matter doe it boldly it shall never offend me But that yee shall bee found to oppose your selfe unto mee yee being perswaded in the same Trueth I say yet againe it pleaseth me not for therein may be greater inconveniency then either yee or I doe consider for the publike The said Master George answered That I will not oppose my selfe unto you as one willing to impugne or confute that Head of Doctrine which not onely yee but many others yea and my selfe have affirmed farre be it from me for so should I be found contrarious to my selfe for my Lord Secretary knows my judgement in that Head Marry said the Secretary you are in my opinion the worst of the two for I remember that your Reasoning when the Queen was in Carricke Well said Iohn Knox seeing Brother God hath made you one to fill the chaire of verity wherein I am assured we agree in all principall Heads of Doctrine Let it never be said That we agree not in disputation Iohn Knox was moved thus to speake because he understood more of the craft then the other did Well said Lethington I am somewhat better provided in this last Head then I was in the other two Master Knox said he yesterday we heard your Judgement upon the thirteenth to the Romanes we heard the minde of the Apostle well opened we heard the causes why God hath established powers upon the earth we heard of the necessitie that mankinde hath of the same and wee heard the dutie of Magistrates sufficiently declared But in two things I was offended as I thinke some other more of my Lords that were present which was Ye made difference betwixt the Ordinance of God and the persons that were placed in Authoritie And ye affirmed That men might refuse the persons and yet not offend against Gods Ordinance This is one the other yee had no time to explaine but this me thought ye meant That Subjects were not bound to obey their Princes if they command unlawfull things but that they might refuse their Princes and that they were not ever bound to suffer In very deed said the other ye have rightly both marked my words and understood my minde for of that same Judgement I have long been and yet so remaine How will ye prove your division and difference said Lethington and that the persons placed in Authoritie may be resisted and the Ordinance of God not transgressed seeing that the Apostle saith He that resisteth resisteth the Ordinance of God My Lord said he The plaine words of the Apostle makes the difference and the facts of many approved by God prove my affirmative First the Apostle affirmes That the powers are ordained of God for the preservation of quiet and peaceable men and for the punishment of malefactors whereof it is plaine That the Ordinance of God and the power given unto man is one thing and the person clad with the Authoritie is another For Gods Ordinance is the conservation of mankinde The punishment of vice and the maintenance of vertue which in it self is holy just constant stable and perpetuall but men clad with the Authoritie are commonly prophane and unjust yee they are mutable transitory and subject to corruption as God threateneth by his Prophet David saying I have said yee are gods and every one of you the sonnes of the most high but yee shall dye as man and the Princes shall fall like others Here I am assured That the persons yee soule and body are threatned with death I think that so ye will not affirm is the Authothority the Ordinance and the Power wherewith God endeued such persons for as I have said it is holy so is the permanent will of God And now my Lord that the Prince may be resisted and yet the Ordinance of God not violated It is evident that the people resisted Saul when he had sworn by the living God that Ionathan should die The people I say swore in the contrary and delivered Ionathan so that a hair of his head fell not Now Saul was the Anoynted Kiâ—g and they were his subjects and yet they resisted him that they made him no better then men sworn I doubt said Lethington That in so doing the people did well The Spirit of God said the other accuses them not of any crime but rather praises them and condemnes the King as well for his foolish vow and Law made without God as for his cruell minde that so severely would have punished an innocent man But herein will I not stand this that followeth shall confirme the former This same Saul commanded Abimelech and the Priests of the Lord to be slain because they had committed Treason as he alleadged for intercommuning with David His Guard and principall servants would not obey his unjust commandment But Doeg the flatterer put the Kings cruelty in execution I will not ask your judgement Whether that the servants of the King in not obeying his Commandment resisted the Ordinance of God or not or Whether Doeg in murthering the Priests gave obedience to a just Authority For I have the Spirit of God speaking by the mouth of David for assurance as well of the one as of the other for he in his 52. Psalme condemnes that fact as a most cruell murther and affirms That God would punish not onely the commander but also the mercilesse executer And therefore I conclude That they who gainstood his commandment resisted not the Ordinance of God And now my Lord to answer to the place of the Apostle who affirms That such as resist the Power resist the Ordinance