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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	council_n	lord_n	secretary_n	1,084	5	9.9310	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77444	An historicall vindication of the government of the Church of Scotland from the manifold base calumnies which the most malignant of the prelats did invent of old, and now lately have been published with great industry in two pamphlets at London. The one intituled Issachars burden, &c. written and published at Oxford by John Maxwell, a Scottish prelate, excommunicate by the Church of Scotland, and declared an unpardonable incendiary by the parliaments of both kingdoms. The other falsly intituled A declaration made by King James in Scotland, concerning church-government and presbyteries; but indeed written by Patrick Adamson, pretended Archbishop of St. Andrews, contrary to his own conscience, as himselfe on his death-bed did confesse and subscribe before many witneses in a write hereunto annexed. By Robert Baylie minister at Glasgow. Published according to order.	Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662.; Adamson, Patrick, 1537-1592. Recantation of Maister Patrik Adamsone, sometime archbishop of Saint-Androwes in Scotlande.; Welch, John, 1568?-1622.	1646 (1646)	Wing B460; Thomason E346_11; ESTC R201008	133,114	153

not in any Congregation of Scotland which I doe know a yearly election of Elders but in populous Cities where the Elders are many and diverse of them unable to attend that charge without the hurt of their estate the most of them being Merchants and Tradesmen who must travell for their livelyhood they have a liberty to be free from that service every two yeere if so they be content to attend upon a call every third yeere the Levites attended the service of the Temple but a few months in the yeare What is right or wrong in this custome of some few of our Congregations we are willing to debate it and as it shall be found just or unjust to keep or change that practise for in such things we love not to be contentious In your three last Sections yee do cast upon the Eldership in hand a rabble of incongruous practises Page 3. No Eldership inflicts any civill punishment although the Magistrate in the Eldership doth so sometimes what you bring of pecuniary mulcts imprisonments banishments jogges cutting of haire and such like it becomes neither you to charge nor us to be charged with any such matters No Church-assembly in Scotland assumes the least degree of power to inflict the smallest civill punishment upon any person the Generall Assembly it selfe bath no power to fine any creature so much as in one groat It is true the Lawes of the Land appoint ●ecuniary mulcts imprisonment joggs pillories and banishment for some odious crimes and the power of putting these Laws in execution is placed by the Parliament in the hands of the in●eriour Magistrates in Burroughs or Shires or of others to whom the Counsel Table gives a speciall Commission for that end ordinarily some of these civill persons are ruling Elders and sit with the Eldership So when the Eldership have cognosced upon the scandall alone of criminall persons and have used their spirituall censures only to bring the party to Repentance some of the Ruling Elders by vertue of their civill office or commission will impose a Mulct or send to Prison or stocks or banish out of the bounds of some little circuit according as the Acts of Parliament or counsell do appoint it But that the Eldership should imploy its Eccclesiastick and Spirituall power for any such end none of us doe defend That either in Scotland or any where else in the world the haire of any person is commanded to be cut by any Church judicatory for disgrace and punishment is as I take it but a foolish fable That any person truely penitent is threatned in Scotland with Church censures for non-payment of Monies is in the former Category of calumnies But suppose that all your alleagations were true Bishops confound miserably the spirituall and civill office yet how congruously does a challenge of this kind come from your mouth do you think that all civill imployments are incompatible with spirituall offices How many Ministers did you get to be Iustices of Peace you your selfe were a judge of Common-pleas your colleague S. Andrewes was Chancellor of the Kingdom you know the Treasurers white staffe was very neer to your hands and for the missing of it what stir you made Many of you were Lords of Councel and all of you Lords both of Parliament and temporall Lordships and Regalities where your Baylies kept Court in your names diverse of your Coat with your good liking have been Secretaries of State Keepers of the Privy Seale Leger Ambassadors with forraign Princes your brethren over Sea in France and Spaine Germany and Italy are Admirals of Royall Navies are Generals of Land forces are Princes of Temporall Estates according to these principles that I thinke you doe approve according to your Cannons in Scotland and your ordinary practise in England Great summes of mony were exacted in your spirituall Courts and pocketed up for private uses how many have been excommunicate there for non-payment of a shilling and refused absolution till their fine was payed with increase what do you speak to us of a pecuniary mulct of a very small and unconsiderable value taken up by the Magistrate and imployed only in pious uses Why doe you speak