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A65261 Akolouthos, or, A second faire warning to take heed of the Scotish discipline in vindication of the first (which the Rt. Reverend Father in God, the Ld. Bishop of London Derrie published a. 1649) against a schismatical & seditious reviewer, R.B.G., one of the bold commissioners from the rebellious kirke in Scotland ... / by Ri. Watson ... Watson, Richard, 1612-1685.; Creighton, Robert, 1593-1672. 1651 (1651) Wing W1084; ESTC R13489 252,755 272

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who with his I renounce abhorre his detestations abrenunciations did so amaze the simple people that they not able to conceive all those things utterlie gave over all falling backe to Poperie or remaining still in their former ignorance These are the Kings words about Mr. Craige the Authour his Confession which you may compare 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 Qu●…s 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 Episcopacie is unquaestionablie 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 erecting 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 tul●…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 down●… 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 confidence 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 hi 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 bu●… That King Iames at that time was by his English Bishops perswasions resolv'd to put 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 occasiou●… might not arise whereupon wise Princes might foresee for the benefit of their 〈◊〉 just cause of alteration For what immediatelie followes take His Majesties answer out of a Declaration penned with
that Church His Majestie having not expressed the least word or syllabe to that purpose The most that ever he yeilded was this For it should be considered that Episcopacie was not so rooted setled there in Scotland as t is here in England nor I in that respect so strictlie bound to continue it in that Kingdome as this 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 Reformed Churches 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 smin 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 Presbyterie 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 his Chapter Your closing with the Parliament which the Bishop hath not mention'd is but to beget a wonder by making an hermaphrodite 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
guidance of his pen you had forc'd him to write against his owne inclination sense If Mr. Adamson professed upon his death his repentance for lies slanders to which we have a contrarie tradition from some that were praesent he did no more then your great Declaratour Buchanan for his that were opposite to the other And how both these sort of lies that caried contradictions could proceed from the same spirit or their repentance have the same grace truth to reforme it I leave to your discerning spirit to reconcile or if you find them different to distinguish What the Bishop asserts Mr. Camden●… faythfull register will justifie Ministri nonnulli in Scoti●… è pulpitis per circulos Reginam indigniscimi●… calumni●…s insectati ipss Regi Consiliariis asperrimè obtrectárunt cor●…m comparere jussi sastidioso quodem contemptu abnuerunt quasi pulpitae à Reg●… authoritate essent exem●…a Ecclesiastici non Principisi mperio sed Presbyteri●… subessent Tour Ministers raile against Queen King Councel with contempt scorne denie appearance upon summons stand upon Ecclesiastike priviledge are not censur'd by the Assemblie what is that but protected what both but as much as the Bishop out of the Declaration praetends to What nullitie in the law of your countrey you pleade can be taken for no answer to the Bishops second proofe who tells you the same reason may exclude aswell Magistrates as Commissaries because they have no function in the Kirke they are so excluded out of the 11 chapter of your 2. booke of Discipline which providing that all abuses may be removed dependances of the Papistical jurisdiction abolished regulates all by the Eldership of the Church in silence robs the Civile Magistrate of his power The strength of which argument you wave as you doe the 3. instances that follow scowre up an old rustie peice of Logike of your owne to fight with your shadow The Bishops consequence holding good That if those which have no function in the Kirke are not to be judges to ministers no jurisdiction remaineth in the Civile state whereby Ministers may be punished In England the Commissarie official were no ordinarie judges to depose excommunicate at their pleasure what reservations there were how limited was their power your friend Didoclave will acquaint you Which integritie prudence he calls a fucus fallacie because he had found no such native beautie of holinesse in his Church no such down-right dealing in the discipline The jurisdiction of Commissaries was reestablished in Scotland in Ecclesiastike causes to as great a latitude as formerlie by act of Parliament at Edenburgh June 4. 1609. Presbyterian Assemblies are easilie satisfied about any delinquencie against Kings And had not K. Iames at this time been absolute the brethren in feare what should become of their Euangel they had not proceeded so farre as they did in Gibsons case That many passed at other times with lesse notice nay with their authoritie to maintaine them I have shewed frequent enough out of their stories Delinquents of the Episcopal partie could get no such opportunies for absence When Gibson came about he praetended not onelie his feare for an excuse but his tender care of the rights of the Church This because more pertinent to the quaestion Mr. Baylie overlookes as he doth their purging him of his contumacic without acquainting his Ma●…estie which the Bishop urgeth He were better be take himselfe to some other trade then that of reviewing Two or three such surveys will loose the Discipline more ground then Didoclave any other his unanswered Champions ever gaind them That no trial of Gibsons fault 〈◊〉 perfected though a fugitive was a testimonie of their forward dutie to the King Others beside the Bishops by the Synod of Glasgow have been excommunicated at as great a distance for their loyal expressions actions The Bishops fourth proofe I perceive hath much troubled the Reviewers eyes osper ●…à s●…k epi tous ophalmous Mr. Blackes case may very well seem odious Odit quod metuit It turnes his sto make so much that he findes not confidence enough to wipe of that filth which was spit upon the reputation of the Discipline by his speaches He is better imployd with his sieve his scissours about divining how his Lordship came by so many particulars of the storie but the guilt of his conscience makes his hand shake so all his witchcraft falls to ground For the Bishop to my knowledge may have his warrant for that relation somewhere else for ought he knowes recourse to some vocal oracles of that time beside some such registers as have not been raced by the sword of the Disciplinarian spirit nor cancell'd by the Clerke of the Assemblie in the darke Though that large most excellent volume compiled by the Rt. Reverend Arch Bishop having no tlong since happilie escaped the Scotish Inquisition may hereafter be a printed monument of the Disciplines shame an aeternal disgracè to the Rebellious Presbyterie his credit for all the Reviewers calumnies a lasting pillar to support the fayth of all posteritie that shall reade it Yet to take Mr. Blackes storie from his hand out of the register of truth the Doomsday booke of the Discipline as it lies Veniat invisum scelus Errorque in se semper armatus furor If the Kings countenance were changed his conscience was not which by his own confession so soon as ever his judgement was in the bloome tooke checke at the Religion as well as at the Rebellion in the Assemblie professing with our saviour that though he liv'd among you he was not of you That you make no medium between Presbyterian Popis●… is a piece of old Synodical malignancie which the trial of the orthodoxe partie in these times hath made out of date since being rejected banish'd by the one they neither finde nor sue for reception with the other saving into a toleration of their asyle but by the hand of the Allmightie are held up in their constancie between you both Yet your feares were not groundlesse when the Religious King went about to establish such publike workship as would have informed ignorance in a discoverie of your errour draw'n of all your conscientious rational disciples His Majesties civile favours to some Papists were not so strong evidences of his change as to wind up your Ministers to such a free warning nor gave them license to make such rebellio●…s applications If that be the use 't is time for Kings to search better into your doctrine see whether the toleration of that have not been the great sinne of our age which hath pull'd downe such judgements upon their heads This grace in your pastour is that which abounds by continuance in sinne And this fayth is nothing like St. Pauls shield being beaten by the Assemblie into a sword whereby they
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 Majestie had put downe your Presbyterie by the head your Ministerial office was with the exercise of your halls having to the time of your late rebellion no other then an ambulatorie Euangel no Disciplinarian legallie tolerated to officiate but such as would conforme to the canons of the Church If the King had sayd Ego non possum erigere Ministri caput the heads of the Aberdene Edenburgh Ministers might have confuted him upon the gates but that his mercie without the Synodical censure of impunitie interpos'd in that dispute As great an enemie as His Majestie was to such Erastians as the Bishop I am sure he was no friend to such Donatists as you unlesse infestissimus hostis be significant to that purpose He sayd you were the perfidious bedlam knaves among the preachers my dictionarie will helpe me to no fiter English for his Latin perfidi ●…anatici nebulones inter concionatores And you or your profession he often styl'd Calvinistarum Satanismum a ●…ect of lapsed spirits among the Calvinists whose malice had metamorphoz'd them into Devils CHAPTER VII The Presbyterie cheates the Magistrate of his Civil power in ordine ad spiritualia THe Bishop begs no beliefe of his Readers beyond what he brings proofe out of your Discipline to prevaile for When you have made all offenses more or lesse scandalous like the Prophet in Hosee you become the snare of a fowler with this counterfeit call catch all the uncleane birds in your net If the Bishops official takes notice of more civile causes then your Presbyterie the qualitie number had been Worth your noting for your Readers satisfaction To strengthen your evidence I consulted with Didoclave your brother Scout whom I finde to have made no such numerous discoverie I take him to be alltogether as strict able an inquisitour as your selfe That capital offenders whom the Magistrate hath spared should be excommunicated is disciplinarian censure which no