Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	great_a	king_n	scot_n	9,204	5	9.7215	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51154	An apology for the clergy of Scotland chiefly oppos'd to the censures, calumnies, and accusations of a late Presbyterian vindicator, in a letter to a friend : wherein his vanity, partiality and sophistry are modestly reproved, and the legal establishment of episcopacy in that kingdom, from the beginning of the Reformation, is made evident from history and the records of Parliament : together with a postscript, relating to a scandalous pamphlet intituled, An answer to The Scotch Presbyterian eloquence.	Monro, Alexander, d. 1715?	1693 (1693)	Wing M2437; ESTC R20155	87,009	107

to connive a while at at their Insolence for they had preached the People into a persuasion that the King was to betray his own Crown and Kingdoms to the King of Spain And when three Noblemen were brought to Tryal before the Justice the Ministers would needs order the Process in October 1593 and to back them they stirred up multitudes of the Rabble to Arms thereby to force Justice to decide in their favour nor would they disband or abstain from coming before the Judges in armed Crowds although the King and Council did by Proclamation prohibit them If this be Presbyterian Government it must be confessed that Anno 1590 1591 1592 and 1593. Presbyters had it solely But all this time Bishops did exist by Law enjoyed their Rents and preached in their Churches if you trust not us Notice the most Authentic Records of the Kingdom By Act of Parliament 1. Jac. 6. Chap. 7. Ministers are ordered to be presented by the Patrons to the Superintendent of the Diocese Note At this time most of the Bishops were Popish which occasioned the Protestants to appoint Superintendents Anno 1572. Parl. 3. Jac. 6. Chap 45. The Government of the Church is declared to be in the Archbishops Bishops and Superintendents Note Both Bishops and Superintendents are contemporary then in the Church The like owned Chap. 46. 48. and 54. of that Parliament In the year 1573. The Authority of the Bishops is owned by the first Act of the 4. Par. Jac. 6. In the year 1578. the like by Act. 63. Parl. 5. Jac. 6. In the year 1579. the like by Act. 71. Parliam 6. Jac. 6. In the year 1581. That the Bishops did continue in the Church appears from Act 100. Parl. 7. Jac. 6. The like appears from the Acts 106 and 114 of that Parliament In the year 1584. The Bishops Authority fully owned Act. 132. Parl. 8. Jac. 6 In the year 1587. It appears that Prelacy existed then by Act 28. Parl. 11. Jac. 6. Also in that 11. Parl. It appears by the Act of Annexation that Prelacy did still exist by Law even although their Temporalties were annexed to the Crown and by the 111. Act of that 11. Parl. In the year 1591 1592 1593 and 1594. The King and Bishops could not stop the Insolence of Presbyters nor their meeting in Synods and Assemblies without any interposition of the Royal Authority but this hindered not but that the Bishops did still exist by Law and exerced some part of their Office and in all Parliaments and Conventions of Estates the Prelates did did always Sit and Vote as the first of the three Estates as the Records and Sederunts of all the Parliaments will prove In the year 1596. Leslie Bishop of Ross dying at Brussels Mr. David Lindsey was presented by the King to the Bishoprick the very next year In the year 1598. there was a Conference appointed at Falkland betwixt the Commissioners of the Assembly and some appointed by the King to meet with them where they agreed on ten Articles or Propositions of Policy for the Church relating chiefly to the Clergy's Votes in Parliament and the Elections of Bishops in the Dioceses some of these Propositions were foolish but it was thought convenient that the King should comply with those Hot Heads in some things for at that time Severals began to debate his Right of Succession to the Crown of England and so he would have all quiet at Home yet still this is evident that Bishops did then exist by Law and that altho something concerning them was debated yet their Office and Order was not In the year 1600 these forementioned Articles were appoved in the Assembly at Monross March 28 1600. and to that Assembly Mr. Dury who was the chief Tool with Mr. Melvil for parity at his death did write an Exhortation disowning his former Errors and earnestly advising them to submit to the ancient Order and to chuse good Bishops of the best of the Ministers In the year 1601. the King called an Assembly of the Church to meet at Brunt Island where many good things were Enacted both for the true Liberty of the Church and for reclaiming the Popish Nobility from their Errors which proved more effectual and pacific than all the former furious Methods which at that time were promoted by a Hot Headed Man called Davidson who by a Letter to the Assembly incited them to declare against the Kings Hypocrisie and other Errors The