of God I say That the power in that place is not to be understood of unjust commandment of men but of the just power wherewith God hath armed his Magistrates and Lieutenants to punish sin and maintain vertue And if any man should enterprise to take from the hands of the faithfull Judge a murtherer and adulterer or any malefactor that deserved death this same resisteth Gods Ordinance and procureth to himself vengeance and damnation because that he stayed Gods Sword from striking But so it is if men in the fear of God oppose themselves to the fury and blinde rage of Princes for so they resist not God but the devill who abuses the Sword and Authority of God I understand sufficiently said Lethington what ye mean unto the one part I will not oppose my self but I doubt of the other for if the Queen would command me to slay Iohn Knox because she is offended at him I would not obey her But if she would command others to do it or yet by colour of Justice take his life from him I cannot tell if I be bound to defend him against the Queen and her Officers With protestation said the other That the auditors think not that I speak in favour of my self I say my Lord That if ye be perswaded of my innocency and if God have given unto you such power and credit as might deliver
protection and defence that by you assured I may have accesse to my native Countrey which I never offended to the end that freely and openly in the presence of the whole Realm I may give my confession of all such Points as this day be in controversie And also that you by your authority which ye have of God compell such as of long time have blinded and deceived both your selves and the people to answer to such things as shall be laid to their charge But lest that some doubt remain That I require more of you then you of conscience are bound to grant in few words I hope my Petition to be such as without Gods heavy displeasure ye cannot deny My Petition is That ye whom God hath appointed Heads in your Common-wealth with single eye do study to promote the glory of God To provide that your subjects be rightly instructed in his true Religion That they be defended from all oppression and tyranny That true Preachers may be maintained and such as blinde and deceive the people together also with all idle bellies which do rob and oppresse the Flock may be removed and punished as Gods Law prescribeth And to the performance of every one of these do your Offices and Names the Honours and Benefits which ye receive the Law of God universally given to all men and the examples of most godly Princes binde and oblige you My purpose is not to labour greatly to prove That your whole studie ought to be To promote the glory of God Neither yet will I studie to alleadge all reasons that justly may be brought to prove That ye are not exalted to raign above your brethren as men without care and solicitude for these be principles so grafted in Nature that very Ethnicks have confessed the same For seeing that God onely hath placed you in his Chayr hath appointed you to be his Lieutenants and by his own Seal hath marked you to be Magistrates and to rule above your brethren to whom Nature neverthelesse hath made you like in all points for in conception birth life and death ye differ nothing from the common sort of men but God onely as said is hath promoted you and of his speciall favour hath given you this Prerogative to be called Gods How horrible ingratitude were it then that you should be found unfaithfull to him that hath thus honoured you And further What a monster were it that you should be proved unmercifull to them above whom ye are appointed to raigne as fathers above their children Because I say that the very Ethnicks have granted That the chief and first care of Princes and of such as be appointed to rule above others ought to be To promote the glory and honour of their Gods and to maintain that Religion which they supposed to have been true And that their second care was To maintain and defend the subjects committed to their charge in all equity and justice I will not labour to shew unto you what ought to be your studie in maintaining Gods true honour left that in so doing I should seem to make you lesse carefull to Gods true Religion then were the Ethnicks over their Idolatry But because other Petitions may appear more hard and difficile to be granted I purpose briefly but yet freely to speak what God by his Word doth assure me to be true to wit first That in conscience you are bound to punish malefactors and to defend innocents imploring your help Secondly That God requireth of you to provide that your subjects be rightly instructed in his true Religion and that the same be by you reformed whensoever abuses do creep in by the malice of Satan and negligence of men And lastly That ye are bonnd to remove from Honour and to punish with death if the crime so require such as deceive the people or defraud them of that food of their souls I mean Gods lively Word The first and second are most plain by the words of S. Paul thus speaking of lawfull powers Let every soul saith he submit himself unto the higher Powers for there is no power but of God Whosoever resisteth therefore the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation For Rulers are not to be feared of those that