societie of regular Christians ever inflicted Nor can any ingenuous Divine denie such accesse to the holie table if otherwise qualified then by their impunitie He must distrust either the prudence or pietie of the Magistrate conceiving him either too liberal of his pardon to a person shewing no remorse for his fault or impious in countenancing instead of cutting off an obstinate malefactour with his sword Erastus himselfe whom you raile at so often puts in this caution which Beza approves of for whatsoever he hath asserted in his booke Quod meminisse t●… velim etiamsi non semper adjecero That the person you admit be suppos'd to understand approve embrace the doctrine of the the Church with which he desires to communicate That he professe an acknowledgement hatred of his sinnes he addes not from your stool of repentance That a murderer adulterer blaspheme●… thus pardoned thus poenitent thus supplicant for the seale of the Sacrament should be to fill up the amphitheater of any prou'd hypocritical popular presbyter made the sundays sport or spectacle to the people No Scripture commands it no orthodoxe Church ever practis'd it no law of Scotland imports it If you suspect his repentance to be but counterfeit his humble addresse a religious imposture you may discourse with him in private lay open before him the hainousnesse of his fact deterre him by the extremitie of the danger tell him if he discernes not the Lords bodie which he can not through the blacke unrepented guilt of that sinne he eates judgement he drinkes damnation But all this pertaines ad Consilium a terme us'd among the ancients in cases somewhat conterminate with ours to ghostlie councel no spiritual execution ad legis annunciationem non jurisdictionem to the terrible declaration of the law to no jurisdiction or legal exercise of your power Beside here I must put you in minde of what I otherwhere prove and is un●…eniable That your excommunicating facultie is not originallie in your Assemblie but derived to you from the supreme Magistrate with an implicite reservation of his own priviledge to remit it at pleasure it being no ●…ure divino discipline I hope for if such what becomes of those Churches that use it not The malefactours exemption from this without quaestion accompanies his largesse of civile mercie he stands acquitted from all spiritual aswell as temporal punishment For to suppose the Magistrate takes him from the gaoler to deliver him to Satan exchangeth his shakles for chaines of darkenesse his prison for hell is inconsistent with reason or charitie gets no more faith then such a cruel sentence hath the face to aske my opinion of its justice The learned Grotius tells you how John a Bishop of Rome became intercessour to Justinian the Emperour in the behalfe of poenitent delinquents that were separated from the union of the Church asscribing to him the authoritie honour of their restitution to the communion thereof Which argues him his Presbyters if you admit him not to be single in his jurisdiction at that time to have had no independent Discipine to crosse the Emperours power to have been no countermanders of his pardons That the Magistrates in Holland have very often commanded the Pastours to their dutie in these cases And that by an old law in England the Kings pleasure was craved before any of his servants could be excommunicated Fraud in bargaining false measures c. the Bishop takes to be maters of civile cognizance He findes them call'd abomination to the Lord not any where such scandals to the Church as to require publike satisfaction What Ecclesiastike rebukes are due he thinkes may be given by particular Ministers in their several charges without a summons before a Consistorian judicatorie Die Ecclesiae was no praecept of speed There were two or three errands to be done by the way The offended brother hath after conference a private arbitration praescrib'd him Nor doth it appeare that in cases of this nature our Saviour ●…ing'd him a warrant to fetch his adversarie to the Church not a word is there that doth authorize the Church to command him out of the Court to anticipate or aggravate the civile censure by the Reviewers Ecclesiastike Rebukes The Bishop speakes of Presbyterie in the institution makes no instance of it in the practice I 'll take no mans word for disciplinarian
a free kingdome under a legal Monarchie into an illegal oppressive tyrannie That in this case there ough to be a general meeting of Church and state to vindicate Majestie lawes libertie and provide remedies against such extraordinarie mischiefes That the Presbyterian Scots never were nor will be of this opinion I take your word and beleeve it Take this supplement with you That E. Bothewell should kill the King to make way for Poperie and Murray before endeavour to hinder his mariage with the Queen under a praetense of a designe by that then to bring it in which historie relates will cost some paines to reconcile Errours and abuses in 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 Parliaments 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 Assemblie 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 and Archirectonike 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 w●…l 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 strifes 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 indignation 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 Synods of the ancients had ever the praesence or authoritie of the Emperour without which they reformed no haerefies nor corruptions in religion Who by ratifying their canon●… 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 thi●… They who reforme according to the Presbyterian Scotish met●…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 Issachars 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
requiring their assistance on the day of their trial That his letter was intercepted and sent to the Queen whereupon he was summond before the Queen and Councel That when he made his appearance His clients the Brethren of the Towne followed in such number 〈◊〉 the inner Close was full and all the staires even to the chamber doore wher they sate That he confessed his vocation of the Queenes leiger c. That if in th●… he had been guiltie he had ●…st offended since he came last in Scotland demanding Sawcilie what vocation of Brethren had ever been to that day unto which h●… pen had not served That he told the Queen 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 Mor●…vij authoritate suffulti vim facerent impune sacerdoti qui missam in aula quod lege permissum 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 conscientions 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 juber●… a●… imperare non poterant quod cum in tanto periculo constitut●… essent respublica Ecclesia ill●… viti●… 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 Act 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 carie●… fortune enough in his argument to confute you Miscro cui plura supersunt Quam tibi faelici post tot quoque funera vincet Those of his brethren who stand for the divine right of the Discipline of the Church doe it chieflie 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 circumstanciais must passe for substancials when determind by the judicatories of your Church and be made adaequate in
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. Ou gar monon hosa lyousin hoi hiereis eisi lelymena all hosa kai hemeis hoi adikethentes and Theophylact. And si fratrem habes pro Ethnico publicano ligasti illum in terra si correxeru fratrem solvisti eum in terra Saint 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 porter 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 Hina me doxe authades Kai autous proslambanei K●…inoonous 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 th●…se 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 doe to judge them that are without but leave them to God I have to doe 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 confession 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 multiplving 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 captions 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 Persians a power
communication though advised by the Church they were put to purge themselves from the imputation of Poperie in practizing auricular confession and injunction of penance Your order and practice is to keep off from the holie Table not such onelie as conjunctive are grosselie and willfullie but divisivé intoo strict ā sense grosselie or willfullie ignorant Touching which allthough their negligence is inexcusable and their dulnesse pitiable yet that your act of cruel jurisdiction is justified by no divine command nor Catholike example If never any for simple ignorance were excommunicated in Scotland You must be rebuk'd for transgressing your rule and failing in your dutie as your Kirke pleaseth thus to declare it In sufferable we judge it that men be permitted to live and continue in ignorance as Members of the Kirke Whether greater tyrannie were exerciz'd in the High Commission Courts or your Consistories your aequitable comparers by this time are not to seeke What excesse on your side hath been evidenc'd is here resumed onelie to aggravate your floud of boundlesse crueltie by the many heads from which it issues and the cataracts it powres upon the poor people in every parish The Bishops playd indeed the R●…x in that their Court because they acted in it by authoritie and deputation from the King But you and your Brethren playd the Rebells to the purpose when you first rioted then rebell'd and covenanted before er you supplicated to suppresse it K. Ch. 1. by his grace and too fluent charitie praevented the violence intended by your Parliament though he found no thankes nor yet acceptance at your hands His proclamation being rudelie encountred with a rebellious protestation read by Iohnston The King Anticlerical Parliament in England that alasse joind hands in a maner yet scarce agreed to throw downe the other about their eares without which the Praelates had no power lesse then no reason if it might be to let it fall have not onelie covered the poor Bishops with the ruine of that Court but since hands and hearts were divided the laborious Lords and Commons without him have pull'd the Fabrike of both Houses and of Monarchie upon themselves The Congregational Eldership a thing wheresoever more to be jeerd at and lesse endured then a Commission is enjoy'd with so much more comfort among other of the Reformed then in Scotland as we are eye witnesses of lesse authoritie rigour in it And while I am writing this Replie one of the Reformed Presbyters your Countreyman ingenuouslie confesseth to me that he thinkes in his conscience the praesent Kirke tyrannie in Scotland he speakes it indeed rather of the practice then rule is farre beyond what ever could be alledged against our Bishops or the Pope And that if he others of his minde tooke the constitution of that government every where to be the same as it is executed in Scotland they would not continue a day longer in that communion The lawes of