under Presbytery And for the rest of the Clergy none of them were cast out for complyance with Prelacy but they generally retained their places wherefore this is a most untrue Allegation A Third thing he saith is That the Presbyterians at the Revolution 1662. were not so dealt with that is were continued in their places Impudence it self could affirm nothing more false Were not above the third part of all the Ministers of Scotland and so in England thrown out by one Act of Parliament For two thirds complyed and by that means kept their places and the few in Scotland that could not be reached by that Act were laid aside by the Bishops and the Council by more slow steps § 6. The Acts of Assemblies that he citeth are Act Aug. 17. 1639. Appointing all in Office in Church and Schools and all Members of this Kirk to subscribe the National Covenant And an Act 1642. for intimating the abovesaid Act and proceeding to Church-censure against them that refuse such Subscription And an Act 1644. appointing strict enquiry and censure against disaffected persons to the Covenant And some other Severities he mentioneth truly or falsely I know not for he doth not direct where such Acts may be found which may be acknowledged as no Pattern for after-ages to go by It is like if that Oath of God had been less universally and less severely imposed it had been better kept by many What he alledgeth That the Assemblies Aug. 1642. do order the persons of them who are Excommunicated to be imprisoned and their Goods to be confiscated is most false never any Assembly in this Church did make Laws for Civil punishments All that I find to this purpose for he is not pleased to be distinct in his Citations is that August 3. 1642. the Assembly Petitioned the Council to put the Laws in execution against Excommunicated Papists All this considered I hope the Impartial Reader will not be imposed on by what this man hath said to think that the Principles of Presbyterians are inconsistent with what Toleration is due to Dissenters Nor will blame them that they are not for a vast and boundless Toleration nor because they cannot bear them who are evil but do try them who say they are Apostles and are not and find them lyars Rev. 22. QUEST IV. Whether from the Year 1662 to the Year 1689 Presbyterian Separatists were guilty of sinful Separation AWise Question indeed He supposeth them Separatists which by no Author was ever accounted vox media or taken in a good sense and yet Querieth whether they sinned in separating But to let this pass he telleth us of Doctrine taught in our larger Catechism from which may be demonstrated how necessary it is to Salvation that every Person keep Communion with the particular Church established by the Laws of the State that he liveth in unless she either enjoyn in her Canons any sinful term of Communion or propose in her Confession any Heretical Article or prescribe in her Directory for Worship any Idolatrous Impurity To this I repone a few things First according to his loose and indistinct way of Writing he neither telleth us what these Doctrines are nor in what place of the Catechism they are to be found we must take his Word for all this and we utterly deny what he saith to be true All that that Catechism saith that could be imagined to have that tendency is That the visible Church hath the Priviledge of being under God's special Care and Government of being protected and preserved in all Ages notwithstanding the Opposition of Enemies and of enjoying the Communion of Saints the ordinary means of Salvation the offers of Grace by Christ to all the Members of it in the Ministry of the Gospel testifying that whosoever believeth in him shall be saved and excluding none that will come unto him Now it is evident that all this is said of the Universal Church not of any Particular Church far less can this passage be understood of a particular Church as established by the Laws of the State wherein it is No Scripture ever made such Laws essential to the Notion of a true Church from which none may separate Neither did ever any Divine talk at this rate except Episcopalians and among them I remember of none that so express themselves but this Man and Dr. Stillingfleet He doth indeed express three Cases that excuse from sin in separating from a true Church but how these can be drawn from the Larger Catechism I understand not § 2. How far we allow a Separation from the late Episcopal Church of Scotland and maintain it not to be sinful in us but sinfully caused by them I shall declare We affirm it to be no Schism but a necessary Duty that the Presbyterian Ministers did not own Episcopal Government nor either directly or indirectly countenance the Authority of Bishops above Presbyters He telleth us of a Letter for Union March 1689. wherein it is said and not answered that never any Confession of Faith in our Reformed Church avowed a Divine Right for a parity among all Church-Officers This Letter I never heard of before but it seemeth the Author of it and the Writer of this Pamphlet have Talents equal for Controversal Scribling For whoever said that there is a Divine Right for Parity among all Church Officers We know that by Divine Right Ruling Elders also Deacons are not equal in Church power with Preaching Presbyters And for the parity of Ministers if it be not found in any