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A29197 A fair warning for England to take heed of the Presbyterian government of Scotland as being of all others the most injurious to the civil magistrates, most oppressive to the subject, most pernicious to both : as also the sinfulnesse and wickednesse of the covenant to introduce that government upon the Church of England / by Dr. John Brumhall [sic], Lord Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland.; Fair warning to take heed of the Scotish discipline Bramhall, John, 1594-1663. 1661 (1661) Wing B4220; ESTC R4624 33,023 44

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cumulative and onely auxiliary or assisting Besides the power which they call abusively authoritative but is indeed ministeriall of executing their decrees and contributing to their settlement they ascribe to the Magistrate concerning the Acts of Synods that which every private man hath a judgement of ●iscretion but they retain to themselves the judgement of Iurisdiction And if he judge not as they would have him but suspend out of conscience th● influence of his politicall power where they would have him exercise it they will either teach him another point of Popery that is an implicite faith or he may perchance ●eel the weight of their Church-censures and find quickly what manner of men they be as our late Gratious King Charles and before him his Father his Grandmother and his great Grandmother did all to their cost Then in plain English what is this politicall Power to call Synods to preside in Synods and to ratifie Synods which these good men give to the Magistrate and magnifie so much I shall tell the truth It is a duty which the Magistrate ows to the Kirk when they think necessary to have a Synod convocated to strengthen their summons by a civill Sanction to secure them in coming to the Synod and returning from the Synod to provide them good accommodation to protect them from dangers to defend their Rights and Priviledges To compel obstinate persons by civill Laws and punishments to submit to their censures and decrees What gets the Magistrate by all this to himself He may put it all in his eye and see never a whit the worse For they declare expresly that neither all the power nor any part of the power which Synods have to deliberate of or to define Ecclesiasticall things though it be in relation to their own Subjects doth flow from the Magistrate but because in those things which belong to the outward man mark the reason the Church stands in need of the help of the Magistrate Fair fall a● ingenuous confession they attribute nothing to the Magistrate but only what may render him able to serve their own turns and supply their needs I wish these men would think a little more of the distinction between habituall and actuall Jurisdiction After a School-master hath his License to teach yet his actuall Jurisdiction doth proceed from the Parents of his Scholars And though he enjoy a kind of Supremacy among them he must not think that this extinguisheth either his own filiall duty o● theirs Like this power of presiding politically in Synods is the other power which they give him of reforming the Church that is when the State of the Church is corrupted but not when it is pure as they take it for granted that it is when the Jurisdiction is in their own hands Although godly Kings and Princes someti●● 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 Iud●● and divers godly Emperours and Kings also in the light of the New Testament yet where the Ministry of the Kirk is once lawfully constituted 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 Leave this jugling who shall judge when the Church is corrupted the Magistrates or Church-men if the Magistrates why not over you as well as others If the Church-men why not others as well as you here is nothing to be answered but to beg the question that they only are the true Church Hear another witnesse in evill and troublesome times and in a lapsed state of affairs when the order instituted by God in the Church is degenerated to Tyranny to the trampling upon the true Religion and oppressing the professors of it when nothing is sound the godly Magistrate may do some things which ordinarily are not lawfull c. But ordinarily and of common right in Churches already constituted if a man flye to the Magistrate complaining that he is injured by the abuse of Ecclesiasticall Discipline or if the Sentence of the Presbyteries displease the Magistrate either in point of Discipline or of Faith he must not therefore draw such causes to a civill tribunall nor introduce a Politicall Papacy And as the Magistrate hath power in extraordinary causes when the Church is wholly corrupted to reforme Ecclesiasticall abuses so if the Magistrate shall Tyrannize over the Church it is lawfull to oppose him by certain wayes and meanes extraordinarily how ever ordinarily not to be allowed This is plain dealing the Magistrate cannot lawfully reforme them but in cases extraordinary and in cases extraordinary they may lawfully reforme the Magistrate ●y meanes not to be ordin●rily allowed that is by force of armes See the principles from whence all our miseries and the losse of our gratious Master hath flowed and learn to detest them They give the Magistrate the custody of both Tables so they do give the same to themselves they keep the second Table by admonishing him he keeps the first Table by assisting them they reforme the abuses of the first Table by ordinary right of the s●cond Table extraordinari●y