these Scotish Elderships taken out of Holie scripture can not be very particular in many cases Their Acts of superiour judicatories doe not can not so specifie interpretative Scandals nor in all occurring possibilities proportion corporal punishments or pecuniarie mulcts in the arbitrement of which lies the tyrannie of this petie Aristocratie and most ridiculouslie many times used in cutting halfe the haire shaving beards c. as before now hath been objected by others that having I beleeve seen it better know it In the abuses by such censures and difficultie of some cases when appeale is made to a Synod the Bishop tells you which you observe not that the shortnesse of its continuance can afford the condition of the persons will afford litle reliefe Your dozen of the most able pious plowmen in many parishes with an unexperienc'd illiterate Pastour praesiding in their Councel are no very reverend Iudges in many cases And what pitifull creatures they must be of necessitie in some places may be guessed untill this quaestion be answer'd which is sent you from another Countreyman of yours an honest able Divine Whether you have not heard of Countrey Churches in Scotland especiallie amongst the Saints of Argile where not three hapilie not one in the whole parish could reade Amphictyonum consessus A very honourable bench A Senate that no doubt would strike greater amazement but upon other reasons then the Romane if any foraigner should behold them In that you say the Episcopal way is to have no discipline at all in any congregation you are somewhat more hard hearted then your brethren Who acknowledge some of the functional rubbish of your Temple building Elders and Deacons upon the shoulders of our Church wardens Sidemen and Collectours part of whose charge is to observe maners inquire out il●… livers admonish the scandalous and praesent them to the ordinarie To direct them in this dutie the Bishops articles are disspersed and an Audit held of their account at every visitation The officials pleasure regulates not their information which is to be as impartial as an oath can make it His conscience commonlie is not to large though his learning and wisdome be of greater extension then the Elders What power he exerciseth is by law and custome In correctionis negotijs alia quidem facient omnia excommunication is more ●…iselie and conscientiouslie excepted quae de jure possunt solent fieri Constit. 1571 To the Presbyterian tendernesse of medling with domestike infirmities somewhat is sayd allreadie which the Answerer by leter thus avoucheth It is certaine that a foolish man revealing foolishlie his faults to his wife the zealous wife upon some quarelling betwixt her and her husband hath gone to a good Minister revealed what was told her and the honest impertial Minister hath convented the man charged him with his sinne and made him confesse satisfie and doe penance publikelie Here the flagrant scandal was onelie the fire or furie that broke out of a weake womans breast into a pragmatical Presbyters eares whose heade is no sanctuarie for spiritual secrecies but his curiositie the mine that under workes the foundation of private families and palaces too whereof that of Mary Queen of Scots may be a formidable and lamentable example and when jealousies faile of materiall truth in the discoverie to blow them up with malicious calumnies what they can For suits and differences incident between Pastour and flocke Lay Elder and his neighbour the passion upon which perverts blindes the eyes of the wisest men that are your Congregational or Classical Iudges you passe quietlie by it as having nothing to say for it These are the great injuries and hurts which make the Scotish Discipline Scandalous to all the Reformed world being prov'd destructive to the just praerogative of Kings the power of Parliaments the libertie of subjects enslaving all orders of men where it takes place to the arbitrarie jurisdiction of a corrupt Synod and that commonlie moderated by the usurped
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 gratifie your selfe with the observation onelie of the other title supreme head and accept his explication of it which yeilding you in your contracted sense that might securetie afford him more capital priviledges without encroachment upon Christ or his Holie Curch supreme Governer takes in what your Presbyterie will never grant him all power imperative Legislative judicial coactive all but functional Imediate and proper to the ordination or office of the Minister which for ought ●… know if he finde an internal call ●… a supposition drawing neare a possibilitie then likelihood and assurance to have a double portion of Gods gracious power and assistance in both administrations he not onelie may but must exercise as did Moses and Melchisedech saving that without a divine institution in this spiritual function his supremacie exempts him not from submitting his head under the hands of holie Church and taking our Saviours commission with the benediction from her mouth That Scotish Presbyterie is a Papacie the Bishop requires not to be granted upon his word but to be taken before Publike notaries upon your owne the political part whereof consists in the civile primacie which at least by reduction you very confidentlie assume The Bishops contradiction which is scarce so much as verbal will be easilie reconciled by the words of the oath which he reflects on and his argument good against you untill without reserves limitations or distinctions you simplie acknowledge the King supreme over all persons in all causes which would be a contradiction to this clause in your booke of Discipline The power Ecclesiastical floweth immediatelie from God and the Mediatour Iesus Christ and is spiritual not having a temporal head in the earth but onelie Christ the onelie spiritual King and Governer of his Kirke Lastlie No Presbyterian is there in Scotland but counts it sacriledge to give the King what belongeth unto the Church And whatsoeu'rit is they quit in Ecclesiastike causes is not unto the King but to King and Parliament and the power in both when it informes an Act or statute call'd but accessorie by the Aderdene Assemblers and that we may no longer doubt whom they account supreme dutie and subjection from the Prince which though spoken by them but of their meeting must be meant of all causes consultable in their Synods and is as sensible a truth as words without ambiguitie can render it Out of all which hath been sayd it must necessarilie follow that your Covenant hath all the good qualities computed which needs no arithmetical proofe by weight or measure the praemises ever being coextended with and counterpoiz'd by the conclusion What you rashlie if not praesumtuouslie pronounce of the Bishops judgement doth but vilifie your owne Qui citò deliberant facile pronunciant Had you brought a judgement to the contrarie of any learned Casuist to whom his Lordship appeales or any Divine of note in Europe which he calls for your answer had been somewhat more serious and solide But here your oracles of learning are all silent We finde it not avowed by your especial brethren of Holland and France by no approbatorie suffrages of Leyden and V●…recht .... Omnium flagitiosorum atque facinorosorum circum se tanquam stipatorum catervus habet A guard is hath but a blake one such as Catilines league and how can it have beter wherein is sworne a conspiracie as bad The Bishops following vapours meeting with no suneshine of law o●… reason to dissipate them will not so vanish upon a litle blast of your breath but that they 'll returne in showers of confusion upon your head Your secret will to asscribe good intentions to the King hath by some of your packe been very strangelie revealed in their expressions touching Kings whoss very nature they have declared originallie antipathetical to Christ. This Didoclave avowes as planilie as he can And when objected by His Grace of Saint Andrewes with your proverbial yet mystical appendix of their obligation to the Creatuor not to Christ the Redeemer for their crownes is so slovenlie answered by Philadelphs Vindicatour as any man may reade your good wil in his words measure the sense of your Synods by his lines your good opinion of the intentions of K. Charles 1. Beside what you imputed to his Praelates may be guessed by what sometimes in print you have asscrib●…d unto his person An unworthie fellow your Countrey man that comes runing in hast with the message of your good meaning in his mouth sayth His infamous Barbarous intentions were executed by sheathing his sword in the bowels of his people And this not onelie himselve not impeding conniving at and giving full Commission for in Scotland and Ireland but in England looking upon with much delight while it was done And that so faire were negotiations and treaties from retracting him that it was in publike declared he sayth not by any Praelatical partie that he would never desist from thîs enterprise of persecuting Church and Commonwealth so long as he had power to pursue it Concerning the good intentions of Charles the second beside what jealousies you expresse by the scrupulous conditions in your proclaemation your Haghe papers are instancis of your willing asscriptions which call his answer strange whereby the distance is made greater then before and farre lesse offered for religion the Covenant and the lawes and liberties of your Kingdome then was by his Royal Father even at that time when the difference between him and you was greatest ..... So that it will constraine you in such an extremitie to doe what is incumbent to you I have allreadie told you the usual consequences of that cursed word and what good intentions you are in hand with when you utter it Tyrannie and poperie are twinnes engendred between your jealousie malice to which Independencie is more likelie to be the midwife then praelacie and if by that hand they get deliverie at last will besure to pay Presbyterie their dutie when they can speake The painted declarations caries beter sense to them that rightlie understand them which I am sure is not praejudic'd by any paraphrase of the Bishops Though agere poenitentiam Be good councel where well placed ' yet egisse non poenitendum requires it not If the conscience of the Court continue to be managed by the principles of the Praetates the