do well but of those that do evil Wilt thou then be without fear of the Power Do that which is good and so shalt thou be praised of the same For he is the Minister of God for thy weal But if thou do that which is evil fear for he beareth not the Sword for nought for he is the Minister of God to take vengeance on them that do evil As the Apostle in these words most straitly commandeth Obedience to be given to lawfull powers pronouncing Gods wrath and vengeance against such as shall resist the Ordinance of God so doth he assigne to the powers their Offices which be To take vengeance upon evil doers To maintain the well doers and so to minister and rule in their Office that the subjects by them may have a Benefit and be praised in well doing Now if you be powers ordained by God and that I hope all men will grant then by the plain words of the Apostle is the Sword given unto you by God for maintenance of the innocent and for punishment of malefactors But I and my brethren with me accused do offer not onely to prove our selves innocents in all things laid to our charge but also we offer most evidently to prove your Bishops to be the very pestilence who have infected all Christianity And therefore by the plain Doctrine of the Apostle you are bound to maintain us and punish the other being evidently convinced and proved criminall Moreover the former words of the Apostle do teach How far high powers are bound to their subjects to wit That because they be Gods Ministers by him ordained for the profit and utility of others most diligently ought they to attend upon the same For that cause assigneth the holy Ghost commanding subjects to obey and to pay Tribute saying For this do you pay Tribute and Toll that is Because they are Gods Ministers bearing the Sword for your utility Whereof it is plain That there is no honour without a charge annexed And this one point I wish your wisedoms deeply to consider That God hath not placed you above your Brethren to raigne as Tyrants without respect of either profit or commodity You hear the holy Ghost witnesse the contrary affirming That all powers be Gods Ministers ordained for the weal profit and salvation of their subjects and not for their destruction Could it be said I beseech you That Magistrates inclosing their subjects in a City without all victualls or giving unto them no other victualls but such as were poysoned did rule for the profit of their subjects I trust that none would be so foolish as so to affirm but that
be found inobedient I confesse my selfe most worthy to be rejected not onely from this honour but also from the societie of the faithfull in case of my stubbornnesse For the vocation of God to beare charge within his Church maketh not men Tyrants nor Lords but appointeth them servants Watch-men and Pastors to the flock Thus ended question must be asked again of the multitude Question Require ye any further of this your Superintendent or Overseer and Minister If no man answer let the Minister proceed Question Will ye not acknowledge this your brother for the Minister of Christ Jesus your Overseer and Pastour Will ye not reverence the Word of God that proceedeth from his mouth Will ye not receive of him the Sermon of Exhortation with patience not refusing the wholsome Medicine of your soules although it be bitter and unpleasing to the flesh Will ye not finally maintain and comfort him in his Ministerie and watching over you against all such as wickedly would rebell against God and his holy Ordinance The people answered We will as we will answer to the Lord Iesus who hath commanded his Ministers to be had in reverence as his Ambassadours and as men that carefully watch for the salvation of our soules Let the Nobilitie be urged with this Ye have heard the dutie and profession of this our brother by your consents appointed to this charge as also the dutie and obedience which God requireth of us towards him heere in his Ministerie But because that neither of both are able to performe any thing without the especiall grace of our God in Christ Jesus who hath promised to be with us present even to the consummation of the world with unfained hearts let us crave of him his benediction and assistance in this work begun to his glory and for the comfort of his Church The Prayer O Lord to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth thou that art the eternall Sonne of the eternall Father who hast not onely loved thy Church that for the redemption and purgation of the same hast humbled thy selfe to the ignominious death of the Crosse and thereupon hast shed thy most precious and innocent blood to prepare to thy self a Spouse without spot but also to retain this most excellent benefit in recent memory hast appointed in thy Church Teachers Pastours and Apostles to instruct comfort and admonish the same Look upon us mercifully O Lord thou that onely art King Teacher and high Priest to thine own flock and send unto this our Brother whom in thy Name we have charged with the chief care of thy Church within the bounds of L. such portion of thy holy Spirit as thereby he may rightly divide thy Word to the instruction of thy flock and to the confutation of pernicious errours and damnable Superstitions Give unto him good Lord a mouth and wisdome whereby the enemies of thy Trueth