constituted Church and how the contrary practice will bring confusion upon all Societies Civil and Ecclesiasticall on earth 5. But to consider what they offer against this distinction and state of the Question as to the matter of Submission And 1. we find them arguing Arg. 5. pag. 103 104 105. That if Submission be due in matters of Discipline and Government then also in matters of Doctrine and Worship unless God hath either put a greater respect on the first than those last or hath given greater latitude in the one than the other Answ To say nothing here of the Submission due in matters of Doctrine and Worship as not lying in our way as was said before seing passive obedience which is the matter in debate betwixt us is relative only to the Criticall power of Judicatories We can soon give them another ground of difference in these than what they are pleased to find out for us viz. That however God hath not put a greater respect on Discipline than on Doctrine and Worship nor hath allowed men to take a greater latitude in the one than the other though yet in many things of Discipline and Government God hath left us to be directed by the light of nature and rules of prudence common in like cases in all Courts as He hath not done in Doctrine and Worship and consequently the multitude of Counsellors in a Judicatorie are more to be respected than one who is loadened with a prejudice of passion and interest in his own particular Yet to submit in the matter of Discipline where the hazard is only personall and of a mans suffering is not tanti to disturb a well setled National Church where Doctrine and Worship are in their integrity whereas the case is of greater moment when a National Church in her Judicatories introduceth false Doctrine and corrupt Worship to be imposed upon a Church 2. They argue Arg. 6. pag. 105. 106. That Submission to the Critick power or exercise of Discipline will infer Submission in matters of Doctrine for which they instance the ratification of and Censures ordained to be inflicted upon the matter of the Publick Resolutions and the matter of Athanasius of which before Answ We see no cogency in this Argument that because a Church may censure Hereticks who submit not to their Dogmatick determinations which none of us ever doubted of therefore our Question with them is not about matters of Discipline only when we are setled in all other points and do professe our adherence thereunto But as to the matter of the Resolutions 1. As we wonder with what face they can conclude all these men taken in to be sons of Belial if it were for no more but upon the account of their own professed respects to many of them To say nothing of the good parts yea and real piety of at least some of them who failed in an hour of trial So they must first prove these Resolutions to be an errour before they can make the Sentences concerning them unjust This we are forced to tell them often because they have the good manners so oft to say much and prove nothing at all 2. This Question being extrinsick to our Doctrine Worship and Government as hath been said men may well be enjoyned silence in it without entrinching upon the matter of Doctrine or mens opinions we are sure it is maintained by the Learned that men having declared their judgements concerning some truths of an inferiour nature they may be silent for peaces sake And so contending Divines have been enjoyned silence by Church-Judicatories And if any would but have a touch of the necessity and equity of these proceedings of the Judicatories against the opposers of these Resolutions let them but take a view of these mens wayes and let these Witnesses but re-act a few of their former pranks Let them but oppose any of these publick Resolutions of conjunction of Forces with either Malignants or very Papists that may be in practice in these Nations Let them refuse to act or enjoy their publick Offices under an Authority owning and putting in practice these Resolutions let them not only write and preach against them as a defection and sin against God but let them protest against Judicatories as not lawfull who owne them Let them draw a faction and keep up a Rent till they be repented of or at least made void and assurance given against them for the future Let them we say but shew forth a little of this their wonted spirit and we hope others will see what they are as well as this Church and Nation hath felt it And if they be true to their principles they must do so still in all times and cases in these confederate Nations Otherwise men will have just cause to suspect them of little conscience in the things they have done But 3. This instance hath nothing to do with our Question for in our Overtures wherein Subordination was required it was also offered that all debates and censurableness about these matters should be laid aside and made void And so had they accepted the Union that would have had nothing to do with the Subordination required for the future IV. As to the persons of whom Submission is required Two things come to be considered which may further clear the Question 1. That Submission is required of ordinary Officers and Church-members only So that their Arguments from the practice of the Apostles and Prophets pag. 47. and Arg. 2. pag. 100 101. might well have been spared For to omit what further may be said afterward to the instance of the Apostles their Calling being neither of man as to the Office it self nor by man as to their call to it but being immediatly called by Christ Himself without the interveening Ministerial Power of Church-judicatories We assert they were not subject to any Church-judicatory on earth as to their continuance or non-continuance in the exercise of their Ministery But ordinary Ministers as they have their Call mediatly by the Church without whose authoritative Mission no inward Call can warrant them to thrust-out themselves So in their continuance in that Office which they have from the Church they are subject to the Church And if they will assert a warrant for their continuance in the Ministery whether the Church will or not Tub preachers may as well improve it to thrust themselves in over the Churches belly And here we may take notice of what is said by the Authors of that Treatise published by Mr. Rathband formerly mentioned who speaking of their yeelding to Suspensions and Deprivations by Bishops and their Courts pag. 41. they tell us that it lieth in them to depose who may ordain and they may shut that may open and afterward and pag. 42. They answer that very Objection from the Answer of the Apostles Act. 4.19 20. urged by the Brownists against their Submission by shewing the differences betwixt the Apostles case and theirs 1. That they who inhibited