Assembly would have proceeded to Censure him but the King would not allow it saying it was matter of Joy that these Hot Heads were reduced to one or some few In the year 1602. the King in an Assembly at Halyrood-House did shew great Clemency to some firy Ministers whom the Assembly would have Censured as also he gave great Satisfaction to the whole Assembly and Nation by his excellent Proposals for establishing Provisions both for Bishops and Presbyters And in this Assembly of the Church was the fifth of August appointed an Anniversary Thanksgiving for the Kings Delivery from Gowry's Conspiracy Before the Diet appointed for the next General Assembly the Crown of England did fall to the King by the Death of Queen Elizabeth so there was no meeting of Church General Assemblies for a while but the few remaining Hot Headed Presbyters were very busie on the Kings removal so far and fearing the excellent Order of the English Church the great Safety and Peace of Britain depending on an intire and full Concord of the Island they were apprehensive that upon such Considerations the King would heartily promote a further Establishment of Episcopal Jurisdiction in Scotland The Presbyterians in this Juncture did busily stir up Prejudices in the People against the Church of England tho undoubtedly the best Reformed Church and greatest Bulwark against Popery And though the King for good Reasons when he went to England Adjourned the General Assembly from July 1604 to July 1605. yet these Men prevailed with Nine of the Fifty Presbyteries of Scotland to keep the Meeting notwithstanding of the Kings Prorogation where Thirteen Persons meeting did most Seditiously run into such Declarations against the Statutes and standing Laws as were by the Judicatures declared Treason and for which Severals of the Thirteen were Condemned before the Justices For they could not be persuaded either to acknowledge or revoke their seditious Pasquils but they were afterwards pardoned by the King when they confessed that the Chancellour encouraged their Meeting in July 1604. and proved it which forced the Chancellour to prove likewise that they promised to connive at his being a Papist and his Possession of what he had of the Church Lands upon Condition he should own them against Episcopacy whereupon the King said that the Presbyterians would betray the Protestant Religion in hatred to Episcopacy and the Chancellour would betray Episcopacy for greed of their Temporalties So far my Author And now from all this I infer that the first Reformers of our Religion in

from all imputations of Cruelty and Violence And therefore unless we prove them sober and intelligent he thinks all our Complaints of the Outrage and Tumults of the Presbyterians are vain and impertinent But are not the Cameronians Presbyterians To what Communion then do they belong Have they any Principles Discipline or Worship different from the Presbyterians Were not their Leading Men lately owned and received by the pretended General Assembly without retracting any Articles of Doctrine or disowning any of their Practices that they so zealously recommended to their Followers in the West This is a very pleasant Fancy that the Author should endeavor to hide the Tumults and Insurrections of that Party by changing the name of Presbyterian into Cameronian The Donatists in Africk as readily all Schismaticks do split themselves into two great Factions viz. The Primianists and the Maximianists What Sacrilegious Villanies they committed and all under the Pretext of Zeal and Reformation every body knows But pray What an impertinent Apology could it have been for the Donatists to say that it was true indeed there were a great many Barbarities committed upon the Clergy their Families Churches Altars and Sacred Utensils and upon the People adhereing to their Communion but that such Indignities were not committed by the sober intelligent Donatists they intended no more than the Reformation of Abuses by orderly and Imperial Edicts Their Zeal against the Traditores only put them upon extraordinary attempts of Reformation It could not be denied but that the African Church and the Catholick Clergy there were sadly opprest and run down by a company of mad and ungovernable Enthusiasts but the sober and intelligent Donatists were not to be blamed They were either the Primianists or the Maximianists that committed such Extravagancies and disorders or which is most probable they were committed by the Circumcellians a third Division of that unhappy Family Now the Author makes just such another Apology for the Presbyterians of Scotland He cannot deny but that the Orthodox Clergy in the Western Shires were miserably harassed but the sober and intelligent Presbyterians are not to be blamed We do easily grant him that the Presbyterians that were most instrumental in the Disasters of the Clergy were not sober men though the most intelligent amongst them did contrive and manage the irregular Heats and