Court Arbitrary and yet this is the Informers only Argument why no Ecclesiastick Court can be Soveraign in the matter of Censures Because then it would be Arbitrary 2 The highest Asserters of the Supremacy before the Act of Parliament 1669 Which is now rescinded did never affirm that the King or Council might by themselves reverse or redress Censures purely Ecclesiastick but the outmost by them acclaimed was and is that all remedy by Church Judicatures failing the King or Council might with advice of the sanior pars put a stop to the procedure for some competent time and recommend a review till better order might be re-established But 3 ly The Informer might have found the Act of Parliament that he cites thereafter plainly interpreted and restricted viz. By the first Act of Parliament 12. Ja. 6. Intituled Ratification of the Liberty of the true Kirk whereby it is expresly declared that the Act cited by the Informer shall no wayes be prejudicial to nor derogate any thing from the priviledge that God has given to the spititual Office-bearers in the Church concerning the collation or deprivation of Ministers c. But this last Act the Informer did not or would not think on And certainly to understand the former Act so laxly as he doth and to apply it to a case so plain and obvious as Mr. Heriot's Deposition were no less then to overturn the Church and introduce confusion 2. But in Answer to what is said viz. That the Council cannot put in Ministers and therefore cannot meddle with Sentences deposing them the Informer tells us that though the Council has not the power of Admission and Ordination yet if a Presbyrery should refuse without cause to admitt and ordain a Minister having a lawfull Call Letters may be direct to charge them to do it multo magis in the case of Deposition is the Council the most proper Judge to restore against the oppression of an unjust Sentence Ans But 1. The Informer forgets that the Council Power to charge in the case he supposes was allowed to fortify the presentation of the Patrons when in use and so to maintain that mixed Right partly Civil and partly Ecclesiastical which they pretended to But now that presentations are abolished and that the matter of Calling and of Entering Ministers is by the late Act of Parliament referred to the Determination of the Presbytery of the bounds to be by them concluded the remedy in case of difference upon a Call must no longer be by Letters of Horning but by Appeals to the Synod and from the Synod to the Assembly to be there ultimatly determined And 2 ly There is besides this mistake in the case supposed a great disparity and inconsequence in the Argument thereon founded For Esto that the Lords of Council may put the Presbyteries to do their duty it doth not therefore follow that in case they refuse the Council may do it for them which yet must be the Informers inference or otherwise he concludes nothing But all the Magistrate doth in such a case is to bring the matter before some Superior Ecclesiastick Court that may supply the fault of the Inferior which without the Magistrate's interposing hath through Mr. Heriots importunity been done in this case once and again much more than was necessary 3. But why in the matter of an ordinary Sentence of Deposition judged and rejudged by the judicatories of the Church should the Informer bring things to these extremes as if we were in the case of some great and important matter about which the Church it self was divided and the Magistrat oblidged to interpose for preventing some ruining prejudice Certainly if such clamours be allowed on every occasion of this kind the excellent Establishment which we have lately by Law obtained is of little or no use and both King and People must be in perpetual disquiet For can the Informer upon the smallest reflection think that his clamour should preponderate with the Magistrat to the Sentence of the Presbytery ratified over and again by the Synod and the Assembly whom God and the Law have intrusted with the final Judgment of such matters So that were the Sentence even doubtful as it is not yet it s very Authority should oblidge to an acquiescence How much more is the Informer to be blamed who notwithstanding of Mr. Heriot's undenyable contumacy and several gross Immoralities proven against him whereof almost any one is sufficient for Deposition doth upon some ill applyed notions of form and other bold falshoods and calumnies in point of Fact ofter to make such a stirr and noise which yet no wise man regards Finally To what is said I add a few words more 1. This Juridico-Theologaster might have remembered if he had not forgotten his Logicks that two Powers as well as other things may be so far distinct as to be neither Co-ordinata nor Subordinata but Disparata And I take it neither to be Heterodoxical nor Paradoxical to say so of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Power for it hath been asserted by no mean men yea sometimes before the Supreme Judicatory of this Kingdom and that upon the highest peril So that Mr. Heriot might