them the power of a General Assembly is but too notour in their judicial condemning the authority and constitution of General Assemblies But wherein this crime of Synods taking that power on them can be charged upon us we know not unlesse it be on this account That now when General Assemblies do not meet yearly as they were wont to do Synods do take-off the Censures of some Ministers according to the Order observed by General Assemblies themselves when they did open the mouthes of any And this we believe will not be condemned but any unbyassed person will judge it unreasonable that men being in a capacity to be imployed in the work of the Lord should be keeped back because a General Assembly who used to reserve such cases to themselves cannot meet to give them liberty We believe that in the want of General Assemblies as in Holland they will not judge that Synods may not do more in things within their own bounds than if they had them yearly And to use their own argument here we think they should not quarrel this who not only wait neither for Presbyteries nor Synods but do themselves take-off their own Censures inflicted by General Assemblies but their extrajudicial meetings do transact and conclude things of most important and general concernment to the Church III. To the complaint of their slandering of us they make a large return pag. 24 31. And First They begin with recrimination making mention of a Latin Piece lately published which they father on a dead man reflecting also on our Preachings and Prayers and other Pamphlets as they call them Ans To adde nothing to what is formerly said of their inhumanity toward the dead we shall only imbrace their own Overture and shall be obliged to any of them who shall be at the pains to turn that Piece in English and let it plead for it self And for our Preachings and Prayers though we love not to justifie our selves or cry-up our abilities and abundance of matter for that work for who is sufficient for these things Yet we make conscience to speak nothing in publick but Truths of God and such things as are suitable to the present condition of our hearers and who so reproacheth us in these things we must leave it at our Masters feet in whose Name we speak However we have learned not to credit all the news they give us of the acceptance of our Ministrie either with these of our or their own judgement being we hope approven not only to God but even in the consciences of our hearers And we may also say there was never more forbearance given in a constituted Church to irregularities in preaching than hath been given to theirs though they be so unparalleled and all out of love to peace Whatever we say or write against their cause and actings therein yet we use not to slander their persons in things extrinsick to the cause as they do to us nor did we publish any thing of that kinde till they by printing and writing had defamed us at home and abroad which necessitated us to say somthing for our selves and the Cause of God in our hands Secondly They justifie these their actings by shewing that they were necessarily drawn thereunto in their own defence wishing us to have patience if these be slanders till God clear our innocencie and discover their malice and treachery But if there be truth in them they may lawfully plead with their Mother for good ends Answ 1. Though we indeed confess it our duty to walk submissively before God under most unjust aspersions yet we believe that doth not hinder us to vindicate our own integrity and the integrity of a National Church far lesse doth it warrant them who put us to this exercise thus to insult over us with such Ironick counsels as they account them we forbear to declare whom they imitate in these pranks and are truly sorry that their pertinacious adhering to such divisive and destructive courses notwithstanding all the sad fruits which they may daily perceive to flow from them doth discover them so much to all impartial observers 2. Our controversie being with them about the Publick Resolutions and admitting of persons to imployment in a Civil State and Armie and about the constitution of a General Assembly we see not what could cast them upon the necessity of this defence of traducing all the Ministrie in that cause seing they were standing Ministers in the Church before not declared uncapable of being in a Gen. Assembly And sure they fell not within the compasse of the Question of the Publick Resolutions and therefore they might well have debated these points without reflecting upon the Ministrie save in so far as they pleased to quarrell so many of them as were upon the Commission and Assembly for their approving the Publick Resolutions wherein they have been sufficiently answered already and those who are concerned are still ready to defend and justifie themselves The truth is after these debates about the Resolutions and Assemblies were become threed-bare and invidious to all sober spirits that they should keep up a rent because of them they fell to a new clamour about purging of which they here speak and in which we did not controvert with them neither before nor in the time of their rent yea nor since save in so far as we have still complained that their disturbing of Church-unity and order made it ineffectuall in many respects What their design is in it may clearly appear from this Pamphlet wherein oftener than once they insinuat and declare that they hold our Judicatories corrupt and would not joyn in a General Assembly so long as men who as they alleage have made a defection by approving the Publick Resolutions are the plurality in them So that to have themselves again in power and others out they make this clamour against us which is unjustly said to be in their own defence but rather in prosecution of their design to overturn the Church-judicatories as now constituted that so they may get all the power in their own hands as was told them in the Declaration 3. It cannot be accounted an act of defence for them to divulge mens supposed faults in stead of seeking to have them judicially tried and censured and when none was pursuing them to blaze them abroad in another Nation and Church to make way for their obtaining of power to themselves over their Brethren 4. Albeit we should be silent as to the truth of their charge yet that passage Hos 2.2 will not justifie their way of proceeding We hope they will not make the state of this Church parallel to the state of Israel at that time when this command was given to the Godly which they now pretend to imitate For then they must conclude this Church not to be Gods wife but an harlot and though she have corrupted neither Doctrine Worship nor Government yet she must be put in the same classe with