Motions of their own Partizans But to expose the vanity of this Apology a little more closely We know no Opinions that Mr. Cameron propagated or entertained that were peculiar to himself He followed most closely and ingenuously the Hypothesis of the old and zealous Presbyterians and the plain Truth is Mr. Cameron was not a man very proper to be the Founder of a new Sect. He built upon the Notions that he was taught by his Brethren and the Presbyterians are obliged for this word Cameronian to the Episcopal Clergy who mean no more by this word but a Presbyterian whose Zeal for his Faction after the Example of Mr. Cameron over drives him violently beyond all Bounds of discretion And yet I cannot but commend their Artifice in this The word Presbyterian is known in England but the word Cameronian is not and therefore this distinction for distinctions are of great use sometimes of Presbyterian and Cameronian is a very plausible Defence in England to disprove all the complaints made by the Episcopal Clergy As if the Cameronians were a new Species of Schismaticks different from the Presbyterians and that we had three considerable divisions of Christians in Scotland the Episcopal Party the Presbyterians and the Cameronians Whereas indeed we know of none but two And the Cameronians are those Presbyterians that have studyed their own Principles most accurately and draw from those Principles such practical Conclusions as they naturally and necessarily yield I know not how this Author can make his Peace with the Cameronians For the whole Nation knows that those Presbyterians whom he Nicknames Cameronians did assert their Presbyterian Principles when others were very silent and upon this they value themselves as the most Pious Active and ingenuous of the whole Party who differ not from others in their Principles but do exceed some of their Brethren in higher degrees of Zeal and Sincerity to promote the Interest of their Combination But pray What is it that the Cameronians have done that they might not have done upon Presbyterian Principles For it is a received Maxim amongst them That the people may especially in Conjunction with their Pastors reform the Church when the Magistrate is slack or remiss in his duty or opposite unto the designed Reformation Now the removal of the Episcopal Clergy upon their Hypothesis was a necessary mean to advance this glorious Reformation And what is there in the most Barbarous Rabbling of the Clergy inconsistent with the Presbyterian Principles Can Religion prosper in our Nation unless the Bishops and their Adberents be extirpated And is not Presbyterian Government the immediate and express Institution of our Lord and Saviour Is not the exercise of Presbyterian Discipline the Administration of his Royal Kingdom and Scepter And may we be less serious in asserting his Kingly Office than in defending his Priestly and Prophetical Office Did not the Presbyterian Church of Scotland upon all Turns wrestle with Authority about this great Truth And does the Author think that they ought not to interpose in so Critical a Juncture to rescue themselves from the Bondage of the Antichristian Hierarchy That their Squeamish Consciences groan'd under for so many years If the Reformation of the Church from Episcopacy to Presbytery be of this Consequence As they Print and Preach every where What is there in those last Tumultuous Rabblings that the Presbyterians can disown Wherein are the Cameronians to be blamed Because forsooth this Author thinks that the Actors of those Villanies we complain of were perhaps not so sober and intelligent that is to say he rejoyc'd in what was done but he wished it might have been carryed on with greater caution and secrecy least the Episcopal Clergy might take occasion to represent them and their proceedings in their true and natural Colours I think the Author is to blame for saying the Cammeronians are not intelligent For certainly they took their Measures by the best directions that could be had for their Agents gave them exact intelligence of what they might venture upon and when Accordingly a company of wicked Incendiaries who had declared War against King Charles the Second when he Governed the Nation by those Laws that were made in times of Peace by the most unanimous and solemn Parliaments that ever the Nation had and who declared in their Seditious Pamphlets and Papers that he had forfeited all Right to the Crown because forsooth he had broke the Covenant I say they were the men who at the beginning of this Revolution as they were directed fell violently upon the Clergy and drove them from their Houses and Residence to the scandal