Confession of Faith it 's enough that it 's found in the Scriptures But we affirm that the Divine Right of it is also found in the Confession of Faith sworn to by the King and his Houshold and by the Nation wherein they abjure the Hierarchy or distinction of Degrees among Ministers He saith the Solemn League did not abjure the President Bishop Answ. We know no such Bishop the President or Moderator hath no Jurisdiction over his Brethren And he will not say that the Bishops restored 1662. to whom we could not yield subjection was no more but a President Bishop if he do all the Nation will cry shame on him and his own Tongue will condemn him Page 1 2. of his Book What some in England Petitioned for we are not concerned if he had told us what concessions the body or generality of Presbyterians in that Nation had made also let us know where we might find such Concessions an Answer might in that case have been expected from us But what he presumeth about the Repentance of Scots Presbyterians for not submitting to Episcopacy as established in Scotland is without ground and absolutely false § 3. What we further declare concerning the Separation that he speaketh of is that Presbyterians generally did not think it unlawful to hear these Ministers that had complyed with Episcopacy and often did occasionally hear them whatever was the practice of some among us yet the best of the Ministers in
Uprightness of that Great and Wise Prince than is decent for a dutiful Subject to be guilty of § 2. Let us now hear how he will prove first That King James Anno 1592 Then that King Charles Anno 1639 Assented to Presbyterial Government unwillingly and by constraint His proofs are first King James in Basil. Dor. L. 2. p. 28. speaketh with great bitterness against the Presbyterians and their Way Ans. This doth indeed prove that he had changed his thoughts of that Way Not that he was never of another mind It were not hard to cite words of his as much to the commendation of Presbytery as these in Basil. Dor. are against it But that Way and its opposite standeth or falleth by the sentence of a higher Authority than that of men 2ly He thinketh it against Reason and Charity to think That this being his thought of Presbytery he would settle it in the Church without some kind of compulsion Ans. It is little more charity to think That a man of any degree of Conscience or Religion would have so eminent a hand in plaguing the Church with that which he looked on as so pernicious as the words cited by our Author do express Yea the fear of God would restain one from such an act even under the highest kind of compulsion 3ly He next objecteth the Preamble to the Act for Restoring of Episcopacy Anno 1606. Ans. Who can doubt that when men had a mind to set up that Government they would say all the good of it that they could devise and speak to the disadvantage of the contrary what could be thought upon but this signifieth no more than that they were changed from what once they were and they who do so say and unsay are unfit to give decisive Testimony about any point of Truth 4ly He ascribeth K. James's assent to Presbytery to his Youth Ans. He was no Child in 1592 having been married to Queen Ann three years before viz. in 1589. He was at least 30 years of age 5ly He pleadeth from the unsetled condition of his Affairs but doth not shew wherein they were unsetled It 's true the King then had some trouble with the Earl of Bothwell but it is well known that Bothwell was no Presbyterian and setling of Presbytery could not tend to quiet him But I am weary of such silly Arguments which deserve no answer What he maketh the King alledge That the Presbyterians were always ready to joyn with any Faction in the State is as groundless as any thing can be spoken They never owned any but such as owned the interest of Christ and his Truth Their appearing against his Grand mother and Mother was only in defence of Christ's Truth which these two Queens did labour to extirpate And what is said of inordinate and popular Tumults reflecteth upon Procestantism rather than on Presbytery It 's a strange Insinuation that he hath in the end of the paragraph pag. 4. That that young King was forced to settle Presbytery in the Church that thereby he might bring off Presbyterians from joyning with the Acts of their Kirk to unsettle his Throne Here is Malice twisted with incoherent Imaginations For nothing but Malice can make any think that Presbytery is an Enemy to Monarchy but what dirt he casteth on us of this kind afterward shall in its place be wiped off It 's also a strange fancy that if K. James lookt on Presbytery as capable by the Acts of their Kirk to unsettle his Throne that he should put it in that capacity by setling it by Law with a design to secure the Throne It is as if a man should let in the Thief at the door that he might sleep the more securely in his house § 3. What King Charles says for Prelacy to which all know that he ever was a constant friend is much more modest than what we heard before And we deny not but what countenance he gave to Presbytery was in condescendency to his People Yet from the transactions of these times we may confidently infer That the Nation both in its diffusive and its representative Body the Parliament was for Presbytery And what our Author says of the Tumults of these times which