ever it should be needfull to take them Or that the Church of Scotland did ever since the Reformation from Popery oppose these Resolutions as they tell us afterward in the second branch of their Answer or owne any Doctrine contrary to these Resolutions and did not rather practise them and print Declarations conform to them And let them answer what is said to all these particulars in the printed Papers formerly mentioned before they so magisterially tread under-foot both the truth and us 2. They tell us that it is not a question so extrinsick as we would make it but involves a portion of the precious Truths of God revealed in His Word and is a truth holden forth by the Kirk of Scotland as containing what is necessary for preserving the rest of the Doctrine Worship and Government from the pollutions which ill men use to bring in or give way unto whereof they give an instance in the desires of the Commission of the Assembly 1648. concerning qualifications of Instruments in the unlawful Engagement And they desire us to remember of what spirit that man would have been judged who in the Assembly 1650. it seems by what follows it should be 1648. would have pleaded this to be a question much extrinsick to our Doctrine Worship and Government Answ Whatever was said concerning the nature of that question Yet it was never our mind to assert that there is not a matter of truth and errour in it to be determined by the Word of God nor yet will we deny but where the case is practicable in any Nation under heaven their opinion in this matter is of soveraign bad consequence to the State and Nation as not only exposing the Nation to unavoidable ruine but even exposing the Doctrine Worship and Government to the mercy of Turks and Pagans or Papists if they please to invade it rather than they will trust fellow-subjects to defend themselves and the common Interest of the Nation and that because they may bring in or give way to corruptions as there they expresse it Only we have still judged that when the Church of Scotland is no way concerned nor put to it to determine that Question who may be employed in State and Armies And seing this question is not determined nor debated in our Confession of Faith and we may very well Preach Christ and the Gospel and what concerns the practice of the people of God without dipping upon that Question yea and may observe the Directory for Worship and keep up Presbyteriall Government without it Therefore it hath been thought strange we might not lay such a Question aside and joyn our selves in the work of the Lord which is presently put in our hand But since those Witnesses will have it of such importance still we do again put them in mind of their work to make out their assertion in this controversie Mean time lest their state of the Question be as lax as that concerning Subordination is here We must put them in mind of these few particulars 1. That they must state the Question more accurately than to make it amount only to this as they hold it out pag. 67. Whether we should entrust known wicked malignant men enemies to Truth and Godlinesse with the Interests of the Lords Work and People For we will easily reply that this state of the Question would be found faulty in diverse respects as to that case It will not be granted them nay their own Consciences dare not assert that all of these then in question were known wicked Malignant men enemies to Truth and Godlinesse but rather that many of them were forward in the defence of the Truth and cause of God from the beginning though they were led away in the matter of the Engagement Neither will it be granted that men Ecclesiastically purged from what accession they had to evil courses must still be accounted what they were before the profession of their repentance and while they were going on in their wicked courses And they must also remember that the Question will take-in more than the Interests of the Lords work and People as they are pleased to take those in a restricted sense For the common interests and safety of the Nation and of every particular person and family therein are supposed to be concerned in the question betwixt us and consequently will allow more to be engaged than in a quarrell purely religious Yea in such a case of common hazard and combustion they will hardly perswade rationall Christians but that fowl water may very lawfully be made use of to quench fire 2. That they must bring better proofs than that of the Commissions desire 1648. to prove their assertion For there the Engagement was unlawfull and the War was offensive and an Invasion of another Nation to say nothing of the different condition and posture of the Supream Magistrate in these two cases And if they will grant that the unlawfulness of that Engagement consisted only in the imploying of persons wanting the qualifications in the Commissions desire and that it had been lawfull if put in the hands of Confidents they say somewhat Otherwise it will be found wilde reasoning that because a Church being jealous of the States intentions in an offensive War otherwise unlawfull desired this as one mean of removing their fears that confident persons might be intrusted with the management of the War Therefore in a defensive war which none of the parties questioned to be lawfull and wherein the whole Nation in generall and every person in particular are concerned as much as they are worth no other persons may be imployed 3. Whether they mean the year 1648. or 1650. we know not what strange thing it would have been thought to maintain this Thesis But we are sure that the Commission shortly after the Assembly 1648. did upon the debate word the solemn Engagement so as it might not precondemn that Thesis as is said before and is elsewhere cleared And the Commission of the Assembly 1650. did shortly after that Assembly take these Resolutions and that when it consisted generally of men who were most eminent friends to Reformation 3. They retort this consideration upon our selves enquiring why we are so tenacious of the Determinations of our Assemblies about this Question which we judge so extrinsick and will not for the peace of the Church take course that these Determinations be not looked on as the definitive judgement of this Kirk or any of the Judicatories thereof and why we make and keep up Acts against those who submit not to these Determinations Why also we sometime place the standing or falling of this Church therein Some of this stuffe is laid in our dish again with vehemence enough Pag. 85. But we answ If we look to what is past and the Question were put Why the Assemblies did define and determine in these matters and make these Acts Our Reply would be because the things determined and defined are lawful