to us of cutting of Beards when your Prelates doe burne the cheeks how many gracious soules have been starved to death in your Episcopall dungeous how many thousands have you banished out of Bricaine out of Europe for no fault at all but their zeale to the truth of God how many hundred thousand hath your pride and obstinacy in error caused to be slaine within these seven yeares in the next age ignorant men may be pardoned to deny these things but it were great impudence this day to deny them when yet we do sticke in the Pit of these troubles wherein the madnesse of you Prelates hath cast us Your objection about the Baptisme of Bastards is vain We refuse Baptism to no insant where either of the Parents will undertake for Christian education for we refuse not that Sacrament to any of them if either of the Parents profesie Repentance and undertake for the Christian education of their child but the ground of your quarrelling in this Point is that we cannot follow your Popish Doctrine that we refute to professe the actuall regeneration of all baptized Infants and that we dare not put all unbaptized persons in the state of unregeneration and damnation Your next head concerns the Classicall Presbytery Page 4 5. No Prince pleads for any exemption from Ecclesiastick jurisdiction your first Objection against it which a little thereafter and oft elsewhere you do ingeminate is That the King and his family are subject to its Jurisdiction I would gladly know if among the rest of the Prelaticall absurd ties this were one That Christian Princes and Magistrates are fully exempted from all Ecclesiastick jurisdiction sometimes your party would seem to speake so as if every Magistrate at least every Prince were such a God upon earth that none might say to any of them Sir what are you doing though they were running to hell themselves and drawing at their heels all they were able This is so grosse a flattery that all advised Princes abhorre it and confesse themselves to be subject to Ecclesiasticall Discipline as well as others for they know if they should exempt themselves from this part of Christian religion they should presently be in hazard or loosing the benefit of all the rest for Christianity is a body of Articles so straitly joyned that either all must be received or none You your selfe though among the absurdest of all your faction do confesse so much as any Presbyterian in the world did ever thinke of you say that the Crowne and Scepter is subject not only to the directive power of the Church expound the Church as you will for a Congregationall Classicall or Nationall Eldership it is alike for the present Question but also to the authoritative power of the same whereby the

they were not in a capacity to receave it till once they were an Assembly so with Lauristons good liking they did pray and chose their Moderator and Clerke thereafter they did receive and read the Letters discharging the Assembly to which they gave present obedience and did no more at all but appointed the next meeting according to the expresse act of Parliament Lauriston after the Assembly was dissolved was so officious as by a Lyon herauld with a publike Proclamation to command them to be gone this Proclamation most falsly he did antidate as if it had beene used before the Ministers sat downe hereupon the Ministers were convened before the secret Counsell for keeping of a Conventicle contrary to the Kings command they answered as Spotswood says that they had done nothing but according to the Laws both divine and humane That the Generall Assembly had right to meet in the great necessities of the Church and the Laws of Scotland gave them expresse warrant to meet Lauriston told them that the King might delay all meetings both of Church and State Parliaments and Assemblies so long as he pleased they replyed that they could doe nothing against the Kings mind so long as they followed the expresse order of his standing Lawes When the King and state has past an act for Trienniall Parliaments and the Commissioners of shires doe meet at the day appointed to fence a Par●iament according to Law and long uncontroverted custome if by evill Counsell the King should not only delay but by a Proclamation put of the meeting to an uncertaine and infinite time ought these Commissioners for following the instructions of their shires according to Law and custome be lyable to any censure the case now in hand is just the same The Ministers did plead further that the privie Councell was not a competent Judicatorie to the question what was a lawfull or unlawfull Assembly that by the Lawes of the Kingdome such questions were to be decided by a lawfull Generall Assembly and not elsewhere At that time Doctor Bancroft was Patron to the naughty Preacher of Scotland who were panting for Bishopricks and as after the conference at Hampton Court he had moved the King to crush the most of the gracious Brethren of England who could not submit to Episcopacie and its Ceremonies So then did he hasten a Message to the Councell of Scotland for the condemning all who adhered to the Assembly of Aberdeen of high Treason To maintaine a power in the Church to keep an Assembly or in the State to keep a Parliament whether to begin or to continue it when the King did discharge though the Law did expresly warrant it was to oppose the Royall prerogative and could be no lesse then the highest treason especially if any did decline the Judgement of