he was of a party and made a Bailiff by the Archbishop and all knew the Prelates Inclinations towards the present Civil Government His Argument may be reduced into form thus the Bishop was an enemy to the Civil Government John Gibson was named a Bailiff by the Bishop Ergo the Testimony of John Gibson ought not to be received in a Matter of Fact this is very hard how can a man at London be more credibly inform'd of a Matter of Fact in Glasgow than by the Authentick Testimonies of the Magistrates of Glasgow but he tells us the Magistrates were of a Party and what of that By this method of reasoning what becomes of Calderwood's History of the Presbyterians Must not we believe him at all because he is of a different persuasion Just so our Author treats Mr. Morer one of the Prebendaries of Sarum who wrote the first Letter of the Persecutions The Vindicator tells us it is one lie from the beginning to the end and why all this harshness and severity Why Because the Vindicator imagines him to be a Jacobite though he ventured his person in Ireland and swore the Oath of Allegiance to K. William and Q. Mary and wrote this Letter to one of his Ecclestastical Superiors in England yet the account he gave of the Scots Affairs did not please the Vindicator and therefore he 's immediately transformed into a Jacobite This is a very hard case but why may not even the Jacobites be received as Witnesses The Jews when they swear upon the Pentateuch are received as Witnesses before all Judicatures and in all Courts in Christendom so are the Mahumetans when they swear upon the Alchoran and all Pagans if they swear by the Idol of their Country But Mr. Morer is no Presbyterian and therefore his Testimony must be rejected thus with one dash of his Pen he overthrows all the Accounts that he himself had from the West to the Disparagement of the Episcopal Clergy or in defence of their Enemies for they are all of them of a Party and obliged by their Oaths to ruin Episcopacy And again he rejects the Testimony of a great and an exact Historian because he was no Presbyterian And again The Testimony of a Mininister Witnessing the Persecution of another must not be received Another thing very remarkable in this Book is the Author 's peremptory and dogmatick pretences to the Jus Divinum of Presbytery contrary to the Modesty or rather Caution of the first Presbyterians who declared in their publick Consessions that all Church Polity was variable and changeable but the Scots Presbyterians think they cannot justifie their Zeal for their now Polity unless the People believe it to be of Divine Right But how to make up this Divine Right from the Precepts of our Saviour or the practice of the Apostles or the Succession of the first Ages of Christianity they know not they are resolved to say it is of Divine Right and then they work hard for strained Consequences and hence it is that they are very angry if their intrinsick Ecclesiastical power lodged in this parity be not obeyed or questioned So the Vindicator complains that such of the Episcopal Clergy as addressed to them did consider them no otherwise than as a Company of men that derived all the Power they had from the Convention and was not this a mighty astront They cannot endure that they should be considered as Delegates of the State when as yet all the Nation knows and common Sense must determine they could have no power over the Episcopal Clergy but what they derived from the State and therefore all along he asserts positively that the Scots Presbytery is the immediate Institution of Jesus Christ But I must be so just to him as to acknowledge that most of all his Brethren are equally peremptory and dogmatick upon this Head and though Calvin acknowledges great honor and deference to be due to Prelates etiam hoc nomine if they should embrace the Reformation yet his Disciples are more improved and cannot endure that any other Church Pollty sould prevail From this proceed the high and lofty Epithets they bestow upon Presbytery Christs visible Kingdom upon Earth his Royal Crown and Scepter his express Institution and Discipline And upon this Hypothesis they become proud and insolent they despise all their opposites as men not acquainted with the Spirit of God and enemies to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Another thing I take notice of in his Writings is his rudeness and vanity He represents his Adversary as a Liar and a Villain though he cannot prove that the Author of the History of the General Assembly wrote one Lie from the beginning to the end if the Accounts he got from such as were present were not so exact he himself was not to be blamed but the Vindicator cannot prove that any information he got was false Again one of his Adversaries is represented as a Liar and a Slanderer and tell us again that the Council appointed that no Decreet should pass in savour of the Episcopal Clergy until the Parliament should determine in that extraordinary case where I take notice that according to the Vindicators present Doctrine the Council may stop and disable the Laws especially when the the Episcopal Clergy Prosecute their Debitors before the Ordinary Judge and therefore the Council may invade any mans Legal Property contrary to the Law and much more the Parliament yet this is a stretch or