much desire that either we might imbrace it or be inexcusable before the world if we rejected it or urged any thing upon them which might entrench upon their consciences and widen the breach with God The truth is whatever charity we have of the Protesting Brethren of whom they speak pag. 118. that many of them are grieved with these divisions and would be at an Union were they let alone Yet we have not the charity that these Witnesses are any of that number but the very fomenters of the flame 2. Because it is declared that we will not accord to their Proposals of extrajudicial Committees of which we have spoken before nor recede from the established Government nor go out of the common road of the Judicatories to the corruption whereof we have also spoken and will speak to Subordination thereunto afterward Therfore they count Union very hopelesse pag. 73 74. Which is in effect as their arguing afterward cleareth to call it desperate So that it is now come to this No Peace not only except the Resolutions and Assemblies be laid aside but except also the other Judicatories be laid aside and men be allowed to submit to no more of their Sentences than they think just A good and safe bargain for the Church of Scotland indeed But we are yet resolved not to quit the Judicatories God hath given us specially since we have no hope of better to be raised out of the rubbish of these 3. Because the Declaration made mention only of these Overtures for Union which were most material upon the according whereof other things in the Conference might easily be setled They are pleased to question pag. 74 75 76. whether we adhere yet to all the condescensions and offers made by us in the Conference And yet the very words of the Declaration cited by themselves do expresly say so much But where men have no good liking of things it is easie to fish faults at them 4. Because our judgment is asserted concerning the Acts of Assemblies relating to our present differences Therefore they alleage we obstruct Union and pag. 76 77. a great noise is made of our receding upon politick grounds from things wherein we pretend to conscience justice and necessity only because the times are changed And withall they tell us over again the injustice of these Acts about things we account so extrinsick and which they account contrary to the Covenant Answ And yet all this needed not as to the matter of Union but that they would needs let a fling at us for however we think them just yet it was never required of them to think them just in order to an Union yea it was promised they should never be troubled with them But when they have spoken here with as much vehemency against them if not more than we have done for them We are both free when all is done to agree not to impose upon one anothers judgment about them and to lay them aside We shall adde no more to what we have said of the justice of these things about which the Acts are for till they prove them to be open breaches of Covenant and Engagement they remain to us Truths of God Nor shall we make any further enquiry who they are that change with times and do bring the Ministrie in contempt for that is too well known and is no pleasing subject whoever have hand in it But for the thing it self we see no such change in our selves as they would give out We judge the thing it self contained in these Acts being considered simply to be just and true at all times That persons obstructing the defence of their Country going to ruin and overturning a supream Church-judicatory do deserve Censure and that it is necessary it be inflicted when it may reach the end to prevent or render ineffectuall their oppositions And yet not only prudentiall grounds but even conscience telleth us that it is neither expedient nor necessary to make such Acts where the matter about which men controvert is not practicable nor to keep them in force when by laying them aside we may obtain the Union of a broken Church In a word we hold it no paradox in Divinity that practical conclusions relating to the publick State of a Nation do alter much with times altering the face of affairs And that in some times things may justly and ought necessarily to be done which at another time conscience teacheth men ought not to be done And as for the future we have offered sufficiently to secure them so far as we can against the hazard of these Acts and that upon the same grounds of conscience which teach us now to lay aside Acts about a Question that is extinct though we cannot be surety that the Church in the like case of a forreign Invasion and being interrogate by the Civil Power shal never determine concerning these Resolutions as they have done and concerning any who shall make the like opposition they have done Yea we are perswaded would themselves but essay their hand with their wonted principles and practices now it would soon be seen how it would be rellished We shall only adde further that as to what they insinuate of change of times it would be more like kindly children for them to be the more peaceable and respective of their Mother that they think the times allow them a liberty to do otherwise It is no great magnanimity to take advantage of her low condition 5. As to what is said by way of Answer to their outcries that though some very few Presbyteries have required of Intrants of whatsoever judgement that they promise not to trouble the peace of the Church with these debates Yet none of these Acts have been de facto a bar to hold out godly men lawfully and orderly called and tried Though they be industrious to thrust in men of their own judgement and crush Godly and able men who do not agree with them They tell us 1. Of much and many wrongs done by these Acts pag. 78. Which we intreat they may verifie and instruct as they say they can before we can answer For whereas they appeal to our knowledge We do declare we know Elders of their judgement kept in and brought-in in Judicatories where we are the plurality though in some places they have cast out of their Elderships all who differed from them in judgement and have never since made another Election though usually before they did yearly change We know also Expectants of their judgement not only admitted among us to triall in order to a liberty to preach but being lawfully called and tried admitted to the Ministry where we have power We fear many young men who went to other Presbyteries to passe their trialls went not upon the account of their judgement but that they might shun the more accurat trials used in Universities and Presbyteries where more learned men are 2. They are pleased indeed to jest by saying that
