a mean to continue unity and order in the Kirk without which it cannot be long kept They tell us that this is the very argument and language of the Advocats of the Sea of Rome and the thing that set up the Man of Sin to sit in the Temple of God as God c. So pag. 112. arg 14. They call it a Tenet purely Popish and Antichristian and cite a sentence of Duvallius concerning the duty of an Excommunicate man albeit innocent to abstain from holy things And pag. 111. arg 13. They urge the Canon of Prelates ordaining Non-submitters to the Sentences of Suspension or Deposition to be Excommunicate And generally throughout this Pamphlet they traduce it as an absolute arbitrary unlimitted Submission that is required and a tyrannicall Imposition Of all which it concerns them to see how they if they be kindly children will clear the Doctrine of their Mother-church above expressed But to give a more particular answer so far as is necessary at this time to these things 1. It is indeed too true and sadly felt that the schismaticall and turbulent carriage of such as the Authors of this Pamphlet hath given but too great advantage to all the enemies of truth and of Presbyteriall Government in particular while Popish Seminarie Priests take advantage to perswade people to the obedience of Rome since we cannot agree among our selves while prelates and their faction have occasion to boast that shortly after they were outed we run all into confusion and while Independents see no such beauty unity and order in a National Church as was given out to be under Presbyteriall Government and while they hear them traduce one of the best Reformed Churches as corrupt both in the generality of her Church-members and Ministers But that this assertion can be a stumbling to any is to us incredible For 2. If we look upon all Governments Civil or Ecelesiasticall under heaven albeit there be different judgements concerning the subject of the Authority as in a State whether the Government should be Democraticall and the Auhority in the body of the People or Aristrocraticall in the Nobles and better part or Monarchicall in one person or mixed and made up of two or all of these So in a Church whether the Authority should be in a Congregation or Congregationall Eldership in Presbyteries and Synods in Bishops or Popes of Rome Yet all agree that Subordination and Submission is due to the Authority in their persons whom they hold ought to be invested with it And particularly as for Independents we assert with Mr. Rutherfurd Peac. Plea pag. 246. that we require no other subjection than they do For they make ten to be subject to five hundreth in an Independent Congregation In so much that either these ten must submit to the determinations of the rest let them judge them never so sinfull if they cannot perswade the rest to be of their mind or else they must resolve to be cast out by Excommunication or to go out and renounce communion with that Society and make up a Church of their own But abiding in that Society the Submission is unavoidable So Mr. George Gillespie in the Assert of the Govern of the Church of Scotland part 2. chap. 4. pag. 152 153. in answer to that Objection That it is contrary to Christian liberty and the use of the private judgement of discretion to inflict Censures upon any who professe that after examination of the decrees they cannot be perswaded of the lawfulnesse of the same among other things saith This Objection doth militat no less against Ecclesiasticall Censures in a particular Congregation than in a National Synod And they who do at all approve of Church Censures to be inflicted upon the contemptuous and obstinate shall put in our mouthes an Answer to Objections of this kind Yea our Writers against the Independents and particularly the Assembly of Divines in their Answer to the Reasons of the Dissenting Brethren pag. 253 254 255. follow the charge so home that the charge of Tyranny or Injurious Independency laid by Independents at the door of National Assemblies where there is not the remedy of a General Council is most justly retorted upon themselves who take upon them to inflict the highest Censure of Excommunication without any remedy under Heaven to any grieved person it not being reversible by any on Earth but by themselves Whereas in this Government after a grieved person hath followed-up his Appeal even to a National Assembly there is yet a further possible help by a well constituted Occumencal Assembly if it may be had By all all which it appears that Independents need not take advantage of this Assertion though we and they differ about the Subject invested with the Authority The words subjoyned by these Reverend Divines pag. 255. are worthy to be marked to our purpose But say they If a person conceiving himself to be injured in a National Assembly cannot obtain redress either from another succeeding National Assembly or from a superiour Assembly he must commit his cause to God as having indeed exonered his own Conscience and pursued a remedy in the use of all lawfull means And so must he that may conceive himself wronged by Classical or Provincial Assemblies if he cannot have the opportunity of appealing further in like manner as he that thinketh himself civilly injured by the Parliament or Supream Power in a State and hath no other way to obtain redress As these are expressions beseeming the piety wisdom and moderation of men of God lovers of true Order and Government in Christs