may be confounded the Wolves expelled and driven from thy Fold thy Sheep may be fed in the wholsome Pastures of thy most holy Word the blinde and ignorant may be illuminated with thy true knowledge Finally that the degrees of Superstition and Idolatry which now resteth within this Realme being purged and removed we may all not onely have occasion to glorifie thee our onely Lord and Saviour but also daily to grow in godlinesse and obedience of thy most holy will to the destruction of the body of sin and to the restitution of that image to the which we were once created and to the which after our fall and defection we are renewed by participation of thy holy Spirit which by true Faith in thee we do professe as the blessed of thy Father of whom the perpetuall increase of thy graces we crave as by thee our Lord King and onely Bishop we are taught to pray Our Father c. The Prayer ended the rest of the Ministers if any be and Elders of that Church present in signe of their consent shall take the elected by the hand The chiefe Minister shall give the Benediction as followeth God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath commanded his Gospel to be Preached to the comfort of his Elect and hath called thee to the Office of a Watch-man over his people multiply his graces with thee illuminate thee with his holy Spirit comfort and strengthen thee in all vertue governe and guide thy Ministerie to the praise of his holy Name to the propagation of Christs Kingdom to the comfort of his Church and finally to the plaine discharge and assurance of thine owne conscience in the day of the Lord Jesus to whom with the Father and with the holy Ghost be all honour praise and glory now and ever So be it The last Exhortation to the elected TAke heed to thy selfe and unto the flock committed to thy charge feed the same carefully not as it were by compulsion but of very love which thou bearest to the Lord Jesus Walk in simplicity and purenesse of life as it becometh the true servant and the Ambassadour of the Lord Jesus Usurpe not dominion nor tyrannicall authority over thy brethren be not discouraged in adversity but lay before thy self the example of the Prophets Apostles and of the Lord Jesus who in their Ministery sustained contradiction contempt persecution and death fear not to rebuke the world of Sin Justice and Judgement If any thing succeed prosperously in thy Vocation be not puft up with pride neither yet flatter thy self as that the good successe proceedeth from thy vertue industrie or care But let ever that sentence of the Apostle remain in thine heart What hast thou which thou hast not received If thou have received why gloriest thou Comfort the afflicted support the poore and exhort others to support them Be not carefull for things of this life but be fervent in prayer to God for the increase of his holy Spirit And finally behave thy selfe in this holy vocation with such sobriety as God may be glorified in thy Ministery And so shalt thou shortly obtaine the Victory and shalt receive the Crowne promised when the Lord Jesus shall appeare in his glory whose omnipotent Spirit assist thee and us to the end Sing 23. Psalme As the servants of God uprightly travelled to have vice punished and vertue planted so did the devill ever stirre up some in the contrary of both There was a Law made against fornicators and adulterers that the one and the other should be Carted thorow the Towns and so banished till that their repentance was offered and received And albeit this was not the severity of Gods Law especially against adulterers yet was it a great bridle to the malefactors whereat the wicked did wonderously storme It chanced that one Sanderson a Fletcher or Boutcher was deprehended to have put away his lawfull wife under colour that he was lawfully parted after the manner of the Papisticall Religion and had taken to him another in his house The complaint and slander proposed
tongue and my Cause to be heard before your Majestie and the Body of the Realm before that any such Processe was laid against me as this my Letter directed to your Majesty doth testifie The beginning of the Letter THE Eternall Providence of the same God who hath appointed his chosen Children to fight in this transistory and wretched life a battell strong and difficile hath also appointed their finall victory by a marvellous fashion and the manner of their preservation in their battell more marvellous their victory standeth not in resisting but in suffering as our Soveraign Master pronounceth to his Disciples that in patience they should possesse their soules And the same foresaw the Prophet Esay when that he painteth forth all other battell to be with violence tumult and blood-shedding but the victory of Gods people to be in quietnesse silence and hope meaning that all others that obtain victorie do enforce themselves to resist their adversaries to shed bloood and to murther But so do not the Elect of God but all things they sustain at the commandment of him who hath appointed them to suffer being most assuredly perswaded that then onely they triumph when all wen judge them oppressed For in the Crosse of Christ alwayes is included a secret and hid victory never well known till the sufferer appear all together to be as it were exterminate for then