Presbyteries and Synods where we are the pluralitie and many of us not so fit as we ought to be So pag. 39 90 93. and frequently in this Pamphlet yea it is clear all along that they lay a great part of the stresse of their Non-submission upon our corruption as may appear from the places even now cited and else where they assert that Submission cannot be yeelded especially there being to their sense and apprehension so much corruption in the plurality of Presbyteries and Synods pag. 42. And they at least insinuate that we are not Judicatories modelled according to the pattern shewed in the mount pag. 47. And pag. 116. they expresly assert the Church of Scotland not to be sound in the pluralitie of her Judicatories as not improving the Ordinances of God but abusing them to carry on a course of defection and persecution So that to us it is a great question Whether notwithstanding all their other arguments against Submission the great stresse lieth not rather here that we are corrupt Courts For as we had occasion formerly to remark their own assertion concerning their Overture for extrajudiciall Committees pag. 32 33. viz. that if the Church were sound and peaceable there were no need of any such Overture and they would be in that case as far from pressing it as any which is in effect as is clear from the whole tenor of the Pamphlet that were they the plurality and had matters in their guiding as it is usuall with them still to propose such distempers in Church and State and such causes of Gods wrath against them as only their being set at the helm can remedy they would admit no such extra-judiciall courses So we take hold here of their assertion pag. 115 116. That if the case were only of particular persons and in things of more private interest and personall concernment and of Judicatories imploying their power to edification in the current of their actings they would not much contend about it As to their other limitations here set down we shall take them in afterward But to the matter now in hand if we understand as we must do if they be ingenuous and not scorning the world in their assertions the case here of this matter of Submission which they denied to yeeld in the Conference and now do so hotly dispute against and their not much contending about it to import their ceding and yeelding then their concession must amount to this That were the Judicatories not corrupt but employing their power to edification in the current of their actings then they would submit to their Sentences concerning themselves however they might erre in them And have they not then taken a very strange course to dispute a Question so hotly when all their Arguments may be answered by this make them the plurality who will imploy their power to edification in the current of their actings as others do not and then they wil not debate much about Submission even to unjust Sentences in things concerning particular persons And so they might have spared their pains in all these Arguments and betaken themselves to that where the stresse of the controversie lieth to prove that we are corrupt Judicatories which alone can have weight to prove their conclusion by this their concession And so much the rather do we urge this when we remember that at our Conference with them one of them after much debate being put to it to declare whether if they had the Judicatories constituted to their mind or as they were pleased to phrase it as before our Differences they would require such a Submission as we pressed His answer was It is another case now in statu Ecclesiae perturbato corrupto However here is a new Controversie started in the by concerning the corruption of the Judicatories of this Church though not as to the nature kind of them yet as to the members constituent wherein we have been all along telling them that they are better at assertions than probations And though we have as occasion offered wiped off this imputation in the preceeding discourse and will speak more to it as it relates to this Question upon the third Article following And we might here also insist to tell them how the Reverend Assembly of Divines did rellish this exception of the corruption of the greater part of the Clergy from the Independents Namely as proving Parliaments to be corrupt as well as Synods seing the greater part of these who choose them may be supposed to be the worse as well as the greater part of Ministers and so striking at the root of all Government yea and not only blasting so much as they can the authority and power of Synods but the office and work of the Ministery Answers to the Reasons of the Dissenting Brethren p. 291 292 293. Edit Edinb 1648. Yet for present we only offer these things to their consideration 1. As to what they cite p. 52. from the Assembly 1647. their Exhortation to England concerning the not entrusting of men with the Government who are not purged from their old profaneness or from the prelaticall principles and practices They know it is directed by the Assembly to the Church of England a Church not constituted in point of Government and where many did avow and adhere to their old principles and practices And so is not to be made use of against this Church already setled in that matter and where never Minister not under Process or Censure was declared uncapable of being a member of a Church-judicatory nor are any allowed to be in the Ministery who can be found guilty of any prophanenesse or who hath not both in profession and practice renounced Prelacie and their wayes In which case that very Exhortation a few lines thereafter alloweth the right hand of fellowship to be given men 2. However they may condescend that they would submit to a Presbyterie so and so constituted possibly in Vtopia yet by this their tenet they have defamed their Mother-church and the Judicatories thereof and so do abundantly serve the interest of all Sectaries in their opposition thereunto and to all the Reformed Churches through her sides 3. If they lay the stresse of our unsoundnesse mainly as they do pag. 116. upon the Publick Resolutions they must take more pains as hath been said to satisfie the world of the sin of these before they can draw such consequences from them and perswade the world that they are not erroneous and turbulent in their opposition thereunto 4. We desire they may make it out that Members Officers and Judicatories in a constituted Church though they be corrupt ought not to enjoy all their priviledges till they be formally cast-out from them or at least processed for their corruptnesse Since very Independents do allow this in their Churches and consequently the Judicatories and Officers of the Church of Scotland ought to enjoy the priviledges due to Christs Courts and Servants so long as they