were sad and lamented by all good men layeth more load on Prelacy The Tyranny and Innovations of the Church-Rulers of which way did force the people either to see first the purity of Gospel Ordinances taken from them and then their Religion destroyed by a popish Faction as of later years appeared more convincingly when the designs of these men were more ripened or stand in their own defence So that what our Author gaineth by this passage is that Episcopacy raised a Tumult which ended in its own ruine QUEST III. THE Scope of his Third Question and of the Resolution of it can be no other but to render Presbyterians odious not to disprove their Cause nor to refute their Principles It is Whither the Principles of Scottish Presbytery grant any Toleration to Dissenters Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione loquentes His party are above all men except Papists in mala fide to blame others in this matter Among what party of men hath uniformity and conformity to all the Canons of their Church and that in things confessed by them to be indifferent that is needless been pressed with more severity imposed by more unmerciful Laws and urged by more inhumane and cruel execution of them That there hath been excesses among Presbyterians in this we deny not but lament it humanum est Labi Moderation is not an easie Lesson nor so often practised as it should be when men forget that the Lord is at hand as the best are apt to do when they are at ease But all unbyassed men who know and have observed the way of the one and of the other party while they alternatively had the ascendant will say that the little finger of the meanest Prelate and his Underlings was heavier than the loyns of the greatest Assembly of the Presbyterian Church As an impartial and true Account of the Sufferings in both Cases will evince Which on our part I hope may be given in due time But on theirs an Account is given as remote from truth and candor as any thing that ever came from the Press which it is like e're long may be made evident But we desire not to recriminate though necessity is laid on us by their false History of things far less intend we to retalliate though it should be in the power of our hand But we leave our Cause to him that judgeth righteously § 2. It is well that our Adversary is so favourable to that Institution of Christ The Government of his House by Presbyters without a Bishop That we own in that he doth not blame it generally or in its most extensive notion Not Presbytery as such but as Scottish Let the Ordinance of Christ escape his lash and we are the less solicitous what he says against the
Scots in their management of the Government of Christ's House He knows that Scotland is but one and a small part of the Reformed Church in which that Government hath been and is practised If there be any blame then in the practices of former times when Presbytery was ascendent let it be imputed rather to the praeservidum Scotorum ingenium in which they of the other party have far outgone ours than to the Ordinance of Christ I mean that Government of his House that we own But even Scottish Presbytery or that Government as exercised in that National Church will be able to stand before his Arguments Though it be hard for any thing though never so good to bear up against Lies and Reproaches § 3. He should have considered That there may be other Dissenters living among Presbyterians than Episcopal men whereas all that he saith on this Head doth only relate to them There may be a peculiar reason for their not bearing with them who own Prelacy viz. Because their Church-Government doth necessarily overtop bring into subjection and root out that Government of the Church which we own as Christ's Institution It is against their principle to suffer Ministers and Elders to live beside them who will adventure to govern any part of the Church without subordination to the Bishops And whatever Indulgence hath been in by past years given to Presbyterians as we know it was designed for no advantage to us without judging the secrets of any bodies heart so we know that not only it was not the act of our Church-men but nothing was more grievous to them and nothing they did more actively oppose Notwithstanding it is the principle and purpose of Presbyterians not to exclude any of them from their religious Assemblies nor from any of the Ordinances of God in them for their principle about Church-Government wherein they differ from us And for Ministers among them we are ready to give the right hand of fellowship and to admit to all the parts of the exercise of their Function among us such of them as shall not be made appear to be insufficient scandalous or erroneous or to be void of that holiness of life that becometh a Minister and who shall be found willing to secure the Government of the Church that we own and to prosecute the ends of it and not to exclude any simply for his opinion about Church-Government though the mean while we are not willing that all who will profess to own our Church-way should have a share in managing it with us because many such might be a scandal to it others might betray it neither can we allow that any of them should exercise a prelacy over us or over the people of our charge Further Never any Church or State gave Toleration to Dissenters from the established