that right whom he had wronged before and besides is obliged to make reparation for the wrong done but much less could he be obliged by his silence or could his silence be interpreted to be a consent to it But the Indulged Ministers need not this Answer for they witnessed a good Confession before the Rulers If he had formed his similitude thus A Father restrains his Son from some external duty in Religion which the Son is called to of God and when he takes off the restraint takes upon him to give Rules of worshipping God to his Son which the Lord hath not given the similitude would have been more to the purpose And if the Son had accepted of the freedom from the former restraint and withal had told his Father he had full Prescriptions from God how to worship and that the matters of Divine worship are not to be ordered by the will and pleasure of Parents but by the Will of God none would imagine that the Son had accepted of these Instructions Pag. 90. He undertakes to shew how contrary the acceptance of the Indulgence is to Presbyterian Principles If he would have disputed against what the Indulged Ministers did he should have disputed against their use-making of the relaxation of the civil restraint as was said before But he still mistakes the question and plays in the general confused words of accepting of the Indulgence Veterator ludit in generalibus He hath wasted much time and Paper in vain in fighting against an imaginary accepting of the Indulgence which is a man of straw of his own making and he may use it as he pleaseth We have already spoken of the qualifications which he speaks of in his first Section and are not to weary our selves or the Reader with needless Repetitions In that same pag. Sect. 2. He alledgeth That the Magistrate did all which belongs to Church Judicatories in conveying Ministerially the Office and Power to persons qualified and in granting a potestative mission in sending the Indulged to such and such places and that the Council only clothed them with Authority for that effect An. 1. These are still his own fancies and dictates for he cannot prove from the words that the Council used that they did assume any such thing as a Power of potestative mission In the first Indulgence they appoint Ministers to preach and exercise the other Functions of the Ministry at such and such Kirks as he relates pag. 19. In the second Indulgence they appoint the Ministers to repair to such and such Parishes and to remain therein confined permitting and allowing them to preach and exercise the other parts of their Ministerial Function in the Parishes to which they are confined Now the words of appointing allowing permitting to preach import no potestative mission The Magistrate may in some cases not only permit allow appoint but compel Ministers to preach yea they may place them which is much more than appointing them to preach If any please to read the Book of the Discipline of the Church of Scotland they will find in the first Book of Discipline in the 4th head of that Book concerning Ministers and their lawful Election and under the title of Admission and toward the end of that title these words That their Honours they mean the great Council of Scotland to whom the Book was directed were bound by their Authority to compel such men as had gifts and graces able to edifie the Church of God to bestow them where there was greatest necessity And after we cannot prescribe unto your Honours how that ye shall distribute the Ministers and learned men which God hath already sent unto you And after they say and therefore of your Honours we require in Gods Name that by your Authority ye compel all men to whom God hath given any Talent to perswade by wholesome Doctrine to bestow the same if they be called by the Church to the advancement of Christs Glory And afterward they desire them to assign unto their chief workmen nâ—â— only Towns but Provinces And in the head of Superintendents they think it expedient in that necessity that their Honours by themselves nominate so many as may serve the forewritten Provinces and that the same Ministers being called in your presence shall be by you and such as your Honours pleases to call unto you for consultation in that case appointed to their Provinces And in the last Title of that Section they say Of one thing we must admonish your Lordships that in the appointing of the Superintendents for this present ye disappoint not your chief Towns and where Learning is exercised This first Book of Discipline was approven by the Assembly met at Edenburgh July 30. An. 1562. And in the second Book of Discipline which was often examined in several Assemblies and appointed by the Assembly at Glasgow April 24. 1581. to be registred among the Acts of the Assembly and to remain there ad perpetuam rei memoriam and the Copies thereof taken out by every Presbytery and every Minister was by the Assembly August 4th 1590. appointed to subscribe the said Book of Discipline in the first Chapter of that Book it 's said The Civil Power should command the Spiritual to exercise And Chap. 10. which is the Office of the Christian Magistrate it 's said That it pertains to the Office of the Christian Magistrate to see that the Kirk be not invaded nor hurt by false Teachers nor the rooms thereof occupied by dumb Dogs or idle Bellies and to make Laws and Constitutions agreeable to Gods Word for the Advancement of the Kirk and Polity thereof without usurping any thing that pertains not to the Civil Sword but belongs to the Offices that are meerly Ecclesiastical as is the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments using Ecclesiastick Discipline and the Spiritual Execution thereof or any part of the Power of the Spiritual Keys which our Master gave to the Apostles and their true Successors And although Kings and Princes that be godly sometimes by their own Authority when the Kâ—râ— is corrupted and all things out of order place Mâ—nisters and restore the true Service of the Lord after the example of some godly Kings of Judah and divers godly Kings and Emperours also in the light of the New Testament yet where the Ministry of the Kirk is once lawfully instituted and they that are placed do their Office faithfully all godly Princes and Magistrates ought to hear and obey their voice and reverence the Majesty of the Son of God speaking in them I shall but subjoyn one other Testimony which may be instead of many and that is the Testimony of that man of God Mr. Welsh who was very tender of Church-priviledges in his Epistle Dedicatory to King James prefixed to his Book against Mr. Gilbert Brown Priest he says to the King Follow these examples Sir send Pastors throughout all the Borders of your Kingdom to teach your Subjects the Law of the Lord and the
them and they must stand and fall as they are pleased to determine Their Soveraignty is the more absolute that their Dignity proceeds of themselves and men use not to limit their own power when they have it at their own making or taking the old Prelates depend upon the King and they are sent from Court It 's true Athanasius * Epist ad Solitariam vitam Agentes finds fault with that ubi ille Canon ut è palatio mittaturis qui futurus est Episcopus Yet any thing that is in its nature excessive and inclined to pass bounds is less dangerous when it is limited by some other thing on which it depends than when it is left to its own indefinite appetite or inclination Their new Prelates depend neither upon King nor Kesar but are independent their Prelacy proceeds of themselves this makes it very dreadful like the Dominion of the Chaldeans Hab. 1.7 They are terrible and dreadful their judgment and dignity shall proceed of themselves They were terrible because as Mr. Hutcheson upon the place saith They would be their own carvers in all matters of advantage and honour standing to no law either of Nature or Nations in dealing with a terrified and subdued people but meerly following their own will armed with power If ye say they are not designed Lords nor a Soveraign power ascribed to them in the Bond but they are designed Ministers that is Servants I answer if folk will be beguiled with names the Pope will call himself Servus servorum a Servant of Servants but there is a real Soveraignty given to them when a Jurisdiction over all Presbyterian Ministers to suspend depose and dispose of their Ministry as they please is ascribed to them And the other Prelates deal more candidly in taking the name of Soveraignty and Lordship seeing they have the thing Is it not a strange arrogance that a Presbyter or two or three Presbyters shall claim a stated Jurisdiction over a great multitude of Presbyters who have the same office with themselves they either have that power over their Brethren by vertue of their Ministerial Office as they are Presbyters or by vertue of some other Office not by vertue of the Office of a Presbyter or Minister for then one and the same Office should make one Presbyter a Soveraign and Lord and another Presbyter his subject a Presbyter as a Presbyter cannot have dominion over a Presbyter for one and the same Office cannot make a man Soveraign over another who hath the same Office that he hath If they have this Soveraign power over their Brethren by vertue of some other Office than the Office of a Minister or Presbyter then let them tell us what Office this is if it be not the Office of a Prelate 2. It hath not yet been proven that the Lord gave a Soveraign power and Spiritual jurisdiction to any one of his Ministers no not to the Apostles over the rest Paul Bains in his Diocesan Trial Pag. 73 77. shews that a majority of directive and corrective power such a power as Bishops claim is more than Ministerial And Mr. Rutherford in his Divine Right of Church-Government saith Nor do we find that the Apostles had jurisdiction over Pastors in the Scripture nor in any Ecclesiastick Records but where Papacy was working See Pag. 21. There is but one Lord in the Church Ephes 4. and Christ hath forbidden Lordship and enjoined ministry and serving Luk. 22.24 1 Pet. 5.3 Non requiritur in dominatione humilitas sed ipsa Dominatio prohibetur saith Whitaker Christus de re dominantur non autem de modo dominandi hoc vel illo modo dominantur saith Junius The work of all Church-Officers is a Ministerial work not only Doctors and Pastors but Apostles Prophets and Evangelists were appointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the work of the Ministry Ephes 4.12 2 Cor. 4.5 Paul calls himself a fellow-servant with Epaphras Col. 1.7 with Tychicus Col. 4.7 Paul's dignity consisted not in Lording over other Ministers but in labouring more abundantly than others the Apostles claimed no Mastery or stated jurisdiction over other Ministers but they did draw with them as yoke-fellows and fought with them in their Spiritual warfare as fellow Soldiers and wrought with them as fellow-labourers Phil. 4.3 Phil. 2.25 Phil. 2. Rom. 16.3 they engrossed not the power of Jurisdiction in the Synod of Jerusalem to themselves for the Presbyters judged with them the Decrees of the Council Act. 16.4 were Ordained by the Apostles and Elders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church at Antioch sends Paul to Jerusalem Act. 15. the Officers of the Church at Antioch lay hands on Paul and Barnabas Act. 13.1 2 3. Paul and Barnabas are sent with a Collection Act. 11.29 30. the Apostles claimed no negative in Presbyteries or Synods in Ordination Excommunication c. The Apostles were extraordinary Ambassadors had infallible instructions by their Doctrine and practice did shew the Platform of the Church were not limited to any fixed charge and so might exercise their Ministerial authority in all places where they came they were to lay the foundations of Churches But that they had any such stated Jurisdiction over other Ministers as Prelates claim over Presbyters is yet to be proven for any thing I know their instructing Ministers and Churches in their duty and reproving their sins will not prove it for the Prophets did so and yet they had no stated Jurisdiction over the Priests Paul reproved Peter but had not jurisdiction over him That Timothy or Titus had such a stated Jurisdiction over the Ministers of Ephesus and Creet is yet to be proven that they had the sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction and that the Ministers of Ephesus and Creet had no power of Ordination and Jurisdiction is not yet proven The Apostle directs them to Ordain but that they are directed to do it alone and not in conjunction with other Ministers is yet to be proven Lay hands suddenly on no man is a Direction applicable to every Minister there are multitudes of Directions given them that cannot be denied to be given to all Ministers and that some Directions are given to them as Prelates and some as Presbyters is as easily denied as affirmed But though it were granted that those extraordinary Officers in founding Churches at first might do some things which ordinary Ministers might not do this would be no warrant for these two or three who were but very ordinary persons to claim a Jurisdicton over the rest Whence have they their power No man can receive any thing of this nature except it be given him from Heaven Joh. 3.27 Let us see their Patent that we may know if it be leill come They must first shew a Warrant from the word for such a Prelatical Sovereignty and then let ut see how they came by it no man should take any Honour in the Church to himself at his own hand he must be called of God
answer its Reason but by clamour as unanswerable I answer If he had been pleased to have read what the Indulged Ministers and others have written in answer to what the Author of this History sent before this History in Letters and Questions he might have seen any thing that this Author hath said against the practise of the Indulged Ministers very rationally and solidly answered As for his first reason for the seasonableness of this I answer The evil which is in the Magistrates actings which relate to the Indulgence have been more solidly discovered than this Author doth but this Authors great design is to fasten all the Magistrates faults in this matter upon the Indulged Ministers And if this last be the Testimony which the Author means in his second Reason it 's a false Testimony and of no value and worth and worse than nothing In his third he is mistaken for several who are dissatisfied with the Indulgence are much more dissatisfied with this History as a Book which they think will do much mischief among ignorant and profane people in hardning them in a careless neglect of the Lords Ordinances and profaning of the Sabbath and jumble many weak and well-meaning people and confound them with things that they do not understand His fourth Reason for the seasonableness of it is because the Indulged Brethren had been threatning and boasting with a Vindication of the lawfulness of their acceptance I answer The Author either saw these Vindications for there were many of them or not if he saw them not might he not have had patience till he had seen what they had to say for themselves it was injustice to condemn men unheard who were offering a Vindication of their Practice but it seemed he had a mind to give them Couper Justice But it may be he thought he could imagine all that they had to say but this was rashness and too much self-confidence he should have heard them before he had answered seeing he knew they had spoken for themselves If he saw any of these Vindications as some think he did why did he not examine them it may be he found them too hot for his handling If he had sent this History to the Indulged Ministers privately that they might have given him a return this had been fairly done but to print it and publish it to the World at the very first was not fair non amice factum ab amico His first Reason for the seasonableness of it is because the Non-indulged Ministers had done somewhat to strengthen the hands of the Indulged by giving them new confidence in their course in obliquo covering all aid carrying towards them as if they had done nothing amiss but upon the the matter by a direct Homologatry of the Indulgence for now silence as to all speaking against this evil is made the very door and porch through which all entrance to the Ministry must pass And therefore saith he it 's now simply necessary and more than high time to discover and detect the blackness of its Defection when the Church is thus brought in bondage by it Ans I did not think that the Author though he be very confident upon small evidence had so far passed the bounds of modesty as that he durst in Print have avowed and justified the deed of two young men who contrary to Presbyterian Principles did set themselves to counteract the judgment and sentence of the suffering Ministers of the Church of Scotland for their way did manifestly tend to the subversion of the very foundation of all Government and Order It 's a strange Reason that because the Non indulged Ministers endeavoured to strengthen the hands of the Indulged Ministers that therefore it was seasonable to put out a Book condemning all together and what else was this but for two men living at a distance to take upon them to condemn the whole Presbyterian Ministers of the Church of Scotland and to encourage two unruly youths in their contempt of any remnant of Authority that that poor remnant had What sober person who hath any Judgment in matters of that nature can but commend the Practice of these Non-indulged Ministers who laboured to prevent the breaking of the Church by that Question about the Indulgence by restraining these young men who made it their great work to cry out against the Indulged Ministers and the hearing of them and yet this Author is so far from having that reverence that he ought to have had to the Judgment of the generality of the Ministers of the Church of Scotland that he thinks because they agreed together to endeavour to prevent the renting of the Church therefore it was seasonable to cast in a new fire-ball of Contention among the people and so render all their endeavours of Unity ineffectual and what more effectual way would he have taken to render all the suffering Ministers of the Church of Scotland contemptible in the eyes of all who will believe him than to charge all the Indulged Ministers with so black and fearful a defection and all the rest of the Ministers with a direct homologating of the Indulgence In this he hath done service very acceptable to Prelatists Papists and Quakers though I believe he designed no such thing His sixth taken from the severe insulting over some of the poor remnant who could not forbear to witness their abhorrency of it flows from misinformation the insulting was among some of those who quarrelled with the Indulged Ministers and who took occasion from the Indulged Ministers forbearance to meddle with that matter in their Sermons to say that they had nothing to say for themselves and thus their silence for peace sake was turned into a prejudice against them They who live in these parts where Indulged Ministers are can bear witness how much forbearance and tenderness hath been used towards the poor people who were confounded with these doubtful Disputations and frighted with unknown words of Homologations and Homologatings and imposed upon by strong alledgencies and parables and allegories without Scripture or solid Reasons This way of witnessing which he means the withdrawing from the Lords Ordinances to which they formerly resorted and in the use of which they profited is a way of witnessing that if they who take it have little cause to be ashamed of it as he says I am sure they have as little cause to glory in it for there needs no more to qualifie folk for giving this Testimony but laziness and gross profanity and contempt of Ordinances There can be no great matter in that which any profane man as he is profane and because he is profane can do As for his seventh neither this Author nor he hath proven that the Indulged Ministers entring into these Parishes was a coming in not by the door but a climbing up another way His last consists of hopes That some of these godly men Indulged may be by this History taken off and that the Non-indulged will
Minister so ill informed while he is inveighing against the supremacy should act as if he had a Papal Supremacy in stigmatizing deposing excommunicating his fellow-servant But I perceive the truth of that saying That man will much sooner see a Pope in another mans belly than when he is in his own That saithful Minister was seeing light in light when the Author of the Cup of cold Water did judge him no seer he was admitted to the fellowship of the Saints in Heaven before this Sentence of Excommunication was past on earth He was drinking of the pure river of the water of life when this foul and not cold but scalding hot water was cast at him out of this Cup of cold Water The Author hath verified what the Poet thought impossible Unda dabit flammas I wish the other part of the verse dabit ignis aquas may also be verified that such flashes of fire proceeding from the wrath of man might be turned into these waters that the Prophet Jeremiah wishes for and be resolved in tears of godly sorrow Having discovered the wrong which the Author of the Cup of cold Water and the Author of this History have done to that one indulged Minister I answer Secondly That which the Author of the History of the Indulgence subsumes That the indulged Ministers accepted of that which purely flowed from that Supremacy which they count an usurpation is false and a begging of the question as he refers to the 3d. head I refer to the answer to it before given His third That the entry is founded upon any sinful Supremacy is also false To his 4th concerning the Patrons we spoke before For his 5th after he hath repeated that the indulged Ministers did receive the Instructions which is a false alledgance as we have cleared from Mr. H's Speech and what was spoken by the indulged Ministers who were called before the Council for not keeping the 29th of May and from the Authors own confession who grants that they did not obey these injunctions and acknowledges that they gave an honest Testimony against them he draws a parallel whereby he thinks it may distinctly appear that their refusal of the benefit offered by the accommodation did condemn their accepting of the benefit offered by the Indulgence but he is here as far out in his Mathematicks as we have found him before out in his Morals and Logicks The acceptance of the relaxation of the civil restraint which impeded the peaceable exercise of their Ministry hath no proportion with or equality unto the acceptance of the Proposals made by Bishop Lighton for accommodation for the acceptance of these proposals had been the accepting of a wrong form and model of Church-government In that Model of Government offered in these Proposals there is an Officer set up a Diocesan Bishop who is not in the Rolls of Church-Officers recorded in the Scripture a President imposed upon not freely elected by the Synod not countable to nor censurable by the Synod claiming power to restrain not only single Presbyters but Presbyteries from the exercise of that Authority which they have received from Christ for the Edification of the Church Who can restrain a Presbytery from ordaining a Minister though the Church who hath elected him be most earnest to have him ordained the person elected be most fit for the charge and the Presbytery most desirous to ordain The Synod is mangled in its members wanting ruling Elders manacled is its power not being free to chuse its own Moderator nor to censure the imposed President though he were most culpable and unworthy of his place The proposals overturns the identity of Bishop and Presbyter for in them not only is Distinction made betwixt the Bishop and Presbyter but the Bishop is made Superior to the Presbytery they destroy the parity of Ministers and the subjection of the part to the whole what the Provincial Synod would have been who could tell but it 's like it would be less than the Dioceson and yet this behoved to be subject to that The accepting of these Proposals and entering into and concurring with Meetings thus corruptly constituted had been a real consenting to owning setling establishing promoving this corrupt constitution of Government and no verbal declaration of their dissatisfaction with the corruptions in the constitution could have salved the matter for their voluntary constituting themselves members of a Court so corruptly constitute and concurring with the Bishop while he was exercising his Prelatical Power for if he exercise it any where it is in the Diocesan Synods had been contrary to their verbal Declaration and whatever they said contrary to the Bishops usurpation or the corrupt constitution of the Court their deed would have effectively and most effectually established that corrupt form of Church-government and rendered their words ineffectual and ridiculous The most effectual way of establishing an Usurper is to concur with him in his Courts and act in a forinsick subordination to him Now the indulged Ministers in accepting the relaxation so often spoken of did neither verbally nor really acknowledge own or establish any usurpation of the Council The Author says That their deed was a manifest complyance with Erastianism but this is false as hath been before cleared and thus he goeth about to make their acceptance of the relaxation of the Civil restraint which is in it self a straight line crooked that it might run parallel to the crooked line of compliance with Prelacy but this was a fault in morality whatever it was in the Mathematicks His first six parallels and his second six parallels are nothing to his purpose except ye let him have his conclusion by begging in granting that the practice of the indulged Ministers was an establishment of or a compliance with Erastianism Mathematicians uses to demonstrate and not to beg the question The Author wanted not will to have made a Demonstration but the matter would not work for him He hath another parallel in the sixth where he compares the acceptance of the Indulgence with the taking of the Collation and first he tells us what the taker of Collation and the taker of the Indulgence may think and then he tells us what both of them really does The taker of the Collation acknowledgeth and preferreth the Prelate as a Minister of Christ So says he he who submitteth to the Indulgence acknowledgeth the Magistrate or the Council to be the proper subject of formal Church-power he should have proven that the acceptance of the relaxation c. imports any such acknowledgment but it was easier to take it for granted than to prove it In his third he tells us there is in the Indulgence a formal acceptance but he tells us not of what and says he a plain submission but he tells us not to what and a Recognizance but he tells not of what and a significant transaction but he tells not about what It appears by the Parenthesis that follows viz. if the
ought to command the Ministers to observe the Rule commanded in the word and punish the Transgressors by civil means if he ascribe no more to our Magistrates but this That they should meerly permit or not molest or as the Cup of cold Water hath it pag. 42. forbear to persecute the Mediators Ambassadors he gives no more to the Magistrate than is given to a strong Captain of Robbers who hath Ministers under his power and at his disposal which were most absurd But even upon this absurd supposition That the Magistrate might not command or appoint Ministers to preach and that appointing were an overstretch yet even upon this supposition the Ministers might lawfully after this appointment of the Magistrate have gone to those Parishes to which they were appointed to go upon the earnest desire of those destitute people I clear it by this similitude Suppose a Captain of Robbers hath by force subdued an Island in which there are two Ministers and four distinct Parishes this Usurper commands these Ministers to be brought before him and tells them he will not suffer them to return to their former Charges but appoints them to preach at the two vacant Churches though he have no Authority to appoint them to preach in these two other Parishes yet these Ministers having no access to their own Parishes being debarred by strong hand might upon the earnest desire of the two vacant Congregations go and help them till they might have regress to their own Parishes and their doing so would be no owning of the Authority of the Captain of Robbers to appoint and it were but folly to say to that Captain If ye only suffer us to go it may be we will go but if ye appoint us we will not go at all for that were but the way to hinder themselves from all exercise of their Office and deprive the whole Island of the benefit of the Gospel or if that Captain should appoint or command a Physitian to make his residence in such a Town of the Island or else he would not suffer him to exercise his Calling in the Island the Physitians going would be no acknowledgment that the Captain had a lawful Authority to command or appoint him the exercise of the Ministry and of Medicine are works of necessity and mercy and so necessary in order to the Glory of God and the good of man that whenever and wherever they who are called and fitted of God to exercise their Offices have lawful access to do these works of necessity and mercy they should not neglect the occasion and it 's a Phantastick and Childish Conceit to think that if men who have no Authority over Ministers or Physitians or they who have lawful Authority but claim more in reference to Ministers c. than God hath given them if they take upon them a power in reference to Ministers which they have not and in a way not competent to them appoint Ministers or Physitians to do the work of the Ministry or Medicine which God antecedently to any thing that those who usurp upon them do in reference to them hath called them to I say it 's a Phantastick and Childish Conceit to think That such Usurpations can make void the call which they have from God to do those works of necessity and mercy when they have access thereunto without doing Injury to any His 2 3 4. Answers about the Magistrates discharging Ministers to preach are in answer to what he was pleased impertinently to object to himself That the Magistrate may for ends known to himself discharge Ministers to preach and so though the purpose in his Answers be good yet they are nothing to the purpose in this place I have only one question anent somewhat he saith In the end of his 4th Answer he grants in the beginning of it That the Magistrate may indirectly and consequently silence a Minister for a civil Crime as Solomon did Abiathar but he says For an Ecclesiastick Transgression the Magistrate cannot indirectly or consequently remove any Minister from the exercise of his Ministry where the Church is setled in his power except only causative by commanding the Church-Judicatories to do their work First that is first to judge for in prima instantia he may not do it or corroboratively by backing the Service of the Church-Judicatory with his Civil Sanction and Authority Now my question is Suppose a Magistrate hath commanded a Church-Judicatory to take course with a Minister who preaches Heresie or Doctrine tending to Idolatry or preaches Schismatick-Doctrine and rents the Church and yet the Church-Judicatory through Ignorance or being themselves tainted or through want of Zeal take no effectual course to remedy these evils this is a case supposable for we see the Church-Judicatory of Pergamus suffered them that held the Doctrine of Balaam and that held the Doctrine of the Nicclatians and the Church-Judicatory of Thyatria suffered the Woman Jezabel that called her self a Prophetess to teach and seduce the Servants of God to commit Fornication and to eat things sacrificed to Idols in this case shall the Magistrate do no more but command the Church-Judicatory to their work He hath done that and yet the Judicatory does nothing or nothing to purpose and the Church is like to be undone through these Doctrines that fret like a Gangreen And the other member of his distinction makes no help for the Church-Judicatory I suppose passes no right sentence which the Magistrate may corroborate shall he who is Gods Vicegerent suffer the people of God and his Subjects to be poisoned with damnable Doctrine may he do nothing indirectly to restrain these Hereticks from preaching such damnable Doctrines and therefore it seems that though the Magistrate cannot depose an Heretick that 's a Minister yet he may do more to restrain a Heritick from destroying the people of God than is comprehended within the members of his distinction of causatively and corroboratively and he himself seems to grant with Voetius in his Answer to the second Objection That the Magistrate may hinder an Heretick from preaching Heresie either publickly or from house to house As for his second Objection if he had formed it thus When the Magistrate granteth the peaceable publick exercise of the Ministry Ministers should thankfully accept of this grant he would have had no Answer but he kept out peaceable out of the Objection and then he answers that the Magistrate should not discharge the publick exercise of the Ministry well but what is that to the purpose will he infer from thence that therefore he should not allow to Ministers the publick peaceable exercise of their Ministry The third Objection he proponeth thus Our second Book of Discipline granteth That Magistrates may place Ministers when the Kirk is corrupted and all things out of order and so it is now with us The Argument may be framed thus if the Magistrate when the Church is corrupted and all things out of order may place Ministers