onely did the blood of Abel crie to God when proud Cain judged all memory of his brother to have been extinguished and so I say their victory is marvellous and how that they can be preserved and not brought to utter confusion the eye of man perceiveth not But he whose power is infinite by secret and hid motions toucheth the hearts of such as to mans judgment hath power to destroy them with very pietie and compassion to save his people as in times past he did the hearts of the Egyptian Midwives to preserve the men-children of the Israelites when command was given of Pharoah for their destruction The heart of Pharaohs daughter likewise to pitty Moses in his young infancy exposed to the danger of the waters The heart of Nabuchadnezzar to preserve the Captives alive and liberally to nourish the Children that were found apt to Letters And finally The heart of Cyrus to set at liberty the people of God after long bondage and thraldome And thus doth the invisible power and love of God manifest it self towards his Elect from time to time for two causes specially First to comfort his weake warriers in their manifold temptations letting them understand That he is able to compell such as sometimes were enemies to his people to fight their Cause and to promote their deliverance And secondarily to give a testimony of his favour to them that by all appearance did lâ—ve before as Saint Paul speaketh wanting God in the world as strangers from the Common-wealth of Israel and without the league of his mercifull promise and free grace mâ—de to his Church For who would have affirmed That any of these persons aforenamed had been of that nature and clemency before occasions were offered unto them But the works of mercie shewed to the afflicted have left to as assurance That God used them as vessels of his honour For pitie and mercie shewed to Christs afflicted flock as they never lacked reward temporall so if they be continued and be not changed into crueltie are assured signes and seales of everlasting mercy to be received from God who by his Holy Spirit moveth their heats to shew mercy to the people of God oppressed and afflicted Addition THis Preface I used to give your Majestie occasion more deeply to consider what hath been the condition of Christs Members from the beginning that in so doing ye might see That it is no new thing that the Saints of God be oppressed in the word that ye moved by earnest contemplation of the same might also study rather to save them from murder although by the wicked councels of many ye were provoked to the contrary then to engage your self to the corrupt Clergie who are servants to sinne and Sathan whose fury is bent against God and his verity But this after followeth in our Let-which thus proceedeth Letter YOur Majestie perchance doth wonder to what purpose these things be recited and I in very deed cannot wonder enough that occasion is offered to me a worme most wretched to recite the same at this present for I have looked rather for the sentence of death then to have written to your Majestie in these last and most wicked dayes in which Sathan so blindeth the hearts of many that innocents are condemned their Cause never tried Addition HEreof ye cannot be ignorant For besides these whom ye hear from time to time most cruelly to be murthered in France Italy Spaine Flanders and now of late yeers besides you in England for no other cause but that they professe Christ Jesus to be the onely Saviour of the world The onely Mediator betwixt God and man The onely Sacrifice acceptable for the sins of all faithfull and finally The onely Head to his Church Besides these I say of whom ye hear the brute ye have been witnesse That some within the Realm of Scotland for the same cause most cruelly have been murthered whose cause was never heard with indifferency But murtherers sitting in the Seat of Justice have shed the blood of Christs true Witnesses which albeit did then appear to be consumed away with fire yet it is resent in the presence of him for whose cause they did suffer and ceaseth not to call for vengeance with the blood of Abel to fall upon not onely such as were immediate and next authors of that murther but also upon all those that maintain those tyrants in their tyranny or that do consent to their beastly cruelty or that do not stop having the power in hand Take not this as the affirmation of any man but hear and consider the voice of the Son of God Fulfill saith he the measure of your fathers that all the blood which hath been shed since the blood of Abel the just till the blood of Zachariah c. may come upon this generation Hereby it is evident That the murtherers of our time as well as in the time of Christ are guilty of all the blood that hath been shed from the beginning Fearfull I grant is the sentence yet it is most equall and just For whosoever sheddeth the blood of any one of Christ Jesus his members for professing of his Truth consenteth to all the murther which hath been made since the beginning for that cause So that as there is one communion of all Gods Elect of whom every member is participant of the holy Justice of Christ so is there a communion among the reprobate by which every one of the Serpents seed are criminall and guilty of all iniquity which the whole Body committeth because