ordination by the hands of Apostolical Bishops have been ever used as strong arguments to uphold Catholike Christians in a comfortable assurance of their Ministrie as lawfull And haeretikes have been pâ—…essed by the ancient Fathers with the want of nothing more then these to justifie their profession Hâ—…c enim modo Ecclâ—…siae Apostolicae census suos deferunt sayth Tertullian And Irenaeus before him joines the gifts of God required in the Ministrie if he meanesnot the sacraments with the Apostolical cession of the Church Vbi igitur charismata Domini posita sunt ibi discere oportes veritatem â—…pud quâ—…s esi ea quae est ab Apostolis Ecclesiae successis c. The Presbyterians praetending divine institution must likewise prove such an uninterrupted succession or evidence their new extraordinarie mission otherwise they can minister litle comfort lesse assurance of their calling to be lawfull The former they can not doe for Saint Hierom's time at least who makes ordination a proprietie of the Bishops Quid facit excepta ordinatione Episcopus quod Presbyter not facit where a friend of theirs failes them when he sayth ad morem jusque siâ—…ae aetatis respexit That he had respect to the custome canon of his time Nor can they doe it for above 200. yeares uncertaine storie after Christ in which they have as litle light to shew their Presbyterie was in as that Episcopacie was out which they would faine perswade us to take upon their word dispensing with themselves for the use of unwritten tradition to so good a purpose If they will pleade an extraordinarie mission they should doe well to name the first messenger that brought the newes of their Euangel and what miracle he wrought which might serve him for a leter of credence to us who it may be otherwise shall be no such superstitious admirers of his gifts or person That therefore the orthodoxe Ministers must want the comfortable assurance of their undoubted ordination in the Ministrie which words yet beare a much more moderate sense then that you give them viz. That they may very well know and be assured that their calling and ministrie is null the distance being as I take it not so indivisible between the negation of one assurance to the position of the other Such a malicious interpreter beares the image may stand in Constantines opinion for the statue of him who is the father of calumnies cares not what pâ—…yson he casts to spot other mens names cracke their credits ta tesoiceias ita motetos deleteria apheidos proballon as true of an Aërian as Arian Your divination about the deleted words will succeed in some strange disoverie by and by In the interim you set too sharpe an edge upon the doctrine of the Bishops friends and doe act violence where it may be they intended not so much injurie as the ut most extremitie of justice allthough they held the axe in their hand in Christian charitie disputing the sentence not so hastie to execute it or beyond it in the rigour and cut off at one stroke the Clergie from their calling and so many â—…ay societies of Christians from the Church Vntill 〈◊〉 meet with some particular more forward instances then I know of I shall answer for them to the Churches of France Holland Zwitzerland and Germanie as Pope Innocent writ to the first Councel at Toledo about the ill custome of the Bishops ordination in Spaine That it 's very requisite somewhat should be peremptorilie determin'd according to the true primitive tradition might it be without the disturbance of so many Churches For what is done ita reprehendimus ut propter numerum corrigendorum ea quae quoquo modo sactaâ—… sunt non in dubium vocemus sed Dei potius dimittamus judicio We so dislike it as not to startle so great a number of delinquents with our doubt but referre the judgement to God who standeth in the congregation as well of Presbyters as Princes and is a Iudge aswell among Ministers as Gods The Sophisme of the Iesuits because so popular should have been refuted or else not recited allthough the â—…imilitude it brings runnes not upon all foure even with the doctrine of the Bishops prime friends Some of whom I beleeve will acknowledge there may be resident many Members of the true Church where are no true Sacraments being well praepared to receive them when they may have a true Ministrie to dispense them That one of the two Sacraments is true though not dulie administred when in case of necesstie by lay hands where is no true Ministâ—…e to doe it which may consist with that of B. Ignatius if applied to this purpose Ouk exon esti choris tou episcopou oute baptizein oute prospherein Exon at most but illegitimating the outward visible act not nulling the inward invisible grace That the other 's effectual when had but in voto if it can not in signo through want of any or which is as bad a lawfull true Ministrie to make it In the third clause I hope you will shake hands with the Iesuits and them Where is no true ordination there is no true ordinarie Ministrie or lawfull Priesthood as His late Majestie call'd it As for the fourth the Bishops friends whatsoever they may doe allay it thus Where are no Bishops can be no comfortable assurance of a true ordination And so in whatsoever reformed Countrey are no Bishops being no true Apostolike ordination no comfortable assurance is had of a true visible Church in the publike administration of the Sacraments though they hope well the invisible Members have an invisible true Priesthood among them or such an high Priest as being