and confound these Callings which the Lord hath made distinct Again the Brethren who thought it convenient to add the words formally and intrinsically Ecclesiastical have considered that although the Assertion without this addition in its genuine sense was sound yet it might be Interpreted by Persons disposed to Cavil and Calumniate in a wrong sense which would not agree with the judgment of Anti-erastian Divines who though they do not allow to the Magistrate a Power Formally Ecclesiastical and so allow not to him a Power of forming Canons Ecclesiastical Regulating Ministers in the exercise of their Ministry yet they allow to the Magistrate Power to Command Ministers to exercise their Ministry and to do their Office according to the Word of God In the first Chapter of the Second Book of Discipline we have these words The Civil Power should Command the Spiritual to exercise and do their Office according to the Word of God And afterward in that same Chapter The Magistrate neither ought to Preach administer the Sacraments nor execute the Censures of the Kirk nor yet prescribe any Rule how it should be done but Command the Ministers to observe the Rule Commanded in the Word and punish the Transgressors by Civil means And Chap. 10. which is of the Office of a Christian Magistrate in the Church we have these words That it pertains to the Office of a Christian Magistrate to see that the Kirk be not invaded nor hurt by false Teachers and Hirelings nor the rooms thereof be occupied by dumb dogs and idle bellies To assist and maintain the Discipline of the Kirk and punish them Civilly that will not Obey the Censure of the same without confounding always the one Jurisdiction with the other And afterwards they add To make Laws and Constitutions agreeable to Gods Word for advancement of the Kirk and Policy thereof without Usurping any thing that pertains not to the Civil Sword but belongs to the Offices that are meerly Ecclesiastical as is the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments using Ecclesiastical Discipline and the Spiritual execution thereof or any part of the Power of the Spiritual Keys which our Master gave to the Apostles and their true Successours And although Kings and Princes that be Godly sometimes by their own Authority when the Kirk is corrupted and all things out of Order place Ministers and restore the true Service of the Lord after the Example of some Godly Kings of Judah and divers Godly Kings and Emperours in the Light of the New Testament yet where the Ministry of the Kirk is once Lawfully Constitute and they that are placed do their Office Faithfully all Godly Princes and Magistrates ought to hâ—â—r and obey their voice and reverence the Majesty of the Son of God speaking in them The Author of the History of the Indulgence pag. 62. grants that concession of Orthodox Anti-erastian Divines That Magistrates may and should put Ministers to their Duty in following the Rules and Injunctions prescribed by Christ in their Political way and by their Political Penalties And hence it will follow that Ministers should not refuse Christs injunctions because the Magistrate commands them to observe them and by their Political Power and Political Penalties puts them to observe them He grants also That Magistrates may Civilly confirm and inforce Canons and Rules Ministerially cleared and concluded by Church Judicatories And pag. 63. He distinguishes Instructions into these which are concerning such things as are always necessary to the right exercise of the Ministry or are concerning alterable Circumstances which onely hic nunc can be called necessary And concerning the former he saith That the Magistrate cannot enjoyn these Ministerially as holding forth the mind of God because so he would not be a Magistrate but a Minister But he grants That the Magistrate may Politically inforce these Instructions in a well Reformed and Instituted Church after they have been Ministerially held forth by the Authorized Ministerial Interpreters of the Word And in a Church confused and needing Reformation he does not deny to the Magistrate a Power to enjoyn such things as are at all times necessary to the right exercise of the Ministry But he alledges This latter Case is not ours But it seems he hath not considered the Case of this Church or hath had very bad Information concerning it If the Case of this Church had not been confused he durst not have written and Printed such a History nor written Letters to encourage some young Men to counteract the Suffering Ministers of this Church and to refuse to be subject to them he might possibly when he was in another Nation in his study among his Books imagine that this Church was not confused but well ordered and needing no Reformation But alas our Confusions and Disorders are more real than to be removed by the force of his imagination We see them we find them and they who have any sense groan under them and we want these Assemblies which were a part of the Order of this Church and the means to preserve Order to prevent Confusion or rectifie Disorders if they had entred But he will prove that this Church is not confused and needing Reformation I wish he could prove this but I have found his former Arguings so fallacious that I fear this proof prove like the rest that is prove nothing But let us hear him The latter Case says he is not our Case unless by this concession we would grant Power and Liberty to any Magistrate to overturn the best Reformed Church that is to the end he may order all things in it as he pleaseth which was never understood by the users of this distinction The Argument runs thus If we grant that this Church is confused and needs Reformation we grant a Power and Liberty to the Magistrate to overturn the best Reformed Church c. but we cannot grant a Power to the Magistrate to overturn c. and therefore we cannot grant that this Church is confused and needs Reformation The first proposition is manifestly false This is a hard case that a poor Church confused and disordered may not confess to God nor declare before Men that it is confused and needs Reformation may not relate its case as it is but it must by the confession or concession of the truth become guilty of giving Power and Liberty to the Magistrate to overturn the Church There 's no shadow of Reason for this connexion although the Church confess that the Magistrate hath overturned her that grants no Power and Liberty to the Magistrate to overturn the Church Does a poor mans complaint that his Neighbour hath come in and made Abuse and Disorder in his House grant a power and liberty to his Neigbour to make Abuse and Disorder or a Power to Order all things in it as he pleaseth Shall the complaint of an injurious Fact grant a Power and Liberty to do injury The Magistrates Ordering all things in the Church as he
Information for one of these Brethren relates that the Brother who was chosen to make use of the paper that was drawn as a Directory for what he was to say in their name upon supposition the paper with Instructions were offered did in the face of the Council declare that it was not in the Magistrates Power to make Rules intrinsecally Ecclesiastical to Regulate Ministers in the exercise of their Ministry and that their Lordships knew our Divines say so To which my L. Chancellour answered Sir we know what belongs to our Office as well as you what belongs to your And as to my Lord Chancellours Answer which contained a threatning to punish I related before from the Answer of this History written by a Minister who was present that it was in these words and no other Then Sir we will punish you Unto which Mr. H. did not reply in words but onely in gesture hence says he it 's needless to debate upon things that were not spoken Onely 1. It 's clear by my L. Chancellours reply that he understood these Ministers as refusing Obedience to these Injunctions otherwise he would not have uttered these words 2. That the Historians alledgeance that the punishment threatned by my L. Chancellour might comprehend Ecclesiastical punishment as he calls it is groundless and irrational The Kings Letter grants not to the Council the Power of inflicting Church censures if the King had given them that Power to inflict Censures they would also have had Power to take them off but as he shews in his Answer to the first Remark of the Historian on the Kings Letter they sisted to Indulge some whom they intended to Indulge till the Bishop had taken off the Sentence of Deposition So that the Council did not pretend by virtue of the Kings Letter to impose or remove Church-censures And the Council knew that the Indulged Ministers would not submit to the Bishops Censures and therefore it 's a groundless dream that by punishment Church-censure is meant He adds That the Magistrate might have commanded the Indulged Ministers to inflict Censures upon themselves as they used to do formerly in Presbyterial Courts Page 80. We heard saith the Historian of Rules intrinsecally c. but we heard of no assumption that such were the Rules contained in the paper tendred unto them nor of a conclusion that therefore they could not they might not in Conscience accept of them Answ The Historian hath not considered 1. Who these Ministers were they were not School-boys tyed to the formalities of Arguing Categoricè in modo figura Nor 2. Where they were they were not in the School ingaged in a School-dispute but before the secret Council where formal Syllogisms are accounted pedantry Nor 3. Hath he considered the part they sustained there for they were Defendants and if the Defendant deny and distinguish he does enough and if he give also a reason of his denial he does abundantly Now these Ministers acted all these parts very distinctly and rationally as we have seen already When the Apostles are brought before the Council Acts 4. they get another manner of Injunction than any in the Act of Instructions for they are commanded not to speak at all nor teach in the Name of Jesus This was an Instruction which tended to the destruction not only of the Gospel-Ministry but of all Christianity This was one of the worst Councils and this one of the worst Instructions that ever was for this Council was gathered directly against Christ and this Instruction was for the total destruction of Christianity root and branch and for the total Subversion of the Kingdom of Christ of the Church the Ministry the Gospel and of all private Conference about Christ c. This was worse than any Sect of Erastianism we have yet heard of let be seen and yet the Apostles enter not in debate with that Council about the Councils Authority to meddle in such matters they do not make Syllogisms against the Councils capacity of Acting nor against the Act they had made yea they do not in terminis say they will not obey the Councils command Nor say they in terminis that they would speak and teach in the name of Jesus They forbear a direct and formal Contradiction in terminis but they do that which was less irritating but much better and more for the Advantage of their Cause Their Answer which is in these words Acts 4.19 20. Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard is a real and rational refusal to do what the Council commanded and the Council understood it so and therefore threatned them further and such rational qualified Answers which are real refusals of wrong commands are much more to the Conviction and Edification of all that hear them than flat Contradictions not qualified with solid Reasons When the Apostles come to their Company they relate the matter and they are well satisfied with their behaviour they say not why entred ye not a Protestation against that Anti-christian Council that was not gathered in the Name of Christ but against Christ c Why did ye not in express terms say that ye would receive no commands from them Why said ye not in express terms that ye would speak at all occasions and teach in the name of Jesus and so flatly and in terminis contradicted the Councils Injunction Why spoke ye in such general terms of speaking the things that ye had heard and seen Why said ye not in terminis that ye would obey God and that ye would not obey the Council and that the command of the Council was contrary to the command of God Testimonies cannot be too plain ye should have been more particular Why did ye not frame an Argument against them thus When the command of men is contrary to the command of God then it is not to be obeyed but your command that ye have given to us at this time is contrary to the command of God And therefore we will not obey this your command But these good honest Primitive Christians who were Acted by the Spirit of Love were not so captious nor censorious In the 5th Chap. After they had beaten them they commanded that they should not speak in the Name of Jesus and let them go We do not hear that the Apostles said any thing after they were beaten against that new Injunction but they had not a mind to Obey it and they make that clear by their practice for they ceased not to Preach Jesus Christ daily in the Temple and in every House The Disciples do not refuse to hear them because they had given no verbal Testimony against that last Injunction or because they had not the last word seeing they did really disobey that Injunction in Preaching the Gospel they made no quarrel either at their speaking or at their silence when beaten they
Ministers had as hath been shewed before then it will follow that where ever the Magistrate permits allows appoints Ministers to Preach that there there are no Ministers called by Christ or set over People by the Holy Ghost and of what pernicious consequence this is and how destructive to the Ministry of the Gospel in all places of the World where the Magistrate allows of it any may see with half an eye Again may not the People of these Congregations reason thus if these Ministers who either were Ordained our Ministers by the Presbytery or those whom we in our destitute condition did invite to come and help us and who came with the advice and consent of the generality of the Ministers which was all could be expected in such a broken time for setting them among us and applying their Ministry to us for a time If these be not our Ministers then certainly there are none whom we can call our Ministers Is not this the way to shake these People loose of all relation to any Ministers as their Ministers or as sent by Christ to them If the Historian will not deny that the Ministers not Indulged are called of Christ to Preach to the People who are not of the Congregations where they were formerly Ministers why should he deny this to the Indulged Ministers who have much more to make up a Relation betwixt them and these People than they have to make up a Relation betwixt them and other Ministers whom it may be they never heard nor saw before and are not sure whether they be Ministers or not Such wild fancies as this Author and others have suggested to the People have brought some to that that they have respect to no Ministers and others care for none except one or two of whom others who are more discerning are much ashamed As for that Reason that Indulged Ministers Preach according to mans Order and the not Indulged Preach not upon the Warrant and Order of the Council but contrary thereunto If it be truly proposed it must run thus The Indulged have a Civil Order or Warrant for the peacable exercise of their Ministry and so their Preaching in these Parishes to which they are Indulged is not contrary to the Magistrates will seeing the Magistrate allows them to Preach in these places and therefore People are to withdraw from hearing them that they may countenance these Ministers who have no such Civil Warrant for the peaceable exercise of their Ministry but Preaches contrary to the Magistrates will Now what Reason is in this that the Indulged Ministers should be discountenanced and deserted because the Magistrate allows them the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and that these Ministers should onely be heard who Preach contrary to the Magistrates will The Indulged were as far from receiving their Ministry or Instructions to Regulate them in the exercise of their Ministry as the not Indulged were This was the difference that the Magistrate did countenance or allow the Preaching of the Indulged and discountenance and disallow the Preaching of the Non-indulged and should the Indulged be discountenanced because the Magistrate did permit and allow their Preaching This bewrays a great disrespect to the Magistrate Why would not the Author try this in Holland and with some of his Proselytes have taken the Fields and called away the People from the Ministers who were countenanced by the Magistrate to hear them who Preached without and contrary to the Magistrates Order The People might have countenanced the Non-indulged and yet not deserted the Indulged for there were many other places besides Indulged Parishes who desired the help of outed Ministers and the countenance of the People who deserted Indulged Ministers did not continue towards the Non-indulged who would not humour them in all things and hold up their yeas and nays and as soon as any of these outed Ministers began to signifie their inclination to have the peaceable exercise of their Ministry under the Protection of Lawful Authority these People who measured Ministers faithfulness by their Preaching contrary to the Magistrates will did cast at them as Apostates This I suppose is a new Test for trying what Ministers are called of Christ which hath not been before this heard in the Reformed Churches viz. They whom the Magistrate allows to Preach they are not called of Christ and are to be withdrawn from they who Preach contrary to the Magistrates will they are called of Christ and to be countenanced But it is a detestable test for it would cast all the Ministers of the Gospel through the World who have the countenance and protection of Lawful Authority But though this Test had neither Foundation in Scripture nor Reason being contrary to both yet it was pretty well calculate for the new Common-wealth which was to be raised upon the Ruines of the present Magistrates As for that Reason that there are not such exceptions against the Non-indulged as against the Indulged I have shewed before that the exceptions against the Indulged are calumnies and if Ministers shall be cast and deserted upon calumnies it 's an easie thing to depose them all It hath been observed that the best Ministers have been most calumniate and they whom the Lord put in greatest capacity to do him Service the Devil and his Instruments did cast most filthy calumnies at such how many calumnies were cast upon our Lord Jesus the chief Shepherd when he was Minister of the Circumcision Many exceptions were made against Paul the chosen vessel of Christ Athanasius was horribly calumniate by the Arrians As for what he says of the wonderful success of the Non-indulged and rich Blessing attending their Ministry it hath been observed by many who were not Indulged that the Lord blessed the Ministry of these not Indulged Ministers who made it their business to Preach the Gospel and to teach the things which made for Peace and Edification but as for those few who made it their business to divide the People and draw them away from the Indulged Ministers that they left the People worse than they found them For the People who listned to them became more careless or learning the grounds of Religion and had little heart to any thing but these jangling Debates which did not tend to Edification but Division and Confusion and that they become more vain and self-conceited and censorious and some of them become great and manifest lyars and calumniators and of a bitter invective disposition And if tryal be made in these Parishes where the Indulged Ministers are it will be found that these deserters of the Ministry of the Indulged Ministers are far inferiour in knowledge love diligence to others who have constantly countenanced the Ministry of Indulged Ministers But this Reason of deserting the Indulged Ministers is also of most dangerous consequence and would break the best constituted Church of the World if it were reduced to practice and therefore the general Assembly of the Church of Scotland
Honour which Inferiours owe to Superiours is all due Reverence in Heart Word and Behaviour Prayer and Thanksgiving for them imitating their Virtues and Graces willing Obedience to their Lawful Commands and Counsels due Submission to their Corrections Fidelity to defence and maintenance of their Persons and Authority according to their several Ranks and Nature of their places bearing with their Infirmities and covering them in love that so they may be an Honour to them and to their Government And for confirming this Answer beside places cited in the Confession they cite Ephes 6.5 6 7. 1 Pet. 2.18 19 20. Servants be Subject to your Masters with all fear not only to the good but to the froward for this is thank-worthy if a Man for Conscience toward God endure grief suffering wrongfully for what glory is it if when ye be buffetted for your faults ye shall take it patiently But if when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is acceptable with God Titus 2.9 10. 1 Sam. 26.15 16. Wherefore hast thou not kept thy Lord the King This thing is not good which thou hast done as the Lord liveth ye are worthy to die because ye have not kept your Master the Lords anointed 2 Sam. 18.3 But now thou art worth ten thousand of us Esther 6.2 Matth. 22.21 Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are Gods Rom. 13.6 7. Gen. 9.23 And Shem and Japhet took a Garment and laid it upon their shoulders and went backward and covered the nakedness of their Father and their faces were backward and they saw not their Fathers nakedness If we compare this Band with the Confession of Faith and Catechisms and the Covenants and the Scriptures which are cited in the Confession of Faith and larger Catechism we may see if we will not shut our eyes that this Band cannot be reconciled with these but manifestly clasheth with them and therefore they who adhere to this Band are a party who by their tenets and practices distinguish themselves from these who do adhere to the Confession of Faith Catechisms and Covenants I had forgot that they also design themselves Persons whom the Magistrate hath declared no Lawful Subjects which shews that their number is not great and yet there are many who fall under the lash of these Declarations who think themselves bound by the Covenants to maintain the Kings Person and Authority and who disclaimed Ruglen Declaration and would undergo a thousand Deaths ere they subscribed this Band And it 's hoped that the Magistrates will think it true Policy to put a difference betwixt these who own their Authority and these who disown it This shews how inconsiderable the number of these who own this Band are and how unfit they are to make a Representative of the true Presbyterian Church and Covenanted Nation of Scotland Very ordinarily they who are for destroying Magistrates are no great friends to Ministers Having rejected the Magistrates in the preceding Articles they fall upon the Ministers in the sixth Article at least the greater part of them as being defective in preaching and testifying against the Acts of the Rulers c. and then for hindring others who were willing to have testified c. It was a long time a mystery to many what some people meant by a testimony which they were always calling for because although Ministers plainly preached as their Text led them against Prelacy and Erastianism and did shew the people from the Scripture that God hath given the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to Ministers and not to Magistrates and that the things of the House of God Ecclesiastical matters must be done according to the will of the God of Heaven and not according to the will of the Magistrate And though they with grief regrated the breaches made in the Order and Government of the Church yet these people would still exclaim against them as not bearing testimony against the ills of the time but at length it appeared what was the testimony which they meant for if one instead of preaching the Gospel had made an invective discourse against the Rulers and treated them at the rate that they are treated in this band and so rendred them and their Authority despicable and hateful O! that was a preaching of the whole counsel of God though they brought neither Scripture nor Reason for what they said and they made nothing of what was brought from Scripture and Reason against Prelacy and Erastianism by other Ministers because they also did preach the duty which subjects owed to the Magistrate and maintained their lawful Authority as Gods Ordinance and prayed for the King and subordinate Magistrates The Testimony which some of these people who were upon the secret which hath now broken out were seeking was something which might render the Magistrate hateful and cast him out of the affections of the subjects and so make way for driving on the design which is now discovered in this band and declaration viz. the rejection of the King and Kingly Government and all subordinate Magistrates deriving their Authority from the King They are highly injurious to Presbyterian Ministers in alledging that they have not born testimony to that truth which Christ witnessed before Pontius Pilate viz. That Christ is a King for they declare it privately and publickly in their places and stations That Christ is a King and that he hath a spiritual Kingdom distinct from the Kingdoms of this world but no ways prejudicial to earthly Kingdoms but where it comes into any Kingdom of this world it is if it be received the establishment of that Kingdom Not to repeat what is said in several Papers which do shew the several sorts of testimonies both verbal and real given by Presbyterian Ministers I shall only say That their testimony concerning the Church and the Government thereof and the power of the Magistrate in reference to Church-matters is in the Confession of their Faith and Catechisms Directory for Worship and Government and as it could hardly be expected that these Ministers being so scattered could meet to agree upon new Confessions so though they had met they could not readily have fallen upon a better confession than what is already extant and to which they add here In chap. 25. of the Confession of Faith Art 2. it is asserted That the visible Church is the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ the House and Family of God Art 3. Unto this Catholick visible Church Christ hath given the Ministry Oracles and Ordinances of God for gathering and perfecting of the Saints Art 6. There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ Chap 30. The Lord Jesus as King and Head of his Church hath therein appointed a government in the hand of Church-Officers distinct from the Civil Magistrate Art 2. To these Officers the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are committed Chap. 31. Art 3. It belongs to Synods and