complures doctrina vitae integritate clari in Scotia substiterunt vitamque solitariam tanta sanctitutis opinione apud omnes vixerunt ut vita sanctorun cellae in templa commu●…arentur Ex eoque consuetudo mansit apud posteros ut prisci Scoti templa c●…llas vocent Hoc genus Menachorum Chaldeos appellabant mansitque nomen institutum donec Monachorum genus recentius in plures divisum ectas eos expulit Buchan Hist. lib. 4 Episcopacie intirelie authorized in the Synod of Glasgow Vind. Epist Hitr. Philadelph Superintendents aequivalent to Bishops Presbyters not to have Synods as often as they list nor doe in them what they please The King consented not to the second bo●…ke of Discipline K. Ch. 1. Larg Declar 1633. pag 411. Refutat libel De Regim Eccl. S●…ot The Bishop no hypocrice in his chalenge about the patrimonie of the Church 1. Book D●…sc 6. head which be longs not by haereditaire right to the Presbyters Let. o●… K. Ph. Q. Mar. Ann. 1559. The Reviewer is the hypocrite Mainten of the sanstatie pag. 10. The Disciplinarians declaration of their judgements in their impudent imperious supplicats They anticipate the law in the exercise of the Discipline Hieron Philadelph de Regim Eccles. Scot. Epist. Iren. Philaleth Narrat mot Scotic Their doctrine as destructive as their practice Ovid. Met. lib. 3. sub 4 2. Book of Disc. ch 7. 2. The Bishops Super-Erastianisme the doctrine of the Reformed Churhes Ad Dissert De Episc. Constant. M. Ph. Par. Vindic. propos 8. D. Par. N. Vedel De Episc. Const M. q. ●… The practice of the good primitive Emperours Har. Syn. Belgic c. 10. Altar Damasc. pag. 15. Renounced by none of the Scotish King The Reviewers malice not any Prelatical principles doth impossibilitate as he speakes the peace betwixt the King his Kingdomes Conf. at Hampt Court The Disciplinarian doctrine practice against the Kings power to convocate Synods Pag. 41. De Episcop Constanst●… M. 2. B. of Disc. ch 10 Cap. De primar Reg. Epist. 43. De Impersum Pot. cap. 8. Constantin De Ario. The ultimate determination of Ecclesiastike causes by the lawes of Scotland is not in the general Assemblie No more then in the Convocations of England Appeales to the King in Scotland Court of Delegates against neither word of God nor aequitie All causes agitated in Scotish Assemblies Processe about Church rent Letter to the Gen. Assembli at Sterling Aug. 3. 1571. Reviewer declines answering about the legislative power Danger in asserting the divine right of Ecclesiastike jurisdiction Hug. Grot De Imper. Sum. Po●… Scotish D●…natist Polit. Anglic Ad Reg. Iac. Sozomen Eliens De Episcopat Constant M. Disciplinarians call resistance against the person obedience to the office of the Magistrate The Reviewer too bold with his Majestie The Disciplinarians no companie for the Primitive Christian The Revi●…wers cunning in passing over what he dares not can not answer His unkindnesse to his brother Gilespie whose theoremes are the doctrine of the whole Presbyterie Harm Sy●… Belg-cap 1 Gilespie's theoreme the rule of the late Disciplinarian practice a Nec enim dissimulabant foederati nimis di●… apud Scotos regnatum esse Monarchis nec recte cum illis agi posse Stuarto vel uno superstite Hist. M. Montisros No defensive armes for subjects Episcopacie no obstruction to His Majesties peace See the learned judicious Digges upon this subjects Appeale in Scotland from a General Assemblie neither irrational nor illegal Altar Damascen 3. Paper An. 1574 The Rebellious insolent disciplinarian proceedings against the too Rt Reverend Arch Bishops Montgomerie Adamson Answ. to the Prosession Declar made by Marq. Hamilt 1638. Vindic. Epist Hier. Ph●…ad Supplicum lib. ●…rum Magister Se p●…sse salv●… Reg●…s imperio de causa t●…ta cognoscere Larg D clar pag 308. Marg. not upon Potest of the Gen. Assemb a●… Edenb Crosse Decemb 18. 1638. Qui occasione laeti palinodiam ei per vim expressam sed in numeris a se locis inter-polatam typis publicarunt The Bishops Appeale not derogatorie to the Kings personal Proerogative The Reviewer mistake●… the scope of the Bishops warning Ch. 5. v. 1. Sedition rebellion not censur'd by the Discipline Hist. of Reform 4. booke Scorish Presbyters mounting in halls schooles c. An. 436. Ancient Canons against Ministers accusers of their br●…thren Reviewer no competent witnsse against Bishops He will not be at peace chariti●… with the dead G●…alth Epist. Erast. Aug. 3. 1570. Nor speake any truth of the living Spanheims speach about English Bishops The Kings booke of recreations farre short of what other Reformed Churches tolerate on the Lords day Vindic. Ch●… Phila●…d Blaire his companions justlie banished K. Ch. 1. larg Dec. 1639. pag. 324. The Discipline in Scotland different from Geneva King Iames Declaration 1584. Part. 3. An. 1684 The Bishops consequence good from Commissaries ●…o Civile Magistrates Fucus ad fallendum simpliciores vel potius illudendum Ecclesi●…s pag. 404. Altar Damas●… The Assemblie jugling in Gibsons case The Bishops relation of Mr. Blackes case vin●…cated enlarged Hamp Cour●… Co●…s Rom. 6. 1. Ephes. 6. 16. Hebr. 11. 36. Nescio quid nec quando sed multo ànte Vind. ep Philad L. 1. c. The od de Relig De Imper. sum Potest circ sa●…r cap. .9 Nam eo ●…ēporc summā fuit Ecclae concordia authoditas ut aulici ab ea tametsi Regia gratia niterentur timerent Vindic. Ep. Chr. Philad Let to the Q. of Engl. Iul. 16. 1561. The Ministers guiltie of the tumult Decemb 17. 1596. * Vasius The Rev. impertinencie or cunning in altering of the state of the quaestion Let of the Congreg to the Nobles of Scotland 1559. De Imper sum Pot. cap. 9. Disciplinarian intentions never better then their words Eccles. 8.4 No th●…nkes 〈◊〉 to them for not excommunicating their Kings The Ancient Father●… quit peccan●… Kings of all humane censure Apos Gent. adv The Bishops reasonning not unconsequential Aristoph Nubes Bloud the seed of the Discipline Esai 1. 15. Mercie Gods attribute so the Kings ●… Book Discipl 9. head Presbyters sollicite pardon for murder * Rigour to be preached c. under none but impious or negligent Magistrates so excommunication for impunitie E. Huntleys case wholie minted in the Assemblie Bothwells notorious crimes R. Bruce's speach against E. Huntley First fruites c. witheld from the King as much by the Presbyters as Pope An. 1587. Contradiction about tithes pag. 57. Patronages Presbyterian rebellion tyrannie Rejoycing at the sequestring the Church patrimonie Qui jactare non dubitârunt se Epis●… plygin ●…airian inflixisse * A●…tar Damasc. p. 3. K. Iames anti-presbyterie No Donatist Ep. lector A●…tar Damascen Georg. Con. De Dupl Stat. Relig. apud Scot. lib. 2. Their latitude of scandal 8. 9. Malefactours pardoned not to be excommunicated False measures c. maters of civile cognizance The Reviewers 30. yeares experience
no argument of Presbyterian honestie Their Canons not the same with those of the ancient Church Victorem Romanum Epum circa annum Dui 200. legimus Coenae usu●… interdixisse injurias condonare nolentibus T●… Erast. thes 7. No canon against rebe●…lion nor deprivation of rebellious Ministers Presbyters as peccant as Bishops Ch. 2. 11. 29. 9. Revel 17. 5. 8. 2. 3. 2 S. Pet. 2. 13. Their exercing civile jurisdiction Their eoc●…nomical superintendencie Preaching personalli●… 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 Ierem. 901. Isai. 58. Edenb 12. May. 1649 posts●…r Scottish mist Dispell'd Hendersons Prophesie Pap. to K. Ch. I. I●…n 3. 1646. Esth. 4. 14. Presbyters Declaring 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. ●…1 The Kings affirmative voice Hug. Grot. De Imper. Pot. cap. 8. No such vicitie need be us'd about mominating officers Ch. 4. The Presbyters destructive demurr●… Scot. Mist. disp The Reviewers impertinencie in the successe of the Spanish Merchants As. Dund 1493. The Presbyterian zeale for the 4. Commandment hypocritical 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 monst●…s impietie of the Presbyterians in prosecusion of their ends Lib. 5. 1560. Lib. 3. Assemblies have no power to summ●…n contrarie to the Kings proclamation Cantic 8. 6. 7. Contradiction 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 haerefies with out the Emperour Henrie the eight's reformation the occasion not the original of ours Scotish Presbyterians from the begining schisme None but they have declared Bishops ceremonies unlawfull Ch. 6. ●…8 Ch. 9. 3. Capt I. Stuart vindicated The treason at Ruthuer Saint Iam 4. 16. S. Matth 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 advraescr haere●… c 42. Arch-Bp Lauds Armenianisme Poperie the doctrin of scripture and the Fathers Prov. 25. 23. Advers hares cap 16. Ariote under praeteuse of taking Priest at Masse Avetted by Knox improid to a rebellion Vit Eliz. Ao r 563. Assemblie's summ●…ning the people in Armes upon the trial Popish Lords Isai. 57. 20 Power of order and jurisdiction The midd l●… Apostolical right of Episcop●…cie Conscience not bottom'd onelie upon a divine Right Rom. 1. v. 2. ch Alteratio●… unsate and sinfull while conscience 〈◊〉 doubtfull The reasons of K. Ch 1. against a change Peace Antiquiti●… Vnivers●…litie The considerable approch of Church discipline to doctrine Paternal government Communion with Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ch 17. Ius divinum of Presbyterie frustrates all treaties excommunicates all Christians threatens all Princes Isai. 40. 23. 24. The Reviewers perverting the Bishops doctrine Erastu●…'s Royal right abused in a Sophisme Sen De Clem ●…l ●… c. 20. The consequences from Episcopal principles not such as praetended S. Matth. 4. 9●… Difference between us and Rome 〈◊〉 ceremonies Prov. 10 31. Real praesence corporal different Hist Mot. Iustification S. Matth. 13 45. Free will Deut. 30 19. Final Apostasice 1. Cor. 10. 12. Phil. 2. 12. A quaestion about Davids case Rubrike in the confirmation Christ as King of his Church appoints lawes c. H. Grot. Hanc none magis licet Ecclae mutare quàm mutar●… licet ipsam scripturam Vindic Eplae Philad By whom his S●…pters is to be swayed Vincent Lyrin advers haeres cap. 14. English Episcopacie ●…t d●… by the more for ward Presbyteri●… B. Discipt 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 Posis 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 Benlib 3. cap. 16. The texts of scripture against Episcopacie discussed Prov. 26. 4. 5. 〈◊〉 20. Besho●…p are Apostles Lib. advers haeret 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 excommunīcated for this doctrine No power of jurisdiction in a Companie met together Delivering to Satan ●…hat Why Blondel c. are not answered Somais fare well to the Pre●…byterie 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 shift Ier. 8. 17. The Presbyterians 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. Contrarie●…ie of Commands very frequent in Scotland The Reviewers fallacie Humble petitions c full of threats The Church-chasing and excommuniting for the late engagement The untruths are the Reviewers Prov. 6. 2●… The Rev. eares not for hearing of the late engagement P●… 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 Iob. 5. 13. Prov. 17. 24. Heb. 11. 39. Ephes. 2. 2. G●…l 1.8.9 Lament 4. 20. Cortradiction between the Revie margin and text The l●…vie was offered to be stopped May 11. 1649. Lib. De Ircap ●…lr Ministers in armes Not cens by the Commissioners of the Kirke S. Pet. 2. 16. v. 13. Presbyterie makes Parliaments subject to the Assemblie●… 2. Book discipl 1. ch Heb. 1. 14. Ps. 104. 4. Ier. 14. Isai. 42. 1●… Ministers power with the people dangerous if seditiouslie bent Th. Capanel cap. 18. Ps. 45. 5. Ipsis Cardinalibus and ●… P. max●…ormidabilis suit diremita aut unyt principes subditos suos arbytratu Ps. 12. 4. E●…k Bas cap. 17. Sc. Liturg. p. 87. V. 18. Is●… 66. 24 No in haeren●… right in Courts to nominate Commis●…ioners for intervalls Haggai 1. 6. The Presbyterie a tyrannie over the consciencies of thepeople Censures upon slight grounds Scot. Lit. Rom. 8.