the Privy Counsell or any other Judicatorie to which the King was pleased to referre the decision of this case though the nature of the thing and the Law did require the question to bee determined in another Court For this plea a number of gracious Ministers were condemned by an Assize to be executed as Traitours but thereafter as it were of great favour and speciall grace their lives were spared yet were they all presently banished never to returne to any of the Kings Dominions while they lived All the godly and wise in the Land did cry out upon this Act of the Candidats of Episcopacie as of the highest unjustice and Tyranny All the sufferers were men exceedingly beloved Mr. Welsh and Master Forbes their oppression but some of them were very eminent Master Forbes was a man of so great learning and prudence that in Germany both higher and lower yea with King Iames himselfe and King Charles he was held while he lived in singular reputation Master Welsh was a man altogether Apostolike of rare both learning and piety The fame of this mans zeale was so great that not only the Protestants of France but the very Popish Priests and Souldiers yea the prophanest of the Court and King Lewis himselfe at the very time of his hottest persecutions did much prize and reverence him yet so great was the rage of the Bishops against him that when in his old age and great sicknesse he came over to England and according to the direction of his Phisitians did supplicate to be permitted to breath a little in his naturall aire though he was altogether unable for preaching or making any more sturre in the world it was peremptorily denyed him unlesse he should give assurance of putting his necke under the Episcopall yoke not being able to doe this he was forced to dye out of h●● Country a banished man Who would not have th●●●ht that the ruine of so many gracious men might ha●●●●lly satiate the malice of a few ambitious persons Bancroft a persecutor of the Scottish Presbiterians bu●●● they were not content they proceeded farther in their cruelty they moved the King to call up to London a number of more Divines who for piety zeale and learning were of greatest reputation The pretext was faire and his Majesties Letter to them courteous he required them to come up to give him their best advice how the Church of Scotland might best be settled in peace but behold Bancrofts and the Scottish Episcopaturians fraud they are brought before the King and Councell and there are posed with a number of dangerous and insnaring questions to which they declined to answer yet being much pressed they gave in their mind in writing so humbly and prudently as was possible no quarrell could be picked against any of their words yet were they all arrested to stay at London till contrary to Law and the order of the Church and the heart of all the godly their adversaries were set downe in Scotland upon their Episcopall Thrones Mr. Andrew Melvil The undoing of Mr. Andrew and Mr. James Melvils a great Light to the Scottish Nation for his free speeches after great provocation against the English Bishops and Ceremonies to which he a stranger called up by the Kings friendly Letter did owe no subjection was kept prisoner three whole yeares and then was sent over to Sedan where he lived to his death a banished man His Nephew Mr. Iames Melvil for his excellent parts in great favour with the King but unable to comply with Episcopall designes was kept out of Scotland till his dying day the rest were at last sent home but all of them as Prisoners confined to certaine places These were the first fruits of the English Prelacie in Scotland but yearly thereafter that tree did bring forth such grapes of Gomorrha among us that the Land could be at no peace till it was cut downe yea plucked up by the rootes It might have satisfied the unnaturall malice of a very wicked child P. 41. Prelaticall calumnies to have bespattered the face of his innocent mother with the halfe of the former very injurious and false calumnies yet you

forenamed Masters of the Court did much adde for the allaying whereof this Declaration was penned but to no purpose as Spotswood himself tels us m Spotswoods Story lib. 6. p. 177. This Declaration gave not much satisfaction so great was the discontent For no satisfaction was ever taken till both the Duke Chancellour Secretary and Archbishop Adamson were banished the Court and the acts of Parliament of their invention abolished as noxious and evill There was never any Warrant for Printing of this Writ What is here said of King James his command to publish this Declaration I do not find it verified in any Register either of the Church or Kingdome of Scotland that hath fallen in my hand but if any such command did come from him at that time of his minority and great tentation through the continuall evill offices of them that then managed his Counsels it were a case no more strange then these which often since we have seen in both Kingdomes many Proclamations and Declarations by false and wicked informations have been drawne from King James and King Charles and many other Princes which upon better advisement have been called in and buried the Proclamation concerning sports and playes upon the Sabbath the Service-Book and Book of Canons the Declarations of the Rebellion of the Parliaments of both Kingdomes we all know For my part I love not to rake out ●f the grave the carcases of these buried Writs for the