Indeed the engaging not to take up Arms against the Kings Person and Authority and any lawful Oath of Allegiance could not consist with such Arms as the Contrivers of this Band and Sanchar Declaration would be at for their Arms are designed to destroy the Magistrates person without mercy and their Authority and the established Civil Goverment which hath no parallel that I know of except that of the Boors in Germany under Thomas Munster and after under John of Leyden which Usurpation being not only of private persons but also being against the Magistrates person and Authority was justly condemned as a fury by all the Reformed Churches At length after this long Inditement they come to give sentence against these Ministers who have accepted of the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and all who voted for that acceptance all who have heard and pleaded for them trafficked for union with them all that do not testifie against them and deport themselves suitably to their testimony all who do not join publickly with the Brethren who testifie against them The sentence is in effect deposition as far as their power reaches they say indeed that they have not nor assume to themselves authoritative sentences of deposition and suspension against these Ministers there is some modesty here yet they specifie the censures which should be inflicted upon these Ministers no less will serve than deposition or suspension It 's somewhat strange that they who had the confidence to depose the Magistrate as formally as they could did not formally depose these Ministers also but though they do not formally depose them yet they do it materially and effectually in that they will neither hear them nor receive Sacraments from them And no wonder seeing they had before declared them to be the Ministers of men not of Christ the ground of this sentence is a Scripture 2 Thes 3.6 but misunderstood and so misapplied for the Apostle is not there directing to withdraw from the Lords Ordinances from the hearing of the Word or Administration of the Sacraments or from fellowship with the Church in the Worship of God but he forbids ordinary familiar private converse with disorderly persons it 's a metaphor taken from Soldiers who keep not their rank idle and yet busie-bodies busie about that which did not belong to them such as are spoken of 1 Tim. 5.13 who were idle wandering about from house to house tatlers busie-bodies speaking things which they ought not The authors of this Band have made such a breach upon all order both in speaking and engaging to do things which they ought not and which tend to all confusion that if they had understood this Scripture and their own way they would have seen their way condemned in this Scripture from which they would condemn others 2. Orthodox Interpreters think that the withdrawing which is enjoined in this Scripture is to be after the Church hath taken due notice of the disorder of such persons and they after admonition continue disobedient see the Dutch Annotations which cite Mat. 18.15 1 Cor. 5.11 as parallel places and Diodate Mr. Dickson and Mr. Ferguson upon the place If private persons were left to Excommunicate all whom they thought disorderly it would breed great confusion and if private persons be not to be thus withdrawn from till the Church hath noted them and proceeded by lesser censures to the censure of Excommunication How insolent an act is this for a few inconsiderable persons who as they confess themselves have no capacity to inflict any censure to declare that they will carry themselves towards so many ministers who have never been convened or heard much less censured by any Church-Judicatory and others who adhere to them and all who testifie not against them and do not publickly join with those who testifie against them as if they were deposed and Excommunicate and the insolency was the greater because they knew that the ministers who were not indulged did think these young men who had not come to this height of Schism censurable I am certainly informed that this spirit of Schism hath prevailed so far in some that they will not have private Christian fellowship with any who hear Indulged ministers though they be persons of so blameless and Christian conversation that they have nothing to cast at them for but this that they have clearness to hear Indulged ministers This joining in the Worship of God where these ministers preach they account a joining with the people of these abominations ignorantly perverting that place Ezra 9.14 as if joining in the commanded Worship of God were like the Israelites joyning in forbidden marriages with the cursed Nations But as the fool thinks the bell clinks The least that they require of these deposed and Excommunicate ministers is that they stand in judgment before these ministers and be judged by them who have followed the Lord and kept themselves free of these defections The least I perceive that they will accept of is no less than an acknowledging of Prelates and setting up Prelacy Pr. Sir ye seem now to be jesting and not in earnest Min. No Sir I am in good earnest and if ye will consider what Prelacy is I suppose ye will not deny what I say Ye know your self that these Ministers whom they mean and who fall not in one of the Classes mentioned were never for any thing known above four and some say they were but three and a little after this Band one of them was laid aside from Preaching And a Gentleman told me that he was credibly informed that he went hence to Ireland and joined with the Conformists there But suppose that they were four yea fourteen that would not make them the Plurality in a capacity to judg to suspend or depose the Indulged and not Indulged Ministers of the Church of Scotland and yet we see they have a jurisdiction over all the rest of the Ministers who must stand before them and be judged by them and stand and fall in judgment as these judges shall determine And as they engross the power of suspension and deposition so consequently the power of Ordination and in their last Article they talk of a Gospel-ministry rightly chosen and rightly Ordained and they promise to rectifie what was amiss in former Ordinations Now two or three or four persons engrossing the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction over all the Presbyterian Ministers of the Church of Scotland are Prelates Doctor Gauden defines the Office of a Bishop thus Episcopal presidency and authority is a Soveraign power and Spiritual jurisdiction in Ordination Confirmation Censures rebuking silencing Excommunication Absolution and other exercises of Ecclesiastick power without above and against Presbyters and people This description if ye will take Confirmation out of it seems to agree much better to these new Prelates than to the old They arrogate a Soveraign power a power above all Presbyterian Ministers who must stand before them when they set to judg
what Doctrine they should preach which was an encroachment beyond any thing done by the secret Council Some talk of Presbytery and Presbyterian parity and of their detestation of Prelacy and in the mean time set up Prelacy it 's a great evidence of a Spirit of giddiness when people run round as those who run in a Circle and so run to that point from which they once did run The Declaration at Sanquair is refuted in the Confutation of the Bonds and the truth is such principles and practices are so absurd and destructive to all Rule and Government that they are not worthy of Refutation and should be answered with detestation and abhorrence They conclude that Declaration hoping that none will blame them for or offend at their rewarding those that are against them as they have done to them if they had considered Prov. 20.22 Say not thou I will recompence evil but wait on the Lord and he shall save thee and Prov. 24.29 Say not I will do so to him as he hath done to me I will render to the man according to his work Rom. 12.14 17 18 19 20 21 1 Thes 5.15 1 Pet. 3.9 10 11 12 13 14. They might have seen how groundless and absurd this hope was The 8 and 9 veses of the 137 Psalm are wrested when applied to justifie such unchristian Practices for that Scripture is a prediction of the prosperous success that the Medes and Persians should have in destroying Babylon which is also foretold Isa 45.1 3 4 13. and not a Rule to warrand us to revenge our selves and to dash out the brains of Infants It 's among the delusions of the time that some know not of what Spirit they are and imagine that to be the Zeal of God which is nothing but the wrath of man which worketh not the Righteousness of God It is meet to shut up this sad Subject with humble and earnest Supplications That the Lord would humble us in the sight and sense of our sins which have procured the dreadful Judgments and Plagues which have come upon this sinful Generation That he would convince us of our sins and make every one sensible of the Plagues of his own heart and of the Plagues that are upon the hearts of others which are among the most dreadful evidences of the anger of God that Magistrates Ministers people of all ranks may take with their sins and take shame and confusion of face to themselves because of their own sins and the sins of others That he would so turn in mercy and loving-kindness and turn us again that our backslidings be not perpetual and turn the hearts of Rulers and the hearts of people to himself and the hearts of Rulers to the people and the hearts of people to the Rulers the hearts of the fathers to the children and of the children to the fathers that Rulers may have the love kindness pity and compassion of fathers towards the people and may not by rigor and severity provoke the children to wrath and may pity those who are distempered by sad sufferings and that the Lord would incline their hearts to take speedy course that the poor people who wander as sheep without shepherds and who through their own ignorance and humours and distempers are exposed as a prey to seducers to Jesuits and those who are influenced by them who drive poor unstable people who are destitute of faithful Teachers to discover to them the devices of Satan and of his Instruments into snares and mischievous practices and makes them imagine that those pathes of the destroyer are the way to an outgate from their calamities That the Lord would incline I say their hearts to take speedy course that these poor wandering sheep may be provided with Pastors after the Lords heart who may feed them with knowledg and understanding with sound doctrine with the wholesome words of Christ that they may not be turned from the truth unto fables but by the words of the Lords mouth they may be keeped out of the paths of the destroyer and any who are intangled through the devices of Satan and subtil deceivers may be recovered in time out of these snares And that the Lord would incline the hearts of people to be subject to principalities and powers and to obey Magistrates to fear God and honour the King and keep them that they be not tempted by grievous pressures to cast off the yoke of lawful Authority but may possess their souls in patience and wait on the Lord in the way of his judgments who often makes use of lawful Magistrates to punish his people for their sins and though the Magistrate may be wrong yet God is righteous and we should be humbled under his hand It 's a very humbling dispensation when Parents and Magistrates are alienate from and rigid against their children and subjects and we should not be chafed and enraged but humbled under the mighty hand of God and carry with that lowliness and meekness patience and respect to lawful Authority that we may commend ourselves to the consciences of all in the sight of God that being reviled we may bless being persecuted we may suffer it being defamed we may entreat And seeing the Devil is so active to rent the Church and to ruine it and to render the Ministers of the Gospel and so the Gospel it self contemptible we should if we can do no more pray for the peace of Jerusalem and that the Lord would let people see the devices of Satan and Seducers who draw them away from under the eye of the Shepherd that they may destroy them and that he would convince people that it 's their duty to esteem Ministers very highly in love for their works sake and for their Masters sake for they who despise them despise Christ and the Father who sent Christ Farmer Sir I think my self much obliged to you for the pains you have taken for my information and I ingenuously acknowledg I am by what I have heard instructed in many things of which I was ignorant I shall desire before we part that ye would give me some directions how to order my way in this dark and dangerous time in which my lot hath fallen it 's seldome that I have occasion to converse with Ministers which makes me the more desirous to make the best use of their company I can when any of them come this way Minist There are many excellent directions in several of these Papers that I was speaking of before it were your advantage to have them I shall only give you a few 1. Let that be your earnest study to be in Christ and to walk in him to know him and to be found in him having his righteousness and to be conformed to him to walk at he walked The Apostle Paul counted all things loss for the excellency of the knowledg of Christ and to be found in him c. and he travelled as in birth to have Christ formed in the
wronged Min. If you doubt of the truth of what I have said I desire you may read the History of the Indulgence and you shall find these things which I have said here recorded there Pr. That cannot be denied but that Historian says that upon the matter the Indulged Ministers renounced c. Min. That addition of the words upon the matter is but a meer blind it may beguile simple people but no judicious person will be deceived by it seeing there is nothing either in the matter or form of what these Ministers said or did which doth import any such thing as that Historian alledges and although these Ministers had said nothing of their receiving their Ministry from Christ c. before the Council it had been a very uncharitable construction to have construed their silence to be a renunciation of their dependance on Christ c. but it 's a horrid injury to charge them with the renunciation of that which they expresly own before the Magistrate Pr. But Sir have not they their Ministry and the exercise of their Ministry in these Parishes from the Magistrate Min. They have their Ministerial calling or which is all one Authority to exercise the acts of their Ministerial Office from Jesus Christ as the fountain of their spiritual power and this Ministerial Authority flowing from God was conveyed to them by the Presbyteries by which they were ordained Ministers according to Christ institution But they have the peaceable publick exercise of their Ministry in these places by the Magistrate under God It 's the Magistrates civil Authority by which the penal Statutes which rendered their Preaching hazardous are removed or relaxed by the protection of Civil Authority they have the peaceable exercise of their Ministry or they have freedom from molestation or disturbance while they are exercising their Ministry in these places Before the Act of Indulgence they had their Ministerial Authority and did Preach upon hazard before they were Indulged but by the Indulgence they had this benefit that whereas before it they were exposed to hazard wherever they Preached whether in private or publick after it they might Preach publickly and exercise the other parts of the Ministerial Office in some places without molestation Pr. Their accepting of the Indulgence and the peoples hearing of them who have accepted the Indulgence is an Homologation of the Supremacy Farm Sir I beseech you make use of some other word than that long word with the four O's in it for though I have often heard it I ingeniously profess I do not understand it I always thought that many of our Country people rendered themselves ridiculous by learning to speak words like Parrots which they did not understand Min. That 's not the worst of it for when poor people are once brought to speak confidently they wot not what they may be brought next to do they know not what and to stumble they know not at what As it was indiscreetly done to bring in this long Greek word among unlearned people so this word is miserably misapplyed in the business of the Indulgence for to homologate is to say what was before said in the same or like words as when in a Court one declares his mind in some matter and another rises up after him and says the same which he said in the same or like words this last speaker is said to homologate what the other said before him Now the Indulged Ministers when they accepted the Indulgence were far from saying that the Magistrate had a Spiritual Supremacy or an absolute Supremacy they never said it they never thought it they declare that the Magistrate hath not the power of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven at all and much less a Supremacy of Spiritual power and they declare that the Magistrate may not do what he pleases in Ecclesiastical matters for all things in the Church of God must be done according to the will of the God of Heaven and not according to the will of man they were so far from saying any thing for the Magistrates Spiritual or absolute Supremacy or any thing that sounded that way that they said much to the contrary as appears in their speeches before the Council and as they said nothing sounding this way so they did nothing in accepting the peaceable exercise of their Ministry which did any way import any approbation of any unlawful Supremacy they grant that the King is Supreme Civil Governour of his Kingdoms and that it belongs to the Magistrate as Magistrate to take off civil restraints which hinder Ministers from the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and that the Magistrate should permit and allow Ministers to exercise their Ministerial Office in his Dominions and when the Magistrate did this in the Indulgence he did not exercise any unlawful Supremacy but did exercise that lawful Authority which he hath from God for good and when they made use of the liberty granted by the exercise of lawful Authority they did not approve of any sinful Supremacy but did approve and make use of that lawful power which the Magistrate hath from God All Orthodox Divines grant that the Magistrate not only may but should permit allow countenance and protect the exercise of the Ministry of the Gospel in his Dominions and when there is need the Magistrate may command and compel Ministers to do the work of their Office as appears from the Books of Discipline of the Church of Scotland Farm Sir I am feared to sin and we are told that there is sin wrapt up in hearing Indulged Ministers Min. We should be feared for sin and for that sin among the rest of adding to the word of God they who make these actions which are not transgressions of the Law to be sins do highly provoke God but they who make these actions which God not only permits but also commands and commends to be sins they set themselves in the Throne of God and annul his Law and countermand the commands of the most high God Sin ye know is the transgression of the Law of God before ye believe that the hearing Ministers of the Gospel Preach the Gospel is sin ye should require that they who say so much shew you what command of God is transgressed by your hearing Indulged Ministers for if ye be so easily driven from the worship of God by strong alledgments the Devil can alledg as strongly and suggest it importunately that it is a sin to pray in your Family in which it may be there are some profane persons and if ye be driven from Family-worship by such alledgances he will alledg that it is a sin for you to believe on the Name of the Lord Jesus and thus drill you from all exercises of Religion publick private and secret Farm But Sir seeing I doubt if it be lawful to hear I would be damned if I did hear for ye know the Apostole says he that doubteth is damned if he eat Min. But if
called in question and that the hearing of Ministers depends upon their own pleasure they are better pleased to stay at home on the Sabbath than to go any where to hear any Minister and this is like to prevail with people who have not any true principle of Religion for this is an easie way and pleasing to flesh and blood Farm The Indulged Ministers do not bring forward the whole Reformation with them they have no Presbyteries Synods General Assemblies they have quit these Our godly Ancestors would have taken nothing except they had gotten all they would not have quit with a hoof and seeing it is so how should we own them or hear them who are so far degenerate from the zeal of the Ministers of Christ who lived in former times Min. This reason if it were good would cast all the Ministers who are not Indulged as well as the Indulged for they want Presbyteries Synods and General Assemblies in the fields or houses where they Preach they do not bring the whole frame of Presbyterian Government along with them where they come to Preach and if you do not disown them because they want general Assemblies c. why should you disown Indulged Ministers upon this account Will you add affliction to the afflicted And because the Lord in his righteous Judgments hath taken away these solemn Courts of his House which were great blessings to the Church and hath scattered his Servants will ye as far as in you lies deprive them of the power of Preaching the Gospel because they have not access to the exercise of Government This looks like a judicial infatuation to cast at any remnant of Gods Ordinances because ye have not all doth this look like humility or looks this like the frame of the Godly Israelites who when the stately Temple was ruined yet took pleasure in the Stones of Zion and favoured the Dust thereof 2. General Assemblies Synods Presbyteries were taken away long before the Indulgence and therefore 't is a foolish Calumny which hath no shadow of likelihood that the Indulged Ministers by accepting the Indulgence did quit these Courts for they were quit and gone before the Indulgence the Indulged Ministers got somewhat of that which they formerly had liberty to Preach without hazard in some places and to keep Church-Sessions but they quit nothing when they accepted of that 3. 'T is a great wrong done to our Ancestors to alledge that they were such humorous Fools that they would take nothing from the Magistrate if he withheld any thing which was due to the Church They did indeed desire all the Churches priviledges but they took what they could get and made the best use of it in the mean time till more came Although Queen Mary laboured to impose Popery upon the Nation and was far from granting all which She should have granted yet as they who were of the Reformed Religion were far from scrupling to seek and petition for liberty to their Ministers to Preach the Gospel so when these Petitions or any part thereof was granted they thankfully accepted of what was granted And although King James and his Heirs and Successors have a vast Supremacy setled upon them Anno 1584. Parl. 8. James 6. And though he exerted that Supremacy yet the Ministers though they found themselves deprived of their priviledges which they judged due to the Church and though several of them were imprisoned banished for their adhering to these priviledges yet they were always willing to take the liberty of Preaching the Gospel when the King granted it and when they could not get access to their own Charges they did take other Charges Mr. Bruce did not return to Edenburgh his proper Charge but to Larber When Mr. Scrimgeour Minister of Kinghorn was outed he was so glad when he heard that an honest Minister would be permitted to go to his Charge that he said O to have it but one day old I would with joy bear him on my back to have the Gospel preached to my poor people Mr. Welch a man of God when he was imprisoned in the Castle of Edenburgh for holding the Assembly at Aberdeen he was so far from refusing to take liberty to Preach from the King till he repented and restored the Churches priviledges and till the Church got all that was due that he desires the Lord Ochletree to carry a Petition from him to his Majesty intreating for liberty to Preach the Gospel And thus he owned a lawful Civil Supremacy in the King and sued for its lawful exercise in granting the liberty to Preach the Gospel even when he was suffering upon the account of his disowning the Kings spiritual or vast Supremacy Dr. Sharp after his banishment returns not to his own Charge but to Edenburgh when permitted In the Reign of King Charles the First they begin with a Petition to be free of Innovations afterward they Petition for an Assembly they were not of that opinion that they would seek or take nothing from the King except he would right all that was wrong in the Government and Worship at the first The famous Assembly of Divines which met at Westminster and composed the Confession of Faith Catechisms Directory for Worship c. when called together by the Parliament in the year 1643. they were not only all nominated by the Parliament but the Prolocutor was named and chosen to them by Ordinance of Parliament also they were limited so as to meddle only with the exercise of dogmatick power and that only in such matters as should from time to time be proposed to them by the Parliament and in case of difference among themselves they were to receive directions from the Houses of Parliament and beside many other things that Ordinance of the Lords and Commons provides in the close that they in that Assembly shall not assume to exercise any Jurisdiction Power or Authority Ecclesiastical whatsoever or any other power than is herein particularly expressed Yet these Divines did not refuse to sit because of the limitations and restraints although divers of these cannot but be looked on as incroaching too much upon that Assemblies liberty As also the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland did approve of the said Assembly sent their Commissioners to it who took the Oath of the Assembly and their sitting in that Assembly was approved as the Printed Acts of our Assembly do fully bear I shall here insert a Paper intituled Certain Considerations and Cautions agreed upon by the Ministers of London and Westminster and within the Lines of Communication June 19. 1646. According to which they resolved to put the Presbyterian Government in Execution upon the Ordinance of Parliament heretofore published by Authority Printed by T. R. and E. N. WE Ministers of Christ resident within the Cities of London and Westminster and lines of Communication having seen and read an Order of the Honourable House of Commons Assembled in Parliament bearing date June 9. 1646. requiring and enjoyning
who did not think themselves obliged to give in a written or verbal Confession Testimony or Protestation against the Supremacy and the Invasions made upon the Government of the Church and yet the Author of this Epistle urges none of these with his Queries but only the Indulged Ministers though they have somewhat to say for their forbearance of any such Protestation which others had not seeing they were called to the Council in a time when the Magistrate was relenting somewhat as to the severity formerly used and they were called to get some relaxation from the restraint laid formerly upon them and their irritating of the Magistrate might not only have prejudged themselves of that freedom but also have been prejudicial to others who were in expectation of it who might very readily have blamed them for their imprudency in tristing their Protestation with that season not only to their own prejudice but to the prejudice of others And I leave it to the Consideration of indifferent persons whether or not the Magistrate would in all probability have said These men and others of them made no Protestation against us when we turned them out and subverted their Government but now when we begin to shew favour to any of them they grow more insolent and therefore it 's best policy to forbear our favours and to use severities And seeing all these Brethren and the whole Presbyterians in Scotland were concerned in the Invasions made upon the Church and were concerned in the bad effects that might have followed upon the irritation of the Magistrate in that juncture of Affairs if it had been fit for a few private Ministers without the concurrence of all concerned or at lest without their counsel and advice to have given in such a Testimony or Protestation as the Author requires and it 's well known that no such concurrence was offered nor such advice given to these Ministers by the rest of their Judgment who were concerned in this matter I shall not repeat what the Author of the Answer to the Countrey-mans Scruples anent the Indulgence hath said concerning Testimonies in which he hath shewed from Scripture and solid Reason the rashness and unreasonableness of those who have condemned the suffering Ministers and the Indulged Ministers for not giving Testimonies He hath excellently discovered from Scripture when Testimonies are to be given and when not when they are seasonable and when unseasonable He hath also shewed how written Testimonies which Synods had prepared when Prelacy was coming in particularly the Synod of Fife were obstructed by the Magistrates raising of these Synods and that they who had no clearness to make any use of the Indulgence did obstruct the written Testimony which was prepared against the evils which were in the complex acts which related to the Indulgence he hath also shewed how many Testimonies have been given by word in Preaching and before the Council and by suffering and by not obeying the Instructions of the Council I shall only shew that the Ministers who first appeared before the Council at the first Indulgence did witness a good Confession in the presence of the Council They declare that they had received their Ministry from Jesus Christ and after design themselves the Ministers of Jesus Christ They speak of their Ministry as Paul did of his Ministry Acts 22.24 The Ministry saith he which I have received of the Lord Jesus And by the way we may take notice that the Ministry is not a meer Power or Authority but comprehends the exercise of that Authority the exercise of the Ministerial Office for Paul speaks of finishing the Ministry which he had received which unquestionably points at the exercise of his Ministry and they design themselves as Paul designs Ministers 1 Cor. 4.1 Let a man so account of us as of the Ministers of Christ 2 Cor. 11.23 Are they Ministers of Christ I speak as a fool I am more They who quarrel this part of their Confession must fall first upon the Apostle Paul or rather upon the Holy Ghost for the Apostle spoke as he was moved by the Holy Ghost 2. They declare that they had received from Christ full prescriptions for regulating them in their Ministry as they had acknowledged Christ the giver of the Ministry so they acknowledge him the Law-giver from whom they have the prescriptions to regulate them in the Ministry both in their entrance into it and exercise of it then they declare that these prescriptions of Christs are full This excludes all other prescriptions though they had said no more but that they had received prescriptions from Christ to regulate them this would have sufficiently excluded all other prescriptions For the prescriptions being the prescriptions of God we must not diminish from them and so we must not admit any Rules contrary to them or that derogate any way from them and we must not add unto them because they are his words Prov. 30.5 6. Every word of God is pure add thou not to his words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar And then seeing Christ hath given these prescriptions to regulate Ministers in their Ministry this shews that these prescriptions are a perfect Rule a Rule must be perfect else it is not a Rule as our Divines maintain against the Papists in pleading for the perfection of the Scripture seeing Christ hath given prescriptions to his Ministers to regulate them in their Ministry these prescriptions are perfect else they were not sufficient to reach the end of regulating His work is perfect he is faithful in his house as a son over his own house he hath finished all the work that was given him to do But when they further assert that these prescriptions were full this did clearly exclude all other prescriptions for regulating them in their Ministry as superfluous and as Additions to that which God had made full and perfect but last of all this is one of the Lords prescriptions that we should not add to his Word nor diminish from it Deut. 4.2 Again that is another of his prescriptions that they do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus And seeing they are the Ministers of Christ and their work the work of the Ministry received from Christ any that will not shut their eyes may see that they behoved to be regulated by his prescriptions alone in the matter of their Ministry 3. They confess Christ to be their Judge to whom they were countable in the discharge of their Ministry for these are the words which Mr. Hutcheson spoke in their name We have received our Ministry from Jesus Christ with full prescriptions from him for regulating us therein and must in discharge thereof be accountable to him This doth clearly evidence that they behoved upon their greatest peril to adhere closely to these prescriptions which they had received from the Lord Jesus Seeing they were to give an account unto Christ how they had discharged their Ministry according to his full