very well have spared his idle and ignorant Story of a Regnum in Regno 2. Mr. Heriot by his heterogeneous Appeal has made way for farther extravagancy of this kind For some of his sort I have sâ—umbâ—ed upon a rare kind of Appealing from the Presbytery to the Synod Commission of the Church General Assembly Council of State and the King all at once simul semel and thereby if this sort of saltus come in fashion do enervate and render all Judicatories both Civil and Ecclesiastical in a great measure useless and would bring all to the Kings personal and immediate determination when ever any party finds or but fancies that he is wronged by any Judicatory and what the consequences of this ridiculous sort of Appealing would be some men will not have the fear and cannot have the wit to foresee 3. As to the particular case in hand What ever the Civil power or Supremacy may be or is according to Law I thought it had been reserved for greater and better uses and ends than the sheltering of a Scandalous Curate from the moderate just Legal and deserved Censure and Sentence of Judicatories acting according to the established Laws and if either Civil or Ecclesiastical Judicatories suffer themselves and their legally settled order to be disturbed by such groundless bold and false clamours and alledgeances as these of Mr. Heriot they may be sure of disturbance enough for this and the following Generations But they are wise enough to foresee and prevent this and other evils designed by the common Adversaries POSTSCIRPT SInce the preceeding Answer to Mr. Heriots Information was drawn I have had a sight of a second Edition of that Paper which has these words in the close added to the former And whereas some persons have strongly asserted to
disowned in the Prelatick Government which owns no other Officers than these Patriarchs Primates Metropolitans Arch-Bishops Bishops Arch-Deans Deans Prebends Rectors Vicars Priests Deacons Curats Church-Wardens Sides-Men Sextons and the rest of the Apocriphal Tribe of Mr. Heriots Regular Clergy which he again and again talks of in his Information And I needed not to have omitted the Pope for he belongs to the same Tribe and diverse of the Prelatick Protestants do own him as the first Bishop that is to say the Head of the Clan And for my part I am content that all go together as birds of the same Feather 3 As to the alledged inconsiderableness of these Elders chosen by the more regular party in Dalkeith they are nothing inferior to Mr. Heriots nominal Elders in any thing that is good and considerable And for their number they exceed not what they were wont to be in times of Reformation 4. As for their design to obtrude a Minister upon the Parish contrary to the profession of Presbyterians c. Ans 1· Is it not pleasant to see Mr. Heriot teaching Presbyterians their own Principles and pleading for them Who can but laugh at it especially if they consider how ill he has learned either his own or theirs as we have seen Supra 2. The Prelatick principles and practices are in this thing too well know to be so soon forgotten And Mr. Heriot seeming to plead for the power of Ruling Elders and the liberty of the Parish in choosing and calling a Minister shews him to be no true Prelatist and consequently neither good Fish nor Flesh. It may be he will say that this was but his Argumentum ad Hominem But then let him take the Answer here given both ad hominem ad rem that his Argument is really ad neutrum 3. It is also well known that Presbyterians deny no member of the Congregation liberty to object against the Intrant and if their objections bear weight and be found just and relevant they are regarded if not rejected And if this course had been observed all alongst it may be questioned whether Mr. Heriot would have got entrance there 4. It may very easily and rationally be supposed that the present Eldership of Dalkeith with the advice and concurrence of the Presbytery when needed and desired may have as good skill of choosing a fit Minister as Mr Heriot and his Party 22. Mr. Heriot not being content with all the insolent Language and usage he has given to the Church Judicatories goes yet farther and ventures upon an untroden Path that he may rid himself of all Church Judicatories and by a Salius quite extra oleas betakes himself to the Lords of their Majesties most Honourable privy Council and supplicates them upon the matter utterly to overthrowthe Government of the Church and the Laws establishing it and to take upon them to judge and pass definitive Sentences in causes meerly Ecclesiastick For he and his Party have petitioned their Lordships to discharge the calling of a Minister while the Appeal be discust and that in the mean time he may be restored to the exercise of his Ministry c. Answer 1. By this trick of Mr. Heriot's if it pass into an approven example and precedent he has cut out abundance of new work for the Honourable Lords of Council I may say for all the dayes of the year not excepting even these dayes which Mr. Heriot calls Sundayes But their Lordships are wise