House So they clearly homologate the opinion of the worthy Presbyterians in England before them and the judgement of this Church expressed in the former Articles and do fully evince that in their judgment a party though conceiving himself injured and possibly really injured as is supposed in his liberty of appealing as was cleared before ought yet to submit to the Sentence not only till his Appeal be discussed but after also if his Appeal be decided against him even as privat men do submit to injuries from the Supream Power in a State To which purpose also we have the testimony of Mr. Henderson in his Government and Order of the Church of Scotland pag. 34 35. where agreeable to the Doctrine of ancient Presbyterians he asserteth it lawfull for a person wronged by an inferiour Assembly to seek relief of the greater providing it be done in an humble and peaceable way So also Beza Epist 68. One may appeal if he do it without tumult and publick scandal 3. As to the imputation of Popery and Prelacy cast upon us in this They are not ignorant that many before them have charged this on Presbyterial Government and have been as often answered Had they consulted with what our Divines say in this matter and among the rest with Mr. Rutherfurd in the place before cited Peac. Plea pag. 246. concerning the many differences betwixt our and
Prelates tenet to that effect and consequently do not speak to the case of passive submission which is the matter in debate betwixt us and for which we hope to give relevant grounds these principles being all granted II. As to the persons or Judicatories to whom this Submission is due We do not urge Subordination or Submission to any Judge incompetent or which is not Ecclesiasticall Nor to any Ecclesiastcal Officer or Judicatory that is not of Christs institution Nor to any corrupt society calling themselves a Church or Judicatory of Christ while they are a Synagogue of Satan standing in opposition to the Doctrine of Christ But we plead for Subordination and Submission in a true Church and to Christs own Courts and Officers in her such as we hold the Church of Scotland now constituted to be For further clearing their mistakes in this matter we shall branch-out this Assertion in these 1. We plead not for Submission to an incompetent Judicatorie or a Judicatory not Ecclesiastical Upon this account among other reasons to be after mentioned as they might have spared Amos his not submitting to Amaziah pag. 100. who was not his Judge and the Apostles not submitting to the Council at Jerusalem pag. 101. which was no Judge-competent to any Officer of the Church of the New Testament there being other Courts appointed for the Government thereof as they conveened a Synod for judging of Doctrine and censuring of Offenders Act. 15. So all their instances of Non-submission of Church-officers in the matters of their Office to Civil Authority in the first instance fall to the ground For we hope it is agreed that Erastianism is contrary to the Word of God and condemned in this Church Though as to this matter we know not what to say of the judgment of these Witnesses For on the one hand they seem to magnifie Osianders observation though none of the most Orthodox Divines nor yet the most moderate of his party concerning the liberty of fleeing to the Magistrate pag. 58 59. and yet pag. 100. they put Civil and Ecclesiastical Authority in one Classe as to the matter of Submission We are sure whatever hath been their practice of application to the Civil Power it hath not been to preserve them from persecution but that they might obtain power to persecute And if they will turn Erastians we can say no further but the more wrongs the worse and omne Schisma parit Errorem as we have too much proof of their many new principles Though indeed whatever their pretences be for their own ends they are known to be alike respective both of Civil and Ecclesiastical Authority and that the overturning of either or both is alike to them before they reach not their ends 2. We plead not for Submission to Officers and Judicatories not of Christs own institution such as not only Popes but Prelates who drew all things in subjection to their Cathedral Church as is cleared by Divines destinguishing betwixt Presbyterial and Episcopal Government and Synods and were no lawful Church-Officers So that here their arguments conclude not taken from the practice of Ministers not submitting to the Sentences of Prelates in this Church pag. 55. For 1 It is not clear to us that they did not submit to the Censures inflicted We do find the contrary supposed in the Writings of these times both of one side and other that upon these Sentences they were to be put out of their places as is insinuated in a Treatise published anno 1620. by an opposer of Conformity bearing the Title of A Dialogue betwixt Cosmophilus and Theophilus As also in Mr. Struthers Letter to the Earl of Airth in the year 1630. printed 1635. It is true some of them preached after their Sentences But it is to be remembred that whatever was the after-strictnesse of Prelats in their Canons published anno 1636. of which mention is made by these Witnesses pag. 111. Yet at their first dealling with honest men so far as they can remember who suffered by them they did not depose them simpliciter from the Ministery but only desposed or removed them from their Ministery at the Kirk where they served and from the Benefice And this they all submitted