prescriptions and that they could receive no other prescriptions besides Christs prescriptions to regulate them in the exercise of their Ministry 4. They declare how desirable and refreshing the exercise of this their Ministry was to them 5. They declare what power they acknowledged in the Magistrate it 's not a lawless but lawfuâ— Authority which they acknowledge they acknowledge no other power in the Magistrate but what is the Ordinance of God for so they describe lawful Authority the excellent Ordinance of God They declare it 's the work of Magistrates to protect the Ministers of Christ in the exercise of their Ministry 6. That they purposed and resolved to behave themselves in the discharge of their Ministry with that wisdom and prudence which became faithful Ministers of Jesus Christ 7. They declare that they continued in their known judgment in Church-affairs they did let the Magistrates know that they had not altered their Judgement in Church-affairs that they were still Presbyterians Their judgment is known from the Confession of faith chap. 23. Art 3. ch 25. Art 6. ch 30. Art 1. ch 31. Art 3. and all who have any knowledge of the Judgment of Presbyterians know that they own Christ for the alone head of the Church and fountain of Church-authority and that they are as opposite to Erastianism as they are to Prelacy That they are so far from ascribing a Supremacy of spiritual power to the Magistrate that they profess that the Magistrate hath not any power of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven committed to him and that it doth not belong to the Magistrate to ordain or depose suspend excommunicate or to exercise any Church-censures and that it doth not belong to him to form Church-Canons or to prescribe Instructions for regulating Ministers in the exercise of their Ministry and that they are of that Judgment that no Magistrate nay nor all the powers on earth though they were united can dispose of Ecclesiastical matters according to their Wisdom or pleasure seeing the things of the house of the God of Heaven must be done according to the wisdom and pleasure of the Lord and not according to the wisdom and pleasure of Creatures These and many other Tenets are known by all who know what Presbyterians are to be their known and professed Judgement Now seeing they declared their continuance in their known Judgement and adherence to their former principles and that to the Magistrate and had declared before their resolutions to behave as faithful Ministers of Christ and that they believed the account they were to give of their Ministry to Jesus Christ They did shew to the Magistrate that they did not nor could not approve of power or acts of the Magistrate which were contrary to their Judgements for that had been so far from becoming the faithfulness of the Ministers of Jesus Christ that it could not consist with common Ingenuity 8. And they clearly enough insinuate that there was an opposition betwixt their known Judgements and the actings of the Magistrate in subverting Presbyterial Government and setting up of Prelacy and other actings contrary to Presbyterial Principles some whereof I mentioned before This opposition is clearly insinuated and imported while they say And to demain our selves towards lawful Authority notwithstanding of our known Judgment in Church-affairs as well becometh Loyal Subjects for if the Affairs of the Church had been then according to their known Judgment that notwithstanding had been impertinent and could have had no sufferable sence But Church-affairs being setled by the Magistrate contrary to the known Judgment of Presbyterians some might have alledged that Presbyterian Ministers would not be Loyal towards lawful Authority to obviate this they say That notwithstanding their known Judgements they would behave as Loyal Subjects 9. And hence they declare to the Magistrate that there was no disloyalty in their Principles or practice of their Principles that their known judgement in Church-affairs and the faithful discharge of their Ministry according to their known Judgement did well consist with loyalty and with that respect which from a principle of Conscience they did owe to lawful Authority though it did not consist with some of the actings of those who were in Authority 10. They modestly declare the low esteem they they had of themselves in saying they were the unworthiest of many of their Brethren and they so far from selfishness in desiring to partake of this liberty alone that they express their desire that others of their Brethren may be sharers of the liberty which they enjoyed It appears from what is said that these Brethren witnessed a good Confession before the Council and the Author of the History of the-Indulgence hath in this respect done right to these Brethren and good service to the Church in Printing the Speech which Mr. Hutcheson spoke in their name before the Council If any object that their Testimony is not good because they do not expresly and in terminis testifie against the Invasions made upon the Church I would desire these to consider that in saying so they condemn the Testimonies of many Martyrs who in their Confessions only expressed the truths which they did believe and some of them only in the general asserted that they were Christians They condemn also our Confession of Faith which doth not so expresly and in so many words refute and reject many dangerous and damnable errors but doth only assert the truths opposite to these errors yea they condemn the Testimony of the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures which is good and perfect and yet doth not in terminis and expresly mention every error which is contrary to the truth but leaves the refutation of many of these errors to be gathered by good consequence from what is said in the Holy Scriptures and they condemn also that good Confession which Christ witnessed before Pontius Pilate in asserting himself to be a King for he doth not expresly mention and reject all the errors which are contrary to his Spiritual Kingdom And seeing I am speaking of Testimonies I shall mention what the Indulged Ministers who were called before the Council for not keeping the 29. of May declared in the face of the Council As they had agreed that Mr. Hutcheson should declare that the Magistrate had not a power formally Ecclesiastical and that they could not receive Rules intrinsecally Ecclesiastical from the Magistrate So Mr. Hutcheson to prevent the Councils giving them any such instructions desired that their Lordships would be pleased not to burden them with impositions in the matter of their Ministry wherein they were the Servants of Christ And after Mr. Alexander Blare who was called before Mr. Hutcheson had shewed that he could not receive such instructions to regulate him in his Ministry Mr. Hutcheson before he was called spoke against their L. L. imposing Rules intrinsecally Ecclesiastical for regulating Ministers in the exercise of their Ministry who were the Servants of Christ in these matters
or Reason but although they who cannot discern betwixt Words and Reason may be tossed to and fro with the windy noise of empty words yet they who can discern the forcibleness of right words and solid arguings from bold and imperious dictates and captious Questions will not be moved with a Mass of words void of the Nerves of solid Reason After his Questions he very earnestly desires the Indulged Ministers to relinquish the Congregations where they have the peaceable exercise of their Ministry To this Petition I give this short answer These Ministers think it their duty to preach in these Congregations and therefore till he prove it to be their duty to relinquish them he cannot expect that they should grant his Petition The reading of the following History which he recommends hath been so far from shaking them that they are more confirmed thereby for his grounds are either so false or so inconcludent of what he would infer from them against the Indulged Ministers that any who understand any thing of the rules of right reasoning are confirmed that the cause he hath taken in hand is evil for if there had been good reasons to have concluded against the Practice of the Indulged Ministers a man of his parts and who had so much spare time to seek them out could hardly have missed them After this Petition and Advice to read the History he saith I am not without hope but you will suffer your selves to be overcome into a compliance with the humble and earnest beseechings not of your poor Brother only but of many who are presenting you to God and dare seek nothing for you till this be obtained do not offend at this last word for if it were my last I must both confess unto you I never had confidence to seek any thing for you since you embraced the Indulgence save this and I know since that day you have been out of the Prayers of many serious Prayers to whom you were and yet are dear which hath been none of your advantage yea whatever use you may make of it yet fidelity to you put me to use this freedom that I have not only found my self in fetters but I have observed more fervent judicious and gracious persons to whom it was a case of Conscience yea who had no confidence to represent you to God as a part of that suffering remnant for whom they assayed to pour out their heart before him whereat you will cease to wonder when you consider that to them the Indulgence was defection Ans If his Petition prevail not to draw the Indulged Ministers to relinquish what they have embraced he essays to drive them from these Congregations where they exercise their Ministry by a new kind of Excommunication for till this which he desires be obtained he shews that himself and others dare seek nothing for them if he had said that in their Prayers for the Indulged they did in the first place seek that they might relinquish what they had embraced and then subjoyned other Petitions to that it had been hard enough to have justified this Method and Order of praying as the only right Method of praying for them but that they dare seek nothing for them till they first relinquish what they have embraced till his Petition to them be obtained is a new piece of practical Divinity I am sure the Lords Prayer is not his Directory in this new Method of Praying or rather of this new Method of restraining Prayer is there no way of hallowing of the Name of God and promoving of the coming of the Kingdom of God and doing the will of God which they are bound to by the command of God till his Petition to them be obtained I think he will not say that their continuance in these charges do make void the obligation of the command of God and if they be obliged to other duties suppose this granting of his Petition to be a duty which it is not even before this which he desires be performed by them why may he not pray for Grace to them to enable them to hallow the name of God and do his will in these duties May he not pray for daily bread for them and that their sins may be forgiven them and that they be not led into temptation c. May not a godly man dye without any doubt of the lawfulness of his exercising his Ministry in his own Parish or in any other destitute Congregation that invited him May not a godly man dye in one yea in many errors that are not fundamental Would this Author if he were at the death of such refuse to seek any thing for them till they explicitely repent of these errors and actually quit them I say explicitely for every good man who hath true Repentance doth virtually and interpretatively repent of every one of his sins This Author will have an actual relinquishing what they have embraced before he seek any thing for them Our Saviour prayed that the Father would forgive those who were persecuting him to death and mocking him when on the Cross Stephen prays That the Lord would not lay the sin of those who were stoning him to their charge These Persecutors were far from Repentance and Reformation when these prayers were put up for them The Author acknowledges the Indulged to be godly men and so he cannot deny that Christ intercedes for them in Heaven doth he think that the Intercession of Christ for them is interrupted till that be obtained which the Author petitions He knows that Christ intercedes for the Elect before they believe for he prays for them who shall believe that they may be one c. Joh. 17.20 21. If their unbelief doth not hinder his Intercession for by his Death and Intercession they are brought to believe doth he think that their miscarriages after their Conversion doth interrupt his Intercession and that he intercedes for nothing for them till they actually reform what is wrong I would desire the Author and these persons who take this method in this restraining Prayer to think seriously how they can clear this method of theirs from a discord and discrepancy with Christs Intercession and if he hath not fallen into that fault which he without just ground alledged against the Indulged Ministers What warrant he and these he speaks of have to cast the Indulged Ministers out of their Prayers he and they would do well to examine this is a new sort of Excommunication to cast those whom he acknowledges to be godly men out of this part of the Communion of Saints And I perceive by what he says that this new censure is no warrantable censure and proceeds not from that Authority which is given for edification and not for destruction for even the sentence of excommunication is for the good and advantage for the Salvation of the person excommunicated But this new censure hath beeen as he says none of the advantage of the Indulged Ministers A censure
to preach where there is need He knows also that the Indulged Ministers who were appointed to go to other Congregations than their own did not upon the Magistrates appointment go till they were invited by the people and would not have gone if they had not been invited and his alledgance that that they accepted Instructions Orders Acts and Constitutions to regulate them in the exercise of their Ministry is a false alledgance He says he hath cleared it above but he hath neither cleared it above or under I cleared from his own Confession that the Indulged Ministers gave an honest Testimony against these Instructions He grants pag. 95. That the Indulged Ministers never did nor will own the Supremacy but plainly disown it and says he speaks not of a positive explicite formal intentiâ—nal and express homologating but of a virtual implicite material and elsewhere an interpretative homlogating He did well to explain Homologating in the beginning of this page that the people might understand the meaning of this Greek word but now again in shewing what sort of homologating the Indulged Ministers are guilty of he hath added so many Latine words virtual implicite material interpretative that the people who read this will be more in the dark than before for now they have four kittle words whereas they had but one before and yet he will have them to believe that though the Indulged Ministers plainly disown the Supremacy that yet they are virtually implicitely materially interpretatively guilty of it that 's to say they are guilty of it but they cannot tell how and yet upon this interpretative Homologation which they cannot interpret nor understand they are advised to withdraw from hearing the Indulged Ministers The case of the poor people is much to be pitied who are thus made to stumble at they know not what and made to believe that the Indulged Ministers homologate a sinful Supremacy in the Magistrate and that they in hearing the Indulged Ministers homologate the Supremacy and some have gone that length that the Ministers who preach not against hearing of the Indulged Ministers are not to be heard and upon the same groundless grounds they may give up private Christian fellowship with those who are not against hearing the Indulged Ministers I remember a History which I read of one John of Liege who upon the approach of some enemies against that Town took such a pannick fear that he fled into the desert of Ardenna and durst not adventure to come out for he apprehended that all men that he heard or saw were those enemies which first frighted him It hath befallen this Author and the Author of the Epistle as it did to him they have taken such a fright at the Supremacy that they apprehend many Acts to be Acts of Supremacy which others who are as opposite to Erastianism and an arbitrary Supremacy as they know to be Acts of that Authority which the Magistrate hath from God and they apprehend many things to have affinity with the Supremacy which have none at all but this way of theirs is so far from being the right way to discern the ill which is in the Supremacy that upon the contrary it 's the way to commend it when these Acts which Orthodox and Anti-Erastian Divines grant to be Acts of lawful Authority are alledged to be the Acts of a sinful Supremacy Pag. 95. We have his fourth ground I need not repeat the true state of the question he should have proven if he would have proven any thing against the Indulged Ministers that their practice was injurious to the people I know no injury they have done to the people except that be an injury that upon their Invitation they came and preached the truth to them I think they may be forgiven this wrong He says The meer appointment of the civil Magistrate was all the ground of their relation and the only thing that made them Pastors to such a people This is false and will never be proven I told him the Indulged Ministers had no regard to the Patron He objects that it will be said they obtained the full and unanimous consent of the people And he answers 1. I doubt if this was either universally sought or obtained Ans Seeing he charges the indulged Ministers as injurious to the people he should have been clear that they obtruded themselves upon the people and that the people did not consent to their coming It seems he makes his doubts to be evidences to prove his Brethren guilty of injurious dealing But he might have known that no man who hath any common sense will take the most confident assertions of an accuser and much less his doubts for proofs and evidences against the party whom he charges with a fault 2. As for those who returned to their own Congregations they had a standing relation founded upon the election of the people and ordination of the Presbytery and none can rationally imagine that their own Congregations did not desire the return of their own Pastors As for those who went to other Congregations not having access to their own I suppose he would not have thought it sutable for them to have sought Invitations to these Parishes It was not the Custom nor had it been decent but very unsutable and liable to Exceptions to have sought Invitations it was all that could be rationally expected from them to signifie to the people concerned that they could not come to exercise their Ministry among them except they did consent Neither had it been fit for the people to have made a formal election of them seeing they had never heard nor seen some of them and seeing these Ministers were not out of hope of obtaining regress to their own Parishes but all that was necessary as the case stood was the peoples consent to their coming and preaching among them and when they had heard them both the Ministers and they might consider what was fit for them to do I shall set down a true Copy of one of these Invitations We under Subscribers in the Parish of being informed by very many Testimonies to which we owe credit That it hath pleased the Lord to endue you with great Abilities for preaching the Gospel and that upon our call you have free access to come and exercise the Ministerial Function among us have thought it our Duty to give you a very cordial Invitation to come and preach which we expect may be upon Sunday the fifteenth of this instant after which we are not doubtful but both you and we shall have such mutual satisfaction that we shall have the Comfort of your Ministry and you the opportunity of doing service to your Lord and Master in pursuance of the Commission you have from him in whom we remain and subscribe c. By this it appears 1. That the people were informed that the Minister had signified That an Invitation from the Parish was necessary for his access to preach to them 2. Though they
Kirk-judicatory may not judge what is seditious as he granteth then it would seem that the Magistrate must judge what is seditious in prima instantia if he judge at all in that matter And it seems very hard to bind up the Magistrate that he may not judge of seditious Doctrine or whether Doctrine was seditious or not till there be a precedent Judgment of the Church for what if there be no Church-Courts or none to which the Minister who is accused of seditious speeches hath clearness to answer what if the Magistrate think and it may be have reason to think that the Church-Court is disaffected to the Magistrate and favours seditious discourses Suppose the Court be incorrupt and not suspected to the Magistrate what if the Magistrate think it dangerous to suffer the Minister who preaches seditiously to preach on till the Ecclesiastick process against him be ended seeing such processes use to be long and they be apprehensive that his seditious Discourses may bring forth very dangerous effects before the Ecclesiastick Court can observing their Order and way of proceeding inflict any Ecclesiastical censure upon him and they apprehend that the fire of sedition must be quickly suppressed that it do not spread I would gladly know what the Author would have a Minister do when he is cited to appear before the Magistrate for speaking seditious speeches would he have him refuse to come till the Kirk-judicatories ended their process But what if the Magistrate will not wait so long then either the Minister hath uttered speeches really seditious and in that case the Author grants That the Magistrate is the only Judge of Sedition If his speeches have not been seditious but the words of Truth then he hath an opportunity not only of vindicating himself of the crime of Sedition but also of vindicating the truth and of instructing and edifying the Magistrate and who knows but a plain sober solid Vindication of the truth may be blessed of God to discover to the Magistrate his Error and the Innocency of the Minister accused and that any injury done to the Minister for preaching the truth of God would be a fighting against the God of truth Every Christian should be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh them a reason of the hope that is in them 1 Pet. 3.15 2 Tim. 2.24 25 26. with meekness and fear And especially the servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men apt to teach patient in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God paradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil who are taken Captives by him at his will Jeremiah is brought before the Princes and accused for the Doctrine he had taught he does not refuse to answer to the Accusation but shews That his Doctrine was of God and takes that occasion to exhort all that were hearing him to amend their doings and assures them that if they put him to death they would bring innocent blood upon themselves and this Doctrine hath a good effect upon the Princes Jer. 26.10 c. The Apostle Paul refuses not to declare what he had taught to the Roman Judges he sought and took all opportunities of preaching the Gospel he did not submit his Doctrine to their decisive Judgment for though they had condemned the Truth he would have still justified it and would have pitied them as blind but he was always before all persons ready to preach the Gospel of which he was not ashamed The true strength of the cause of the Ministers of Christ when they are brought before Rulers for preaching of the Truth doth not consist in some formalities which men use in litigious Pleas but in the plain declaring of the Truth of God which is mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ If the Magistrate take upon him to judge of Causes that are meerly Ecclesiastical the Ministers of Christ do their duty when they tell the Magistrate That such causes are to be determined by the Church-Courts and not by the Magistrate but Sedition by the Confession of this Author is none of these Causes which are meerly Ecclesiastical for he grants that the Magistrate can only properly judge of what is truly seditious The Historian doth not faithfully relate the History of Mr. Andrew Melvine for in Calderwoods History pag. 144. we find that Mr. Melvine at his first compearance before the King and Council declared what he said in his Sermon without any Protestation At his second compearance he protests that he spoke nothing in that Sermon tending to the slander or dishonour of the Kings Majesty his Sovereign any ways on the contrary he exhorted always all his Highness's Subjects to obedience and reverence of his Majesty and most earnestly prayed for the preservation and prosperous estate of his Majesty And after this he humbly protests that in respect of Gods ordinance Acts of Parliament and a late Conference betwixt some Lords and Ministers deputed by the King and Kirk That the Trial might be remitted to the Judge Ordinary which was the Assembly of the Kirk then he pleads the priviledge of the University of St. Andrews the Members whereof were to be judged in prima instantia by the Rector and his Assessors And then again he declares what he had spoken in that Sermon that he might clear his Innocency and remove all sinistrous suspitions Thus it appears that Mr. Melvine answered concerning his Sermon before he gave in that Protestation And as to Mr. David Blakes declinature we see pag. 340. of Calderwoods Story That the Commissioners of the General Assembly declare that their intention in the Declinature was no ways to diminish hurt or prejudice his Majesties Authority by exeeming from the same Judicatory any matter or cause civil or criminal committed by whatsoever persons and in this Mr. Guthrie agreed with them In the close of that 8. Section pag. 14. he blames the Indulged Ministers for silence and their silence and not giving a Testimony was as he says a Declaration that they were willing that all their Doctrine should be immediately and in prima instantia judged and examined by the Council Ans 1. As this part of the Kings Letter was not intimate to them so though it had been intimate I do not see how they could in reason have protested against it is there any Magistrate in the World who will suffer Ministers to preach seditious discourses if they can hinder them and if for a reason of their Protestation they had said That by that means all their Doctrine would be brought under the Magistrates Judgment the Magistrate might have replyed that by that reason they gave them to understand that all their
and makes sport to those who are Adversaries to it Can any imagine that the Covenant did oblige Ministers not to preach in Kirks except they preached all in Kirks or if all were not suffered then all should quit their Kirks this would condemn those Nonconformists who were suffered to continue in their charges when others were thrust out According to this conceit if after the Act of Glasgow which outed so many Ministers if the Council had made another Act commanding them all to return to their own charges except one or two they had been obliged not to return till those two returned with them By the same Reason if a multitude of Covenanters were imprisoned and they were all freed from Prison except some few they might not come out of Prison till they come out all together or if some few were set at liberty they behoved to stay till all the rest were set free The Covenant obliged the Covenanters to united endeavours in their places and stations to preserve the good things and oppose the evils mentioned in the Covenant and it obliged them not to turn contrary to what they had sworn nor to turn indifferent and neutral but it never obliged them to be always in the same Lot and Condition as to prosperity and adversity that if one were poor imprisoned banished put to death all the rest should be so too or that none should take the benefit of deliverance from any distress except all that were in distress were freed at the same time this had been an impossible unnatural sinful and ridiculous conceit And yet I suppose the mistake of some wel-meaning people in this point hath tempted them to go out of the way that they should have walked in to seek sufferings because they saw others were suffering To his 9. concerning the leaving out of the word only I have spoken at length before His Sect. 10. pag. 25. concerning the Prescriptions hath been also spoken to oftner than once He alledgeth they received other Prescriptions from the Magistrate this is false as we have cleared at length before And thus we see that his Examination of Mr. Hutchesons Speech doth not prove that the Indulged Ministers confirmed the Magistrate in this usurpation that Ministers may not preach in publick or private without Authority and License from the Civil Magistrate And as for the Speeches of those who appeared before the Council Anno 1673. we cleared from the Authors own words That these Ministers gave an honest Testimony against the Instructions Pag. 96. Sect. 5. He charges all the Ministers and himself among the rest with a virtual cading and yielding to Erastian Invasions and usurpations but he says The Indulged Ministers did willingly submit to the Magistrates actual usurpation of Church-power and by accepting of the Indulgence did put them in actual possession of what was but notionally and in the Theory arrogate formerly as to Nonconformists Ans Seeing he makes all the Ministers guilty of a virtual cading to these Invasions and usurpations if he deal with them as he doth with the Indulged Ministers upon their virtual homologation of these usurpations he must justifie the people who withdraw from hearing of them for as we heard before he doth not charge the Indulged Ministers with an explicite and formal homologating of these usurpations but only with a virtual homologating of them Now if all even himself be guilty of this virtual yeilding as he grants I would enquire whom shall the people hear Is not this the way to scare away the people from hearing all the Nonconformed Ministers But he will have the Indulged Ministers more guilty but he knows that magis minus non variant speciem His Reason is false or the Indulged Ministers did not submit to any actual usurpation nor did they by any deed of theirs put the Magistrate in any actual possession of such an usurpation He contradicts himself when he saith That these usurpations were only in the Theory and notion before the Indulgence for the Magistrates altering of the Government of the Church and setting up another kind of Church-government than was before and turning out of Ministers which this Author Interprets to be Deposition were not meer Speculations and Notions but practises too too real and effectual And in this same page he saith This Erastianism and Supremacy hath acted and outed at it's pleasure They are very far out who think the outing of Ministers to be nothing but Notions and Theory His 6. is but a Repetition of what he said before for what the Indulged Ministers did was no virtual or real acknowledgment of Erastianism The Indulged Ministers made use of what was good and both in word and practice testified against what was evil in the complex Acts of Indulgence He proposes this exception That the Indulged did only accept of a License which when abstracted from its offensive circumstances is a meer relaxation of the rigour of former Edicts He answers 1. If this Indulgence did respect nothing but the persons and estates of Ministers then it might be looked on as a meer relaxation of the rigidity of former Edicts under which they groaned but it 's past all denyal that this Indulgence relateth more yea and principally unto their Office and Function and is designed as is confessed for the establishment of an usurped power over the Function of the Ministry yea and includeth an acquiescing and Submission unto Acts made and proposed by such as confessedly act from a principle of usurpation and that for the better establishment of the same and confirmation of themselves in the possession thereof and therefore the accepting of the Indulgence cannot but contribute to the iniquous ends proposed by the Indulgers 2. He answers Whatever that Licence as it is called may be or may be supposed to be when abstracted from its offensive circumstances yet taken complexly with these circumstances it must be condemned and however in our imaginations we may abstract it from these circumstances yet we cannot do so in point of practice seeing it is confessed that the morality of Actions do much at least depend upon circumstances I reply His first answer distinguishes the Persons and Estates of Ministers from their Office and Function and distinguisheth an Indulgence respecting their Persons and Estates from an Indulgence respecting their Office and Function and he grants that an Indulgence respecting their Persons and Estates may be looked on as a meer relaxation of the rigidity of former Edicts but denies that an Indulgence relating to their Office and Function can be such a relaxation But I would know what reason he can give why there may not be a meer relaxation of the rigour of Edicts which relate to Ministers Function as well as of these which relate to their Persons and Estates there is very good reason for distinguishing the Persons and Estates of Ministers from their Functions and for distinguishing Indulgences relating to the one from Indulgences relating to the other