He reforms the abuses against the second Table by ordinary right and the abuses against the first Table extraordinarily But can the Magistrate according to their learning call the Sy●od to an account for any thing they do can he remedy the erto●rs of a Synod either in Doctrine or Discipline No if Magistrates had power to change or diminish or restraine the Rights of the Church the Condition of the Church should be worse and their Liberties less under a Christian Magistrate than und●r an Heathen For say they Parliaments and supreame Senates are no more infallible th●n Synods and in matters of Faith and Discipline more apt to ●rre And again the Magistrate is ●ot judge of Spirituall caus●s co●troverted in the Church And if he decree any thing in such businesses according to the wisdom of the flesh and not according to the rule of Gods Word and the wisdome which is from above he must give an account of i● unto God Or may the Supreame Magistrate oppose the execution of their discipline practised in their Presbyteries or Synods by Laws o● prohibitions No it is wickednesse If he do so farre abuse his Authority good Christians must rather suffer extremities th●● obey him Then what remedy hath the Magistrate if he find himself gri●ved in this case He may desire and procure a review in another Nationall Synod that the matter may be lawfully determined by Ecclesiasticall judgement Yet upon this condition the notwithstanding the future review the first sentence of the Synod be executed without delay This is one main branch of Popery and agrosse incrochment upon the right of the Magistrate CHAP. III. That this Discipline
profane use of any perso● is detestable Sacriledge before God And elsewhere Gentle●●● Barons Earls Lords and others must be content to live 〈◊〉 their just rents and suffer the Kirk to be restored to her Li●erty What this Liberty is follows in the same place all things given in hospitality all rents pertaining to Priests Chanteries Colledges Chappetries Frieries of all orders the Sisters of the Seens all which ought to be retained still in the use of the Kir● Give them but leave to take their breath and expect the rest T●● whole reven●es of the temporalities of Bishops Deans and An●Deans Lands and all rents pertaining to Cathedrall Kirks Then supposing an Objection that the Possessours had Leases and Estates they answer That those who made them were thieves and murtherers and had no power to alienate the common Good of the Kirk They desire that all such Estates may be anulled and avoided that all Collectours appointed by the King or others may be discharged from intermedling therewith and the Deacons permitted to collect the same yea to that height of madnesse were th●y come as to define and determine in their Assembly judge whether it be not a modest constitution for a Synod That the next Parliament the Church should be fully restored to its Patrimony and that nothing should be p●st in Parliament untill that was first considered and approved Let all Estates take notice of these pretensions and designs If their project have not yet taken eff●ct it is only because they wanted sufficient strength hitherto to accomplish it Lastly by their own Authority under the specious title of Iesus Christ King of Kings and Lord of Lords the only Monarch of his Church and under pretence of his Prerogative Royall they erected their own Courts and Presbyteries in the most parts of Scotland long before th●y were legally approved or received as appeareth by their own Act alledging that many suites had been made to the Magistrate for approbation of the Policy of the Kirk which had not taken that happy effect which good men would crave And by another Act acknowledging that Presbyteries were then established Synodically in most parts of the Kingdome And lastly by the Act of another Generall Assem●ly at Edenburg ordaining that the Discipline contained in the Acts of the Generall Assembly should be kept as well in Agnus and Mernis as in the rest of the Kingdome You see sufficiently in point of practice how the Disciplinarians have trampled upon the Laws and justled the civill Magistrate out of his Supremacy in Ecclesiasticall Affaires My next ●ask shall be to shew that this proceeds not from Inanimadvertence or Passion but from their Doctrine and Principles First They teach that no persons Magistrates nor others have power to Vote in their Synods but only Ecclesiasticall Secondly They teach that Ecclesiasticall perso●s have ●he sole power of convening and convocating such Assembles All Ecclesiasticall Assemblies have power to convene lawfully together for treating of things concerning the Kirk They have power to appoint times and places Again Nationall Assemblies of thi● Countrey ought alwayes to be retained in their own Liberties with power to the Kirk to appoint times and places Thus they make it a Liberty that is a Priviledge of the Church a part of its Patrimony not only to convene but to convocate whomsoever whensoever wheresoever Thirdly For point of Power they teach that Synods have the judgement of true and false Religion of Doctrine Heresies c. the election admission suspension deprivation of Ministers th● determination of all things that pertain to the Discipline of the Church The judgement of Ecclesiasticall matters causes ben●ficiary matrimoniall and others Iurisdiction to proceed to excommunication against those that rob the Church of its Patrimony They have legislative Power to make rules and constitutions for keeping good order in the Kirk They have power