Selected quad for the lemma: power_n
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A66931
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A declaration of the brethren who are for the established government and judicatories of this church, expressing their earnest desires of union and peace with their dissenting brethen.
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Wood, James, 1608-1664.
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1658
(1658)
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Wing W3397; ESTC R39139
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8,387
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13
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our just grounds of fear while some of them did endeavour to enervate the power of Church-judicatories by procuring an Order putting the power of giving Testimonie to Intrants which is due to Presbyteries only who are authorized to judge of their Call and to try and ordain them in the hands of some select persons of their own choosing And when it pleased the Lord to break that snare their leading men have again of late attempted the utter ruine of this Church and of these who differ from them Under the pretext of seeking a commission for plantation of Churches they projected to have the power of disposing the legall maintenance of Ministers put in the hands of that Commission though they know such a power was never given nor assumed by such a Judicatory but that it is contrary to the order established by the Law of the Land the great design thereof being not only to call the Authority of the late Assemblies in question as they expresse in their desire but to have the maintenance put in the hands of men to their mind who were the proposers of the Overture that so they might discourage all who are opposite to them from the Ministrie But not contenting themselves with this they have further proposed and projected to have it imposed upon us That there should be a particular Visitation appointed in every Synod consisting of equal numbers of both Judgements the one half to be chosen by the one party and the other by the other party respective with power given them from the Synods for purging and planting Ministers and Elders and composing present and future Divisions in Presbyteries and Congregations within the bounds of the Synod And that there should be also a general Committee of Delegats from the several Synods of equal numbers chosen as aforesaid and anthorized by Synods without whose previous advice and consent the respective Synods may not reverse any thing done by the aforesaid Visitators and such Visitation and Committee to continue only till the present differences be healed or till the Lord in providence minister some better way for settling peace among use These projects we look upon as setting up in effect a new Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction and a plant which is not of Gods planting and not only suspending the established Church-government sine die but totally subverting it to make way for the projecters their domination in the Church and over their Brethren For this course projected by them doth clearly take away the power of Synods and Presbyteries not only in the matter of our present differences and in the matter of purging and planting Ministers and Elders wherein the chief exercise of their power consisteth but in all suture divisions And what may not men affecting preheminence make a matter of difference that they may continue themselves in power It laieth also for a foundation an universal imputation upon the Synods and other Church-judicatories as not worthy to be trusted with the Work committed to them by Christ and that they will not be so faithful in the Work of Reformation nor in composing any difference which may arise hereafter of what importance so ever as these Delegates chosen after a new mould So that a preparative is led to lay aside Synods and Presbyteries when any party pleaseth to quarrel them and they must lend their power to give some shaddow of Authority to any Party who pleaseth to tread upon them It is a tyrannicall imposition upon Synods that they must give their power to persons whom they have not liberty to choose nor power to call them to an account and must set up a jurisdiction above themselves with at least a Negative voice to frustrate all their actings if these Delegates please Yea not only is a Negative voice required to be given them in or over all the Judicatories of this Church which by parity of reason cannot be denied to any Party that pleaseth to make a rent if so be it be given to our Brethren who are so few in number in comparison of the body of the Ministrie of this Church and very few or none at all of them being in some Synods But hereby also a way is laid for perpetuating differences and contentions by yoking Parties of equal numbers together in debate who probably will not cede to other and so in stead of composing the breach shall be widened Nor do we see here any desire or purpose to put an end to this arbitrary jurisdiction but for any thing we know it might be perpetual and the Synods never return to their due liberty if those proposals once took place for not only were it in their power to continue present differences so long as they please and consequently to continue that extra-judicial power to compose them much more if they must be continued for composing any future divisions they shall be pleased to start But if in processe of time this way shall not please them they in stead of recurring to Christs own institutions do give us an hint of some better way which they expect may be ministred for setling peace As we are confident that upon these and many other weighty considerations all who cordially own the Church-government as of divine right will be ashamed of such encroachments So we heartily wish those who have had hand in them may lay to heart their carriage toward their Mother-church whose interests they are bound by the oath of God to maintain And though we doubt nothing of their unwearied endeavours if they persist in their former temper yet again to set on foot and prosecute those their purposes and that they may pretend to prosecute them as the only expedient to draw us to Union which is in effect to cast all Christs interests among us under their feet and to force us to what terms of Union they please when they shall have us in their power Yet for our part we resolve in the power of the Lords Grace never to accord thereunto nor recede from the established Government be the hazard what it will But what ever may be the Lords purpose to permit men to do to that Government we will never buy peace at so dear a rate as the ruine thereof nor be accessory thereunto by any deed of ours We have expressed our thoughts more fully in these things without any purpose to defame or irritate our Brethren or to charge these destructive courses upon all of them but meerly for our own vindication and justification in our adhering to our principles in opposing these encroachments and for our own exoneration before the world and to our Brethren if so be they will seriously ponder and weigh the tendency of these courses and being wearied of those unpleasing unprofitable and scandalous contentions they will give proof of their love to peace and to the wel-fare of their Mother-church and Christs precious interests in her by thinking upon an aggreement with us in the Lord. And albeit our Brethren