contrary unto the Magistrates will as if the Magistrates appointment or permission to preach were inconsistent with Christs call as the Author states the question pag. 129. are so far from being right means of defeating Erastianism that they are rather means to harden Erastians for to oppose that power which the Magistrate hath from God as if that were an Erastian power confirms Erastians that they who oppose Erastianism that way oppose the Ordinance of God And they who refuse to take the peaceable publick exercise of their Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority but will preach contrary to the Magistrates will need not to think it strange if the Magistrate think and say that such ways and principles as these which lead men to an unnecessary unpeaceable thwarting with the Magistrate are opposite to Civil Authority and lawful peace and so are not of God who is the God of Order and Peace The Indulged Ministers made use of what in the Indulgence was the exercise of that power which the Magistrate hath from God and by this shew their respect to lawful Authority and they both by word and practice did what they judged incumbent to them to render any evil which was in the complex Acts of the Indulgence ineffectual So far were they from doing any thing which had a necessary connexion with any wrong end and he hath not yet cleared that experience or the nature of the thing doth evince what he says I perceive he hath a way of forcing nature to evince what he cannot prove Pag. 98. We have his sixth head of Arguments in which he undertaketh to shew how prejudicial this Indulgence is unto the good of the Church If he would have proven any thing against the practice of the Indulged Ministers he should have shewed that what they did was prejudicial to the Church His first Hist is not pertinent the practice of the Indulged Ministers in returning to their own charges or going to Parishes that were destitute upon the Invitation of the people as it doth not make any precedent for thrusting out of Ministers for he knew that not long before the Indulgence not only the Indulged Ministers but others were thrust out so it makes no precedent for Magistrates putting in Ministers brevi manu for whatever the Magistrate designed yet these Ministers did not enter in these Congregations brevi manu as was cleared before And I suppose he will not find in Church-History that the Church was hurt by the Magistrates restoring or placing Orthodox Ministers He granted before that in the corrupt state of the Church Magistrates might place Ministers If there be any strength in this first Argument it will overturn that concession for if Magistrates may thrust out Hereticks when the Church is corrupted and place Orthodox Ministers then he will infer that the ice being broken if the Magistrate turn Arrian he will thrust out Orthodox and put in Hereticks and the Orthodox Magistrates and Ministers have paved the way and broken the Ice The absurdities which have followed upon the corruptions of corrupt Magistrates doth no more bind up Magistrates from doing right than the absurdities which have followed upon the corruptions of Corrupt Ministers doth bind up Ministers from doing their duty His 2d as it is no parallel to the case in hand so it shews that an ill-disposed Ecclesiastick Court may misplant Kirks and to reason from prejudices arising upon supposition of mens corruptions would exclude Ministers as well as Magistrates from having any hand in providing desolate Congregations The Ministers who were Indulged did not upon the Indulgence leave their own charges for they were thrust out of them long before the Indulgence neither did they go to other Congregations upon the Magistrates sole call as he supposes so that he is but fighting with his own shadow To his 3d. I need say no more but this if any such emergent fall out in after-times the carriage of the Indulged Ministers if it be rightly represented will not be prejudicial to the Church if it be misrepresented as it is by this Author then he and not the Indulged Ministers are to be blamed for any ill use that any may make of it if he had been as tender of the Posterity as he should have been he would not have so misrepresented the practice of many honest Ministers for he might have thought that following generations would lay more weight upon the practice of so many than upon his Authory and that his reasonings would be no sufficient Salvo for Posterity would suppose that so many able and consciencious Ministers wanted not reasonings for their practice and would readily suspect all his reasonings as not solid To his 4th I answer The practice of the Indulged Ministers makes no preparative for sending all Orthodox Ministers to one small inconsiderable corner of the Land for he knows that the Indulged Ministers were not for the unnecessary thrusting in of many Ministers into one Parish If the Magistrate by force did thrust Orthodox Ministers not only to the High-lands but out of the Land I think it were unreasonable to blame the Indulged Ministers for that Magistrates know well enough the way of confining and banishing Ministers that they would have been quit of many ages ago Ministers going to Holland when they are banished may have the same consequences that Ministers going to the High-lands may have To his 5th I answer The case of these Ministers who in the second Indulgence were permitted to preach in Congregations which were already provided was not the same with the case of these who were invited by the people to come and help Congregations which were destitute And as the Ministers who are not Indulged contribute for the general good of the Church when they preach as they have access now in one place and then in another for they cannot preach to the whole Church at once so do the Indulged Ministers contribute for the good of the Church when they help these Congregations where they are setled and their settlement as was said before puts them in a better capacity to take inspection of the flock than if they were not setled and their preaching in these Congregations does not hinder Ministers who are not Indulged to preach elsewhere as they have access The Indulged Ministers did not pretend to be the only doers of the duty of the day but they did a part of the duty of the day and they are glad of the success of the Ministry of those who were not Indulged and wish that it were as great as it is called by him in his Sect. 6. To which I need say no more but these things I. That as the Indulged Ministers had no design to deprive the Lords people of the benefit of the Ministry of Ministers not Indulged so their practice did no way tend to the hinderance of the exercise of their Ministry either in houses or fields no more than the preaching of one Minister not Indulged
Council be to be believed that as he durst not before charge the indulged Ministers with a compact so here he only alledges a transaction but he is not sure as his Parenthesis imports As for his 4th he knows that Presbyterians make a great difference betwixt the Magistrate and a Prelate but of this before And then it 's false That the indulged Ministers looked upon themselves as Ministers of these Parishes upon the sole ground of the Magistrates Act. And thus we have done with his parallels which are meer Paralogisms If the matter could have afforded better Arguments the Author would have readily hit upon them but the subject-matter could not be formed in a Mathematical Demonstration ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius Pag. 110. we have his eleventh head of Arguguments in which he undertakes to prove That by the accepting of the Indulgence the meetings of Gods people are prejudged he means the meetings nicknamed Conventicles and he alledges That by the acceping of the Indulgence they have contributed to the suppressing of these Meetings and that interpretatively they may he charged in part with the severities exercised against the same He only pretends to make this probable and likely and that this head of Arguments deserves some consideration so that the Arguments under this head are not in his own opinion Demonstrations but only topical Arguments The Author speaks much more soberly here than he did in the Letters which he sent before this printed Book for in that Letter which he wrote to a young man who preached at Wamfroy he says That the accepters of the Indulgence could not but homologate before the Lord the Magistrates design to suppress these Meetings of the Lords people and contribute to the carrying on of that end and in another Letter he infers That seeing the Magistrate had the same design in the Indulgence that he had in the band that therefore the band and Indulgence are of a piece and that there is no difference as to kind betwixt the making use of the Indulgence and the taking off the band Though there be a magis and minus that may be yielded yet there is nothing that can alter the kind nor can he see how those who are favourable to the Indulgence can speaking consequently condemn the taking of the Band. Here is very great confidence but it 's very groundless for suppose the design of all that had a hand in the contriving of the Indulgence were as ill as he could imagine yet their design could not vitiate the acceptance of the peaceable exercise of the preaching of the Gospel nor vitiate the hearing of the Gospel to those who preach and hear the Gospel for that end for which God hath appointed it to be preached and heard 2. Whatever was the intention of the Contrivers of the Indulgence the preaching of the Indulged Ministers had no more tendency to hinder other Ministers to preach the Gospel than the preaching of one Minister who is not indulged hinders the preaching of another Minister and experience hath proven this That their preaching hindred others to preach for several Non-indulged preached more since the Indulgence than before 3. He gives a strange efficacy to the Magistrates intention in saying That it makes the making use of the Indulgence and taking of the band to be of a peice and of one kind for the band which he speaks of obliges to conform to Prelacy and to cast off the outed Ministers yea and shut up their bowels from them in their distress and the person who takes it declares Conventicles to be disorderly and the walking according to the Law which establishes Prelacy to be orderly walking They who think that the Magistrates intention can make these things contained in that band to be of a piece and of the same kind with the peaceable exercise of preaching the Gospel they give the Magistrate a power of working Miracles in changing the nature of things by his intention which is more than hath been given to Magistrates by those who talk highest of their Supremacy I wish he had forborn that expression of Homologating before the Lord for it seems to be a taking of the name of God in vain Pag. 111. he desires us to ponder some Particulars for the first about Magistrates design we have weighed it and found it light For his second he should have proven That it is the necessary work of the indulged Ministers who have Churches to preach in where the Meetings of the Lords people are not disturbed to leave these Churches and go to preach in mountains and needlesly expose themselves to hazard when they may have the same ordinances of God in the Church and with these advantages That they have the accommodation of a house to shelter them from storms that they are rid of the fears of Invasion by armed soldiers which do much disorder folks Spirits for the worship of God and the place of meeting being fixed and known peoples uncertain wandring upon the Lords day is prevented It hath been very sad to those who truly designed to sanctifie the Sabbath to wander on the Lords day to seek the word of God and not find it and when they had found it to be in a continual fear of violence or to be fleeing or to see some more taken up in drawing themselves up for fighting than for drawing near to God or to see or hear of blood mingled with Sacrifices He should have proven that God calls the indulged Ministers to quit the peaceable exercise of their Ministry in these Parishes where they are setled where they have opportunity to know the State Case and Way of the people and to apply their Doctrine sutably to the peoples Condition and where they have opportunity to make full proof of their Ministry in preaching and ministring Sacraments Catechising visiting exercising Church-Discipline The indulged Ministers are not convinced That it 's the greater good of the Church to cast these Congregations where they are desolate and leave them to be filled with Conformists He says the Indulged Ministers have given themselves to rest under the covering of the Supremacy This was an invidious and false aspersion if the giving of themselves to the work of the Ministry be a giving of themselves to rest then they have given themselves to rest Thinks he that men cannot labour in the work of the Gospel except they carry the Gospel from mountain to hill Instead of the covering of the Supremacy he should have said Under the protection of lawful Authority and as Mr. H. said before the Council The exercise of the Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority is one of the most desirable things on earth to Ministers of the Gospel To his third The case of these Ministers who were confined to Congregations where there were Ministers setled and permitted to preach â—n these Parishes was far different from the case â—f those who went to desolate Congregations â—f they had been permitted
or that it was inductive to sin He should have proven that this deed was such a deed quod de sui ratione haberet quod esset inductivum ad peccandum But instead of doing this he tells us That when offence is taken or may be taken at an action they who do that action must prove it not only lawful in it self but that as circumstantial it 's expedient and necessary to be done and if they cannot prove the necessity of what they do then the Author concludes from the offence taken at the action that the action gives offence but he should have proven that abstinence from making use of the Indulgence or forbearance of the acceptance of it was necessary by shewing that acceptance gave offence or was inductive to ' em He is accusing the indulged Miâ—â—â—â—ers and affirming them to be guilty of giving offence by the acceptance of the Indulgence and should have proven his alledgance that there was something wrong something inordinately done in this acceptance of this relaxation And beside it 's hard enough to condemn all as guilty of active scandal who cannot prove that their actions are expedient and necessary for every one who doth what is really expedient and necessary hath not the faculty of proving every expedient and necessary action to be expedient and necessary if the thing be really expedient and necessary which is done there is no active Scandal given by it though the doer cannot formally prove the expediency and necessity of what is done for he may possibly be so weak as not to understand the importance of the words or termâ— of expediency and necessity nor to hit upon the proper grounds and midses which prove this expediency and necessity Suppose some did now take offence at the eating of Swines-flesh or blood though the person who eated blood could not prove the expediency or necessity of his eating Swines-flesh or blood yet the offence would be taken and not given and it were incumbent to the person that took offence to prove that the eating of Swines-flesh and blood were unlawful and forbidden or if any take offence at worshipping God in Kirks builded in the times of Popery for Paul or Peter or Cuthbert and alledg that is is not necessary to worship God in these Kirks because men may worship God in the open fields or in other houses which were not builded for any Saint though every man who worships God in these Kirks builded in the times of Popery to the honour of some Saint cannot prove the necessity of worshipping in this or that individual Kirk yet the offence is not given but taken as Mr. Rutherford shews in that dispute of Scandal formerly cited Quest 6. in the 61. and following pages and shews That it 's necessary for those who take offence at worshipping in such Kirks to prove by Scripture-warrant that it is necessary to disuse these Kirks It is certain saith he That the necessity of disusing the Creature in a Physical usage in the worship of God must have a warrant in the Scripture and so he shews That the offence that some take at Bells for convening the people to the worship of God is a meer passive Scandal And I suppose it cannot be denied that the protection of lawful Authority is more necessary for the conventions of the Lords People for his worship than these Houses or Bells The Author lays the stress of the Scandal which he alledges was given by accepting of the Indulgence upon this ground That this acceptance as circumstantial was not expedient and necessary and he supposes that it will be easily granted That the acceptance of the Indulgence was not a thing in its self necessary so as it could not be refused without manifest sin against the Lord. Ans It is ordinary I perceive with this Author in this History to take for granted that which he should prove as for that which he adds That if there be not a manifest sin in refusing the Indulgence then the taking of offence at the acceptance of it will prove that there was offence given in the acceptance will not be so easily granted as he supposes For suppose that one could not make it manifest and evident that there were sin against the Lord in demolishing or disusing St. Giles or St. Cuthberts Kirk or in breaking or disusing the Bells which had been abused in the time of Popery it were very hard to condemn that man who together with the rest of the Lords people convened for the worship of God at St. Giles's Kirk upon the ringing of Bells which had been abused in the times of Popery I say it were hard to condemn him of the sin of giving Scandal in his going to these Kirks upon the ringing of these Bells As for the expediency and necessity of making use of the relaxation of the rigour of the penal statutes as before explained or which is all one accepting of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority the indulged Ministers have much to say for the expediency and necessity of this acceptance and for their not refusing this relaxation and protection when offered 1. Some things are necessary by Divine Ordination as Magistracy Whosoever resists the power saith the Apostle resists the Ordinance of God and the Powers that be are ordained of God Rom. 13.1 2. c. And as Magistracy so Ministry is the Ordinance of God 1. Cor. 12.28 And God hath set some in the Church first Apostles c. 2. Some things are necessary by Divine Precept as for example the exercise of the power of the Magistrate is not only necessary by virtue of Gods instituting and ordaining Magistracy but also by the command of God which obliges Magistrates to punish vice to execute wrath upon them who do evil to promove encourage and praise that which is good to protect their Subjects in well-doing and to preserve peace And so Ministers are under a necessity of preaching the Gospel by the command of God 3. Some things are necessary because God hath made them useful and convenient for man and hath given them to man for his use they are in their nature convenient for man given and designed of God for the good of man thus meat and cloathing and houses peace and the protection of lawful Authority are necessary 4. Some things are necessary means in order to a necessary end and these again are necessary either simply for attaining the end or necessary for the better or more easie and convenient attaining of the end as a house is necessary not simply for hearing of the word but for the more convenient hearing of the word because it shelters the Minister and people from storms winds and scorching heat c. Thus the protection of lawful Authority is necessary for the peaceable hearing of the word without disturbance 5. Some things are necessary for preventing of evil the evil either of sin or of affliction and calamity
6. Some things become necessary or the more necessary to be done because of those who urge the forbearance of them out of some erroneous principle or for establishing of some error And thus Mr. Rutherford sheweth in the forecited Treatise That to forbear the cating of Swines-flesh before a Jew who alledges that it is a sin or breach of the Commandment of God to do so to forbear it now when we are fully possessed in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free were to harden the Jew in his Judaism and the way to bring us again under the yoke of the Ceremonial Law Now 1. seeing God hath ordained Magistracy for protection of his servants and people and for protecting them in the exercise of his worship it was expedient and necessary to accept of this Protection when offered and not to refuse it for the acceptance of the effect and product of the exercise of that Authority which is Gods Ordinance was an acknowledgment and owning the Ordinance of God a honouring of those to whom by Divine appointment honour is due And this was a contributing to render the Ordinance of God effectual for that end for which he had instituted and ordained it and upon the contrary the refusing of this relaxation and of the protection of lawful Authority would have been a slighting and despising of the Ordinance of God and a doing of that which tended to render the Ordinance of God ineffectual for that end and use for which God ordained it Now the relaxation of this restraint which had been long upon the publick exercise of their Ministry and the protection of lawful Authority which Mr. H. accepted of was the very exercise of that Authority which is the Ordinance of God 2. Seeing the Magistrate in loosing that restraint which hindred the peaceable exercise of the Ministry did his duty he did somewhat of that which he was obliged to do it was necessary that the Ministers whom they were willing to loose from the restraint formerly laid on and whom they were willing to protect in the exexcise of their Ministry should in their place and station further and promove the Magistrate in any good which he was willing to do as when a Minister is willing to do his duty in preaching and Catechising the people should be willing to hear and be Catechised so when a Magistrate is willing to permit or allow Ministers to preach in his Dominions and to protect them in the exercise of their Ministry it 's the duty of Ministers who have the access to the peaceable exercise of their Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority to accept of the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and to refuse this offer were the way to mar and stifle the good which the Magistrate was willing to do Now when the Magistrate is willing to do any thing which is right and his duty it 's a sin to mar impede and stifle any good that he is willing to do 3. Seeing peace and the protection of lawful Authority and the peaceable exercise of the Ministry under the protection of lawful Authority are great blessings of God and God promises and gives them to his people as great benefits and his people are obliged to pray for them Isa 48.18 Isa 60.15 16 17 18. Isa 11.6 7 8 9. 1 Tim. 2.1 2. Therefore it 's necessary to accept these mercies and benefits when the Lord in his Providence offers and gives them and to refuse them when they are offered were to slight the mercies of God and to refuse what we are bound to seek and to be thankful for when we get it 4. Seeing the fixed setled and peaceable exercise of the Ministry is so necessary as appears from the Lords taking care that Ministers might be setled in Cities and Churches and from the many conveniencies of a setled Ministry which are wanting in an unfixed Ministry for they who may not stay among a people cannot so know their state and case and so cannot apply their Doctrine sutable to their case and cannot make full proof of their Ministry among them in laying the foundation in all the principles of the doctrine of God and then leading the people forward unto greater perfection in knowledge in declaring the whole Counsel of God and they have not access to Catechise and visit c. as those who have the setled and fixed exercise of their Ministry have and then peace and quietness in preaching and hearing the Gospel hath many conveniences people not only know whither they shall go to hear but they may come seasonably without hazard by the way and without fear of disturbance when they are come so that they may more compose themselves for hearing than they can who are in a continual apprehension of a hostile Invasion and often alarmed with hearing or seeing some noise or appearance of armed soldiers These fears and confusions are great Impediments of the sanctification of the Sabbath Now the setled and peaceable exercise of the Ministry which is so many ways expedient and necessary cannot be had but by the Magistrate and therefore to have refused to make any use of the Indulgence had been to refuse the setled and peaceable exercise of the Ministry 5. This acceptance was useful for preventing many evils of sin and calamity The indulged Ministers could not see how they could without sin refuse to make any use of the Indulgence and they conceived their refusal to take the benefit of the peaceable exercise of their Ministry would have given occasion of offence and provocation to the Magistrate and to the destitute Congregations who desired their help the desire of a people who are wandring as sheep without a Shepherd had a cry that they could not see how they could slight without sin The acceptance prevented the filling of the Kirk with a Conformist whom the people would not have heard and freed those Parishes of the quarterings plunderings imprisonments which they were formerly obnoxious unto it prevented their uncertain wandrings on the Sabbath their disquieting and confounding fears their running and fleeing on the Sabbath which is such a calamity that our Saviour directs the Jews to pray that their flight might not be in the winter neither on the Sabbath-day Matth. 24. and prevented rendevousing and fighting and mingling blood with Sacrifices on the Lords day The many disorders and confusions and sad sufferings the imprisonments and finings and banishments and the great effusion of the blood of the people of God which have followed upon the hostile clashings betwixt Magistrates and people may teach us how necessary the peaceable exercise of the Ministry under lawful Authority is and how necessary it is to take and seek and follow after peace with all men especially with the Magistrate The Indulged Ministers cannot nor could not see how a refusing to have any making or medling with the Magistrate which these Authors urge could consist with the respect due to Authority or with
and good report which a Christian ought to study The Author hath not made it manifest That this acceptance was any kind of evil or such an appearance of evil It 's superfluous to run through the rest of this head because he doth not prove that the acceptance gave offence to any persons only he reckons up several persons to whom he alledges it gave offence and if accusations make guilty the Author hath made the indulged Ministers very guilty but it 's but a guilt of his making I shall only clear That the eating of not eating of the meats the Apostle speaks of in the place cited by the Author was every way indifferent at that time and so cannot be a parallel of the acceptance of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry and the Protection of lawful Authority which are not things meerly indifferent The indifferency of eating or not eating of such or such meats at that time is excellently cleared by Mr. Rutherford in his forecited Treatise of Scandal because the Book is not common I shall transcribe one Objection and Answer in which as in many other parts of that Treatise there are several things apposite to the present debate of Scandal Pag. 67. And before I come to the second Conclusion an House for the worship of God are among the things which are necessary by way of disjunction in specie not in individuo that is a house is necessary in its Physical use to fence off our bodies the injuries of Sun Air and heat but not this house for another house may serve the turn as conveniently But some object Then this or that house dedicated superstitiously to the religious Honour of a Saint ought to be removed out of the worship of God 1. Because by your own Confession this individual house so abused is not necessary God may well be worshipped without this house though it had never been in rerum natura 2. From the worshipping of God in so superstitious a place many truly godly are so scandalized that for worshipping God in such superstitious and idolatrous places they have separated from your Church conceiving that in so doing you heal the wounds of the Beast It 's true it may be their weakness yea but be it so that it were their wickedness that they are scandalized yet by your Doctrine in things not necessary you are not to do any thing by which either the weak or the wicked may be scandalized as is clear in the eating of Meats Rom. 14. Ans This Argument may 1. be retorted against those who hold with us in the same Doctrine of Scandal for without eating of Swines-flesh my life may be preserved and a malicious Jew may be and is necessarily highly scandalized that I who possibly am a Jew converted to the Christian Faith do eat Swines-flesh before him for he conceiveth me to be an Apostate from Moses's Law therefore I should abstain from eating Swines-flesh before a Jew who out of malice is scandalized by my doing a thing not necessary hic nunc but the Conclusion is absurd nor do I think That many truly godly of the strictest Separation do stumble at our Churches out of wickedness many truly godly and sincere refuse to come to our Churches whereas many scandalous well-lustered Hypocrites who know nothing of the power of Godliness but are sitten down in the Scorners chair are admitted to the Lords Supper and as the former cannot be excused so I pray God that the latter draw not down the wrath of God upon both Kingdoms 2. Things not necessary which actively produce Scandal must not only be indifferent Physically in their natural use as this or that House but they must be indifferent both Physically and Morally for the meats spoken of Rom. 14. at that time were both ways indifferent 1. They were not necessary but indifferent Physically in an ordinary Providence both then and now for ordinarily my life may be preserved and suffer little loss by not eating Swines-flesh or such meats in case of extream necessity of starving if any could have no other meat they might eat then as the Case was Rom. 14. because mercy is better than Sacrifice at all times 2. These things Rom. 14. were indifferent Theologically or Morally in their own nature 1. Ver. 3. Let not him that eateth dâ—spiâ— him that eateth not and let not him that eaâ—â— not despise him that eateth for God hath receivâ—d him 2. Because ver 17. the Kingdom of God 〈◊〉 not meat and drink Surely in Mâ—ses's time to abstain from such meats and eat such as the Lamb of the Passover the Manna to drink of the water of the Rock was Worship and iâ— some part of the Kingdom of Heaven but 〈◊〉 not so now saith Paul 3. Paul clearly makeâ—â— them morally indifferent 1 Cor. 8.8 For mâ— commendeth us not to God for neither if we eaâ— are we better morally before God neithâ—â— if we eat not are we morally the worse Now this Temple or House Physically is indifferenâ— and not necessary for the Worship of God for men may be defended from the injuries of Sun and Air though this House had never been in rerum natura But this Temple or House though dedicated to a Saint is not morally indifferent but morally necessary so as if you remove it from the Worship because abused to Idolatry and give it no use in the defending of our Bodies from the injuries of the Wind Rain and Sun you Judaize and do actively scandalize the Jews and harden them in their Apostacy and so this House though abused to Idolatry is not indifferent morally as the meats Rom. 14. But the using of it is necessary and an asserting of our Christian liberty as to eat blood and things strangled even before a Jew So to use all houses for a Physical end to defend our bodies from Heat and Cold is a part of the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free but Ceremonies have no natural nor Physical use the crossing of the Air with the Thumb the keeping of a day religiously without warrant of the word are not taught in the School of Nature and so are naturally not necessary as this or that House though abused to Superstition is and the Adversaries that say they are morally indifferent as good and as spiritual Ceremonies in kind and nature may be devised in their place But in all this dispute of Scandal we give but we never grant that the Ceremonies are indifferent we dispute here That they are scandalous and so unlawful in their use upon the Principles of Formalists whereas we judge them in their Nature because they have not God but the will of men to be their Father and Author to be unlawful and repugnant to Scripture because not warranted by either command practise or promise in Scripture So far Mr. Rutherford from which we may see that the using of a House though it hath been idolatrously abused for this end to defend our bodies from