to abr●gate and abolish all Statutes and Ordinances concerning Ecclesiasticall matters that are found noisome and unprofitable and agree not with the time or are abused by the people And all this without any Reclamation or Apellation to any Iudge Civill 〈◊〉 Ecclesiasticall Fourthly They teach that they have these priviledges not from the Magistrate or People or particular Laws of any other Countrey The Magistrate can not execute the censures of the Church nor prescribe any rule how it should be done but Ecclesiasticall power floweth immediately from God and from the Mediatour Iesus Christ. And yet further The Church cannot be governed by others than those Ministers and Stewards set over it by Christ nor otherwise than by his Laws And therefore there is no power on earth that can challenge to it self a Command or Domini●● upon the Church And again It is prohibited by the Law of God and of Christ for the Christian Magistrate to invade the Government of the Church and consequently to challenge to himself the right of both Swords spirituall and temporall And if any Magistrate do arrogate so much to himself the Church shall have cause to complain and exclaime that the Pope is changed but the Papacy remains So if Kings and Magistrates stand in their way they are Political Popes as well as Bishops are Ecclesiasticall Whatsoever these men do is in the Name of our Lord Iesus and by Authority delegated from him alone Lastly They teach that they have all this Power not only without the Magistrate but against the Magistrate that is although he dissent and send out his prohibitions to the contrary Parliamentary ratifications can no way alter Church Canons concerning the Worship of God For Eccclesiasticall Discipline ought to be exercised whether it be ratified by the civill-Magistrate or not The want of a civill Sanction to the Church is but like Lucrum cessans non damnum emergens As it addes nothing to it so it takes nothing away from it If there be any clashing of Jurisdictions or defect in this kind they lay the fault at the Magistrates doore It is a great sinne or wickednesse for the Magistrate to hinder the exercise or execution of Ecclesiasticall Discipline Now we have seen the pernicious practices of their Synods with the Doctrines from which they flow it remains to dispel umbrages wherewith they seek to hide the ugliness of their proceedings and principles from the eyes of the world We say they do give the Christian Magistrate a politicall Power to convocate Synods to preside in Synods to ratifie the Acts of Synods to reform the Church We make him the keeper of both Tables Take nothing and hold it fast here are good words but they signifie nothing Trust me whatsoever the Disciplinarians do give to the Magistrate it is alwayes with a saving of their own stakes not giving for his advantage but their own For they teach that this power of the Christian Magistrate is not private and destructive to the power of the Church but
robs the Magistrate of the last appeale of ●i● Subjects THe second flows from this The last appeal ought to be the Supreame Magistrate or Magistrates within his or their Dominions as to the highest Power under God And where it is not so ordered the Common-wealth can injoy no tranquility ●s we shall see in the second part of this discourse By the Laws of England if any man find himself grieved with the sentence o● consistoriall proceedings of a Bishop or of his Officers he may appeal from the highest judicatory of the Church to the King i● Chancery who useth in that case to grant Commissions under the great Seal to Delegates expert in the Laws of the Realme wh● have power to give him remedy and to see Justice done In Scotland this would be taken in great scorn as an high indignity upon the Commissioners of Christ to appeal from his Tribunal to the judgement of a mortal man In the year 1582. King Iames by his Letter by his Messenger the Master of Requests and by an Herald at Arms prohibited the Assembly at Saint Andrews to proceed in the case of one Mongomery and Mongomery hims●lf appealed to Caesar or to King and Councel What did our new Matters upon this They sleighted the Kings Letter his Messenger his Herald reject●d the Appeal as made to an incompetent Judge and proceeded most violently in the cause About four years after this another Synod held at Saint Andrews proceeded in like manner against the Bishop of that Se● for Voting in Parliament according to his conscience and for being suspected to have penned a Declaration published by the King and Parliament at the end of the Statutes notwithstanding that he declined their judicature and appealed to the King and Parliament When did any Bishops dare to doe such acts There need no more instances their Book of Discipline it s●lf being so full in the case From the Kirk there is no reclamation or appellation to any Judge Civil or Ecclesiastical within the Realm CHAP. IV. That it exempts the Ministers from due Punishment THirdly If Ecclesiastick Persons in their Pulpits or Assemblies shall leave their Text and proper work to turn Incendiaries Trumpeters of sedition stirring up the people to tumults and disloyal attempts in all well-ordered Kingdoms and Commonwealths they are punishable by the Civil Magistrate whose proper office it is to take cognizance of Treason and Sedition It was well said by a King of France to some such seditious Sheba's That if they would not let him alone in their Pulpits he would send them to preach in another climate In the Vnited Provinces there want not examples of