unto having by their Protestations and Declinators born testimony against them as incompetent Judges though they preached elsewhere And this is the more probable to us in that never any of these sufferers were pursued so far as we can remember with any Censure by them for their preaching after the Sentence and in that when some of them were permitted to return to their charges there was not any re-admission of them thereunto which had been necessary if they had been simpliciter deposed but a simple returning to their work 2. But suppose they did not submit and let it be yeelded also that their Non-submission was nothing the weaker that the cause for which they were Sentenced was unjust as they urge pag. 55 56. and particularly that they were Sentenced for not conforming to Popish Innovations introduced in the Church or not acknowledging Prelatical Authority which is far from our case as we shall after hear yet they laid the weight of their Non-submission upon their Judges being no Officers appointed by Christ to rule His House which some if not all of them witnessed by their Declinatures in the time of their being Sentenced For they can bring no instance of any one of them Sentenced by Presbyteries only and they not submitting And however they alleage pag. 55. that the Prelats did sometime associate to themselves the Ministery of those bounds where the supposed Delinquent served that is the Presbyterie whereof he was a member which was a lawfull Authority Yet we cannot learn that de facto they did associat these unto them in censuring such as did not submit whatever was their practice in censuring some others for grosse scandals but did proceed in these in their High Commission Court Nor do we think these Witnesses believe they did associate or call these unto them that they might act authoritatively with them as a Presbyterie but they did all by their own Authority 3. Withall it is to be remarked that however some Ministers did not give Submission to the Sentences of Prelats in this Church where Prelacy was but in introducing and was not fully setled to the divesting of Presbyteries of their power Yet the practice of Non-conformists in England where that had been the only Government from the beginning of Reformation was different where they not only submitted to the unjust Sentences of Prelats yea of their Commissaries and Officials but being quarrelled therefore by the Brownists they wrote a Treatise in defence of the Church of England and themselves since published by Mr. Rathband anno 1644. under the tittle of A most grave and modest Confutation of the Brownists wherein they assert That the Church of England being a true Church and Episcopall Government the only Church-government established by Authority though
the Apostles were known and professed enemies of the Gospel 2. The Apostles were charged not to teach in the Name of Christ nor to publish any part of the Doctrine of the Gospel which say they was more hard than their case under Bishops who though they cannot endure the truth concerning Government and Reformation of the Church yet are content the Gospel should be preached and preach it themselves They adde 3. The Apostles received not their Calling and Authority from men nor by the hands of men but immediatly from God Himself and therefore alâ—o might not be restrained or deposed by men whereas we though we exercise a function whereof God is the Author yet we are called and ordained by the ministery of men and may therefore by men be also deposed and restrained from the exercise of our Ministery Where as their first and second difference speak clearly to the second and third branches of our Question So this last doth fully speak our mind in this As to what they and Mr. Rutherfurd before them in his Preface to his Survey say of privat persons being Excommunicated their Non-submission to abstain from publick Ordinances As Excommunication is rarely pronounced in this Church except in the case of obstinacie and therefore may easily be prevented So we cannot understand how they can avoid Non-submission unless either they will forcibly obtrude themselves on Ordinances till they be thrust-out and so must come to Non-submission at last Or unlesse they get Ministers who will admit of them and so refuse to submit to the Judicatories which will at last fall in with the former case Though we in the mean time would have such a person seriously to consider whether his edification by these particular Ordinances from which he is debarred by the Sentence means simply necessary to salvation not being taken from him and the want of the rest being but his affliction not his sin take the matter in his own sense ought to be laid in the ballance with the breach made on Order in a Church constitute and setled as is said with the contempt and scandall put upon the Judicatories who yet stand invested with power to rule in Christs House yea and with the stumbling of the whole Congregation upon whom he obtrudeth himself who perhaps judge his Sentence to be as just as he counteth it unjust 2. As to the Submission of inferiour Judicatories to superiour concerning which they argue Arg. 7. pag. 107. And again Arg. 15. pag. 113 114. We grant indeed that the power of the superiour Judicatory is cumulative and not privative to the inferiour Judicatories yet it must be understood in a right sense for 1. It is granted on all hands betwixt us that by the Constitutions of this Kirk every