heat and cold is a part of the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free Now any who will not shut their eyes may see that the seeking and taking the Protection of lawful Authority is more necessary than the making use of this or that individual House We cannot have the benefit of publick houses for worship without the Magistrate But secondly The Protection of the Magistrate defends from injuries that are much more injurious and hurtful than the injuries of Wind and Rain and scorching by the Sun a house can but defend from showers of Rain Hail scorching-Heat c. but the Protection of lawful Authority defends from showers of Bullets and the scorching-Heat of Persecution Again men might be sheltred by another house though St. Cuthberts or St. Giles's Kirk were cast down but the peaceable exercise of the preaching and hearing of the word in publick cannot be had without the Protection of Civil Authority Now if the Scandal taken at taking the shelter of St. Cuthberts Kirk in hearing the word should not make folk disuse that Kirk nor deprive themselveS of the use of it much less should the taking offence at the taking of the Protection of lawful Authority for the publick peaceable exercise of the Ministry make Ministers and people deprive themselves of the Protection of Magistrates whom the Lord calls the Shields of the earth seeing the Magistrates permitting and allowing Ministers to preach and protecting them in preaching is the very exercise of that Authority which they have from God for good And further from Mr. Rutherfords words we may see That the eating or not eating in the places cited by the Author does no way quadrate with the case of acceptance or no acceptance for as Mr. Rutherford shews That at that time the eating or not eating was both Physically and Morally indifferent The Author hath not proven the acceptance or no acceptance to be indifferent and any who will take up this Club and Quarrel will find it a hard task to prove the acceptance or no acceptance Physically and Morally indifferent and so the case Rom. 14. 1 Cor. 8. do no way quadrate with this The eating of flesh forbidden in the Ceremonial Law was no ways necessary at that time when the Apostle Paul wrote his Epistles to the Romans and his first Epistle to the Corinthians it was neither Physically nor Morally necessary at that time to eat those fleshes before a weak Jew for they who knew their Christian liberty might eat those fleshes in private and when such weak Brethren were not present But the acceptance of the relaxation of the Civil restraint formerly laid on by the Magistrate the acceptance of the Protection of lawful Authority was several ways necessary as we saw before The peaceable fixed setled preaching and hearing of the Gospel is a very desirable end and the acceptance of the Protection of Civil Authority is necessary in order to this end for as the Reverend Author of the late Apology printed Anno 1677. acknowledgeth the peaceable exercise of the Ministry is from the Magistrate pag. 111. where he grants That it is within the compass of the Magistrates power to give liberty to Ministers and people for serving and worshipping of God in his Son Jesus Christ This saith he we do not deny but chearfully grant That although the exercise of Church-power that is properly such be independent on the Magistrate yet the peaceable exercise of it is truly from him Pag. 113. Sect. 1. He says That the accepters of the Indulgence did hereby give offence to such of their Brethren as had the offer but were noâ— cleared nor convinced of the lawfulness of the embracing of such a favour at such a time Now how proves he this That they gave offence For saith he by their example these were encouraged and moved to do that which they judged sinful and unlawful for them to do I wonder how a reasonable man who had read any thing concerning the nature of Scandal could give such a reason for according to this reason whosoever does that which another judges unlawful for him to do he by his doing gives offence this is a most false and absurd Proposition Our Saviour did several things which the Jews judged sinful and unlawful for them to do but it were blasphemous to infer that therefore our Saviour in doing these things gave offence to the Jews This Doctrine of the Author teaches people that will believe him to judge that whatsoever they judge unlawful for them to do that that is in it self sinful and unlawful for whatsoever gives offence is sinful for every thing that gives offence is some way or other inordinate and this makes the judgment it may be but of one man who judges something sinful and unlawful for him to do to bind up others that they cannot do that which he thinks sinful for if they should do it according to this Author they should give offence and so sin this would make the Judgment of one erring man who thinks that sinful which is not so to be a Law to others which were an intolerable yoke of bondage The Reverend Brethren who had not clearness to make use of the Indulgence were far from this erroneous conceit to think That because they had not clearness to accept of the Indulgence that therefore they who accepted of it did sin and give offence The Scriptures which he cites as we did shew before out of Mr. Rutherfords Dispute of Scandal are impertinently cited because the eating or not eating of these meats at that time was every way indifferent Physically and Morally indifferent and no way necessary but the acceptance was in several respects necessary as was shewed before especially because they could not have the peaceable exercise of their Ministry without the Magistrate but the eating of these meats the Apostle speaks of might be forborn without any prejudice to him who was perswaded of his Christian liberty he might forbear it without any prejudice or hurt to his body for he might get other meat to eat when these weak Brethren who took offence at eating were present If there had been no other meat and he would have been in hazard of his life if he did not eat and if he could not have gotten shifted out of the presence of these weak Brethren then the case would have been altered and not eating in that case had been a breach of the sixth Commandment Thou shalt not kill In such a necessity it was lawful for David to eat the Shew-bread and so his eating would have been necessary and the offence would have been taken by the weak Brethren but not given by the eater but if he found these meats useful for his body and could get the presence of the weak shifted he might eat them in private as Mr. Rutherford sheweth in the foresaid Dispute Again he might forbear eating without any prejudice to his soul because as Mr. Rutherford sheweth at that time the
eating was morally indifferent there was no sin at that time in forbearing to eat those meats before a weak Brother But now when we are fully possest of our Christian liberty it were a sin to forbear eating such meats before a Jew because of his taking of offence at eating for that were an hardning of him in his Judaism Pag. 113. Sect. 2. he says They gave offence to others who had not this Indulgence in their offer yet judged the accepting thereof unlawful upon the ground last mentioned Ans What ground means he if he means that ground which he lays down in the last Section near the beginning because they judged it sinful and unlawful for themselves to have done it We have shewed the groundlesness and falshood and dangerous consequence of this ground or if he mean That the acceptance was as indifferent and every way as unnecessary as the eating in the case that the Apostles words late to he is much mistaken as appears from what is said before He says in the end of this second Section That they should have refused the Indulgence seeing there wanted not who told them of the evil they conceived to lye therein But 1. as I shewed before this reason is not relevant for it makes the judgment of one man to be an obliging Rule to another 2. The Indulged Ministers did see and acknowledge the evils which were in the complex Acts of the Magistrate which related to the Indulgence 3. The Reverend Brethren who had not clearness to make use of the Indulgence did not tell the indulged Ministers That there was evil in accepting of the relaxation of the restraint or that there was evil in acceping of the peaceabl exercise of their Ministry or of the Protection of lawful Authority in the exercise of their Ministry so that these Reverend Brethren did not say That there was evil in what the Indulged accepted for these were the things which the indulged Ministers accepted as we cleared from Mr. H's speech before the Council but on the contrary they declare That there is good in this as appears from Mr. Burnets Paper set down in this History pag. 46. Sect. 5. As for the permission and allowance I have to preach when confined this permission seemeth very far when I look on it abstractly without relation to the rest of the particular Circumstances of the Act for this would look like the opening of the door in part which the Magistrate himself had shut and afterward he says For permission to preach in any vacant Church within the Kingdom is so very great a favour as for which I would desire to bless God and thank his Majesty most heartily And in his Letter to my L. Chancellor pag. 48. he shews himself clear for Ministers going not only to their former Charges but to other Congregations as they shall have opportunity of a cordial Invitation from the people And in the other Paper drawn up by the ten Ministers set down pag. 48 49 50 51. of this History in the 51. page their third desire to the Council is That your L. L. would be pleased to deal with his Majesty to take off the legal restraints on our Ministry and Persons that we may peaceably give our selves to the work of the Ministry for the edification of the body of Christ And we heard from pag. 111. of the late Apology That the peaceable exercise of the Ministry is from the Magistrate so that these Reverend Ministers were so far from accounting that evil which the indulged Ministers accepted that they accounted it desirable and did desire it and by this it may appear how far these Reverend Ministers were from the Sentiments of this Author of the History and the Author of the Cup of cold Water and of the Letter prefixed to the History of the Indulgence The difference betwixt those Reverend Brethren who did not accept and these who did accept was not in their Principles anent the Government of the Church nor did they differ anent the ills which are in the complex Acts of the Indulgence which both by word and writings drawn up by the consent of Indulged and not Indulged Ministers is manifest but the difference was in this That the indulged Ministers conceived that it was their duty to take what was good in the Indulgence and refuse what was evil The Reverend Brethren who had no clearness to aceept conceived that in taking the good they would be some way involved in an interpretative approbation of the evil and this difference of apprehension as it was no ground of division so it made no division betwixt the indulged Ministers and their Brethren who were not indulged only about the time of the second Indulgence one or two at most of Ministers that were ordained before the Revolution began to drop first more privately and then more publickly some seeds of Schism among the people who before were profiting under the Ministry of the indulged Ministers and then some young men whose Judgments had not been formed at Colledges of Divinity under Orthodox Doctors of Divinity which is an unspeakable loss to many well inclined youths and who were not studied â—n Divinity were not acquainted with the writings of Noncofnormists against Schism through a rashness very incident to young men who want experience did further distemper the poor people and perceiving that some people were very fond upon those Preachers who spoke most against the Indulgence and cryed them most up this was a great snare to these youths and a great grief to the grave judicious Ministers who were not indulged It was not the Councils design as some alledge but this stickling in preaching things which tended to division which divided the people It is not designs of Magistrates to divide which doth really divide nay any that have sense if they perceive that Magistrates have a mind to divide them they will so much the more study unity but if the Contrivers of the Indulgence had a design of dividing it was those who vented divisive Doctrines in publick and private who did effectuate that design which would never have been effectual without this I shall subjoyn the words of the reverend Author of the Apology published An. 1677. who is commended by the Author of this History I wish the Author of the History had learned of him to seek for peace and to render designs of division ineffectual the Author of the History widens the wound which the Author of the Apology endeavoured to heal as appears by what he writes pag. 128 and 129. of that Apology I shall transcribe his words because they confirm what hath been said That there is no difference in the professed Principles about the Government of the Church or about the ills which are in the complex of the Indulgence betwixt the Indulged and not Indulged Ministers his words pag. 128. are these For whatever difference there hath been or yet is amongst us in our practice in relation to the
that they will wonder that any do call the lawfulness thereof in question If the Author would have done the part of a Candid Disputant he should have brought forth all the Arguments made use of by the Indulged Ministers in their full strength but he brings several of his own Conceits which he knew best how to deal with and passing the strongest Arguments which were not for his handling he intermixes with these which he brings something of his own which may furnish him occasion of saying something though nothing to the purpose The first Objection as he propones it runs thus May not the Magistrate for ends known to himself discharge Ministers to preach for a time and thereafter permit them to preach and seeing the business of the Indulgence was but of this nature why might it not be acquiesced unto I wonder how he came to alledge the Magistrates discharging Ministers to preach in this place as if the discharging to preach were any part of the business of the Indulgence which was not a discharging to preach but the just contrary a permission and allowance to preach but the Author had something to say concerning the Magistrates discharging of Ministers to preach that he behoved to say somewhere but he could hardly have devised a more impertinent place to speak it than this The Magistrate should not have hindred these Ministers to preach he should not have restrained them from preaching but it was his duty to take off the restraint which he had laid on and to permit them to preach this was the exercise of the power which the Magistrate had from God and therefore the Ministers might lawfully make use of it in accepting this Relaxation of the Restraint formerly laid on and the peaceable exercise of their Ministry but if he had formed the Argument thus he would have had nothing to answer His first answer is That the Indulgence is a far other thing It 's true it 's a far other thing than the discharging of Ministers to preach which he impertinently foisted in into the Objection but says he it 's one thing to permit Ministers to exercise their Office without Molestation and it 's a far other thing to appoint and order them to take upon them such or such particular charges He does not condemn the Magistrates permitting Ministers to preach but he hath a quarrel at the Magistrates appointing to take such or such particular Charges c. but if he would have dealt fairly with the Magistrate he should not have foisted in words of his own but taken the Magistrates words as they are in the Acts of Indulgence in which they do not say that they appoint and order the Ministers to take upon them such and such particular Charges but that they appoint them and in the second Indulgence permit and allow them to preach and exercise the other parts of the Ministerial Function in such a Parish If he quarrel at the Magistrates appointing Ministers to preach at such or such Kirks he must quarrel with the first Book of Discipline and much more with the second Book of Discipline which Chap. 10. makes use of the word placing but enough of this before But suppose that Appointing were not a proper term yet he cannot but acknowledge that the Magistrate did in their permitting allowing appointing these Ministers to preach at such and such Kirks really and effectually relax the Civil Restraints formerly laid upon these Ministers which hindred the peaceable publick exercise of their Ministry in any Parish within the Nation and freed them from the Molestation which they would have been obnoxious to in preaching in such or such Parishes before these Acts of Indulgence and in so far as these Acts did relax that undue Restraint they were good this is so evident that it cannot be with any shadow of Reason denied And hence I reason thus When the Magistrate doth right in relaxing undue restraints which hindered the peaceable publick exercise of the Ministry Ministers may lawfully make use of that Relaxation but the Magistrate in permitting allowing appointing these Ministers to preach in such and such Parishes did right in relaxing c. and therefore these Ministers might lawfully make use of that Relaxation I would gladly hear an answer to this Argument What he subjoyns of their plainting and subjecting the Ministry in its exercise to themselves by giving Injunctions c. as he foists in words of his own which were not in the Acts of Indulgence so he unreasonably confounds the Act of Instructions with the Act of Indulgence which were Acts in all respects distinct the Act of Instructions was no Act of Indulgence for these Instructions were no Indulgence but clogs superadded the Act of Indulgence did take off Restraints and that the Ministers accepted the Act of Instructions did lay on Restraints which the Ministers did not accept of as was fully manifested before But this is the ordinary fault of this Author that when he should reason against the Indulgence as it was accepted by the Ministers or against their pactice in accepting the Releaxation and the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and the Protection of lawful Authority he falls to speak of what was wrong in the Magistrates acting to which the Indulged Ministers had no accession but ye must excuse him for if he had not done this he would have had nothing to say and yet it had been much better to have said nothing than to have spoken so impertinently and so injuriously in charging the indulged Ministers with the fault that they had no accession to If the Authors reasonings were reduced to form they would be very ridiculous as for example the Magistrates Act of Instructions which laid on wrong restraints was not right and therefore the Magistrates Act of Indulgence which took off wrong Restraints was not right Again the Magistrate should not have made the Act of Instructions and thefore the Ministers should not have made use of the Act of Indulgence Baculus stat in angulo ergo pluit the Club stands in the Corner and therefore it rains This third Argument is as good as the other two and yet of such Sand-ropes are the Arguings of this Author twisted Before I leave this I cannot but suspect that all that the Author seems to allow to the Magistrate at least to our Magistrates in reference to the exercise of the Office of the Ministry is this That they should permit and not molest Ministers in the exercise of their Office for he is against their appointing of Ministers to preach at such or such a Kirk I am the more confirmed in this by some passages of the Cup of cold Water and some late actings if this be his Opinion it is a new one for all Orthodox Divines and the Church of Scotland in the second Book of Discipline Chap. 1. maintains That the Civil power should command the Spiritual to exercise and in that same Chapter it 's granted That the Magistrate
then the Magistrate may appoint permit allow Ministers to preach in such and such Kirks For if the Magistrate may do what is more then they may do what is less in the corrupt state of the Church But the state of the Church is such and therefore if the Magistrate may in this case place c. he may much more permit c. He grants all the major is evident from the place cited and he grants it to the minor which was as he proponed it but so it is now with us he answers that our Church was a constituted and well-ordered Church but that now Confusion is come and so in effect he yields all but I remember he spoke to this before What he says of the Magistrates bringing on this Confusion is no evasion for the Book of Discipline does speak generally of a Church corrupted whatever way it hath been corrupted whether by Magistrates or Ministers that 's neither up nor down A Magistrate that hath disordered the Church is so much the more obliged to right those disorders and if a Magistrate hath disordered the Church by thrusting Ministers from the peaceable exercise of their Ministry he ought to retract what he hath done by allowing them the peaceable exercise of their Ministry if he did wrong in thrusting them out it 's right to let them in and the Church of Scotland in that place cited hath declared That in that case Ministers should not refuse to preach in any place because the Magistrate hath interposed his Authority for setling them He insinuates in the end of this Answer That this Concession gives the Magistrate all Church-power but this is a groundless and injurious alledgance the Authors of that Book and the General Assemblie's which after exact examination of every part of it concluded it to be subscribed by every Minister of the Church of Scotland understood the Nature of Church-power much better than he did and they were so far from thinking That the Magistrates who in the corrupt and disordered state of the Church interposes their Civil Authority for setling Ministers does in so doing assume unto themselves and exercise all Church-power that they commend what they did in that case as a practice well-becoming godly Kings and Princes and Emperors This Insinuation is highly injurious to those wise and godly men who compiled and approved subscribed that second Book of Discipline for if this Concession did yield all Church-power to the Magistrate then those who compiled and subscribed it do quite subvert what they had immediately asserted viz. That the Magistrate may not usurp any thing which belongs not to the civil Sword but belongs to the Offices which are meerly Ecclesiastical as is the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments using Ecclesiastical Discipline and the Spiritual Execution thereof or any part of the power of the Spiritual Keys which our Master gave to the Apostles and their Successors As it cannot be supposed that so wise men would so quickly contradict themselves in a Book so deliberately and after so many Debates concluded so it cannot be imagined that they would design Kings and Princes godly for doing that which would quite swallow up and subvert the holy Calling of the Ministry This one passage in the second Book of Discipline does quite ruine the cause of the Author of the History of the Indulgence and approves the practice of the Indulged Ministers so that what they have done they have done it according to the mind of the Church of Scotland expressed in the second Book of Discipline The Book says That godly Kings both in the old and in the light of the New Testament have placed Ministers when the Kirk was corrupted c. This not only may be but it hath been and the Author denies not that the Church was corrupted at the time of the Indulgence and all things out of order and in confusion and thus he really yields the cause and concedes all when the Church is corrupted and all things out of order the Magistrate may place Ministers and Ministers may be placed by Magistrates but at the time of the Indulgence as the Author grants the Church was corrupted and all things out of order and therefore at the time of the Indulgence the Magistrate might place Ministers and Ministers might be placed by Magistrates according to the 10th Chapter of the second Book of Discipline It 's true that the Magistrate should not have broken the order of the Church â—ut to conclude that the Magistrate cannot place Ministers because he thrusts them out or that he cannot do them right in granting to them the peaceable exercise of their Ministry because he did them wrong in restraining them â—rom the exercise of it or to conclude That â—he Magistrate by breaking the order of the Church loses all Authority to do any good to â—he Church afterward or that we may make â—o use of any good that the Magistrate does â—ecause he hath done evil or because at the â—me time he does some things right and some â—ings wrong that we cannot chuse the good because we must refuse the evil is a most unreasonable way of reasoning and at this rate a man may conclude quidlibet ex quolibet any thing he pleases from whatsoever he pleases any Conclusion he pleases from any premisses Neither doth the acceptance of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry from the Magistrate who had formerly restrained Ministers by penal Statutes that they could not without molestation exercise their Ministry teach Magistrates a way how to usurp all Church-power for the taking off of Restraints was a doing of right and no Usurpation He might as well alledge That if one by strong hand wound a man and put him out of his own house and take his Goods and afterward be willing to cure the wound and admit the man to return to his House and Goods that the injured man by admitting the Cure and returning to his own House and Goods teaches the man who injured him to wound intrude and spoil To the 4th Objection taken from the examples of Hezekiah and Josiah who commanded the Priests and Levites to do the work of their Calling he answers nothing to the purpose If Hezekiah and Josiah did right in setting the Priests in their Charges and the Levites in their Courses and in commanding them to do the work of their Calling and if the Priests and Levites did right in obeying those Commands then Magistrates may not only permit and allow but also command when there is need Ministers to do the work of their Ministerial Calling and Ministers may and should obey such Commands but the former is true for these Kings are commended for doing so 2 Chron. 35.2 c. 2 Chron. 29.2 3 4 5. c. 2 Chron. 31.2 and therefore the latter is true also He answers That our Rulers have done many evil things which these Kings did not but will he conclude that because they have done evil which these Kings