seditious Oratours who for controlling their Magistrates too sawcily in the Pulpit have been turned both out of their Churches and Cities without any fear of wresting Christs Scepter out of his hand In Geneva it self the correction of Ecclesiastical persons qua tales is expresly reserved to the Signiory So much our Disciplinarians have ou●-done their pattern as the passionate writings of heady men out-do the calmer decrees of a stayed Senate But the Ministers of Scotland have exempted themselves in this case from all secular judgement as King Iames who knew them best of any man living witnesseth They said He was an incompetent Iudge in such cases and that matters of the Pulpit ought to be exempted from the judgement and correction of Princes They themselves speak plain enough It is an absurd thing that sundry of them Commissaries having no function of the Kirk should be Iudges to Ministers and depose them from their rooms The reason holds as well against Magistrates as Commissaries To passe by the sawcy and seditious expressions of Mr Dury Mr Mellvill Mr B●lcanqu●ll and their impunity Mr Iames Gibson in his Sermon taxed the King for a Persecutor and threatned him with a curse that he should die childless and be the last of his race for which being convented before the Assembly and not appearing he was onely suspended during the pleasure of his brethren he should have been suspended indeed that is hanged But at another Assembly in August following upon his all●gation that his not appearing was out of his tender care of the Rights of the Church he was purged from his contumacy without once so much as acquainting his Majesty The case is famous of Mr David Blake Minister of St Andrews who had said in his Sermon That the King had discovered the treachery of his heart in admitting the Popish Lords into the Countrey That all Kings were the Devils barns that the Devil was in the Court and in the guiders of it And in his prayer for the Queen he used these words We must pray for her for fashion sake but we have no cause she will never do us any good He said that the Queen of England Queen Elizabeth was an Atheist that the Lords of the Session were miscreants and bribers that the Nobility were degenerated godless dissemblers and enemies to the Church that the Councel were holly glasses Cormorants and men of no Religion I appeal to all the Estates in Europe what punishment could be severe enough for such audacious virulence The English Ambassadour complains of it Blake is cited before the Councel The Commissioners of the Church plead That it will be ill taken to bring Ministers in question upon such trifling delations as inconsistent with the liberties of the Church They conclude that a Declinatour should be used and a Protestation made against those proceedings saying It was Gods cause wherein they ought to stand to all haz●rds Accordingly a Declinatour was framed and presented Blake desires to be remitted to the Presbytery as his Ordinary The Commissioners send the Copie of the Declinatour to all the Presbyteries requiring them for the greater corroboration of their doings to subscribe the same and to commend the cause in hand in their private and publick prayers to God using their best credit with their flocks for the maintenance thereof The King justly incensed herewith dischargeth the Commissioners Notwithstanding this Injunction they stay still and send Delegates to the King to represent the inconveniences that might ensue The King more desirous to decline their envy than they his judgement offers peace The Commissioners refuse it and present an inso●ent Petition which the King rejects deservedly and the cause was heard th● very day that the Princes Elizabeth now Queen of Bohemia w●s Christened The witnesses were produced Mr Robert Ponte in the name of the Church makes a Pretestation Blake presents a second D●clinatour The Councel decree that the cause being treasonable is cognoscible before them The good King still seeks peace sends Messengers treats offers to remit but it is labour in vain The Ministers answer peremptorily by Mr Robert Bruce their Prolocutor That the liberty of Christs Kingdom had received such a wound by this usurpation of the Rights of the Church that if the lives of Mr Blake
and twenty others had been taken it would not have grieved the hearts of good people so much as these injurious proceedings The King still woos and conferres At last the matter is concluded That the King shall make a Declaration in favour of the Church that Mr Blake shall only make an acknowledgment to the Queen and be pardoned But Mr Blake refuseth to confesse any fault or to acknowledge the King and Councel to be any Judges of his Sermon Hereupon he is convicted and sentenced to be guilty of false and treasonable slanders and his punishment referred to the King Still the King treats makes Propositions unbeseeming his Majesty once or twice The Ministers reject them proclaim a Fast raise ● Tumult in Edenburgh Petition preferre Articles The King departeth from ●he City removeth his Courts of Iustice the peop●e repent the Ministers persist and seek to engage the Subjects in a Covenant for mutual Defence One Mr Walsh in his Sermon tells the people That the King was possessed with a Devil yea with seven Devils that the Subjects might lawfully rise and take the sword out of his hands The seditious encouraged from the Pulpit send a Letter to the Lord Hamilton to come and be their General He nobly refuseth and sheweth their Letter to the King Hereupon the Mini●ters are sought