rout at London by that time being well inform'd what effectual weapons stones stooles such like as furie on a sodaine could furnish had been against blacke gownes white sleeves at Edenburgh before That any armie could at that time be raised when the Kings Forts Magazines Militia Navie were seizd into the hands of your Rebell brethren was a special marke of divine providence cleare in so happie successe as he that ran might then have read their ruine writ by the fingar of God had nor the blacke cloud of our sinnes eclips'd that light blotted out that handwriting shour'd downe vengeance upon our heads That such earnest pitifull entreaties should be made to strengthen the arme of flesh by Gods people in Gods cause after such divine revelation that this was the appointed time wherein Christs Kingdome was to be exalted on earth that the Saints should flourish laugh sing at the downefull of that man of sinne c. Is a note me thinkes that spoyles all the harmonie of the rest That upon such earnest entreaties the Scots were oblig'd to come in is not to be found among all those easie conditions made their double former returning in peace Their feare of a third warre to passe over their brethrens carkasses to themselves is a strong argument of their guilt that their advise some other assistance had passed over the late agreement made between His Majestie them to promote that horrid rebellion against him That so many intercessions with the King for a moderate reasonable accommodation had been used by them was a relique of Poperie they kept notwithstanding the reformation they had made they did truely supererogate in that worke no law of the three Kingdomes I take it making them umpires between the King his subjects nor is it yet revel'd to the world what divine authoritie they had as was pretended in their Remonstrance to come in the name of our Lord Master Iesus Christ to wa●…ne the King that the guilt which cleav'd so fast to his throne soul was such as if not time●…ie repented would involve him his postcriti●… under the wrath of the everliving God For how moderate how reasonable accommodation they mediated appeares in the 19 propositions to the substance of every one of which their unreasonable brethren adhaered to the end That they were at any time slighted rejected is a mere calumnie of the Reviewer ' he would have told us when where if he could That al they ask'd was not granted was upon unanswerable reasons which His Majestie render'd in his publike Declarations about the Treaties c. That they their fainting brethren were so easilie perswaded to enter into a Covenant together is no great mervaile His Majestie tells them Solemne leagues Covenants ...... are the common road used in all factions powerfull perturbations of state or Church ..... by such as ay●…e to subdue all to their owne will power under the disguizes of holie combinations The expresse articl●…s in the Covenant for the pr●…servation of Royaltie c. are spun so fine woven so thin as that white vail●… can not hide the face of that blacke rebellious divel that is under it Whereof they being conscious that had been very well acquainted with the mysterie no lesse then an whole armie together conduct us to the perfect beholding the sweet countenance of this late Baal Berith as he lies We crave say they leave to beleeve that an accommodation with the King in the way term●…s you are upon or any at all as the case now stands that shall implie his restitution or shall not provide for his subjection to trial judgement would first not be just before God or man but many wayes evill Secondlie would not be safe 1. The Covenant engaging to the maters of religion publike interests primarilie absolutelie marke that with out any limitation after that to the preservation of the Kings person authoritie but with this restriction marke this too viz. In the preservation of the true religion liberties of the Kingdomes In this case though a Cavallier might make i●… a question yet who will not rationallie resolve it That the preceding maters of religion the publike interest are to be understood as the principal supreme maters engaged for that of the Kings person authoritie as inferiour subordinate to the other 2. That where persons joyning to make a mutuall covenant if the absent parties shall oppose it the maters contein'd in it surelie that person excludes himselfe from any claime to any benefit therefrom while he continues so refusing opposing So that you see notwithstanding the expresse articles for the preservation of Royaltie His Majestie may be brought to his trial all his posteritie too when the holie brethren can catch them be murder'd at their owne gates according to the expresse sense of severall articles in the Covenant for maintenance of religion libertie And what unkindnesse was here in the Scots to their King Besides whosoever will take the paines to compare the particulars in the Scotish Remonstrance which they brought in their hands when they came in upon the Covenant with those in the accursed Court proceeding against His late Royal Majestie may be able to doe Dorislaw Steel Cooke c. some litle courtesie in their credit pleade for them that they drew not up but onelie transscribed a charge brought long since from Edenburgh to London And yet what unkindnesse was here in the Scots to their King There is yet one thing more whereof upon this mention of Remonstrance Covenant I can not but advertize my reader having but lightlie touch'd upon it before That whereas the Scots in their Covenant confesse before God the world many sinnes whereof they were guiltie for which they desire to be humbled Viz. That they had not as they ought valued the inaestimable benefit of the Gospell That they had not laboured for the puritie power thereof That they had not endeavoured to receive Christ in their hearts marke that nor to walke worthie of him in their lives These men tell the King in their remonstrance That they come in the name of their Lord Master Iesus Christ to warne him about the guilt of I know not what sinnes they there heape together upon his soul. A very likelie storie to beleeve That Christ had sent them into England with this covenanting paper in their hands who had shut him out of doores very latelie would not receive him into their hearts Notwithstanding all the pretended glorious successe obteined more by the name then exploits of the Scotish armie the opposite partie was not so fullie subdued but that the multitude of garrisons beside Newarke which might have cost them deare surrender'd after His Majesties leaving Oxford make a
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 extrinsecal power in the Minister derivative from the supremacie of the King you were best turne over Erastus the learned Grotius after which I guesse we shall heare of you no more Your Assemblies are Arbitrarie but at Royal pleasure otherwise then as by your covenanting sword you cut of their relation to the King his great Councels So that your Kings were willing to accept had good reason to assume more then ever you would give them How you robd them of their right by your multipli'd rebellions see Scotish-Presbyterian selfe conviction in my Epitome of your storie If the Bishop had left this matter in generall your hue crie to be sure had gone after him for particulars His reasoning stands not to the courtesie of your indulgence being grounded upon the Acts of your Assemblies whose backes had been long since broke with the weight of no peckadillos in disputing but high mightie villanies in rebelling had it not the strength of the whole lay Presbyterie to support it Though by the way I must tell you The failings of your officers may be taken as naturall to inseparable from your office when having been so notoriouslie publike they passe without your censure or dislike So that this mote as much as you miskenne it will prove a beame in your eye of such consequence in this argument as you will scarce finde the way through the most hainous particulars that follow The first of which layes such a blocke in your way as you can not step over till you have as good as acknowledged one of the principal articles in that charge You confesse His Majestie did write from Stirling to the General Assemblie at Edenburgh 1579. that they should cease from concluding any thing in the discipline of the Church during the time of his minoritie And how well you obey'd it we may collect by what followes Vpon this desire dutifull subjects would have taken it for a command the Assemblie did abstaine from all conclusions that we shall see presentlie onelie they named a Committee to goe to Striveling for conference with His Majestie upon that subject Any man that is acquainted with your Assemblie logike will know that this clause with the onelie if it passe not for a conclusion caries the force of two praemises with it And he must be very ignorant in your storie that hath not found all your conferences with your Kings to have been contests Whether this was so or no I leave to the discretion of the reader when he sees what you say followed thereupon Immediatelie a Parliament is called in Octob. 1579. And in the first Act declares grants jurisdiction unto the Kirke .......... And declares that there is no other face of a Kirke nor other face of Religion then is praesentlie by the favour of God established within this Realme And that there be no other jurisdiction Ecclesiasticall acknowledged within this Realme then that whilke is shall be within the samen Kirke or that which followes therefrae concerning the praemises Now let us lay all this together The young King is resolved to have no medling with the discipline yet no sooner doth he see your Commissioners sweet faces but immediatelie a Parliament is called And in that Parliament your Discipline must have the primacie In the Acts And that leading Act must not onelie establish what you have at hand but upon the engagement of Regal Parliamentarie power purchase all future possibilities of your pleasure give your invention a patent to play the wanton There must be some witchcraft sure in your Committee by your relation a magicke spell to retrive on such a sodaine the Kings wandring affections to the Discipline But when I finde His Majestie professing that after ten yeares of age you never had his heart A brother of yours lamenting that for five yeares before this you had had a perpetual conflict with the Bishops ever got the worst That most of the Nobilitie upon several interests were at this time bent against you I am at a losse for the Kings libertie as much as for some other concurrent due authoritie in this Act reade nothing but your violence in these proceedings But let us see how you a namelesse friend of yours agree He tells us the letter that Dunkenson brought to this Assemblie had otherguede contents That the King onelie quickned your dispatch in consultation about some head of the discipline preparing your unanimous result for the consent of the Parliament that followes The Kings jealousie of your medling with these affaires he seemes to anticipate by two yeares of your account if there were any such thing whereof he doubts he sayth the King was better informed of the truth He farther complaines of two whole leaves about this businesse that were rent out of your publike records that ever since left posteritie in a cloud this was done in the yeare 1584. which he calls the houre of darknesse You say the authentike Registers are extant convince the Bishop to be heire of falshood Error caecut quâ c●…pit eat All the truth that I can picke out of this confusion is That the King was disaffected to the Discipline That the Assemblie did not obey his command nor answer his desire with their silence And that what consent you say he gave in Parliament soon after was either forg'd or procured by constraint What followes concerning your rigour to the Papists many orthodoxe Christians comprehended in that title is easilie credited But you should have done well to have set downe the names Dominorum Consilii ex quornm deliberatione proclamation was made then we should have know'n how neare they were of k●…nn to your faction Some bodie tells us That the Ministers did deliberate Buchanan did act according to the maximes of loyaltie he publish'd That the Kings name was to it what else you pleased is not much to be doubted when you had got his person in your power For how short a time you could keep his inclination to the Discipline which was proclaim'd ap peares out of your storie of an Assemblie mans penning How cordiallie peremptorie the King was in his command how forward in subscribing whatsoever is in the Act for the short Confession of fayth And what good effects it wrought among the people you may take notice out of His Majestie speach in the Conference at Hampton Court wherein he shewes how ridiculous the thing was the person that drew it up I thinke it unfit to thrust into the booke every position negative .......... according to the example of Mr. Craige in Scotland