the Apostles were known and professed enemies of the Gospel 2. The Apostles were charged not to teach in the Name of Christ nor to publish any part of the Doctrine of the Gospel which say they was more hard than their case under Bishops who though they cannot endure the truth concerning Government and Reformation of the Church yet are content the Gospel should be preached and preach it themselves They adde 3. The Apostles received not their Calling and Authority from men nor by the hands of men but immediatly from God Himself and therefore alâ—o might not be restrained or deposed by men whereas we though we exercise a function whereof God is the Author yet we are called and ordained by the ministery of men and may therefore by men be also deposed and restrained from the exercise of our Ministery Where as their first and second difference speak clearly to the second and third branches of our Question So this last doth fully speak our mind in this As to what they and Mr. Rutherfurd before them in his Preface to his Survey say of privat persons being Excommunicated their Non-submission to abstain from publick Ordinances As Excommunication is rarely pronounced in this Church except in the case of obstinacie and therefore may easily be prevented So we cannot understand how they can avoid Non-submission unless either they will forcibly obtrude themselves on Ordinances till they be thrust-out and so must come to Non-submission at last Or unlesse they get Ministers who will admit of them and so refuse to submit to the Judicatories which will at last fall in with the former case Though we in the mean time would have such a person seriously to consider whether his edification by these particular Ordinances from which he is debarred by the Sentence means simply necessary to salvation not being taken from him and the want of the rest being but his affliction not his sin take the matter in his own sense ought to be laid in the ballance with the breach made on Order in a Church constitute and setled as is said with the contempt and scandall put upon the Judicatories who yet stand invested with power to rule in Christs House yea and with the stumbling of the whole Congregation upon whom he obtrudeth himself who perhaps judge his Sentence to be as just as he counteth it unjust 2. As to the Submission of inferiour Judicatories to superiour concerning which they argue Arg. 7. pag. 107. And again Arg. 15. pag. 113 114. We grant indeed that the power of the superiour Judicatory is cumulative and not privative to the inferiour Judicatories yet it must be understood in a right sense for 1. It is granted on all hands betwixt us that by the Constitutions of this Kirk every Church-judicatory may not meddle with all things but with things that are of particular concernment within their bounds leaving things of more generall concernment to the Church to superiour Courts yea within their own bounds Congregationall Elderships do not meddle with the matter of Adultery Excommunication and Ordination of Ministers but these things come before the Presbyterie 2. Albeit inferiour Judicatories have intrinsick power given them by Christ and may exercise it independently where providence affordeth them no superiour Judicatorie yet in a Nationall Church it is the will of Christ they exercise that intrinsicall power with a Subordination to the superiour Courts so that so long as they hold the Subordination and do not renounce the Judicatories as Hereticall and corrupt they may indeed do all they have right to do yet so as they must be accountable to others in the case of Appeals or mal-administration who may lay as great claim to that promise Matth. 18. as they can And if the superiour Judicatories judge their proceedings to have been wrong in the case now before us it is no more lawfull for them than for private persons to make a Rupture by Non-submission or not suffering and being passive which will prove a remedy worse than the disease Nor doth this Subordination prove that these inferiour Judicatories must be fenced in name of the superiour Seing they know that even inferiour Civil Courts are not fenced in the name of a Parliament to whom they are subordinate And if this hold not it shall be to no purpose for superiour Judicatories to meet unlesse either to approve all that is done or else it please inferiour Judicatories to be convinced by them And indeed now it is no strange thing to see one privat Presbyterie not only reverse and declare null the Conclusions of a General Assembly but judicially declare the Assembly it self null far contrary to the Book of Discipline where it is expresly provided that Elderships or Presbyteries must alter no Rules made by Generall or Provinciall Assemblies Book 2. chap. 7. pag. 81. and no lesse contrary to the opinion of Beza Epist 44. pag. 244. who judgeth it iniquissimum intolerabile c. most injust and intolerable that things concluded in a Generall Synod should be rescinded by the Authority of one Consistorie unlesse the party passe from his right or things be agreed among parties without any detriment to Ecclesiasticall Discipline V. As to the nature of this Submission or manner of performance thereof two things are worthy our consideration for further clearing the truth in this particular 1. That in pleading for Submission in matters of Sentences as is above qualified we do not urge that men in conscience should approve of all and every of these Sentences as just however we do not therefore grant they are unjust as we shall after hear But only that what ever their judgement be they submit and suffer or be passive having done duty and exonered themselves without counteracting And that because 1. However they count them unjust yet they looking through the prospect of passion and interest may be deceived The Judge thinks them just and it may be many others yea all except the parties concerned 2. However it be yet it is better one or a few persons suffer somewhat than that a Schism be made in an Orthodox and well settled Church This being the true state of the Question and indeed a safe remedy appointed by God that when men in a Church cannot in Conscience obey a command then they may with a good Conscience submit and suffer for the Lord 's commanding us to submit and our engaging thereunto doth import there may be cases wherein we cannot give active obedience It is a miserable mistake all along in the most part of this debate that Obedience is confounded with Submission and Suffering That because a Church ought not in duty to domineer over the Flock pag. 52. therefore none of the Flock may lawfully suffer an injury or supposed so rather than do a greater injury by renting the Flock That because Prelats taught falsly that the Sentence of Superiours is a warrant sufficient to mens Consciences to give active obedience to their