Church-judicatory may not meddle with all things but with things that are of particular concernment within their bounds leaving things of more generall concernment to the Church to superiour Courts yea within their own bounds Congregationall Elderships do not meddle with the matter of Adultery Excommunication and Ordination of Ministers but these things come before the Presbyterie 2. Albeit inferiour Judicatories have intrinsick power given them by Christ and may exercise it independently where providence affordeth them no superiour Judicatorie yet in a Nationall Church it is the will of Christ they exercise that intrinsicall power with a Subordination to the superiour Courts so that so long as they hold the Subordination and do not renounce the Judicatories as Hereticall and corrupt they may indeed do all they have right to do yet so as they must be accountable to others in the case of Appeals or mal-administration who may lay as great claim to that promise Matth. 18. as they can And if the superiour Judicatories judge their proceedings to have been wrong in the case now before us it is no more lawfull for them than for private persons to make a Rupture by Non-submission or not suffering and being passive which will prove a remedy worse than the disease Nor doth this Subordination prove that these inferiour Judicatories must be fenced in name of the superiour Seing they know that even inferiour Civil Courts are not fenced in the name of a Parliament to whom they are subordinate And if this hold not it shall be to no purpose for superiour Judicatories to meet unlesse either to approve all that is done or else it please inferiour Judicatories to be convinced by them And indeed now it is no strange thing to see one privat Presbyterie not only reverse and declare null the Conclusions of a General Assembly but judicially declare the Assembly it self null far contrary to the Book of Discipline where it is expresly provided that Elderships or Presbyteries must alter no Rules made by Generall or Provinciall Assemblies Book 2. chap. 7. pag. 81. and no lesse contrary to the opinion of Beza Epist 44. pag. 244. who judgeth it iniquissimum intolerabile c. most injust and intolerable that things concluded in a Generall Synod should be rescinded by the Authority of one Consistorie unlesse the party passe from his right or things be agreed among parties without any detriment to Ecclesiasticall Discipline V. As to the nature of this Submission or manner of performance thereof two things are worthy our consideration for further clearing the truth in this particular 1. That in pleading for Submission in matters of Sentences as is above qualified we do not urge that men in conscience should approve of all and every of these Sentences as just however we do not therefore grant they are unjust as we shall after hear But only that what ever their judgement be they submit and suffer or be passive having done duty and exonered themselves without counteracting And that because 1. However they count them unjust yet they looking through the prospect of passion and interest may be deceived The Judge thinks them just and it may be many others yea all except the parties concerned 2. However it be yet it is better one or a few persons suffer somewhat than that a Schism be made in an Orthodox and well settled Church This being the true state of the Question and indeed a safe remedy appointed by God that when men in a Church cannot in Conscience obey a command then they may with a good Conscience submit and suffer for the Lord 's commanding us to submit and our engaging thereunto doth import there may be cases wherein we cannot give active obedience It is a miserable mistake all along in the most part of this debate that Obedience is confounded with Submission and Suffering That because a Church ought not in duty to domineer over the Flock pag. 52. therefore none of the Flock may lawfully suffer an injury or supposed so rather than do a greater injury by renting the Flock That because Prelats taught falsly that the Sentence of Superiours is a warrant sufficient to mens Consciences to give active obedience to their
shall deny them also any power over our Consciences nor shall we set them on Christs Throne which they charge upon our opinion Arg. 3. as to the acknowledgement of their Sentences to be just or any approbation in our practice and active obedience of what in our Consciences we disallow which is all can be inferred from the principles of Non-conformists concerning the freedom of Conscience mentioned also Arg. 3. Yet it cannot from all these be inferred that there is not a command of God oblieging us in Conscience to suffer unjustly rather than make a Schism and pour contempt upon standing lawfull Authority Nor is it soundly argued that because they do not their duty in their station for which they must give an account to God therefore we are not bound to suffer what we are called to in our stations Or that suppose men should play the Popes in pronouncing an unjust Sentence such as is above qualified against a man as they have it Arg. 14. Therefore the sufferer may lawfully sin too This opinion is so far from dethroning that it doth exalt Christ and doth deny to men what is not due to them and yet giveth to Christ what is due to Him Likewise when they urge so much Arg. 9 and 10. that it argueth the Scriptures of imperfection giveth what is due to them to Judicatories and must infer the infallibility