Church were demanded as insolentlie as could be which meetes me every where in their storie as frequentlie as Mr. Baylies dissembling falsifying in his Review In the last instance the Bishop denies not but there was a time when a kinde of Presbyteries was legallie approv'd receiv'd And this I presume he will admit to be after the Assemblie 1580. About which allreadie you have indeed alledged more untruth then you 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 Tires●…as 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 heretikes 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 Mult●… 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 koinono●… 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 ●…ebaioun ●…pipscphizesthai ●…pisphragizesthai cratinein cratioun epikyroun tà pepragmen●… 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 s'avisera Rev. Yet the most of the prelatical partie will not maintaine hīm 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 L●…ontius 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 kánonecclesias 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 under the protection of the club The name of Parliament you make but a pandar to countenance the wanton license of your Assemblies the great seale you would have set to nothing but an indenture of the Crownes perpetuall servitude to your Synods The Prelares Cabin divinitie which sea language you 're in love with since your voyage into Holland came often above deeka with very innocent loyal intentions long before these times of confusion which your Consistorian divinitie hath wrought And though you take your selfe to appeare as ominous as Caster without his brother in the shrowd●… it feares no shipwracke by any storme you can raise nor lookes through your cleare prediction upon its ruine You have not hitherto found such a fate in your words as to produce a consequential necessitie of the banishment of Marquisses Bishops from Court though divine justice may hereafter inspire our Soveraigne to returne this judgement upon your heads who are ever breathing murder exile into his eares For while such popular Sicophants as you are suffered to live in any Monarchs dominions neither can the People be secure of their peace nor Princes of their lives K. Iames spake it plainlie when he sayd A Scotsh Presbyterie as well agreeth with Monarchie as God the Devil Such Reviewers who looke but halfe way home into the original of crownes are cleare everters of the first foundation of Kingdomes which made Kings some what more then fiduciaries of the people whose solid peace consisted in an humble active submission to their just commands a Christian quiet passive obedience if tyrannicallie imperious This to be sure would keep the best part if not the best partie from ruine till the high hand of heaven over ballance their temporall sufferings with an aeternitie of reward where no malecontentment can be to come To the second challenged principle your answer is very slight impertinent And would I undertake a farre more unpleasing imployment then Phocion had in chiping Demosthenes for which he was call'd kópi●… ton lógon I should make a slender instrument of your review there being beside the extravagancie of your railing language your malicious enlargements in false commentaries diverting your Reader from the genuine orthodoxe meaning of the text drawing him into an intricable labyrinth of jealousies feares the chimaerical brats of your owne braine which you would faine lay at other mens doores scare sixe pages in your booke that are a direct answer to the Bishop which I can not impute to your ignorance but your cunning who feeling your selfe held closse by the necke in the letter of your lawes Assemblie Acts would very faine winde your selfe out of the controversie or run away with it into any Church or Countrey but your owne In this paragraph the Bishops citations prove what he intends nor dare you I see denie what you are too conscious you maintaine It having never been your practice but when you could not doe otherwise to wait the Kings or Queens call for your Synods In the yeare 1561. Knox writes expresselie That gladlie would the Queen her secret Counsel have had all the Assemblies of the Godlie that is the Rebellious Disciplinarian discharged They notwithstanding make a convention the businesse comes to dispute Mr. Secretarie Leshington makes a doubt whether the Queen allowed it or no to whom was this answer returned If the libertie of the Church should stand upon the Queens allowance they were assured not onelie to lacke Assemblies but also to lacke the publike preaching of the Euangel In the beginning of your late commotions the Historian that so officioussie styles himselfe the Parliaments Secretarie mentions a writing publish'd by you wherein you affirme That the power of calling a Synod in case the Prince be an enemie to the truth or negligent in promoting the Churchs good is in the Church it selfe And that the state of the Church of Scotland at that time was necessitated to such a course Nor doth your Disciplinarian doctrine make the Christian Magistrate any more then your Bayliffe to take up your rents or the Captaine of your guard to defend you Vedelius renders it ●…n more harsh language .......... faciunt ex iis Magistratibus mancipia imò lictores curnifices Episcoporum seu Ministrorum Ecclesiae To advance the Kingdome of Iesus Christ. ..... To defend it against all that would procure its hurt ........ To ●…ssist fortifie the Godlie proceedings of the Kirke in all behalfes ......... To see that the Kirke be not invaded ........ To hold hand as well to the saving of the Ministers persons from injurie open violence as to their rents possessions Finallie not a word is there in all that chapter or booke that asscribes to him à syllable of this power So that the King may call a Synod when whersoever he thinke fit if the toy take you in the head to anticipate or procrastinate his time you will assemble when wheresoever you please for you tell him he ought to heare obey your voyce And your friend Didoclave averres this to be a businesse that hath no absolute dependance upon him Non absolute simpliciter pendere a Christiano Magistratu If when you have a minde to meet he prohibites that must make no demurre non cunctandum est non cessandum ab officio ...... For this you pretend an intrinsecal power touching which I demand what it is when where how farre to be exerciz'd What old or late dutifull Christians did use it when any Christian King did forbid it Who of the Praelatical partie they be that maintaine it in their writings or practice for I know none that in either extend it to a like latitude with you And how manysoever you have of the Papists all the Popes are not of your side Leo confessing that he had not power to call a Counsel but the Emperour no●… durst Liberius call one against Constantius pleasure The necessitie you frame of meeting for the execution of the Discipline even in times of persecution may have reference to an heathen Magistrate or Christian. If to the former you doe it either in confidence of your power to resist him in that rebellion wherein how are you justified Or else you runne desperatelie upon your ruine which is selfe murder no martyrdome for Quis requisivit by what praecept or counsel is it required at your hands If to the later there may be at least a fallibilitie in your judgements if
not an obstinate perversenesse in your will Et quis vos judices constituit who made you that are parties Arbitratours If at any time the ancient Christians assembled it was where no Imperial edict restrain'd them And then the learned Grotius tells you Non opus fuisse venia ubi nulla obsturent Imperatorum edicta What private conferences they had in the times of heathenish persecution you know by their apologies were voy'd of suspicion which yours never were but 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 incapacitie 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 tyranous 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 abo●…t 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 fleeted 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 she 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 〈◊〉 decline the judgement of His Majestie His Councel shall incurre the pain●… 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 〈◊〉 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 determine 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 praejudicial 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 déprivations 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 your limits 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 Penssionars in Caitnes for reduction of their
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 ancient 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 perse●…uted 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 nisi illa con●…emnis quae ●…ugem imponu●… 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 Magistrate●… why not over you aswell as others If the Church-men why not others aswell as you Mr. Gilespies Theorem because prefsing 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 h●…ld 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 Baron●… other brethren of the Congregation 1559. In a declaration of the Lords against another proclamation of the Queenes 1559. To all these '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 onelie to all power that dare extol it selfe against God but also against all such as dar●… 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 i●… 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 ●…aser 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 bes●…tting the counsel house whether the reverend learned worthie Bishop of Galloway
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 ●…aile against the E●… L●…nox 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 Pope takes a sword in his hand more then belongs to him The Earle of Arran demanding who dares subscribe such a paper Andrew M●…lvin 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 m●…information pr●…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 proceeding●… in these cases I desire to be inform'd I am sure K. Charles 1. many yeares since hath writ That they did wickedl●…e 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 ●…race in the words of the Fathers of the fourth General Councel at Chalcedon Mitte foras superflues 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 Majesties authoritie our owne consciences And we most humblie intreat His Grace to intercede with the Kings Majestie that he may appoint a free 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 di●…e 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 ●…ced of the Scotish
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 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 toward 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. 20. A wise King scatereth 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 frui●… 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 benefices of cure under Praelacies shall in all time coming be free of the first yeares fruits fift penie the Ministers have their significations of presentation past at the Privie sealé 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 maintenanee 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 overtill 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 you 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 tithes 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 b●…asted 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 Episcopacie 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 jurisdiction over Ecclesiastical persons derived upon the King from
honestie throughout 30. yeares trading The saints after that rate will not be readie at Doomesday to give up their account of compassing the earth getting in their inheritance annex'd to their dominion which they will have founded in grace If the Presbyteries wherein all that time you were conversant were no merchant adventurers tooke no share ●…f the purchase they have kept some Jubilee to lease out their indulgence Or it was not unlikelie a piece of your Kirke-policie to connive a long time at all petie larcenie knowing who at length would be catch'd in the great cheate the 200000. pound sale of damnation to their brethren yet keeping backe whole viols of vengeance and wrath unto themselves For the many causes of Ministers deprivation cognosced upon in your Presbyteries you have the good liking of neither Papists nor Praelates who finde no canon that gives commission to such a mungrel socitie of lay-Clerical Presbyters to take away what they have no power to conferre If I give but not grant your usurped tyrannie a priviledge by many yeares rebellious praecedent to cognosce of such cases I must except against clipping of canons the coyne that beares the Majestike image of the Primitive Church such as is the 67. in the fourth Councel of Charthage Seditionarios nunquam ordinandos Clericos sicut nec usurarios nec injuriarum ultores The first of the three had met with your vertous Fore-Father Knox in the Castle of St. Andrewes sav'd all the mischiefe we have reap'd by his call from abetting the murder of Cardinals to rebelling against Princes renting the Church the Commonwealth into Congregational Covenanting parties The last which was your injust praetense if not in your banners at least in the Remonstrances which you brought in your hands when you invaded England Canons holding aswell for depriving as ordaining had rid us of all the rable of Rebellious revengefull Presbyters without a stroke For the businesse of usurie I shal not draw up my charge till I discover the Scottish Presbyterian Cantores Yet you were best have care whatsoever becomes of the ancient Canons that you be not too severe in depriving for that lest you get a rebuke from your brethren abroad who it may be desire not to shake hands with you in that point of the Discipline The Bishop neither tooke out nor put in any causes of Church-mens deprivation but merelie transcrib'd what he