be abused and there be an ill law made then I confesse if the law be of force we must either quit our selves of the Countrey or else submit or suffer When then it cometh to be a power to be a law it is Authority though abused and we must yeeld obedience to it either actively or passively If it be said that men submit to the force not to the Authority of the civil Magistrate in these cases Ans Not to insist that they know the Church also useth all the force they have and so the case is alike It would be considered That to submit only to the force of a Magistrate pronouncing and executing an unjust Sentence is only that Submission out of prudence and for preventing other disturbances which Mr. Burroughs in the forecited place granteth may be yeelded to unlawfull powers But it is not that Submission out of conscience which he holds to be due to lawful Authority and their laws even when Authority is abused in making them For it is a Scripture Rule that we are to be subject not only for wrath but for conscience sake Rom. 13.5 Which Mr. Gee pag. 112. expoundeth a subjection of conscience as the principle of conscience is contra-distinct from terrour and compulsory punishment And it is known sufferers use not to wait for force to make them submit but do it in submission to Authority Condemned persons wait not till they be drawn to the place of execution but go on their own feet and banished persons will depart upon the charge of a Magistrate Yea where men unjustly Sentenced have been in a capacity to resist force as Christians were in the Armies of Pagan Emperours yet they have submitted to Authority and suffered 4. That which taketh away all use of Appeals instituted by Christ in the case of mal-administration cannot be of God for one Ordinance of God doth not make another of no effect Now this Doctrine of Non-submission and counter-acting doth make void all use of Appeals For as hath been cleared before the Appeal from an unjust Sentence supposeth submission to it in the mean time for let it be holden that such a Sentence is null and not to be submitted unto and let a Church owne that principle and there needeth no Appeal 5. That also which involveth a man in the guilt of Schism cannot be of God But a man not submitting to some unjust Sentence is involved in the guilt of Schism because though he have right on his side yet his personall suffering is not tanti as to be laid in the ballance with the confusion and open contempt of lawfull Authority and other inconveniences attending upon his Non-submission And albeit his Judge must answer to Christ for his unjust Sentence yet he must answer for his Schism if he suffer not patiently 6. To this may be added That it should rub an imputation upon the wisdom of God who hath put this trust in fallible mens hands who may and do erre if Submission were not a safe medium to be acquiesced in betwixt the rocks of sinfull obedience and schismaticall contra-acting in a Church or rebellion in a State For the governing of us not being entrusted to men who cannot erre without this medium men can hardly walk under the dispensations of providence toward them but either they must split on one hand or other Whereas now by yeelding suffering to be commanded of God and a duty laid upon us in such cases we wipe off all imputations cast on Him and may walk in peace of mind though with some personall prejudice VII As to the Arguments which they muster up against this Submission if we hold them at their word pag. 115 116. that in some cases they would not much contend about it of which we have also spoken before we might leave it at their own door to answer them and to clear how in any case they would not contend about what they plead so much against as sinfull For sin in any case and in any matter is sinfull and so not to be yeelded unto And if they can bring sufficient reasons why in the cases they mention in the fore-cited passage they may submit to an unjust Sentence They will save us a labour in vindicating our selves and answering their Arguments against the Submission we plead for But for further satisfaction As we have already in this debate met with many of their reasons and particular branches of them and either answered them or laid them aside as impertinent to our Question which we shall not now repeat So we do offer a brief return to what is or seemeth to be further materiall in their reasonings in these particulars 1. Their scope in a great part of their discourse and Arguments is to evince That because Judges have no Commission or Authority from Christ to pronounce an unjust Sentence Therefore they are not to be submitted unto unlesse men will take their will and arbitriment for a law to their Consciences But this is a great fallacy and confounding of things that are very different Namely of the Rule whereby Judges ought to walk in their administrations and the rule whereby the Lords people ought to walk under these dispensations of providence toward them whereof humane Judges in their administrations are the interveening Instruments We yeeld that Judicatories are limited by their Commission that they may do no unjust act and if they do they must answer to God for it We yeeld also that the rule of their Commission doth regulate also those who are under them as to their approving or giving active obedience to their injunctions But when it comes to the matter of suffering and being passive after we have exonered our selves we do not look to their will as our rule or ground of our Submission but to a peculiar Command of God enjoyning Submission in such cases to prevent schism and confusion This may easily take off the most of their reasonings They urge Acts of Assemblies pag. 51. that Ministers ought to be censured for lawfull and just causes and take much pains to prove that Judicatories are bound to judge according to the Word Arg. 1. and elsewhere And when they do otherwise that they act that for which they have no Commission nor power pag. 96. All which we grant to be true of Ecclesiasticall Judges as it is also alike true of Civil Powers that none of them have a power to judge unjustly and that God who commands us to be subject unto them commands them to judge justly And therefore in the case of unrighteous judgement we neither approve nor give active obedience yea we are free for the liberation of our own souls to contradict even an Oecumenick Council Angels Prophets and Apostles if they determine contrary to the Word of God as they have it Arg. 8. yea and to do more also if they bring in another Doctrine of the Gospel to which the Scripture there cited speaketh Gal. 1.6 7 8. And so