Arbitrary Power never heard of in Scotland notwithstanding of all the hideous Clamors of that restless Faction He may if he will endeavour to justifie that Arbitrary stretch but I think that they who were most active in it do truly think shame of it as a thing as much unprecedented and unwarrantable Again He insinuates that the Clergy had Clubs for thinking and that it is an impudent falshood that either Dr. R. or Mr. Malcolm made application to the Presbyterians As for the last whether he made application or after what manner I neither know nor shall I ever enquire As for the first he is at his rest and I will not rake into his Ashes but this is certainly known although he had addressed unto the Presbyteries he had been rejected because he was one of the Ministers of Edinburgh for his Party had determined to break through all obstacles of Justice and Decency rather than suffer any of the Episcopal Clergy to continue within the City of Edinburgh Nay no Presbyterian was allowed if once he had made the least Advances of Complyance with Episcopacy as was then too visible in the Case of Mr Wilky The Vindicator's clownish Buffoonry and insulting over the afflicted in the 4th page I omit You will excuse me if I do not transcribe the most part of his Book the ordinary Epithets he bestows on his Adversaries are that they are impudent Slanderers and Villains but when his Heroic Passion is put

who can help it Why shall men give themselves the trouble to answer Books so accurately as the Vindicator pretends to do that there must not be a Cobweb in all their foldings unswept This put the Vindicator upon many impertinent Essays and if I had time to insist upon them I could furnish you with very pleasant Instances out of his Answers to Mr. Morer's Letter But the Vindicator must refute accurately and this obliges him to condescensions below Gravity and Manhood Every where we have visible marks of the Vindicators Genius every where he stoops so low when he has nothing to pick up but straws and broken Pins the Spirit of Contradiction eats out the vitals of his Soul and ever and anon puts him upon silly and extravagant importinencies For to nothing else can it be imputed than to his impardonable vanity his wishing this Sciolist or some other would attempt the refuting his Books I must confess I read his Vindications and his pretended Answer to the Ironicum and if he be not improved since he wrote those Tracts he deserves no particular Answer for his Explication of S. Jerom's Epistle and his Decretum praedamnatum of which hereafter are Indications of his groundless and illiterate Fopperies if he had defended himself by the common Pleas of learned Presbyterians he ought to be treated with Civility and Discretion but when he presumes to dictate either blasphemous Nonsence such as his decretum praedamnatum or visionary and childish Romances such as his fancy of the meaning of Ordinatio in S. Jerom's Epistle he should in this case be treated according to his Character for it is not possible that so much ignorance could dwell but in the company of so much Pride and therefore I appeal to all the Scots Presbyterians if ever they yet discovered any such monstrous Nonsence written or said by any man that pretended to have read but one System in his lifetime and yet this Mormo of a Scholar must forsooth strat with so much insolence and vanity as if he were teaching some Americans who were never acquainted with the civilized part of Mankind There have been many attempts used by different Parties to expose one another for their Ignorance and Immoralities but I defie all men to name one Instance of greater Ignorance either before or after the Reformation than this one Notion of his Decretum praedamnatum and yet forsooth he must pretend to explain and defend the Calvinian System and takes occasion by an innocent Sentence or two to thrust himself into this Scuffle without considering whether he understood the Controversie or not but I leave him to the Chastisement of others Good Nature and Christian Modesty teach us to hide and extenuate the weaknesses of others but when those very men pretend to give Rules to all mankind they ought to be put in mind that it is not yet time for them to appear so arrogant and presumptuous Affectation is the meanest Vice and an intollerable piece of Hypocrisie we are not so ugly by our natural defects as by the Accomplishments that we counterfeit and this is the Hereditary uncurable Disease of our Pedling little Reformers They cannot indure to follow the common Sentiments of Mankind they are all for heights and singularities He that walks not in the common Road where the way is safe must be silly and bypocondriack or proud and designing and therefore the Spirit of Christianity teaches us to believe and practice the indisputable Truths of our Religion more than the peculiar Opinions of broken Schismaticks and lesser Fraternities Sometimes I have had some kind Thoughts towards the Quakers but when