enough to foresee what a vast deal of their precious time it would require to concert and adjust all these differences that arise through the Kingdome about the settling and unsettling of Ministers I suppose their Lordships would soon wearie of it and truly Mr. Heriot in his betaking himself unto their Lordships seems not to have been sufficiently sensible of the greatness of their work otherwise but it is like Mr. Heriot thinks himself and his concern so considerable that it deserves time and place amongst the most weighty affairs of the Kingdom and therefore he puts their Lordships in minde that he is not only deposed from his Ministry but likwise from his Benefice which is his Livelyhood and Maintenance and herein tandem aliquando he speaks ingenuously and brings forth the great Gravamen and quarrel which has occasioned all the clamour and noise we have heard Oh it is the grand lose of his Benefice Livleyhood and Maintinence Quis taliu fando temperet a Lachrymis But who lamented the case when several hundreds of a better character were for smaller faults turned out of their Livelyhoods Surely none of his party 3. This device of Mr. Heriots seems to aim at and tend unto nothing less in some mens apprehension at least than the overthrow of the Civil Government it self for upon the matter he supplicates the Council to invade the late Claim of Right and bring back again that Supremacy which the Convention of Estates claimed to be abrogated as one the grievances of the Nation And in prosecution of this wicked design he cites an antiquated and abrogated Act of Parliament of which more anon and suggests falsly and ignorantly that by the Churches enjoying her wonted and just liberties and priviledges there would be Regnum in Regno and a liberty for the Church to do wrong at her pleasure without controle But we may easily know whose heifer he plougheth with here this is but a new towt in an old horn our worthy Ancestors have solidly and learnedly answered and anticipated these suggestions and because their Testimony and judgment may perhaps have but little weight with Mr. Heriot I would minde him of the Judgement and practice of some of his more sound and honest Brethren and Fathers viz. Those seven Prelates who were put in the Tower of London in the time of the late King James for their Legal adherence unto and asserting of the Churches power and priviledge and that in a strain far contrary to this of Mr. Heriots and it were easie to adduce other instances of more learned and sound men of the prelatical way than Mr. Heriot as to this head of Church-power But I suppose it is needless neither are the Honourable Lords of their Majesties Council so easily imposed upon as to be cheated by such a silly Cavil as this which Mr. Heriot here suggests for they know that Church-Officers do not deny nor refuse the Allegiance of Subjects nor does their power reach mens persons further than what is necessary for suppressing of wickedness and Scandal which Mr. Heriot and his Advocats seem to reckon a doing of wrong without controle nor does the Ecclesiastick power claimed and exerced by Presbyterians reach mens properties any way at all 4 What if there be the hand of some Joab in this contrivance of disturbing the Honourable Privy Council with a business of this nature What if some greater Head-piece than Mr. Heriot has hood-winked him and put him upon this desperate Course and that on purpose
to do some greater mischief to Church and State than to protect or relieve Mr. Heriot from a deserved Church-Censure There that are wiser than I may enquire into this if they please However when persons manifestly disaffected to the Civil Government come to plead for the enlarging and streaching of the limits thereof some of these Honourable Governours will be in hazard of remembring the saying of the old Trojan Politician quicquid id est timeo Danaos Dona ferentes 23. Amongst others of Mr. Heriots falsehoods and calumnies I suppose that is one he has in this paragraph I am now answering viz. That severals of the Presbyterian Ministers who have seen the Lybels and Depositions affirm that there is nothing proven but the Dancing about the Bonefire for I am sure that no rational man after he has read the Depositions will say that there is nothing proven but his Dancing so that these Persons be speaks of must either not have seen the Depositions or not have said and spoken so as he alledges and I am sure that both Statsemen Lawyers and Ministers after sight of the Process and Depositions have said that the Presbytery might well have deposed him 24. Whereas Mr. Heriot does again and again make a horrible clamour about making the Depositions of the Witnesses patent and their persons known that they may be insisted against c. Here he discovers plainly his malicious design in demanding so often the making patent to him the names and Depositions of the Witnesses viz. Not that he may Answer and vindicate himself though sometimes he pretends to this impossibility but that they may be insisted against and that he may pursue