A DECLARATION OF THE BRETHREN who are for the established GOVERNMENT and JUDICATORIES OF THIS CHURCH Expressing their earnest desires of UNION and PEACE with their DISSENTING BRETHREN EDINBURGH Printed Anno Dom. 1658. A DECLARATION of the BRETHREN who are for the established Government and Judicatories of this Church expressing their earnest desires of Union and Peace with their Dissenting Brethren IT may justly seem strange to all impartiall Observers and cannot but be looked on by all the lovers of Zion as a sad and humbling dispensation That after so many years tossing about a debate now so far removed out of our way and after so many endeavours for an accommodation We should yet be necessitated to expresse our sad resentment of the continuance of our distempers and of the afflicted condition of this Nationall Church For our part we have been from the beginning and yet are so sensible of the evill and prejudice of these Divisions that as we have made Conscience of lamenting them before the Lord and afflicting our souls because of them and for the sins procuring the same So we have not forborn from time to time to seek peace and pursue it upon any terms that might be consistent with the simple freedom of our own judgements in the matters controverted and with the being of Presbyteriall-government which we believe to be of God and which the Lord in mercy hath established among us in answer to the prayers of many of whom some now sleep in the Lord and by the no small sufferings and troubles of the present generation We are nor so insensible as men how we have lien under many disadvantages in our opposing our Brethrens irregular courses destructive to that Government nor as Christians and Ministers of the Gospel how God might justly plague any private interest or designe of ours which should add fewell to that fire and how our main work hath been retarded and obstructed by these contentions That we should take any pleasure in them if so be we could obtain peace upon safe and just terms In pursuance whereof both in our conferences with our Brethren at home and of late in England and in our Representation published to the world we have expressed our earnest desires for peace and our ready condescendence to gain them to an Union in the Lord for carrying on the work of God amongst us though as yet without any desired successe but while we have been seeking peace some of them have been sailing all winds to compasse their own ends and set up a domination of their Party in this Church We are sorry we have so much cause to complain of our Brethren that they should not only have begun a needlesse rent in this Church upon a Question so extrinsick to our Doctrine Worship and Government But that since they have so notably injured us in our Persons and Ministery by casting so many and so foul reproaches upon us both by word and write at home and abroad that so they might make us hatefull and purchase credite and power to their own Party whereby also they have endeavoured to render this Nationall Church odious in the view of the world and exposed her to be a laughing-stock to all her enemies on all hands and furnished them with weapons if their foul slanders deserved to have credite whereby to fight against her and justifie their opposition to her when her own Children bear such witnesse against her Though we heartily wish our Brethren may seriously consider and lay to heart those their actings Yet for our part we professe it is not our purpose to impose upon their Judgements in these matters of our differences nor do we keep at a distance from them upon the account of any such personall injuries having learned from our Master to forgive and patiently to bear hoping that as these aspersions are not believed by these who know us so in due time He will wipe them off to the conviction of all who do not wilfully blind their own eyes But our stumbling at our Brethren is meerly upon the account of the wrongs they have done and daily do to the settled Government of this Church from which if they would once cease and provide against them for the future our debates with them were at a close As our hopes of peace after our first rupture were soon blasted when we perceived our Brethren not sisting at the first cause of their rent but starting new quarrels to increase alienations So we did easily foresee that their way did manifestly tend to the overturning of the established Church-government and that if they did not hearken unto peace there was no remedy but they behoved to run some course destructive thereunto We could in prudence judge no otherwise when in the very entry we found them decline the Authority of the Supreme Church-Judicatory in this Nation once and again and ready to do so from time to time at their pleasure and drawing Factions and Parties with them in that opposition and branding Church-officers and inferiour Judicatories as generally corrupt that so all of them might be cast loose or at least moulded to their mind But they did not long leave us to our own conjectures and fears in this matter having soon after and constantly to this day by their irregular practices contrary to all order upon the account of their Declinatour and the pretended corruption of this Church both Officers and Members which they could never make out though often put to it bewrayed their small respect to the established Government planting Congregations in a tumultuous and disorderly way without respect either to the Church Judicatories or to the just interest of the People of the Congregation and counter-acting to the Resolutions and Determinations of Judicatories when any of them pleased to be dissatisfied therewith with many the like practices which we take no pleasure to repeat And we found yet more cause to judge that these were not the deeds only of some few amongst them more forward and violent than the rest but agreeable to the principles of all at least of their prime Leaders when our conference for Union with them in November 1655. was broken-up chiefly upon this account beside some other things mentioned in our Representation That we could not denude the Church-Judicatories of their just Power and devolve matters into the hands of an extra-judiciall Committee of equal numbers and that they expresly refused subordination and submission to the Church Judicatories to which they and we were solemnly engaged at our Admission to the Ministry and which we were willing to renew for our parts and without which our established Judicatories shall be nothing else but so many consultative meetings A principle inconsistent with Presbyteriall-government in a constituted Church as all who are acquainted with debates of that nature will easily perceive The prejudices to the Church-government flowing from their way did not sist here we were but too much further confirmed in