thought more concern'd a Civile Court then a Synod If he had been at the charge of reprinting all whereof your booke of Discipline makes mention he must have left an c. to bring up a reserve though yov will not owne it of preaching penning practizing schisme sedition Rebellion against moderate just pious Kings aswell as what your Assemblies were solicitous to prohibite under the terme of Schisme or Rebellion against the Kirke For the first last of the three sinnes you draw out because you will have the pleasure at least of licking your lips at the naming His Lordship knowes no Bishop nor Doctour but may finde a namelesse Scottish Presbyter to give place to If he should be mistaken which he hath not so much reason to hope as charitie to wish he sees in St. Iames the guilt of murder aequivalent to adulterie made as great a transgression of the law He heares of Isaiah's triel in Scotland which deserves the same wonder crie of the Prophets Ye are drunken though not with wine ye stagger though not with strong drinke c. And since your last returne ou●… of England beholds sitting at Edenburgh aswell as London the great whore instead of her blew arrayed in purple scarlet colour decked with gold pretious stones pearles having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations filthnesse of her fornication And upon the forhead of the woman drunken with the bloud of the Saints with the bloud of the Martyrs of Iesus a name written with a beame of the sunne Mysterie Babylon the Great The Mother of harlots abominations of the earth For the third sinne of gluttonie which you will have produc'd because in your canon though not much for your credit that your excessive gossiping comes to be cognosced by your Church all Bishops Doctours may freelie bid defiance to your sect of whom so manie are so often known to be as fed horses in the morning though you flatter yourselves into a conceit that the noyse is not heard are neighing as much as those in Isai. So that you may in due time have what you better deserve the same curse with the Priests in the Prophet Malach. which will spoyle your reviewing singling out other men●… errours or secret sinnes to the shame of Christianitie among the Nations when your selves are spiloi kai momoi the principal spots blemishes that are in it God may corrupt your seed spread dung upon your faces sol●…nitatum st●…rcus even the dung of your solemne feastes you more likelie then they may be taken away with it The Bishops third chalenge mounts somewhat higher then your answer which pleades onelie for preaching upon texts concerning the Magistrates dutie resolving from scripture their doubts both which reach up onelie to a judgement of direction but his Lordship cites the clause in your theorem which makes difficult cases between King people subjects of cognizance judgement before the Assemblies of the Kirke And this he sayth riseth to a judgement of jurisdiction Your second booke of Discipline is more modest in language though as mischievous in meaning The Ministers exerce not the Civile jurisdiction but teach the Magistrate how it should be exerciz'd according to the word whereas if you take cognizance of pronounce judgement in these difficult cases Or call before you such as may be more easie but should be heard otherwhere this is no other but exercing civile jurisdiction as spiritual as you make it If you with the terrour of your excommunicating Maozin overaw the Magistrate into a servile submission to what you praescribe this I take to be no teaching but commanding instead of resolving by deliberate advice Christian moderation cutting in sunder with this sword of your spirit no word of Gods the knots perplexities of his conscience What doubt-resolvers you are commonlie between Master servant husband wife your licentious demeanour in many families may informe us where it is too well know'n you have made your selves judges of the trivial oeconomical causes in the hall dispensers of or with more private duties in the chamber So that they say the good man hath many times met with a consistorian censure at his table if not with a Presbyter a Presbyterian prohibition in his bed I beleeve you mistake preaching Praelates Doctours for some babling Puritanical Pastours Lecturers in England who have made these things
if the learned the priviledge of which title every covie of Dunces challenge to themselves judge the person unable of the regiment he is set aside and they forced to take without violent intrusion they tell them whom the superintended Councel offereth to instruct them A Presbyterie exercing all jurisdiction without any appeale from themselves A Presbyterie feeding their flockes like swine with graine and huskes such divinitie as every brewer or hogheard can helpe them to never leading them through the green pastures of the ancient learned and devout Fathers nor to any other waters of comfort but such as the very fountaine whereof the foot of schisme or rebellion hath troubled This is 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 Embas●…ies Saint Ambrose a Pr●…fect and Dorotheus a Chamberlaine to the Emperour Many of them Councellers to Princes and Iudges aswell in ordinarie secular affaires as Chancllors 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 grad●… impedimenti clerical●… 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 offici●…ls 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 Officiali 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 rei as may betaken 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 ca●…onical 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 e●…they 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 fault with 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 sositarie 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 deale 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 civile imployment Arch-Bishops Arch-deacons with the c which might have been better spar'd did it in angusto comprehensus 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
these he calls Apostolici seminis traduces If they be Apostolical grafes 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 Euangelists aswell as in the Revelation they are called Angels 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 Scripturas revelances 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 later sive id 〈◊〉 est sive praesens mysterium dicitur 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 fit non pactum pactum quod v●…bis 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 fals●… 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 Epaph●…oditus 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 versa The learned Grotius That Doctours were Bishops or Arch-Bishops rather the same with those call'd Metropolitans afterward Paeteres 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 peri●…h 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 ou gar hoi Presbyteroi ●…heirotonoun ton Episcopon say both Theophylact and Oecomenius For the word which you will needes have to be classical not personal perchance some will 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 Epithescoos ●…oon cheiroon ●…ou Presbyteriou dia tes epithescoos ●…oon cheiroon 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 enoopi●…n pantoon a rebuke before all 1. Tim. 5. 20. Vt qui non potuit pudore Salvari Salvetur opprobrij●… sayth Saint Hierom he sayth not damnetur or eijciatur ●…nsuris 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 Eccless●… with out the signal meaning of the word Coram multis Lib. Musar Kata 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 ●…an 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 demofiseoson 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
Primum instrumentum bene imperandi ling●… est secundum verò gladi●…s The sword is but the left hand instrument in the governing Kingdomes The tongue of the preacher is dextra te●…ibilis that of the right hand 〈◊〉 teacheth terrible things that by the menace of death which the sword can not reach to keepes subiects in obedience to their Soveraignes Therefore when once it hath a power with the people such as that of St. Bernard it had need be endued with the spirit of Saint Bernard for there is a tongue Quae conteris spiritum the perversenesse wherein is a breach in the spirit Prou 1●… 4. And the proud me●… in the Psalmist promise themselves a victorie over Princes by the tongue ●…e will praev●…le Who because they are the m●…n that ought to speake just like you denie all supremaci●… Their first language is this Quis dominus Who is Lord over usi The Politician I spake of hath a discourse worth your reading wherein he shewes you how Mahomet 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 tong●…s 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 scoffes 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 ●…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 sha●…els about him but must render himselfe at the end of his covenant The Praelates proclamation of such Atheis●…e 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 〈◊〉 ab●…orring unto all flesh 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 of 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 Parliaments may be carefull that the peace now hapilie concluded may be continued 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 ●…e'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 quastion'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 of your late troubles were the Ambusc●…do wherein you lay closelie in wait to disturbe both Ch●…rch 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 fa●…cherie and expense to fullfill their lusts at other mens cost Which with all their heart they will in Sempitern●…m 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 sactulu●… 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 fight 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
the pit that should encounter him the cocke crowed no more and with the Brethrens good liking the controversie ceased Till afterward on good occasion a Member offering to prove there was no such thing in the Christian world before Calvins dayes the Moderatour learnedlie confuted him saying His father while he liv'd was of another minde The E. Argile who was surprized as he sayd at the sodain rupture of this Assemblie held the Members a litle while by the eares with his argument of convenience telling them He held it fit the Assemblie should consist of Lay-men aswell as Churchmen Take this with you Your Assemblie Ministers are chosen by the lay Elders your Moderatours some times are laymen a course not justifiable by law 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 when 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 pro imperio 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 moneth 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 Burgessesis 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 insinuations 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 ihe 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 concilia●…e 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 Laici invitentur inducantur 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 ●…ust 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 absurditie 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 descend 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
finke 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 eares 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 farther 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 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 Diacon●…s reliqui Cleri●…i The laying on of hands of the Presbyterie both in Scripture and Ecclesiastike storie was onelie for external forme no intrinsecal 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 impositionem mannum Apostolorum Deus conserebat charismata non autem per impositionem 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 text then you were pleas'd to make of it chapt 8. So that I see the brethren agree not upon the point Succession through the lineal descent of Bispops from the Apostles and ordination by the hands of Apostolical Bishops have been ever used as strong arguments to uphold Catholike Christians in a comfortable assurance of their Ministric as lawfull And haeretikes have been pressed by the ancient Fathers with the want of nothing more then these to justifie their profession Hoc enim modo Ecclesiae Apostolicae census suos deferunt sayth Tertullian And Irenaeus before him joines the gifts of God required in the Ministrie if he meanes not the sacraments with the Apostolical cession of the Church Vbi igitur charis●…ata Domini posi●… sunt ibi discere oportet veritatem apud quos est ca 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 suae 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 Ministerimust 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 indivisib●…e 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 p●…yson he casts to spot other mens names cracke their credits ta tes 〈◊〉 ita motetos 〈◊〉 apheidos proballon as true of an A●…rian as A●…ian Your divination about the deleted words will succe●…d 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 lay societies of Christians from the Church Vntill I 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 numeru●… corrigendor●… ca qu●… quoquo modo facta s●…nt non in dubium vocemus sed Dei potius dimitt●…nus 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 similitude 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 Ministrie to doe it which may consist with that of B. Ignatius if applied to this purpose Ouk exon esti choris to●… episcop●… 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