I considered that they needlesly forsake the innocent Customs of Mankind the Universally acknowledged Rules of Decency and the Universal Tradition of the Church I must think that they are led by a Spirit of Delusion and Pride Nothing recommends us to God more than true Humility and it is an undeniable proof of Integrity and Self denial to comply with the innocent Customs of the World and therefore our Saviour left us an Example by which we may in the midst of all tentations live in the World and yet continue unspotted by its infection I have digressed two far not from what I designed but from the Vindicators account of things I am afraid I may get upon the Finger-ends because I did not name my Witnesses for the Latin Eleganeies that I lately mentioned but if he waites to the Bookseller whose name is prefixt he shall know as many Witnesses as are necessary and forty more such Barbarisms To end and to complete this Character of the Vindicator I might mention his apparent Shufflings and Tergiversations for when the Outrages done to the Clergy are open and notorious then he extenuates it as no great Injury when some of them were beat upon the Head and Legs and others of them made to go through deep waters in the midst of Winter But among all the Flights of his Invention there is none more remarkable than this unwary concession that Ecclesiastical Judicatories that enquire into Scandals are not obliged to follow the Forms of other Courts I thought that the Forms of Civil Courts were wisely appointed partly to prevent our being surprized partly to hinder as far as humane Prudence could prevent all Forgeries and Combinations against the innocent and that the Forms were but the external Fences that the Law invented to guard Justice and Equity But this Author tells us that it s doubted no doubt amongst Learned Men whether the Ecclesiastical Court be obliged to follow such Forms It is very odd that the Laity among the Scots Presbyterians who pretend to be at the greatest Remove from Popery shall thus calmly stoop to the most intollerable slavery of the Inquisition Next to this Concession is his fair Advertisement to the Church of England that indeed the Covenanters do not think themselves obliged to reform the Church of England unless they are called to it but if the Godly in England call them then all their Ammunition must be employed to serve their dear Brethren in England Next to this let me instance his shameful Shuffling about the Toleration lately granted to Presbyterians in Scotland he tells us that they expressed as much as they were capable their dislike of the Toleration given to the Papists for their Herosies and Idolatry yet their Agents then at Court wrote Books such as they were pleading that the Penal Laws ought to be Repealed but withal the Vindicator adds that they do not grudge Liberty to any others who can shew as good a Warrant for their way of Worship as they do i. e. they have a Divine Right for their way and none others can have a Divine Right if they have it because their way is different from all others and therefore at bottom they are against Toleration as the most mischievous thing in the World and in the time of the late Troubles they exclaimed against

Worship of God It is true the Vindicator hath not in this place any Discourse to prove this unlawful but I take notice of it as one of the Theological hints that are interspersed in his Defamatory Libel But may not Ceremonies of Human Appointment if they decently and gravely express our Affections be used in the Worship of God Did not Solomon advise us to look to our Feet when we come into the house of God and the same Ceremony was practised under the Patriarchal Dispensation viz. That of putting off our Shoes when we approach the Holy Place as Moses was enjoyned by God himself because the place he stood upon was holy ground and this was an Advertisement that he ought to do what was ordinarily done by all the Eastern Nations when he approached the place of Gods peculiar Residence And pray Was it not a significant Ceremony expressive of their Reverence and adoration In like manner Sackcloth and Ashes did amongst all Nations signifie grief and sorrow therefore in their Humiliations they were used to express their Remorse and Contritions The Presbyterians fix upon a word and pronounce it with disdain and contempt they repeat it with Indignation and then their zealous Disciples when they hear that word pronounced presently let fly their thoughts to some monstrous thing or other that is not at all signified by that word yet the Idea of some such ugly thing sticks to their Imagination for no other reason but that Mas John frown'd when he heard that word pronounced What other reason can we give why the word significant Ceremony should disturb their Imaginations Why may not we express our Thoughts Passions and Affections by Ceremonies as well as by words Since both are innocent and both serve the same design But the Covenanters