infamy of the Prince or the prejudice of the Subject We shall s●y no more to the preface Pag 2. come to the interpretation of these offensive Acts of that Parliament at Edenburgh 1584. As for the first Act the explanation here made upon it did no way remove its offence for both the Act and its explanation attribute to the Ministers only the administation of the Word and Sacraments without any mention at all of any discipline this seems to have been one chiefe cause why the worshipfull Licenser was pressed with so much importunity to give his Imprimatur to this Writ as if this passage had been a demonstration of King James his Erastianisme but let the world take notice of the grossenesse of this mistake by this short information The Commissioners of the generall Assembly King James was far from Erastianisme were required by his Majesty at the Parliament of Lithgou 1585. to give him in the grounds of their grievances against the Acts of the Parliament at Edenbrugh 1584. here explained n Collection Master Andrew Melvill had been plaine with the King divers dayes at length the King desired the Ministers to exhibit in writ what exceptions they had against the Parliament held in Anno 1584. whereupon they exhibit to the King these animadversions following In their Animadversion upon the Act now in hand they did shew his Majesty that the power of Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and Church-Censures did belong to them by divine right no lesse then the power of preaching the Word and Celebrating the Sacraments o Animadversions The power of the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven consisteth not onely in preaching and administration of the Sacraments but also in jurisdiction and removing of offences out of the Kirk of God and excommunication of the disobedient to be pronounced by these that are officers of the Church our warrants out of the Word of God for this part of the liberty of the Church we are to bring forth when your Majesty pleaseth Also that the Lawes of the Kingdome ever fince the Reformation did ratifie that their right p Ibid. This Act restricted the liberty granted byother Acts of Parliament of before concerning discipline and correction of manners which were established by a Law in the first yeer of your Majesties Reigne and that hitherto they had bin in peaceable possessiō thereof q Ibid. There is a spirituall jurisdiction where of the Office-bearers within the Kirk in this Realm have been in peaceable possession and use these twenty four yeer by past whereof followed no trouble but great quietnesse in the Kirke and Common-wealth The King in his Reply to this animadversion does not deny any of these Alleageances yea he declares under his hand that he did not intend to take from Church Officers any part of the Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction but onely so to regulate the execution of Discipline that some part thereof might be put in the hand of Prelates this was the onely point in controversie r The Kings Declaration the first Act maketh onely mention of the preaching of the Word Sacraments not thereby to abrogate any good further policy and jurisdiction in the Kirke but allanerly to remit a part thereof to the Acts ensuing and the most which as yet are not agreed upon nor concluded I intend God willing to cause to be perfected by a godly generall Assembly Whence it appeares how far his Majesty was from all Erastianisme though his affection to prelacy at that time was too great which yet he changed quickly thereafter as we shall see anon The explanation of the second Act The sum of the next Paragraph consists of a Narrative and Ordinance builded thereupon the Narrative has the alledged misbehaviours of some Ministers Master Andrew Melvile alone is named as joyning in conspiracies with Rebels against the King as Preaching seditious Doctrine and disclaining the King and Counsell of State for his Judges The Ordinance is concerning the Kings Supremacy divers things are here jumbled together confusedly and odiously to these two purposes by the Abbot of Dunfermeling Secretary for the time the Penner of this passage as Adamson the writer of the rest confesseth ſ Adamsons recantation The Secretary himselfe penned the second Act of Parliament concerning the power of Judicatories to be absolutely in the King and that it should not be lawfull for any Subject to reclame from the same under the penalty of the Act which I suppose was treason Concerning the first Master Melvill his worth Master Andrew Melvils case the Narrative is most untrue as I shall make good by undeniable evidence Master Melvil was an excellent Divine the principall professour of Divinity in the University first of Glasgow and then of S. Andrewes full of piety eloquence and learning of all sorts so eminent in zeale for the truth that his remembrance is yet very precious not in Scotland alone but in other reformed Churches his heroicke courage made him an eye-sore to the Masters of the Court whose wickednesse he and his Schollars according to their place and duty did masculously oppose From this it was and nothing else that an Accusation was invented against him as for seditious and treasonable words against the Kings Mother Queen Mary then prisoner in England When he came to his Answer upon his solemne Oath Cleer grounds for his justification he denied his Charge t The Collection I Master Andrew Melvill protest before God and his elect