of gifts 3. Vn preaching Ministers are no idols having eares to heare what the Church praescribes and mouthes to utter as her prayers for so her wholesome doctrine unto the people But what I can not passe by since it meetes me in the way That efficacie of the Sacraments as well as power of the word which you call of exhortation should be limited to the abilities of the Minister And as the Papists directlie so we by inference be disabled in both I thinke will helpe you to a share in the Iesuits Sophisme whereof we latelie discoursed and set you upon the pinacle of arrogance and impudence who hereby unchurch the greatest part of Christians and contract this Soveraigne excellencie to your selves Your Latin disputations when they come by course among the ignorant or yonger frie of your Ministrie doe but multiplie haeresies make them now and then in their heate blaspheme God more learnedlie then in their weeklie exercizes and Sermons As occasion shall serve I may helpe you hereafter to more instances then one of the like practice among some of your brethren abroad where every boardlesse boy for with such your Presbyterie every where abounds hath libertie to talke for I can not call 't disputing upon the highest mysteries the Trinitie Praedestination c. As confidentlie to the shame of your religion as the gravest Doctour can determine in the chaire What of this may be tolerable among the learned super to●…am materiam ●…s litle beter then a forme and litle decencie in that which approves not much improves lesse the abilities of the longest liver among you all Our aequivalent to this let it be what it will in our Archdeacons Visitation your friend Didoclaves turnes off with a jeer making as if the abilities of our Ministrie were inquir'd into after they were constituted leaders of the flocke Primum creantur ductores gregis d●…inde fiunt discipuli where as it is principallie to discerne the advancement by studie of what abilities they had at their ordination whereby the election of rural Deanes may be regulated persons know'n that are enriched by gifts befitting them to be Bishops Your experience shall not draw me into an unnecessarie comparison between our English Clergie and the French or Dutch Divines whose ordination yo●… are not ignorant hath been impeached by their adversaries whether deservedlie or no they are to looke to and their abilities resolv'd just like yours into an effusive readinesse of words But I bid defiance to you and your Countreymen of the Discipline to shew me among you all a Law'd an Andrewes a Montague a White to whom the English you name must give the guerdon of learning which I beleeve Reynolds caried not at Hampton Court Conference unlesse Perkins had more in his Chaine of Praedestination or Parket in his silie Arraignment of the Crosse. But how solide and singular soever was their learning their defection from the doctrines and practical praecedents of so many yeares standing among Catholike Christians makes their fayth in many things and their good parts comparitivelie in all but as chaffe to be blow'n away with the winde and the memoire of them to be winowed by our breath that the truer graine may be visible in Gods Church Av●…lent quantum volent pallea levis fidei quocunque Affltu 〈◊〉 eopurio●… mass●… frumenti in horrea Domini reponetur It 's well your conscience can be enlarged in some litle charitie towards any of our Bishops though we may be iustlie jealous of this kindnesse feare if we hear'd their names it may be placed upon persons inclined to your interest rather then commended to your good opinion by their merit But whose'er they be you meane we know you never prike any in the list of the learned but the best read men in Synopis's and system●… in Common place bookes and Centurists orgenerallie in your select Reformed Fathers whom in a fallacie often times you perswade your Disciples to be the more proper men because standing you tell them upon the shoulders of the ancients when if set on even ground the longest arme they can make in true learning and eloquence will not reach halfe way up to their girdles But to proceed in some answer to your quaestion The Warner therefore speakes to you of ignorance because your Presbyterie parts with the greatest incentives and encouragements of studie Therefore of contempt because it quits those dignities which give praecedence to their persons and draw reverence to their function Therefore of beggerie because it diverts the Ecclestastical revenue and makes you but stipendiaries of the people Of this very conciselie yet fullie hath his late Majestie admonish'd you Chapt. 17. of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that surveyes impartiallie the multitude of good Livings and other Clerical praeferments in England which might serve as a supplement to the bad will finde litle reason for any none at all for the greatest part of our Priests I meane those that had a title that were eidicoos cheirotonoumenoi as it is Can. 6. Concil Chalced to be begarlie contemptible for their want especiallie since those Pluralists you confesse were scarce one of twentie that lived in splendour at Court or were Nonrefidents in the Countrey Such as were apolelymenoos ordinat ordained at large without title to any benefice or cure the Bishop was charged with them till provided for And they that complained of their povertie had no cause there being as you tell us such plentie in his palace The ignorance of our Clergie which it may be was not incomparable if we bring yours into the light was never greater then when Calvin and Knox had some heires and successours that crept into the praelacie degenerating from the austeritie of their Fathers who because they lov'd not the office never mean'd to discharge it Yet could dispense in their conscience with the title lawne sleeves into the bargain that under them they might take the revenues of our Bishops But when and where we had Austins and Chrisostoms Lawds and Andrews's never cloud was dispelld with the rising sun so as ignorance at their asscent in the Episcopate of our Church And they that heard not of the great studie in th●…se Praelates to remedie the evils brought in by the other are such as Zecharie speakes of that imagine evil against their brother their heart refusing to hearken and pulling away the shoulder and stopping the eare that they should not heare and making their hearts as an adamant that they may not c. Those some that were most provident you meane I thinke most penurious in their families were those I told you of that made a trade of their 〈◊〉 and would dispense with any thing among the puritans but their Purses Such as those 〈◊〉 other that ●… named as they were a●…ter to r●…ach so were they know'n to be of 〈◊〉 behaviour and 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 the requisites of a Bishop ●…nd accomplishments of
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 covenantor ●…ath 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 and all proceedings in that kinde 2. An ordinance of the Lords and Commons without and against the King i●… no good warrant to change such lawes during the sitting of 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 Majestics concessions to have praevented all can be sayd in the praesent case Behold you that kindled the fire 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 thi●… 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 have him some such fatal haereditarie confinement being the fairest apologie if any when he should subscribe so many of your unconscionable 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 i●… 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 Peeres 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 made 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 for spiritual jurisaiction as being a fit meanes to avoyd .... partialities incident to one man And tyrannie which becomes no Christians least of all Churchmen And thirdlie to take away from them the burden and Odium of affaires which was a courteous diminution in such times How sacrilegiouslie you rob 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 abolishing 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 professe 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 absolute alienation of their lands as is desired because he is yet perswaded in his judgement that the former is of Apostolical institution and that to take away the later is sacriledge ..... And if his two Houses shall not thinke fit to recede from the strictnesse of their demands in these particulars His Majestie can with more comfort cast himselfe upon his Saviours goodnesse to support him and defend him from all afflictions how great soever that may befall him then for any politike consideration which may seem●… 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 inconvenience●… 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 ●…is Majestie expressed should rise againe then they declared whollie in his choyce unavoydable 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 likewise abjure which is abolition or coutinue perpetuallie his suspension which is Tantamont unto it This is very well orderd 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 let me aske you What assurance
Presbyterians is more then in Bishops and ceremonies 199 The Sc. Discipline omits what the ancient Canons had among the cases of Ministers deprivation What it hath conconcernes more Presbyters then Praelates 67 It playes the tyrant over the consciences of the people 124 Divine attributes pro●…aned in asscribing them to the Discipline and Assemblie Acts. 100 ovenanters missetake the Discipline for Christs institution 180 ●…o legal establishment in Scotland of the first booke of Discipline 18 K. Iames's consent to the second booke of Discipline how improbable 24 They anticipate the law in the exercise thereof 27 The English Discipline long since setled by law in Scotland aud our Liturgi there used 1●…3 That of the Pr. Scots obtruded upon England Ibid. Divine right pleaded for Presbytere frustrates all treaties 96 Episcopacie wants no Discipline aequivalent to that in the Scotish Presbyterie 175 Our doctrines about real praesence justification free will final apostasie praedestinatîon breif●…ie touched And a quaestion propounded about Davids case 98. 99 Dowglasse that murdered Capt. I. Stuart kill'd in Edenburgh high street 21 E. OUr Episcopacie not reputed Antichristian by other Reformed Churches Ans. to Ep. Ded. 3. 50 K. Ch. I. suspended the jurisdiction of Episcopacie in Scotland for no crimes No full and free Parliament that voted it downe in England 9 Episcopacie no obstruction to the Kings peace Why it may not be lay'd aside 40 What right it hath to become unalterable 94 The reasons of K. Ch. I. well bottom'd 95 Some particulars about the historie of Scotish Episcopacie 111 Abolition of Episcopacie is not that which will ever give the Pr. Scots satisfaction 165 K. Ch. I. in his largest concessions yeilded not unto it 188 The assertours of the Magistrates just power misse call'd Erastians by the Reviewer 6 Erastus●…s Royal right of Church government can not untie the Kings conscience if streightned No●… is that onelie it the Bishops praetend to 97 The Sc. Discipline exempts not Kings from being excommunicate 57 Excommunication not mean'd by delivering up to Satan 110 Ignorance no ground for the execution of it 172 The Scotish Presbyters practice touching excommunication litle lesse rigid then their canon 227 The inconveniences that follow to be imputed rather to the Kircke then State 128 Impunitie no good ground for excommunication 61 The Kings pardon quitting poenitent malefactours 65 F. SCotish Presbyters much too busie in private families 175 Fayth not so common if such a grace as ordinarilie it is defined 201 Church Festivals not legallie abolished in Scotland 18 Crueltie toward fugitives 129 G. GIbson's insolent speaches unto the King 21 The Assemblie's juggling in his case 52 Gilespie's theoreme for resisting Magistrates disclaimed by no Assemblies The substance of it the sense of many 37 The King why concerned to be cautelous in his grants to the Presbyterian Scots 5 The Bishops Office entirelie authorized in the Assemblie at Glasgow 1610. 23 H. THe proceedings against D. Hamilton's late engagement discussed 70. 71. c 115. 117. c. Mr. Henderson's speach of Bishops 199 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 floweth 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 companie met together 109 K. THe election of a King not originallie justifiable in any people ●…64 K. Ch. I. not inclinable though by counterfeit 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. 6 K. Ch. II. hath expressed no inclination to the Covenant If any praeventiv●… disswasion of His Majesties from 〈◊〉 hath been used by the Praelatical partie 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 Li●…urgie 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. Presbyterie 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 P●… 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 Gent●…ie then Praelacie 130 Noblemen why chosen Elder●… 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 comp●…ent Iudicatorie then the Classical Presbyterie 132 No power of ordination in the Presbybyterie 108. 142 No comfortable assurance but from Apostolical