Church-way but as it might rationally be thought a necessary relief to tender consciences But this reason for suffering Episcopal men to practise their way among us at this time cannot without the greatest impudence and hypocrisie be pretended For refusing to receive the Ordinances from Presbyterians because they want Episcopal Ordination this cannot be from conscience seeing it was their constant practice when Prelats ruled this Church they never required any of them to be re-ordained who had been ordained by Presbyters and after complied with Episcopacy Neither can they pretend conscience for having a Worship different from ours I mean the English Liturgy for when it was in their power to use it they never did Wherefore there can be no pretence on which they can plead for tolleration in these things but humor and design and I hope it will not by impartial beholders be judged rigidity if the State deny a liberty to such persons to make such Innovations as never yet could get place in this Church especially when it is too apparent that they who are most forward for such a liberty give ground to think that a design against the present civil Government is at the bottom they being such as have no liking to the present Establishment § 4. But this Author hath a mind to represent us in other colours And for a Foundation of this his Essay he saith That the Solemn League and Covenant is the Canon and the Acts of the General Assemblies the Comment of the Principles of Scottish Presbyteries This is false the Rule that we Judge by in the Matter of Church Government as well as in other things is the Word of God and we use no other Comments for our help to understand that Rule but such as are founded on the Word it self and which we give sufficient Warrant for I hope the Reader will look on this loose talk as Railing not Arguing He may know that Presbytery was long in Scotland before that Covenant had a being And for Acts of General Assemblies they are no further our Rule than they are agreeable to the Supreme Rule The Word of God and to the Principles of Right Reason Neither do we look on them as Infallible as he foolishly feigneth pag. 6. What he or any other can make appear in them to be unwarranted we are ready to disown And we know they may be changed by the same power that made them when any thing in them shall be found to be amiss or inconvenient for the present state of the Church § 5. He quarrelleth with three Articles of the Covenant viz. The 1st about preserving the Government and Discipline of the Church The 2d that is against Episcopacy and its Dependents The 3d for defending one another in their adherence to this Bond. Let any judge what is here consistent with a moderate and duly limited Toleration of Dissenters Is there no Toleration of men who hold Prelacy to be lawful without allowing of Prelacy it self and submitting to its domination Next he will prove his point from some Acts of General Assemblies but this he prefaceth first with the peaceableness of the Prelatick Clergy in and after 1639. when their Church-Goverment was destroyed in that they neither raised Tumults nor wrote Books It is true they raised no Tumults but they did what they could to raise War for continuing on the necks of the people that Yoak that they had wreathed on them And did effectually draw on a bloody War which had very sad effects and issued in the ruine of them and Presbyterians too for a time and shewed well enough to raise Church-Tumults by their protesting and disobedience to the Sentence of the Church for their not writing Books who hindred them Unbyassed men will impute it to somewhat else rather than to their peaceableness Another part of his Preface That they were not suffered to continue in their Cures This is indeed true of the Bishops as such They were not permitted to exercise a Prelacy over their Brethren for that was inconsistent with the Government then established Yet as Ministers of the Church none of them were deprived who were willing to preach
Scotland and to so great a number and to whom the people were under a relation as their Pastors being thrust from their Charges for their faithfulness in that time of Tryal and others being obtruded on them many of whom were very unqualified for the Ministry and they entring without the peoples call or consent they would not own them for their Pastors nor thought themselves obliged to wait on their Ministry but thought it their Duty rather to hear their own faithful Pastors or others who walked in their steps who were not unministred by any Church-Act but only restrained by the force of a Civil Law which could neither derogate from their Ministerial Authority nor loose the relation that the people had to them I deny not but some went beyond the limits of this Moderation but that is not to be imputed to all the Presbyterians being neither the conclusion of any Church-meeting among them nor the sentiment of all § 4. This being considered taketh off the edge of all that he enlargeth on about the Episcopal party agreeing with us in the Confession of Faith Directory for Worship and Administration of Sacraments For it is on none of these accounts that we withdraw from them but partly because they suffer none to be Ministers among them but such as comply with Episcopal Jurisdiction partly because they deprived us of the