in the least that we maintain that all Judicatories are bound to judge righteous judgement at their peril And if they proceed to ruine all Religion as this Argument carrieth it with vehemency enough to say no more we have already cleared what the People of God may lawfully do in such a case yea in unjust Sentences of lesser moment not only inferiour Judicatories but even particular persons in their stations may do more than whisper once against them as they are pleased to phrase it and yet submit when they have done But as to the Question betwixt us and this Church they will find their Argument from defensive Arms to fail them For not to dip any further in that Question no learned man ever allowed even the body of a Nation or their Representatives in Parliament to rise against a Prince far lesse a party only be they persons or some inferiour Judicatories against the Supream Magistrate or a National Church and her Representatives which is our case upon the account only of the unjust sufferings of particular persons while yet the affairs of Church and State were well ordered That would soon make more unjust sufferers than would be under lawfull Authority not resisted possibly in many ages And we believe it is without precept or precedent that privat subjects or inferiour Courts should rise in Arms against their Prince or Parliaments only because they inflict some unjust Sentences on themselves or some privat subjects while yet they adhere unto and overturn none of the righteous things concluded in a Nation And therefore this Church being through mercy setled in the matter of Doctrine Worship and Government they may spare this Argument till they prove this Church to be overturning all or any of these 4. That wherein they seem to place no small confidence in this matter as appeareth by their frequent repeating and expatiating thereupon is that reason of the Apostles for their Non-submission to the Council at Jerusalem Acts. 5.29 It is better to obey God than men together with these Commands of God enjoyning Ministers to preach the Word and Christians to partake of the Sacrament in remembrance of Christ 2 Tim. 4.2 1 Cor. 11.24 These they propound Arg. 2. p. 99. and the most of their reasoning thereupon is again recapitulate in short Arg. 4. That these duties being commanded by God they cannot omit them without sin upon that non-relevant reason of the meer will of men unjustly sentencing them with Deposition and Excommunication This they urge further Arg. 2. pag. 100 101. from the instances not only of the Apostles and Jeremiah and Amos to which we have spoken before but of Daniel counteracting the Decree of Darius Dan. 6. and of the mans confessing Christ though cast-out by the Jews for it Joh. 9. But to say nothing that this last instance will not prove that Non-submission to the Sentence of Excommunication which they there speak of unlesse they make it appear that the man did not only confesse Christ still but obtrude himself also upon the Jews in their Church-societie The Answer to this is easie if we take notice of a twofold distinction 1. We would distinguish humane prohibitions of duties commanded by God For some prohibitions are not only restraints put upon some persons as to the exercise of these duties upon the account of these persons incapacity real or supposed to go about the same But are in effect and chiefly a condemning of these duties in their very nature and kind as not to be observed by any person whatsoever and so do not touch upon the incapacity of the persons who are prohibited but upon the things themselves considered as such moral performances which are prohibited Such a prohibition was that of Darius which was a politicall Decree prohibiting the very duty of Prayer unto God and that to all men universally not to Daniel or some others only upon any personal incapacity in them So the Decree of the Jews was against the very duty of confessing Christ and not a restraint upon some persons only that they should not be the performers of that duty And their Decree against the Apostles preaching was a Law and dogmatick Determination against the whole Doctrine of the Gospel and the publishing thereof to the world and not a restraint put upon the Apostles only while they allowed others to do it For it may appear from their own words Act. 4.17 and 5.2 that their quarrel was not against the Apostles preaching but against the Doctrine which they preached in this Name They offered not to silence them from publishing Doctrine simpliciter but from publishing this Doctrine Again There are some prohibitions which are meer disciplinary Sentences restraining persons from such duties of an office or the use of such priviledges as they not only allow of in their nature and kind but do allow others in the practice and enjoyment of them and do only restrain others therefrom upon the account of their personal incapacity real or supposed Ex. gr when a Church-judicatory deposeth a Minister from preaching of Christ upon the account of insufficiency or scandall or debarreth a Member from participation of publick Ordinances suppose they do erre in the particular yet they are so far from condemning of these duties of preaching of Christ and partaking of the Ordinances that they provide another to preach in the room of him whom they have put out and do see to the dispensing of the Ordinances daily and to the inviting of the rest of the Congregation to joyn in the participation thereof That there is a vast difference betwixt these two sorts of prohibitions may appear further in this beside what is said that prohibitions of the first sort are simply and in their nature and kind unlawfull nor can any such Decree be lawfully made at any time But disciplinary Sentences are not unlawfull in their nature and kind but may in some cases lawfully be pronounced and executed as is confessed by all And as to the application of the distinction to the case in hand We need not meddle with it in the matter of prayer and confessing Christ seing as we shall hear upon the second distinction these fall not within the compasse of Disciplinary Sentences But as to the matter of preaching and participation of publick Ordinances which are the things in debate betwixt us we may hence take a clear solution of the difficulty For let once a Church-judicatory grow so corrupt as to condemn the duties of preaching Christ and participation of publick Ordinances in their very nature and kind and as to all sorts of persons universally which is the true case held out in their Instances for even the false Priest at Bethel and the Rulers at Jerusalem did condemn the Doctrine preached by Amos and Jeremiah and did not quarrell only their preaching of it while they did allow it in others And in that case we should without scruple as was said before conclude them no true