defame to add a few particulars 1. Some of these Ministers who were before the Council did not take any of these papers in their hands albeit they had never seen an authentick Copy before others did and so did Mr. B. whether he let his Copy drop out of his hand I can neither affirm nor deny neither think I it any thing material Others for any thing I know might also have dropped them after the same manner but whether they did that or whether they carried them away in their hands or pockets is little to the purpose for what ever Testimony he gave against the things contained therein all the rest gave the like and large as much and so whatever he did in perpetuating the Testimony of the Church of Scotland the rest did the like 2. That his Imprisonment raised some noise in the City I grant but how it could carry with it some sad reflection on the rest I cannot see seeing they had given as full a Testimony as he had given and they were not obliged to commit themselves to Prison because he was committed 3. True it is these Ministers met together after his commitment to deliberate if possibly they could do any thing for his Releasement with whom also there met some serious and judicious Ministers in the Town who had met with them several times before It is true that some of these having heard the Forgeries and Lies which presently flew from about the Parliament-House did overture and press the doing of something for owning and seconding Mr. Blairs Testimony c. And this they did not out of shame and sorrow for the unfaithfulness of the rest as the Historian insinuateth but for obstructing the obloquy and clamour of the Vulgar But every thing done and spoken before the Council by any either in their own name or in the name of others being brought forth considered canvassed and examined they were convinced that any such thing was needless and impertinent yea the taking of a groundless guilt upon them What he hath farther here is the forgery of his eccho's at Edinburgh 4 What he hath further here is nothing but forgery and calumny as that the proceedings of these Ministers were point blank contrary to the actings of the Kirk of Scotland and the Faithful in it and that there was a motion made of writing about the Magistrates Power in Church matters and that there was need of new Principles to justifie their proceedings 5. I cannot pass his raking into the ashes of worthy Mr. H. If the comparison were not a disparagement to a Person of such worth I would say that for grace for gifts for Ministerial qualifications of all sorts for usefulness in his Generation and service unto his Lord and Master therein and for usefulness to the Church of God in after Generations also Mr. G. H. was a Person above the Historian and that he was free both of Pedantus and Plagiarie his most useful Works left behind him does declare wherein every thing is judiciously drawn out of the Fountain of the Word of God and not by way of cloutry out of Humane Authors and that he had the least tincture of the Opinion of Vedelius is a thing that cannot be made out from his Writings or Actings Although I need not add any thing to the commendation of Mr. Hutcheson whose Works praise him in the Churches yet having had occasion to be intimately acquainted with him and having found him misrepresented by some I cannot forbear to do him right after his death in representing him justly as I found him in frequent conversing with him I found him to be a very lovely man of a sweet amiable loving and compassionate disposition a man of great candour and ingenuity and though of eminent gifts yet very lowly and condescending to these who were of low degree I found him ready to receive light in Theology from those who were every way far inferiour to him as might be made out by many pregnant instances and how much he was regretted and his death lamented by the Godly Ministers and Professors in the place he lived and through the Land is so well known and notore that it were needless to be at pains to clear it to any that is in this our Church his name for eminency in abilities Ministerial of all kinds and Piety being so savoury and Famous therein and his Works for the Churches good so much approven and applauded by eminent Divines abroad together with the experience both of Godly and Judicious Ministers and Professors at home do sufficiently to the stopping of the mouth of all detraction and envy commend him in the gate 6 That the rest of the Ministers did reproach their Brother Mr. Blair is a forgery either minted in his own brain or coined by some of his correspondents It 's true that some of these Ministers who did go to my L. Chancellour that Afternoon to plead for his Releasement did declare that my L. Chancellour did not lay the weight of his being Imprisoned upon what he spoke but upon other things which he did highly aggravate and I forbear to mention further and it waâ— also said that he left out some words which haâ— been agreed upon but none can with any 〈◊〉 of Reason call such speeches reproaches I◠〈◊〉 false that Micajah carried rudely before 〈◊〉 and Ahab he carried with that compoâ—â—â— mind and affections with that gravity and reverence to Lawful Authority that did become a Prophet of the Lord. 7. I pass his uncharitable insinuation That the rest of the Ministers had not prayed that day for Counsel and Courage in Order to their appearance c. and Mr. Blairs telling of his attainments though it be well known that he never had the humour to talk of such things and some could have informed That he bowed not the knee that morning but in the company of and in conjunction with two who were lodged with him in the same Room I pass several other amplifications of this Historian and shall mark a thing which he omits which is this Not long before his death 24 hours at most two serious and judicious Ministers of the Gospel visiting him and seeing that his time could not be long did tell him that he was now very shortly to compear before his Judge and therefore did urge him to tell if he had Peace in his accepting of the Indulgence and use making of it these years by gone To whom he replyed That he had not the least Challenge upon that account and added moreover that he could not have had Peace in staying from his Charge Forcible and Legal restraints being removed But our Faithful Historian passes this in silence and also on the contrary falsly infers That he Witnessed against the Indulgence pag. 54. It 's true indeed that he with others Witnessed against the Instructions but that he Witnessed against the Indulgence is most false From this it is clear also that in his judgment it was
himself what wonder if there were doubts of this nature amongst these Brethren And though I cannot certainly assert that they had different apprehensions in this matter yet I conjecture that there was something of it from what I read in an excellent Vindication of the Ministers who made use of the Indulgence written as is supposed by that faithful and judicious Minister Mr. Thomas Wylie who was as I am informed present with these Ministers at their Meetings though he had not then made any use of the Indulgence for after he hath in Assertion 5. asserted that it 's granted without debate that the Supream Magistrate hath a Supream Power objectively Ecclesiastick about Church-matters And Ass 7. That as it is the Magistrates sin to restrain Ministers from Preaching the Gospel so it is condescended to by all of the Presbyterian perswasion that it is the Duty of the Magistrates not onely to permit and allow the Preaching of the Gospel in his Dominions but upon supposition of neglect or necessity it is his Duty to command Ministers to Preach the Gospel 2 Chron. 17.7 8 9 Jehoshaphat sent the Levites and Priests with the Book of the Law to teach all the Cities of Judah and they went through all the Cities of Judah and taught the People Rom. 13.4 The Magistrate is to them a Minister for good Mr. Rutherford See Durham of Scandal Part 3. Chap. 14. pag. 250. Also by their negligence in not providing faithful Teachers pag. 252. To countenance with their Authority the Ordinance of Discipline to confirm by their Authority the Ordinance of Preaching the Gospel pag. 254 Magistrates might and ought to put Ministers c. to their Duty in case they be negligent c. in his Treatise against Toleration expounds that not onely of Civil good but also of the Spiritual Soul good of his Subjects which the Magistrate as he is a nursing-father of the Church and as he is Custos utriusque tabulae is to procure by suppressing Hereticks and Heresies and countenancing faithful Ministers And some pages after he says by virtue of which Power contained in the former Assertions he may moving in his own sphere and acting onely in a Civil capacity give command that all things be done in the House of the God of Heaven according to the will of the God of Heaven and even in the matters in hand it may by some be alledged that the Magistrates fail is not in the Formality of the rise of his Rules but in the sinful and grievous matâ—er of them And then he supposes that if the Magistrate had in the first Rule permitted and â—llowed Presbyterian Ministers to Baptize the Children of Persons in adjacent Parishes and admit them to the Communion if they were not clear to joyn with the incumbents who had conformed And if in the second Rule they had appointed that the Sacrament of the Lords Supper should be as often yearly celebrated as the conveniency of the respective Congregations would admit and had appointed that Congregations lying together should not have it on the same day and allowed at such occasions Preaching without and so of the rest If they had put Ministers to their Duty who would or who ought to have quarrelled with the Magistrate as out of his Duty So it is not the Formality of the rise or conveyance but the faultiness of the matter considering our present Constitution that makes the Rules sinful and not to be practised by honest men I may add if the Magistrate had appointed the Indulged Ministers to meet Presbyterially that cases which were formerly referrable to Presbyteries might be still so referred and not determined by Kirk-Sessions I suppose none would have had reason to complain And if it had been appointed that these Presbyteries should have Clerks and pay them their dues I suppose none would have alledged that this was Erastianism but a restoring of something of the former Order Something also of the different apprehensions of Ministers about these Rules which of them were formally Ecclesiastical and which mis-applications of the Civil Power objectively Ecclesiastical appears in the Answer of the History of the Indulgence of which I spoke before but that made no division among these honest Ministers who looked upon them as impositions that were not to be received And I suppose any who will impartially consider the matter will think that these Ministers did wisely in forbearing to determine peremptorily concerning the nature of every one of these Rules whether they were the exercise of a Power formally Ecclesiastical or mis-applications of the Civil Power objectively Ecclesiastical From what is said we may see the Vanity of all the Historians endeavours whereby he labours to prove that Mr. H's words were useless or a base betraying of the Cause and whatever Mr. H. thought of the nature of these Rules he gave an honest Testimony against them as the Author is forced to confess in acknowledging that he said the same upon the matter with Mr. B. but he spoke more fully and distinctly for in his first Speech which the Historian acknowledges to be the same upon the matter with Mr. B's he uses the words impositions burdening in the matters of the Ministry which comprehends not onely Rules formally Ecclesiastical of the Magistrates making but also all Civil injunctions which impose grievous burdens And I suppose it was Mr. B's design to refuse both though his words seem most directly to relate to the former and my reason is this because the Reason which Mr. B. adds does clearly exclude all Arbitrary Civil injunctions which impose upon the Ambassadours of Christ who are to adhere to their Masters Instructions in the discharge of their Office And as Mr. H. shews that Mr. B. did not intend to deny the Magistrates just Power so the Reason which he adds justifies what Mr. B. said more expresly and what he meant and clearly enough insinuate by the Reason which he added to his Refusal What the Author further adds pag. 75 76. to prove that the granting to the Magistrate a Power objectively Ecclesiastical doth not warrant him to make Rules regulating the exercise of the Ministry and its intrinsick administration is a very needless work which his ignorant mistake of Mr. H's design in speaking and then his uncharitable that I say not perverse wresting of Mr. H's words and design against all Reason and common sense hath put him to as little wit makes meickle travel So it is no wonder if they who travel with such a mischievous design as that is to prove honest men to be base betrayers of the cause of God be put to a great deal of pains in travelling to bring forth such a Monster and to put some face upon such an ugly deformed Birth and then to get it fathered upon them who can give their Oath of verity they have nothing to do with it and may safely say that the Father of lies hath helped to breed it and bring it
were glad that the Council had let them go and had not shut them up in Prison nor put them to death they were glad that they were living and at liberty to Preach in the Name of Jesus 4. The Historian commended Mr. B's Speech and yet he made no Assumption nor Conclusion and why finds he fault with Mr. H's Speech upon this Account that he did not subsume and conclude 5. The Author of this story could not have subsumed that all these Instructions are formally and intrinsecally Eeclesiastical for he grants at least that one of them was wholly Political and the Brother who answers his History says that that Instruction about Bursers and Clerks is about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing pertaining to this life and of very small consideration and no way regulative of the Ministry a thing also that falls immediately and directly under the Superiority and Jurisdiction of the Supreme Civil Magistrate although for its remote and mediate end it have a Spiritual good And it may be the Brethren had different apprehensions about some of these Rules and so some would have subsumed more in the assumption than others and this would have made a difference of their apprehensions manifest before the Council which was needless seeing they were all agreed that they were gravaminous impositions and that these who were intrinsecally Ecclesiastical regulating the exercise of the Ministry could not be received That the Historian could not understand to what purpose the Magistrates Power objectively Ecclesiastical was conceded except for justifying the Magistrates giving and the Ministers receiving these Instructions did proceed from his Passion and Prejudice which blinded his understanding as we have clearly manifested by shewing what was Mr. H's design in that part of his Discourse I suppose he as much mistakes the Informers design pag. 81. In that same page he craves leave to add that the Ministers Declaration was annulled by their receiving of the papers We could not hinder him to make that addition but we protest that it may be added to the rest of his false imaginations and so let it pass with the rest of his Errors he hath forgotten that this condemns Mr. Blair and annuls his Testimony for he took the paper in his hand which several of the Brethren did not It 's as false that the Power imposing these Instructions was so lightly passed for Mr. H. declared that the Magistrate had not a Power formally Ecclesiastical and gave a solid Reason why they could not impose burdens upon Ministers in the matters of their Ministry because they were the Servants of Christ and so at his will and not at the will and pleasure of men in these matters The Informer will deny what the Historian pag. 82 says was hinted by him I perceive by what the Historian hath here pag. 81 82 that he can allow more to a Godly Reforming Magistrate than to Magistrates that are open Enemies and yet he hath granted before that all that agrees to a Magistrate as Magistrate agrees to every Magistrate and so he can allow more to a Godly Magistrate than agrees to the Magistrate as Magistrate Again he grants that in a time of universal defection and deformation which can no other way be remedied that Magistrates may give Rules and Injunctions to Regulate Ministers in the exercise of their Ministry for he grants that Godly Divines have granted this to be given to extraordinary and immediately inspired Magistrates c. Or they have granted it in a time of universal defection c. For the first of these concessions that more may be allowed to Magistrates really minding Reformation than to Magistrates as Magistrates I would enquire what Warrant he hath for giving this allowance for these divers Weights and Measures to the good and bad Magistrate in defining the limits of their Power and Office as the Informer speaks By what Rule gives he one grain of more Power and Authority about these things which are the matters of God to one Magistrate than God hath given to all Magistrates The Power of the Magistrate about things Sacred is given and determined by God and is not to be enlarged and restrained by mens allowance or disallowance This is kittle work if the Magistrates Power about holy things may be enlarged by mens allowance why may not Ministers Power in the administration of Holy things be enlarged also and more allowed to eminent Godly Ministers who minds Reformation This hath been a pretext for Prelacy and it will go far to make a Bishop Again how much more would he allow to Reforming Magistrates when he hath once past the limits that God hath set where will he stay What Rule have we for setting bounds to this allowance in the matter of Power and Authority the most part of men loves well to have ulterius for their Motto must this depend upon the will of Kirk-men But as the misguided will of Kirk-men set up an Ecclesiastick Pope why may it not also set up a Civil Pope If the goodness and disposition to Reform be the Rule then the more a Magistrate minds the glory of God he must have the more Power allowed What if a Magistrate seem very Zealous for Reformation till he hath gotten very much Power and then he turn an Adversary how will ye get back the Power which ye have given away The Magistrate will not readily give Subjects allowance to take back what they have given Again how can ye fairly refuse to a bad Magistrate who succeds to a good Predecessour what was allowed to his Predecessour Such a refusal would be a great temptation to make a bad Magistrate worse I shall not insist on this further but the little that hath been said may shew that it 's much safer to hold that all Magistrates have the same Official Power in reference to Church-matters and that even Nero as Mr. Rutherfurd says had that as all Ministers that are Ministers have the same Ministerial Authority And all Magistrates have in a time of defection and deformation the same Authority for reducing things to Order when they can be no other way remedied If an Indulged Minister had granted that the Magistrate might in any case give Rules and Injunctions to Regulate Ministers in the exercise of their Ministry which yet the Historian grants in a time of universal defection and deformation which can no other way be remedied it 's very like the Historian would have charged them with the betraying of the whole Cause I wonder that he who grants this to the Magistrate at some times should have made such horrible out-cries against the Indulged Ministers though they had done what he alledges upon them He hath fore-seen this Objection and therefore he subjoyns This cannot be applyed to our Case But might not honest men be of that Opinion that this was our case and though mistaken in their Opinion is that a sufficient ground to charge them with betraying the whole Cause Our
People in the Kirk justly because of their sin they shall find it in the Fields notwithstanding of their provocations See pag. 133. Or if the Author thought that the Fields had this force every where I wonder how he did not take the Fields in Holland where they say the Magistrate claims more Power in reference to matters of Religion than the Historian allows but on the contrary he stayed with in the Kirk as long as the Magistrate allowed even when the Magistrate would not suffer him to Preach in the Kirk he never went to the Fields for any thing we could hear but kept himself within doors I see the change of places makes a change in some mens minds and therefore that doth not hold always Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt And that the Fellow who said Si tu hic esses aliter sentires was not altogether senseless But again if the Indulged Ministers be Ministers of the Gospel and do indeed Preach the Gospel then the People who received them as their own Ministers formerly ordained by the Presbytery to take the charge of them or who in their destitute condition invited them as Ministers ordained to come and Preach the Gospel to them are obliged to own them as Ministers of the Gospel and to countenance them in Preaching and if they withdraw from them and break off that Communion in the publick pure Worship of God in which they formerly joyned they are guilty not only of ingratitude in deserting the Ministers of the Gospel who come upon their invitation to help them in their destitute condition but they are guilty of Separation or Schism 2. He grants That it is not simply sinful to hear the Indulged Ministers Then he said false when he said These Ministers were not Christs Ambassadours for to hear these as Ministers as Christs Ambassadours who are not sent by him but sent by men Usurping Christs Authority were simply sinful if they have renounced their dependance on Christ c. 2. And he speaks a gross untruth when he says That the hearing of Indulged Ministers is an homologating countenancing approving of a sinful Supremacy and that the hearing of Curats is an approving of Prelacy for the approving of that which is sinful and in its own nature sinful is simply sinful the approving of that which is in it self ill and always and at all times evil that is not only now and then but always and in all cases sinful and simply sinful 3. He grants That if there were no other Ministers in Scotland that none would scruple to hear the Prelates Curates And in his 28 questions That in that case not only might the Indulged and the Curats be heard but they should and ought to be heard Then he must quit that conceit that the hearing of Indulged Ministers and of Curats is an approbation of sinful Supremacy and Prelacy for men should never approve that which is in its self evil 2. He miserably torments the Consciences of the poor simple People who will believe him for he tells them it 's unlawful to hear Indulged Ministers while there are others in Scotland to be heard but if there be no others then it 's not only Lawful but a Duty to hear the Indulged Ministers So that the People in Order to the resolution of this case of Conscience whether they do right or wrong in hearing or not hearing the Indulged Ministers they must inform themselves whether there be any other Minister alive in Scotland and so long as they hear there is any one alive though he were living in the Mull of Galloway and they were living at John a Grots it were sinful for them to hear Indulged Ministers but if he were dead it were a sin not to hear And so the People would be in Conscience obliged to keep up a constant Intelligence that they might know how soon that Minister died that they might not neglect their Duty in hearing Indulged Ministers His advice to hear the Curats or Indulged Ministers in case there were no other to hear comes too late to the People whom he commends for their leading of Ministers arid breaking the ice for they are far before him here for they will choose rather to hear none at all than to hear either Bishops Curats or Council-Curats and some of them say they like the last worse than the first And if the Historian were living there are some of these People who would not hear himself if they knew he were of that Opinion that either Indulged Ministers or Curats should be heard in any case Some of them would tell him that he is all mistaken when lâ—t thinks that the Baptism administred by Curats is valid and is not a nullity for they judge it to be much worse than a nullity to be even the mark of the Beast And seeing he acknowledges the People for Guides he must follow them they will not come back to him if he cry after them that he meant not flagitious and ignorant Curats but those who are knowing and of sober conversations they will cry back we who are common People are not for distinctions as ye your self said We will hear none of them in no case whole Sale is good Sale And therefore follow us who have guided you who are Ministers now a long time and ye your self have commended us for good Guides and if ye will not follow us we and you will shed for ye are slipped aside we are where we were ye are fallen off and so we are not to be blamed for the breach And if the Historian have no other Reason for hearing the Indulged or the Conformists when folk can do no other ways but that which he mentions viz. the shunning of that absurdity that if they were no Ministers their Baptisms c. would be nullities and the Children were unbaptized If this be all it may be made use of to perswade the People in a mister to hear a Popish Priest for the Baptism that he administers is not a nullity and Papists when they turn Protestants are not rebaptized and where away this will lead let any who have any discerning in these matters judge The Reasons for which he would have the People with-drawing are 1. That they are not called by Christ nor set over the People by the Holy Ghost but by the Council If it be reduced to form and candidly proposed it must run thus The Council permitted and allowed the Indulged Ministers the peaceable exercise of their Ministry in such and such Congregations and therefore they were not called by Christ nor set over these Congregations by the Holy Ghost The consequence is manifestly false for if the Magistrates Civil allowance of the publick peaceable exercise of the Ministry do make void the potestative mission which Ministers have from Christ in their Ordination and if it destroys the Peoples invitation and the advice and consent of Ministers concerned all which the Indulged
Councils ministerially to determine controversies of Faith and cases of Conscience to set down Rules and Directions for the better ordering of the publick Worship of God and government of his Church Art 5. Synods and Councils are to conclude nothing but that which is Ecclesiastical and are not to meddle with Civil affairs which concern the Commonwealth unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary or by way of advice for satisfaction of conscience if they be thereto required by the Civil Magistrate Chap. 23. Art 3. The Civil Magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of word and Sacraments as the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven yet he hath authority and it is his duty to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church that the truth of God be kept pure and intire that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed all corruptions and abuses in worship or discipline prevented or reformed and all Ordinances of God duly setled administred and observed for the better effecting whereof he hath power to call Synods to be present at them and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the word of God These Articles and the Scripture-proofs do clearly hold out and confirm That Christ not the Magistrate is the Head King Lord of the Church which is the Body House and Kingdom of Christ that Church and not the Magistrate is the Fountain of the Spiritual Power of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven that the Offices in the Church are of divine institution given by Christ and that these Offices which Christ hath given are sufficient for gathering and perfecting the Church seeing he hath given them for that end and that they are Ministerial and not Lordly and hence it follows that the Office of a Prelate who claims a majority of Directive and Coercive power over Ministers who not only takes upon him without election to moderate Synods but also is above the censure of the Synod and who can hinder the Synod from concluding any thing how necessary soever they find it and without whose Authority the Synod is no Synod who imposes Moderators upon the meetings for exercise and to whom these meetings are countable for their actings without whom there can be no ordination deposition excommunication relaxation from it who exacteth an Oath of Canonical obedience from Ministers not being in the Rolls of the Offices and Officers given by Christ and being a Lordly and so more than a Ministerial Office Presbyterians cannot own it nor judg it useful for gathering or perfecting of the Church They shew also that the Magistrate to whom God hath given the Lordly power of the sword is so far from having a spiritual Supreme power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven that he hath not the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven given to him at all for the power of the keys which Christ hath given is Ministerial and makes those who are invested with it Ministers of the Church but the power of the Sword is Magistratical and a Lordly Dominion and that it belongs to Synods and Councils and not to Magistrates to make Ecclesiastical Rules c. and that none neither Magistrates nor Ministers may order Ecclesiastical matters according to their mind and pleasure but those things must be ordered according to the mind and will of God revealed in his word And all true Presbyterians believe That seeing both the Lordly Power of the Magistrate in general and in special the Kingly Power and the Ministerial Power of Church-Officers are of God and his Ordinances that they are not contrary to one another for the Ordinances of God do not justle one against another but sweetly agree and any justling or clashing which hath proceeded from the corruptions of Magistrates or Ministers are not to be imputed to the Lords Ordinances and it 's the earnest desire of all truly godly and loyal subjects who seek the glory of God and the Magistrates true honour and interest That whatsoever in the actings of their rightful Magistrates hath exceeded the bounds which the Lord hath set to them may be in mercy discovered to them and in time reformed That all occasions of grief and stumbling may be taken out of the way of truly loyal subjects and all occasion of doing mischief may be cut off from those who take advantage from those excesses to render the Magistrate contemptible and to overthrow that Power which they have from God As for what they say of Ministers hindering those who would have given a testimony and censuring others who did give it the truth is Presbyterian Ministers endeavoured to restrain some young men who instead of preaching the Gospel made it their work to revile the Magistrate and Ministers who made use of the liberty granted by the Magistrate but these youths discovered themselves not to be of Presbyterian Principles by their refusing to be subordinate to the Ministers and by reproaching them who would have reclaimed them from their disorderly and Schismatick practices By this the Magistrate may perceive if the Presbyterian Ministers who are Presbyterians indeed had by allowance of the Magistrate the peaceable exercise of their Ministry and liberty of meeting for regulating their own actings and the actings of those who profess themselves to be Presbyterians such unruly persons who stir up the people to Schism and Sedition would not be admitted to the Ministry or if they after their admission discovered themselves to be of pernicious principles they would be put from the Ministry and so the people who are true to Presbyterian Principles would not own them and so they would not have access to pervert the people with Seditious and Schismatick doctrine this would be found the most proper Remedy for these distempers But what wonder is it if young men who are ordinarily rash being but Novices who have not studied the Body of Divinity and who have no experience and know not the Principles and Practices of Presbyterial Government who are not put ro Presbyterial Exercises for their trial and instruction and who it may be have never seen any thing of the Exercise of Presbyterial Government in Presbyteries or Synods and who are not under the iâ—spection of meetings of Presbyterians but wander to and fro at random not thinking themselves accountable to any meeting of Ministers nor censurable by any What wonder is it if such persons when they are blown up with the vain applause of some ignorant and humorous people who under their sad sufferings have taken up such prejudice against the Magistrate and all to whom the Magistrate shews any favour that they think what is most cross to the Magistrate is most right and any thing which the Magistrate allows they think it wrong and so they cry up those Preachers most who speak most invectively against the Magistrate and against those Ministers to whom the Magistrate shews any favour I say what wonder is