Ministers that we stand in relation to and ought to own partly because the Ministers obtruded on us are none of our choice as they ought to be by the priviledge that Christ hath given to his Church And indeed many of them unfit to be chosen and partly because this change is made not by any Church-Authority that we can own but by the State and by an unlawful Church-power It seemeth his Arguments are run low when he chargeth us with Nonconformity even to the Presbyterian Church in that we use not the Doxology nor the words of the Lord's Prayer nor the Belief at Baptism For when or where were these injoyned by the Presbyterian Church And if they had been we cannot by such Injunctions be bound to what is after found to be inconvenient That we are tyed to the use of the Doxology by the Covenant he doth most ridiculously affirm For whoever esteemed that a part of the Reformation then engaged to Using the Lord's Prayer we never condemned but that Christ hath enjoyned the using of these express words or that that Prayer was given as a form of words rather than as a Directory for the matter of Prayer we deny Neither do we condemn the use of the Creed but we think that they who have their Children baptized should profess their Faith so as may more clearly distinguish them from Popish and other Hereticks than that Confession of Faith can do QUEST V. In this Question he advanceth a Paradox The Question is Whether the Penal Laws against Scotch Presbyterians had any thing of Persecution in them THis Question he concludeth Negatively with the same brow that Maimburg and other French Popish Writers do affirm That all the Protestants who lately in France turned Papists did turn voluntarily without any compulsion and that no Rigour nor Persecution hath been used to move them to this change This is a degree of effrontedness of bidding Defiance to Truth and the God of it of bold imposing on the Reason yea and the common Sense of Mankind that the World doth purely owe to this Age and to Jesuitical obfirmation of mind But let us hear how he will prove this his strange assertion As these Laws have beat out the Brains of many good Christians that could not comply with them so this Man thinketh by his Arguings to beat out of the brains of such as remain all Sense and Reason whereby they may judge of what they hear see and feel In clearing the state of his Question he confesseth There may be too severe Laws under which men may suffer for Conscience-sake this will increase the wonder of intelligent unbyassed men who know our Affairs that such Laws are possible and yet ours are innocent but maketh the Question to be Whether our Laws were not necessary for preserving true Religion and publick Peace or whether they were the uncharitable effects of a peevish Resentment inconsistent with good Nature and Christianity Tho' even that cloak of smooth words will not hide the nakedness of the Bloody Laws that he pleadeth for nor could warrant a man that believeth Heaven or Hell to plead for such cruel Execution of them as was among us Yet this state of the Question is not the same with what in the Title is proposed For there have been few Persecutions in the World for which Necessity hath not been pretended and that were given forth to be for preserving a false Religion or for hindring publick Peace or that the Actors in them would call peevish and inconsistent with good Nature and Christianity or Moral Goodness And it is certain that where publick Peace may be preserved without such severe Laws the enacting of them is Persecution which was our case for nothing caused the sad breaches of the Peace that were in this Nation in 1666. and 1679. but the unsupportable Hardships tending to make wise men mad that they who feared God lay under by the severity of these Laws and the Barbarity used in executing them § 2. To vindicate the Laws from all blame of Persecution he giveth a lame unjust and disingenuous account of them Wo to Posterity if they be abused with such false History it is little Honesty to transmit such things to after-ages but it is the height of Impudence to publish them among such as were Eye-witnesses of them and among whom the sad effects of them remain with grief and smarting to this day I shall first examine the account that he giveth of these Laws and then shew how defective it is by supplying what he hath omitted He telleth a story of the endeavours of the Synod of Edenburgh to have Presbytery established and who can blame them especially seeing their Attempt was only an Application to a Person of Interest with His Majesty He telleth us likewise of their sending a Clergy-man whom he will not name to the same Great Man who is also nameless with a threatning Message That if they would not settle Presbytery they should have the people let loose upon them This story I never heard before nor know I how to examine the truth of it neither can I meet with any Person that hath heard of it and so have more than probable grounds to let it pass as a Forgery And if it had been true was this private surmise a sufficient ground for a Parliament to make such Bloody Laws against so great a Body of People as the Dissenters Men will think it a weak Cause that must be supported by such silly shifts I take no notice of the Act annulling so many preceding Parliaments and their Acts tho' this were