for to be apprehended and flie into England The Tumult is declared to be Treason by the Estates of the Kingdom I have urged this the more largely yet as succinctly as I could to let the world see what dangerous Subjects these Disciplinarians are and how inconsistent their principles be with all orderly Societies CHAP. V. That it subjects the Supreme Magistrate to their Censures c. FOurthly They have not onely exempted themselves in their duties of their own Function from the Tribunal of the Sovereign Magistrate or Supream Senate but they have subjected him and them yea even in the discharge of the Sovereign Trust to their own Consistories even to the highest Censure of Excommunication which is like the cutting of a member from the body Natural or the out-lawing of a Subject from the body politic● Excommunication that very Engine whereby the Popes of old advanced themselves above Emperours To discipline must all the Estates within this Realm be Subject as w●ll Rulers as they tha● are ruled And elswhere All men as well Magistrates as Inferiours ought to be subject to the judgement of General Assembli●● And yet again No man that is in the Church ought to be exempted from Ecclesiastical Censures What h orrid and pernicious mischiefs do use to attend the Excommunication of Sovereign Magistrates I leave to every mans memory or imagination Such cours●s make great Kings become cyphers and turn the tenure of ● Crown Copy-hold ad voluntatem Dominorum Such Doctrines might better become some of the Roman Alexanders or B●nifaces or Gregorius or Pius Quintus than such great Prosessors of Humility such great disclaimers of Authority who have inveighed so bitterly against the Bishops for their usurpations This was never the practice of any orthodox Bishop St Ambrose is mistaken what he did to Theodosius was no act of Ecclesiastical jurisdiction but of Christian discretion No he was better grounded David said Against thee onely have I sinned because he was a King Our Disciplinarians abhorre the name of Authority but hugge the thing their profession of Humility is just like that Cardinals hanging up of a Fishers Net in his Dining-room to put him in mind of his discent but so soon as he was made Pope he took it down saying The Fish was caught now there was no more need of the Net CHAP. VI. That it robs the Magistrate of his Dispensative Power FIfthly All supreame Magistrates do assume to themselves a power of pardoning offences and offenders where they judge it to be expedient He who believes that the Magistrate cannot with a good conscience dispence with the punishment of a penitent malefactour I wish him no greater censure than that the penall Laws might be duly executed upon him untill he recant his errour But our Disciplinarians have restrained this dispensative power in all such crimes as are made capitall by the judiciall Law as in the case of Bloud Adultery Blasphemy c. in which cases they say the offender ought to suffer death as God hath commanded And If the life be spared as it ought not to be to the offenders c. And the Magistrate ought to preferre Gods expresse commandment before his own corrupt judgement especially in punishing these crimes which he commandeth to be punished with death When the then Popish Earls of Angus Huntley and Erroll were excommunicated by the Church and forfeited for treasonable practices against the King it is admirable to read with what wisdome and charity and sweetnesse his Majesty did seek from time to time to reclaime them from their errours and by their unfeigned conversion to the reformed Religion to prevent their punishment Wherein he had the concurrence of two Conventions of Estates the one at Falkland the other at Dumfermling And on the other side to see with what bitternesse and radicated malices they were prosecuted by the Presbyteries and their Commissioners sometimes Petitioning That they might have no benefit of Law as being excommunicated Sometimes threatning that they were resolved to pursue them to the uttermost though it should be with the loss of all their lives in one day That if they continued enemies to God and his Truth the Countrey should not brook both them and the Lords together Sometimes pressing to have their Estates confiscated and their lives taken away Alledging for their ground that by Gods Law they had deser●ed death And when the King urged that the bosom of the Church should be ever open to penitent sinners they answered That the Church could not refuse their satisfaction if it was truly offered but the King was obliged to do justice What do you think of those that roar out Iustice Iustice now adayes whether they be not the right spawn of these Bloud-suckers Look upon the examples of Cain Esau Ishmael Antiochus Antichrist and tell me if you ever find such supercilious cruel bloud-thirsty persons to have been pious towards God but their Religion is commonly like themselves stark naught Cursed be their anger for it was fierce and their wrath for it was cruel These are some of those incroachments which our Disciplinarians have made upon the rights of all Supreame Magistrates there be sundry others which especially concerne the Kings of Great Brittain as the losse of his tenths first-fruits and patronages and which is more than all these the dependence of his Subjects by all which we see that they have thrust out the Pope indeed but retained the Papacy The Pope as well as they and they as well as the Pope neither barrel better Herrings do make Kings but half Kings Kings of the bodies not of the souls of