it if such youths blown up with the wind of popular applause fall into many snares and take courses that tend to bring all things sacred and civil into confusion They add For which together with other causes c. we may say God hath left them to do worse things This is among their rash sayings it was the duty of Presbyterians to censure such unruly youths They add But also have voted in that meeting which they are pleased to call an Assembly of Ministers but how justly let men judg an acceptation of that liberty founded upon and given by virtue of that blasphemously arrogated and usurped power Their alledgance that that meeting is not to be called an Assembly of Ministers will beget no prejudice against it in the minds of men who have any sound judgment in matters of that nature And sober and judicious men would have suspected that meeting if it had pleased their banders or any of such principles as they maintain And none except ignorants or persons blinded with prejudice will say that the liberty of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry granted by the Magistrate is founded upon any unlawful powor or supremacy The Magistrates granting liberty of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry is the exercise of that power which the Magistrate hath from God That which the Magistrate ought to do doth not flow from any unlawful power but the Magistrate ought to grant to the Ministers of the Gospel liberty to exercise their Ministry peaceably and therefore such a grant of liberty c. or such liberty granted doth not flow from nor is founded upon any unlawful or usurped power or supremacy They add And hath appeared before their Courts to accept of that liberty and to be Enacted and authorized there as Ministers and so hath willingly for this is an elicite act of the will and not an act of force and constraint translated the power of sending out ordering censuring for as they accept of their liberty from them so they submit to their censures and restraints at least all of them who were yet tried with it and others of them appeared and acknowledged before their Courts that they would not have done these things that they were charged with if they had thought it would have offended them Ministers departing from the Court of Christ and subjection to the Ministry to the Courts of men and subjection to the Magistrate which had been impious and injurious to Christ and his Church though they had been righteous and lawful rulers and by their changing of Courts according to common Law hath changed their masters and of the Ministers of Christ are become the Ministers of men and bound to answer to them as oft as they will and as by the acceptation of this liberty in such manner they have translated the power so they have given up and utterly quit the Government and a succession of a Presbyterian Ministry for as these were not granted them of their masters so they exercise their Ministry without them and so by this as the Ecclesiastical Government is swallowed up in the Civil if the rest had followed them the Ministry should have also been extinct with themselves and the whole work of Reformation had been buried in oblivion not so much as the remembrance of it kept up Ans If the Magistrates will see these Ministers for whom the people supplicate why should they refuse to appear what solid reason can be given for such a refusal and what ill is there in the Councils recording in their Act that upon such a day such a Minister for whom such a Parish had supplicated was allowed to Preach in such a Parish That they appeared to be authorized as Ministers if they mean as it seems they do that they appeared to receive their Ministerial authority from the Council or that they appeared to be made Ministers of the Gospel it is a manifest slander for as they had their Ministerial authority before their appearance before the Council so the Council did not pretend to make them Ministers but presupposed that they were Ministers by enquiring where they were Ordained Ministers and the Council cannot well be blamed to inform themselves concerning the persons whom they permit to Preach that they may not allow they know not whom but may be assured that they are Ministers and that they are not seditious turbulent persons But if by authorizing they mean the Magistrates Civil allowance maintetenance protection it 's the Magistrates duty thus to authorize those who are Ordained Ministers of the Gospel in the publick exercise of the Spiritual power and authority of their Office as all Orthodox Anti-Erastian Divines grant And because the Authors of this Band seem to have been unacquainted with the judgment of Presbyterian Divines in these matters I shall for their information and the information of others who are bold to speak of things which they do not understand set down the judgment of Presbyterian Divines in this matter as it is holden forth in that famous Book The Divine right of Church-Government Chap. 6. Pag. 55. 2. The power or authority of Church-Government is a derived power for clearing of this note there is a Magisterial primitive supreme power which is peculiar to Jesus Christ our Mediator as hath been proved Chap. 3. 5 and there is a Ministerial derivative subordinate power which the Scripture declares to be in Church-guides Mat. 16.19 18.18 Joh. 20 21 23. Mat. 28.19 20. 2 Cor. 10.8 13.10 and often elsewhere this is abundantly testified but whence is this power originally derived to them here we are carefully to consider and distinguish three things touching this power and authority from one another viz. 1. The Donation of the authority it self and of the Offices whereunto this power doth properly belong 2. The designation of particular persons unto such Offices as are vested with such power 3. The publick protection countenancing authorizing defending maintaining of such Officers in the publick exercise of such power within such and such Realms and Dominions this being premised we may clearly thus resolve according to Scripture-warrant viz. the designation or setting apart of particular individual persons to those Offices in the Church that have power and authority engraven upon them is from the Church nominating electing and ordaining of such persons thereunto See Act. 13.1 2 3. 1 Tim. 4.4 5.22 Tit. 1.5 Act. 4.22 The publick defence maintenance c. of such Officers in the publick exercise of the power and authority of their Office in such and such Dominions is from the Civil Magistrate as the nursing Father of the Church Isa 49.23 For it is by his authority and sanction that such publick places shall be set apart for publick Ministry that such maintenance and reward shall be legally performed for such Ministry that all such persons of such and such Congregations shall be in case they neglect their duty to such Ministry punished with such Political penalties
no magistrate's sending ministers to preach c. doth make them no ministers of Christ Did Ezra cease to be a Scribe and minister of the Lord because Artaxerxes and his seven Councellers sent him to do the work of a Scribe in Judah and Jerusalem Ezr. 7.13 14. For as much as thou art sent of the King and of his seven Councellors Pr. If Artaxerxes had destroyed the Temple and the Worship of God Ezra would not have taken any benefit of such a Decree and Commission Min. What warrant have you for that if Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed the Temple had made a Decree That the Priests and Levites and people should return and worship God at Jerusalem would they have been such fools to refuse to return till Nebuchadnezzar were dead and some other King made such a Decree Did Jeremiah reject the favour which was appointed by Nebuchadnezzar Jer. 39.11 12. and conferred upon him by Nebuzaradan Jer. 40.4 who had burnt the House of the Lord 2 King 25.9 Pr. But these were Heathens who had never professed the true Religion and so had not backslidden Min. The backsliding of Rulers makes them not incapable of doing good afterward Manasseh had been Religiously educated and became monstrously wicked and yet was an instrument of Reformation afterward and Judah did not refuse to serve the Lord because Manasseh who had so fearfully fallen away did command them to serve the Lord 2 Chron. 33.16 Pr. Manasseh repented Minist But do ye think that if he had commanded Judah to serve God or the Lords Priests to sacrifice to the Lord before he repented that these commands should have been rejected because he was not truly penitent It 's the duty of all Kings whether they be penitent or not to command the Lords ministers and people to serve God The Orthodox ministers who had been banished in the time of the Arrian Persecution and Athanasius among the rest did not refuse to return to the exercise of their ministry upon the Edict of Julian the Apostate who had been a professed Christian and turned Pagan and a despiteful enemy and mocker of Christ and tho' he made that Edict for ill ends yet these godly zealous Servants of God made use of it Ye may read the History in Zozomens Church-History Book 5. Chap. 5. where he shews that he afflicted the Church in all things most bitterly and grievously except that he recalled the Bishops and Priests which were banished in the time of Constantius and that it was said he gave not that command out of mercy or pity but that either they by their mutual contentions might fight against the Church by an intestine War and so fall away from their own Laws and Institutions or that he might wrong the Estimation of Constantius and might raise up hatred against him through the whole Empire c. And Georgius Horsnius in his Ecclesiastick History Pag. 93. saith That Julian recalled Athanasius from Banishment to the place of one George an Arrian a most naughty man who had been slain a little before Athanasius's return There is no man more famous for Learning and Zeal and stedfastness in the Church-History than Athanasius and I am sure if ye have read the History of Julian the Apostate ye will be ashamed to say that any of our Rulers are so ill as he was and yet none of these holy and Learned ministers made any scruple to obey his command when he called them to the work of their ministry If many would compare their practices with the Scripture-rule and examples in Scripture and in Church-History they would find that what they take for light and zeal is but ignorance and an humourous peevishness who would have thought that ever any who had been members of the Church of Scotland that besides the obligation common to them with other Protestant Churches are by solemn Covenants obliged to extirpate Schism and maintain the Kings person and authority would have so far degenerate as to place their zeal and Religion in scarring at the Preaching and Hearing of the Gospel because the ministers who preach it are permitted and allowed to preach it by the magistrates who are bound as magistrates as Christians as Protestants to permit allow countenance protect by their authority the Preaching of the Gospel in this Kingdom Farm Sir I desire ye would return to answer what is said against the Ministers in that sixth Article of the Band. Min. As for what they say of Ministers submitting to the Magistrates censures and saying they would not have done the things they were charged with if they had thought it would have offended them it 's a confused charge and it is not easie to guess what they mean they cannot prove that any of those Ministers have done any thing that will import an acknowledgment that the Magistrate hath power of inflicting Ecclesiastick Censures or of making Ecclesiastick Canons And as for Civil Restraints of Imprisonment and Banishment if they condemn submission to these they will condemn all who have been imprisoned and banished and among the rest the Ministers who went to Holland who did not only passively submit to Banishment but also by their Subscription engaged not to return If any Minister hath done any thing which warrantably might have been forborn or which might have been done as conveniently or more conveniently at another time in another place in a way that would not have irritated or provoked the magistrate if such a person hath made the foresaid acknowledgment who can with reason condemn it for we owe thus much even to any private person whom we should not needlesly provoke to anger if we can conveniently help it but the contrivers of this bond and those who go their way are for needless provocations of the magistrate and if there be many ways of doing what is right upon the matter they will chuse the way that is irritating to the Rulers because it is irritating and shun that way which will not provoke the magistrate as if it were a duty to provoke the magistrate to wrath And if any have needlesly provoked them they will not allow him to give an innocent soft answer to turn away their wrath But it is no wonder that they who are for overthrowing the magistrate and the Government be against all things that make for peace with them or may tend to pacifie them when they are angry and be for grievous words and things which may stir up strife and put evil betwixt the magistrate and subjects What they add That these ministers have departed from the Courts of Christ and subjection to the ministry are meer calumnies Do they think that ministers appearing before the magistrate when called that by the magistrates Civil allowance of the peaceable exercise of the ministry they might without disturbance preach the Gospel in such or such places will prove that these ministers have departed from the Courts of Christ and have changed their Courts and so by common Law have changed
as was Aaron If they say That such a Sovereign Jurisdiction is hot discharged and therefore it 's lawful I answer 1. The Offices and Officers of the House of God which are in the Scripture are positively instituted and constituted of God 1 Cor. 12.28 God hath set c. Ephes 4.11 God hath given c. Rom. 12.6 7 8. If God hath not set these new Sovereign Judges Ministers should not stand before them as Judges if God hath not given them for Sovereign Judges we should not receive them and if they be not given their Office is not a gift of Grace It 's a graceless thing and we have nothing to do with it 2. It 's not enough that an Office which is exercised in the name of another be not discharged or forbidden it must be charged and commanded if a man should claim to himself some new Office of Justice or should intrude himself into some Office which were setled by Law would that be a sufficient defence for him that such an Office was not discharged nor he forbidden to take such an Office it would be replyed He had no Law nor Command or Warrant for what he did it 's not enough to make a man an Ambassador that he is not discharged to go Ambassador he must have a positive Commission 3. The Lord in forbidding us to add to his word hath discharged to add any Spiritual Offices to those which he hath instituted in the Word and I see not how those who take on them to make new Spiritual Offices in the Church can hold out new Spiritual work for those new Officers and so we shall have new significant Symbols and Sacraments new worship when they made the Office of the Pope they out out new work for him to make new Articles of Faith to dispence with the Laws of God c. or if they do not this they take somewhat from the formerly established Officers and appropriate it to those new ones the Presbyters were first bereaved of the power of Ordination and then of the power of Jurisdiction ut aliquid faceret Episcopus quod non faceret Presbyter If they object That the rest of the Presbyters need not except they please subject themselves to these Ministers and if they consent to subject themselves to them and stand in Judgment before them and submit their ministry to their disposal then they get this Sovereign power by the Ministers voluntary consent and then volenti non fit injuria may not Ministers part with their power and put it in the hand of one or two or three for unity and order I answer 1. They do as much as they can to necessitate and force the Ministers to subject themselves to those new Sovereign Judges for as far as in them lyes they effectually despise them and in effect excommunicate them by withdrawing from them until they stand in Judgment before their new Lords and Sovereigns and come in their will 2. It 's a great and dangerous error to imagine that Ministers of the Gospel may dispose of their ministerial power as a man may dispose of his money and so may either quit all or give part and retain the rest retain the power of preaching and quit the power of governing in conjunction with others for a Minister hath not Dominion over his ministerial Function as a man hath over his money but he is obliged to retain all that Authority that the Lord hath given him for edification and to make full proof of his Ministry as he will be answerable to his Master who will require an account of the Talents he hath given him to occupy with and therefore suppose the Presbyterian Ministers were so demented as to renounce their ministerial Authority in favour of their new Judges this could not make their Sovereign Jurisdiction warrantable because this surrender made to them would be a non habente potestatem for Ministers cannot give away their Authority to another and therefore their new Judges would still be Usurpers both in usurping a Dominion which the Lord hath not given to Ministers and then taking it to themselves without any title The next thing in Dr. Gaudens Definition is the exercise of this Sovereign power and Spiritual Jurisdiction in the several Acts as Ordination Confirmation Censures Rebuking Silencing Excommunication Absolution c. If we may conclude from the practice of these new Prelates how Sovereign high and absolute they will be in their acts of power we have some ground to think they will out-do any Prelates that have been before them for they have really though not formally deposed and excommunicated the Ministers who differ from them before any Process Tryal or hearing granted to these Ministers and one of them hath very summerly excommunicated the King the Duke of York the Duke of Monmouth and several Peers and Officers of State This is pretty high flown at the first flight it 's but now and then that the Bishop of Rome the Pope himself plays such pranks as these Ordinary Bishops use to have formal processes and they allow Presbyters to have some share in the trial and leading of the process against persons to be Excommunicate and they do not use to Excommunicate Kings and Princes Ambrose the Bishop of Millain was somewhat singular in his censure of Theodosius the Emperour in keeping him seven months from entering within the Church-doors I grant saith Hornius in his Church-History this censure of Ambrose is not approved of all but there are none who can or ought to disapprove the humility and repentance of Theodosius who patiently endured the sharp reproofs of Ambrose and did give example to the whole Church But it 's rare to find great ones of Theodosius disposition there are considerable difficulties objected against the Excommunication of Supreme Magistrates And the fault of Theodosius was so singular for in his passion at a popular sedition in Thessalonica in which the President and some Noblemen were killed he sent in Soldiers who killed seven thousand persons of all ages and sexes both guilty and innocent And then the Emperour was a man so holy humble and tender and Ambrose a Bishop of so great authority and so venerable and beloved that if any ordinary Bishop would attempt to imitate Ambrose in this he would readily find that he had mistaken his measures and would not find that he had to do with a Theodosius or that he himself were an Ambrose But as this is certain that the Excommunication of Magistrates Masters and Parents does not make void their Magistratical Masterly and Paternal authority so this is granted that as it is Church-Judicatories and not single persons that should Excommunicate and * Rutherford's Peaceable Plea Pag. 5. saith The Church not one single man hath the power of Discipline if one Pastor himself alone should Excommunicate the Excommunication were null both in the Court of Christ his Church that these Judicatories must not only consider whether the fault
that the truth of God be kept pure and entire that all Blasphemies and Heresies be suppressed all corruptions and abuses in Worship and Discipline prevented or Reformed and all Ordinances of God duly settled administred and observed for the better effecting whereof he hath Power to call Synods to be present at them and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God Thus might they say the Confession of Faith acknowledges that the Magistrate hath Authority for doing much in reference to the Reformation and preservation of Religion but we hear nothing from you of any Power the Magistrate hath in reference to matters of Religion ye onely tell what the Magistrate may not do in reference to you and the exercise of your Ministry and is this all the respect ye have to Authority Now this and much more would have been Objected and had not Mr. H. then very good reason to add this second part of his Discourse The Learned and Judicious Author or Authors of the Course of Conformity saw it necessary after they had shewed what the Magistrate might not do in matters of Religion to subjoyn a Discourse shewing what they might do and because the Book is not common I shall transcribe somewhat to this purpose Page 147 148 149. ye will see how tender they are in the matters of God and how respectful also to Lawful Authority they shew pag. 147. that no man may command what he will in any controverted matter Ecclesiastical And then they relate this History When Alexander the Great came to Jerusalem he desired his Image to be erected in the Temple The High Priest was willing to please him in any thing wherein God was not displeased and therefore refusing with all Reverence that Idolatry what he might and what served more for the Kings Honour he offered chearfully first to begin the Account of their times from his entry into Jerusalem and 2. To name all their first-born Sons Alexanders from him Then they add What is Civil what is Domestick what is Caesar's what is ours let them be forbidden Water and Fire and their City sown with salt who refuse it let Christs Royal Prerogative who will not give his Glory to another be kept for himself May we not in so narrow a strait where we can see no way to turn neither to the right hand nor to the left open our mouths with the Obedient Asse Have we used to serve so in other matters Then they cite Peter Martyr who shews that if a Minister teach or administer the Sacraments against the Word of God he is to be repressed by the Civil Magistrate and yet not from him but from the Word of God shall he seek the Rules and Reasons of his Function And then they cite Franciscus Junius saying 1. By what Authority or example is the Magistrate moved to think that the holy Kirk of God and the simplicity of the Mysteries of Christ whose voice alone his sheep know and follow because the Father commanded that it should be heard onely John 10.27 should be clothed about with humane Traditions 2. To what end thinketh he must his things be sowed unto the Ordinances of God for if it be that she may be conform to others it were more equitable that other Kirks should conform to them who come nearest to the Word of God according to Cyprian's Counsel not that they should joyn themselves to other Kirks If it be that all things may be more decent what can be more decent than the simplicity of Christ What more simple than his decency If it be fulfilling of his own will let it be so but it must be remembred that the Will of God is the greatest necessity and that the Kirk of God in things Divine is not subject to the will of Men and what events may follow upon humane Traditions as daily experience hath shewed Then Archippus excepts saying You ever tell me what he should not do but I would hear something positive of his Power in things Ecclesiastical what he should and may do in times of contention especially Epaphras Answereth That is not my part ye know yet this I may say that as in the matter of Heresie so in the time of Schism for matters of Ceremony the Magistrate calleth a Synod representing the whole Kirk having Power definitive and the judgment of Jurisdiction according to the Word right as naturally in the Soul of Man to make it plain by a comparison the Imperial power of the Will may command the understanding quoad exercitium that is to pause upon a certain purpose and to give her determination but not quoad specificationem that is to assent or dissent or to determine to the one side more than to the other and as the same will hath actum elicitum as her essential and most proper operation and actum imperatum produced by another power of the Soul at the commandment of the Will as the Understanding to ponder and consider the Appetite to exercise Temperance Fortitude c. and out of her desire and choice of the Soveraign good of the Soul and Body setteth all the Powers of Soul and Body to work even so the Magistrate hath actum elicitum in Civil Affairs his essential and most proper Object In the matters of Gods Kirk whether for Order or Jurisdiction albeit he hath not actum elicitum he may neither Preach the Word nor minister the Sacraments nor define by himself regularly yet he hath actum imperatum he may command Ministers to Preach the Word to Celebrate the Sacraments and to Convene and determine according to the Word Archip. And say you no more is that all Epaphras And more than this he hath in all Ecclesiastical Canons or conclusions a three-fold judgment One common as a Christian another proper as a Magistrate the third Personal as a man singularly gifted As a Christian the judgment of Discretion that he believe not or practice any thing of all that which the Kirk concludeth if he find it to be against the Word As a Magistrate he must have the judgment of his Vocation to discern what concerneth the Spiritual weal and Salvation of his Subjects and accordingly to add or suspend the Sanction And as a singular Magistrate having more than ordinary gifts of Knowledge and Piety he ought to have such Interest in Determination and Jurisdiction with the Kirk as others who have more than ordinary gifts Thus we see these Godly Learned Ministers saw it necessary to shew not only what Power the Magistrate had not but also positively what Power he had in things Ecclesiastical and Divines generally who treat of these matters use to do so for preventing mistakes in so ticklish a matter And therefore Mr. H. did as became a Godly Learned and Wise man and a man who had a tender respect to Lawful Authority and that from a Principle of Conscience He speaks against all the Magistrates impositions which burdened their
Ministry he spoke against a Power formally Ecclesiastical in the Magistrate against the Magistrates exercising this Power in forming Instructions intrinsically Ecclesiastical for Regulating Ministers in the exercise of their Ministry that the matters of their Ministry were Christs matters and so not at the Magistrates Arbitrary disposal nor at the Ministers disposal either they being but Servants in these matters And as he denies to the Magistrate that Ministerial Power which Christ hath given to his Servants so he ascribes to the Magistrate that Magistratical Power which God hath given them and so obviates the Objections and Exceptions formerly mentioned For the Magistrates Power about Religion is summarily comprehended in these words the Magistrates Power objectively Ecclesiastical c. And he shews that the Magistrate is not as Papists say obliged blindly to execute the Ecclesiastick Sentences of Church-men but hath the judgment of his Vocation whereby he may judge whether he will approve or discountenance their Canons or Sentences or any way or course that they take But saith the Historian as to the main business I would further enquire whether the Brethren do judge the matter of giving these Instructions about which the Debate did arise did belong to the first part of the Discourse and so to be intrinsically and formally Ecclesiastical or to the latter part and so belong to that power of the Magistrate which is objectively Ecclesiastical This Question must be judged necessary unless that whole Discourse be accounted unnecessary and impertinent Answ 1. Whatever come of his question the necessity and pertinency of the whole of Mr. H's Discourse is already cleared to any who will not shut their eyes against the light 2. There is one of these Instructions by his own consession wholly Political viz. the confinement and therefore it is neither formally not objectively Ecclesiastical and yet it was spoken against by Mr. H. in his first Speech it being a burdensom imposition in the matter of the Ministry and so his question is not comprehensive enough and if it be resolved into a disjunctive Assertion it 's by his own grant false 3. If he apprehend that all these Instructions must either wholly belong to the first part of the Discourse or all of them onely to the second part the proposition is not necessary for some of them may belong to the first and some to the second part of the Discourse and yet all of them be burdensome impositions If the former be said saith the Historian then why was any troubled at Mr. B's refusing the Instructions Answ None was troubled for his refusing these Instructions for they all agreed not to receive them Why saith he were not these condemned who had received them Answ There were none who received them if he think that the taking of them in their hand was a receiving of them or accepting of them this is one of his false imaginations Will any say that a man who is unjustly Banished or Condemned to die does approve of the Sentence as right because he takes it in his hand The Author himself does not condemn but commend Mr. B. and yet he took them in his hand He adds Why did not such as had received them cast them back again Answ Because that would have been ill manners the Author is none of the best of Historians and I perceive he would be no good Master of manners the casting of papers at Magistrates is no good cast of that craft if he had advised them to lay them down civilly with all respect to Authority there would have been something of Civility here But to cast papers at any Magistrate let be at the Kings Councellours is an ugly rudeness that I suppose hath not been heard of where there hath been any shadow of Civility Though the Magistrate had cast these papers at them it would have been ill manners to have cast them back but when the Magistrate very civilly delivered them to the Ministers if the Ministers had cast them back to the Magistrate it would not onely have argued unmannerly and absurd rudeness but a manifest contempt of Authority I think the Author did not cast back his Act of Banishment at the Magistrate Some have better manners when they are before the Magistrates face than when they are behind their back But they who from a principle of Conscience honour Magistrates will neither contemn them before their face nor behind their back Although this casting back the Magistrates papers was ill manners yet it may be he thought it good Policy that though it was Morally ill it was Politically good as Ahithophel's Counsel was and that it was subservient to the grand Design of the new Policy which hath broken out lately in the late bond and Sanchar Declaration for this casting back the Magistrates Papers would have been a mean pretty fit to have made an outcast betwixt Magistrates and Ministers and a step to the casting off the Magistrate He adds another Question How came it saith he that all of them did not unanimously agree in this Testimony Answ In what Testimony That all these Instructions were formally and intrinsically Ecclesiastick Rules But this even in the Opinion of the Historian had been to agree in a false Testimony for he says that one of them was wholly Political And pag. 65. he does not say that all of them but he supposes that some of them were indeed formally and intrinsically Ecclesiastical Why would he have had these Ministers agreeing in a Testimony that he could not have agreed to himself This is not fair but false dealing to quarrel with Ministers because they would not agree in a falshood and in a Testimony that he could not have given himself He adds Or how came it that their common mouth did not speak what was the common Opinion of all Answ Their common mouth spoke the Opinion of all when he called all these Instructions impositions burdening them in the matters of their Ministry He spoke also the Opinion of all when he said that they could not receive Canons intrinsically Ecclesiastick c. from their Lordships He spoke also the Opinion of all when he said that though the Magistrate had not a Power formally Ecclesiastical yet he had a Power objectively Ecclesiastical and in these Mr. B. agreed with all the rest He adds Why was it not more distinctly and in fewer words said that they could not receive these Instructions as being Rules intrinsically and formally Ecclesiastical Answ He himself grants that all these Rules were not intrinsically and formally Ecclesiastical And why would he have them distinctly in few words telling a lie and that which he himself thought false It 's strange that this Author hath such an habit of erring that he seldom misses to miss the right way it 's yet more strange that he who is so habituate to wander hath so great confidence in directing others but it 's strangest of all that he hath the confidence to direct