them for telling the Truth and that even after they have sworn it according to the best of their knowledge and conscience And let all rational persons judge if there be any shew of Candor or Honesty here in his threatning to pursue the Witnesses meerly for their declaring and that upon Oath when called to it what they and others saw with their Eyes and heard with their Ears does not this sort of threatning course warrand the Church Judicatories before whom the Process lyes to demand of Mr. Heriot and his party in Dalkeith that they give sufficient security to the Magistrat of their good and peacable behaviour towards these Witnesses before the whole Process can be Printed with safety to the Witnesses especially considering what violence has been already executed upon and is yet farher threatned against others by divers of Mr. Heriot's party in Dalkeith Here also the Reader may percieve a satsfying Reason why in the preceeding short Narrative of the Process the names of the Witnesses are not expressed However Mr. Heriot may remember for he doth know it that some of these Witnesses have avowed and asserted to his face even that Article of his Dancing about the Bonfire and other things too and that even since he emitted his threatning and lying Information and although there were unworthy and indirect means and menaces used by his party to daunt the Witnesses and drive them from their Testimony To all this may be added that the Authentick Depositions of the Witnesses were by the Presbytery given in to the General Assembly to have been publickly seen and read there as they were afterwards again and again before the Synod which shews that the Presbytery were no wayes Jealous of their validity and sufficiency for probation 25 Toward the end of his Information he supplicats the Lords of their Majesties Privy Council to take notice of this as a further evidence of the unjustice of the Sentence that in the first Lybel there are many Articles which are not Relevant and yet the Presbytery by their Sentence found the Lybel relevant and proven which must be understood saith he as to the hail Articles of the Lybel complexly than which there is nothing more false these last words are his but the Reader may take them as the true Answer to what he has said and he aggravates this as a very great miscarriage and boldly alledges that both Presbytery and Synod have Acted contrary to express Law and have done open and manifest unjustice whereof all that heard of it are convinced and sensible c. Ans 1. Bona Verba These things need no confutation they are so evidenty false and ridiculous What need was there for Mr. Heriot to proclaim himself in Print to be a Child in Ecclesiastical affairs How does he affront the Honourable Lords of Privy Council by proposing such Stuff unto them as this and several other things in his Petitions He quarrels and challenges the Presbytery for sustaining the Lybel as Relevant because as he saith there are many Articles in it which are not Relevant this is rare Reasoning indeed Does he not know that if there had been but one Article in the Lybel Relevant and other twenty in it not of that weight yet the Lybel is Relevant notwithstanding For these other lesser Articles do no hurt to the Relevancy of the main Article and consequently of the Lybel and has he forgotten the old Proverb Et quae non prosunt singula juncta juvant But the Reader may judge of the Relevancy of the Lybel by the preceeding Narrative 2. As to what he adds that this Acting of the Presbytery and Synod against him is such an open and manifest unjustice as that all that heard of it are convinced and sensible of it This is such a gross and manifest lie that I doubt whether he can make a greater except he have taught his Tongue an extraordinary skill in that Art Is it not time to leave and let him alone when his rage and impudence is arrived at such a hight 26 Yet before I let him go it will not be amiss now in the close of this Paper after having got such a taste of his skill in Divinity and Church-Government to consider his skill in Law and Acts of Parliament and I trow this Informer will be found no happier in the Law-part of his Paper than he was in the Ecclesiastick part thereof 1. He sayes It is pretended that the Lords of Privy Council are not Judges competent to the Sentence of Ecclesiastick Courts and that as they cannot place so they cannot displace or depose Ministers But he Answers that by the first Act 8. Parliament Ja. the 6 It is statute that the King and Council shall be Judges competent to all persons spiritual and temporal in all matters and he sayeth that to affirm that the Council is not Judge competent to the Sentences of Ecclesiastick Courts is to give these Courts an Arbitrary power to do wrong at pleasure without remeed or control Ans To this it is replyed that in a matter that hath been so much debated and is now so well understood it is strange that any man assuming to instruct others should so much darken counsel without knowledge For. 1. To make a Court soveraign is not to make a