themselves used significant Ceremonies when they imposed the Covenant he that Swore was to lift up his right hand bare you are to take notice that it was the Right and not the Left and it was lifted up and not otherwise extended It was bare and not covered and was not this a significant Ceremony of Human Institution In the Worship of God nature taught Mankind to approach God with all the decent Marks of Distance and Adoration and they that declaim most against Ceremonies do practice them frequently only they do this more awkwardly and with a figure becoming their singularity but this will never convince the Intelligent part of Mankind that they are either wiser or better than any of their Neighbours True Religion obliges us to comply with the innocent decencies of Mankind and to affect nothing that 's extraordinary or singular Our Saviour left us this Example he eat and drank with Publicans and Sinners and affected no Customs different from the Jews If the Ceremonies be practised by the Nation amongst whom we live if they decently express our Reverence or our Humiliation I see no reason why they may not be used in the Service of God as well as words especially when they are commanded by our lawful Superiours as necessary Instruments of Publick Order and Uniformity nor can they change their Nature by being commanded for such and such Ceremonies are in their Nature indifferent yet some one or other must be used and which of them we shall use may very well be determined by our lawful Superiors Sitting for any thing I know was never looked upon as a Posture of Reverence yet the Presbyterians in Scotland for the most part fit all of them in time of Publick Prayer what they signifie by it I know not I am sure not that which becomes Prayer and the Worship of the most High God We look upon the decent Ceremonies of the Church as Appendages or Expressions but not constituent parts of Worship as is foolishly and peevishly alledged by our Adversaries and I may put the Vindicator in mind that the reason why some of the Clergy in Scotland Read the Book of Common-Prayer is not what he suggests according to his wonted Candor and Ingenuity but rather an open avowing of their Principles when it was visible to the World there was no possibility of uniting with the Presbyterians Another thing I take notice of is to be met with Pag. 196 197. The Author of that Epistle that is subjoyned to the Vindicators Book tells us to the reproach of our Bishops that some of them upon the Restoration of the Government submitted to reordination to the great scandal not only of this but other Reformed Churches I know none were scandalized at it but such as were resolved to pick quarrels with every thing that the Bishops would do It was no scandal to the Foreign Churches or the French Divines All of them the greatest men among them are reordained when they come to England and they chearfully submit to it And this was never condemned by any Publick Act of the Gallican Church nor by none of their Eminent Divines The Church of England does not absolutely condemn their Ordinations in France but rather waves the debate but she is determined to preserve an unquestionable succession of Priests within her own Bounds As to the Matter of Fact narrated in Mr. Meldrum's Letter I know nothing of it and therefore I ought to say no more than I know He tells us that he subscribed a Paper and that the Paper was drawn out of the Archbishops Letter by a Friend of his and that now he repents for Subscribing this Paper and that though he was in great Friendship afterwards with Bishop Scougal and did what others in that Interval did yet he thinks that by all this he paid no formal Canonical Obedience From all which I observe that it is a very happy thing to live in or near an University as Mr. Meldrum did Distinctions are very useful things one had better carry a good bundle of them about him than all your famous Elixirs and Essences one may pay material Canonical Obedience but it is dangerous to pay it formally the great mischief is in the formality of paying it but for my part I have sworn Canonical Obedience formally and I have paid it materially and shall never decline my Bishops Spiritual Authority when ever there is occasion and I think all the Presbyters of that National Church are as much obliged to obey their Spiritual Governours notwithstanding of all that past in favors of the opposite Faction since the Revolution And now I think it high time to go forward to the fourth Particular that I promised viz. To let you see the several Periods of Episcopacy and Presbytery in the Church of Scotland since the Reformation And I am the more confident to give you satisfaction because I had the happiness to peruse a Manuscript written by a person of great honour and true Learning relating to this very affair and it is of so much the greater weight and Authority that it is not only founded on our best Historians but on the authentick Records of Parliament and