of Judicatories that they must not be contradicted nor contra acted but their will must be a law as they elsewhere tell us There is all along a great mistake in the case For not only is that of not contradicting put in without cause seing men may contradict as to the declaration of their judgement when yet they submit But we never asserted a Judicatory might be contra-acted in no case as we cleared before in laying aside their eleventh Argument and other reasonings we are only now debating about Submission to Sentences qualified as is above expressed And what submission we pay in these we are so far from setting up mens infallibility or from derogating from the Scriptures as to their perfection and sole Authority over our Consciences that it is not out of conscience of the justice of the Sentence but in obedience to the sole command of God bidding us respect lawfull Authority and suffer in such cases that we pay it And it is upon the supposition of the Judges fallibility yea and their erring actually that we presse this Submission as contra-distinct to active obedience So also as to the Scriptures which they cite Arg. 2. That we should not be the servants of men but stand fast in our Christian liberty and obey God rather than men They have borrowed these weapons from Independents who as Mr. Rutherfurd telleth us Peac. Plea pag. 193. borrowed them from Anabaptists and Socinians arguing against the places of Kings Judges and Magistrates But the argument is easily answered that we obey God and not men and are His servants and not theirs in this Submission And that the people of God are free as to the enslaving of their Conscience with the approbation or their practice with doing of any thing that is unjust yet they have not an immunity from stouping to suffer when God calls them to it And let the case be but instanced in a Magistrates unjust Sentence against particular persons and it will say for it self whether their Christian liberty will reach a Non-submission or not Likewise when they urge Arg. 12. that unjust Sentences are null in themselves and therefore cannot bind to Submission and subjection We grant that in foro interno it is a null Sentence not oblieging the Conscience to any approbation thereof Yet in foro externo it is so far valide as a man cannot deny submission thereunto without sinning against God in contemning the standing lawfull Authority of a Church in making a Schism and declining to suffer when God calleth him to it And in this the very Independents agree though they differ about the subject invested with the power of the keyes for they tell us in their Defence of the nine Positions pag. 210. That a Minister derives all his authority from Christ by the Church indeed applying that Office to him to which the authority is annexed by the institution of Christ Hence being the Minister of Christ to them if they without Christ depose him they hinder the exercise of his Office but his right remaineth 2. While they urge that Ministers are over us in the Lord 1 Thess 5.12 Arg. 1. And that we are to be subordinate to Church-power only in the Lord pag. 95 96. That is so far from warranting Non-submission and contra-acting in the Question betwixt us that it doth strongly assert it For to omit many other things which the Learned finde imported in this to be subject in the Lord as it imports 1. An acknowledgment in our Consciences of their lawfull Authority And 2. active obedience to what they command in the Lord So 3. in the case of an unjust Sentence it requireth such submission and passive obedience as He hath enjoyned us in His Word in such cases which what it is hath been spoken to before and so it confirmeth our Assertion That this is not a forced Interpretation may appear were it but from this one consideration That this qualification of Submission and Obedience in the Lord is not required in reference to Chruch-judicatories only but of children also in reference to their Parents and consequently of all inferiours paying subjection to their Superiours in their several stations as is clear from Eph. 6.1 Col. 3.18 and elsewhere Now it is not to be supposed that the Apostle warranteth children servants or subjects to resist and counteract all the unjust corrections and Sentences of their Masters and Superiours but that they should submit and suffer rather For we find in Scripture that it is the commendable duty of children to submit to their parents even when they chasten them for their pleasure only Heb. 12.9 10. As also of christian servants to suffer unjustly under their bad Masters 1 Pet. 2.18 19 20. and generally of all Christians to suffer under their persecuting Magistrats 1 Pet. 3.14 15 16 17. and 4.12 13 14.15 16. and frequently throughout the Scriptures And this together with what hath formerly been produced may satisfie that part of Arg. 1. wherein they call for a precept or precedent in Scripture to clear this matter For here we find there is Scripture-warrant for this Submission to which we may adde That the practice of the suffering People of God in all generations is a clearer Commentary to these Texts than all the glosses tending but to sedition schism and confusion of human society they can fasten upon them 3. While they urge Arg. 15. pag. 113 114. That this brings in a Tyranny in the Church and by parity of reason condemneth defensive Arms which are judged lawfull against State-tyranny We are so far from allowing Tyranny or Injustice